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Mon 30 Sep 2019 09:04:12 AM EDT Slept from ten to six. High of seventy-eight today, with a 40% chance of thunderstorms. Work: - Order NVR gear, wireless bridges Done. - Follow up on AppFolio meeting Done. No time for a walk at lunch, apart from tramping around Meijer. Saw a monarch butterfly, a cool ocher moth, and some large seagulls. Completion of months-long kidnap and ransom prank today. Heather and I gave Bob back his coffee cup, gift-wrapped for his birthday. Listened to some di.fm (mostly the Dub Techno channel) for the first time in a long while. Reminded too of how pleasant and listenable the Sennheiser HD 569 is for circa $150. Home: - Grocery shop for lunches Done. Feeling sad today. https://lichess.org/training/21071 Exciting chase of a king. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/30/jonathan-strange-and-mr-norrell-author-return-susanna-clarke-piranesi?CMP=twt_books_b-gdnbooks > Sixteen years after readers were introduced to the magical world of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke is to publish her second novel. > > Out in September next year, Clarke’s Piranesi will follow the story of its eponymous hero, who lives in the House, a building with “hundreds if not thousands of rooms and corridors, imprisoning an ocean. A watery labyrinth.” Occasionally, he sees his friend, The Other, who is doing scientific research into “A Great and Secret Knowledge”. Piranesi records his findings in his journal, but then messages begin to appear, and “a terrible truth unravels as evidence emerges of another person and perhaps even another world outside the House’s walls,” said Bloomsbury, which announced on Monday that it had acquired the novel in a two-book deal. https://kottke.org/19/09/advice-from-cormac-mccarthy-on-writing-great-science-papers https://www.newsweek.com/cormac-mccarthy-santa-fe-institutes-brainy-halls-65701 > Use minimalism to achieve clarity. While you are writing, ask yourself: is it possible to preserve my original message without that punctuation mark, that word, that sentence, that paragraph or that section? Remove extra words or commas whenever you can. > > Inject questions and less-formal language to break up tone and maintain a friendly feeling. Colloquial expressions can be good for this, but they shouldn’t be too narrowly tied to a region. Similarly, use a personal tone because it can help to engage a reader. Impersonal, passive text doesn’t fool anyone into thinking you’re being objective: “Earth is the centre of this Solar System” isn’t any more objective or factual than “We are at the centre of our Solar System.” > > Finally, try to write the best version of your paper: the one that you like. You can’t please an anonymous reader, but you should be able to please yourself. Your paper — you hope — is for posterity. Remember how you first read the papers that inspired you while you enjoy the process of writing your own. Tried an Impossible Whopper for dinner. Not bad but not good. Dry. Meat-ish flavored, in an artificial way. Impossible's marketing is better than their product, I guess. Addendum: slightly unpleasant lingering aftertaste. Watched some anime. Servings: grains 3/6, fruit 3/4, vegetables 3/4, dairy 2/2, meat 3/3, nuts 0/0.5 Brunch: egg, orange, tomato, coffee Lunch: yogurt, celery, apple, banana Dinner: burger 131/80

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