my name is branden

Cenepa War 2026 Apr 11   en.wikipedia.org
The last military conflict over territory in the Western Hemisphere was in 1995, a brief war between Ecuador and Peru. Someone on Wikipedia wrote:

The Cenepa War was the most recent military clash between Ecuador and Peru over a long-standing territorial dispute that dated back to the first decades of the 19th century, when both countries came into being after the Wars of Independence of the Spanish colonies in South America.

Synecdoche vs. Metonymy 2026 Mar 30   englishstudyonline.org
Besides being fun-to-say words with Ancient Greek etymologies, synecdoche and metonymy both (erroneously trigger my browser's spell check and) are very similar concepts: a word used in substitution of another. An example would be city hall in the phrase "You can't fight City Hall," where it refers not to the literal building itself, but to the associated government. But when is something synecdoche and when is it metonymy?

I searched the internet far and wide (5 minutes) for an answer not excreted by an AI (I think) and found the linked page. Regardless of whether it's slop, the article very thoroughly says what I believe I can summarize much more concisely: it's synecdoche when the substituted word is a part of the subject (e.g. wheels for "car"), and metonymy when the substituted word is simply related (e.g. Wall Street for the New York City financial markets).

Now off with ye.

What's My ΔE(OK) JND? 2026 Mar 30   keithcirkel.co.uk
Another color game, this one tests your ability to discern between two increasingly similar shades.

Public Open Spaces in Downtown San Francisco 2026 Mar 30   downtownsf.org
One of those things that most visitors to San Francisco have probably experienced but not realized were a thing are some of the privately owned but public open spaces in downtown, such as some of the micro forests and rooftop gardens. About ten years ago, I made a list and visited as many as I could in one day. Perhaps it's time to return.

What's up with those "VEKS EVICT" stickers? 2026 Mar 26   blog.lauramichet.com
Inexplicable graffiti stickers are always everywhere, such as this one I spotted recently in Campbell, California: I don't know why I bother searching for deeper meaning, as if I live in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, yet I keep doing so. Los Angeles video game designer Laura Michet had a similar curiosity October a year ago:

I'm sure that this is a two-person project, since you can google up each of these graffiti writers individually and find traces of them online. I've wondered whether more than two people are putting them up, though - they're incredibly dense, all over the city. Most of the time when I'm riding on a major stroad or artery in the city, I'll see one of these at least once a minute - often more frequently! Apparently, you can find them in Toronto and SF too.

The Completionist a "con artist"? 2026 Mar 16   reddit.com
Here's a sure sign I'm losing the plot: in a world increasingly wracked by hatred and divisiveness and war, I'm busying myself digging through YouTuber drama.

And what juicy drama it is.

While watching a recent hour-long video on the history of the TV show X-Play, I found out that G4 TV returned from the dead briefly in 2021~2022. And among the old hosts, some new ones included Jirard Khalil, aka The Completionist. I happened to have met Khalil years ago when staffing the fandom convention circuit, when "The Completionist" was Jirard but also this guy Greg Wilmot. And when several years later The Completionist returned as a guest but sans-Greg, naturally I wanted to know what happened. Except I dared not ask Jirard himself, and nobody else on Guest Relation convention staff would (or maybe could) tell me.

So now here we are, over a decade later and being reminded about The Completionist, I think to myself 'surely someone in that interval must have investigated this drama'.

Well. They have, just not how I expected. The original falling out is now documented suchly: Greg and Jirard in 2015 had a pretty severe if hazy difference of opinion, one which included Greg two years later going so far as asking all 120 of his episodes be removed from YouTube. Jirard complied, putting in what must have tons of work when re-completing all the games that previously featured Greg. And that's where things remained.

Until last year. Enter another video game YouTuber named Karl Jobst. Jobst is (in)famous for accusing video game celebrity Billy Mitchell of cheating at his Donkey Kong high score by using a modified arcade cabinet. Mitchell has since successfully sued Jobst for slander and bankrupted him. But Jobst also made a second investigation: Jirard Khalil's charity, Open Hand Foundation. Open Hand, through a fundraiser called IndieLand, raised over $600k for dementia research. In a 2023 video (with drama still ongoing) Jobst accused Jirard of never donating a single cent. And Jirard, unlike Billy Mitchell, admitted guilt, was fired from most of his engagements, took a long hiatus from YouTube, and is now subject to a criminal embezzlement investigation.

And in the fallout of all that, Greg reactivates his old reddit account to post a message explaining that all this is why him and Jirard had the falling out way back when.

Well... damn. That's not what I expected when I began this journey.

remembering colors. 2026 Mar 8   dialed.gg
Reminding me of the game in #224, here is a simple web game all about remembering a color and how difficult it is to do.

Full dressing 2026 Mar 5   hzhmarine.com

If you have ever been to a port during a national holiday or a major celebration, you have likely seen a vessel looking like it is decorated for a massive party. This stunning display, where a ship is covered from bow to stern in colorful flags, is known as Full Dressing (or Dressing Overall).

Kotel and Ultra Orthodoxy 2026 Feb 27   urj.org

The Reform Movement unequivocally condemns the preliminary vote in the Israeli Knesset to advance legislation that would criminalize egalitarian Jewish worship at the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest and most-enduring symbols. If enacted, the proposed bill by MK Avi Maoz of the far-right Noam party would render forms of Jewish prayer not sanctioned by the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate punishable by up to seven years in prison. 

This alarming proposal represents an unprecedented attempt to criminalize mainstream Jewish worship in the Jewish state. It is a direct affront to Jews in Israel, North America, and across the globe who pray in egalitarian settings. 

Israel has since its inception enjoyed (and, debatably, required) support of diaspora Jews such as myself. Yet the Israeli government's actions of late – actions inconsistent with Jewish teachings and practice – have made it troubling to continue that support, even before the abuse of Gaza. And now Israeli parliament takes another step in distancing itself from Reform Judaism, pushing Haredi practice into laws such as this. For a country asking us Jews to stand together in unity, they sure are working hard to dismantle that cohesion.

Atherstone Ball Game 2026 Feb 23   reddit.com
In "barely a sport" world news, last week was the Atherstone Ball Game.

The ball gets thrown from the offices above Mark Webster estate agents at 3pm by a local respected member of the community and from 3pm to 4.30pm, it's for the women/kids to have a try, and it's very tame. When the claxon sounds at 4.30pm, that's when it gets feral. Whoever is holding the ball when the claxon sounds again at 5pm is declared the winner. The prize: being able to say you won it and a free pint at The Stag & Pheasant. All the shops down Long Street are boarded up in preparation. If the game falls during term time, schools close early for it! In the weeks running up to the game, the ball is taken to various places (shops, schools, businesses) for people to sign it.

Hockey Penalty Referee Gestures 2026 Feb 16   hockeymonkey.com
There's gotta be some better guide than this, although I've had trouble finding one.

Jeffrey Epstein met m00t 2026 Feb 4   garbageday.email
m00t, the founder and creator of 4chan, apparently met with Jeffrey Epstein in 2011. Quoth Garbage Day:

...it has never made much sense as to why [m00t] would ban /new/ for being a racist hell hole and then, barely a year later, launch /pol/, a board specifically designed to be a racist hell hole. But buried inside the newest batch of files related to the Epstein investigation is a possible hint as to what made Poole change his mind. He met with Epstein the day before /pol/ was created.

/pol/ started by giving us GamerGate, then Qanon, before shitposting Trump into the presidency. It doesn't seem like Epstein and m00t were buddies or anything, but still, what the hell is this? Was Jeffrey Epstein behind Q?

I mean, it's already pretty clear that Epstein's accomplice Maxwell was a top Reddit moderator, so despite the conspiracy-ness, this isn't seeming all that far-fetched.

How to parse HTML with regex 2026 Feb 3   stackoverflow.com
Circa 2010, the most famous answer on all of Stack Overflow.

Why do Catholics pray to Mary? 2026 Feb 1   sfcatholic.org
I'm not Catholic, or even Christian, but I'd love digging into the rules and structure of the Catholic church because they're like a strange mirror universe to that of Jewish teachings. And so linked is an explanation from a Catholic official on why exactly Catholics pray to Mary and not Jesus or God directly.

corndog.io 2026 Jan 31   corndog.io
corndog

Emoji Design Convergence 2026 Jan 30   blog.emojipedia.org
Now that we're using emoji as some sort of modern version of hieroglyphics, it sure would be embarrassing if your emoji looked different on one system than another, wouldn't it? And so, I've learned in the above link, the vendors have been seeking to resolve these differences over the years, mostly using Apple's set as the base standard. Until this last year, that is. Now, politics, marketing, and culture wars are starting to, once again, create divergences among the emoji sets.

Tolkien and Éowyn Between Two Wars 2026 Jan 29   acoup.blog
The Professor puts Lord of the Rings' heroine Éowyn in her proper historical context, explaining that her fate – giving up her shield and sword – is not the tragedy that some readers mistakenly believe it to be.

A lot of population numbers are fake 2026 Jan 29   davidoks.blog
Linked is a compelling argument that we don't really know how many people there are in the world. Countries with weak central governments, difficult terrain, and politicized incentives to adjust population numbers make for wildly unreliable population counts. Some countries don't even attempt to collect census data and yet report population numbers anyway.

The map continues to not be the territory.

Super Monkey Ball 2026 Jan 28   monkeyball-online.pages.dev
Finally, what we've been waiting for all these years. You can now play the original Super Monkey Ball right here in your very web browser.

Emails to an Open Source Developer 2026 Jan 28   un.curl.dev
cURL principal developer Daniel Stenberg occasionally gets emails from lost or confused users. Not users of cURL, exactly, but users of tools which include cURL in its project. He says:

As a side-effect of me having produced a lot of Open Source code over a substantial period, and that my code has been used in billions of products and devices, my name and email address are also shown in a lot of places. Usually as a direct result of license compliance when a manufacturer insert for example the curl license in the "About Window" of a car infotainment system.

The emails are usually unpleasant. He includes examples.