Sean Carney

  • Housing

    Over the course of February, we finished unpacking everything in the living areas of the house and have gotten settled in to the new place. We were able to host friends for the first time mid-month in February which was a great feeling.

    Late February in Calgary saw a very rapid thaw after a long cold snap which managed to loosen the eavestrough on the east side of the house, so one of the first impromptu repairs was erecting some scaffolding to reach and secure it again. As expected it was two hours building and tearing down scaffolding for a fifteen minute repair.

    I have a bunch of small jobs around the house to get to in March, but nothing too major planned.

    Synth Building

    Late in February I started designing the circuit for the Melodic Orchestration module I’m building, but realized that there’s enough new techniques that I should slow down and do some prototyping before I move to designing circuit boards. The new designs which I’ll be using in Melodic Orchestration that I need to prototype in March include:

    • Using a bare microcontroller in the circuit
    • ISCP / FTDI programming of said microcontroller
    • A new CV input handling circuit
    • Using an onboard buck / boost power converter on the module
    • MIDI in and out
    • Using multiple I2C devices (display, storage, DAC)
    • Scaled inputs and outputs for velocity control

    Game Design

    As I continue reading The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell, I realize that my initial concept was woefully inadequate, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s good I didn’t rush a half baked idea into reality, but at the same time I feel a bit overwhelmed by the task of conceiving of a better idea.

    I’m going to keep reading, learning, and hopefully inspiration will strike at some point in the near future with a more workable idea.

    Outdoors

    In February I entered a team into the Beltline Bonspiel and somehow managed to eke out a second place finish despite my personal lack of talent. This confirms what I learned at the Ironman Bonspiel, bad ice is the great equalizer as it handicaps professional players quite effectively.

    In March I want to spend some time researching and planning some hikes for the season so I have a rolodex of outings ready to go when I have the time or opportunity.

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  • No matter how beautiful your interface is, it would be better if there were less of it.

    Edward Tufte

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  • To survive the Canadian winter, one needs a body of brass, eyes of glass, and blood made of brandy.

    Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce, Baron de Lahontan

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  • When God rescues your heart from its natural rebellion, and makes it new through your trust in him, your baptism and your following of Jesus, the way this newness works must be through your own decisions, your own thinking things through, your own will power (aided and strengthened at every point, Christians would say, by the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ own spirit).

    N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2

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  • Forgiveness is more like the air in our lungs. There’s only room for you to inhale the next lungful when you’ve just breathed out the previous one. If you insist on withholding it, refusing to give someone the kiss of life they may desperately need, you won’t be able to take in any more yourself and you will suffocate very quickly.

    N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2

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  • While the words aren’t a magical formula – the “proper” words could be uttered with no forgiveness transpiring – I am convinced that it matters to utter them. To say “I apologize” or “I forgive you” is to carry out a speech act, not unlike saying “I do” or “I promise”. The words accomplish the thing they say in the saying of them. Just as the Lord says, “Let there be” and reality comes to be, just as the words “I do” or “I promise” bring a new family into existence, so saying “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you” seem to reach down into the stuff of the universe and shift it toward something more and new.

    Ester Lightcap Meek, Forgiveness

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  • Housing

    January was a whirlwind as we moved out of our old house, in to our new house, and started to get unpacked and organized in the new place. In reality, this meant I wasn’t able to make any progress on anything else during the month of January. Moving into February, there is still a lot of unpacking and organizing to do, but more time will be available for other projects.

    This website

    I don’t think I made any updates to the design of this website in January, which is a pity since it still is in a state of unfinishedness. I want to finish the homepage updates and start a media page this month. Once this is done, anything else is cosmetic and less of a priority.

    Game design

    I started rewatching 007: Road to a Million in January and am now two episodes in. The big takeaway I have so far is the importance of story and narrartive in building a game. I’ve also been reading the book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell and found it to be very helpful in providing a series of perspectives that I should consider and plan for.

    Synth building

    My electronics parts are now out of storage so, once I have time, I can get back to building my synthesizer. The module I want to design this month is what I’m calling melodic orchestration: a module which uses an Arduino to manipulate signals in a variety of different ways. This will be a longer build, the hardware is relatively simple but I have a lot of ambition for the software.

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  • As for new ideas of any kind – no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be – there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error, and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.

    Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

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  • When Jesus desires baptism, he does it as the sole good one, the one without sin, the one who does not need forgiveness, different from all human beings. As the good one, he desires baptism, even though he does not need it for himself, for the sake of those who need it, for the sake of sinners.  Precisely because he is the sole good one, he doesn’t allow himself to be separated from sinners; he does not become a Pharisee who wants to claim what is good for himself. The sinlessness, the goodness of Jesus, is attested precisely in his unconditional love for sinners. Jesus goes to baptism not out of penitence but out of love and in this way takes the side of sinners.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Meditation on Epiphany, January 1940

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  • What sort of baptism is this, when the one who is dipped is purer than the font, and where the water that soaks the one whom it has received is not dirtied but honored with blessings? What sort of baptism is this of the Savior, I ask, in which the streams are made pure more than they purify? For by a new kind of consecration the water does not so much wash Christ as submit to being washed.

    St. Maximus of Turin, Sermon 13A

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