Have you seen the Luc Besson movie, The Fifth Element ?

A discussion with friends last night centered around age vs exposure to the movie, so I'm posting a poll to gather data unscientifically.

Please boost for exposure, 🙏

A team of our students made a programmable Christmas tree that is on display at the entrance to the math building.

It's a real feat of engineering and programming, and I am very proud of our students. It has 500 color led lights that are fully programmable. The students wrote software for measuring the xyz coordinates of each light, and made a programmable interface that anyone can use at https://jelka.fmf.uni-lj.si (in Slovenian “jelka” means "fir") to make their own pattern. They wrote a Python library, a Docker interface, and even created a custom Scratch-like visual programming language for controlling the lights. And 3 simulators, as apparently one was not enough. It's all at the web site.

If you are or know a teacher who would like their students to participate, see the contact tab on the web page.

🐹 Dan, you know coin-ops, I run a small business and would like some coin-ops in there, how does that happen?

🦝 That depends on the sort of coin-op.

PINBALL
🐑 The whitest man you've ever seen hands you a business card. After mulling it over you call the number and a pinball machine shows up. It develops a fault within three days. Within two weeks you have eight machines and weekly tournaments, during which your bar is full to capacity but nobody buys any beer. Two of these machines work at any given time.

FRUIT MACHINE / GAMBLING
🐻 A large stranger turns up with a large cabinet. He places it somewhere inconvenient, plugs it in, points at the plug, says "See that? Touch that, you're fucking dead," and leaves. You mind your own business.

JAPANESE RHYTHM GAMES
🐿 These are delivered by a trans woman you met on Discord. She brings five friends to help. Setup takes longer than planned and you want to close and go home. They offer to finish the job and lock up. In the morning they're still updating firmware. Their pizza boxes attract mice. You have to remind them periodically that they're not allowed to sleep here.

ARCADE / VIDEO, GOLDEN AGE
🐨 A man in his fifties asks if you want a Pac-Man. You say sure. Next week there's a Pac-Man, all good. The week after, it glitches out, and he puts in a 60-in-1 emulation board as a temporary measure while he fixes the Pac-Man board. The 60-in-1 brings in way more money. You feel you have to persuade him not to fix the legit board. This discussion becomes far more heated than the situation warrants.

ARCADE / VIDEO, 90's
🐍 These are delivered by a green-haired guy you met on Discord. There's no firmware to update but he still brings five friends and wants to sleep there. The Japanese rhythm games lady is his ex but they're on friendly terms.

CRANE / CLAW PRIZE GAMES
🐐 These are delivered by a big hard-faced woman with places to be, but not so quickly she doesn't pause for a cigarette before unloading the truck. She explains the scam and you would prefer if she hadn't; you feel robbed of your innocence and complicit in something seedy. You ask her to set the payout as high as possible, to soothe your conscience. As she pours cuddly toys from a big black bin bag she tells you people have more fun if it doesn't win as often, but if you really wanted, she could set it to give a toy every time and you would both still make money. She smiles as she says this, and calls you "Honey." You feel dirty.

GUMBALL / BULK VENDING
Scenario 1: 🦊 a man in his fifties with a moustache and Willy Wonka energy talks you into a single gumball machine and then two months later you're selling Pokemon cards.
Scenario 2: 🐺 a man in his seventies arrives with a small girl in a brown vest. He says 🐺 Go on honey, ask. She mumbles something about how her 🐇 troupe's raising money and can we please put one of these on the counter please. He says 🐺 good job honey. He has a kind and careworn face. Thirty years ago he told a man "Touch that, you're fucking dead."

How do we get to where letters like this are too ordinary to astound us—or aren’t needed at all? 😭

Meantime, let's celebrate those who do get it.

It’s probably worth pointing out that MANY (not all obviously) first women to be elected to lead their nations are conservatives, not leftists.

Conservatives are perfectly willing to support a woman, as long as she promises she’s not like other girls & will uphold their systems of control.

They get freaked out by the double hit of woman + liberal change.

It’s not that Americans won’t elect a woman. They might—just not a Democratic one.