7:38am – Finished Cormac McCarthy’s The Road last night. It was quite the book, initially the way it’s written was quite offputting but after a few dozen pages I adjusted to it. Without spoilers, I am mostly happy with how it ended. #
9:40am – I am eternally greatful that working from home has normalized interruptions during Zoom calls. I appreciate people’s understanding when my dogs decide to wrestle directly next to me during a work call. #
9:26pm – Rest in Power, Chadwick Boseman, Wakanda Forever. #
9:37pm – Paul Graham on “Life is Short” (paulgraham.com) tldr; “Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short.”#
I didn’t get to post my Glowbug updates last night due to a site downtime last night. So here they are.
Among the posts here, there is one regarding the athletes deciding to not play today in protest of this week’s events in Wisconsin. It is by far the most important thing here and merits our full attention and action during this push for Black Lives Matter and real systemic change for social justice. Justice for Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake and so many others.
11:14pm – Anyone remember Project Ara? (en.wikipedia.org) It was an abandoned project at Google, to explore the idea of a modular smartphone. Imagine being able to buy parts and pieces and swap them in and out of your phone. Do you focus on media and watching movies? You could add memory. Photography? Better camera. Medical or scientific field uses requiring special equipment? Sure! It seemed like such a cool idea. Sadly they abandoned it. #
August 25
8:11am – Up, showered, and starting my workday. I am expecting a repairman for the second attempt at repairing one of our recliners. Fingers crossed, since it’s been a five month ordeal given the impact of Covid. #
8:19am – There is a new usecase for Glowbug which my system does not yet handle well, and that is when I blip things before I’ve read them. Normally they would (and sometimes still do) get added to my Pocket app, but I’ve found myself finding an article (such as this article on GQ about Jaron Lanier) and blipping it without having read it.
Now, the system is such that I can easily open the link and read it from the Glowbug admin page, but it’s in the queue to be published. What if I don’t read it by then? Then I have to manually remove it. Hardly a huge inconvenience but still not the proper workflow.
Right now I think the solution is that links added via bookmarklet will be marked as “to read” and they won’t be exported if they have that flag on them. But I’m still thinking it over. We will see if I come up with a better workflow. #
11:14am – GQ interview with Jaron Lanier (gq.com) There are a few people in Silicon Valley who are shamans of sort. Jaron is one of them. This was a bit lightweight despite its efforts to dig in on some big questions about today. #
8:22am – Sometimes, for no good reason, I end up awake for several hours in the middle of the night. Last night being one such occasion. I woke up at 2:30 and then could not fall back asleep until after 5. So I ended up sleeping about 90 minutes later than usual and I still feel exactly. #
10:18am – Blaseball.com (blaseball.com) A friend introduced me to it last night. It is this weird constantly running fantasy baseball pick’em of made up teams, entirely programmatically driven? I think? It’s weird and delightful and vaguely unsettling. #
12:08pm – Adam Savage Makes A Custom Apron.
Adam Savage’s Tested videos have been a staple of my media consumption during the pandemic. He has proven to be a huge source of comfort and inspiration during these months and I particularly enjoyed this one-day build of his new apron. #
5:37pm – My short night got the better of me and I took a nap this afternoon. Normally I am firmly anti nap in general, once I’m awake for the day I try to power through. Today was an exception as I was dealing with a pounding headache and the aches of a body that didn’t get its needed rest. Not fun.
Thankfully the nap made a big difference and I’m feeling much better. #
6:35pm – Black Lives Matter. “Take a long, hard look down the road you will have to travel once you have made a commitment to work for change. Know that this transformation will not happen right away. Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once. In the movement, we didn’t know how history would play itself out. When we were getting arrested and waiting in jail or standing in unmovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn’t know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen.” – John Lewis
Tonight the athletes again forced the conversation into the limelight, the reminder, the discussion of what is laid bare in regards to how our police and racial inequality continually is revealed. People will say for them to just play. That sports are an escape from politics and the world–That is the point of this. If your refuges disappear then you are forced to face the issue.
6:49pm – Hurricane Laura is on the verge of Category 5 (bloomberg.com) Hurricanes are no joke. I grew up in Florida and while we avoided any serious damage, it was always a point of stress and fear. I never had to deal with a Category 5. Nature is no joke. #
Glowbug Development Notes:
Fixed some bugs, most notably it wasn’t letting me modify the created times.
Enabled it to properly output URLs for Twitter and YouTube to take advantage of WordPress’ embed functions (seen above with the Adam Savage video)
9:13am – Home internet just went down. No problem, let me use my phone as a hot spot. Nope, cell service (not provided by the same company) appears to be inhibited too. Well, work phone it is. That’s my Monday so far. #
1:36pm – Even though I have connectivity through a hotspot, I still feel as if I am deeply impacted by the fact my home internet is down. We’re past the four hour mark of this downtime, and in an era where I am working from home, it feels particularly rough. #
1:55pm – The great drought is over. Home internet has returned. #
6:23pm – Navy Squadron Commander Gives Opinion on AI winning 5-0 (thedrive.com) As with most things, reading more than a single thing on a topic is a very important thing. This segment highlights the core of why the AI won in his eyes:
In true gamesmanship fashion, the guns-only BFM engagement was the setting for the AlphaDogfight contest. So what jumped out at me about the engagements? Three main points. First was the aggressive use of accurate forward quarter gun employment. Second, was the AI’s efficient use of energy. Lastly was the AI’s ability to maintain high-performance turns.
This is a weekend wrap-up, primarily covering Saturday & Sunday, though I have one blip which sneaks in from late Friday after I posted that day’s updates.
9:41am – I finally succumbed and gave myself a quarantine haircut, that is we bought a hair clipper, and I buzzed my head. I didn’t go overly short, but it feels good to have short hair and have it be (mostly) uniform in length. My wife gave me a few haircuts and did great, but between the heat and the growth of my hair I decided to just buzz it all. #
2:50pm – Typos in media annoy the crap out of me. Seeing a typo (“assisstant” [sic]) during a commercial on a cable TV channel makes me think poorly of the brand advertising and the channel carrying the commercial. #
7:57pm – TITLE NEEDED (old.reddit.com//r) There are more molecules of water in a teaspoon of water than there are teaspoons of water in the Atlantic ocean. link. #
August 23
10:20am – Tried out Ringfit Adventure this morning, successfully worked up a sweat. Will be curious to see how it is as I progress.
10:29am – Ended up not making a post last night, not for any particular reason other than I got distracted and forgot. That said, I think having Saturday be a day without a post and instead collecting the weekend as a whole makes sense.We’ll see if I carry that forward or not. #
9:05pm – I am honestly not sure where today went. I played chess in the morning, watched soccer, had a Zoom call with family, made some dinner, and then played D&D. I’m watching the Sounders face Portland right now, and then the work week starts back tomorrow. Sunday just flew away. #
10:44am – Good thing I have a backup pair of glasses, just discovered our younger dog happily chomping away on the glasses which were my primaries.
Update: After a bit of research I opted to order from EyeBuyDirect.com (this is a referral link, so if you use it I will get rewards). Ordered three pairs, assuming I will return at least one of them. I also made use of “VIP30” as a coupon code at checkout for 30% off the entire order. #
1:57pm – Congrats Bayern!. UCL winners with the 1-0 victory in the final over PSG. A dominant and well deserved run between two titans of European soccer, with Bayern’s Kingsley Comar getting the goal for the game off a header. #
Glowbug Development Notes:
Bookmarklet – I now have a bookmark to easily add links when I read them.
Improved Login – Previously was using simple htaccess to gateway access, changed it to be PHP authorization.
Layout Tweaks – General cleanup of layout and design.
6:11am – Sam Esmail talks about how he wrote Mr Robot (youtube.com) Mr. Robot is an amazing TV show and it has a complex interwoven narrative. In my own efforts to be a better storyteller as a writer and as a DM, I am fascinated by its writing. This was a good interview that explains some of how Esmail wrote it. #
6:23am – “How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” – Seth Godin
I posted this quote to my Facebook six years ago today and it resonates with me today how much of this sentence and what it means comes from privilege. In general, when comparing with 20, 40, 100 years ago, yes it is easier to be remarkable. But it’s not equally easy for everyone. I am a white CIS male born into a middle class family and much of my life is based off of that running start in the societal race. And it’s a shift in thinking that we all need to have that life isn’t equally easy (or equally hard (or equally anything.)) #
12:12pm – Parent Vloggers, adoption, and when it goes wrong (thecut.com) The story is not a fun one, a YouTube couple adopted a special needs child from China and after a few years they dissoluted the adoption as the needs for the child were greater than they could provide. Ostensibly.
I am inclined to believe them, but even in the best light the YouTube influencer life puts this sort of awful life decision out in the public record and for public perception.
I can’t help but consider the future when the child grows up. Will he know he was a YouTube star for a few years of his childhood with another family? What happens when he finds out?
Bottom line, YouTube and parent vloggers is a weird dynamic. #
9:55pm – 2020 feels like a year that will be a major point in history books. I was going to say, “US politics aside” because I think this year has so much going on even outside of US politics, but as I think about the year, it all is so intertwined I’m not sure I can actually say that. Except Tiger King, I guess. #
I did no development work on the tool today. It is working well and additional features are on my list, but today was primarily a day for the day job and then D&D in the evening.
11:16am – Carlsen vs. Nakamura – Day 7 (youtube.com) For most of the morning, when not focused on other things, I had today’s match between Carlsen and Nakamura up. And the drama keeps rolling as they took it to the final armageddon blitz match. #
2:29pm – Several months ago I set up a Pi Hole DNS filter for the home network using a Raspberry Pi 3b. Every once in a while I like to check in on it and see how it’s doing. It blocked nearly 29% of all queries on the home network in the past 24 hours, roughly 30,700 queries stopped. #
5:47pm – I’ve been playing a lot of chess recently. The thing that I like about chess is that it is the game I have found which is most brutal in the necessity to find the best possible option. “If you have a good move and a better move, then the good move is actually bad.”
I do a lot of chess puzzles and I get frustrated when the move I made, which was valid and does gain an advantage on the opponent, is wrong and thus I get no points. Sure, some sites handle it better than others, some will give partial credit for good but wrong answers. But as much as it frustrates me, the whole reason I’m doing it is I’m trying to develop that mindset. I am very comfortable with the phrase “good enough” both personally and professionally. And while most of the time, it truly is good enough, I still see it as something I need to develop as a skill and mentality for my growth. #
8:54am – Despite launching Glowbug for myself, I still find myself doomscrolling on Twitter. The negativity and petty squabbles are mind boggling and exhausting. #
10:33am – 7 Tips for Finishing Big Projects from Jason Pargin (youtube.com) This link was shared to me by my brother and I found this video extremely insightful. I love the distillation of how he approaches these and one of the big highlights that struck me is him asking, “What are you going to give up to make time for this?” You have been doing something with your time, whether it was watching TV or something more productive, what are you going to stop doing for the thing you want to do? #
7:00pm – My wife noticed it while we were watching Dallas vs the Clippers. It is very cool how they insert the shot clock into the broadcast by making it look like it is projected on the floor at the top of the key. #
Also FYI, it is an urban legend that lovebugs in Florida were created by researchers at UF. #
Glowbug Development Notes:
I fixed it to properly display on mobile for the admin panel. So it is now easier to post from my phone. I think that is the only work I did on it today.
I have also identified a bug, having to do with Javascript, AJAX, and how it does pagination for my listing of pages. I know the cause, I just need to get in there and fix it.
Below is a series of quick posts from the day. I am calling these ‘Blips.’ Read more about my homebuilt system, Glowbug, here, as well as updates on my work coding it at the end of this post.
August 17
11:21pm – Project YUJ — Reethigowla Blues(youtu.be) Found on /r/listentothis on reddit. It is described as “Indian Carnatic Blues/Prog” in terms of music genre. All I know is I really enjoyed it. #
August 18
7:08am – Hawaii development highlights economic impacts(propublica.org) The headline focuses deep on Obama’s ties to a hawaii development, which the article makes it seem more like he’s completely ancillary aside from the fact he is planning to buy a house in the development that a close friend is building. #
8:28am – The oldest archaeological site to contain worked gold is in Bulgaria(en.wikipedia.org) Saw a picture from it on Reddit earlier this morning and fell down a rabbit hole today between meetings and while out with the dogs. The graves have been dated to 4569–4340 BC, forging is said to begin around 4000 BC. #
1:31pm – Wealth Tax thoughts from Paul Graham(paulgraham.com) Paul Graham hits on something I have to admit I hadn’t processed when it comes to wealth tax discussions, which is that it taxes the same money every year. I am still overall pro the concept, but acknowledge that this is a wrinkle I hadn’t considered and don’t know enough about how other countries have implemented it successfully. #
4:39pm – There are things which we mentally tie to larger statuses. I have realized using a sprinkler is one of those things which really makes me feel like a homeowner. #
6:14pm – Holey Moley continues to be one of my favorite guilty pleasures on TV. Rob Riggle and Joe Tessitore are great and the show is so dumb it’s great too. #
7:44pm – Reminder: Key locks are deterrant from random people, not true security. Not only can keys be copied from a photo of a key, but now research shows that keys can be made based on the sound they make sliding into a lock. And it doesn’t require a professional mic. #
9:31pm – Musings on the future of the workforce(theatlantic.com) Found via Matt Mullenweg’s blog. Atlantic is a site where you might hit a paywall, hopefully you can read it as I really liked this article and the questions asked. The nature of work from home has serious implications and potential repercussions for the future of the workforce if it becomes the de facto. #
I didn’t get to do too much development today. But there were a few things:
I enabled paging in my viewing of blips on the admin side. Up to now it’s just shown me the top 20 in my admin view and I had to go into the database if I needed to see anything past that.
I modified the output to account for if blips occur on multiple days (as exemplified by today’s posts.)
I cleaned up some of the admin display CSS, nothing major and still not perfect. Just a step in the right direction.
Okay, well as I was making this post I ended up uncovering some other weird corner case display bugs. So I did more work on cleaning up the export to make it cleaner in regards to HTML code generation for the output moving forward.
Below is a series of quick posts from the day. I am calling these ‘Blips.’ Read more about my homebuilt system, Glowbug, here, as well as updates on my work coding it at the end of this post.
7:36am – Handmade Manifesto (handmade.network) – Not handmade as in crafts, but it is a manifesto to software developers about focusing more on the craft and making better software that runs better.
From the about page: “We’re a small group of programmers and idealists who are trying to make programming better for everyone. And we think the best way to do that is by collecting the best, down-to-earth programming projects in one place and building a community of the most talented programmers and most eager learners we can find. #
8:43am – Daryl Bem, his research on ESP, and the changes it brought to Psychology Research (getpocket.com) – The article’s clickbait title which got me to read it was, “Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real” – Important context that you might want. First, no he doesn’t. Second, this article is from 2017 and not some recent development. Third, psychology research is difficult because people are complex beings. #
9:07am – The Women Who Fought Against the Vote (nytimes.com) – The Antis, scholars note, were not simply saying that women should just stay home. Instead, many believed that participating in the grubby world of party politics would undermine women’s distinct strength: their nonpartisan, politically disinterested commitment to the public good.#
12:36pm – Were you aware Seattle is in a bit of a heatwave? I am. It is hot. Yesterday peaked around 98 degrees and today feels close to the same though it’s only forecast to peak in the high 80s today. #
1:03pm – How to Argue With a Racist (theexperimentpublishing.com) – A book by podcaster and science communicator Adam Rutherford. I have added this to my to-read list. #
2:28pm – Meet Leland Chee, the Star Wars Franchise Continuity Cop (wired.com) – An article from twelve years ago, but it came up during a discussion today so I went and found it. A good look at the guy who manages (I think he is still doing it) the worlds and continuity for the SW universe. #
Swapped out rich text editors for me, I was using a very basic one but it wasn’t cutting it. Went with the comically overpowered TinyMCE which is like getting a Ferrari when I just need a working golf cart.
Not specifically dev work, but I redid my bug/dev tracker for my various projects so they are now in a singular table all together so I can filter and sort.
Below is a series of quick posts from the day. I am calling these ‘Blips.’ Read more about my homebuilt system, Glowbug, here, as well as updates on my work coding it at the end of this post.
Now that I have this system set up, it is motivating me to dig into my unread articles in Pocket, and in my bookmarks. So some of what I share may be dated a few weeks, and also getting inputted rather quickly as I can pull from good recent links I had previously read.
8/16 – 7:46am – History Through the Lens of a Survivor (thesecretcamera.com) Terence S. Kirk was a POW during WWII in Japan. He managed to make a camera while in the prison and captured amazing photos. The site is just a peek at some of the photos, it looks like there is a documentary coming. But it’s still a fascinating story and site. #
8/16 – 8:48am – I have an Acer laptop I picked up a few years ago cheap. (I don’t recommend it.) It worked for a few months and then the hard drive crashed and I stuffed it in a closet. Earlier today I decided to dig it out and realized I could pull the hard drive out of my other old laptop, which was dead for power supply issues and memory issues. After a few hours to install linux (specifically I went with Lubuntu) I have a new home work machine that is more than powerful enough for web coding projects, writing, and reading, etc. Got to love it when hoarding old hardware pays off. #
8/16 – 9:27am – Had an early morning after the dogs woke me up at 4:30 and I couldn’t fall back asleep. Since then today has been spent coding, watching Mr Robot, as well as the Champions League semifinal. Today’s code work has been cleaning up processing, file uploads, ability to delete posts, and a few other things. Very happy with my progress today. #
8/16 – 10:41am – The finale of Mr Robot was excellent. I bounced off the show in season 3, after also failing to finish season 2. On recommendation from a friend I went back and binge’d it and really enjoyed it. The show is complex and jarring, but watching it in a binge rather than each week really helped me stay with it. Good stuff. Highly recommend it for anyone who tried before. #
8/16 – 8:24pm – The Fantasy and the Cyberpunk Futurism of Singapore (wired.com) Tied to this article, I managed to check out William Gibson’s Agency. I’ve read nearly every other Gibson book as an ardent Cyberpunk fan, so I am eager to check it out. #
Glowbug Development Notes from today:
Image uploads (though I didn’t make use of it today)
Improved exporting and export formatting
It no longer only exports every unexported post, I could choose to export specific ones
Added call out for the linked domain, as I find it very useful on other sites for filtering and judging links. I will be improving on this further for things like subdomains, or particular subreddits if I’m linking to Reddit.
Improved back-end admin display
Improved CMS functions regarding post management
Implemented a single embed to handle database set up and any universal function calls
Fixed bug: Timezones are a thing and it was logging blips as UTC.
#