Alarmists

17:02 Thursday, 27 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 78.51°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 48% Wind: 14.97mph
Words: 64

Like Panasonic, "Just slightly ahead of our time."

Kottke shares a link to a NY Times piece by David Wallace-Wells.

From David Wallace-Wells, a reminder that those who were considered alarmists at the beginning of the pandemic were ultimately proved right — it actually was an alarming situation.

The same can be said for climate "alarmists." Or will be said, one day.

Soon.

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Florida and Measles

16:58 Thursday, 27 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 78.51°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 48% Wind: 14.97mph
Words: 40

Kevin Drum is feeling better. He's blogging again and posting "the charts and graphs to prove it!"

And yeah, Florida is near the bottom of states for measles vaccination.

Gosh it's exciting to live in "the Free State of Florida!"

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Handwriting. Wall. You connect the dots...

13:18 Thursday, 27 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 76.75°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 48% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 430

“Older people with more social vulnerability — such as low income or poor health — have a tendency to move to worse places,” said Yan Wang, Ph.D., a professor of urban and regional planning in the UF College of Design, Construction and Planning. “They are more likely to move to places with less economic stability, with less access to health care and with more exposure to extreme weather.”

I offer this with somewhat greater humility than I normally do, because the region we're moving to isn't exactly known for its "economic stability." That said, I think it's still less vulnerable to economic instability than Florida. Florida is a house of cards right now, and I want us to get out of here before it collapses.

The measures the article outlines in Florida are welcome and appropriate, but don't address the root vulnerability. Florida is getting ridiculously hot in the summer. It's not safe being old in Florida. It's downright dangerous to be old and poor.

The Florida legislature, its governance model, prioritizes partisan power plays, not serving vulnerable citizens. For decades, there have been two Floridas. One is for the privileged, and it treats them very well. The other has historically been ignored. Today it is targeted. There's a reason why Florida never expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving billions of federal dollars on the table. At least at first, Florida Republicans will welcome slashing Medicaid, or turning it into block grants that Republicans can dole out like patronage, or extract concessions for it. When the health care industry collapses under the weight of its aging population and lack of resources, they may not be so happy.

I know New York is less vulnerable to extreme weather events. Not invulnerable, less vulnerable. One uncertainty I have is on the issue of mudslides. We're on a hillside, but I'm not sure the gradient is one I have to worry about. I'll figure that out before we build another place on the property.

Health care will be a challenge or us, but one I'm reasonably confident we can meet. A rural setting means emergency services are more distant, so we'll have to design the home to minimize risks as we age. At some point we won't be able to drive anymore, so we'll have to pay for transportation for more specialized care when we need it. But who knows? By then, maybe one of our kids will want to live with us.

No matter how you look at it, New York is safer than Florida. More expensive, sure. But worth it.

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You Don't Control Your Mac

09:14 Thursday, 27 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 62.15°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 4mph
Words: 147

Or any of your Apple devices.

Howard Oakley is a wealth of knowledge about Macs, their cpus and MacOS. If you're interested in Macs on anything other than the most superficial level, it's worth your time to subscribe to Howard's feed, although it also includes his essays on art.

Anyway, as if another reminder was necessary, Howard documented how his Mac installed an OS update he specifically didn't want to install.

Yeah, I'm not switching to Linux. I'm old and there are better things I want to spend my time on.

But if you're anywhere south of 50, say, it's probably worth your time to figure out how to get onto Linux and live there. We don't control our computers. Their corporate parents do. And the software vendors, and the bad actors that make so much "security" inconvenience necessary.

It's their world. We just blog in it.

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Trae Crowder

08:17 Thursday, 27 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 55.99°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 36

If you haven't seen Trae Crowder's YouTube channel, I think you'd enjoy it. Why this guy doesn't have over a million followers yet is beyond me. (There's a paid promotion in the middle. Scrub through it.)

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Homebrew SAR Drone

07:46 Thursday, 27 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 52.68°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 0mph
Words: 157

I guess I shouldn't be amazed by this, but I am. I wonder to what extent obscurants have been used on the battlefield in Ukraine? I don't know if many of you recall what a revolution J-STARS was in the Gulf War. This is like a tiny J-STARS built at home for not very many dollars. (The comparison is one of kind, not overall capability.)

I skimmed the article because of my short attention span. I got the impression that the data is processed in non-realtime, so it's uncertain how practical it might be as a tactical asset. But that may simply be a matter of throwing more compute power at it.

I'm also uncertain about the relative value of synthetic aperture radar as a sensor compared to infrared or low-light, but it is another part of the electromagnetic spectrum that might overcome weaknesses or countermeasures in the IR and visible light range.

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Cory Doctorow on Democracy Now

07:22 Thursday, 27 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 52.84°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 0mph
Words: 101

I'm not a fan of Doctorow's sf. That's no shade, I just haven't read him. Most of the time I see his name, it's in relation to something to do with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or "enshittification," or some criticism of corporate America.

He's always kind of struck me as something a hectoring scold. But it's interesting how changing circumstances can change how you perceive someone.

This may be nothing new to people who've been more sympathetic to him before now, but this interview has been somewhat revelatory to me, and I found myself nodding along as I listened to it.

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It's Done

12:21 Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 75.9°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 38% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 231

I got the iMac erased and reformatted. Harder than it should have been, but it's done. It's one of those things you seldom do, so it's a learning curve, getting signed out of iCloud and so on.

One really great thing about this will be the end of the problem with iCloud Documents and Tinderbox. I posted the previous post this morning. As I was booting the iMac, long before it completed, I recalled I had Tinderbox open on the MBP. So I hustled back to my office to quit Tinderbox.

When Tinderbox opened on the iMac, it opened the last version saved on the iMac, not the one from iCloud. I force-quit Tinderbox, hoping that the version I saved this morning on the MBP would be the one that opened when I launched Tinderbox in the MBP.

Nope.

God I hate iCloud.

Anyway, I think I'm just going to use one computer from now on. I mostly did that from 2012 to 2019, when I was running on a 13" MacBook Pro (Retina), and connected it to a 27" Thunderbolt Display when it wasn't on the road. So much simpler.

Charging up the bluetooth keyboard, and then I'll top off the trackpad and put it all back in the box. Took some photos so Mitzi can get it up on FB Marketplace. One more thing out of the house.

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This Morning's Sky 2-26-25

06:39 Wednesday, 26 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 75.9°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 38% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 17

Put the OM-1 outside with the 17mm/f1.2 mounted. A couple of aircraft and several satellites.

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How Much of a Clue Do You Need?

10:24 Monday, 24 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 55.02°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 418

As climate change accelerates, coastal communities face urgent challenges. Rising sea levels, more intense storms and ongoing environmental degradation threaten the stability of these regions, highlighting the need for adaptive solutions.

"Adaptive solutions." "More intense storms and ongoing environmental degradation."

Florida seniors should consider how much they wish to be a part of "adaptive solutions." How much do they wish to be exposed to rising sea levels, more intense storms and ongoing environmental degradation that threatens the stability of coastal regions?

Sounds like fun, right?

Now, I can envision many sexagenarians and septuagenarians bravely asserting that they won't be run off by these sorts of "potential" risks. At least, before they actually experience one. They "love" Florida. (At least, no state income tax and mild winters. And since many retirees are among the privileged class, the politics probably appeals to them too.)

An "adaptive solution" may be appropriate to people who are still working, if their jobs are rewarding and pay well. That is, if their jobs can survive and adapt too. But if you're a retiree and your highest-earning days are behind you, maybe the most appropriate "adaptive solution," is to get the hell out of Dodge.

I don't think people will understand this right away. If we have another hurricane season like last year's, more will. But hurricanes are stochastic events. We may go another two, three or four years before there's another bad season. And more people, more seniors, will have moved into the state. Into developments created in areas of high risk, because there's money to be made in those areas and no legislation or regulation to prevent it. But there will be the promise and lip-service of "adaptive solutions," to assuage any anxiety or trepidation.

At some point, in the not too distant future, it will be clear that Florida is too risky a place to retire to. All those "over-55" communities will have more and more trouble attracting new residents. Their property values, those assets HOA regulations so zealously protect, will decline.

It may sound as though I'm trying to rationalize my own choice to leave. And, I'm not even sure I should be blogging about this, as it kind of works against my own interests in selling this place for as high a price as we can get.

But the handwriting is on the wall, I don't have to blog about it.

And it just amazes me that so few people seem to be able to read it.

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We The Builders

10:08 Monday, 24 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 54.84°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 13

Does not appear to have an RSS feed.

Seems like a glaring omission.

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Less Progress

08:24 Monday, 24 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 53.98°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 582

I have one last, for now, "ingest" action for Captain's Log: screenshots.

As of now, I can create a new entry in the log from anywhere I happen to be on the Mac, that is, in any app, just by means of AppleScript. It's just a simple text note with a title and some body text, which may or may not be from the clipboard.

If I'm in Finder, I can create a log entry with a link to the file in the entry and that action is tied to a Stream Deck button. The entry affords essentially the same interface as the previous action, a title and some text, along with a link to the file. (If I later move the file, I suspect the link breaks. This isn't using Hookmark. So I need to get my filing finished first, and some of that may be automated by Hazel.)

In Mail, I can create a log entry with a link to the email I've selected, and again I use the same interface for title and text.

In Safari, I can create a log entry that is essentially a bookmark with a link to the page in the SourceURL attribute.

Sometimes I'll screenshot something I want to remember. I'm not very adept with web page document object models, and some web pages make it difficult or impossible to copy text or a graphic because reasons. So, a screenshot is often an adequate substitute.

I have a semi-working solution, but it seems to bump up against Apple's excessive concern for privacy and security. Working in Automator, I've set up a Quick Action that will take an interactive screenshot, save it as a file to a known, desired location, and then an AppleScript that essentially duplicates the file logging script, where Automator makes it simple to pass that file path to AppleScript.

In some apps, it works as intended. Though when I first tried it out, I thought had to give "permission" for Tinderbox to control apps that it wasn't really controlling. When you're trying to create these little automations, it's probably worthwhile to record the screen, or write down every little interaction with the system. I don't recall exactly which apps Sequoia was asking me to grant permission to, Tinderbox only being one of them, I just recall being somewhat surprised by it and just going ahead and granting it to keep going and see if the thing worked.

At any rate, it worked and I thought all was well. Then I tried it in Preview, and what the screenshot actually captured wasn't the frontmost window in Preview, but the Desktop wallpaper image!

So I just tried it in Maps, because that's another app where I might want to grab a screenshot. I got the Privacy and Security interference, er, I mean, "alert":

“Maps” wants access to control “Tinderbox 10”. Allowing control will provide access to documents and data in “Tinderbox 10”, and to perform actions within that app.

But Maps isn't controlling Tinderbox at all, Services is via Automator. And it doesn't capture an image of the map, it captures the Desktop wallpaper.

Likewise with Messages.

So far, the only app where it seems to work reliably is Safari.

I don't get it.

I'm going to try and re-create the Quick Action (Service) using Shortcuts. I don't know if I can, but perhaps it has a more modern interface that doesn't get cross-threaded with Privacy and Security.

Very frustrating.

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Very Cool

17:19 Sunday, 23 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 60.91°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 280

So this is where I spent part of this afternoon. Very cool collection of toys, with a concentration of early post-war Japanese metal toys. I put an album up on Flickr.

We all enjoyed it. It's in kind of a small building off of A1A in Ponte Vedra Beach, it's called the Bilotta Collection. We had a semi-private tour from the owner, there was only one other guest. Fascinating discussion about the toys themselves, collecting, auction bids and so on. I didn't photograph everything, but most of it.

It's foolish, perhaps, to think of the post-war years as a "more innocent" time, especially in Japan. But these do seem to harken back to a more optimistic moment, after years of suffering and violence. Anyway, it was a fun way to spend an hour or so this afternoon, followed by a couple slices of pizza at Al's just down A1A.

My grandson was very well behaved. He loved the toys, wasn't so much interested in the large robots. They have a small gift shop, I bought him a Robby the Robot toy, which seems like it may have been made by the same company that made a Lost In Space B9 that I bought over 30 years ago and gave to my son just over a year ago when I was trying to get rid of stuff. Same scale, similar action features.

This place has been here a couple of years, but I'd never heard of it until Mitzi went to it as part of an adult life-long learning group that visited it last week. She said I'd love it, and she was right.

She usually is.

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Spring is in the air

10:51 Sunday, 23 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 63.75°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 193

Just a brief update I'm meeting my son and grandson at a local place that is something of a science fiction/toy museum. They have a Gort, B9 and Robby the Robot there, and I need to check them out. Photos to follow.

Took the OM-1 out with me with the 12-200 mounted. Not my lightest rig. Did not experience any pain or discomfort between my shoulder blades. I attribute this to better fitness since starting strength training. Could be wrong.

Lots of robins and cedar waxwings flocking about. While the 12-200 does give me greater reach than the 14-150, it's not so great as to be a good "birding" lens. While I'm certain of the 14-150's sharpness, I'm somewhat uncertain about the 12-200's at 200mm. It's certainly "good enough," for the kind of shooting I do, but I'd like to see how much detail in can resolve. This isn't a great shot for that, I have a better one but it didn't lend itself to a "Spring" title.

Time to check in with Mom, then head down to the beach to meet the boys.

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Progress

13:35 Saturday, 22 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.13°F Pressure: 1028hPa Humidity: 63% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 128

Just completed a little AppleScript that will take the URL of the current web page and create a new entry in Captain's Log with the displayed attribute $SourceURL set to the URL of the current page, along with a name for the entry, and a comment for the context of the note.

That's now assigned to another button on the Stream Deck Neo.

Now, conceivably, and perhaps soon, I could also add that to PopClip. The idea would be to highlight some text, copy it to the clipboard, then run bookmark script. I'd probably make my own title for the entry, and then paste the text from the clipboard into the second button field from AppleScript, which becomes the $Text of the note.

Cool. Kinda happy with myself.

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Log It

06:53 Saturday, 22 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 50.52°F Pressure: 1029hPa Humidity: 87% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 1034

About a year ago, I undertook a little project to get to know Tinderbox better and perhaps create something useful for myself.

There is no shortage of "everything bucket" apps on the Mac. There's Apple's own Notes app, which is a pretty robust and powerful app in itself, and venerable standards like DevonThink, or EagleFiler. There is some overlap with "tools for thought" apps like Obsidian, Roam and others. It's both the "tyranny of choice," and FOMO that keeps many people from settling on a single solution. I have both DevonThink and EagleFiler and I almost forgot about Yojimbo. I have "stuff" in all of them, Apple's Notes too.

Well, the only way to master something is to use it a lot, and I've been using Tinderbox for over twenty years and I haven't mastered it yet. I've been tinkering around with, first, Groundhog Day and now Nice Marmot as Tinderbox files as blog "content management systems." My understanding has grown, but I still get lost or confused because I'm not really working with the app itself every day.

So I wanted to create something with Tinderbox that wasn't a blog, that could serve as a kind of PIM, personal information manager; not to be confused with PKM, personal knowledge management, which I think is a bit of nonsense. Certainly more than I cared to achieve, anyway.

So, with a lot of help from the kind folks at the forum, sitting in on the weekly Tinderbox meetups, and some help from Jack, I came up with Captain's Log, a Tinderbox file that automatically creates a new log "page" every day, which I can add entries to either manually, or by means of some automation.

When it was "new" I used it a fair amount, and it even came in handy a few times as a memory aid. But there was still a bit of friction, and I'm not terribly disciplined, so even though it dutifully kept creating pages every day, I seldom made any entries.

As regular readers (insert self-deprecating "all x of you," where x<10 reference here) may know, we're getting ready to flee Florida and move to the Finger Lakes region of New York. So I've been gathering a lot of information about the region, about rural living, the local government and civic organizations and so on. That involves downloads, bookmarks, screenshots and sometimes email. I've been handling most of this stuff manually, "Like an animal," and it has become something of a disorganized mess.

So I decided to see if I could get the log to kind of at least bring some chronological order to the chaos. I can get Tinderbox to bring some additional order to it as well, but I need to get the data entry piece down solid. Reduce friction, so I'm more inclined to use it and develop the habit of using it.

Fortunately, Tinderbox is very scriptable. I created a couple of AppleScripts that I could invoke outside of Captain's Log, that would create entries in it. One was a Mail script that would ask me for the title of the entry, and then ask for any amplifying information for the text of the entry, and then create a note with a link to the email as one of its "displayed attributes." Clicking on that link would take me back to that email in the Mail app.

That's the UI automation I've used the most. There's a function within Captain's Log that reaches out to Calendar every day and grabs the next three days' events for a "Midwatch" entry. That, like creating each day's page, is fully hands-off. The Mail script is a type of UI automation, in that it performs a couple of things that I would have to do manually, and allows me to remain in Mail while it performs the entry.

I have another script that allows me to create a new entry in whatever app I happen to be in at the time, but the entry will lack any context as to what app I was in when I made it. That's fine for reminders, or stray thoughts I may want to remember.

Yesterday I created another AppleScript that takes a file in the Finder and creates a log entry with a link to the file. I've used it to create links to a copy the well completion report on file with New York state for the well on our property, and one to a folder with a bunch of screenshots of past climate data for the region.

I could invoke all of those scripts with keyboard shortcuts, a facility afforded by the app FastScripts. But I didn't do it often enough to develop the muscle memory to make it truly frictionless. I'd resort to going to the FastScripts menu item in the menubar and invoking them from there, and that's a bit of friction.

So I could, perhaps, just have something like drill sessions, where I repeatedly make entries every day until the muscle memory is locked in, but that doesn't sound like much fun. I have a couple of these little Logitech Stream Decks, a mini with six buttons, and a Neo with eight. I just used the app to create a couple of buttons to log a file, or an email. Now, my hands still have to leave the keyboard, but it's easier to stab a button than to navigate carefully to the menubar and mouse around ("trackpad around"?) to hit the item I want.

There are two more automations I want to create. One is for screenshots, specifically for the log. That will probably be an Automator/AppleScript automation, or I may try using Shortcuts along with AppleScript.

The other automation is essentially a bookmarking feature. When I'm on a site related to our move, it's easy enough to create a bookmark in Safari, but sometimes there's too little context in the bookmarks menu for why I bookmarked it in the first place.

Eventually, I'll add some attribute that marks entries related to Winterfell and have an agent gather them all and sort them by kind, and hopefully that'll bring some order to this chaos.

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Same As It Ever Was

05:58 Saturday, 22 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 50.63°F Pressure: 1029hPa Humidity: 87% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 135

Spent some time yesterday messing around with Captain's Log, a Tinderbox file that's kind of a daily notes, information retrieval system. More about that, perhaps, later.

I read about the purge this morning. I've emailed my Representative, liar and moral coward, John Rutherford again. For all the good it will do. They check you name and address and voter registration. If you're a Democrat, I'm sure he never sees it. Not that it would do any good anyway. It's probably handled by a script with a rule that sends emails from Dems to trash without ever being seen by human eyes.

I guess I'll have to write a snail mail letter. Perhaps at least one of the enablers on his staff will read it. Just another stupid and futile gesture.

We're a world of shit.

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Thursday Afternoon

13:47 Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 57.02°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 198

Just needed a title. I could set this up so I don't (kinda did once), but maybe later.

Anyway, good workout. Germaine says he'll give me a workout plan to follow when I leave in May, so that's cool.

Came back and watched some YouTube. I struggle with David Brooks. Sometimes I like what he has to say and agree with him, sometimes I don't like what he has to say and disagree with him. Sometimes I don't like what he has to say, but I agree with him. I often find him kind of hard to take, but I want to like him. Or, at least, I don't want to hate him.

Anyway, here's a 14-minute talk that he gave recently. I liked it enough to commend it to your attention.

Seriously.

In other news, I got an email from the Internet Archive asking for a donation. I've donated before, but not regularly, or not often. I like the Internet Archive, and I think it's a valuable resource. They were asking for $10, or $5 monthly. I donated $100 as a single donation.

It's not much, but it's not nothing either.

Now I need a shower.

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God's Eye View

11:02 Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 50.72°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 315

Think of the "Big Board," as a kind of God's eye view.

I think one of the limitations of hypertext is that it remains essentially one-dimensional, if not strictly "linear."

We need to be able to view pieces of information in relation to each other in more than one dimension. The "graph" is a two-dimensional view, but we need to be able to see how that changes over time, or some other dimension I can't name just now. "Relationships" maybe?

Anyway, I'm just killing time until I go for my workout.

I'll be moving to 3x/wk sessions in March until I leave here, which is looking like about mid-May. That's about 32 sessions. Hopefully I'll have built a pretty solid foundation by then, and understand enough about the various types of exercises and what muscles they work.

I'm only just beginning to recall by name what a move is. I know what a "goblet squat" is, and how that differs from a "Romanian deadlift." "Rows" versus "kick-backs." I need to know enough so that if I can't find (or afford) a personal trainer, I can continue to train.

I've been adding a couple of reps to the last set of some exercises, or asking him to bump up the weight or resistance on others. I was a little sore yesterday morning. But I feel great after the workout, and the day after. It begins to fade by the second day after, but I can still feel something of a difference as I walk. Everything feels more "together," for lack of a better term.

I was never a big believer in strength training. It didn't appeal to me the way running did. But I think that was a mistake. Had I started with a trainer much early, I think I would have found out I enjoyed it much earlier as well.

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Further to the Foregoing

10:52 Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 50.22°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 82

In the 1930s, the world was seeing tremendous advances in our understanding of the atom. We were also seeing the rise of authoritarian regimes, and the decline of liberal democracies (Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, others).

Fast forward nearly a century and we're seeing tremendous advances in AI and maybe even quantum computing. I don't need to mention the political stuff.

"All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again."

"So say we all."

(YMMV on the "profound" claim above.)

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I Don't Know What I'm Talking About

10:41 Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 49.33°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 87% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 56

As always, I'm an authority on nothing, and I make all this shit up. You're encouraged to do your own thinking. (For all the good that will do.)

Anyway, I read this today and I'm struck by the parallels between the Newtonian/deterministic view and the quantum/statistical or probabilistic view.

It's all a bit fuzzy.

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MapQuest

10:33 Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 48.79°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 29

Since further staining my immortal soul by buying a device made by Amazon, allow me to make a tiny gesture toward amends by linking to this clever little thing.

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eBooks and AI

09:46 Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 47.1°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 452

Some people extol the virtues of capitalism for being the fount of all good things. That is, if by "things," you mean "stuff," inequality and billionaires.

Anyway, I rather suspect that it is capitalism, and its concomitant axiom, "property rights," which is keeping us from some nice things in the ebook space.

I want an AI-enhanced version of a book. I don't need the AI to "summarize" the book, just distill and reconfigure its content.

I want a "Big Board."

On the Big Board, we can display a map at various scales. Or we can display a timeline with time on the horizontal axis, and people or places and events on the vertical axis. Or we can display a dramatis personae, faces and names of all the individuals mentioned in the book.

On the map view, we zoom in to various scales, and using a timeline, move forward and backward in time, displaying people and events and their locations on the map. At small scales, many faces may overlap on a particular location at a particular moment, so we can zoom in. Similarly, we can zoom in on time. We can spread things out to see where events took place.

On the DP display, we can bring a figure into focus, and have links drawn to all the other figures according to the timeline, which can be controlled. Click on FDR, ask for links to people on 6 December 1941, slide the time control forward through 8 December and watch the links change. We can ask for a display of all persons who never interacted with any other individual in the book. We can ask for a six degrees of separation display. (or two, three, four or five).

We might wish to include entities along with people. Corporations, military units and the like. Faces on the DP view could be adorned with small indications of nationality, or party affiliation, or some other relevant data.

I think AI has the capacity to do something like this today. I think Apple or Amazon have the developer talent to fashion something like this for the reader/"user". But I also happen to think that publishers won't let that happen, without some exorbitant licensing scheme for "repurposing content" or some such.

I want my Big Board, dammit!

The Big Board may be able to access resources outside the content of the book. If I'm looking at Dead Wake by Erik Larson, I may ask the AI to display any other known vessels within 100 nautical miles of the Lusitania on a particular date. Or the weather or sea state on that date. Which vessels were equipped with wireless?

Probably won't see it in my lifetime.

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Annoying

08:49 Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 46.8°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 194

Got the Kindle set up. That was a pain in the ass.

It said I could use my iPhone to make setup "easier." Got to the point where the setup process from the iPhone was to tell the Kindle what wifi network to use. I gave permission to the Kindle app to discover other devices on the network. Well, my wifi network would never appear in the list of available networks.

Canceled setup and did it from the Kindle. Pretty easy until I tried to take advantage of three free months of Kindle Unlimited (which I cancelled earlier this year). The setup screen for that is horribly ugly and confusing. It appears as though it has my saved payment method, but it wouldn't just proceed no matter how much I touched "Continue." So, skipped that. No Kindle Unlimited for free for me. Skipped the free Audible offer. Skipped the GoodReads thing. Jeez, how much of this shit is there?

Then had to step through the onboarding guide. Kept appearing everywhere no matter what. Finally got to load a book and turn a page.

No flashing.

Overall, I'd grade the setup process a D, "unsatisfactory."

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Shallow Dive

07:46 Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 46.89°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 511

I probably overreacted to the Kindle content kerfuffle, at least to the extent of recommending Epubor. Got a nice note from Ay who blogs at Pup On Tech, mentioning that calibre works and is free. I landed on Epubor from whatever site I read that first mentioned the issue.

Truthfully, I haven't obsessed over DRM in a very long time. I worry about my Apple digital movie collection just disappearing one day, so we've stopped getting rid of our physical DVDs. (May need to buy another player though.) I had a friend who borrowed DVDs from a public library and ripped them all. I still have a USB external DVD drive, but that feels exhausting just thinking about it.

I digress.

The whole thing did get me looking at my Kindle and trying to find out what's new in that space. To make a not terribly long story a bit shorter, I spent a fair amount of time on the-ebook-reader.com, and this page in particular. I watched a few YouTube videos as well.

I have a 10th generation Kindle Paperwhite. I've read from it a fair amount, particularly when I was away, because it's so light. But I generally don't care for the experience. It's very slow, and whenever I turn a page I get this annoying flash as the screen goes through this inversion process from whatever mode I'm in until it settles on either the Dark or Light Mode, which I selected. That is, if I'm in Light Mode, the page will first appear in Dark Mode, then switch to Light Mode. If I'm in Dark Mode and turn the page, the page first appears in Light Mode, then switches to dark. Very annoying.

Well, watching a YouTube comparison of the 10th, 11th and 12th generations, I didn't see that behavior on the 10th generation Paperwhite in the video. It seemed like it did happen on screens with a lot of images, like the library, but page swiping didn't exhibit that flashing behavior.

I thought that was weird, so I looked a little more closely at my Kindle. It has the latest firmware. I'm sure it has to restart whenever a new firmware version is installed, but I tried a restart anyway. Takes forever, but that didn't change the page flashing behavior.

So I ended up holding my nose and buying a new 12th generation Kindle, stuffing some more non-essential, elective spending dollars into Jeff Bezos already grotesquely over-stuffed pockets. (Please don't lecture me about buying another e-reader. Not being by Amazon isn't enough of a feature.) It's charging behind me.

I probably should have restored my 10th generation Kindle to a factory-reset condition and checked to see if that resolved the flashing. But I'm lazy. And I know Amazon periodically offers discounts on Kindles, and I probably should have waited for one of those. What can I say? I'm a bit discombobulated here, what with the systematic destruction of the federal government going on. Should probably start meditating again.

Or drinking.

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Florida (Again)

11:28 Wednesday, 19 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 60.04°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 113

Apart from worrying about (and legislating against) "chemtrails," a Florida senator wants to look into doing away with property taxes.

Why? Because property taxes are at least somewhat "progressive." As in, the more valuable your property, the more taxes you pay. That's so unfair!

He wants to replace it "consumption taxes," which are regressive taxes, because the wealthy don't consume anywhere near their degree of wealth enables them.

This is a horrible state. Cruel. Inhuman.

Fortunately, it's doomed. Between climate catastrophes, gross mismanagement and an imminent collapse of the insurance and mortgage industries, I think Florida has about ten years, at the outside. It'll become a "failed state" looking for a federal bailout.

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Preserve Your Privilege

10:40 Wednesday, 19 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 59.13°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 106

If you want to know how to remove the DRM from your Bezos ebooks, this app will do it for you. If you use only a Mac, you'll have to go to the Big-A and use the download and transfer via USB method to get them onto your Mac. You also have to have a pre-2024 device, because you'll need the serial number from said device.

That facility to "download and transfer via USB" is going way next week. So, if you're worried that a certain online retail giant might just delete a title from your library someday, well, you know what to do.

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Paradise

16:42 Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 61.65°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 34

I'm really enjoying Paradise on Hulu.

Especially as a commentary on why you shouldn't let emotionally damaged billionaires be in charge of anything.

Seems topical.

Also seems like it should be getting more buzz.

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The OM-3 and Me

15:58 Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 62.83°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 66% Wind: 13.8mph
Words: 302

I visit the micro four-thirds forum at DP Review because I have too much time on my hands, and probably also because it's something of a habit. I don't find the experience especially enjoyable. "Opinions are like assholes," and most of the content there is ("are" Verb agreement?) just opinions expressed repetitively.

Anyway, I did read a post there today that I found thoroughly enjoyable. There inevitably followed the "discussion," where some individuals repetitively expressed their opinion that the OP's (original poster) analysis was flawed, or incomplete and his conclusions certainly unjustified.

Because I'm a flawed human being, sometimes I forget that "feelings pass," and I acted on this one. I wrote a lengthy reply to the OP, though it quoted James, who remained "perplexed," as to why anyone would want to buy an OM-3.

It may get me some kind of warning from the moderator. I've been slapped on the wrist enough times that I don't often comment there anymore. I do from time to time, as my profile will show. But I've been on DP Review for a long time now (started in the Kodak forum), and I only have 821 posts (Total? M43? Probably the latter.), so I don't hang out there all day every day and respond to every little thing that scrolls across my screen.

But James kind of pissed me off.

I've had at least one of my posts deleted by a moderator. It was far less vituperative than this one, and far shorter, but who knows? So I made a copy of this one and stuck it in Captain's Log. If my reply gets deleted, I'll post it here.

It's not even a "love/hate" thing with DP Review. It's mostly "bored/hate," and I really should find better uses for my time.

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Updates

07:10 Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 42.91°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 5.77mph
Words: 268

Crown re-attached yesterday afternoon. Doc did it himself. (Tech last time.) Time will tell.

It would appear that Mapquest on iOS is enjoying a bit of a renaissance by Gulf of Mexico enthusiasts. $1.99/month subscription for the ad-free experience. Sounds like it may be a good deal if Apple goes ahead and puts ads on Maps, because they're just greedy, capitalist corporate assholes. Installed.

Amazon is fucking with your Kindle ebooks, you have just a week to grab your library and download it before that goes away. Epubor is supposedly the go-to app for converting them to something more useful, but my efforts to install the free trial have only been rewarded with a crash on launch. I've emailed support.

At least I've downloaded my library, though I don't know if the new version of Kindle has placed some new encumbrance on them. I like ebooks from the standpoint of weight and volume, but they suck in nearly every other dimension. (See "greedy, capitalist corporate assholes," above.)

Looks like there may be a fix for the backup camera recall. I'll reach out to my sales rep and credit union. May get a 2024 Ford Maverick XL this week.

It's like 5°F at Winterfell. Glad we've had this extreme winter experience. It'll help to calibrate our design specifications for the new place. So far it hasn't "cooled" our desire to flee Florida.

Looks like it's becoming unsafe to fly.

Started watching Only Murders In the Building on Hulu. Looks like this may be the best $1.99/month subscription ever. Well, that and maybe Mapquest.

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Stupid and Futile Gesture

12:01 Monday, 17 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 52.18°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 7mph
Words: 294

Beardy Guy is lamenting Apple's resumption of advertising on X.

I'm not on X, but I'm disappointed anyway. I'm especially pissed off about the whole "Gulf of America" (sic) thing on Apple Maps.

I tried to report an issue, but it's set up in such a way that you can't really state that they've put the wrong name on a large geographic feature. I settled for adding a 24-hour adult massage parlor named "Gulf of Mexico" in the general vicinity of where "Gulf of America" (sic) appears.

Thinking some more about it, I wondered if there were some other way we could send a signal to Apple that we're unhappy with their actions? I'm not a stockholder. I can't just abandon the platform, as a practical matter.

But I wondered if there are enough Apple users who are online, and who share similar feelings about Tim Cook's ass-kissing, that we might be able to get a signal through the noise?

What if we all decided to forego purchasing any new Apple hardware for the next 12 months? Would that show up in Apple's quarterly sales figures? It'd have to be kind of a worldwide effort.

Given the longevity of Apple's products, could we agree to forego making any new Apple hardware purchases for the next four years? Or at least until such time as Apple stops obeying in advance?

Buying used Apple products would be fine, but nothing from Apple's stores.

Given Tim Cook's fetish for "customer satisfaction," how might we organize a wave of "dissatisfaction"? Certainly sales, as mentioned before. But are there other feedback mechanisms we might leverage to express our feelings?

As the title suggests, I'm not especially enthusiastic about this. But I just hate what Apple is doing.

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Ship of Fools

08:26 Monday, 17 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 43.74°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 308

The Red Hand Files this morning seems relevant to the moment. I can see his point, and I think I largely agree with it to this extent: If the art speaks to you in some way, then let the art be art and embrace it for whatever it offers you. You're not obligated to repudiate it or expel it from your life.

But if the artist repels you, you're under no obligation to experience it, to give it a chance. You certainly can, if that is your wish, if you're comfortable with whatever portion of the experience involves some remuneration or validation of the artist.

It may be a loss of some kind, because you'd never know if the art spoke to you in some way. But it'd only be one of countless such "losses." All the, "roads not taken," and so on.

I gather Neil Gaiman is similarly problematic today. And his work is likely a fond part of many fans' memories. I'm not a fan of Gaiman or Ye, so I'm not conflicted that way. But knowing what I know about them today, I'm disinclined to experience it now. Plenty of other choices out there.

But Cave is right, we're all a mess. "All men have feet of clay," and all your heroes will disappoint you somehow.

I've been enjoying Paradise on Hulu. For the most part, I've found the plot and the dialog fairly compelling. I'm a little confused/skeptical about Billy being a Secret Service Agent, though I suppose that took place after the catastrophe that is the backdrop for the series.

Cave's missive reminded me of Billy, but no spoilers if you have Hulu and haven't watched the series yet.

(Small spoiler, they kind of telegraphed the punch in that episode. Saw it coming right in that moment. Still, it was pretty good.)

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This Morning's Moon 2-17-24

07:37 Monday, 17 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 43.43°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 457

A front blew through yesterday, and it's a bit chillier today. 45°F this morning, but clear. Spica was visible above the moon when I took this shot in the early morning twilight.

It's Presidents' Day, which may mean my dentist is closed. I'll know in a little while, when I call to try to make an appointment. I can tolerate the missing crown, but it is annoying.

The news is bad. I suppose it could be worse, but... Damn. I guess we're aligned with Putin and German Nazis now. It's startling just how little check we have on the executive branch, especially when Congress just wants to give him a blank one.

If you want to know what the Florida legislature spends its time on, and see a guest appearance by Marla Maples, you can watch the Florida Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources hearing where they considered the "chemtrails" bill. It starts about 11 minutes into the video, and goes for over an hour. I'm a bit disappointed by the Democratic push-back, though there was some.

The bill does nothing except require the Department of Environmental Protection to set up a call center to receive calls from Florida citizens reporting chemtrails, and then requiring them to "vet" them and turn them over to the Department of Public Health, and the Department of Emergency Management for "mitigation."

There's a public comment from a nut-job, er, nurse (who wore his scrubs to underscore his professional credentials), which is about what you'd expect.

Marla Maples is the last speaker. Oy.

This is what Florida does today. Performative legislation that validates the fears and conspiracies of that part of the population that has too much time on its hands and too little education to think critically. It's all distraction, all the time.

There was a preceding bill considered, which was about resilience. I watched to see if they ever uttered the words "climate change." They didn't. That wasn't a bad bill, but, just like everything else, it's too little, too late. But it gives the uninformed the impression that the legislature is "doing something."

I think that, in the main, the internet has been a net loss for civilization. People keep talking about a 4-day workweek, and I'm afraid that would just give more people more time to browse the internet and find something to be afraid of, or a conspiracy that is only just being uncovered.

I'm not sure how Postman would view that. It's not exactly "amusing ourselves to death," because these folks are genuinely anxious.

But Petyr Baelish was correct, "Chaos is a ladder."

Pre-post Update: Dentist is open, and they'll see me at 3:00. A bit of good news.

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Florida's Growing Vulnerability

10:40 Sunday, 16 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 76.82°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 21.85mph
Words: 162

This is why Florida is too risky for anyone, let alone seniors.

More than a generation of one-party rule has made Florida incapable of self-government. Gerrymandering means that Republicans run in safe districts, and if you're someone who wants to serve in public office, or just has some ego-driven ambition to have a title, then you have to win your race in the primaries.

Which means you have to run to the right of your opponent. Because only the most "motivated" (read "crazy") voters turn out in a primary.

This state can no longer effectively govern itself. The legislature is consumed by conspiracies, culture-wars, and corruption. We over-develop in places where we shouldn't be developing at all. We ignore the real challenges facing the citizens of Florida, and there is no mechanism in place for righting the ship.

Maybe when it suffers genuinely catastrophic statewide losses people will stop being foolish, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

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Morning Gator

10:31 Sunday, 16 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 76.62°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 21.85mph
Words: 23

Can't say I'm really going to miss these guys. I am pretty confident, however, that they will be here long after we're gone.

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Frustration

08:06 Sunday, 16 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 70.03°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 16.11mph
Words: 183

Stupid crown came off again this morning. It was $125 to glue it back on, I guess they'll try again for free? But why would it come off again? I'm hoping this doesn't require another crown. I do pay for the expensive dental plan, which covers more of this type of expense, but still.

Plus, I think this is a live tooth. It's a bit sensitive to cold with the crown off. So I'm also hoping this doesn't require any work on the tooth itself.

But, better to get it all done now, with the dentist who did the original work, than starting with an unknown dentist in New York. FWIW, I think nearly half my teeth are crowns, most with root canals. Poor oral hygiene. Flossing? What's that?

These days I use an ultrasonic toothbrush, floss, a Waterpik, and a rubber-tipped gum thing.

Take a tip from an old man, boys and girls, it's far cheaper (and less painful) to keep your mouth and your teeth clean, than to pay for restorative dentistry.

To say nothing of being far less frustrating.

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Jack's Giving Me GAS

11:13 Saturday, 15 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 73.74°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 20.71mph
Words: 213

Jack bought a new camera. The bastard! Now I have to wrestle with another GAS attack.

I could sell something to kind of offset the price of a new body. Maybe trade the OM-5 in for a used OM1 Mk2 at KEH or MPB. That'd lower the cost significantly, and keep the number of bodies I own down around "absurd" instead of "incomprehensible."

Or the OM1 Mk1, which probably makes more sense.

The E-M1 Mk3 is up at Winterfell, which is largely redundant if we're moving up there later this spring. But it's out of reach as a trade-in or sale. Or the PEN-F, which still retains decent value as a trade-in. Trading the PEN-F for the OM-3; and the OM-1.1 and the E-M1.3 for the OM.2. That sounds like a plan.

I guess it can all wait until we're out of Florida, though KEH is essentially overnight delivery for most things, being just up the road in Georgia. I'm a sucker for instant gratification, which the 2024 Maverick is challenging, waiting for a fix to the backup camera recall.

GAS is a feeling, and feelings pass. Just gotta keep breathing. (Insert something clever here about "passing GAS.")

Anyway... The beat goes on.

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This Morning's Bird 2-15-25

10:25 Saturday, 15 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 73.15°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 17.27mph
Words: 183

Toward the end of my walk, as the clouds rolled in but before it began to rain, a mockingbird and a cardinal flew past my feet on my right side. The cardinal peeled off to the left, and the mockingbird landed in the magnolia just to my right.

I see mockingbirds all the time, they're the most common bird around here, nesting in the trees that line the roads. But this one was so close, and it seemed as though it would sit still for me to try a few shots.

So I reached for the camera slowly and brought it to my eye. Amazingly, it just watched me.

Shot with the OM-5 and the 12-200mm super-zoom at 200mm (400mm effective focal length). It was solidly overcast, so auto-ISO bumped it up to 3200. Probably could have gotten away with 1600, but the noise isn't bad at all, and there's plenty of detail. A bigger version will be on Flickr shortly.

Anyway, started raining just before I got home. Didn't get too wet, and I need to shower anyway.

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PSA: The Gorge

07:54 Saturday, 15 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 62.35°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 0mph
Words: 83

If you subscribe to Apple TV+ and haven't yet watched the featured movie, The Gorge, skip it.

Just insultingly dumb.

On the other hand, having finished The Recruit on Netflix, I cast about looking for something intriguing and found something about "Paradise" on Hulu. I just went to Hulu.com to look for the show and "Disney" wanted me to create a new password.

I've created a new password, and now I can't log in.

God I hate this modern world.

And Disney.

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This Morning's Moon 2-14-25

07:06 Friday, 14 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 56.55°F Pressure: 1029hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 107

No clouds this morning.

Looks like Keven Drum is doing somewhat better, and they have a plan.

Had our session with the personal trainer yesterday afternoon. I'm going to start 3x weekly in March through April and at least part of May. Feeling real progress, and I want to try to accelerate those gains a bit and hope to retain the motivation to train once we get to New York.

I got my crown glued back on yesterday afternoon. Of course, now it feels a little weird. I suppose that'll resolve itself as the other teeth accommodate themselves to the slightly different geometry.

The beat goes on...

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Not Just Me

07:28 Thursday, 13 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 68.7°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 65

If you're that sort of person that watches YouTube videos, here's one that'll cheer you up. Or not.

Probably not. But interesting anyway.

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The Recruit

07:00 Thursday, 13 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 68.4°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 136

I mostly enjoyed watching the two seasons of this Netflix "spy versus spy" series. It's a bit like Slow Horses, humor and drama rolled into an interesting ensemble cast with good performances. If you haven't seen the first season, start with that because the second season picks up right where it left off.

The "willing suspension of disbelief" does some heavy lifting through the whole thing, but you're rewarded with an entertaining diversion.

I cared about nearly all of the characters, even one of the "bad guys," and none of them were boring.

The finale seemed rushed and contrived, which was a bit of a let-down.

Nevertheless, recommended.

(Having an aural migraine, damn near in the center of my field of view. Awesome. I don't get the headache, just the squiggly, crawling ants, neon lines.)

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Dorkest Before the Dawn

06:10 Thursday, 13 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 67.87°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 550

(Not a typo.)

I feel like shit. Not physically, though I can't say I feel "great" either. Left achilles is a mess and I don't know why. I keep stretching it, but it just seems to get worse.

Yesterday, a crown came off as I was eating dinner. I just had a cleaning last week and told the dentist that it was probably the last time I'd be seeing him. That jinxed it. Probably won't be able to see him until next week sometime, if then. He's usually pretty booked.

Take care of your teeth, boys and girls.

But it's more an emotional malady. I don't recognize the world I live in anymore.

It seems that much of our "hope" lies in the belief that Orange overreach will result in a backlash at the polls in '26.

I'm not so sure. I think there's a significant portion of the electorate that is, if not benefiting from this shit-show, is at least wildly entertained by it. "He's getting shit done!"

"Gulf of America, baby!"

They welcome their billionaire heroes smashing federal agencies.

"Yeah! Tear that shit up!"

I'm more certain than ever that it's the right move to get the hell out of Florida, because Florida is hell. If they fuck up FEMA, well, good luck come hurricane season. I just hope we can get our place sold and we're out of here before we get hit.

I guess they'll just want a big federal block grant for the governor and legislature to dole out as they see fit. With no administrative infrastructure to manage that. Who will be the first to the trough? It won't be the poor or the middle class. And by the time the rich are done, there won't be anything but scraps left for the vulnerable.

We are genuinely witnessing the collapse of this civilization. It's not a sudden thing, unless there's a really virulent pandemic, or a nuclear exchange. It's happening now. One Orange administration that disrupts and destroys the norms of government, and lays the judicial foundation for carrying the program forward.

A relatively sane interregnum, where reasonable, rational people try to repair some of the damage and delude themselves that the worst is behind us.

Then a second Orange administration that has learned from the first, accelerates the disruption and destruction. Embraces other authoritarians and chaos agents around the globe.

Pretty soon, chaos becomes "normal." Nobody is shocked by it.

Our capacity to respond to system shocks evaporates. Regional catastrophes grow into larger ones. Economic disruptions spread. Capacity to respond degrades further.

Just a stepwise descent into darkness.

Billions will die.

But there will be local and regional "winners." Warlords and gangsters.

2050, at the outside, we will no longer have a functioning advanced, global civilization.

By 2035 it will be seen for the inevitability that it is, which will spark a frenzy of chaotic activity by a variety of actors seeking to forestall it, or who see profit and opportunity in accelerating it. Recipe for conflict.

Musk ain't getting to Mars. Maybe he lands a ship there, but if there are people on it, they'll die there. There will be no permanent human presence off Earth, except perhaps, for their remains.

Wild card?

AI.

Depends on how much "agency" they achieve.

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Kevin Drum

06:09 Thursday, 13 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 67.87°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 12

One of the few voices of reason. I hope he pulls through.

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Kevin Drum Isn't Feeling Well

06:57 Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.29°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 50

I enjoy his blog and his refreshingly reasonable take on things, usually with the charts and graphs to prove it. He's been dealing with a long-term illness, and its treatment has compromised his immune system.

Please keep him in your thoughts if you have a moment to do so.

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Captain's Log News Entry

06:53 Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.27°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 92

I save News stories in Apple's News application. Sometimes to refer back to them, sometimes as a "read later," thing.

But you can copy a link to the story too, and I pasted one into the URL attribute of a Captain's Log entry. Clicking on the little globe icon opens the story in Apple News. I did this last night for a story on a Benq monitor I may want to use with the M3 MBP when I get rid of this iMac.

Now to figure out a way to automate that.

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Round and Round We Go

06:47 Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.27°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 69

I haven't figured out a way, yet, to automate the export and inclusion of "On This Groundhog Day." Some days I remember to check it and update it, others I don't.

But I did today.

Man, I used to write a lot back then. "Ranting into the void to no discernible effect."

Sadly, many of the links are dead, so the context is often absent. This stuff is ephemeral.

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Litte Frustrations

06:06 Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 63.54°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 229

Before I went to bed last night, I started the MacOS 15.3.1 update and quit all the applications that normally hang updates because they have "unsaved" files. I got up this morning and the update hadn't run because SpamSieve had an alert about a new version in the background and that apparently stopped the restart.

So now the iMac is inaccessible while it does its thing, and I'm writing this on the MBP.

The light in the house said the moon was full. I spotted it through the front door. I grabbed the E-M1X and stepped outside and just as I did, a cloud passed over it.

I put the camera down and went to make some Pepsi Zero with the Soda Stream. Came back to my office and there was the moon. Grabbed the camera and stepped outside and again a cloud passed over it.

Really?

My wife is a member of the Women's Club here, and she's on the Military Outreach committee. They had a program planned for Women's History Month with speakers and guests from the Coast Guard and the Marine Corps. It's been planned for months. Yesterday, both speakers emailed their regrets that they would be unable to attend.

Thank the Orange One.

Looks like Monday fell on a Wednesday this week.

(I'm listening to the iMac's fans sounding like a white noise generator.)

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China Marmot

15:03 Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 68.88°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 384

I received an email that went right to my junk folder, but I look in there from time to time to see if there may be something that requires my attention.

This one was interesting, it came from a "Mike Lee" at netprovider-dot-com-dot-cn. (I don't want anyone to click on that link, so it's not formatted properly. If you're feeling adventurous, knock yourself out.) Apparently, there's a company in China that wants to register nice-marmot-dot-cn, along with nice-marmot-dot-net/com/org-dot cn. Mike wrote:

After checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it's necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

I wrote back and said I had no affiliation with the company.

This morning, I got another email from a Huajian Zhen, and he wrote:

We will register the China domain names (domains mentioned above) and internet keyword "nice-marmot” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr.Mike Lee approval and think these CN domains and internet keyword are very important for our business. Even though Mr.Mike Lee advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.

I replied that it was ok by me, I'm not a business, just a blog. I figured if the TLD ends in .cn it's not going to cause a problem for the tons of traffic I get. If they want to use the name nice-marmot for their business, it's ok by me. I have no idea what an "internet keyword" is.

Now I'm wondering if I'll eventually get a letter telling me that I can't keep nice-marmot.net because it conflicts with some business in China.

I don't know, but I'm not going to worry about it. All this stuff is ephemeral anyway. If I have to register some other woodchuck related domain name, I will. Nice-large-ground-squirrel-dot-net.

Hopefully they won't redirect nice-marmot.net to the same url ending in .cn. They can't do that, right?

Well, either way, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. If I'm not here in the morning, you'll know what happened.

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Me and the OM-3

06:13 Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 58.64°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 1172

OM System (I guess that's the "preferred nomenclature" these days) has publicly announced the OM-3, the first camera model that might be said to have been designed by the new entity that grew out of the remnants of Olympus' camera division. The preceding OM-1 model is thought to have been designed before the sale of the camera division.

Ever since Doc Searls, Dave Weinberger and Rageboy (may his memory be a blessing), burdened the world with the pernicious assertion that "markets are conversations," conflating the social and the commercial and giving primacy to the latter, marketers have relied on the web, specifically "social media," to sell their wares.

These sales reps are called influencers or ambassadors and I have no problem with the individuals who achieve such status, and who leverage their brief turn at semi-celebrity to turn an honest buck. I actually enjoy seeing their experiences, as recorded in 4K video with professional lighting, graded color and stereo sound from the comfort of their in-home studio.

And since the camera isn't actually being sold at the moment (pre-orders only), that's the only way we may glean some insight into what the product is, how it performs, and whether or not it may appeal to us. Well, we can read too. But who has the time?

Anyway, the internet demands a reaction. It's the reaction engine, the rocket, of our age. And every reaction involves an equal and opposite opinion. Newton would be proud. Or aghast.

So, here's mine: I like it.

Two reasons. The first is that it contains many of the internals of the OM-1 Mk2, which I do not, at present, own. (This fact has prompted certain solons to conclude that OM System is a failure, because they're clearly incapable of designing a new camera from scratch.)

The second reason is that I'm a sucker for the design of the body, itself a point of vigorous contention among the camera cognoscenti. "No grip?! Horrible ergonomics! Fail!" (Er, you will probably be able to buy a grip, an L-plate or a half case, but don't let that stop you.)

In choosing to make the OM-3 a product beneath their flagship OM-1, the OM-3 doesn't include every feature of the OM-1. This is also apparently a cause for rejection. The evf is smaller and of lower resolution, and that's a hill many critics wish to die on. There is some overlap with the grip/ergonomics people.

It's possible that the choice of evf may have been determined by size, in order to make the faux-pentaprism "hump" more proportionate to the film SLR that inspired it. I am not an evf-snob. Perhaps more charitably, in the past 15 years, I have never encountered a contemporary camera where the evf (or lack of one) was a significant limitation to achieving my "photographic vision." But evfs are another preference that people are passionate about.

The OM-3 also lacks a second SD-card slot, and its buffer isn't as deep as the OM-1 Mk2.

But I confess that it is the appearance of the OM-3 that most appeals to me.

Back when I was a young ensign, I'd see ads for the Olympus OM-1 on the back cover of Scientific American. I can still recall those ads, and I thought it was such a cool camera. But I could not afford an OM-1.

The OM System OM-3 is inspired by that camera body.

Strangely, when I finally could afford an SLR, I bought a Canon AE-1 Program. Probably because that's what they had at the Navy Exchange. I was never passionate about it, and when I got married my wife had one too and we sold mine or gave it away.

But those ads kind of set the hook for me for Olympus. In 2008, when I decided I wanted a DSLR, I compared the entry level models from Canon, Nikon and Olympus. I had a soft spot in my heart for Olympus and they truly represented the best value for money in terms of features with the E-520, though the Panasonic LiveMOS 10MP sensor wasn't as capable as those found in Canon and Nikon bodies.

I didn't realize it at that moment, but when you buy an interchangeable lens camera, you're really buying a lens mount. And, in addition to the sunk cost of the learning curve, there's the sunk cost of the lenses you acquire. People can and do sell their lenses, I have as well, but they do present a sort of impediment to switching systems, especially if you're happy with their performance.

I'm happy with my Olympus and OM System bodies and lenses. Could OM System have made a body that I wouldn't buy? Sure, they did. The OM-1 Mk2. It's a premium camera, but I didn't think it offered anything that would significantly enhance my experience. If money were never an object, I probably would have bought one, but I'm not that fortunate.

I almost certainly will buy the OM-3, but I'm not pre-ordering one. I'll wait until we get somewhat settled in New York. Between now and then, I need to get the Maverick and there will be unanticipated moving expenses, and probably some expenses related to selling this place.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the OM-3 would compel me to choose between an OM-1 Mk2, probably used, or the OM-3, because the existence of two new models would probably engender a certain FOMO response.

I can see the merit in some of the criticisms of the OM-3, but none of them are what I would consider "deal breakers." And I don't regard the launch of the OM-3 as some kind of tell that OM Systems can't design new cameras. There's a certain segment of the population that loves to engage in a kind of online "deathwatch." We lived through one in the early days of the internet with Apple. Didn't exactly go as predicted.

There are such people that are convinced that OM System is "dead," and therefore won't consider buying one of their products.

One day, OM System will "die." One day, we're all going to be dead. I don't see the attraction in wishing for it, or predicting its imminent occurrence; but it does seem to appeal to many people who feel compelled to share their feelings on the web as justification for rejecting or otherwise criticizing the camera.

Perhaps it's because "markets are conversations," and we've commercialized our social lives to such an extent that some of us can't tell the difference anymore. "Corporations are people," as a certain Republican presidential candidate once said. Our opinions are all just part of our "personal brand." If we're not out there on the web, "marketing our conversations," can we even be said to be truly alive?

Beats me. But something sucks, and it ain't the camera.

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This Versus That

05:49 Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 58.48°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 253

People are passionate about preferences.

JPEG versus RAW. Tabs versus spaces. Markdown versus RTF. Full frame versus crop sensor. Digital versus analog. AppleScript versus Javascript for Automation. Shortcuts versus Automator. Clicky versus silent keyboards.

If there are two ways to do something, well, as the man said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," and we feel as though we must be consistent, or else expend valuable mental energy choosing or deciding which way to do something this time.

And then whenever someone expresses their preference, and lauds its virtues in a public forum, the people of the other persuasion feel criticized or attacked and must publicly defend the clear superiority of their preference.

Another wonderful characteristic of human nature, amplified and exaggerated by the immediacy and interactivity of "the web." We can't just let it go.

It's exhausting.

I'm sure I must have them. I know I prefer to use Olympus or, now, OMDS cameras. Mainly because learning how a camera system works represents a sunk cost, and I'd prefer to leverage that investment rather than buy and sell cameras from different manufacturers because of FOMO, an excess of disposable income, or an abiding insecurity that whatever one owns isn't enough.

I tend to believe that I'm agnostic about most things, and happy to let others embrace whatever preference suits them. It just gets tedious, well, depressing when these insignificant habits of thought become hills to die on.

Has the internet made anything "better"?

Be careful what you wish for...

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Check This Out

07:47 Sunday, 9 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 57.97°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 11

Apple and the Pixar lamp robot.

Better than killer robot dogs.

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Eye Spy

17:28 Saturday, 8 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 73.44°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 71

Went out to get the mail and spotted this guy on my way back in. Grabbed the E-P7, which had the 75mm/1.8 mounted on it and figured I'd give it a shot. Minimum focusing distance is .84m, so I wasn't going to get too close to him, but at 150mm effective focal length and as a very sharp optic, I figured I might not be unhappy.

I wasn't disappointed.

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Overhead 2-7-25

06:23 Saturday, 8 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 56.62°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 0mph
Words: 91

I took the 8mm fisheye to Winterfell, so I used the 9-18mm zoom on the OM-1 for this shot. I'm surprised at the lack of aircraft overhead. Normally, this place is right under a comm air corridor.

Largely unremarkable, except it's interesting (or troubling) that the trails at the far right corner seem to have a reverse curvature. The 9-18mm is rectilinear, and lens corrections are performed in camera. I have two versions of this lens, I may have to try this again sometime with the other one.

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Well, That Worked

05:49 Saturday, 8 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 56.95°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 0mph
Words: 20

Captain's Log performed as intended last night. Always rewarding when something goes right. Feels like a rare event these days.

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Last Night's Moon

11:54 Friday, 7 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 69.01°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 25

Stuck the E-M1X out the door last night before I went to bed. Some artifacts in the lower left side, but pretty decent nevertheless.

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Shelley Covering Court Cases

11:48 Friday, 7 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 69.01°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 45

If you want to curate a custom feed for the current crisis, you would do well to add Shelley Powers who is bird-dogging the court cases filed against DOGE. (A lot of alliteration-adjacent construction in that sentence. "Curate custom current crisis court cases")

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Hot Water

09:37 Friday, 7 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 63.99°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 236

I've been looking into hot water heaters for Winterfell. I'd never considered using a tankless hot water heater before, so I've been most interested in those.

There are a few appealing features, mainly the compact size. We wouldn't want a gas unit, so it would have to be electric. The efficiency gains mainly appear to be due to the fact that you're only heating water on demand. The electric units can't support as much demand as the gas units, but in the little house I don't think that'd be an issue with only one shower.

The major negative seems to be the high current demand, requiring over 100 amps of power and three 40 amp breakers ganged together in the power panel. Yikes! That poses significant challenges with regard to battery storage as well.

We've got a relatively old hot water heater installed presently, which may require replacement in the near future. I think I'm going to go with a hybrid like the one we have now. It may not be as totally efficient as a tankless unit, and it will use more space than a conventional electric hot water heater, which may be a challenge. But it's far less demanding from an instantaneous power standpoint, and far easier to accommodate with a battery.

Plus, the thank will hold water we can use in the event of a power outage when the well pump won't run.

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Further to the Foregoing...

09:12 Friday, 7 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 63.81°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 182

I moved the function fMakeMidwatch to the prototype day container. Hilarity ensued.

Lots of blinking going on. This is an 8-core 3.6GHz i9 iMac with 128GB of RAM, and it's handling this rather trivial task quite ungracefully.

As soon as the light show started, I knew what had happened. There are only 644 notes in this document. (I haven't been making as much use of it as I'd intended. That has changed of late.) And of those, a little more than half are day notes (containers). So Tinderbox had to go through each of those day containers and run the rule. This makes the geriatric i9 cranky.

I added a line of action code to the rule to turn off rules in day containers after it ran fMakeMidwatch.

The blinkies have ceased.

Ideally, the month container will notice the date has rolled over sometime after midnight, it will dutifully create a new day container for the current day. Once that day container is created, it will then check its Rules and run fMakeMidwatch, then turn its Rules off.

We'll know tomorrow.

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A Lot of Ins, A Lot of Outs

07:04 Friday, 7 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 61.92°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 385

After chugging along reliably for almost a year, Captain's Log has begun to trip over its shoelaces. In recent days, I've awoken to an alert box from Automator saying, The action "Run AppleScript" encountered an error: "Can't get attribute "Text" of missing value." (sic on the quotes within quotes).

The script is run as part of an Automator application, which is called in a Tinderbox function, which is called in an OnAdd Action for a day note in the log, which is created by an edict in the month container.

What the error suggests is that the new day's container doesn't exist, and, in fact, it does not. It's not there in the log.

Wherein lies the conundrum.

The function is only called as a result of the OnAdd action. That is, the new day container must be created in order for OnAdd to be triggered. The month container edict creates a new day, which triggers the OnAdd action, which fires the function.

But the function has clearly run, invoking the Automator application, which grabs the next few days' events from my Calendar and places them in the Text of the Midwatch entry of that day's container.

Seriously weird.

I've tested the action code in the Edict in a separate file, and it will create a note with today's date, just as it has for nearly a year.

I've manually created a new day container and run the Automator application from Terminal, just as it's called in the function, and it happily populates the Text of the Midwatch note.

I'm inclined to believe that perhaps Tinderbox is doing too many things at once? It's hard to conceive how exactly. Perhaps OnAdd is being triggered before the Edict has actually completed the Create action that enters the new day's container? The script tries to find the Text of a note that isn't completed, throws an error, and somehow derails the day container's creation?

Beats me.

But, what I can do is move the function from the OnAdd action into a Rule for each day container. I'm guessing that Rules are evaluated after OnAdd, which should ensure the day container note is completed before it tries to create the Midwatch entry.

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if that works.

It is a head-scratcher.

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Further to the Foregoing...

07:42 Thursday, 6 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 60.8°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 92

That's what I get for searching the interwebs and IMDB before being adequately caffeinated in the morning.

The movie I clicked on was MIB^3 (superscript 3), which I failed to notice. It explains why I didn't find the quote I was looking for. Since I was just using the in-page search function in Safari, I didn't actually read any of the quotes, or I'd have noticed something was amiss.

Anyway, the relevant quotation is: "A person is smart. People are dumb."

I guess a person can be dumb sometimes too.

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Deterministic

05:36 Thursday, 6 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 60.94°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 0mph
Words: 543

I had to ask ChatGPT to help me remember the word "deterministic." Every time I can't recall a name or a word, I worry I'm beginning to show signs of dementia. Sucks getting old.

I'm disappointed that I didn't seem to learn about Dietrich Bonhoeffer until only recently. I do seem to recall passing mentions of him in books I'd read recently about Germany under the Nazis, and that he'd been executed in prison just before the end of the war.

Anyway, I have his bio in the queue, if I can muster the courage to read it, and I'm currently grazing on Letters and Papers From Prison. The opening essay is entitled After Ten Years, A Reckoning made at New Year 1943. If you can find that somewhere, probably worth reading, though it won't inspire much in the way of optimism.

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity," is taken from a section of that essay, although it's called "folly" in the book I have. You can find a pdf of that section here. I'm inclined to prefer the word "folly" as it lacks the pejorative valence (As in "charge." Then why not use "charge"? Because I like "valence." You're not my supervisor, or my editor!) of "stupidity."

Quoting Agent K in the movie, Men In Black, which, disappointingly, doesn't seem to appear in the Quotes page at IMDB, "A person is smart. People are dumb." (Maybe "stupid.") This seems to suggest, as one should always think deeply on the dialogue in motion pictures, that "stupidity" or "folly" is an emergent property, whenever people interact in large numbers.

I think this is correct. It's what I was referring to when I wrote:

Shit happens. Shit is an emergent property of complex, non-linear social systems. It's inherently chaotic. You think you understand what the boundaries of the phase-space are, and the system teaches you otherwise.

Where by "shit," I mean the unwanted, negative, destructive actions and behaviors of individuals acting as agents within a complex, non-linear dynamic system. Basically, anyone working for Elon Musk these days.

Which is why there is little you can do about it. Bonhoeffer writes of "liberation," an external act that "frees" the "fools" from the spell they're under. That's usually a catastrophe. Sometimes referred to by the technical term, "fuck around and find out."

"Stupidity," or "folly" ("shit") is an emergent phenomenon in groups.

Foolish or stupid behavior by an individual is a contingent phenomenon.

Contingent on many things, culture, education, conditioning, trauma, fatigue, diet, anxiety, state of intoxication, many things. But the point is that we are not the "masters of our fate, the captain's of our souls" we flatter ourselves to be. Please see the Milgram experiment. Also the present behavior of all the government employees who are allowing Musk and his script-kiddies to do as they please.

Bonhoeffer has much to say about such people, but that's for another post.

All of which is to say, it's not deterministic. The word I was searching for this morning, and alarmed that I could not recall at my command, and mostly prompted this post.

Anyway... We are in a shit-storm. Seek shelter. Damage assessments can wait until after it passes. They will be heart-breaking.

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Off The Wall

17:37 Wednesday, 5 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 71.73°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 142

I have a photo of the property survey of Winterfell, and I have an overhead shot from my DJI mini. I wanted to overlay the photo over the survey, and make the photo semi-transparent.

I have a Freeform document open for the move up north, and I tried doing it in that. You can overlay images, but you can't adjust the opacity of the image overlay. Seems like kind of an obvious feature.

I'll spare you all the dumb ways (far too complicated) I tried to accomplish the same thing, and instead give you the simple and easy answer: Pages.

I was able to rotate and scale the image to align with the features in the survey. It's not ideal, but it looks close enough.

I want to get a better digital scan of the survey, but that'll have to wait.

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Category Six Shit-Storm

11:52 Wednesday, 5 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 76.14°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 157

The day after the Orange One was inaugurated, I posted about the shit that was about to hit the fan. We're only entering the third week of this reign of error. We've got about 205 more to go!

Well, the point of that post was that it doesn't do much good to complain fecklessly (Is that redundant? Probably.) on your blog or in your social media posts. You're not changing any minds. Old posts by Doc Searls (that I was unable to locate, his archives don't go back that far) notwithstanding.

So, what I did this morning was email my congressman and my two senators and asked them why an unaccountable tech billionaire and his civilian employees were being given unfettered access to federal systems and assets? And altering the code!

Probably doesn't help either, but it's better than just bitching about it online.

Maybe if everyone emailed their senators and representatives, it might get their attention.

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Just Another Maverick Monday

10:09 Tuesday, 4 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.76°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 163

The Maverick Monday YouTube channel suggested that Ford may have a fix for the back-up camera recall this week. That would be cool.

The chaos and uncertainty that surrounds the Orange One's reign of error makes me a little nervous about closing this deal. I think I have a deal, since I put a $500 deposit down and agreed on a price. But imagine you're a dealer and you've got some 2024 inventory that now represents a bargain if tariffs on Mexico go into effect. You could sell them above sticker and still have them be far more affordable than 2025s coming from the factory. They'd sell.

And who eats that 25% tariff for people who've already ordered their vehicles? The manufacturer? The dealer? If they try to pass it on to the customer, I guess they'll just be walking away from those orders, which again makes the 2024 inventory more attractive.

Anyway, I don't want to think about it too much.

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Party Wrap-up

09:52 Tuesday, 4 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.36°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 254

Our little Groundhog Day get-together went very well. The prizes were a hit, though the small number of guests made for some interesting results. One couple drew one each of the stuffed animals. My neighbor who won the DVD doesn't have a Blu-Ray (or any) DVD player! I told him he could re-gift it.

A lot of leftover beer that I don't wish to consume. Mitzi's put it in the garage, so "out of sight, out of mind" and all that. Plus, it'll be warm. I'll probably walk it over to my neighbor across the street.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I certainly enjoyed myself. One of the guests was an old friend from back in the day when I hosted the original parties. It was nice to have her kind of verify some of the stories.

Some clever asshole put up a very well-produced AI video of a supposed Groundhog Day sequel on YouTube. I was kind of taken in until I read the comments. I'm rather surprised that hasn't received at take-down notice. I've been noticing more and more of these bullshit AI produced videos. I expect that YouTube will be largely unusable in a year or so. AI-enhanced enshittification.

In a 2025 version of the movie, the character trapped in the time-loop would become an "influencer," predicting events that would happen that day and enjoy some amount of world-wide fame, going "viral" on the social media platforms.

It would suck.

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A Sidebar

09:06 Tuesday, 4 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 61.81°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 19

Maintenance morning, fixing the export of the sidebar. Lots of extraneous html paragraph tags. Let's see if this works...

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Now It's a Party

10:12 Sunday, 2 February 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 63.36°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 81% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 160

We're hosting a little open house today, in honor of Groundhog Day. These are the door prizes.

It's something I did starting about 18 years ago. It ran for about five years, until it got so large that we had to move it to the condo clubhouse and I had no idea who the majority of the people were who attending. "Too much of a good thing," and all that.

Anyway, we're having some friends over. We're going to print some business cards up with quotes from the movie on them, like "Don't drive angry. Don't drive angry!" (That was one of Groundhog Day's taglines for a while.) And we'll put one of the gifts on some of the cards. Guests will draw a card, read a quote and maybe win a prize. There's a Blu-Ray copy of the movie in the prizes as well. About a third of the guests will win a prize.

"Too early for flapjacks?"

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A Couple More Niggles

09:06 Sunday, 2 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 58.21°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 26

Mostly working. I need to add some stuff to the Groundhog Day page for navigation and so on. But for now I need to make breakfast...

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Blast From the Past

08:38 Sunday, 2 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 54.72°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 113

If all goes according to plan, there will be a page in the sidebar called On This Groundhog Day, which will be all the posts written on this date in the five years or so Groundhog Day existed.

I'm sorry to say that many of the links in the posts will be dead, and so much of the context will be missing. But it might be worthwhile to drop in now and then to see what the topics du jour were almost two decades ago.

I'm going to post this, and then see how it all turned out. May be a hiccup or two, but I think I have most of it sorted.

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Nuts

08:49 Saturday, 1 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 59.07°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 92

So a quick glance at March 2024 shows a similar, perhaps identical, problem. It seems to resolve itself about March 10, so I won't have to fix every post in March.

I fixed an export glitch at On This Day, though there is one remaining that is a head-scratcher. All the paragraph breaks are missing in the first few posts from way back when. I noticed the same thing in the Groundhog Day Tinderbox file when I tried to preview an On This Day agent in that file.

It's a mystery...

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Oy!

08:07 Saturday, 1 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 55.24°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 242

That little "nice to have" feature I added yesterday alerted me to a significant glitch in the Tinderbox file that is the marmot.

One of the "On This Day" posts for today was a photo post, with the date of the shot in the title, and it wasn't February 1st, 2024!

Investigation revealed that all of the posts in the February 2024 container had had their publication dates moved back in time about 10 days and 20 hours. I was fixing things, so I wasn't making notes, but I have the impression that some of them were a day or so off from that 10 day interval, but most of them were about 10 or 11 days off.

The good news was that the glitch had occurred sometime after I'd closed out the month, and ticked the "do not export" checkbox. So the html file here at the site still had all the correct publication dates and times.

Now I need to investigate and see if the problem was limited to February. Why would it? But I almost don't want to know.

If it's not, I'll investigate more closely and see if the time shift is consistent for all the posts. If that's the case, I can create a stamp that'll run some action code and shift the time forward. I hand-edited all the publicationDate attributes in February 2024, and I posted a lot! Hence, the "Oy!"

The beat goes on...

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