Still Here!

14:45 Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Words: 523

Hey! I'm still here. Distracted by a number of things, but still committed to Nice Marmot.

I've begun my fith week of the Fast Diet, yesterday being a fast day. I'm down to 195 pounds, which is a five pound loss. Week three and week four were somewhat more challenging than the first two weeks. I've been eating small meals according to the plan, and I've focused on eating just one meal about mid-day, if I feel as though I have to.

The problem isn't "hunger," per se. It's more like "obsessing," which suggests a large part of my eating is simply habituated behavior. Yesterday was a fast day following a half marathon the day before. My partner has shin splints, so we ended up simply walking the whole course. I never eat the morning of a race, and I didn't eat ravenously following it, though I did indulge in a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

Monday morning I woke up and didn't experience any real appetite until shortly after noon. Rather than prepare one of the small meals, I simply had two hard-boiled eggs, and a small handful of almonds, probably no more than 300 calories for the whole thing. The rest of the day seemed easier than the preceding fast days, so perhaps some adaptation is taking place.

One fairly consistent experience is the transition from fasting to eating, wherein the first introduction of carbohydrate is accompanied by some discomfort. Not pain, more like that kind of weak feeling you get when you think you've got low blood sugar. I'll discuss that with my physician at my upcoming physical. If I stay strictly with protein/fat, there's no issue. And once I've had some carbs and get through that transition, I'm okay. But the transition is weird, and I do get cross and impatient.

One of the things I did last Thursday, while trying to distract myself from obsessing about food, was to watch The Bitter Truth on YouTube. We can discuss the wisdom of watching a 90 minute lecture about the evils of sugar while trying not to think about food some other time; but I think it was a very useful and informative lecture. He's done an updated version, Fat Chance: Fructose 2.0, that's somewhat more nuanced in its approach, which complements the original lecture with some overlap in material. Chiefly, the big take-away I got was to eat natural foods, high in fiber, and reduce or eliminate refined sugars, especially fructose. I think the solution to my transition from fasting to eating will involve using fruit during the transition, instead of toast, crackers, protein powders with sugar, and such. But I recommend watching the lecture, it's well worth your time.

While the videos are worth your attention, don't bother reading the comments. The signal to noise ratio is nearly zero. That's a total waste of time. You can watch YouTube videos without sharing your identity with Google, you just can't comment on them, which is a benefit.

So, feeling good! Losing weight. Working on better food choices. Life goes on!

Hope all is well with you.

Some Thoughts on Photography, Aperture Libraries and Photo Stream

16:25 Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Words: 1868

For a long time I subscribed to the notion that I wasn't a photographer, I was just a guy who liked to take pictures. Looking now at how many cameras and lenses I have, and how many images, I guess I should say I'm a bit of an amateur photographer. Either way, I love photography, and like anything you love, there are challenges.

For better or worse, information technology is now intimately wedded to the experience of photography. We don't print many images anymore, sharing is done mostly over digital networks. The advent of digital photography has made the art of photographic expression extremely democratic, which is to say, very inexpensive. No longer do we have to shell out $24.00 for a roll of 36 prints. As a result, those of us who like to take pictures take far more than ever before.

For a long time, I didn't really edit my image collection. I'd shoot, import to iPhoto, and now Aperture, and there they'd stay. I'd share some on social media sites, burn DVDs for friends who wanted copies, make a few prints, or print the occasional book for a special occasion; but every single shutter click was stored in my, ever-growing, photo library.

Apple offers Photo Stream as one of the features of iCloud, and at first it was ideal. I'd import my pictures into Aperture on my MacBook Pro Retina, and they'd automatically be uploaded to iCloud as part of Photo Stream, and Aperture on my iMac would import them, full size, RAW images and all. Everything stayed in sync. I loved it.

Then I started to bump up against the physical limits of my local storage; ever since, I've been kind of floundering around looking for a solution.

Part of the solution has been to become more disciplined as a photographer. While the costs are different between digital and print or slide photography, digital photography definitely has its own costs. Because of the nature of the medium, the two chief costs are time and storage space.

Time, because every image will require some type of interaction at every stage. From the initial capture, to its ultimate disposition. They are, in the main, small amounts of time, but if you're indiscriminately acquiring large numbers of images, they begin to add up. The same is true for storage. While the cost of storage continues to decline, and density increase, moving to larger capacity devices involves an acquisition cost, and organization and management costs, chiefly time.

So, the fewer images one takes, the easier it is to keep those costs down.

After going through my libraries and beginning to delete obvious clinkers, and noting the sheer numbers of them, I now find myself seriously considering each shutter click. Before, I embraced a kind of "spray and pray" approach to focus and composition. Certainly one of the captures would be worth keeping and sharing. But, over time, that imposes an unexpected, though entirely foreseeable, burden. Curating my current collection is an ongoing effort, but I'm now trying to reduce my workload by more deliberately considering each shot.

Even then, not every shot is worth keeping. Trying to review each shot on the camera's tiny three-inch LCD is difficult, so they have to get imported to the computer for a proper review. My preference would be to import them directly into Aperture, and then go through the shots and simply delete the ones I don't think are worth keeping.

The problem with that approach is that, if you have iCloud enabled, Photo Stream will begin uploading all the shots to iCloud immediately. This has the desirable effect of ensuring both my Aperture libraries are in sync, and all my most recent 1000 images are available on all my devices, but it doubles the workload of reviewing and deleting the images that aren't worth keeping. I can take the computer offline entirely, while leaving iCloud enabled, then do all the review and deletions; and I've tried it, but it's inconvenient so I haven't embraced it. Parenthetically, although I don't want to swear to this because I didn't specifically investigate this behavior and take notes, but I believe you have to be sure to empty Aperture's Trash folder before going back online, or all the images from the most recent imports since the last time iCloud was online will be moved to iCloud regardless of their location within the library.

My current approach is not to enable iCloud in Aperture on the MBP. I import the images directly into Aperture, delete the images I don't like, then export the keepers to a folder in Dropbox. Because there's a local folder for Dropbox, the export is nearly instantaneous in terms of tying up Aperture, and I can begin editing images, or sharing them from Aperture.

Later, I'll slide over to the iMac and import the images from the Dropbox folder into Aperture. After import, I delete the images from Dropbox. Aperture on the iMac has iCloud enabled, so those images will appear in my Photo Stream on my iPad, iPhone and iPod, which is a feature I enjoy. I can also then enable privately shared Photo Streams for family events, or public ones for more general consumption. This way, both Aperture libraries remain relatively in sync. At present, the two libraries aren't identical because I've been going through deleting images on both libraries, but not in any sort of systematic way, so there are differences.

I've also altered my approach to storage. When I bought my 13" MBP Retina, I got it with the largest SSD available, 750GB. I wanted to have room for all my media libraries and my images. Even then, that wasn't very possible, given the size of my uncurated Aperture library, which previously resided on a 1TB conventional HD. My solution was to split the library by date, exporting all images taken before 1 January 2011 to a separate Aperture library on an external HD, leaving only the most recent three years in internal storage. Funny, but I've taken more images in the last three years than in the preceding eight, so it wasn't much of a savings.

So, most recently, I've acquired a 750GB Thunderbolt SSD. It's a Seagate Thunderbolt adapter with a naked Samsung 750GB SSD slotted into it. There are some gift cards and a bit of cardboard supporting the back end of the drive on the sled. I've re-merged the Aperture libraries into one single library residing on the SSD. This library has over sixty-six thousand images, but the Thunderbolt SSD is fast enough that scrolling through the library is little different than the experience using the internal SSD. For a variety of reasons, most having to do with my previous efforts to slim down libraries by exporting different types of images and then having to re-import them, there are likely thousands of dupes. I'll be looking into a utility to identify and delete them, but it's not urgent at the moment.

Eventually, I'll create a much smaller Aperture library for the internal drive, that will include family photos, and pictures I consider my best work or have some other sentimental value to me. That will still leave me with a very large amount of free space for other uses. When I choose to travel, I can take the MBP with me and have room to import projects into a new library for that purpose, then simply export them to the main library when I return.

As for the iMac, my current model lacks a Thunderbolt interface, so for now the best performance is obtained from using the internal HD as local storage for the Aperture library. I've moved my iTunes library, music, movies and TV shows, to an external 500GB Firewire 800 drive, which should be more than adequate for that purpose. Since the iMac is manifestly not mobile, it doesn't matter to me that my media library is not integral to the device itself.

Some months from now, when I have the money, I'll open the iMac up and install two SSDs. One as the main boot disk, the other for Aperture. My iMac has 16GB of RAM installed, while my MBP only has 8GB. In their current configurations, there's very little performance difference that I can perceive between the two machines. The iMac has a dedicated GPU and more RAM, the MBP has an SSD and a faster, more advanced processor. I love both machines, and very seldom encounter any performance issues where I'm waiting on the machine. The exception being network operations when the iMac was importing large numbers of images from iCloud. That sync operation takes place in the background on Dropbox, so I'm doing a local import from Dropbox and so I don't even experience that latency.

Both machines are backed up by Time Machine. I have to look into how Time Machine treats an Aperture library stored on an external drive, but I know all my images are backed up on the iMac's Time Machine volume. I will also be looking into slowly uploading large numbers of images to my Flickr and SmugMug accounts, as well as iCloud. I'm fairly confident that I'm well protected in most respects.

In the course of this effort, I've tried using Image Capture to import my images to an external USB 3.0 HD, then reviewing the images in Finder using Quick Look. This works fairly well. I would use Finder to tag the images I wanted to import to Aperture and then do so from Aperture. Part of my thinking was that I would then be able to, once again, keep all the images I took and have them available. But it was an extra step to import them again into Aperture, and really, what was I going to do with all those images? I suppose it was another type of backup, but it was also another drive hanging off my laptop. (The 27" Thunderbolt Display does not have a USB 3.0 hub installed.) I liked the fact that I could instantly Tweet an image directly from Finder, or forward it to someone in iMessage, and I hope to see those abilities come to Aperture natively in a forthcoming revision. I may look into creating a Service that allows me to Tweet and iMessage images from Aperture.

If Get Info in Finder could be modified to include most of the relevant EXIF data from a photo, Finder itself would be a pretty decent photo management application. If you click the More Info disclosure triangle in Get Info for an image in Finder, you get some of the EXIF data, like focal length, and F number, along with some other, perhaps less useful items, but it also needs shutter speed and ISO, which aren't displayed.

Anyway, all labors of love impose challenges. And the ease and speed of digital processing creates opportunities for other forms of time-wasting, so one has to be careful. I remember that sign I read as a young lieutenant, "With my personal computer I can now do things much faster that I never had to do at all before."

You've been warned.

Little Blue Heron

13:21 Saturday, 25 February 2023

Current Wx: Temp: 66.38°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 65% Wind: 13.8mph
Words: 44

Crossed the street to walk on the multi-purpose path since the landscapers were edging the sidewalk. (Noise and smell.) So it was easy to spot this little blue heron.

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On the Big Screen

07:18 Sunday, 25 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 46.8°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 780

The navy operates a lot of complicated, expensive machinery. If you don't do it right, things can break or people can get hurt. I think the idea originated in Rickover's nuclear power program. They came up with an "operational sequencing system" to bring a reactor online and operate it safely.

It was later used in conventional engineering plants with 1200 psi steam, which can kill you pretty dead. It was personnel safety that drove the adoption in the conventional (fossil fuel) surface navy. It was later adopted for combat systems, as they became more integrated and automated. The intent is to ensure that everything that needs to be done is done in the proper order. It's part of the navy's culture now.

So I exercised MOSS this morning, the "marmot operational sequencing system." Sounds complicated, but it's not really. It's necessary, I think, to keep iCloud from screwing me up.

I turned on "Close windows when quitting an application" in the Windows pane of the Desktop and Dock Settings of System Settings. I trust this informs iCloud that a document isn't currently open in an app anywhere (if you do this on all machines logged into iCloud), so it should be in a "closed" state (probably not the correct technical term) in iCloud Documents.

I believe that setting should also have the effect of not having an app open all the windows that were open when it was last quit, since they all should have been closed. But I'm not sure about that, so that's another risk I address in this sequence.

So I quit Tinderbox, Automator, Script Debugger and Whisk on the MBP, which closed all their windows.

Over here on the iMac, I didn't launch Tinderbox from the Dock, where it has a permanent presence. Instead, I double-clicked the marmot from the Documents folder in iCloud. Presumably, this downloaded the latest version, which had been closed on the MBP.

It was interesting, because the "Date Modified" time in Finder was "Today 00:34," and I'd been in bed for more than a couple of hours by then, and the MBP was closed and presumably sleeping too.

And now here I am, on the big screen.

I think what used to happen, before I was this careful, was that I'd quit Tinderbox on either the iMac of the MBP, thinking that I couldn't have the marmot open on two different instances of Tinderbox on two different machines without iCloud getting confused.

But since I didn't "Close all windows when quitting applications," I'd launch Tinderbox on whichever machine I was switching to, and it'd load a locally stored version. (All versions are only stored locally.) That version would be out of sync with the iCloud document, but since the document contains code that runs in Tinderbox, as soon as it launches, it updates the "Modified" state with a later time than the one in iCloud, that becomes the canonical version that iCloud happily uses to replace the one in iCloud, and data is lost and no "version" or Time Machine backup is going to restore it.

I don't know what would happen if I didn't "Close all windows when quitting" and then double-clicked on an iCloud document causing Tinderbox to launch, and it tried to re-open all the windows (documents) that were open when it last quit. Would the user be alerted to a conflict? I'm not going to try and find out.

I have no idea if that's what actually happens, it's just a guess. I can't imagine that apps on launch query iCloud to see if the modified date of a locally stored version is earlier than the modified date in iCloud and download the latest version. I don't think iCloud sends a signal to a launching app that, "New shit has come to light, man," in the parlance of our times. (It makes sense if you're an Urban Achiever.)

But I think this will allow me to switch between machines without losing data. I have recreated posts from the html export data before, but that's a bit of a pain. I know I let a couple of posts just disappear a few times,"deathless prose" notwithstanding.

Anyway, it's nice to be back on the big screen. I can blog without my glasses on the iMac. The screen is too far away on the MBP, especially in the recliner! But it's nice to know I could take the marmot outside if I wanted to, or take it on the road, without having to futz with the thumb drive. That poses its own issues, copying files back and forth, not losing the little thumb drive, etc.

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The "Back Fence" Web

08:12 Sunday, 25 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 49.32°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 349

This morning I saw a little alert that I'd been "mentioned" on Mastodon. I checked, and Phil Nunnally had "tooted" (it still feels weird, hence the scare quotes) "That was a fun meetup today!" with a link to his blog.

I think this illustrates one of the differences, and advantages, of "traditional" blogs versus the social media silos. I replied on Mastodon, but it was just to acknowledge that I'd seen the toot, and subscribed to his RSS feed. The real reply is here, where I have some time and a different environment, and different cues to compose it.

In composing this post, the image of the human "energy farms" from The Matrix came to mind. That's kind of how I regard social media companies. And the "matrix" is the "content" of social media apps:

It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

The "content" that we keep making, to keep getting likes, to keep us coming back. "Reality" is a hall of mirrors, funhouse mirrors at that.

There is no urgency to blogging. There can be a rhythm, a pace, and it can vary and often does. But if it feels "urgent," take a breath. Feelings pass.

The message may be urgent. Or not. Doesn't have to be urgent. Could just be a "cheese sandwich" post. But the point is, in general, I'm writing here from a place where I'm less reactive. Where I'm not looking for a reward, I'm looking to "see what I think," and share that.

And I'm not making anybody any money doing so. The only people whose paychecks may in some insignificant way depend on the marmot is the hosting company and Mark Bernstein. There is no financial dimension to this "conversation," because it's not a market. It's my backyard. And Phil's in his backyard, and we're just yakking over the fence.

We don't have to stay in the claustrophobic silos of endless provocation and outrage and churn to serve the interests and ideologies of the billionaire class.

We can return to the shire.

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Swallow-tail Kite

13:22 Sunday, 25 February 2024

Current Wx: Temp: 69.21°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 216

Whelp, I guess I should learn to just go with my first instinct.

I thought about bringing the 40-150mm/2.8 Pro with the MC14 teleconverter mounted, which would have given me a 56-210mm/f4 (112-420mm efl), which would have been useful for birds. I'd seen a few yesterday with the 14-150mm/f4-5.6 and it's not ideal for birds.

Well, it was getting cloudy and I thought I might have better luck with something as a landscape composition. Dumb move.

As I got toward the end of my street I heard some birds calling that sounded vaguely like ospreys, but not same as an osprey. It wasn't a "chittering" call either, which might have been bald eagles. I finally saw them above the trees and they were swallow-tailed kites!

I think I've only seen them twice before around here, and then just a single bird. Here were three or four! And all I've got is the 14-150! The 100-400mm zoom would have been best, but I don't do my morning walk lugging that thing around.

So, "The best camera is the one you have with you," rules applied and I did the best I could.

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Rabbit Holes

13:50 Sunday, 25 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 71.24°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 955

One of the things that came up in the Tinderbox Forum discussion on using AppleScript with Tinderbox and Mail, was getting a rich text formatted link into the text of a note.

If you used AppleScript to get the URL for an email and placed it on the clipboard, it appeared in UnClutter, my clipboard manager, as clickable link. That is, click on it and it opened that email. But if you then pasted that same link into the $Text of a Tinderbox note, it was just text, not a clickable link.

It turns out that if you enter a space after that text, Tinderbox would automatically make it a link. It just needed something like a prompt.

It became irrelevant for my purposes, because it was also easy to use AppleScript to populate a URL attribute in a log entry, and that is, by design, clickable. And it kept the raw link out of the text as well.

One of the most experienced Tinderbox and AppleScript users posted an AppleScript that would get the email URI and then run a terminal command to convert it into rich text format with the subject of the email being the clickable text, and place the result onto the clipboard.

While that wasn't required for my purpose, I tried it out to get some more experience with AppleScript and the Terminal. Well, the only thing that appeared on the clipboard on my machine was the text of the subject line.

Thinking I may have omitted something obvious, I rather foolishly asked if that were the case. The answer was "No," but then I got a six paragraph commentary about using third party apps to do things that MacOS is perfectly capable of doing itself. Example:

Those can provide benefits in some situations, and can be fun to play around with. But when I’m trying to think and get work done, as opposed to play with the process, I’ve found they can be more trouble than they’re worth.

I didn't want to get into it with the guy in the forum, I'm certain he intended to be helpful, but I could have done without the commentary.

There's a certain personal attraction to various types of "purity." In my case, in the matter of blogging, it's the use of static html on a server at a URL that I have some control over, as opposed to some of the other approaches to blogging where your "content" is served up "dynamically," and woe be unto you if you don't keep up with the security updates.

Some people fetishize "plain text." A "note" can only be a plain text file, and then you use the file management and automation facilities of the OS to organize those files into whatever structure you feel best supports your needs.

There's nothing really wrong with that, except I think it gets a little tedious sometimes, proselytizing about it. I suppose when you have the "floor" in a "forum," and a great example of the superiority of your view is made manifest by the preceding question, well, it's an opportunity that is simply too hard to pass up. They can't help themselves.

Anyway, I'm fortunate in that I'm not trying to "get work done," because I'm retired. And I suppose my thinking is impaired by any number of personal flaws and failings, the least of which is perhaps my affinity for third party apps.

It did cause me to dive down a rabbit hole, trying to understand what was going on with my clipboard. I ran the terminal command in Terminal, minus the part about putting it on the clipboard, typing in the values of what had been variables in the AppleScript. The output was a lengthy bit of text that I took to be rtf markup. When I ran the command again, this time with the clipboard bit, what seemed to appear on the clipboard in UnClutter was just the subject of the email, as before.

Then I went for my walk.

I really don't know why it doesn't appear as an rtf link on the clipboard in UnClutter. I'm not sure it matters, as the amount of stuff I "don't know" about Unix and AppleScript and terminal commands could fill volumes. I'm usually content to know how to do something without really understanding why it works. This limitation is exposed when something doesn't work, despite employing the seemingly correct "how."

Sometimes I pursue it, as with Tinderbox. Other times, well, life is too short.

When you ask for help, I guess you can't be too particular about how it's delivered.

As for third party apps, there are a ton of clipboard managers. There's one built into LaunchBar, a third party app that I use that could probably be replaced by Spotlight and AppleScript and Terminal. I suppose I could read about the clipboard manager in LaunchBar and get rid of UnClutter. I don't use the Files portion that much, and the Notepad is really just where I stash a bit of text I may want to use later that might scroll off the clipboard history.

But a clipboard manager of some kind is invaluable to me. I can copy a bit of text from a web site that I intend to quote in a blog post, then copy the URL, all in Safari, switch to Tinderbox and write my blog post, switching to whichever bit of text I need in the clipboard manager. No need to switch back and forth between Safari and Tinderbox. (Yes, I know CTRL-Tab makes that trivial.)

I suppose someone could point out to me that there's a clipboard manager built into Mac OS, I just don't know about it.

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Still diggin'

18:24 Sunday, 25 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.07°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 791

One of Dave Winer's favorite mottos. Since this blog's mascot is a large ground squirrel, and I spend a lot of time running down rabbit holes, I figured it was appropriate.

I spent some time reading about LaunchBar and its clipboard manager. Not because I care about rtf links on the clipboard, but because I have two utility apps that do the same thing, only LaunchBar does a lot more. So I've quit UnClutter and I'm going to try using LaunchBar as the clipboard manager.

I got an email today from my healthcare provider saying I had an overdue balance of $39. I'd called about that bill when I first received it, and the rep I spoke to said she thought it was a coding error and she was going to "send it back to coding."

I didn't have the log then, so I only have a vague recollection of when this call took place. I know it was after the date of service, naturally. So I called today, immediately after I got the email. I "logged it," and made the call while I was still in the note. Shelby was my rep this time, because I asked for her name and wrote it in the log entry, told me that the charge had been resolved yesterday and just cleared from my account this morning, but I got the email at 11:10. Anyway, I checked my account in the portal and it does appear that I have a zero balance. But if it comes up again, at least I'll have a better idea of the history!

Yesterday I got a call from a neurological diagnostics provider, I'm to have a nerve conduction test or something. I was supposed to have it before my neurology follow-up (my toes are numb - probably muscular-skeletal) later this month, but they don't have any openings until May. So I booked the May appointment and noted in the log that I had to contact my provider to reschedule the follow-up.

After speaking with billing, I called the neurology people and rescheduled the appointment. Logged it. I'd entered the appointment in Calendar while I was on the phone, because I had to check for conflicts.

In reading about LaunchBar's clipboard manager, I also read about its facility with scheduling appointments. That seemed like something that might be worth learning.

I've mentioned before that I'm a pretty regular blood donor here, and I received an email that the bloodmobile will be here a week from Tuesday. I don't need the car for that, and I know I'm not doing anything on the 19th, so I logged it, clicked on link to go to the web site to book the reservation. Then I tried that fancy LaunchBar action to add it to Calendar. Worked pretty well after I consulted the manual again.

Anyway, I'm diggin' the log. I think it's going to make things a lot simpler for me. I've entered some "old" information from past emails that I've been kind of tracking "mentally." Now I don't have to worry about that.

I got an email yesterday from the president of the North Florida Land Trust, but it was one of those blasts to the membership. As it happened, he wrote about the annual meeting I mentioned the other day:

As with any meeting, I played ‘the tape’ back in my head and realized that I perhaps did not articulate the three things that we need going forward in as simple a way as is my typical style. So, let me try as a follow-up. We need three things: money, members, and land.

...

So, we aren’t quite as flush as we seem.

My, what a coincidence. Especially since a sentence in my email criticizing their presentation was, "It also isn't clear to me, at all, why you would ever need any money from me if the state has made NFLT so flush with cash."

Anyway, logged it.

Now I've blogged it.

Some lingering antipathy to that whole situation made me go to the Matanzas Riverkeeper merch page today and buy a new ball cap, a shirt and that "buff" thing. They're a small organization, they deserve more support, and I wanted a new hat. I wanted the tan shirt, but they didn't have it in my size. They had something I'd never seen before at check-out, "Track with Apple Wallet." I selected it, but nothing has appeared in my wallet. Maybe I'll get an email receipt with a link or something.

Speaking of coincidences, ("There are no coincidences."), in that March 2023 archive is a post called The Marmot Goes Down Rabbit Holes.

What can I say? Spring is in the air or something.

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Overthinking

19:23 Sunday, 25 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.03°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 241

I'd added the idea of creating a Midwatch entry to each new day's entry in the log. Worked on it today. At first I thought I'd have to check the time, etc. Did a bunch of reading at aTbRef about date and time comparisons.

Finally the lightbulb went off. Who cares?

Wrote a simple Edict in the p_Day prototype,

$MyString="Midwatch";

create($MyString);

Once it's "created," it won't do it again. One and done. Keep it simple, dumbass!

Then I recalled I wanted to create a change log to document how it's been evolving. So I logged that idea.

Then I solved it by deciding I'd just enter "Change:" (with the colon) in the $Title of entries documenting changes to the log.

An Agent can gather all those as a separate "Change Log."

So then I entered, "Change: Added Edict to p_Day to create note Midwatch". Put the code for the Edict in the text.

Tomorrow I'll work on something for it to do, but it already has one nice use. With the first entry already created, if I'm going to create a manual entry all I have to do is hit Return. If there is no first child in the Day container, I either have to remember to hit Shift-Return to create a child, or make the entry and then hit Tab to make it a child. The scripts will create a child in the container automatically.

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Nothing But Pure Grass-Fed Organic Intelligence

09:21 Wednesday, 25 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 28.65°F Pressure: 1001hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 11.7mph
Words: 387

While I am definitely intrigued by the possible use of AI in augmenting my use of Tinderbox, none of the words I'll ever put up here as a post will be generated by an LLM, except insofar as I may quote one, and that'll be clearly indicated.

In other news, I did not watch the propaganda rally last night. I had no wish to see that lumbering, fleshy, artificially colored, carnival barker bloviating and prevaricating before an audience of obsequious, spineless, lickspittle sycophants applauding division and baseless derision.

I had better things to do with my time.

I finished my re-watch of Paradise season one, and watched the first episode of season two. Then I watched an episode of Will Trent. Who needs Prime when you've got Hulu?

I mentioned this about a year ago, but episodes 1 and 7 were some of the best television I've ever watched. Of course, I'm also not culturally literate, so please take that with a grain of salt. Having just finished the re-watch, I'd say episode 7 is the better of the two, as it holds up really well, even on second viewing, while episode 1 is diminished somewhat by knowing what the reveal is.

All that said, I miss Billy.

What is it with killing off characters named "Billy" in shows I like? Battlestar Galactica, and Paradise both. In BSG, the actor wanted out of his contract, thinking he had better things waiting. Hope it worked out for him. In Paradise, it was an essential part of the plot, but kudos to the writers for making me care about a very complicated character.

Episode 1 of season 2 gets a B- from me. In these post-apocalyptic "survival" narratives, I always wonder why everyone still has all their teeth several years later? Did they sell multi-vitamins in the gift shop? But, it's television, what can you do? I was also surprised/relieved at the civility exhibited by a group of men in a post-apocalyptic scenario encountering a young woman alone. Did not go the way I thought it was going to go, and for that I'm very grateful. Apologies if that's a spoiler.

Didn't watch episode 2, even though it was available. I need to kind of pace these things.

And the beat goes on.

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