A Place For Everything
01:10 Tuesday, 7 October 2014
Words: 508
Dr. James Vornov, neurologist and long-time fellow blogging acquaintance, has been posting some interesting thoughts lately. Recently, he's considering the idea of mental maps, and how metaphors of place and size influence how we choose to think about the world and our presence in it. His posts are succinct and perhaps more intended as food for thought than a lengthy exposition on the topic under consideration, and therefore well worth the modest investment of your time.
Those of you who know me know that, for better or worse, I'm unencumbered by such discipline.
Today's post was enhanced by the news that May Britt-Moser, Edvard Moser and John O'Keefe will share the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on understanding how the brain forms mental maps.
James seems to be exploring the idea of how our abstract metaphors influence the way we regard the world and our place in it. It's a worthwhile effort, and we know we've struggled with this notion on a larger scale in our history, perhaps most notably in science and religion. For much of the history of the Catholic Church, man's "place" was held to be at the center of the observable universe, as all the visible features of the larger universe appeared to revolve around the earth. Astronomy later showed that such was not the case, and the Catholic Church's first reaction was to shoot the messenger.
Apart from being interesting history, this also seems to show that our mental maps are at least in some measure tied up with our notions of identity, as in our notions of being a "westerner" (as in hemisphere, though less broadly as an American from America's west). This is important because ideas of identity are intimately important to us, and we're often reluctant to question our ideas about our identity.
James suggests that since it's just a map, and not the "real" world, we can change it and in so doing, change ourselves.
Which is a pretty cool idea.
But Galileo's experience suggests it might be a little challenging, though even the church eventually came around.
While mental maps may serve to help our cognitive awareness orient itself in space, and give it some ideas about identity, what orients our cognitive awareness in time?
Narrative.
The little voice in our heads that's always telling us the story of ourselves.
All narratives are works of fiction. Just as James says the "real" world cannot be directly experienced, our cognitive awareness is mere a representation of our consciousness created by a function of a working mind. It can be changed as well. Narrative isn't fixed, it's always in the act of creation and always undergoing revision.
Well, I'll leave you with a little Sister Hazel video that was shot somewhere around here about three years ago. The lyrics are clear, but there's a lot of crowd noise from the venue. Still, I like the performance.
Writing Notes
16:50 Thursday, 7 October 2021
Words: 1189
I like to write. Can't say why. Perhaps because I like to read. In any event, I've been thinking about writing a lot lately. I'm going to be "thinking out loud" right now, because I'm not really sure what it is I want to say, or where this post is going. But what seems clear is that by "writing it out," it forces me to think more clearly about it. I don't have to publish it. We'll see what happens.
I have a project I'm working on. It's a handbook for an organization. It's intended to help members do something that can seem very daunting at first, has a lot of moving parts, and there's very little in the way of hand-holding, Step A, Step B and so on, guidance. When I went through the process, someone gave me a spreadsheet(!), with the steps laid out in rows. Talk about your "minimum viable product!"
If the process is daunting, writing a handbook is equally as challenging. At least it was when I was staring at a blank page in the word processor.
Since I'm trying to finally master Tinderbox, I figured I'd try and write it there. A "note" isn't as intimidating as a "handbook," and a major element of Tinderbox is its capability as an outliner. So I wrote a series of notes, just the titles, of what should be in the handbook, and put them in an outline of how I thought they should appear. That spreadsheet was the starting point, with each row as a note. (In fact, I could have imported it into Tinderbox, and had Tinderbox do all the work of creating a new note from each row. Didn't think of that until just now.)
It's a project that has kind of a deadline (soon), and that always makes me uncomfortable. I typically procrastinate until the deadline is looming then try and just grind everything out all at once. Seldom a fun experience, and always reminds me why I should never volunteer for anything. But this is a little different in the sense that the project is an exercise in using Tinderbox, which is interesting to me and causes me to return to it often. I've found that the writing isn't as intimidating, because I'm just tackling a single "note," a few paragraphs, at a time.
In the course of writing some of the text of these notes, I realized that the structure needed to be revised. So I just moved a few notes around, added a couple of sub-topics, just the titles of the notes, and carried on. The process feels less onerous, I'm just moving notes around, I'm not carving stone tablets, or even clay ones.
As an aside, I just wrote a few paragraphs, an anecdote about how I got started using outliners. I decided it didn't really fit in this piece, so I was going to just delete it. Then I had a different thought. Instead of deleting it, I cut it from this post, and pasted it into a new note in the Drafts section of this document. May never use it, but if I do, it's already written.
Which, I suppose, kind of gets me to where I wanted this piece to go. I like Twitter, because "tweets" are just snacks. They're not necessarily "junk food," but they're very low-friction, unintimidating. If you want to write something, string some words together in a way that you hope is entertaining or provocative in some fashion, it's readily to hand; and there's a built-in audience! What's not to like?
But tweets, at least as I've been doing them, are kind of ephemeral too. I suppose they all still exist there in my timeline. But that's not conveniently accessible in a format that you can actually use to any purpose. In some ways, I suppose one's twitter timeline is like the stream of consciousness during meditation, as one just observes thoughts arising, doesn't engage with them, and observes their passing away.
Unless you're threading, or in a "tweet-storm."
"Notes" are like tweets in that they're also low-friction, relatively easy to write. The "note" is perhaps the most consistent design element I read about in this current renaissance in "tools for thought." The number of notes apps on the Apple iOS and MacOS platforms is amazing. Apparently, writing a notes app is less intimidating than writing a word processor?
I just finished reading Mark Bernstein's The Tinderbox Way (3rd edition). Mark is the mind behind Tinderbox, aka "the developer." He writes at some length about the utility and value of "the note." (He doesn't use scare-quotes. I am, because I'm trying to elevate the concept from its more conventional and probably more mundane connotation.)
A note is a thought, and thoughts are fleeting. But notes don't have to be. We have so many tools to capture notes with relative ease. Writing a note is writing. But it's not writing "an essay," a "piece" or "a novel." Notes are simple, with a certain conceptual humility to their existence. "It's just a note."
Writing helps us think. It makes our thoughts concrete, reifies them, to use a fancy word that probably doesn't belong in a humble note. We can capture our thoughts in notes, see them, examine them, think about them. We can refine our thoughts.
Thinking is hard. Most of what goes on in our heads is just habituated "consciousness." I've written this so many times, it's probably habituated as well. Speaking can require thought, but most of the time, it's just habituated thought. The brain uses the most energy in the body, it has to be efficient. If there's some social lubricant exchange that has to take place as you're out walking your dog, it doesn't take any time, it just runs a macro.
But with notes, we can think deliberately, capture those thoughts in the moment and return to them sometime when it's convenient, or appropriate, or necessary. I use notes to capture a lot of other people's thoughts. Usually ideas about how to do something, or use something. I have whole folders in Apple's Notes app of camera tips and photography techniques. I haven't really used Notes to capture my own thoughts.
But I did do a lot of "thinking out loud" in Time's Shadow and Groundhog Day. A lot of it was just casual observations about popular culture, or venting my spleen about current events, and today they're almost non sequiturs absent the context. But there were a few genuine efforts to share something of my efforts to "figure shit out." I'm going to dig through there and try and collect those, see what I've forgotten, or if the answers are different somehow today.
Anyway, I guess I'm where i wanted to go. At least the itch seems to be scratched for now. I seem to have some new appreciation for the value and utility of the humble, unassuming, "note."
Some other time I'll think about the debate how to organize notes.
It's time to take a walk. Thanks for dropping by.
Fidget Spinner
06:05 Monday, 7 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 73.94°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 8.99mph
Words: 188
This is kind of what I had in mind when I bought the IIc. I sat in the recliner yesterday with the IIc in my lap, wired to the 32" TV on the wall, playing around with Applesoft and lo-res graphics.
I'd do one routine, then change it a bit to do something else and again and again. Of course there were glitches, but it's simple stuff so it was easy to find them.
It was relaxing. The *click* of the Alps key-switches on the 4100 IIc are mellow, but "techie." Just a way to pass the time.
(I guess I should warn anyone susceptible to adverse visual stimuli that this might be problematic.)
Hey, it's better than doom-scrolling.
✍️ Reply by emailFun and Games
17:36 Monday, 7 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.99°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 711
It's always kind of an odd time in Florida, as we're staring at an oncoming hurricane.
It's too soon to know exactly what we might expect here in northeast Florida. It won't be "nothing," but the range is fairly wide.
Anyway, spent some time distracting myself this afternoon playing around with old computers.
As I mentioned before, the Apple IIe is working in nearly all respects. I think the McT SpeedDemon hung on its self-test. I'm guessing it may have something to do with the 8MB Aux Slot memory card. In all other respects, it works just fine.
I received some old DOS 3.3 disks today, the "original" disks Apple included with the IIe. They all booted and ran fine, even accelerated, so I'm pretty confident it's solid.
This morning, I cut and pasted the Applesoft code for the fidget spinner program into an Applesoft emulator web site. It ran in 25 seconds, which is about a minute faster than it ran on real hardware. I'd been wondering how fast it would run on real hardware using Beagle Compiler, a program that came out late in the II's life that would "compile" Applesoft programs and run them much faster, depending on how much floating point math they used. Floating Point didn't "accelerate" at all after compiling.
I had to do some hunting around for the "latest" (last) version of Beagle Compiler, because earlier ones had conflicts with later versions of ProDOS or BASIC.SYSTEM. In any event, I did find one from 1990 and it was able to compile the fidget spinner and it ran in about 30 seconds. I may be able to eek some additional speed out of it if I convert all the variables to integer variables. In normal Applesoft, there's usually no value in using integer variables, except to save space as array indices. Otherwise, Applesoft converts all numbers to their floating point representation, and handles them accordingly, which eats up some time. Beagle Compiler will treat declared integer variables (n%) as integers, and that saves a decent bit of time. Haven't done that yet, but probably will, just out of curiosity.
So then I wanted to see it run on the IIe with the SpeedDemon running. That's when the fun and games started.
I couldn't seem to get booted into ProDOS. It would get to the splash screen, then crash into the monitor. It would work if I turned off the SpeedDemon first, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of having the accelerator. That was with contemporary versions of ProDOS (2018). I thought I'd try with earlier versions, more contemporaneous with the SpeedDemon and see if I'd have more luck.
Well, after working successively back, I got the original ProDOS release, 1.0.1 from 1984, to boot. From there, I first ran the fidget spinner just using the accelerator. Ran in about 25 seconds. (I should have taken notes.) About as fast Javascript emulator.
I was able to get the compiler system into memory, I worried that it might have been incompatible with the early version of ProDOS. Crossing my fingers, I ran the fidget spinner from the compiler under the accelerator.
Ran in about 8 seconds! About 10x faster than regular hardware.
If I tweak the index variables, I might get another second out of it. We'll see.
It's a bit of a bear to pull the IIe out from under the monitor stand to open it up. I'll do that tomorrow sometime and pull the 8MB Aux Slot card and put the original 64K card and see if that makes any difference on the self-test for the SpeedDemon, and then see what happens with more recent versions of ProDOS.
I may have a conflict between cpus. The motherboard has the OG NMOS 6502A installed, while the SpeedDemon is running a 4MHz CMOS 65c02. I've ordered a 65c02 for the motherboard, which was part of Apple's original IIe "enhancement" kit. But I'll swap out the memory cards first and see what difference that makes.
Anyway, something to do rather than fret about hurricanes, war in the Middle East, half of America wanting a senile ex-gameshow host, wannabe dictator as their next president, and all the other stuff that makes life "interesting."
✍️ Reply by emailGrinding
09:01 Tuesday, 7 October 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 66.04°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 9.4mph
Words: 595
We got the pod (Pack-Rat container) unloaded yesterday. Two guys, took them about an hour. They even loaded some stuff in their truck and helped us move stuff down to storage. Nice guys.
They got the 700 pound workbench/toolbox into the garage. It was a bit of an ordeal pushing it over the gravel in the driveway, but they got it done.
The worst ordeal yesterday was assembling the sectional couch. The movers put it all together with no problem, but we had a small section still in storage that we decided would fit in this place. So we brought it back up with us after we dropped a bunch of stuff off at the storage unit.
We've struggled with this couch before. We removed that small piece in Florida in preparation for putting the house up for sale, and getting it apart and back together was a bear. Same problem this time, putting it back in. What I think we've learned is that the way the mechanical connections work mandates that it goes together and comes apart in a specific sequence.
Nice to know.
Now.
The second part of the ordeal was figuring out how to connect all the plugs to power. (It's a powered recliner sectional.) Fortunately, the cords are all really long. It seems like it's kind of intended to go against a wall, because it's difficult to conceal the power strip beneath one of the sections. I got it done, but had to route the cord from the strip through the frame of two of the sections, because I couldn't get the plug to fit beneath the frame. Yeesh.
I had Mitzi operate the two sections with the cord running through them to see if they would pinch or cut the cord and they all looked clear. Still bugs me. Should be okay. Probably should inspect it periodically.
Took a long break in the late afternoon. Working on getting all those cords connected had me lying on my side on the tile floor, scooting around threading the cords beneath the sections. Those plugs all fit because they're only two-prong plugs, the power strip's plug is grounded, so it was too thick to fit. Had to use a wire coat hanger to help fish them around the legs. What would we do without wire coat hangers?
Spent some time yesterday evening in the garage after I'd removed all of the framed artwork from the workbench. Took the opportunity to reorganize everything. I'm not certain that I'm finished with that effort, I've got some other tools and devices I need to put in it, but it's better than in was.
We dropped the price of the house another $10K, hoping to get some interest. It's shocking and depressing how inert the Florida real estate market is. Home sales in St Johns County are at the lowest rate since 2017, with the highest inventory ever. People are taking their houses off the market. To do what, I don't know.
I wonder how many people want to leave Florida but are stuck because of this market? We're in a marginally better position because we had a place to move into. We didn't have to sell first. But I'm stuck paying a mortgage and HOA fees on a house we don't live in anymore. It's not putting us into financial straits, but it is very depressing. I'd hoped to be saving that money for the new house, instead of just hemorrhaging it.
But, I guess it could be worse.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailBullshit
10:35 Tuesday, 7 October 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 65.95°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 8.3mph
Words: 78
For whatever it is worth, which is probably nothing, we need a new science of "public mental health."
We need a new practice of "social hygiene," to complement "personal hygiene."
We need an internet infrastructure that routes sewage away and processes it into something somewhat less toxic.
Social media is the equivalent of hundreds of people crowding into tenements with inadequate ventilation, fresh water, sanitation, and daylight.
Frustrating. It's all right before our eyes.
✍️ Reply by emailThe Beep Goes On
08:18 Wednesday, 7 October 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 44.42°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 77% Wind: 10.69mph
Words: 896
Yesterday was a productive day of peripheral card testing. Some frustrations, but that has always been the case when you're playing with >40-year-old hardware and modern devices.
The first challenge was to get video out of the IIe. I have three cards that will output HDMI. The most inexpensive is an A2DVI card. The problem with that card is that the HDMI connection faces the backplane of the Apple II, and there is no way to get a thick HDMI cable to bend 90 degrees to make the connection. When I was down at the storage unit, I found a small plastic container that had spare rubber feet, backplane cutout covers, and an HDMI right-angle adapter. I thought I took that with me, but I can't seem to find it.
So, Plan B was to use the A2FPGA, a modern device that simulates a number of old peripheral cards, like the Mockingboard sound card, a sprite video board, and a Super Serial card. It also outputs HDMI with the connector facing the keyboard, so there's plenty of room to route the cable.
I started with that. It connected up just fine and I got good video. Well, the colors are wrong, but it's clear. The first thing I did was run the self-test on the IIe, and that came up sat. Next I connected the Floppy Emu to the Disk II controller and mounted a 5.25" floppy disk image. I have a number of system maintenance programs and I ran a bunch of those and everything came up solid. Good so far!
I plugged Disk 1 of the two Disk II drives that came with the IIe into the Disk 2 port on the controller card so I could run some disk tests on that, and they all came up sat. I used a disk utility image on the Floppy Emu to make a physical copy with the Disk II. Then I unplugged the Floppy Emu, swapped over Disk 1 and connected Disk 2 to its port and ran the tests on that drive. Also sat. Amazing.
Next I plugged in an AST SprintDisk, a 1MB RAM-disk I purchased recently. I wanted to see if it worked. So I tried to boot my "ABIDE" disk (Apple/Beagle Integrated Development Environment), which is formatted to boot ProDOS 2.4.2, the modern version of ProDOS.
It crashed.
I spent most of the rest of the day troubleshooting. To make a long story short, the A2FPGA card conflicts somehow with ProDOS 2.4.2. This should be a known conflict, but I haven't seen anything about it. I will investigate in the various forums later.
In the course of that troubleshooting, I also installed the Transwarp CPU accelerator and verified that it works (3.6MHz). Then I installed an A2 Turbo I got from Ian Kim in Korea. It's a small accelerator card that'll run at 16MHz. (The Apple II's native clock speed is 1MHz.) It's presently configured for 8MHz, but it also runs well.
I got some early versions of ProDOS to boot, but I couldn't see the SprintDisk as /RAM4. When I went to bed last night, I figured it might be dead. And I couldn't figure out why ProDOS 2.4.2 wouldn't run, but early versions would. I suspected there might be some bad RAM in the "Language Card" area, the upper 16K of RAM in the Apple II that's switched out when ROM code is running. I wasn't sure if my diagnostic programs were checking all of that RAM. But the self-test came up good, so it was a head-scratcher.
During a bout of insomnia last night, I realized that the A2FPGA simulates slot access for the peripherals it's simulating. Which means that it was "using" slot 4 for the Mockingboard card, which probably precluded the SprintDisk from being recognized. So the first thing I did when I got up this morning was to pull out the A2FPGA and insert the VidHD card, which exclusively does video and has the HDMI connection facing the "right" way.
Booted a ProDOS 1.1.1 version of Apple's Apple II System Utilities disk and had it look for /RAM4. Sure enough, it was there and all 2048 blocks were accounted for! Now, I haven't tested all that RAM, but the firmware is running so I'm pretty confident it's all good.
That's when I got the idea to try to boot the ABIDE disk, and it booted up just fine, and now I know the A2FPGA is problematic in some way. It may need a firmware update or something. I'll investigate further later.
I have some more cards to "test" today, but I need to find an external speaker I can plug into a couple of audio cards I want to test.
My goal here is to, first, have some fun with an Apple II and, second, to get all this stuff checked out and then organized so I know where everything is. I want to make setting up the Dave Cave a relatively smooth operation. I'm going to have to box nearly all of this stuff up before Mitzi gets home and get it back into storage. I probably won't have an opportunity to play with it again until next Spring or early Summer, depending on how long it takes to get the basement finished enough to occupy.
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