Coincidence
03:32 Wednesday, 6 March 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.71°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 64% Wind: 18.41mph
Words: 451
Coincidences are either just happy accidents, or maybe a clue that you're on the right path. Toward what? Who knows? Your next life maybe.
Anyway, because I have a short attention span, I got attracted to an idea that I had while building the Tinderbox Blog Test Platform, and that was a daily log. Now, "daily notes" have been a topic of conversation in the PKM/Blogging/Outliner/Text files fetishist community for a long time. For the most part, I didn't see their relevance for me. I'm retired, I don't do much (by choice), and I just didn't experience the attraction.
But I do enjoy looking back in the marmot and recalling some events. There are some chores I perform that I have some hazy recollection of the last time I did them. There are things I think about that I don't post in the marmot that might deserve the "see what I think" treatment in a kind of journal.
So, my "Captain's Log" idea was born. In my hyperphantasic internal experience, when I read the words "Captain's Log," I "hear" them in William Shatner's voice. Not a volitional thing, just some phrases are encoded with actors' voices. "Little buddy," is always the Skipper. "Work!" is always Maynerd G. Krebs. I still hear my therapist ask, "David, what's going on inside you." It's exciting in my head, when it's not a nightmare. ("Who knows? Your next life maybe," sounds like the Oracle.)
I digress.
So the idea is to have a Tinderbox that exists to keep a chronological record of ideas, thoughts, events, interactions and so on that may have some utility in later recall. Something quick and easy to do, though longer-form text entries, a la "blog posts," are contemplated as well.
I put together the basic outline and then thought I could re-purpose some AppleScript from the marmot to make it possible to make an entry in any app I happened to be in, without switching to Tinderbox. That sorta-almost worked, and last night I asked for some help at the Tinderbox Forum at Eastgate Systems.
Help was quickly delivered, and I'm happy to report that I have a nice little Quick Action that I can summon from Mail or Safari to record a quick log entry. I don't know how much text you can enter in an AppleScript dialog box, but I don't need much I think.
Anyway, to the title of this post. Shortly after getting the QA up and running, thanking everyone involved and asking another question, I started going through my RSS feed where I happened upon this post.
And laughed out loud. Are we on the same frequency or something?
✍️ Reply by emailFurther to the Foregoing
04:18 Wednesday, 6 March 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.76°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 70% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 125
I wondered how much text I could paste into that little one-line dialog box you get from AppleScript. Turns out, more than will fit in that little slot.
I copied a fair amount of text from a web page, invoked the QA, pasted the text into the Entry field and didn't get an error. I also couldn't see the text. I hit return and got the notification from Automator, "Logged it!"
Switched to Tinderbox, and there it was in the $Text field. All the text I'd selected. I turned on the WordCount attribute and made it a KeyAttribute of the p_Entry prototype. 58 words were pasted into $Text. That's a pretty fair amount, I think.
Having too much fun. I should rest. 😜
✍️ Reply by emailCaptain's Log
21:23 Wednesday, 6 March 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 60.35°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 0mph
Words: 746
Progress has been rapid on my little "personal log" (plog?) project, Captain's Log. I can log email entries with a link to the specific email automatically included with whatever my thoughts were that prompted me to log it.
I've learned some things about Mail URLs or URIs - the bits of text that become links to the email in your Mail app.
Much of that has been documented in the Tinderbox Forum, and I figured I needed to get some of that recorded here. At least a link to the forum.
The advantage of Captain's Log over the marmot, is that Captain's Log isn't intended to be published (or exported, in Tinderbox terms). It functions best as a Tinderbox file and so I can take advantage of every feature Tinderbox offers without worrying about how it interacts with html export, specifically links to other notes.
Similarly, I can record things far too trivial to mention in the marmot, which is not to say that the marmot isn't filled with trivia.
I have a lot of ideas that I kind of think of and then forget. That's probably a feature and not a bug, as I'm sure I have far more ideas than I have time or ability to implement. But some of them re-occur to me at intervals, and so they must be something I want to do, so I should find a way to kind of help resurface them instead of just relying on some random external prompt.
Captain's Log is, itself, one of those ideas. I'd started similar efforts before, and got quickly discouraged and they fell by the way. It was working on the marmot and the Blog Test Platform in preparation for the Blogging With Tinderbox meetup that made me realize Captain's Log was achievable.
Right now I'm in the process of building the basic functionality of Captain's Log. The key feature was learning how to let Tinderbox take care of all the basic structure. It builds the outline by itself, once I created all the prototypes. So there's less infrastructure maintenance I have to perform (or recall), less chance for frustrating errors that have to be chased down, corrected and, hopefully, re-learned.
The other key element was getting information into the appropriate day's container automatically. The chronological structure of the outline makes that simple. Each log entry is identified by this present moment, and so it goes into "today's" container, which made it relatively straightforward (I had to have some help) to create an AppleScript that would create a new log entry.
So I can be in a completely different app when an idea occurs to me, and I can quickly add it to the log without leaving that app.
(I just added one right now, here in the marmot, without leaving the marmot. It occurred to me that I could have a "midwatch" entry automatically created each day. It'd have a "run command" action that would query some AI service for a knock-knock joke, or something. Maybe an inspirational quote. Who knows? Just a silly feature. I'd probably forget it if I didn't log it.)
If I was working in email or browsing the web, an idea would occur to me and I'd kind of make a "mental note" to do something with it, and then promptly forget. There must be some corner of my brain just filling up with forgotten mental notes.
Once I get functionality to an appropriate level, then I'll be working out the process. The most elementary function is as an aide memoire, to help me recall things like the last time I replaced the filter on the air handler.
But there will be some "review" process, where I look at ideas I've recorded and then think about next steps, if any. If there's an idea I want to pursue, that effort doesn't take place in Captain's Log apart perhaps from some long-form, journal-type entries where I "see what I think" about the idea. But I do need to identify a practice and periodicity of review. I'm not there yet, and it's secondary to getting the file and the supporting scripts tuned up — "Running light without overbyte," to quote a certain fictional orthodontist.
But there is an emotional component, a "sparks joy" element to having this come together with relatively little difficulty. And the help and suggestions from the community add a welcome social dimension to the effort.
Pretty cool, I think.
✍️ Reply by emailMeasles
14:44 Thursday, 6 March 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 65.84°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 34% Wind: 19.57mph
Words: 82
Another reason to flee Florida. Just sent a note to my primary care, though I expect I already know the answer. I had the measles as a kid, I don't think I've ever been vaccinated. I'm wondering if I should get it now, given that it's now here in Florida, and Florida has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
I expect she's going to say yes.
"Free Florida, baby!"
Governed by "Florida man."
✍️ Reply by email"Squirter"?
05:00 Friday, 6 March 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 35.51°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 98% Wind: 3.71mph
Words: 195
Maybe anti-air warfare terminology has changed since I last served, but "squirter" is not the term used to denote a missile or weapon that had made its way to the target without being engaged by primary air defense systems.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strike that killed troops on Sunday in Kuwait occurred when a “squirter” made its way through American air defenses. He did not indicate what kind of weapon it was, but said that “it happened to hit a tactical operations center that was fortified, but these are powerful weapons.”
The Atlantic had a more complete quote from our adolescent, incompetent DoD Secretary:
At a news conference this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seemed to downplay the significance of the event, saying, “You have air defenses, and a lot’s coming in, and you hit most of it.” He went on to say, “Every once in a while, you might have one, unfortunately—we call it a squirter—that makes its way through.”
Those missiles or drones are called "leakers."
I'm inclined to believe that our idiot SecDef misspoke, because "squirter" doesn't seem to imply something that got through a defensive system.
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