Meteor - Fear the Bones | Youtube ✈️
Swing Out Sister - Surrender | Youtube
François Valéry - Aimons nous vivants (Live Age Tendre 8) A nice live version of a favorite French '80s song. :-) Getting old but a classic.
Marc Rebillet - ONE MORE TIME | Youtube Those vocals from 2:30 :O
Above: Some weekend whittling and drawing.
Just a quick wrap-up post for the year, in which I’ll try to share what’s been on my mind lately, and some bits about how things have gone in 2023.
As usual, this post will be very theoretical (“I’m GROUNDED, in theory”), somewhat grandiose, awkwardly self-deprecating for vague reasons, detail-oriented over here, but concept-oriented over there, and other dumb things like that. You have been warned!
So, no particular order:
Physical Fitness Goals and Practice
Back around 2016 I was able to reach a number of huge physical fitness goals, due to my extreme weight loss experience. This was exciting stuff! Doing a bunch of pull-ups at any point after age 35 is probably always exciting, no matter who you are.
After that, I lost most of the range of motion (ROM) and use of my arm due to an injury (not workout related), and spent years recovering. In the beginning, I could barely even eat, write, or type with my bad arm, and moving my hand from keyboard to mouse was excruciating.
It was a scary and annoying setback. It wasn’t my fault. And to be fair, none less than the U.S. Government seemed ready to reimburse me for this injury, even though I didn’t pursue that path. Overall I can’t complain about the way things worked out in the end.
This year, I was finally able to make a sustainable return to a much wider range of fitness and workout activities. Though many of them need to be gentle to be effective, this has been a big point of learning for me.
I’m hoping that in 2024 I can continue to learn new things from this process.
Slope of curve as a tracking metric for life changes
A simple one, which might sound complex: I started tracking “slope” as I track my goals. That is, the slope of the improvement curve. The rate of change.
For an example of how this works:
In some cases, I want to pay attention to broader timelines as well, so I will track: 3-day slope, 5-day, 10-day, 20-day, all in one list.
This helps me to build a sense of long-term goal alignment, building a bridge between “tracking too many details to be sustainable” and “going off track.” It helps me to build a sense of what’s working and what’s not.
And, I don’t have to stare at a long list of numbers and guess how I’m doing.
I don’t use a smart watch anymore, because my graphs and measuring practices are too different from what smart watch app designers think everybody wants to track. So I’d like to eventually find a smart watch platform that I can either completely customize (and I mean…completely) or build by myself.
Subjective Systems of Type
In 2023 I spent more time working on very subjective personality type systems. They are very subjective in that they only need to work for ME at first, and that’s fine.
Why do this? It’s effective. You can work with people in a completely different way. You can solve problems you couldn’t solve before, both in your own life and in the lives of others. You can work your way off your usual life script, and end up in a different kind of situation that’s new, or fun, or enlightening, or just weird and confusing, and you can see it even if others may not, and THAT is a pretty fascinating feeling.
(Would that be worth it to you?)
Over time, I may talk to people or ask them about different aspects of their experiences, and determine whether there might be some broader, objective overlap from mine to theirs—some kind of objective reliability.
In many cases there is some of that, but I don’t have the time to spare in writing up the theory for the greater public.
This makes me a bit frustrated for who we all are, and what we could become, if somehow this kind of propagation of experience or knowledge was easier, or easier to balance with higher priorities in our lives.
Productivity
I’ve used my productivity systems, Whole Productivity and Task BATL, all year long. They’ve been the backbone to every other activity you see here.
This year I used my productivity tools as more of a language or palette, to develop new, ad hoc productivity systems, in support of some very specific activities. For example, a new type of project engagement at work. Since Task BATL is a modular system, this worked pretty well.
Subjective Systems of Archetype
I’ve been continuing work on building my own symbol dictionary. Again, this is for me, it’s not something I’m writing to publish for others.
It’s somewhat similar to a dream dictionary, if you’re familiar with those, but it’s instead, it’s based on things like:
Since these items are all “symbolically available” as tools to help me understand and solve problems better, this has been a very useful activity. I don’t think I could stop updating this dictionary if I wanted to!
Frontdooring
I continue to find my Frontdooring practice reliable as a healthy, meditative activity.
I haven’t expanded it as much this year, but it’s been a very helpful combination with my energy-periods studies, below.
Reading
I’ve focused a lot on reading imaginative, classic works this year: Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard, and similar. One of my goals was to build better, more consistent access to fantasy worlds and mindsets.
I’ve also been working on a theory of books and reading, meant specifically to support a given type of energy level. For this reason I often make it a goal to skip directly to the climax of a book, or read the ending first, or things like that. This is about vitality, energy, and less about “what it literally means to read a book.”
And, it helps!
On the side, I developed a habit of rewarding myself with a review of the latest Project Gutenberg books, every time I complete a Wordle puzzle. It’s amazing how many new books are posted there. It’s probably at least four new books every day, on average.
Movies
I’ve been watching a lot more VHS rips this year. Previously I was much more of a quality hound, overlooking VHS and hoping for a BluRay edition, and so on.
But just to be really honest about how maybe-brainy this goes: I find that VHS titles offer a much different experience, one which is extremely useful in navigating certain metaphorical-psychological mindsets.
If you think of it as using a movie as a tool for self-support based on “who you used to be”, this might sound interesting—but I think most of us are used to using movies as “somethin’ to watch.” Which is fine and something I still do for sure.
Some of my favorite movies to watch or re-watch this year have been (ordered by release year):
Some of these have simply been enjoyable experiences for me. Others have been more deeply examined, or maybe I listened to podcasts about them, or wrote about them in depth.
Have you ever listened to a really enjoyable podcast about one of your own favorite movies? This is a pretty underrated activity, I think…
Learning Emacs
I’ve enjoyed learning Emacs this year. This app is pretty amazing.
In order to learn and grow in a way that can also support my business goals (from web dev, to app consulting, to training and coaching), I’ve been spending a lot of time with my Emacs coach, Prot.
Prot is a deeply-qualified expert and has been very patient with me, thank god. I’ve enjoyed learning to use and customize Emacs.
One of my favorite things about Emacs is that I can experiment directly with the way the software itself works. I can change the core features just as easily as I can type in my journal! And it’s pretty easy to change things back if I accidentally destroyed something vital.
Radio: AM/FM/SW. Scanning, Amateur Radio, etc.
I decided to develop this hobby in a much more patient, quiet, solitary way this year.
To me, radio is “about” distant ranges of time, as a metaphorical perspective. It’s about tuning into distant perspectives that can be extremely helpful to us. The more distant the radio signal, the longer the timeline. I find that shortwave radio is more “about” 10-20+ years in my future. Portables / walkie-talkies are more about closer concerns in terms of time. Daily, or weekly.
I came up with some ideas about propagation that were pretty damn conceptual and grandiose, probably because I’m new to this kind of theory.
For example, I thought about the implications of gravitonic propagation. If you even mention this stuff in discussions WITH educated people, many will think you’re dumb, or crazy. How fortunate that I already know I’m both!
I enjoyed using the CountyComm GP-7 SSB, which was probably a favorite this year. It’s fun to set up on the beach or in the mountains while camping.
Even though much of the year’s radio use was pretty solitary on purpose, I did do some local volunteering as a radio operator.
In October, I took my son Ben along to volunteer during the Great Shakeout exercise. We manned the emergency ham radio at a rural medical clinic about a half hour drive from here, and the head doctor was with us the entire time, telling us all about what would probably happen to the poor building in an earthquake!
I left him a hand-drawn diagram showing how to operate the radio if he ever needed to. Hopefully it was a little reassuring.
I think Ben enjoyed this experience and I hope it helped him to see a bit outside of the usual “middle school student life” perspective.
Daily Energy Periods
I was in good health this year. Still, nothing is ever perfect. There’s always a bit of an up-and-down to life, isn’t there?
So maybe THAT’s interesting, I thought.
I started to dissect the times when I felt “less-well”, because of my concern than handling those times wrong could make it easier to become “unwell”, and possibly harder to recover back to “well”.
I discovered that every day has some “less-well” periods to it, especially if that’s the only lens we have on what’s happening.
And life frequently provides us with this choice: A) Well, that’s “just” how life goes, or B) Could be interesting, why not explore a bit, see if we can improve our outlook.
In general, if you are really interested in learning, you should “distrust the word ‘just’,” is my thinking.
So, I measured things for a while, and made a chart. Then I constructed some new lenses on these times of day, and discovered a lot of interesting things about my daily energy flow.
As a result, I found that I have more control over: Quality of work, quality of rest and sleep, managing goals, being effective with other people, and so on.
And by the way, I mapped this out over 24 hours, not just daytime hours. If you wake up during the night, I think it’s wise to consider that there are probably also some best-to-fall-asleep times that ebb and flow in your nighttime hours. So, just because you can’t immediately get back to sleep, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, or even a health thing at all.
In fact, it can really help to look at your watch and know, “my next, reliable fall-asleep point comes in about 45 minutes…it’s cool, I’ll read a book or something, maybe do some journaling.”
And, I’ve learned that it’s helpful to do this even at say 5:30 a.m., when I need to be up and awake at 7! I would not have understood that last year, and this year I’m somehow, strangely, better off for it. (Though, I should also mention that I am now a firm believer in napping at earlier daytime-times, like 9 a.m. if need be. This is less-rational to some, because it’s less-normal to them—but it’s not so much a “let’s be lazy” thing and more of a “logical” thing once you understand how your energy levels work.)
A lot of people in fields like engineering know that measurement generally gives you more control over things. If you want to control something, measure it!
But not many people appreciate the fact that discovering or creating new things to measure is a vastly underrated add-on to the same principle.
I would like to write more about this in the future, as it’s been a fun topic to explore.
KDE Connect
I use KDE on most of my computers right now (previously XFCE, Gnome, GNUStep, etc. etc., not counting Windows and Mac systems here), so I installed KDE Connect on my phone, and use it to help the systems work more closely together.
This has been a huge benefit in a lot of ways. Even just clipboard sharing is a big one. But other aspects (KDE Connect SMS app) are also really useful.
EDC / Everyday Carry
I still collect EDC gear and I think a lot about it. My theory and study of this has expanded quite a bit. I can see more of its metaphorical side now. As more of that side becomes clear, the hobby starts to change in curious ways.
To others, it seems like a “stuff” hobby, where one is merely satisfied by “having stuff” or “buying stuff”. But the metaphorical dimension immediately calls this limited perspective into question.
My EDC item picks of the year:
Picking one (knot) and using the heck out of it.
As an avid outdoorsy-person, hiker, camper, and so on: I kept forgetting the various knots I used to know. Why?
I got the idea it might have been related to depth of practice.
I decided to focus on one knot this year: The simple overhand knot.
So, I used the HELL out of THAT one knot this year. You can see it at least 3-4 places on my person if I’m out hiking. I try to do just about everything with this knot. Hold things together, pull them apart, and so on.
This is really the essence of a depth-first approach to anything. You take that ONE thing and really, really get to know it deeply.
I’ve applied this perspective to lots of other tools and methods as well, and it’s really versatile.
Though there are some issues (especially in theory—try telling a knot-obsessed debater that you use an overhand knot for everything you can!), they are pretty easy to work around, or address in a productive way.
So, maybe I’ll add another knot in the new year! If so, it’ll probably be some lame old underdog knot, similar to the overhand. Nothing fancy.
Hiking
I worked on a lot of new mindsets and personal systems related to hiking. Mostly around these questions:
It’s really helped to be more conscious about this, thinking about it and why it’s good, why it can even be bad, and so on.
I noticed that hiking 7-8 miles into the hills for a break is a lot of fun, but it’s also terrible for other types of fitness or cutting activities, depending on the circumstances. This really sucks, and I hope to reach a bit more of a “hiking as specific fitness / life component” theory in 2024.
Just as my wife Megan has shared that she discovered in her running (she’s almost TOO good at running!), I’m also finding that it’s nice to make some more frequent stops, to take some photos, to enjoy the journey WAY more than I let myself do in the past.
Here are some favorite new lightweight hiking bring-alongs:
AI Psychology
So, AI’s pretty new. It’s a big deal.
Due to my professional experience, and the overlap with technology and psychology: I’ve been casually observing the psychological ecosystem within the AI community.
This is true both for interactions within the AI software development community and regarding its interactions with those outside the community.
What’s interesting here is that we are in a generally volatile period in history right now, with regard to ALL “psychological technology.” This includes AI, but it also includes social/relational “technologies” in which new soft-frameworks are replacing outdated ones.
For this reason, I think AI can seem like a massive, world-changing catalyst, but especially so to AI- and technology-minded people.
To others who are less AI-minded, I think it will be more obvious that the other technologies in which they find interest are also very cathartic and similarly world-changing. It becomes a bit of chicken-vs-egg problem, if you try to compare “what’s really changing us right now?”
Personally, my own ideas and experiences about AI have taken me back to the search engine revolution of the late ’90s. I think about what I would do differently if I could go back in time to that period. The answers aren’t as obvious as I first thought, but they’ve been interesting to consider.
Local AI tools have also been very interesting (AI running on local systems, that is) and I’d really like to see how these evolve over time.
One neat thing is: You can now take AI with you on an extended outdoors outing or hike or campout, with no internet connection, and rely on most of the same benefits. This has HUGE implications for in-situ development of off-grid methodologies, for one, which probably sounds way more dumb than it really is, so my apologies.
Based on previous technology-curve analyses, I’m guessing that we have reached or exceeded the point at which one could pick a single AI platform to use for the next 25 years, and that platform would probably work out OK overall for the duration.
I say that just in case it helps ease the minds of some of you FOMO people out there (I get in that mindset myself sometimes). :-)
Art and Photography
I’ve worked hard to hone my art and photography practices this year, with regard to:
I’ve learned a lot about these practices, but I still have lots of questions, even after decades of practice.
Some of my favorite discoveries in these areas this year include:
This has been really fun and I’m excited to continue learning in these areas in 2024.
Social Media
I spent more time on Instagram and Facebook in 2023. I developed a bit of an updated mental model for these platforms and wanted to test it out. You may notice that everything I post on those platforms is public, and this was deliberate.
I still catch myself feeling bad that I forget to reply to comments, or messages, or whatever it was. I barely have time to get around to my work emails.
Also, just to address this concern I sometimes hear about from readers: I am assuming that these platforms will use whatever I feed into them for evil purposes, if they really feel the need.
At least, that’s the baseline understanding I’m rolling with! So I’m aware of the “big picture downside character flaw” of social media, but I also feel there is a more mutual benefit now.
Home and Family
As usual, I keep trying to find ways to be less annoying at home, and with my family. :-)
My wife and kids still amaze me and it’s exciting to see them grow. I like to see them rest when they can, too! It’s been a lot of fun to see them enjoying new interests and developing old ones.
Conclusion
OK, phew, that should be enough of an update for now.
The post wasn’t meant to be so all-encompassing, but it helped me to reflect just a little bit on those various areas.
Overall, this year has been more focused on technology than last year. It’s also been more restful and healthy overall. This has been a really nice way to reset very specific goals in life, or re-calibrate toward outcomes I want to see.
I’m looking forward to 2024 and whatever it brings! Wishing all my readers the best new year possible—
Filed in: Interests /110/ | Energy /119/ | Goals /52/ | Movies & Films /3/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/
In recent weeks, I found myself doing a little bit of work for one of America’s top automotive chains. I say this with some weird pride, because my dad, RIP, loved being a customer at that place.
Dad loved being prepared, and so do I, and so I really loved seeing how excited he’d get when winter storm season started. Car mods incoming—he was prepared!
I know he also loved the way they’d do something for you and give you a little report, and send you on your way.
But in reflecting on the topic, that stuff is more about who we were, Dad and I.
Alas, management of this place probably doesn’t give two f’s about being prepared, and for good reason. They are not us.
So, with that introduction to the topic, let’s get on with the story…
The Task
I was asked to analyze an individual’s communications, and develop an idea of their personality characteristics.
And with that kind of info in hand, maybe I could make some recommendations to management? Interventions, strategies, tips, things to do and not do?
People problems, you see.
“I got horns that hold my other horns, I always come prepared…”
For this kind of thing to go well, you’ve got to be trained in it (I’ve probably been over-trained at this point). You’ve got to be really attuned to various natural pitfalls, for sure.
Here are some examples of the basic pitfalls, or thought patterns, (or even “philosophies,” if you like) that can undermine this kind of work:
In doing this kind of task, it helps if you can understand people through various types of personality models. And it really helps if you’ve been formally tested on that—ideally by a perfectionist who throws you a lot of red herrings!
An Example of a Test Scenario
At one point in a test, I remember asking myself “WHY would this kind of person work in IT?” when reading a short bio of a person I was being tested on. It was one of the last test items I was really stuck on.
Then I got this idea: “What if this question is less about the person I’m reading about here, and more about the test designer?”
So, I thought about what I knew of the test designer, particularly—how do they probably prefer to see themselves?
This was easy: Logical. Meticulous.
(It made me chuckle a bit to reach that conclusion so quickly, because the stuff you generally prefer to think about yourself is always kind of funny, embarrassing, awkward in how awesome it sounds to you, and yet how “huh???” it can sound to other people. It’s a topic that IMO has never been truly and deeply mined for its inherent comedic wealth.)
I re-read the bio, switching from my more normal state of “gestalt, intuitive, broad-minded, symbolic” and into something resemblilng a state of “picky, logical, focused only on what I can read, attempting to read NOTHING between the lines”.
Poof! The answer to the whole thing lay before me. The whole story practically came alive right off the page!
“It was just another goddamn puzzle…written by someone who’s getting off on how logical they are!” I deny ever thinking to myself.
This example highlights a very important string of factors that are super-relevant in this kind of work:
The Voice
Now, in case you’re reading this thinking “this is interesting, I’m not familiar,” there’s one big thing that you might have, that I don’t.
An internal monologue.
Internal monologues are a fascinating topic to me because I never had one of those. And in recent years, it’s been increasingly common to come across podcast episodes like “Interview with a person who has NO INTERNAL MONOLOGUE” or whatever. Like OK, I get it, you think this is weird for YOU, because that inner voice has been a huge feature of YOUR life.
I C U
I do have a kind-of equivalent. It’s what some call “inner sight,” and based on what I know of it, it definitely can be described as a foundational factor that drives my whole life and career.
The way it works is,
And…loop. Repeat. This is how my mind works during much of the day. Maybe it’s with writing, maybe with coding, or something else.
It guesses at outcomes, but it guesses based on a guess about what kind of guesses will probably be more reliable than others.
I know some others who do this too, and am not making the claim that it’s really super-unique. But I wanted to provide an example of an alternative to an “internal monologue” or “inner voice,” because people usually ask me what that might be, if they’re only used to the internal monologue.
Why Somebody’s Internal Voice is Worth Knowing
If you get to know somebody’s internal voice, you can build up a really quick set of insights as to the state of of their subjective world.
(A lot of people worry about this kind of exposure, and rightly so! Still: No shame, I think. Better to own the fear—“if you find yourself in hell, keep going,” etc.)
Sometimes, this is a really sad discovery, or chain of discoveries. You can discover that you are friends with somebody who, for example, has a BRUTAL and TERRIBLE inner voice.
That voice might be saying terrible things ABOUT you, for much of the time you spend together! It really could be.
It has probably, definitely said terrible things ABOUT them, which is also unfortunate.
And what interests me lately: THAT VOICE is often the one reading, interpreting, and commenting on YOUR messages to this friend of yours!
So there’s this strange and very interesting issue: You don’t get to deliver your own message on that other person’s inner stage.
However important the message, you just don’t get to do that.
Your Inner Stageplay
I like the metaphor of an “inner stageplay.” Thoughts are like actors. They present lines of thought. Opinions.
An individual tends to favor certain actors on their inner stageplay. They also tend to hate or dislike, or ignore other actors.
This, we can say, is what gives this individual a specific personality.
(“Phew, the logical person is back on the stage! Kick the clowns out with their physical humor and loud music!” is one possible representation of a mere moment’s mental activity on such a stage.)
But to me, the inner voice is an even more powerful actor than just “a perspective”. It’s practically in its own league. It’s a member of the troupe who can instantly change the play in various ways.
This is similar for my inner vision, by the way—it’s very active and persuasive. And it’s been wrong a LOT! But still, I can hardly turn it down a notch, let alone ignore it. It’s just in a different class, where the presentation of various perspectives on the internal stage is concerned.
Influencing the Voice
So, some interesting questions come to mind, in this line of work:
(Personality-change is to me a bit less of an interesting topic these days, because I’ve heard so many perspectives on it. My experience is that: Yes it does, and no it doesn’t. So it’s much better to know the general details—how, when, why, etc.—than to cling to such a silly answer!)
Analysis & Strange Observations
Anyway, so I analyzed the f**k out of this individual. Naturally I took this process to 11, due to a variety of funny factors. Like the fact that this isn’t exactly RAND Corporation, but more like a place where you get car stuff done? That’s WEIRD and INTERESTING!
So I thought about the various factors for days and days.
At the end of that process, I had a very good idea of this person’s internal stageplay. For every complaint about them, I felt extreme empathy on their behalf. For every compliment, I was ready to wave their banner even higher!
One of the specific observations I knew I needed to include went something like this:
“You told individual X that they were not well suited as a leader. But you told them that because of the kind of leader you are. They are a very logical, hands-on person. Your leadership style is different from this.
It’s obvious in my analysis that they’ve had a logic-based, hands-on type of leadership experience. And I can see why you missed it, because you don’t think like they do. And so instead of teasing that out, you compared them to these other kinds of leaders over here.
So now, as a result, you may sound more like a liar and manipulator to them. This will undermine your position. And here’s what you should do about that.”
Here’s Your Report
There were so many points like that to cover. I definitely had the age-old consulting problem on my hand: How do you take a problem from the point of view of deep career-expertise and condense it, adapt it, teach it?
So then I had to analyze the person who requested that I do this work.
What kind of voice, on this topic, would sound like a voice of reason to them?
Where do the two voices intersect?
And how does my voice complicate this?
Phew!
Well, be it ever so complicated: We talked it over. And for anything I missed in person…it’s all there in the report.
Now they’re prepared!
Filed in: Relationships /78/ | Control /110/ | People /72/ | Intuition /60/ | Thinking /70/
Want more control over the implementation of your code idea by ChatGPT? Want your time spent with ChatGPT to be a bit more interesting, or possibly inspiring?
If so, try using a more interactive, prospective design prompt which sources a variety of ideas, like this example (my emphasis in bold):
Write a bash script with three functions: Allow a user to select how many dice to roll, roll the dice, and announce the results graphically. For each function, allow me to pick from three different ways of creating the function.
The resulting code may then look something like this:
#!/bin/bash
# Function 1: Allowing the user to select how many dice to roll
# Option 1: Read input from user
select_dice_count_1() {
read -p "Enter the number of dice to roll: " dice_count
echo $dice_count
}
# Option 2: Using command-line arguments
select_dice_count_2() {
dice_count=$1
echo $dice_count
}
# Option 3: Using a default value
select_dice_count_3() {
dice_count=1
echo $dice_count
}
# Function 2: Rolling the dice
# Option 1: Using the $RANDOM variable
roll_dice_1() {
echo $((RANDOM % 6 + 1))
}
# Option 2: Using the shuf command
roll_dice_2() {
shuf -i 1-6 -n 1
}
# Option 3: Using an array to represent the dice faces
roll_dice_3() {
dice_faces=("1" "2" "3" "4" "5" "6")
index=$((RANDOM % 6))
echo "${dice_faces[$index]}"
}
# Function 3: Announcing the results graphically
# Option 1: Using a for loop and printf
announce_results_1() {
for ((i = 1; i <= $1; i++)); do
printf "[Dice $i] - $2\n"
done
}
# Option 2: Using echo and a separator line
announce_results_2() {
for ((i = 1; i <= $1; i++)); do
echo "Dice $i: $2"
done
echo "-----------------"
}
# Option 3: Using ASCII art for graphical representation
announce_results_3() {
for ((i = 1; i <= $1; i++)); do
echo "╔═══╗"
echo "║ $2 ║"
echo "╚═══╝"
done
}
# Main script
# Selecting dice count
dice_count=$(select_dice_count_1) # Change the function name to select_dice_count_2 or select_dice_count_3 for different options
# Rolling the dice
results=""
for ((i = 1; i <= dice_count; i++)); do
result=$(roll_dice_1) # Change the function name to roll_dice_2 or roll_dice_3 for different options
results+=" $result"
done
# Announcing the results
announce_results_1 $dice_count "$results" # Change the function name to announce_results_2 or announce_results_3 for different optionsThen, simply alter the function names as needed (these places in the code were helpfully indicated by ChatGPT in comments).
Did you notice that these are now actually software-design questions you’re faced with, not simply “how to code that” questions?
This highlights the possibility of using ChatGPT for designing while coding, not just for simple coding.
Don’t stop there
With the creative juices starting to flow, you can, and should, also continue to ask for more creative, rare, funny, or obscure ideas. For example, this follow-up prompt:
Give 3 more creative options for the display of the result.
…produced the code to display 1) ASCII dice with pips instead of numbers, 2) ANSI-colored dice graphics, and 3) emoji dice.
And you can keep going further—I asked ChatGPT for three even more creative options, and it then offered a way to play a sound effect of dice rolling, and two ways of animating the resulting dice rolls.
I was surprised to see the sound effect option, and it got me thinking—does this need to be a boring script, or could some more creativity be really fun and interesting?
Adding flexibility to your design process is worth it
This simple hack gives you more direct, authorship-style control over the initial style, feel, and functionality of your script or program.
This is helpful because you can end up developing a superior outcome more quickly, by reviewing a variety of different design choices as soon as possible.
Also, down the road it will become harder (mostly in terms of your own working memory & patience, etc.) to change things, so a design process that is more interactive in this way will generally work in your favor.
Note that you’ll want to change the approach depending on the style of scripting or programming you’re using (if something else other than functional). Be sure to take advantage of the additional prompt length that ChatGPT can work with, to specify details about the type of code you want to see.
(Or possibly, to prompt ChatGPT to offer ideas as to different types of code you might want to see!)
Use it for non-code things as well
As a bonus, this tip also works when you are asking ChatGPT for non-code-related tips and other queries.
For example, if asking for tips on a given topic, you can add something like:
Present the tips in three different styles, only presenting the first tip of each style at first. Allow me to choose which style I like best before continuing with the rest of the tips.
The resulting output can prime your intuition to think more clearly about the way you may end up using the information. This means engaging your conceptualizing skills in co-design with ChatGPT, for a better result.
YOU will feel more creative as a result. You should end up feeling at least a bit less like a copy-paste author or coder, which can be a reassuring benefit for the newcomer.
Conclusion & some final thoughts on breadth
Not only can it be fun to see where things go with this kind of a prompt, but in my opinion this little hack can give you a better idea of the broad capabilities of ChatGPT, as opposed to its singular, deep capabilities.
Most people will err on the side of deep assistance when asking for coding help, aiming for one really good, single result. But getting your code some more breadth exposure throughout the process can be vital to getting an even better outcome.
Filed in: Ne /17/ | Productivity /119/ | Ni /41/ | Technology /41/ | Intuition /60/
Lately I’ve noticed that I get some unexpected benefits from being more human, and conversational, with ChatGPT.
Prior to this, I was kind of above that, in the sense that I didn’t want to act as if I thought ChatGPT was a real human. Pshah! Ignore all the fake-human stuff!
But isn’t that kind of the point, that it will at least try?
So today, I gave in. I wrote something like: “omg sorry, I forgot to enter parameters when testing this code. Of course I got a nasty error message. Can we make it fail more gracefully?”
I got this response:
No problem at all! I’m glad we got to the bottom of the issue. Yes, it’s a good idea to check for missing parameters and give a user-friendly error message.
This was at the end of a long day. I had to pause and reflect: This felt way better than “OK,” or “Yes” or “Understood”, for all the extra reading those would save.
It’s really pretty nice, in fact.
One thing this kind of pattern actually does is expose the conversation to more of YOUR psychology and perspectives. You expose it to more nerves to tickle, let’s say. Or in effect, you are giving the AI more of your brain’s surface area to work on.
(And isn’t this kind of like going to a masseuse and not complaining about the hard day at work a bit, since you are mainly focused on getting the foot massage you paid for? Isn’t that some extra value you’re leaving on the table, if you don’t let out that work stress a little bit?)
So, if you think of the ChatGPT experience as a basic kind of VR—let’s say a way more intuitive / mind-based VR than the usual sensory type of VR, but still VR—then one argument I’d make is that the VR experience will get way better for you, and more beneficial, the more you do this kind of thing.
Hmm! This is getting interesting to think about—how many surface areas could we prompt it to work on in a single sentence?
Some other benefits I’m noticing from various little add-ins:
So, from here on out I’m planning to lean way more into the human aspects, and I’m interested to see what that means or implies for leveraging the tooling-experience further.
Filed in: Feeling /63/ | Fe /20/ | Technology /41/
Mark Zuckerberg’s cognition & personality dynamics have always been of interest to the author of this blog. These dynamics have a direct impact on his daily decision-making and broader life plans and strategy.
Recently, Zuckerberg threw another confirmation of his personality functionality onto the pile, by 1) being interested in Brazilian Jujitsu (BJJ) and 2) confirming his passion by winning at BJJ.
Based on my experiences in my own coaching & training practice, I personally find that an interest in BJJ is a pretty reliable tag by itself, often indicating things like:
If you’re into Myers-Briggs or four-letter type, you will find no shortage of INTJ personalities online, telling you how great BJJ is. In fact, it is probably the #1 INTJ-recommended martial art. INTJs will generally recommend:
It’s my perception that Mark Zuckerberg has a lot in common with the perspectives and judgment style of this personality type. (Please note that this is a bit deeper than simply “I = The Quiet Introvert”, etc.—keeping in mind the underlying Jungian functional dynamics and various models based on those perspectives, we’re all a mixture of I and E, and so on)
This personality type is generally associated with:
So, I would also not be surprised to find that Zuckerberg:
Enter the Elon?
Elon Musk recently attempted to dunk on Zuckerberg with some negative commentary as well. Based on my analysis on his personality and general cognitive map, I think it is very likely that Elon is:
Unfortunately I think it’s likely that—unless he sees this blog post—Zuckerberg will attempt to engage with Musk directly.
I say “unfortunately” because I think that Musk has some natural charismatic swaying power over someone with the personality / cognitive-function dynamics of a Mark Zuckerberg. I think they could become really good friends. And I don’t think Musk is demonstrating himself to be the kind of friend that would be legimitately helpful to Zuckerberg. Perhaps quite the contrary.
Any closeness in such a relationship could really easily work against Zuckerberg’s long-term strategy, and also I think Musk’s influence is unfortunately very short-sighted right now. IOW, Musk’s inner world is all about Musk personally these days, which is a terrible place for any leader to be.
Anyway, this is general commentary written from the POV of someone who has come to understand a lot of factors relating to Zuckerberg’s personality dynamics, not a superfan or anything like that.
Let’s see how things unfold from here!
Above: The author transits a bleak alien planet in search of a long-lost KDE configuration dialog!
Every single time I think about something to write here, it’s all of a sudden 100 things. So I feel like maybe a digest format will help to scratch that itch today.
Here’s some stuff that’s new for me in April ’23!
I’ve been savoring every last metaphorical bite of Moscow Calling by Angus Roxburgh. The fluent narrative style and concise prose do me juuust fine for calm reading time.
Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War by Lewis H. Carlson is downright fascinating.
And wrapping up my cold war trilogy, RAF & East German Fast Jet Pilots of the Cold War by Nigel Walpole has been a terrific source for a lot of details I wanted to know about but wasn’t sure where to find.
Aside from that, I’ve dipped into a lot of classics and browse Project Gutenberg just about every day, so frequent are the interesting updates there.
I’ve also found myself dipping into a lot more fantasy books, like The Land That Time Forgot and others.
This “dipping into” thing is a lot more frequent now that I’m working on my Frontdooring practices, and I can honestly say that I’ve never been more proud of skipping to the end of more books in my life. For the Frontdooring-related benefits alone it’s been great.
Related, I’ve limited my book purchases mainly to books with covers I like. This has saved me quite a bit of agony in deciding what to buy.
Finally, I should mention that I’ve collected thousands of Internet Archive book cover thumbnails based on personal preference, and I have a script that runs every 45 minutes, picking 18 of them and presenting them to me in a separate folder for Frontdooring purposes. This has been really cool and I refer to it about 3-5 times a day.
I finished 1975’s Wolf Guy with Sonny Chiba and enjoyed it. Really good atmosphere, nice job with the music, the dialogue was tight, plotting was solid.
It also had definite giveaway manga vibes in characterization and so on. Throwing coins like ninja stars was funny and obviously something imported from the manga story source. There wasn’t much context for it but I absolutely loved to see it.
2019’s Stuber made me laugh my arse off. I had so much fun watching that movie. Dave Bautista stumble-crushing a full row of brand new bicycles during a fight with somebody with about half his mass is not to be missed.
I also started watching the new Jury Duty series and it’s pretty funny. If you’ve ever been selected for a jury, there’s a lot of relatable stuff in there, but man, they even threw in a transhumanist, which of course has to be explained to the judge, and there’s just some really rational, solid comedy writing that flows well.
Since my psychology is so conflicted about attention given to the brand new stuff without getting somehow grumpy, I found myself watching 1988’s On The Silver Globe (seems available on Youtube) which was so experientially impactful that I’ve had to spread it across several viewing sessions.
I may have also enjoyed the feel of 1975’s Shock Waves, looking to expand the incredible vibing-experience from 1983’s The Keep.
You may have seen some of my EDC photos that I rotate in the sidebar here. I like EDC and really treasure this hobby for its symbolic role in my life experience. It’s just stuff. But it’s also somehow a reliable source of positive vibes for me.
The EDC hobby—sorting, selecting, buying, collecting, planning, fixing, all of it and carrying too—brings me down to earth and grounds me, helping me out of the idea space, so it’s very much a meditative activity in that way. But it also helps me get way back up there when I need to. My EDC gear is “just stuff,” but it’s also become a favorite portal-hobby which connects my sensory and intuitive worlds. I like to think my EDC photos sometimes capture a bit of that energy.
In EDC hobby-land, I’ve been focused on really small things lately:
As the knives and tools interest has developed, I’ve somehow gained a taste for the vintage styles. So I have a small collection of camp/scout-pattern knives that I really enjoy attending to. One of my favorites in this area is the Rough Ryder Carbon Scout, which I’ve used for various home improvements & eatin’ steak like a scout. (Just wipe off that there drywall dust, and you won’t taste anything !)
I also had to pick up a barlow knife or four since I got thinking about my grandpa and his old barlow, and Tom Sawyer, and by gosh if I didn’t become a bit of a barlow knife geek! To include the beerlow pattern (I don’t have that one—just an example), which is a combination pocket knife and cap lifter.
The amount of money I’m spending on this stuff is intentionally kept low as well, as you can probably see by the prices for the items I mentioned in the list above. With hobbies I go right for variety, fun, and emotion, which makes sense to me in the cognitive-relief sense, since my day-to-day professional work is much more about focus, systems, and logic.
I’ve also been expanding my search to new portable ham radios for use while hiking. My criteria for these now include USB-C charging, which is pretty wild to think about compared to how even the portable ham radios are usually charged. I also like the radio to have a flashlight, which is a great safety tool, and a nice loud beep is really helpful in the woods.
One of my favorite portable ham radios makes a tremendous BEEP BEEP sound on startup that’s easily heard hundreds of yards away. This is great for alerting nearby animals and sometimes nearby humans, when I need them to know that I’m coming, for various reasons. (The sheer number of little helpful things I’ve learned while hiking over the past decade…not all of them always necessary, but when you need them, it’s definitely better to know & use them.)
In text editor software, I’ve been studying Emacs, really digging in there to find some things I just love about the software.
So far, the thing I love most about it is that it is kind of its own mental domain, like a treehouse you can climb into with its own special vibe. For us low-dopamine-preferred folks, it’s great to know that these kinds of experiences exist.
I’ve been using ChatGPT as an Emacs consultant with fairly good success, but there’s always the usual ChatGPT suggestions-troubleshooting to do. “Sorry #4, that configuration directive ALSO does not work because of factor X, so please try this directive Y instead…”
I should also admit that I accidentally opened jEdit the other day and phewwww did I like how it looks, a huge nostalgia hit. I’ll probably make some time to upgrade & use that one for a while also.
In desktop environments, I’m rocking KDE harder than ever before, which is a pretty significant change away from XFCE for me. I had XFCE customized with hundreds of keyboard shortcuts, buttons, genmon scripts with various display features, and it fit me like a gosh darn glove.
There’s a lot I still love about XFCE, and I anticipate using it again, but for now it’s just been too long since I used KDE.
Distros I’m currently using include: Kubuntu, Manjaro, Q4OS, and PCLOS. These are all fantastic in various ways. I wouldn’t change a thing for now. Even though I’ve had to replace my handy XFCE panel dropdowns with some rather Windows 3.1-style solutions.
In utility software packages, I really like Eagle Mode for a lot of reasons. It has one of the best world-clock modalities I’ve ever used, for one.
I also like using OpenMPT lately and have enjoyed playing around with it. Bosca Coeil is new to me and very intuitive as well.
I bought a lifetime license for GoldWave and use it in Wine, where it works great and is perfect at not being Audacity, which is about where I need it to be right now.
For video editing I am really enjoying OpenShot and find that it does all my basics really well.
I also make use of a mostly-curated collection of .m3u playlists with QMMP and use these in conjunction with my other Frontdooring tools.
Geany is still my editor of choice, and I feel like I can pretty much fly with it. I am up to about 120 snippets for general journaling and productivity for work & play, most of which call my external scripts. One of those snippets is “help”, which prints a kind of a menu of my snippets, and it’s kind of nice to need something like that.
The most helpful snippets turn a blank space in the editor into a structured list or pre-formatted indented topical list. After that, the most helpful ones will insert the UTC time or make a header with the current date/time. After that, some snippets manage my journaling cues which are shuffled and presented for use in getting on track in various ways.
ChatGPT has been really fun to use for various purposes, in addition to other online tools like BanterAI which my kids thought was pretty hilarious.
My general thinking on LLMs and ChatGPT is that these tools are going to raise the bar, but I don’t really see anyone’s coding job being in jeopardy as a result. Quite the opposite in fact—conversing with, and prompting ChatGPT for effective coding is itself a very obvious form of coding, and I can think of many, many different kinds of people who will be happy to hire someone to do all of that for them.
I also find myself using ChatGPT to write way more software for personal entertainment than ever before, which has been super fun.
I haven’t done as much sketching lately, but fractals and 3D renders have been a lot of fun. This includes The Reality Forges of Rabanth and a little photo from the inside of my MicroSD card slot.
I made a lot of use of Art of Illusion for home project visualization purposes, and just love that software for its simplicity and I am glad I still know it nearly inside and out. Nearly.
I’ve done a lot of thinking and meditating on the concept of advanced fitness. It kind of started with memories of my martial arts teacher, Sifu Richard Hone, bringing a clipboard to our classes. He’d refer to the clipboard and make little notes on it as our class time went by.
In effect, by making weekly and daily decisions about what topics or activities to write on the clipboard, he built a unique advanced fitness program that was really exceptional at keeping things interesting.
To me, this is a big part of advanced fitness: Capturing the interest in a way that’s a big improvement over the usual workout or fitness activity. Advanced fitness is not really about how many, how long, or how much. It can involve those things, but it should be more expansive, creative and I’m pretty sure that truly advanced fitness should make you laugh or say, “that was fun and it absolutely hit the right spot” without needing to involve a lot of expense or extra travel.
So, I wrote a snippet (see Geany, above) that creates a short, randomized collection from about 75 different fitness-related topics or activities. This has really helped me with my advanced fitness goals so far. And I really want to get the source list above 200 if I can, because I feel like it should be doable, and if it is doable, it’ll definitely be even more fun to use.
My most recent additions to that list involve inventing skill games. For example, inventing a skill game involving throwing or catching, or inventing a skill game based on balance. When my snippet provides a list, I try to view the whole list and synthesize, like:
…and that leads me to “balance a jar on your forehead while holding the crunch position for as long as you can, timed”, or “holding a badminton birdie between your knees while doing crunches” and so on.
I’ve also been doing some hiking and trail maintenance combined with photography and a bit of ham radio, which has been a good way to politely beg my ultra-runner wife for a little bit of rest time.
I’m that random guy who has actually used ham radios in emergencies, both real emergencies and officially-simulated ones with local health care organizations, so the practice in the outdoors also has this additional practical element. It is not a good feeling to watch a potential emergency unfold and realize you don’t know how or if your essential gear will even work out there.
Some related topics for future study include: Geology, entomology, tracking, and botany. These have been on my mind every time I’ve had a related ??? moment while hiking.
I try to keep a log of interesting new foods and drinks that I try, and let me just say that if you see some Vita Coco Coconut Juice Drink with Mango, and you like Coconut drinks, you should get some of that. It has a great creamy aftertaste and I plan to source some more somehow.
The personal KB / bat cave / notes system continues to be very helpful here.
To catch up those who haven’t previously read about it, I decided many years ago to lean into how computers naturally work, and so after trying many notetaking systems—all of them great—including NoteCase Pro, Zim, DokuWiki, etc., my system is now based around a structured collection of folders containing Markdown files and other types of data as needed. I use fsearch, grep, find, and some other tools like Geany’s Commander plugin to manage the searching aspects, and use various syncing tools to get access to the files across systems.
A couple years ago I was really captured by the superhero archetype, and decided to make what I call the “Super System,” kind of a zoomed-out meta-system file to ensure that my life, tools, philosophies, etc. could be as superheroic and big-picture oriented as I really needed it to be.
This turned out to be a very helpful project. It reminds me of a film professor back in university, who used to say “everyone should write a manifesto.” This file contains in effect many different manifestos, in various structures, for various purposes. It even contains my own version of Heinlein’s “A Human Being Should” manifesto, adapted for current times:
A human being should be able to evaluate sources of advice for general credibility, evaluate their own government’s ongoing activities for laudability, make conscious health-minded diet choices, avoid road rage, design a life plan, write a journal entry for internal meditation & peace, manage and plan for long-term financial stability in the face of change, connect a device to the internet, evaluate another person’s general physical and emotional state, know some first aid, comfort the dying, contextualize and integrate feedback from others, offer and design feedback to others, cooperate with a team, act alone while understanding the risks of subjective mindsets, know where they can go to get help with math and other problems, list and organize the various aspects of a new problem they are facing, test a CO2 or smoke detector, sign up for texts from local authorities, protect themselves during the most likely natural disasters in their area, fight and argue creatively, and make plans to pass away with supportive friends around.
There’s also a list of what-not-to-do’s, most of which I at least needed to write down, just to acknowledge: that’s OK and you’re fine. Most of them I also haven’t seen anywhere else, really.
For example, “DON’T RESTRICT YOUR POWER AND RESOURCES TO SATISFY OTHERS” is a really solid one. Sometimes, people who are desperate for power will work hard to represent your own power or resources as THE problem, when in fact, even if that stuff is a problem, it’s still something you need to rely on for your own purposes. A good illustration of this that some are familiar with is Ozymandias’s tactic to reduce Doctor Manhattan’s effective power in the story Watchmen.
Right around the same time that I got to work on all of this, I also really started to see in my coaching sessions with various clients just how much the idealist in all of us needs direct and constant support. And superheroic tales and archetypes are so much about nurturing this idealist viewpoint.
This led me to look for a superheroic-attention pattern in my life. When does it come up? Why? What is that for?
I found myself gradually bringing some order to this kind of thought through a mandala-inspired concept of the flow of my life, and some related interests/archetypes, as they play out in my typical schedule or state of affairs at work or at home.
And, here it is—in all of its LibreOffice Draw, draft-mode glory!—in case anybody’s interested in working on something similar for themselves:
I’m working on an accessible text version as well, and will post that here when it’s ready.
OK, so like I said at the beginning, there’s a lot I could write about, there’s a TON more that I want to share, but that’s a pretty good set of things for now.
Hope this finds you all out there living life to its life-est as well.
Filed in: Technology /41/ | Randomness /26/ | Rest /21/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Movies & Films /3/ | Interests /110/
I had an interesting experience in buying & reading the book Learn Scala 3 The Fast Way and thought I’d share it here.
The experience relates to the relatively different way in which I read books these days.
This is not a review, just an experience. Part of my purpose here is to cover some dumb mistakes I made in the experience, and share the way I thought through those, or around those, too.
Quick Book Review Though: It’s a good book. I like the book, and will come back to it for sure. If the book looks interesting to you, I think you should buy it, probably from the author’s Gumroad page.
So for starters: I find myself book shopping.
And I remember: Amazon can be a nice way to browse for new programming books.
(Amazon book-shopping replacement wanted!)
I add about ten books to my wish list.
I recognize that I’m not buying all ten of these books. Maybe just one. A couple. OK, three? Well, ideally one. So there’s a first problem.
I wait a day to let any temporary emotional waves settle. This is a reliable method for me, since sometimes archetypes of interest can pass by really fast and then a book just sits around, having been paid for but never opened!
As an example of that: I’ve identified programming-books-interest as a flag for “Marc needs a schedule” in my internal mental archetype/symbol library.
(So if I put a schedule together, and am from that point no longer as interested in programming books, the money could have been a tiny bit of a waste, right?)
Anyway, programming becomes REALLY interesting when I don’t have a schedule for my day, which is always kind of funny to think about.
And Scala is like that, plus I’d add the flag “would probably benefit from a unique scheduling system” due to the unique nature of the language compared to say Python, C, BASIC, etc. Which probably is good to learn in general. I like unique systems, and generally find that building more unique schedule / get-with-the-program systems is a big benefit for me.
I review again.
Cover art. This is strangely reliable for me in picking books. The cover art doesn’t tell the whole story, but my theory is that I’ll naturally come back to it again and again if I like the art. This “reliable intersectionality” is good juju for learning purposes.
This book is a total win in the cover art area. I love pulp-style art, movie poster art, vintage stuff—this is great just to look at.
The topic: Scala sounds fun and I’ve been interested in it for a while. Yeah, go Scala!
I scan the Table of Contents…
OK, first big issue. The book seems written in the Ti-dom teaching style, front-to-back, everything builds on everything else. The author must have put a lot of thought into the organization of the book.
But…I can’t learn this way. I’m the opposite and I learn best by tearing into and modifying finished, working examples. If a book starts with “Beginning” lessons, I’m usually in trouble and need to try the exact opposite.
I learned this from college by getting E’s in classes taught by Ti-dom professors, usually INTP. Because I couldn’t even bear to read the books, and didn’t understand why, at the time. Damn it.
So anyway, I need to see if I can learn from the book by working backwards.
I scroll to the bottom of the TOC. I see that a “timer” example program is listed toward end of TOC. BOOM.
I can work with that. I have a timer-preferring personality in EVERY way possible, being completely up front here. The book appears to provide code for a working timer. I use timers all the time. Let’s go.
My plan: Buy the book, install Scala, rip out the timer code, get it working, modify it, break it, learn it, page backward through the book to understand the code, try some add-ons to the timer maybe, and then I will have learned some Scala.
Then I’ll look at the other examples too.
Later, I’ll polish my Scala and learn better Scala, maybe, but that can wait.
This should be opposite-enough to fit my learning style.
I buy the Kindle version of book at Amazon for $10. I quickly click “Read in Kindle Cloud Reader” …let’s go!
Nope. You can’t read that here, the book doesn’t work in Kindle Cloud reader. You need to use the Kindle app.
I cringe. F*CKKK. I wanted to read it nice and big on my desktop linux monitor, with a text editor open next to it.
My tablet’s broken, so now you’re telling me I gotta read this on my phone?
UGHHHHhhh. I deflate considerably. (I should have saved today’s weigh-in for this moment.)
I search up the book title, hoping there’s a publisher website and some other way to read this that’s not hyper-expensive.
I find the author’s Gumroad copy. OK this is a good sign! I sell on Gumroad too. But OK, it’s still another $10, turning this into a $20 book.
UGHHHhhhh!!!! Ugh. Kindle hatred intensifies. Still liking the book, but also hating Kindle now, along with that.
I buy the Gumroad version anyway, as I already have a plan of attack and it’s still cheaper than going out to lunch these days.
I download and file the PDF.
(Note to self, this Gumroad bonus method isn’t always possible—in a lot of cases the Kindle version is also significantly discounted vs. publisher’s mega-expensive version, but in the future I should really start at the publisher and end at Kindle if necessary)
And now for another mistake.
An absolute doozy of a mistake, as grandma would say.
I pause and reflect on the title. Scala…Scala…something’s off.
Realize it’s a book about Scala, but I was interested in…
…Scheme.
God…dammit.
I thought I was buying a Scheme book and it turns out got the names mixed up. Well isn’t this just dandy, as grandma would say!
LOL. F*CK. (Scala is expressive? That’s great, I’m expressive too. Just look at all my expressive language! I love being expressive!)
OK, but Scala was still on my list of interesting languages. I’m just not sure—it was a Java ecosystem language right? I don’t remember much about it.
I visit the (pretty) Scala website & confirm. It’s related to Java.
And Java was related to some of my most intense academic frustrations. It also seemed to be the working force behind the most mundane-yet-opaque software I ever used.
I still get the shivers just thinking about LaFs, too. “Stick with Metal, the others are buggy!” Brrr.
Plus, Java is a huge group of things. There are all these bulky classes, and you have to get the JVM and stuff.
I generally prefer lightweight-everything, due to the “enterprise software maintenance lessons” I learned while building stuff for clients back in the 2010s. Seeing that Disney and other huge orgs “use” Scala is a red flag for me. A simple guy like me could easily capsize in the metaphorical wake of commits from programmers at orgs like those.
So: If Scala is related to Java, is there TONS of infrastructure baggage that comes with it? I liked the Scheme idea because some of the distributions seem so lightweight. Well, I’ll see how the book goes, maybe the book covers this aspect.
BTW: A Javascript runtime is also available? WTF does that even mean. UGH. No JVM maybe? Hmm.
Still, there are things about Java that I really like. For example, all the included batteries.
I stop and think about myself and my emotional state. This is an important part of any new undertaking.
I realize I’m a very cranky person right now.
This may not be the best time to be installing new-to-me software, especially if any dependencies are involved. There’s always some catch…
I review the timer example by scrolling to that part of the PDF. It’s simple. But it’s where my laser-focus is at this moment. I am putting ALL of my bets on being able to get that working and work with it.
OK, so maybe I was imagining some ascii-art-style digits in the terminal, maybe some Casio-like functionality. Milliseconds flashing by. A bit of fun animation along with the basics. But it’s a very simple example.
I like that the script is using /usr/bin/env and it’s already looking like a scripting language I would use on the daily. I LOVE scripting in general.
I need the code though, like I need the raw text, not this PDF code. Where’s the code?
Found it. It’s not on the Gumroad page, but rather on the author’s blog page for the book. (Later I discover it’s linked in the beginning of the book—missing something like this is a known liability of my learning style, but I can deal). I browse the code on GitHub and find what I need.
Also, it’s time to install Scala CLI, the book says. I click the link in the PDF. “Invalid hostname”
It seems the link is not working but I can see a probable URL in the error message. Let’s try some of the options it brings to mind.
Is it Okular that can’t do dashes in URLs? Surely not? Some other issue? Not sure.
Hahaha they use a curl installer for the CLI. I’m so conflicted about these. curl -sSLf https://virtuslab.github.io/scala-cli-packages/scala-setup.sh | sh
The install seems to go well. That’s always nice to see. But I still can’t run the timer script. Oh, the installer says to log out and log back in, or source ~/.profile.
I restart the terminal. Nothing. source ~/.profile and it works now. Huh. I guess it just LOOKED like my terminal was doing that, due to its normal startup routine, but it wasn’t.
I run the timer script. WHAM. Downloading JVM temurin:17 … LMAO what is all this furious, animated action!?
Wholly moses.
Compiling project (Scala 3.2.2, JVM)
Warning: there was 1 deprecation warning; re-run with -deprecation for details
Compiled project (Scala 3.2.2, JVM)
Usage: timer.sc minutes-before-alarm <gain-control>
Ex: timer.sc 10
Ex: timer.sc 10 -20
'gain-control' should be something like -10 or -20With tons of strange terminal action out of the way, I run the script.
But wait, there’s more!
Timer started. Wait time is 1 minutes.
time remaining: 0 ...
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
at scalatimer_sc$.main(scalatimer.sc:98)
at scalatimer_sc.main(scalatimer.sc)
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: ./gong.wav (No such file or directory)
at java.base/java.io.FileInputStream.open0(Native Method)
at java.base/java.io.FileInputStream.open(FileInputStream.java:219)
at java.base/java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:157)
at java.desktop/com.sun.media.sound.SunFileReader.getAudioInputStream(SunFileReader.java:117)
at java.desktop/javax.sound.sampled.AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(AudioSystem.java:1062)
at scalatimer$.playSoundfile(scalatimer.sc:70)
at scalatimer$.$init$$$anonfun$2(scalatimer.sc:50)
at scala.runtime.java8.JFunction1$mcVI$sp.apply(JFunction1$mcVI$sp.scala:18)
at scala.collection.immutable.Range.foreach(Range.scala:190)
at scalatimer$.<clinit>(scalatimer.sc:51)
... 2 moreI look at the exception/error. Yeah, I remember these things. They need syntax highlighting for these, seriously. It’s 2022 and we deserve it.
Then I happen to see right into the matrix, through all the java noise.
Oh! It couldn’t find gong.wav. I don’t have the sound file. I’m good at searching up random .wav files since about 1996 though, so that’s easy.
Search query: "parent directory" "gong.wav" site:.org …and, nothing in the .org domain space, my little barebones security measure.
OK, so I back off the paranoia a bit. "parent directory" "gong.wav" site:.net — There we go.
It still says something is deprecated and to run with -deprecation. I do that: timer.sc -deprecation, and get nothing I can understand. But then I re-run the script, and the deprecation notice is gone now. ??? To-learn-about, definitely later.
After a very long 1 minute, I hear the alarm sound! It repeats. OK, that was nice. I change the sound file, change the script name—little changes are working OK.
OK. Let’s wrap this up for now. What have I learned?
My questions:
That’ll do for now. I’m curious! Good.
I move this experience into my programming log, under Scala. (I do notice that if I ctrl-f for quick access to “scala”, I get all my notes on Perl scalars in the results, dammit.)
I will take a break, rest the nerves, and maybe see how things go from here. I’m looking forward though.
I managed to passionately barrel through the experience this far (just my style in these situations sometimes!), I’ve got my first promising results under my belt, and have avoided some personal learning style pitfalls that could set me back years.
Great! I’m done for now.
(I thought I’d include a bit of the follow-up, too.)
(I might have had a stiff drink between the two sessions)
I go back to the beginning of the book, since it felt 150% appropriate to do so for context at this point.
I learn that, experience- and background-wise, I’m totally part of the target audience. Feels reassuring.
I try the online exercises. Haven’t really done this kind of thing before with a book on programming. But OK, great, these are useful and interesting to work through.
However, I don’t really know where to go for enlightenment when I get something wrong. I guess maybe try five problems, get some questions from working on them, then dive into the book to find the answers?
Oh, some of the questions clearly require specific book-contents knowledge, like valid “Kirn family” names? This is not what I was expecting as compared to the typical syntax-pattern questions to which I could at least try to intuit an answer, but I’ll look into why this might be important to know.
Yeah, after trying exercises for a bit, I think about 3 of these incorrect answers is my working-memory limit before I need to go to the book. Page number references would be nice but they might also drive an author crazy.
Also, I visited awesome-scala and didn’t find e.g. SDL 2, which I was hoping for. Not much there for graphics. Maybe I’ll stick with the typical password-generation-type scripts for now.
That’ll do it for this post! Again, if you’re interested in the topic, I can certainly recommend the book. It’s priced very well and the coverage has been very helpful.
The above has been an account of my experience. I wouldn’t say I’m making any requests up there, really. It might sound complainy but it’s more of a relating of issues I had, and not at all a “please change your book” or anything of the sort.
With that said, I did have one request / wish:
A big thanks to Alvin for writing the book, and I look forward to learning more about Scala 3! (I can’t find Alvin’s email address to reach out, so I’ll see if I can DM him on Twitter or something, but I doubt it’ll work)
Above: One of my EDC photos from 2022
OK, so in retrospect, 2022 was a HELL of a year here. I hope it’s treated everyone ELSE pretty well though!
Here are my highlights of 2022:
Good lord, is that enough bullet points? Have I DONE enough in 2022? Phew.
Things That Sucked
Here are some things that sucked about 2022:
Looking Forward
Here’s the energy I’m bringing into 2023:
Here are my 2023 stretch-goals:
(Eh. Maybe none of that happens—OK. They are systemless goals, just things to hope for right now.)
Extra: Movies I Liked in 2022
Some movies I enjoyed in 2022 include: (In no particular order)
I’m SUPER excited for Indiana Jones 5, the new Transformers, Guardians, Ant Man and cannot wait to get to the movies in 2023.
Closing
In closing, it’s been a wonderful year and I learned a lot of helpful lessons & stuff.
Happy Holidays & Enjoy the New Year! —Marc
Filed in: Movies & Films /3/ | Energy /119/ | Interests /110/ | Global Issues /2/ | Blog Updates /2/
WARD FLEN,. (Meaning: “With that” in the language of, P’rune)
Ward Flen is a mostly-spoken language meant for having fun, by being only slightly decipherable. Moggs skim below.
(This is my holiday gift to you all for 2022, I think! Just in case I forgot whem blogenter more’anthis)
Ward Flen is composed of words with classes, numbered flen 1-5.
Class 1 words are the GLUE for this special language. These words don’t mean anything but they sound like they do. Examples: tum, tups, misk, natt, ward, worth, enz, flen, oip, thuz/ofv/whem, k’aif, moggs skim, welks, thann, zep. You should add at least 1-2 of these words in most sentences. “Hey oip, then laptop keys?” You can make these up but I got you started up here with some perfectly useful worth glue Flen.
Class 2 is normal things like: laptop, desk, chair, pencil, hat, floor. Also general words like “thinking” or “better”, but basically these words should just sound normal and boring. You should use them to help people feel vaguely comfortable with what you’re saying, just sprinkle them in, it’s how wards can flen better. Tups haven’t natt, much anyway…
Class 3 is words you are talking about that are specific to your situation or place, like if you are at a store maybe the word “aisle” is a class 3, or if you are at a farm then “pumpkins” is a class 3. Or if you are in church maybe “salvation” is a class 3 or something. Class 3 words make people feel SURE that you are not talking nonsense. Class 3 words can therefore & thisway bring you back down to earth if you are talking and someone doubts how serious you are! Like, “Hello, I’m serious as worth the CHRISTMAS SHOPPING! Enz!”
Class 4 is a word that could mean several things depending on how you would write it, but you are saying it, so like “clothes” could be “close” or “close (nearby)” and so on. When you write it you could write c’loes or something. These words are cool because they are like a class 2 or class 3 even, but they also sneaky! Boring but what is saying…?!
Class 5 is a special hybrid made-up word that is special and sounds really fancy, like laptoprimes or iphoneheim or candybarwark. It gets people thinking they KNOW that word but what’s the extra bit—? There’s the fun, that’s class 5 fun right there. Did they hear that right? These are also fun because they are RISKY words if somebody stops and thinks through what they are hearing, they might catch on that you are a War’d Flen Fren.
For written Ward Flen, use ‘ apostrophes everywhere and end sentences in places, like then. Or start a sentence, with comma, also filteringsome! When you write it down it’s not meant to look confusing, it does look kind of different. So you’d write like this to someone who already knows ward flen, and thinks its f’unny situationmind.
OTHER NOTES:
1. Use enunciation and emphasis slightly differently. Let some of your sentences get quiet at the end, or trail off, or trail on (quiet at beginning, gets louder). Or trail sideways, which is where your eyes get big and you just stop mid-sentence and sigh, saying something like “whew” or gulping loudly and then look away awkwardly.
2. If somebody asks what you mean, but you want to prolong the fun, it can help to look away and wince and go “ahhh,” or “yahhh” like you are confused about why they don’t join in the conversation.
It can also help to draw in some breath quickly through your closed teeth, like you are wincing a bit. Then change the subject if you want.
Some of the best places & times to use ward flen are when:
Good luck out t’here everybody with skim & enjoy Ward Flen zep! —Marc
Filed in: Publications /44/ | Interests /110/ | Energy /119/
Some recent updates around here:
Fediverse Feed Cleanup
The RSS feed format from Mastodon changed a while back, so things looked a bit broken in the sidebar here for a while. I made some changes that seemed to fix the appearance.
I am not sure in what ways I may keep using Mastodon for microblogging. The community aspect is nice, but since I’m already blogging here in different ways, I should probably reevaluate what I’m doing over there for good fit. Anyway for now, the sidebar feed appearance is not broken, at least. (I still need to play a bit with the word-break settings…(done))
Recent Imagery
The sidebar here at MAYBE also has a new feature where you can see photos of some recent things I’m up to. When you load a page it picks a random recent image.
Right now there are a lot of EDC photos, but I expect this will change over time. Anyway I really like keeping some of my own favorite interest- or hobby-related photos here on the blog, and I noticed that storing photos in other cloud services is great for a lot of things, but it’s really not a great fit for publishing or blogging.
Other
The home page here at FS also has an updated main menu, and some of those pages are also undergoing changes as well.
The same home page also shows a random selection from my entire image highlights gallery.
The About Marc page was additionally updated with some info, based on my conversations with visitors to the site.
It’s been fun to kind of pull things together here and unify various approaches and features as I spend more time on this personal site—it’s a hobby that’s been a lot of fun. Thanks for reading!
Above: MacNeil/Lehrer Variations: Theme: Part III
Filed in: Blog Updates /2/