Growth (2024/04/01)

If anyone were to go back through the deep archives of this personal blog, they would come across some...problematic opinions about things.

In the past I had a lot of intolerant and uncharitable opinions of social issues affecting others.

The last handful of years has really been a turnaround/wake up call for me.

The causes and triggers for change are varied and numerous, but the result is a me that is much more socially and politically progressive and my intolerance is now reserved for the intolerant.

So many people and organizations are excited and ready to restrict and minimize the lives of those that choose to do things that they don't approve of. As if the private lives of others require approval.

I leave those problematic posts up, because I don't believe in whitewashing my past mistakes. I own my mistakes and am trying to move forward.

I also leave them to give me something to compare myself to. Markers to indicate how far I've progressed. Besides, that was me. I'm different, now, but I existed then. I was a person and even if now-me would have had a hard discussion with then-me, then-me doesn't deserve to be erased.

Finally, I leave them to remind myself that just because someone feels a certain way now, doesn't mean they'll necessarily feel thatway in the future. People change, and it isn't good for anyone to just write them off. Not everyone is willing to listen in the moment, but maybe in the future.

Minecrosoftcraft (2023/10/16)

So, turns out I found a way to happily play my legal minecraft. The trick, of course, is to avoid as much microsoft garbage as possible.

It seems that despite confirmation emails and successful logins, my Mojang account wasn't considered migrated.

So I went through all of the steps again, but this time in Firefox on my Void Linux machine. No Microsoft "security" (ha!) or invasive and offensively bad mechanisms involved.

A browser that follows standards, and emails to confirm.

And it worked.

Conveniently, Prism Launcher stores microsoft account credentials so there's only the need to prove yourself 15 times (good work, microsoft) 1 time. Then the launcher will do it for you.

It's just too bad it was all built on Java, because hosting a server and playing uses about 14Gb of my 16Gb of memory.

I've only gone OOM a couple of times. eyeroll

Flavorless Nepali Food (2023/10/16)

In less than a week, I head with my brother-in-law on an epic adventure of hiking from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp.

It's a long, cold hike at a crazy altitude. No alpining, just hauling ourselves, but it's going to be taxing under the best of circumstances.

So, I figured it would be a good idea to put on my pack and hike a few miles several times before we go. I started with a 5 miler, which felt mostly fine, except for some mild old-man pains (hip and joint). But the next morning I woke up more sore than I anticipated. I was worried that the trip was going to be harder than I thought, but the soreness got worse as the day progressed...not better.

By the end of the day I also had a headache going, and more than just my knees and hips were sore. I left work early and spent the rest of day lying down.

The 2nd day started with a solid headache and a fever that ran all day and over night. I didn't bother trying to work (my boss was very understanding) and spent most of the day asleep.

By the next morning the fever had let up (I wouldn't say "broke", since I can usually definitively tell when my fevers are over. This one just sort of eased up, but I wasn't sure if I was out of the woods or not). The headache was still there, and I noticed that I had become very sensitive to any salt in my food. The day passed with me just feeling generally crummy, and having a hard time focusing on anything. Lots of time spent watching videos.

In the days since, each morning has me feeling a little better. With the headache lessened, the ability to focus a bit better, and the general grossness/malaise reduced.

One thing that has increased, though, is that instead of just a salt sensitivity, my taste has completely abandoned me. We have all felt lousy, so Jena had some food delivered and whatever faults fast food has, blandness usually isn't one of them, but I couldn't taste anything. The spicy chicken wings, the mashed potatoes...even the recovery ice cream we had after had no flavor at all. It was texture and occasional saltiness.

At that point we pulled out the covid tests and, sure enough, everyone in the house has it.

Fortunately, since we're all vaxxed and boosted, we're all on the road to recovery already. But I am concerned about the sense of taste.

Indian food has long been my favorite ethnic food choice, and similar variations are always intriguing. Every time I've had Pakistani or Nepali food I've loved it. That whole region really knows how to cook.

And now I'm going to that region. And we'll be there during festivals, which I can only imagine means amazing food on every corner.

And I can't taste anything.

If I can't taste by the time I get to Kathmandu, it's going to cast a dark shadow on this whole adventure, and I really, really, hope that's not what happens.

Why Microsoft is Garbage: Exhibit 80million and 1 (2023/07/24)

I'll just layout the steps here:

  1. Buy Minecraft from the original develepor Mojang a few years back.

  2. Play Minecraft

  3. Microsoft acquires Mojang. Initially changes nothing.

  4. Play Minecraft

  5. Microsoft deprecates Mojang logins...requires a new Microsoft account.

  6. Ignore. Play Minecraft

  7. Deadline looms, Microsoft continually harps on creating a new account.

  8. Relent...click link in ominous email.

  9. Go to website...just fine. Click "convert" button...error.

Reload...error. Change network...error.

  1. Use Microsoft garbage web browser Edge instead of Firefox...success. (of course)

  2. Create new Microsoft account.

  3. Login with MS account.

  4. Minecraft bails: not logged in to dumpster fire app store

  5. Login to dumpster fire app store.

  6. Minecraft bails: not logged in to dumpster fire app store

  7. Verify login status.

  8. Minecraft bails.

  9. Reinstall Minecraft from dumpster fire app store

  10. Minecraft bails.

So basically, there's no way for me to legally use my fully licensed, compliant, non-hacked game on an unmodified Windows 10 installation.

This is why piracy is always better for the consumer. I will play Minecraft again, but never again the version I paid for. Microsoft is a blight on society.

Summer Dead Zone (2023/07/13)

It's the annual time during the summer where I jost don't post anything. I'm "busy", I guess.

I mean, I play video games in the evening, so my extracirricular programming is slow, but I'm also gone biking, running, climbing, or otherwise exercising in my other spare time, so I guess that's something.

A couple of other notes:

Yeah, that's pretty much it for now.

Bee Things (2023/06/21)

So, the season of the mason bee is from early, like March, until May-ish.

My bees are done. They stopped being active some time in late April.

I started with 4 tubes of bees and ended with 18. Honestly, it's shocking to me. I didn't see all that much activity (the bees seemed to be a little shy). I saw one here or there, but I definitely saw the tubes being capped.

I had more than a 4x return on the bees this year, which I would say is a qualified success.

Now they spend the summer in the shade inside a wasp-proof bag (parasitic wasps are the biggest danger right now) while they grow in the tubes.

Later in the fall I'll move them into the garage and then after the new year they go in the refridgerator.

Funky little bees, but they're pretty cool.

Yerba Oasis? (2023/03/29)

The very day that I posted about the yerba desert in which I find myself, a new Argentinian cafe/grocery came up in my social media feed (they're always watching).

It's called Argensol, and is about an hour away.

I'm encouraged by the photo of the shelf full of mate options, so I need to figure out a time to make the drive and check them out.

I'm about halfway through my expired bag of Cruz de Malta from the local shop, so it will happen soon.

Review: Trader Joe's Peru 60% (2023/03/28)

Very flavorful. It almost tastes like there's cinnamon in the chocolate. It's very smooth and has a good, clean snap, though it's a light snap, not too hard.

It's a lot. Not sure I'd want to eat a whole bunch at once, but it's very good.

Review: Trader Joe's Papua New Guinea 70% (2023/03/20)

This one is a lot more tart than Tanzania was. It's a very hard snap, but melts smooth.

I would say this one is a bit fruity. It's hard to describe exactly what that means, but it's sweet and tart in a similar way to a berry.

It's good, but unlike the Tanzania, I can tell this is a dark chocolate. Not in an off-putting way, but in the way that I couldn't just sit and eat a big bar of this. It definitely needs to be broken into pieces and enjoyed over time.

Beekeeping Redux (2023/03/18)

Well, I tried for several years to raise honeybees when we were in Utah and it was essentially a bust.

You can't harvest honey the first year, because you need to let the bees build up the hive to survive the winter. So, the first year is a lot of care and feeding. I did that for a year, and they didn't survive the winter. Twice, I think (it blurs together).

The third time I ordered Russian bees (bees don't vote). They were really cool looking (more gray than yellow). They're bred to overwinter well and be more mite resistant. They were very strong and were my first hive to survive the winter! They were super active in the spring and I was very hopeful.

Then they swarmed. No biggie, there should be enough bees left behind for a viable hive.

Then they swarmed again.

I tried to work with what was left, but if I had a queen in the leftovers, she died at some point. The hive just sort of evaporated before I could get a replacement queen.

When we were packing to move to Washington I gave all my bee hardware away. No room on the truck for useless bee boxes.

Bees fell off my personal radar. I'm aware of local honeybee keepers, but I'm not ready to drop another couple hundred bucks to spin the wheel of disappointment again.

Then, a few weeks ago, Jena tells me about a seminar at the city nursery about Orchard Mason Bees. A native bee species that is a super efficient pollinator and very good to have around.

I like bees, so I went. It was super interesting!

Keeping honeybees is very transactional. You build suitable places for hives, give them food, water, and medicine. In return, you get honey. Delicious, delicious, honey.

Mason bees are so different. Really the only part that's the same is that you provide them with a suitable place to lay eggs (well, providing them with good pollen options by way of flowers and some water is nice, but not required). They do their thing and hopefully fill your bee house with eggs for next year.

In the late summer/fall you collect the cocoons and store them until next spring when you start all over again.

So I'm trying my hand at it this year. I'm still a beekeeper, with a bunch of little buzzing buddies that I will do my best to care for. I just won't have any honey to show for it. But hopefully I'll end up with more bees to start the next year with.

Yerba Desert (2023/03/10)

One of the things that I miss about Utah, that I did not anticipate, is the ready access to yerba mate.

El Mate in Layton has everything you could want (obviously) and closer to home La Pequeñita had a bunch to choose from. All for about $10-$12 for a kilo.

Now I'm near Seattle and the options I've found are a local market that had 1 bag of Cruz de Malta that expired several years ago (I bought it, now their inventory is cleared out), and a store in Pike Place that charges, like, double what I should have to pay. I'll admit, they have a substantial selection, but sheesh...so expensive.

So then I think, "I'll just order online", but when you factor in shipping I'm still paying a lot more than I was in Utah.

Sadness.

Review: Trader Joe's Tanzania 73% Dark (2023/03/06)

I'm super out of practice, so this next batch of reviews are probably pretty iffy. But nobody reads this, anyway, so I'm not going to sweat it much.

Anyway, this is surprisingly smooth for as dark as it is. It melts easily and has a strong snap to it.

Not bitter, and no lingering aftertaste.

It's pretty mild, and on the earthy side. Nothing too fruity or spicy. If I was going into it blind, I honestly wouldn't guess it's 73%.

It's good, and would be nice to have when you need to hit the dark stuff, but want to keep the taste light.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Passport (2023/01/05)

Once again I have been gifted a chocolate sampler from Trader Joe's.

This year it has 8 bars from around the world ranging from 60% cacao to 73%

I think I'll start with the most dark and work my way back.

Relaxing (2023/01/01)

I'm halfway through a 2-week break that I took for Christmas. So far, so good. I'm trying to crack a combination safe lock, I'm part way through the inventr.io 30 Lost in Space kit, and I've put a lot of hours into No Man's Sky.

Life is good.

gmail cleanup (2022/06/13)

So, with the upcoming google workspace changes (no more free-tier for greymanlabs), I've been looking at cleaning up my gmail stuff to make it easier to transition to a traditional email solution.

As a starting point, I thought I'd try to clean up my personal account. There are several apps that offer to help, but they all cost money and I'm not super jazzed to give a 3rd party the password to my email.

So I thought it should be fairly easy to just fire up mutt and do some manual cleanup.

Turns out...no. Not so simple.

First of all, gmail "helpfully" moves all read mail from the Inbox to '[Gmail]/All Mail', which makes it a little obtuse to get to. For some reason, mutt doesn't like it, but I can manage to get there by hitting 'c' and navigating to the folder.

The other issue I can into was that I'd use mutt's delete-with-pattern flow to mark a bunch of emails as 'deleted', but when I'd try to sync to expunge them, often a bunch would be left in the folder marked for deletion, but not actually deleted.

I found the answer on someone's blog which is to move the email to gmail's trash folder, where it will be pruned some time in the next 30 days.

set trash=$imap_user@imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Trash

The relevant line is: ...assuming you have setup your imap user that way.

Seems to work for me.

Hasta never, Comcast (2022/04/20)

The only option with 1000GBs internet when we moved in was xfinity. Of course, they limit how much you're actually allowed to use. So when I stream esports while I'm working and the family is watching TV, we inevitably go over our stupidly low allotment. And that totally ignores our various games that seem to update hundreds of GB a month. And photo/music backups.

Today the workers pulled the fiber optic cable to the pole out front that's going to get me on the municipal fiber network and allow me to bid an overdue farewell to the internet grifters that have won "worst company in America" year after year.

(I sincerely hope this doesn't come back to haunt me)

Ghost of Kena (2022/04/13)

We recently scored a ps5, and it's predictably awesome.

The first game I got was Elden Ring, assuming that it would be a fun open world RPG in the spirit of Skyrim or Witcher 3.

I now have rule about reading reviews from gamers and now just watching developer communications. Because, I hate that game. It's not an open world RPG, it's a battle generator that requires hours of practice and mastery. Exactly opposite of what I like to play. I have no interest in grinding away learning what order to click buttons in order to beat some boss.

Ghost of Tsushima, by contrast, is the pinnacle of the kind of game I enjoy. Not only is the story amazing and engaging, but everything feels so polished and thought out. Right down to the sound design of water hitting canvas when you go into a yurt during a rain storm, or the subtle squish when you step in a mud puddle. Fast travel is nearly instantaneous. Everything is just so...good.

After I finished Ghost (which was much more meaty than I expected), I moved on to Kena: Bridge of Spirits. If Ghost of Tsushima was a marathon, Kena was a sprint. I beat it comparatively very quickly, but it's no less polished. Kena is a fantastic game with beautiful visuals and clearly well thought out sound design.

Both games have beautiful music. They are not very similar in their narrative style, but they are both amazing narrative experiences, and their music adds such a powerful layer.

Finally, I'll toss out a good word for Cyberpunk 2077. I had finished one run-through before the ps5 patch was released, but played it again after. It's a great game, and much more in the vein of Skyrum, Fallout, and Witcher. It's still got a few bugs, but it's clearly a huge and complicated world. It's very cool, and if you like that kind of game, definitely worth picking up.

Keebs (2022/01/25)

For a little over a year, I've been typing on a gergo keyboard. It took some getting used to, since it's a) a split keyboard, b) ortholinear, c) low-profile, and d) a 40% keyboard (I think).

Switching keyboard layers is kind of a trip, but once I got the locations of the keys figured out (and the layers) it was a lot easier. I still kind of struggle with the low profile switches sometimes, because they are not clicky at all and offer little resistance. I guess I have heavy hands, because I'm constantly sending accidental keypresses.

This year I wanted to get another keyboard with my Christmas money from my parents, but G Heavy Industries (where I got my gergo) was having some issues (both personal and supply-side), so I expanded my search a bit and one of the keyboards that was listed as gergo-like was the Iris from keeb.io.

I've always been nervous to solder, but they have such a nice how-to video that I thought I might give it a shot. But, the keyboard was back-ordered and there was a mailing list you could get on to be notified when it came back into stock. While there, I saw that the rev6 board doesn't require any soldering, as it has hot-swap sockets on it. Worth the wait, in my opinion. I guess I could learn to solder some other time. I got on the wait list and proceeded to look around the website.

That's when I saw the Dilly. It's for low-profile switches, but I have experience with those, now. Plus, I could order clicky switches, which tickled me. It's cheap...$15. And it's super simple. I figured it would be a good practice keyboard for learning to solder. Fifteen dollars didn't seem like too much of an expense.

So I bought it.

Fifteen minutes later, I get an email that the Iris was available, too.

So I bought it.

After shopping for switches and keycaps for both keyboards, it so happened that the switches and keys for the Iris would arrive a week after the Dilly...which was actually kind of perfect.

The Dilly and its related parts arrived and I had my first soldering experience on a keyboard...and I think I might be addicted. It all went so well. I regret not getting the leds for the board, because that would have taken the whole thing to the next level, but the satisfaction of soldering the board together and having it actually work was so nice.

The Iris came, and I kind of went all out on it. MX Cherry Blue switches, steel plates, and a frosted acrylic mid-layer makes the keyboard beautiful to look at. I picked up a keycap set called "matcha" (because of the nice green coloring) off of Drop, and it only took about an hour to assemble the whole thing.

Not quite as fulfulling as soldering it myself, I guess, but no less satisfying in the presentation.

So, now I've got 3 unique mechanical keyboards, and I'm looking for excuses to build more, because man...it's addicting.

Atira Gift Card can burn in hell (2021/11/16)

All I want to do is check my balance. Why do I have to create a stupid account on your stupid website to do that?

And if you're going to make me create a stupid account on your stupid website, can you at least make sure that when it shits the bed, it gives a more helpful message than "something went wrong"?

I could deduce that something went wrong when MY ACCOUNT WASN'T CREATED. Kindly tell me what went wrong so that I can fix it.

Or simply allow me to view my balance WITHOUT AN ACCOUNT!

Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate: 72% Dark Chocolate with Black Fig (2021/11/16)

I'm a fan of this bar.

The wrapper is a paper exterior with a foil internal wrapper. The bar inself is fairly glossy and it has a clean snap to it.

The pieces of fig are embedded in one side of the bar, suggesting that they are sprinkled over the mold as the chocolate cools.

The chocolate itself is smooth and rich. It's not overly sweet, and also not bitter. My palatte is a bit out of practice, but there's nothing that really stands out in the flavor profile to me. It's just a good chocolate.

The fig is a good complement to the chocolate. The flavor is pleasant, but not overpowering, and it blends well with the darkness of the chocolate.

The fig does stick to your teeth, but I think that just helps maintain sweetness as the chocolate melts in your mouth.

Overall a tasty bar. I'll definitely keep it in the rotation.

Eww (2021/10/15)

I pulled what could be described as a hair ferret from the shower drain. 0/10...would not recommend.

Everything Microsoft Does is Garbage (2021/10/15)

Started at a new company. Everything is based on MS trash and beyond the UI being a chore to navigate, trying to get credentials to do anything is like pulling teeth.

Several times I've been told "we've added you, but it will take 8-10 hours for the changes to take effect". What the actual hell? It's 2021.

Mind blowing.

Time (2021/08/20)

The worst thing about not being independently wealthy is the pressure of time.

If I had time I'd do so many things. I'd finish all my programing projects. I'd explore new projects. I'd get back into writing. I'd do more biking and climbing. I'd find a good story to try to film. I'd try my handing at acting.

But, alas, the need to work keeps me busy during the most productive hours of the day and I'm left tired and drained and lacking sufficient motivation to pursue the other interests.

Boo.

Summer Lull (2021/06/07)

Summer months are always so busy. Softball really gets in the way, but beyond that - there's just a bunch of stuff to do.

On top of that, our gaming machines are in a useable state, so there's a lot of gaming going on.

I also have several projects perpetually in rotation, so there's that.

But there's not a lot that's noteworthy.

I did get a 3d printer for my birthday, and I've been investing time in trying to get that working. It's a lot of fun...and fairly stressful.

Mired (2021/05/13)

Ok, urchin is definitely ready for business. I ditched the weird text file format and just marshal/unmarshal ocaml objects. It works much better.

I also ditched blightmud. It's just a little too flaky, so I'm back to the tried and true tinyfugue. I mean, it's essentially abandonware, but there are a few people out there patching it and keeping it running. And really, how much more development do you need?

The only piece I'm still not happy with, is the lack of compression support in urchin. I'll have to figure out a way to factor than in, but for now it's useful enough to do what I need it to.

Mostly.

Deeper in the MUD (2021/04/27)

So, my MUD proxy is basically good enough to use, now. I called it Urchin.

It supports triggers and aliases, at the moment. You can reload the config files while running, and thhe aliases/triggers can be self-referential (mostly).

I'm not super jazzed about the config file format. Right now it's just a text file with a lame regexable format.

What I'd really like, is the ability to include raw ocaml in the aliases so that you can do complex computations and stuff, but that will require some work to get there.

Playing in the MUD (2021/04/19)

For the last year or so, Jena and I have been collecting components to build ourselves some gaming PCs. Early in our marriage we spent a lot of time playing Unreal Tournament, Quake, Urban Terror, etc.

Unfortunately, the current market for high-end GPUs is beyond ridiculous. We got tired of waiting for what we wanted (at anything approaching retail price), so we ordered a pair of GeForce 750s for dirt cheap.

Now we're gaming, but we rekindled another old love: text-based MUD gaming.

It's been 20-odd years since we spent a lot of time mudding together, but the client landscape seems to have shrivelled up. I used to play with tinyfugue, but that has gone the way of Detroit, it seems, so I was hoping to find something to replace it.

I found a client written in Rust called BlightMUD. It's pretty capable. Looks nice, is reminiscent of tinyfugue in a way, but I feel like some messages go missing and sometimes the rendering gets goofed up.

Another hangup is that the scripting language is Lua. I've never had (and continue to not have) any desire to learn Lua. I don't know why. But it's just not something I'm interested in.

So how to script in a language I enjoy if it's not supported in the client I'm trying to use?

Well, I stumbled across a project called pycat. It's basically a proxy that sits between your client and the server. It allows you to do all your scripting in the proxy, so it doesn't matter what client you have.

Unfortunately, it has a lot of poorly documented functionality and I was in a hurry to get up and running, and most unfortunately, it seems to swallow certain keypresses. mozartmud.net has a paging interface for their help pages, which have options like

`[Return or (C)ontinue, (B)ack, (Q)uit]”`

but pycat does something (that I haven't figured out) that munges up that functionality.

So, naturally, I'm writing something myself. In OCaml.

A new PC (2021/04/13)

Here comes another pointless ramble.

Over the last year Jena and I have been collecting parts to build a couple of cool gaming PCs.

Naturally, we picked the worst time in history to try to do such a thing. Processors and GPUs are in short supply, largely due to a bunch of cryptomining losers who are trying to make an easy buck.

We ended up getting some pretty basic video cards, but our processors are fairly beefy Ryzens, so games at least run...if not at the speed and clarity that we were targetting.

The big question, now, is what to do (for myself) software-wise.

Windows is a stinking dumpster fire, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. It is so backward and hacky. Using Windows 10 is in so many ways the same experience as using Windows 95. And no, that was not some heydey of magical computing. It was good for the time, but it was also 26 years ago!

Linux used to be my go-to but it has, it its own way, become less impressive over the years. It's not fun, anymore.

I'd love an alternative. Haiku looks amazing. Of course, I love my 9front, the various BSDs are always there.

But this is, after all, intended to be a gaming PC, so realitically my options are Windows or Linux (with SteamPlay), and in that equation, there is one clear winner.

For a long time, Debian was my distro of choice. Stable, easy to use, predictable. But they were so quick to jump on the systemd wagon, and at the time I was working on a project that ended up pitting me against some systemd issues that were dismissed by Poettering in a mailing list post. Couple that with random freezes during boot on a laptop that worked fine previously, and it soured me pretty completely on the whole systemd thing.

So, Debian is dead to me, but fortunately a very capable replacement has appeared in the form of Void Linux. Its tool xbps is very reminiscent of dpkg, so there's not too much to learn there, and they are blissfully free of the systemd cancer.

So, the main OS will be Void Linux, but for those windows-only hairballs that I just can't dodge, I'll have a dual-boot situation so I can pop into windows whene I really have to. It's sort of like insurance. I hope I'll never have to use it, and I'm sure I'll get screwed whenever I do. But since Microsoft is still what most hardware manufacturers target first, I may still end up there now and then.

OCaml 4.12 and chibi (2021/03/11)

Not making a ton of progress on this port, but the changelog talks a lot about changes in the memory model, so it's probably worth resetting to the new version.

On the chibi front, I abandoned the original mkfile (for better or worse) and added a generator rc script. mk doesn't like running subshells in certain instances (that I'm not clear on), but splitting out the generation into a script avoids all that weirdness.

I actually feel pretty close to a workable solution as far as the chibi rework goes, but we'll see what new issues crop up.

Mysterious Acid (2021/03/02)

So, I'm currently trying to get chibi-scheme building in Plan9 again, but I'm running into a weird issue.

There is a character being read, and it's being compared to EOF. EOF is a #define of (-1), and the character read is a custom type of sexpsintt, which should be an intptr.

Long story short, EOF should be promotable to the same size integer as the character, which seems to work in a test app I wrote to investigate, but in the chibi code, it's not.

If I was more familiar with acid, I could probably break in there and get a much more granular view of what's happening, but unfortunately, acid is a magic black box to me. And the documentation that I've found so far does not shine any useful light on it.

Hopefully I'll get something figured out, because I'm increasingly thinking that chibi is the path forward for me to do functional programming in plan9.

Sony (2021/02/26)

Sony is what Apple would have been without Steve Jobs, and by that I mean really good hardware and no comprehension of good software or user experience.

Witness the mini-disc player. Lightyears ahead of cds. Could have been the digital standard that staved off mp3s, but instead...Sony had to screw it up with Orwellian digital media restrictions and closed protocols. They had the chance, but they totally screwed themselves.

How about today? All I want to do is put some damn funds in my damn digital wallet. Something that every other digital entity in the world seems to handle with no problems. But can Sony, a huge company worth billions of dollars do it?

Of course not. It's a series of spinning activity indicators and returning me to the same submission screen with no indication of anything having happened. And indeed, nothing did happen, because the funds are all right where they began.

Cool (2021/02/24)

We're in the dead of winter, so what thing inevitably happens?

That's right, the furnace craps out. So now we're waiting for the hvac repair person to show up tonight and hopefully be able to fix the blower with whatever inventory is on the truck. Otherwise, we're in for a cold night.

Blurg.