Have been having a blogging "crisis". I do enjoy blogging (infrequent tho it is), but i hate how everything here is sucked up into a gaping maw of raw capitalism and exploited and used in ways that have nothing to do with my desires or intents. But is the possibility that this blogging is better, for me, for the few people that read the site, is better than the alternative of not blogging? I mean, probably? So maybe it is time to get back to blogging again.
Have been at a low mental place the past couple of weeks due to triggering a lower-back problem that i've had to deal with for 20+ years. The pain and inability to physically do the things i want to do become a drag after about a week, and i start to get "depressed-light"? Anyway, am coming out the other side now, which is, you know, nice. I was able to appreciate the first robin song and sighting of the year, so things can't be too bad.
As part of this low point, i've been struggling to "stay on target", being intentional with my time. I have falling back on youtube and reddit for mindless time passing. Which is fine for a little bit, but have not been feeling good about the amount of time i have been spending on those sites. Even mastodon easily becomes a time-suck, as i am a completionist at heart, and can't stand just jumping to the top and scrolling down a bit to catch up... nope, gotta go through 300+ messages! It is either disengage or take the time to really really trim down my follow list.
So, one thing that got me thinking of game projects again, was this How To Make Good Small Games post. While i am (mostly) honest with myself about wanting to solve technical problems more than actually "make games", i do think there are things that i would like to complete, and might better be able to by following this kind of manifesto. We will see, i have had similar epiphanies before, with little real change to my behaviours.
I also wanted to note Manu's I'll read it post for giving me an extra push to "just write something".
I started blogging again this year because i wrote my own blog site generator. Or did i write my own blog site generator so i could start blogging again? I am not actually sure which it is...
I had been using Tumblelog, and there were a couple things that were just not quite right. What does a programmer do when things are not quite right? They scratch their own itch.
The major changes, other then rewriting in c# and Unity3d (ahahaha), were tweaks to the input format itself. Each post can now have its own date/time stamps and an optional title. I also changed how tagging works.
I wrote the tool in c# and Unity3d. Yes, when all you have is a game creation tool, every problem is a game. Mostly because using familiar tools would get it done quickly, even if they are not an exact a fit. Whatever, it works. I was surprised by how little code it took, actually. Used Linq, hand written simple recursive decent parser, a Markdown library and Mustache (via the Nustache library) for the templates.
I keep telling myself that once i've cleaned up the code, and finished a "couple last features", i'll put it up on github or some other place. We will see. Not that i am precious about it, more that i'm not sure anyone else would be interested or get anything from it. Other than maybe a laugh.
Couple Last Features
Went to see this show on Saturday. I was not very enthused to go, being an atheist and non-knitter, and also not a lover of live theatre. However, as one of my intentional activities is to "be more social", I got off my lazy butt and went. Very glad i did. The show was excellent, the story of how the show and knitting was produced, the trials and tribulations of working for 15 years on this single project, amazing. Highly recommended if you ever have the opportunity to see the show itself, or just the Stitched Glass artifacts.
And afterwards the group of us hung out and chatted and had a wonderful time, which i would have also missed. Success for being mindful of "what is important".
Have working on being more intentional with activities i do for myself. I'm starting to keep a list of the things that i enjoy doing, or want to do more of. The more difficult part is then actually doing those things! Making the time, putting in the effort. There are a lot of different takes on the whole "you should/should not schedule your fun", but if i just "go with the flow" all the time, i'm not going to do all the things that are important to me, and give me pleasure.
So, the easy part, the list. Here it is, in no order, right now, January 23rd, 2023.
The ones that are hardest for me to setup and do are the social ones. Which are also, probably, the ones with the biggest payoff. Of course.
My previous post about my feeling towards the indiscriminate use of blog content to feed the maw of 3rd party AI/search/ad-tech still stands, but! I do want to do some kind of publishing of my thoughts, and some of my work(s), and at least owning my own site is better than being beholden to others'. So it is the devil you know/control over the one you don't. Feels shitty, but maybe the least shitty.
On the other side of that coin, i have deleted reddit again, and will be working hard to convert that behaviour over to reading my library books (TPL and OverDrive, love the digital library system!). I have "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky borrowed right now. I watched "Stalker" by Andrei Tarkovsky, which is based on the book, and wanted a bit more insight into just what the hell was going on in that film.
I had another moment of realization that the "old days" of blogs, living in obscurity and just sharing your stuff with a tiny set of friends no longer really exists online anymore. It has cooled my interest in sharing much here, and thinking about how to make things feel safer from a sharing perspective. The fact that everything just gets sucked up into private data-corpuses and used for purposes that i most likely do not endorse, further makes me want to share less... I find if so depressing that both so few read my updates anyway, but then it vacuumed up indiscriminately as well by non-invited 3rd parties.
Ok, got some work done on the toy project. Have been experimenting with several different character controller types. Used the Unity Character Controller for a bit, used the Unity supplied 3rd person controller from the asset store. And have ended up back using a rigidbody type, based again on those movement tutorials. I am ignoring all the special gravity stuff that those tutorials do, and have made a much more simple controller, which is good for me, as i totally understand how it works. It has wall jumping, and grounding, and can be moved by other moving platforms, including rotation. I'm excited see how this all works over the network. But probably before that, i will get flying in, and pickup and drop.
Well, here we go Canada, lets see how this election thing works out.
One of the neighbours has been having some kind of big renovation in their backyard. For the past couple days it has been chainsaws all day, and now it has been joined by mini-diggers with the beep beep backup alerts. While i don't begrudge anyone the right to fix up their place, it is driving me a bit crazy with the noise. Just another excuse to turn up my tunes even louder.
As i talked about before, i'm working hard on keeping from applying perceived external pressures to my personal projects. Because i had early success with some of my experiments, i feel like i need to produce more "showable" or polished output. But really, i have to keep telling myself, this is just for me. It is fine to go slowly, to write more, to make smaller, or even no "gains" as it were. Because the end state isn't to have a polished or even working game, but the process of learning and playing around with ideas. Some of those will not be showable, or of interest to anyone but me. And that is fine. The need for external validation is a hard one to break.
Just realized in typing the above that it is my 40th programming "anniversary". Didn't start programming professionally until 1995, or 1996. So 25th year as a professional programmer. I actually find that hard to grok.
Have been trying to get back into "coding for fun". I've been programming since i was ... 11? First on my Vic-20, then the C64 and on to PCs from there. Now working as a programmer I do find that i burn out on programming much more easily, and do not find the fun for post-work relaxation. Especially during these Covid Times. However my down time had turned into hours spend just kind of browsing Reddit or reading Gamedev Mastodon... So, i fired up my kobo, and started borrowing books from the library. It was nice to see that my brain could still read full novels! After reading a couple books, my interest in programming started to perk up again. Not wanting to squash it immediately, i began thinking about how i could program for fun, and keep it fun, or at least stress free. Rather than rushing to my IDE, i began writing, writing about problems that i find interesting, things i'd like to learn. I also realized that i need to keep this project safe from the idea of becoming a game, it needed to be a toy. I don't want to bog my process down with having to make something follow some game-design, or whatever. It is a toy, and a play space for me to experiment. If it is fun, or if you can play a game with it, so much the better. But that isn't the goal. It isn't even a bullet point. Removing the requirements of time, or feeling like i have to work on it, is also important. I am still reading novels, and watching Ted Lasso on TV, and that is fine. Programming is an other activity I can do, when I want to make time for it, not the be all and end all.
So, what is this set of goals i have, for fun personal programming? At least, this is the list at this point in time!
I have 1 and 2 working in the prototype. The physics stuff is great, using the state synchronization and authority articles by Glen Fiedler as the basis for my stuff. I've done a fair bit of multiplayer networking and this is the best implementation of rigidbody physics, shared across multiple players, that i have ever done. Best both from a "works better" point, but also that it is a very simple implementation.
Also been noodling with how to select objects in the space, and then how to architect the code that makes a thing do a thing. Like, how to select a box then pick it up. Kick a ball. Move items around the world without picking them up. These are questions that i think are fun to think about. There may be something wrong with me!
Still improving the networked rigidbody code, i think the next thing will likely be some experiment with selecting objects, and then activating an action on them. Like, kicking a ball, or moving a block. Depends on how i'm feeling next time i fire up the project.
Adam put me onto this page, Accidentally Turing-Complete. Trying hard to not go down all those rabbit holes of interesting but totally non-relevant articles! I have been prototyping some "program blocks", items that you can physically pickup and move around in a virtual space, and then snap together to create program flows, kind of like Unix command line apps that you pipe data through. The biggest issue is what the input (sensors) and output (effectors) would do in the prototype environment we currently have. The work has sort of stalled, a "solution" in search of a problem.
Oh, it is also the last day of winter, and i'm happy to see it go. It was actually a very mild winter, and i am quite thankful for that, we had enough other stuff going on to have to deal with a bear of a winter too! But still, good to be done with it.
And so it is the last day of the year. Really only important to folks using the Gergorian Calendar. Sort of like we put importance on numbers that end in 5 or 0, because of the number of digits on our hands, i think the importance of days and years is most a social construct. Like, sure, pretty important to know when to start planting, and that the solstice has happened, but like "new years eve"? What the heck, so arbitrary. I didn't really do anything on the solstice this year, but if i was going to mark a day, that would have been the one. But here i am, on New Years Eve, writing about it! And, yes, I am glad to have this last year done, and move on to a more hopeful one. Wishing the best for everyone in the next year!!
Obviously we are only just entering the winter, and i'm trying to be positive about it. I do like snowstorms, and watching the snow come down. It is the grey days, or not seeing the sun for a while that gets me. Still have one of those sun-lamps on my "want" lists, might do it as a holiday gift to myself.
Fuck You COVID.
Only a week till the Solstice, and having more daylight rather then less. I mean, sure, we will have all of the winter to get through, but hey, it will be brighter! These are the little wins i take on a day by day basis.
The first batches of the Covid vaccines are being or have been distributed, and i think UHN has got it for Toronto, and is administering it starting today. Very exciting on several different axis -- first applications of some long researched medical technology, using mRNA, and that we have something that can finally allow us to really look forward to a covid free life in the next year. I guess the other side of that coin is all the people who are still going to suffer before we get past it.
Have been thinking about how i have been paring back more and more outside information sources. While i did have a facebook account i never used it, and deleted it a year or two ago. I have also deleted my twitter and instagram accounts. I'm down to "just" my RSS feeds and my mastodon account. I occasionally feel bad, that i'm somehow avoiding some kind of responsibility that i should have to being "up to date". But then articles like "News is the Last Thing We Need Right Now" come along and i feed relieved, and supported in my decisions to disengage, to a degree. I mean, some of those decisions were also driven by my hatred for the surveillance capitalism that those services participate in (still working on disengaging from the Google Search and other services we use for work), not only or just for the news stuff. I also do not listen to the radio or watch tv news.
John B is starting The Saints of Salvation, which i finished a couple weeks ago. Very interested to know what his review of it will be, as i have some thoughts and would love to discuss!
Did the tutorial to Albion the MMOG. Pretty fun actually, although in reading about it, and thinking about the impact you can have on the environment, i'm not really sure i'm that interested in spending time there? I still prefer the classic Minecraft style of world-interactions? Being able to gather, and craft and build however i want, within the games limitations, is pretty great. I would like a more MMOGy style game, but using the Minecraft engine? I am pretty sure there are mods for it that might bring it closer to that? I should check...
Got the holiday-cheer lights up, tracked down and acquired a tree for the house. Culture has its way, and i do feel better seeing all the lights on the houses in the darkness which comes so early these days.
Also learned about wget and using it to download a copy of a site or url.
wget -r --no-parent http://site.com/songs/
via HowToGeek.
Found this cool app that helps "auto identify" birds via a phones camera. Haven't had a chance to try it out, but excited to!
Also, some new research about using AI to determine how proteins fold has potentially far reaching positive impacts. Kind of amazing.
Unity finally getting off its ass and putting a stake into the ground with its "Game Object" networking solution. Also excited to do something with the official transport, like, maybe updating my LLAPI wrapper...
And it is still snowing.
Making progress on the photo library update front. Nice to keep finding all these old photos, and moments.
Just got my Luna Display setup here. So far, pretty great. I now have 3 "monitors", and while more screen space is good, it is almost too wide, and requires too much head rotation. I am going to have to get used to it. And figure out how to split out the different apps, windows, etc onto the different monitors. I don't really have an idea of how to organize that.
Working through a years, even decade long, backlog of photo management tasks. Finally importing all the old iPhoto and Aperture libraries i have scattered around multiple old backup disks. Also trying to de-duplicate at the same time. Currently using Photo Sweeper, which has been good, although only used it on folders, not the actual Photos library. That will come though. Nice to have a reason to look at all these old photos, lots of the kids from when they were way younger. One of the follow on tasks, once all the photos are actually in the Photos library (and backed up via TimeMachine and iCloud photos -- will get another backup solution, i promise, John Siracusa!) i will go back over them to pick out some good ones and start building out some albums. That is actually the fun part, at least i hope it is!!
Fuck Covid reason number 5382 -- I miss Karaoke so much. Going out with my friends, getting a room at Bar+, singing for hours and hours, just hanging out having a good time.
Oh, the excitement when first setting up a new blog! Getting all the fancy tech working, solving problems! Then the reality of what blogging means, you have to actually write something! And there is a (self inflicted) pressure to "expand" your audience, which means new content every day. And if you don't do that, then maybe it is a failure. Now, i have allowed myself to feel that way, and i am here, now, to say, no more. I will be content with whatever small and occasional updates i do. In what ever esoteric or boring topics i choose to expound upon. Because there is already too much to be anxious and stressed about, and a blog is not, and should not, be one of them.
Was out of the city with the family for a long weekend getaway. Rented a place out in the country, did a lot of walking in the woods and fields, looked at the stars, got some fresh air, identified some birds. Built and maintained a super cozy warm fire in the wooden stove. Ate some food. Watched the dog chase mice in the tall grass. Was able to decompress in a way that just seems impossible in the city.
Pretty
Puppies. Because we all need cute in our lives. Unless you are terrified by puppies, in which case consider this a content warning.
Not as cute, but strangely relaxing, People Sleeping In Museums. Sometimes you need cute. Sometimes you need folks snoozing.
Was reading this article about the 2010's, and the game industry, and culture in general. I have complex feelings about the authors experiences, because they are so different from mine. I'm a white cis dude, with all the advantages that implies. I'm a co-owner of an indie game studio. I believed, and still do to some extent, in the utopian possibilities "the net" could provide. But the reality of how capitalism and consumerism glom on and take over and feed back to us what was once transgressive and radical and package it up into a commodity to be sold is a wet blanket that i can't quite push off. It is a note that the past decade was kind of shit, and there is a lot of real work to be done going forward if we don't want to keep sliding into a world were we have less and less control over our culture and selves. Just saying it doesn't actually get it done, and i bear guilt over not doing more. I am happy that we have been able to crave out a space via our company for folks to work together and not be horrible to each other. Trying to make some good, if not world-changing, games.
And as something to look towards or an alternative to some of the hard realities of that previous article, there is Solarpunk.
Starting reading "Salvation Lost", the second book in Peter F. Hamilton's latest trilogy. I find myself judging these kinds of aliens-want-to-wipe-out-humanity space operas against "The Three Body Problem" and nothing can measure up to that. I'm still enjoying the book and series, but it doesn't have the ... depth? Something. Which is fine, it is still fun speculative fiction, and i'm enjoying it. But. Now everything is, unfairly, measured against TTBP.
Lots happened in the intervening days since my last post, and i'm not going to talk about any of it.
Well, i did discover Muse for iPadOS, which i love. I discovered it via Ink and Switch's article about it as a prototype. I was excited to discover they had developed it into an actual product! Still working my way through it, figuring out what works and doesn't, how i can make it work for my way of working. Worth checking out. Has a very generous demo/free version.
Got our first snow on the ground yesterday and this morning. Cold today, but warming up to mid-teens this week. Who even understands weather?
No trick-or-treating, but still some good pumpkins!
Things have been extra hectic "in real life", with multiple family members dealing with Covid-adjacent issues, and home quarantine. This has driven my time for externalities like blogging into the negatives. However, we are past the nadir, and so... a post!
No new work on the game, but have spent some time on the Flow library. Learned a bunch about the build pipeline, which is going to help in our current game project, so more evidence that side and personal projects help your "real" job.
Halloween Horror from the neighbourhood
Ok, have working output for items, converting the Tumblelog python version over to javascript. With some changes to the formatting of the blog. But the rendering is still the same..ish. Also i was dumb and tried to force too much into a single regex, am rethinking how to extract tags out of the item separator. Anyway, a couple functions and blocks a day, in a week i should have it done. The most notable thing that i don't think i can get working is the html figure tag stuff working for images. In the python code it edits the AST for the html/markdown directly. The markdown lib i am using does allow for something like it, but not exactly? Again, i could make it work by messing with how the markdown renders the title element, making that the <figcaption> value, but that does not work how the existing code works, with a line directly after the markdown image line becoming the caption. This is something that i should not be worrying about right now, as there is still lots of other stuff to get working first!
Man, it does not look good
Might be able to do something much less extreme and more inline with the current formatting, actually. Which would be much better, from my POV -- would like to work within the format already designed. Not enough brain power to try it out tonight...
Working on a ... branch of Tumblelog in javascript and using Deno as the execution environment. I was never a big fan of Node.js, and so Deno has been a breath of fresh air. Trying out a different meaning of % right now, inline with some of the proposed changes I outlined the other day, and fighting with the different required regular expressions to make it work. Progress is ok so far, but that is because i'm doing the easy stuff.
Here is where i got with a couple hours hacking, mostly spent figuring out how to setup the regular expressions. Thank goodness for regexr to help with experimentation! It would have taken a lot longer with out it. And, of course, the original project to crib from.
import {Marked} from "https://deno.land/x/markdown@v2.0.0/mod.ts";
import { parse } from 'https://deno.land/std@0.69.0/datetime/mod.ts'
const decoder = new TextDecoder("utf-8");
const filename = Deno.args[0];
const raw = decoder.decode(await Deno.readFile(filename));
// "% @pagename(a page title)"
// found[1] == "pagename"
// found[2] == "a page title"
const pageRegex = /% @(.*)\((.*)\)/;
// "% 2020-10-21 A Title #TagOne #TagTwo"
// found[1] = "2020-10-21"
// found[2] = "A Title"
// found[3] = "#TagOne #TagTwo"
const itemRegex = /^% (\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2})?\s?([^#]*)?\s(#.*\b)?/;
const rawItems = raw.split(/(^% .*)/gm);
const pages = [];
const items = [];
// 'id' is used to keep items in the order they are found in the
// source data file, incase we are doing other sorting operations.
const pageData = { name:'', title:'', rawContent:'', id:0};
const itemData = { date:new Date(), title:'', tags:[], rawContent:'', id:0};
let counter = 0;
for(let index = 0; index < rawItems.length; ++index) {
let value = rawItems[index];
let found = value.match(pageRegex);
if(found)
{
console.log("Page: " + found);
let page = Object.assign({}, pageData);
page.id = counter++;
page.name = found[1];
page.title = found[2];
page.rawContent = rawItems[index+1];
pages.push(page);
index++;
continue;
}
found = value.match(itemRegex);
if(found)
{
console.log("Item: " + found);
let item = Object.assign({}, itemData);
item.id = counter++;
item.title = found[2];
if(found[3]) item.tags = found[3].split(" ");
if(found[1]) item.date = parse(found[1], "yyyy-MM-dd");
item.rawContent = rawItems[index+1];
items.push(item);
index++;
continue;
}
}
// Test html output for a "post" item.
for(let index = 0; index < items.length; ++index)
{
let item = items[index];
console.log('<article>\n' + Marked.parse(item.rawContent).content + '</article>\n');
}
Also downloaded Visual Studio Code in order to be able to use the Deno code-formatting helper thingie. Anyway, VS Code is much better then when i last used it, might move over to using it for my Unity3d/C# day-job-dev.
Deno is super easy to use, and program with. I am just writing js code, and executing it via deno: deno run --allow-read=./ neo.js text.md
Will see if i keep at it.
... Oh, i just figure out the format i should be using for the transclusion/including of tagged items -- [% include <tag name> %] -- this follows the format used in the html template file.
Snapped this photo in High Park the other day.
"Yo, that looks good, move over so i can have some..."
Fool am i, i've been holding out, still wearing shorts every day. But it seemed like today was going to be just a bit too cold, and i picked jeans for the dog walk. Incorrect Choice. It was totally warm enough for shorts, and i blew my run of only shorts! Should have known better.
It might be rainy, but i'm looking good
Been listening to this track by Medio Mutante a lot today. Sad that the band broke up a decade ago. But good that i can still discover and buy their albums! Also, simply because of the name, reminded me of this movie "Acción mutante" that I watched back in the day at TIFF's Midnight Madness stream, like in '93... Actually, now that i think about it, i didn't watch it at TIFF, a film-nerd buddy came by with it and we watched it at my place when i was living in squalor on Spadina... Still must have been around 93 or 94...
Side Note, i kind of hate it when a bands main web presence is on facebook.
I worked on AutoAge: Standoff and one of the things i remember really wanting to get into the game were "drunk missiles". You know, those missiles that pop out of a mecha and fly in a crazy swirl towards their target.
"Macross: Do You Remember Love" was huge for me as a kid
I wanted that so badly. It was actually quite tricky to come up with a solution. We used a "guide" that moved in a ballistic way from the shooter towards the target. All the other "real" missiles simply rotated around that guide point. A tricky bit was ensuring that they didn't intersect with the ground while swirling around. In the end i think it looked pretty good, especially animated, but, sadly, i don't have any footage of that, just this still.
Oh yeah
Found that image randomly this morning, and made me nostalgic for the game and the work we put into it.
Have been rewatching The Mentalist TV show over the past month or two on Prime. Ciara and I watched it when it came out, starting in 2008. I still enjoy it, but it becomes increasingly crazy around the character called "Red John". No spoilers, but the amount of suspension of disbelief starts to really ramp up in season 4, which is where i am now. I can't remember how many seasons we watched, but i'm sure we finished 4, and probably into 5? I'll see how long i can handle it. I do liberally use the fast-forward, just to get through so many of the episodes, and story lines that i don't really care about. Feel a bit bad about revisiting a TV show, when there is so much new stuff to watch, or so many other things to be doing. But sometimes you just want the easy, warm blanket.
Had a nice Thanksgiving, turkey, potatoes, gravy, squash, pretty traditional.
Apple crisp with ice-cream for dessert! Lovely. The only thing missing was being able to visit with family. sigh. Covid put a stop to that. However, we did engage in a bit of silly "virtual" family photo(shopping)...
Seems Legit!
Ikenfell just released today. I had to look it up, Chevy Ray has been working on this for over four years now. I remember way back when I first heard about it, years ago, and I had wondered if it had fallen into the "never to be released" pile. But no, it looks amazing, great soundtrack. And on switch! Played about an hour, and am enjoying it so far.
I like the idea, and implementation, of Pairagraph "A hub of discourse between pairs of notable individuals". I just read a discourse between Om Malik and J. DeLong, titled "Is America in Decline?". Interesting, and i will probably read some of the other posted. I wonder how one can subscribe to an ongoing "live" discourse? How would that work in RSS, or email? Because i don't want to have to come back to the website all the time to check for updates. Like an animal.
There is a main RSS feed, i guess i should subscribe to it and see how it looks in my reader (NetNewsWire). And they do have an email signup, but i'm not doing that one right now.
Still holding on to wearing shorts full time. But it is getting harder, with these colder mornings! And really need warm things on my feet now, or they just become unfeeling blocks of ice. Fingerless gloves have also been broken out to keep the hands working too. Shee, maybe the whole "move south to a place that is always warm" isn't such a bad idea... Its just finding one that isn't on the brink of civil collapse or other political implosion... I actually enjoy winter sports though, and would miss snowboarding. But warm all the time... But then you wouldn't have the enjoyment of a fireplace, wrapped up in a blanket on a couch, reading a book, watching the snow fall outside.
Had a very successful weekend, getting many items crossed off the "to do" list! Felt good. Also did some appropriate physical distanced visiting with a friend that i haven't seen in a month or two, mostly due to my own stresses and anxiety. Oh and we watched "Skyscraper" with The Rock. It felt like a movie that had a bunch of parts that could have been good, some that were not, and a great lack of a decent plot. Watching it at home, with no other expectations that it would allow us to zone out for 1.5h, it was successful... Mostly, with some plot holes and dumb-decisions and paper thin NPCs... So, not good, but .. ok? I don't really suggest anybody else watch it.
However, the final episode of Ted Lasso really payed off. That show, so fun and... wholesome? something? Just makes you feel good watching it. Does for me, anyway.
Very excited to watch what is, i think, the last episode of this show. Have really been enjoying it, and am sad that this is it for a while!
We ordered a "street carving" map of Toronto from Street Carvings, and it arrived today. Bigger and Cooler then expected, very excited to get it up on the wall!
The depth aspect is very cool in person
Proper fall weather these past couple days. Been raining in the evenings, which has put a damper on my out door exercise and climbing schedule.
Did some excellent climbing in the Niagara Glen yesterday. Super beautify location. So different from all the indoor climbing I'm used to. The height is magnified as is the feeling of danger. It was quite overpowering on two of my climbs and really limited some of the following attempts I did. I am looking forward how this new perspective on height and danger will influence my indoor climbing. You know, once indoor climbing is a thing i feel safe in doing again!
Spent 4 hours yesterday waiting in a Covid testing line. Was so wiped out by the stress and stressful-boredom that i crashed at like 7pm last night. Now we wait for the results. This is for Rory, and i am reasonably sure it is just a cold, but, in these times, you have to be sure. And the TDSB sure does not want him unless we are sure he doesn't have it. The guidelines state that other folks in the house do not have to isolate while waiting for the results, which is good for the rest of us. I mean, i work from home, so not much difference there, but for everyone else it is better.
Got the Covid Results back, in exactly 24 hours, with a negative. So that is a huge relief.
Just spent way too much time trying to figure out how to implement both a tagging system and some way to transclude a group of tagged articles into an arbitrary location in the blog. I got basic tagging done, the code would pull out all articles which had something like #myTagString in them. Then i could also use something like transclude:<tagname>, and it partially works. It works for the "main" blog, but trying to get that to work on pages was a no go. Also, trying to auto-link the tag and make individual "tag" pages, was something that i didn't even try to do.
Unsurprisingly, it is a harder feature to implement than i first thought.
via selfie2anime
Rory as anime character... All mine look like some kind of abstract nightmare.
Ah crap, this amazing set of bouldering holds just came up on kijiji... And the wall these came from...
Holy Shit That Is Amazeballs.
A funny thing. I have a "devlog" that I do for work, very similar to this, one big text file per month. And every day I write into it throughout the day. But I write later in time, later in the day, items below earlier in the day items. This is just how it developed. Which is backwards from most blogging, as generally you want or expect the newest writing to be at the top. I just realized that I have been writing here in my devlog way, and I should really convert to the traditional blog format. Just another reminder as to how long it's been since I blogged.
Have been planning a trip to the Niagara Glen to do some bouldering with my climbing buddy Kristjan. Got the permit and waiver. We even got a swanky guide book, so we know which climbs are possible for our weak-ass-covid selves.
Now to work out all the stuff i'm going to bring, and how to manage it in 1 backpack, along with the crash pad!
Water, chalk, towel, food... First Aid kit... Climbing shoes. Hand Warmers. More Water.
I'm not sure why i bother with these kinds of games. Networking is such a pain in the ass to get working. I was despairing for a bit tonight again, about the state of Unity's networking. But. But. I did get 2 instances talking to each other, which was all i really wanted to accomplish tonight. Sadly, while i am using the Noble Connect asset to allow for direct connections without a relay, i really wanted to use the Mirror package with it, but could not get it to work correctly. So i'm left using a deprecated library just to get this shit working. Gaah.
Ok, trying to move on. What is next? Maybe smooth sync?
Yep, that looks good. NETWORKING. DONE. Bahahahahahaha. Ok, no really, what is next...
Playing with the tumblelog script for static blog generation. I like it, because it works with Hazel and NVAlt. I spend all day in NVAlt so if i'm going to be doing any writing, i really really want it to be in here. And it seems like it works! Bonus.
So, i think i have it all up and running, including some helpful stuff for getting images working via an automator folder-action thingie. Pretty great!
Also today, and actually the thing that pushed me to create this crazy blog (again) was finding White Hex's "Paradise" track. So great, bought the album, also very good. Sad that they are defunct, and have been since like 2015 or something. But!! They did put out 2 albums, and i intend to enjoy the heck out of them.
Oh wow, that was great being able to add that bandcamp stuff directly into the blog. It is like i haven't done blogging or webdev for ... decade(s)?!?
Setup exiftool to run on all the images in the /images directory, so i don't leave any data in there by accident. I'm going to have to document my setup, so i don't forget how it all works!
Also forgot about relative paths, like ./projects.html, and absolute paths, like /projects.html. I need to do the absolute method here, so in a rss-feed the links still work. Good thing i figured this out when i did!
I think the exiftool might be stripping the images rotational data as well, so i need to figure out how to stop it from doing that. This post at stack exchange might be helpful...
One last test, code blocks!
If(x) then true;
If(x) then true;
If(x) then true;