The first month of the year has gone by. My New Year's resolution was to not make an annual resolution, but instead, at the end of each month, stop and do an 'exit interview' with myself -- and make tentative plans for the next month. To keep myself honest I will post it here...
After the Christmas COVID false-alarm with isolation and endless bleaching of the only bathroom shared by at-the-time 7 people, January has been pretty event-free. I will continue my ongoing effort to be more supportive to my partner, and be kinder to people, no matter how fucking stupid their actions are. I will try to be quiet more and listen to others, even when what they are saying is completely idiotic. It sounds harsh, but there is a lot of stupidity around me.
SpellBinding has been pretty much trouble-free, although I've botched several games this month, including today. The game software is bug-free, but it is possible to ruin a game by supplying it with a bad daily gamefile, which is a text file that must be rigidly formatted for it to work. I need to automate the game changeover and make verification stricter this February.
I managed to post every day of January to the wordlog about the more interesting words encountered each day. As Seinfeld recommends, just do what needs to be done every day, and "don't break the chain"!
Wordo preview (don't tell anyone!)
I stopped procrastinating and wrote Wordo in a few hours. Soft-launched, and seems to work fine. I am reusing some of the SpellBinding cgi and game-session code, although I could formalize that into a library for future games.
Wordo needs a little work to be considered finished:
Once again, ongoing game management is a bear. Wordo is simpler as it needs a single 5-letter word once per day to function. I'd hate to build a massive calendar-tree in the filesystem just for that...
What I really need is a really simple apparatus for picking a word, perhaps randomly, from my dictionary of ~6k 5-letter words, once a day. I also need an 'audit trail' system that keeps a log of past games that is easily accessible. I can probably just keep a single 'solutions' file, and append or prepend each day's solution, to keep everything compact (the SpellBinding post-game system is vast and requires maintenance of the daily game and gemlog files...).
My work is cut out - but really, very little work, to be fair.
I became addicted to this game, and as is my nature, wrote a minimal version. I've spent way too much time playing it in a terminal - it's incredibly addicting!
Eleven executable for terminal (14Kb), x86 linux, i is up, j/k/l for left, down and right...
I did most of the legwork for packaging it as a cgi game, but changed my mind along the way. Each game would be like a few thousand hits; it makes more sense as a local executable. A Wordo game is like 15 hits, by contrast, and SpellBinding maybe a hundred...
I also feel bad about putting something that addicting out on Gemini. And utterly pointless -- at least the word games give you the opportunity to look up a word or use some logic skills. Sliding numbered tiles around is just completely devoid of anything that can be considered beneficial.
I would like to pick up some of my earlier threads of Gemini browsing tools, and with the cgi capabilities, try out some server-based ideas.
I am really cramped by not being able to use Lisp on the server-side. Perhaps I will be able to convince someone with a server to install Common Lisp and let me have a port for running experimental Gemini services. Let me know if you can do that - it will make the Gemini network more interesting.
I would like to post a few Whinam stories/accounts this month. I kind of dropped the ball after posting Fare's account.
I all but abandoned my breadlog, even though January was filled with delicious pizza-oven olive breads and focaccias. In fact my partner is refusing to eat bread now!
I find documenting and photographing my breads to be tedious, and I feel like an 'instagram lady' taking pictures of food...
I don't know if it's worth it. I'll keep it going for a while and see what happens in February
I've been fairly prolific here. I've mostly stayed away from politics and economics, where I tend to offend - and my goal is definitely not to offend. I still managed to offend. Perhaps I am babbling too much, and I should shut up and write more code, which to me is a kind of a meditation...
As I get older, it's harder and harder to get things done, especially as I am stuck in an uncomfortable environment, away from the things I enjoy (powerful computers, 6502 machines, laser cutters, my FPGA lab, SMT soldering gear, oscilloscope, 3D-printer, and other things I was taking for granted). Procrastination abounds.
My ADHD is pretty bad after Covid. But to be fair there are constant distractions.
I am surrounded by my in-laws who are in their 80's and 90's, and are pretty unbearable - as in completely incapable of graciously accepting ageing, and the fact that everyone around them is breaking their backs and wallets trying to keep them safe, healthy, and comfortable. They make every little thing as painful as possible, and on some occasions, life-threatening -- in ways that are impossible to imagine.
Will I know that my brain is baked, that I am blind and deaf, and a complete nuisance to everyone around me? Will I be able to do anything about that?
Such thoughts make it hard to concentrate on writing code in C...