Checking in – August 2022

There was no journal entry last month because I don't feel like writing one at the time and there wasn't too much to write about anyway. But now I have done so I'll make a little quick summary.

Creative works

I have not written very much over the last two months. Only a couple of pages and the occasional bit of programming. However, what I have done is fairly diverse, including working on things that I haven't done in years. In time I'll start writing a few more things about a game and some more stuff besides.

Now I'll talk about some of the things that I have done these two months.

First, I put in a significant amount of work on the Drsk grammar. It's now got a lexicon that I can write comfortably in, and there are enough that I can declare the version I just posted as version 0.1. So there we are.

Drsk v.0.1.0

Second, I restarted some work on UJMJ. It's not fast, and actually it's mostly retreading ground that I have gotten to already, but I think this will help with further work on it by not being a total mess.

UJMJ

In both cases I also decided to use issues as a public to-do list. This is something I have kind of resisted just because it would be nicer to keep everything in one place (my org-mode agenda) but then I guess it just kind of happened.

Otherwise, I have written some basic small stuff in other creative works, and came very close to adding a few things under my projects still in waiting.

I also wrote a small script that takes the weather status bar I have and then chops it up to a better aspect ratio for sharing. It took me about an hour to complete, but it sat on the to-do list for well over a month. It's surprising how little time it took, but on the other hand I still feel apprehensive about doing the rest despite possibly requiring the same effort.

Programming

I have actually tried working out how Rust works, because I've become quite interested in working out how a strongly-typed system works. After struggling with getting a full-on IDE going on with Emacs, but it's done and now it looks cool. It's just a shame, however, that Rust is a bit of a mess to get anything done for me. Whether it's just trying to squeeze an iteration that would be done via a loop macro in Lisp or a comprehension in Python, the borrowing mechanism, or just being plain out of Things To Do, things just don't seem to click yet.

I'll write something eventually about how these three languages overlap and what I miss from each of them as I work with others.

Paper bonanza

I have recently gotten myself a whole bunch of a loose leaf paper with all kinds of interesting rule on it. I have not realised that there are so many ways you can usefully draw lines on paper.

I've in particular been won over by "dotted rule", which is a combination of a dot grid and regular lines that put evenly-spaced points along the lines. This is very clever because now tables and diagrams can be easily drawn while indents and columns become incredibly simple. I don't think I can go back to regular lined ruler for my regular creative work.

Family

To beat around the bush a little bit we now have an extra room in the flat so there's going to be some remodelling. I don't know how that's going to go but there is apparently a short-term hotel visit on the way and I don't know what to think about that.

There had been some small flare-ups with yelling and shouting, and it definitely is a bit of a stressful time, and stuff is just a bit messy. I don't know what to do other than to minimise myself and trying to move things along the easiest path.

Careers

I've decided to put a stop on to searching for this month for various reasons, mostly because I have no luck getting anywhere and I want to give myself a fresh start.

Let's hope that works.

Somewhat miffed about...

There's been a number of voices on Gemini that I severely disagree with, but I haven't been able to make a cogent response on it because I was putting out unspecified other fires in life. Most of this have to deal with a certain brand of Malthusianism where things are going to be Fine if you just Do With Less and you have to because it's For Your Own Good and to Keep Earth Liveable. For various philosophical and pragmatic reasons I do not believe this to be workable, effective or in fact even solve the problem it purports to do, but there are enormous costs and a greatly expanded capacity for corruption, even more so than whatever current system you are operating on right now.

This has come up in here and also elsenet, and furthermore also tied to various ideas I have picked up with regard to governance and violence. At some point I have to compile these into a single article. It's not going to be a slam dunk but it is going to be strong.

Also I got to reply to someone too, whoops.