December 2020
Left: Avocado, cucumber burger; right side: apple and orange burger. These were tasty.
Walking past a broken section of rock, Hans sees some freshly broken off rock. It looks like the stone is faulting in this area. Luckily it is only a short part of his way, and he is nearly down in the valley.
Books read in 2020
It is the end of the year again, and I take stock of my reading year. I’ve read a lot more fiction this year also. The bookkeeping of my reading habit is taking a toll here. Reading non-fiction usually takes longer, then I fear that I don’t reach the book count β which is stupid, as it does not matter how much I read. On the other hand, I’ve read a lot of funny and intriguing books this year.
The same procedure as every year - thanks, dad, for making them!
In the shop before the Sundays where I m not allowed to make noise.
I just learned that friseurs is also an English word, although an old one. It is from the mid 18th century: French and means hairdresser β the same as in Swiss-German.
Upgrade my notebook to have a hook for the pen.
I hate cookie banners
Each time when I visit a new homepage, I’m presented with such an abomination
Review Their Greatest Game (Chronicles of Theren Book 2)
I just finished reading Their Greatest Game (Chronicles of Theren Book 2) by C. D. Tavenor.π
Oh no, itβs five o clock in the morning, and Iβm wide awake. I wanted to sleep in today OO.
Having completed the investigation of the multistory ruin, Hans starts walking again. His next goal is the little village at the bottom of the hill. He estimates around one day of walking to reach the bottom of the valley. Hopefully, it contains some useful loot so that his expedition was not entirely in vain.
I never diddle as in cheating when writing a test.
Homepage History (v1-v6)
With the release of Version 7, it is time again to document my old homepage designs. So I don’t lose this information in the past. This post contains a list of all my homepage designs over time. I like to keep a log of how the homepage has changed since it’s inception. The list is complete, but between version five and six, there was quite a long gap where the homepage was not online at all.Review First of Their Kind (Chronicles of Theren Book 1)
I just finished reading First of Their Kind (Chronicles of Theren Book 1) by C. D. Tavenor.π Theren is an synthetic intelligence. At the beginning of the book, a research team creates him. But the world is not ready for intelligence next to themself. Can they achieve acceptance? Opinion Please note that from here on out, the text can contain spoilers of the book. I quite liked the setup of the book and the story.
Enjoy your meal!
There are also some fountain pens and some decayed paper. It reminds Hans of the copyist he shared a hovel for a short while. He is wondering where she now is. He has fond memories of that time β it was the first time he found some form of peace and safety after the change.
When watching This Old Tony on Youtube, I expect him to use driftpins once in a while.
β€ b3ll/Motion (via iosdevweekly.com).
Iβve got a very cool gift from my wife for Christmas.
While inspecting the tower, Hans did not find anything of note. It contained mostly refuse and once genial children robots but useless in today’s world β not for the lack of children enjoying toys β more because the batteries needed for them are no longer working.
Having even letterspacing in your fonts helps a lot with readability.
Review 100 Days of Sunlight
I just finished reading 100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons.π Tessa is 16 years old when she is involved in a car accident leading to a loss of sight. Without sight, she cannot follow her blogging hobby anymore and, on top of it, needs to cope with the new situation. Her grandparents introduce her to Weston, a teenage boy. He should help her with writing. In the first moment, everything sounds typical about this boy.
On the left side: Another notebook filled. On the right side: The next - yellow a color for the hope of a better year.
I just started reading Their Greatest Game (Chronicles of Theren Book 2) by C. D. Tavenor.π
He stood at the corner in the city and tried to distribute his pamphlets β I think about the end of the world. Not many people were paying attention to him. And he looked more sad than crazy. So I started talking to him.
Flowers for my wife.
I fixed dependency hell by removing all my external dependencies. it was possible because I only had two of them and it is a hobby project.
Anyway, I still lost two days I could have used for features.
Iβve finally managed to update to Xcode 12, and now Iβm in dependency hell :-( Nothing is working anymore. I donβt understand why Apple is unable to create an IDE which just works β others are also able to do so :-(
The end of the year is the time to do you’re retrospections. I will need to do mine as well. It was a year with a lot of change for me.
After a day’s walk, Hans has reached the destroyed tower. Not much of it is still standing. It is too late to investigate the building today, so he starts creating his camp for the night.
Soon a fire is burning, and he warms up the leftovers of the rabbit he hunted β a treat it was a long time since he last caught one. They are seldom nowadays, and he is not the best hunter.
I just started reading First of Their Kind (Chronicles of Theren Book 1) by C. D. Tavenor.π
The experts were working on finding out how the retroreflectors could have caused the event. But they never found a suitable answer until the end. At some point, nobody was paying them anymore, so they stopped working. As a result, nobody knows why the light reflection started the process, only that it was most certainly the beginning of the change.
First post on the new Hugo based homepage. I hope everything works as expected.
@V_ Another webmention test the first one did not work :-(
by V_ on
Since early morning he heard music in his head. Some are slow others have fast tempi. He misses music a lot; the only way to experience music nowadays is to have someone play it to you live or create it yourself.
I love the moment when you realize that you just wasted two hours searching for a bug in your script because you were making the wrong assumptions about the output :-(
At least now I verified my script once more.
Review of Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, Book 3)
I just finished reading Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson.π The desolation has started. Humankind is under attack and can only survive if united. In this book, we follow Dalinar Kholin in his attempts at uniting the Kingdoms of Roshar. Kaladin is on a journey to find his parents. Are they still alive, and what situation will he finds in his hometown. Shallan Davar is still learning how to cope with herself and is uncovering mysteries in the tower city of Urithiru, where the human forces have found refuge.In the before times, he was responsible for creating individualized software solutions for his many clients. But then everything changed, slowly at first but gaining momentum with every passing hour. Only a few realized the impact of this change, so most tried to live on oblivious, that life as they know it was over.
Hans was in neither group of people; at some time, he realized that something has changed and started to react. Too late to keep his easy life but not too late to pay with his live.
I spent a good day in the shop today and worked on my boxes. I also found time to fix my shop furniture.
Sooo funny :-D
β€ Unendurable lineο½γ¬γγ³γγγγγ©γ€γ³ (via Kottke.org).
If he had an internal combusting driven car Hans could get to his destination way faster and would not need to walk β but where is the sense in this. The journey is the destination, like life.
I am working on a useless box. The prototype is working.
Automatic writing prompts in your inbox
I’ve noticed that the Microblog November helped me with writing. Just having a justification for writing something everyday put me into a better place β for writing. So I’ve set up my random word system, so I get an automatic writing prompt every day by Email. It is relatively simple: I found inspiration for the Email sending and scheduling in the following article Automate your day: send WFH emails using Mac’s Calendar app.Ownership, especially landownership, is an interesting concept. How did we define to whom the land initially belonged? One moment there is land belonging to nobody, and then somebody comes and decides it belongs to him now.
He was walking for days without pausing. His body is tired. He is weary of this journey and hopes for an interruption β anything to give cause to make a break β but nothing is happening.
Regarding the movie I watched yesterday. It felt strange how the actors were singing into each other’s faces without any distance at all. At times I was internally yelling at them to be careful.
I had the feeling I’ve heard the music from Wicked. Some of the songs were similar.
I just watched and enjoyed The Prom on Netflix.
It is morning, and he awoke half an hour ago with an ugly headache. But today, he will finally reach his destination. So he is still content with the day and eats his meager breakfast.
Potato men
@V_ Cool hat.
by frostedechoes on
The fog has lifted; Hans looks over the rolling hills. On the horizon, he sees the mountains β his ultimate journey’s goal β but today, he won’t reach them perhaps tomorrow. He shoulders his pack and starts walking down the crest.
Burger!
I’ve just stumbled over the movie Anna and the apocalypse. Zombie and musical film combined β sounds like the perfect movie for me. Now I need to find time to watch it!
Review of Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, Book 2)
I just finished reading Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, Book 2) by Brandon Sanderson.π In the Stormlight Archive’s second issue, we follow Kaladin and his bridge four crew, now guardsmen for the king. Kaladin is still not clear what he wants from life, but he needs to find an answer and solution to fulfilling all his obligations. Then we have Shallan, who gets further instruction from Jasna and needs to leave her old self behind to solve her task, to find a fabled city.
I got an excellent aperitif package from work today.
Castle
Mushrooms under snow.
First time I see how to charge an electric car.
Nearly time to go to my first piano lesson. I’m nervous but also happy.
Finally, I built the first of the clamping addons for my workbench.
I worked on box#3 today and tried another join type.
@V_ very nice!
by aa on
In the shop β I’m happy to have the energy back to go there!
I just started reading Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson.π
Wintergatan Sheet Music Collection β it will take some time until I can play anything from it.
I just started reading 100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons.π
On my way home.
I’m wondering if I should automatically remove my short status updates after some time from my blog. Treat them as temporary instead of having a public archive of everything I’ve ever thought and written. And only leave my long-form blog post on forever.
@V_ I've been going back every few months and deleting a lot of short ones that no songer see relevant. Unfortunately, I don't think this change updates github backups. A neat feature would be to have a review panel where one can hide/archive them instead. @help
by toddgrotenhuis on
@toddgrotenhuis @V_ I like the idea of an archiving feature. You may be able to use categories to approximate something like that too.
by help on
@toddgrotenhuis My main fear to do this is that I think perma links should not be destroyed. But there is also the argument that it's my side and I can do what I want here. But then again, the internet lives on having links working as long as possible.
by V_ on
I’ve done it; I took the chance, exited the pool, rolled around in the snow, and then back into the water :-D
It helped that nobody else was present in the pool. And it felt so good.
I love to dive into new worlds, forget everything around me. Exploring the worlds created by other minds.
That is one of the reasons I love reading.
@V_ It's a great feeling. I love being able to escape to new worlds and to become absorbed in them.
by findingfeeling on
Tree covered in snow.
And five minutes later, the fog has lifted.
@V_ wow! So beautiful! Those wonderful clouds!!
by mpmilestogo on
@V_ Where is this place? It's so good.
by ridwan on
@ridwan It's in Switzerland called Mount Rigi (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigi)
by V_ on
Mountain top in fog.
View
My view for the next two days. I hope the sun comes out a bit more.
Hand
Railway Station from above.
Stairs to the castle ruins above the city.
@V_ The picture kills me. It looks totally wrong, although I think that's exactly how it is in reality.
by ohBananaJoe on
@ohBananaJoe I think that the iPhone camera lens also skewed the perspective a bit. But it is a relatively narrow and steep staircase.
by V_ on
@V_ That was also more than a compliment from me. Very interesting picture and motive.
by ohBananaJoe on
Baden in the morning. Everyone is still sleeping.
Winter is here. The first snow for this year.
MBNOV Reprise
On a dreary morning, I sit at my table and try to concentrate on my astonishing problem. After many false starts, I think I’m now near a viable solution.
Stooping over my work, I’m puzzling if I should inflate the parameters value more. Perhaps when I bind the value to the expected outcome.
My elderly professor always said to wear all the protective gear before entering the lab. But I guess sometimes it is too spooky for me, especially far into the day’s late hours. But my memory of him is withering away since he took the final train. Since then, I have lessened my dependence on my mentor.
A solution to my problem is possible no matter that I’ve seen many researchers fade away like last year’s winter. I’m alone now at the border of human knowledge.
To capture yet another milestone today, I have all my provisions with me here in the lab β I don’t need to call for more. I adjust my posture to relax a bit and wonder once again about the research dilemma. And then I see the mask hiding the solution to my problem. The answer was pedestrian once you know it β but it will reinforce our knowledge for years to come.
Now #mbnov βοΈ is over β I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. And this is the first month where I wrote at least one post each day.
@V_ Bravo! Bravo!!
by macgenie on
@V_ πThatβs πsoπgreatπ! (This made me regret not having participated in this year mbnov challenge...)
by ArnoldHoogerwerf on
@V_ Excellent. It sounds like an H. G. Wells story.
by a_seagull_story on
@a_seagull_story l think, I was subconsciously inspired by the book The Perfect Generation by C.P. James, Iβve read lately.
by V_ on
@ArnoldHoogerwerf Thanks for the compliment this means a lot to me. Ik spreek ook wat nederlands ;-) Maar kan het niet goed schrijven.
by V_ on
@V_ Ah ja, je naam deed me al zoiets vermoeden π Ik gebruik micro.blog onder andere om mijn Engels te verbeteren (dit is mijn eerste Nederlandse bericht hier?!)
by ArnoldHoogerwerf on
@ArnoldHoogerwerf ;-) I switch back to english its way simpler to write from me. And yes I also use it to keep my english writing skill. It's a bit sad nowadays that my english is better than my dutch.
by V_ on
@V_ great colors! π
by docuguy on
@docuguy Thanks :-D I now need to get used to the new note book, especially as it has blank pages only.
by V_ on
@V_ the freedom of the blank page!
by docuguy on