2023-11-16:

Fri:
Got my sub hooked back up.
Checked sites and videos.
Why did I have to tell both the Mac and the PC about the speakers being 5.1 again? Odd. They both claimed they were just LR channel. Also, why do both of them register my "audio" device as some Dell monitor? I don't have any dell monitors. I have an Asus monitor
Updated my Mac to 10.14, didn't take too long.
Got a few things around for going to my parent's house.
Tried to register for the 1,400 visa card. I got "unexpected error!" because of course I did. Called GM. Got transferred. Got transferred again! Got transferred again, how many people do these companies employ that know nothing, and can't help? Could costs be brought down by maybe not having so many useless people in between a person that can help and the customer? Just a thought, sort of random I know but on the surface it seems like it would work. No help there, she gave me another phone number after explaining what cookies are, uh, like, I have CS degree and have forgotten more about the operations of computers than you will ever know. I also tried edge over on my PC. Same error, what a shock! Oh my GOD they really want to make this as difficult as possible don't they? Is it on purpose? This cannot be anything but malicious, can it? can it? Called the number. This person also wanted to do the clear everything dance. I went over to the PC again because clearing my safari history is madness. It doesn't work like that. Look, I don't even use this PC for browsing. I doubt I've even opened Edge on this PC. There can't be anything to clear. But I did it anyway. Color me flabbergasted it worked. How is this even a thing? How can their site be so sensitive a browser I've never used isn't "clear" enough to make it work? This seems really, really badly done. But it gave me a confirmation number so we'll see what happens. Whoops though, I closed it while trying to drop down the menu to print it. Another fantastic MS design decision, to have the very bad buttons (close) next to the menu button. Yeah, thanks.

Updated the website. Huh, Beating the System is my official 50th book posted on the book section. Wow. If only anyone cared...

Did my paperwork for last month. A whole 10 jobs, so that's something.

Did a bit of xbox, mostly the mission for getting the last upgrade. Love doing it again and again.

Went to write up a new spell and add it to Olaph that simply knocks over enemies. Oh, it won't open? Nor will my copy of LiveCode Community? Seems something about menus changed and broke the whole thing. Nice. So  I guess for the moment I get to drag out my laptop to use this. Then I'll have to look into swift and making Mac applications again to create version 3. I'm not paying LiveCode per year to make my little toy app. Thanks for killing the open source version, livecode. Love ya.

Crap. My bankbook program doesn't work any more either, it was made in livecode. Sigh.

Checked to see how expensive it was now. The "starter" plan is $400 a year. The "standard" plan is $300 a year. Wait, what? ?? ????
Oh I only had Mac selected. PC and Mac is $550 a year. HA. Sure.

Hummmm For just Mac starter is $132 a year. For as long as you live, because I guess if you stop paying, all apps you made stop working. Neat. Not that I'm in any better situation now, mind you. Really wish Flutter wasn't so terrible. There's really no other good cross platform development toolkit. Believe me, I've looked. I made native apps before, mind you, I could again, it's not like anyone's using the PC versions of my stuff anyway. What to do...

Hold on, I don't need that spell. The lubricate spell does exactly what I want and more. I've even had characters use it. I'm so dumb.

Saw my parents. Went shopping. Got cat food with coupon. Came back here. Watched Loki. Then surprise xbox, didn't expect it. We tried the harder mission, which has rewards not consummate with the effort expended. The normal one that you can easily do in 10-15 minutes? Never timed it. Anyway, I can get through it myself in a few minutes. Easy. Gives 1,050 reward points let's call them. The medium difficulty task that we did has you fighting 4 boss creatures that take forever to beat up. They simply don't take damage from any weapon. My super weapons that can do 10s of millions of damage, hey I should get those screenshots, nothing. It's so unfair. Took us 40 minutes, and only gives us around 3,000 reward points. You do the math. We could have done the easy mission many more times in those 40 minutes and walked away with many more points. But at least I had enough points to get another step on the path for my ultimate weapon. Only 5,000 more points and I get the 4th "level 0" part and by my powers combine them into getting 400% more damage. It shall at last be complete.

Now, let's switch gears. It's going to be a long one. So sit back, relax, and sip from that steaming cup of yorkshire tea at your side. Ready? Go.

I want to share a revelation I've had with you. It relates to the book but starts in real life, or what we call real life. Last week, the topic of crime came up with Someone and that Someone's take on crime was, to paraphrase, "grump grump grump crime is so high! Grump grump crime crime crime, fantasy land, grump grump." This, I of course knew was an incorrect view of the world because as far as crime rates are concerned, over the long term, news is actually good. But I didn't have the exact figures for how good the news was, so I held off.

I got the figures during the week.

And the news is great! About as I expected, crime rates over the last 20 years have overall been cut in half, and some specific areas of crime have fallen 3x and even 4x times! I had the evidence, from the official state and county sources for where I live. There was no arguing them. The facts were clear.

When Someone was presented with the evidence, however, they used a unique technique I call "plugging their ears." Their argument, and I'm not even paraphrasing that much here, was "Well, a crime happened locally somewhere so these numbers must be wrong." Let me emphasize certain words here. "A crime happened locally somewhere so these numbers must be wrong." I am sure I stared at Someone rather dumbfounded for several seconds because of how nonsensical this statement is.

I am not saying there is no crime. Also how does a crime locally intersect with crime rates nationally? Pick a lane.

Yet Someone is clearly acting like I am. I asked Someone how he believed the numbers were wrong. Is the organization responsible for ticking up a number when a person is arrested not doing their job? For the last 20 years? And no one noticed? But Someone simply maintained they were wrong, with no evidence to back up that claim.

How do you argue against that? How do you argue against crazy? It's like Ebenezer going the whole movie not believing the ghosts were real instead of just Marley. And so the ending of the movie is just him dying alone and the Christmas Future ghost looking down at his grave and thinking "buddy, I tried to warn you!" Someone used no facts. Cited no sources. Their evidence was "my feeling."

I once saw a comic which I am thankful I found and can share with you now. Took only a moment to find, thanks, Google! Wish you hadn't given up that "don't be evil" motto!



We need to add a panel to the above, a person pointing to a person being arrested with the word bubble "If crime rates are falling, explain that!"

Because that's Someone's argument in this case. Their only argument, in the face of otherwise officially accepted numbers.

I saw that comic before and thought it perhaps a sort of parody, or satire. No longer. I now see it for what it is.

I actually thought of a rebuttal but it took until Sunday night. Obvious in retrospect. Something even Someone can't argue against. Money. After all, what do police departments want most of all? Money. How do they get it? By justifying their existence to the state, who gives them money. If crime fell to zero, say in a Star Trek like reality what need would there be for police? None. They would get no money, they would be "defunded." So naturally if crime numbers are down, they can less justify their existence and they will get less money. So again, naturally, they are going to if anything inflate the numbers so their budgets are justified. This "oh the numbers must be wrong" cannot be correct because police departments must report the number of crimes they deal with to get the money. Crime falling by half means they need half the budget. Why would they accept any number not higher than the year before unless it is the truth???

Pity it takes me so long to think of these things.

Now, let's loop this around back to the book! With... hold on. That's guy's skirt is amazing! That is what that is, right? He's wearing a skirt? Right? I want that skirt and those tights, I would rock them! Sorry, got distracted. Book. With the above in mind, my characters are all too logical. I don't think I've ever written a character that can look into the face of evidence and come up with some absolute crap reason that evidence "must" be incorrect. And I was about to do it again.

See, in the previous book, Bishop Olaph goes on the quest to find out why the Heavens are no longer listening to prayer and why the gates have been closed. Naturally he suspects something to do with The System as it came at the exact same time, but yet he still doesn't know why. So he sets out to find out. And he does. Not that you'll read it but I won't spoil anything- eh, I'll write it in white you can highlight it if you want to know.

Basically the beings that live above Heaven and could tell God to take a hike basically told God to take a hike. They were bored and dismayed with how the world was going and gave everyone The System to help put things back on the right track. They closed off Heaven's power because people were too reliant on it, and they want people to (entertain them) by solving their own problems.

Clear? Okay. In this book, because they know now The System isn't going anywhere, the world and more importantly for the story the Mage's Guild has to adapt. They have, for 2,000 years or so, controlled access to magic by forcing mages to charge up the butt for any spell cast, and then raked their own members over the coals by charging them an arm and a leg to learn more magic. So really, nobody but the most wealthy could afford it so a magical world had very little magic. Weird, right? With The System, that changes, and Olaph proposes The System provide magic users the option of being "lesser" mages with magic specific to their professions. (Many in Pyre can do magic but don't even know it, there's no real outward sign of course and even if they did know, see above $$$$$ greed, etc. So they went into other fields and are now quite perturbed because they could have been doing magic all along and raking in that cash instead of being a candle maker or a person that cleans stables out or whatever.) That way they aren't a threat to the guild because they can only do a few spells and can't learn more, don't need expensive training, (The System gives them the skill and the spell) and are placated because all these people are demanding the Guild do something about all this. They go away happy. After all, if you woke up one day with three magical words you could say that make 3 different parts of your job easier, wouldn't you be saying those words? Of course you would.
So the current Guildmaster, Mary Louwho follows Olaph around in the first half or whatever of the book as he helps people come to grips with the new magic and set them on the right path. Everyone he meets starts off angry/confused about exactly how they're supposed to use these spells and goes away ecstatic and eager to get back to work to play with their new powers. So naturally I was going to have Mary see all this and accept the evidence of her eyes. "Maybe the Guild was wrong all these years," she thought. "Maybe... I was wrong."

But should she?

Given Someone's refusal to see the evidence before them, and given the Guild has a long, long, long history of greed and exclusivity would she take that sort of attitude? No, I don't think she would. She would "but what about"ism the whole thing. She would make stuff up. She would say these people are the exception and "just you wait."

This is more interesting narratively because now Olaph will go crazy just as I have above taking to Someone. He can't attack her argument because there is no argument. He offers the proof, she offers "but my feeling." How can he? It could even get him kicked out of the guild which everyone will argue is a really, really bad idea because now they've lost their one link to Bob, the being coordinating and helping control The System. It goes Olaph->Bob->Bob's Bosses->The System. Only Olaph can talk to Bob, but anyone in the guild can talk to Olaph. See? They need Olaph close so they can guide him, and he can talk to Bob, and thus control what The System offers people. Losing him loses them that, but I could see her just throwing that away hoping the problem itself goes away. It's just as nonsensical as the "my feeling" "argument." With him gone he can say "forget you then" and just tell Bob to do whatever, thus increasing tension in the story as that's just going to make the Guild even more angry with him.

So I'll need to modify my notes a little and think about this more. I need more unreasonable people in my world, as they're sure as heck in this one!

Sat:
I actually wrote that all up this morning.
Got up pretty late too, was surprised how long I slept for. Oliver was snuggled right up with me though! Aw!
Checked sites, videos.
Oh yeah, caught my little sneak mouse last night. Two or three times he's gotten in there and eaten the bait and gotten out again. This time I put it on a hair trigger, more peanut butter so it would tip at the slightest touch. It worked! Got 'em. Silly mouse. Time for another trip to the woods I guess.
Ate lunch.
Got the final 5000 reward points I needed to max out my weapon. Never have to run that mission again!

Took a nap as I had a cat on my lap and couldn't move. It's the rule.

Ate dinner.

Looked into getting back into MacOS programming. Opened up Xcode just to see what it looked like now and was offered a dizzying array of options. What's a "swiftUI?" What's a "storyboard" what's a "swiftData" how is that different from the still offered "core data?"

Started watching videos. Oh. SwiftUI is that awful Flutter way of doing things where you try, in code, to define what your window looks like. Why have we adopted this awful method when we have the superior one of just laying it out in a WYSIWYG way? We're not trying to build apps for a dozen different devices, we're trying to build apps for one device. A Mac. With a screen. Oh, and good luck filtering out all the iOS videos from the MacOS videos. So I guess "SwiftUI" is not what I want. My app is far too complex to try and create it programmatically, and really all but the most simple apps would, I assume, be the same. This "regression" must have some value I'm not seeing at the moment but tying in a bunch of gibberish and hoping an element appears on the screen where you want it doesn't seem as good as just defining that element in a window where you want it with the old interface builder. My goodness I miss Hypercard.

Oh, and searching for videos on "core data" just brings up videos about "swiftData" Great. I think I want to use core data because it keeps track of things for you, and my app is basically just showing a lot of data on various screens. So I think that's what I want to use rather than trying to keep track of it all "myself" as I did with LiveCode. But I have no idea because I can't find a video that actually explains it. Neat!

Parents came over, watched two short movies about one short lady. They get it.

More looking into programming. Isn't supposed to get easier with time, not more complicated? How am I supposed to answer a dozen questions about the type of app I want while just "starting out?"

Sun:
Checked sites, read stories.
More looking into programming. I opened up my old, very (very) simple checkbook program from years ago. I have like 63 warnings in it now? Half the calls I've made are deprecated? Huh? Maybe one way to start would be to fix it up so it works, or maybe remake it so it works? Because I know what worked before, if I can get that simple thing going maybe I can get something more complex going.
I mean the way I "learned" Flutter was just copying code fragments and reading up how to do this and that until I had a working app. I could do the same here, I guess? It's just depressing opening my old project and hitting run and getting a bunch of warnings like "oh we don't do things like that anymore. In fact, how could you?" Nuts.

Nice and sunny, I should probably do the leaves instead of stressing about this. I did find the old installer I used for the PC version at work. I could put that on the PC and kick the can down the road a bit. I mean I don't actively want to change the paragon app at the moment and the laptop (where it lives mostly and on the PC at work when I'm writing) will continue to work for the foreseeable future. Not to mention doing it in Xcode means no windows version at all, making writing there harder. So yeah, good times.

I did do the leaves, and then a nice cooldown kitty walk.

After that was dinner, making my calls, and getting ready for tomorrow. Two calls, one person dropping a laptop off I suspect the drive died in, and another person not on the web I'll call back tomorrow and help over the phone. She claims her alexa is still working and "cable" couldn't do anything. Don't they have specialists to deal with these sorts of issues, you know, to help their customers use their product so they get- what am I saying of course they don't. Thanks guys, I guess leave it all to me or whatever.

One week until the Turkey Week.

Mon:
Got the login test resolution check whatever crap set up. Couldn't log in more than once, found out I had a machine option unchecked. Which was weird, I thought having that unchecked just meant it would be slower. Weird.

Set up the D8.0 stuff. I  had already done one test. Did the next test, yes, the challenge password is still uselessly on the page. It hasn't changed.

The third test did not go well. It's to send an email. I was told by the device it didn't have enough resources to send an email. Huh? It was just loaded and rebooted. I wrote that up. Stupid thing.

And that was the work I did for the day.

I did spend a bunch of time redoing my notes for the new more unreasonable guild leader. And beyond, as Olaph chases after his infatuation.
Did some reading, got a few things in the trash mostly salad I brought to my parent's house.

Oh yeah, I went there in the morning too. I caught a second mouse overnight, so two went over there. Stick together friends! (I have no idea if they're friends or not)

Got back here, checked sites. Looked at the laptop that had been dropped off. Yeah, hardware test fails. You need a new drive.

Called lady from yesterday. Half an hour of my life gone, because we can't perform the most basic of tasks. I'll have to go there tomorrow. Wifi is so great in windows. There's switches, different keys to turn it on and off, airplane mode, it's a delight. You never know which thing will have gone wrong and like I say, forget trying to get any information out of a person.

Didn't reach laptop guy yet. Opened it up though. We (HP) went through the trouble of including 16GB of "optane" memory but no M2 slot? Why include this feature with a spinning rust drive? It makes no sense to me. Just put the m2 slot on the MB and then stop. No need to add SATA drives as well. Am I missing something?

Oh and remember, Intel killed optane, so it's not even a product anymore. It's useless. There's no speed benefit to doing this!


A bit of Xbox with the others, surprisingly.

Tues:
Not much to talk about work wise. No action on my bug, so no work on the D8.0 stuff.
No haul either.

Finished my current story and started another. It's much funnier than mine. Darn it! So funny! Their System is so sassy. I think I have finished the notes for mine. Maybe shorter? Maybe longer? Who can say really. I guess it's time to start chapter 3 isn't it?

Went to see wi-fi lady. Another typical windows screw up or whatever. No switches, when I looked at the device manager it was "not functional" or whatever the words are so I disabled it, and reenabled it. That blue screened the device. Thanks, MS, another triumph for you. It was disabled when it came back up, but did enable this time. Yay!

Started the install of the laptop.

Went for a kitty walk- or so I thought. He didn't seem to want to get into the harness and when I took him out he backed up (beep beep sound included) and looked at the door. I let him back in. No walk tonight I guess. It isn't that cold, especially for a long haired katman.

Work on the laptop, ate dinner, sites. And there goes the power. RG&E trucks are across the street. So that was fun, at least I didn't break anything this time.

Got power back, started the laptop stuff again.

While that was going we did Xbox, the new Remnant II content. Didn't get all the way done.

Wed
Still no haul, stuff from the 14th is still in there.
Not much work stuff, did some talking to people and helped Adnan a little.
I did get back into writing, got chapter 3 and 1/3 of chapter 4 done. We're solving mysteries left and right here.
Back home, checked sites, copied what I could from the drive. Got much of it, not the chrome folder sorry.
No calls today, but I'll call laptop guy. I reached him, he's picking it up tomorrow.
Guess it's about bed time.

Thurs:
Ah, one week to the Big Eat. And a 4 day weekend. Nice.

Wrote up some bugs from the Joe test from a few weeks ago. Three of them. I  guess we're moving forward with that project.

Otherwise the usual meeting, plants, and I finally got a decent haul again. If you just count apples. Which I do, I got about a dozen of them! Brought some home (4) gave Christina at least 4, maybe it was 6, I was going half and  half putting them in the fridge. Anyway, another cheesecake, two pots of chili, some cracker and cheese combos, and a few sandwiches. And one salad, so I can bring a few things to my parent's house tomorrow. As well as another mouse, as I got one this morning. Where are all you little cutes coming from? Stop coming in here!

Really surprised two cats aren't going nuts with all the mice around here, don't they hear them in the walls or whatever?

Got told about a few projects coming next year. Easy stuff, similar to what we've done in the past, just expanded. Like supporting new card readers, that sort of thing. Shouldn't be anything too difficult to test.

Finished the next chapter, going well so far. We revisited another character from the past books, saw what she was up to. And they figured out (they think) the "replicator" from the floating cities. Good stuff.

Came back here, checked sites. Had dinner.

No calls, and laptop guy did pick up the laptop.

Let's look ahead. Probably more writing tomorrow, I don't see much work coming in. Shopping and seeing my parents as normal. Then we are on track to do game. Ah, new adventure after the whole ghost baby saga.

This weekend is the get together with Stan, his "I'm still alive" party so we'll head over there on Saturday. Otherwise there are some leaves down, but maybe not enough? They took the pile again today. We'll see about that. No other big plans.

See you after Turkey Day!