Daily Review

I think I've determined that I need to review the log first thing every morning, before I check the RSS feed, email, start blogging and so on.

I thought a weekly review might be enough, but that can get long enough to be a chore. A quick daily review in the morning should be sufficient.

I added a $Reviewed boolean Displayed Attribute to the p_Entry prototype for now. I'll set up an agent to collect unreviewed entries, so they're all in one container for easy scrolling and review. If I can't complete a review, it won't disappear in the preceding days, as I normally keep those days' entries collapsed in the outline.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:12 Friday, 15 March 2024

Go For Ventless

Got approval from CINC HOME to proceed with the ventless dryer procurement. Apparently, she's even going to kick in half. It's not a blanket approval. I made the error of mentioning there was a larger ventless, but it cost a lot more. Now I have to investigate that. Wasn't in stock in this region in November.

We learned that we have to have our dryer vent cleaned every couple of years, or risk fire and reduced performance from the conventional dryer. That was $125 last time. The guy said we should do it every year, but I think we could get away with every two. The dryer alerts you when there's too much back-pressure, indicating a build-up of lint in the vent. I think that's what put me over the top on the approval.

Anyway, now I have to go do "research..."

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 13:20 Thursday, 14 March 2024

A Bit of Gardening

Our humble plot.

Watched the Starship liftoff and then headed over to the Garden Club. Dave the Plant Man was there and we got some plants and some tips. We put in five tomato plants, but I'm afraid they won't be bearing fruit before we leave for New York this summer.

In addition to the tomatoes, we put in some sugar snap peas, pole beans, some spinach-thing I can't spell or pronounce. The bush beans are still producing so we're leaving them in, as with those leafy broccoli plants. One has gone to seed and we're going to let the pods mature and dry and then hang onto the seeds and see if we can plant them.

Still very little idea what we're doing, but we got some tips about where to plant each type of plant in the bed. Spread some Black Cow soil amendment over the whole thing. We'll see how it goes.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 11:54 Thursday, 14 March 2024

Appliance

In the vein of "doing one's best," I re-opened negotiations on getting a ventless dryer yesterday.

The HVAC maintenance guy came by to do the semi-annual checkup. Great young man. I talked with him about our present heat pump system, how efficient it is compared with newer ones on the market.

He said ours was "pretty good," (thankfully, the "anti-woke" mob was still asleep when the building codes were being revised) and that I'd pay a lot more money for just a little more efficiency if I bought a new one today. He also said that we had at least three to five more years on this system before we should consider replacement.

For those who are considering a new heat-pump system, he also mentioned that the industry will be transitioning to a new refrigerant, probably for environmental or climate reasons, in 2025 and costs will increase significantly. So if you're thinking about it now, you may want to look hard at whether to do it now. I haven't looked into it, I could be wrong.

Anyway, Mitzi overheard our discussion, and I took the opportunity to suggest that one of the best ways we could increase the energy efficiency of our home would be to get a new ventless dryer. While we're solar-powered, we dry clothes at night from time to time, which is an enormous electrical load. Running electricity through resistive heating elements to dry clothes just seems foolishly extravagant to me now.

I'm cautiously optimistic. There's also a sales tax holiday on Energy Star appliances in Florida. But the "anti-woke" mob also enacted a sales tax holiday for gas stoves because Biden was coming for our cook-tops!

The real challenge will come when it's time to re-paint the house. Choices have consequences, and in a warming world, in the "sunshine state," a dark home for aesthetic reasons seems foolish to me. But, "Happy wife, happy life" may win the day.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:27 Thursday, 14 March 2024

ATBP: Like Tinnitus

After posting about wanting to own physical media, I read this piece at Resilience about the debate surrounding the term "Anthropocene."

My cognitive dissonance regarding the unfolding collapse of this civilization and the mundane, day-to-day insignificant issues that occupy so much of our time is like my tinnitus. It's always present, but I don't "notice" it until something calls it to my attention.

Moments to live. Be here now. Do your best.

Carry on.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:18 Thursday, 14 March 2024

Movies: 4K UHD HDR

We watched the 4K UHD HDR Blu Ray edition of James Camerons' The Abyss the other night. I hadn't seen the movie in years, maybe decades. I had a favorable recollection, and I'd read some of the buzz about the 4K release.

The movie looks great in 4K, as one would expect. It's not the revelation that something like Mystery Men was. We watched the theatrical release, not the special edition.

I think the biggest attractions of The Abyss are the set designs, and the underwater sequences. I was an ocean engineering major and the movie pays some lip service to the deep water environment, but it's not much. And while a boomer was essential to the plot, it's not likely that a boomer would be playing around with an unidentified contact on patrol.

The plot is ok, but the ending is a bit of a mess. Maybe the special edition addresses that.

But the topic of owning physical media continues to bounce around, as I expect it likely will as the streaming industry undergoes its changes, and the possibility of favorite titles being made unavailable for marketing purposes or license disputes creates doubt and uncertainty in the minds of fans. Plus, the industry has proven you never really "own" digital media, you just have a revocable license of indeterminate duration.

That's the main reason why I've been buying physical media lately, for titles I think I'd like to ensure I can see whenever I want.

One significant downside of 4K Blu Ray is the physical media. It's much denser than DVD, and less tolerant of flaws or defects in the media. We had a couple of glitches in a brand-new, pristine disk. I wouldn't want to ever drop one of those disks data-side down on a floor, especially a hard one.

Just out of curiosity, I'd like to see an analysis of the energy costs of production, sale and distribution of physical media versus that of streaming titles. With physical media, those are likely high, but they're all at the front end, with likely similar to streaming playback demands. Streaming has costs throughout the title's availability, whether it's being viewed or not. There is the plastics issue with physical media as well.

Maybe we should just stop making and watching movies?

I think that problem is going to sort itself out relatively soon.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 05:29 Thursday, 14 March 2024

Light and Variables

Here's an excellent explanation of how to get variables from Automator actions into your AppleScript within Automator.

I actually had this open on my iPad, but apparently it hadn't registered in my brain. But, it will now! 💡

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 16:14 Wednesday, 13 March 2024

DST

I think I've updated all my cameras to the correct time. I'm somewhat surprised that they were all an hour off, and that one or two weren't still on DST from the last time I forgot to change them

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 14:42 Wednesday, 13 March 2024

Change: Added “Reply by email” to RSS items

I noticed that the "reply by email" link doesn't appear in the micro.blog edition of the marmot. That's because it's derived from the RSS feed. So I've added that link to the RSS item template.

This is also kind of the inaugural post in what may become the "Change Log."

Let's see how this works...

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 14:17 Wednesday, 13 March 2024

Rocket Science and History

I subscribe to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) email list, and periodically get an email of greater or lesser interest to me. This is one of the greater ones. Pretty cool story.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:53 Wednesday, 13 March 2024

What’s Up, Doc?

Another brown bunny.

Yesterday, after I'd shot the kite in flight and checked the image, I was excited to notice the anole in the bird's beak. I started hustling up to the corner to get around to a more open area over the preserve to maybe get some more shots.

A thought crossed my mind, unbidden, "Don't get greedy, be grateful." I slowed a bit and sure enough, when I got to the more open area, there were no birds to be seen. Would there have been if I'd hustled? I don't know. But I wasn't disappointed, I was looking forward to checking the images on the iMac when I got home.

And a couple of opportunities came up on the way home anyway, and I was happy for those too.

So this morning I didn't expect much, because yesterday was such a good day. Sure enough, no kites over the preserve. Nothing until I got to the clubhouse area where I'd seen a rabbit last week. I looked for a rabbit along the walkway but didn't see one where I expected to and decided that I wasn't going to get a bunny today either.

And there it was.

So, "let go" and "be open." Or just relax and enjoy the walk.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:29 Wednesday, 13 March 2024

Automating Progress

The early part of this morning was spent creating a means of adding an entry to Captain's Log from Safari without leaving Safari. It could have been an all-AppleScript solution, but I wanted to try Automator first.

Some of the feedback I get is pretty negative on Automator, but of ShortCuts, AppleScript and Automator, the most approachable, to me, is Automator. Perhaps it's just because it looks familiar since it's been around so long.

Anyway, I figured I'd make a Quick Action (Service) that would capture the URL of the page I happened to be in, re-use the AppleScript for getting the entry title and the entry text, and finally making the log entry itself. So most of the action takes place in an AppleScript in Automator.

Automator meant I didn't have to "tell Safari" and deal with its object model. There's an Automator action that does exactly what I want, "Get URL."

I followed that with a Set Value of Variable action. I thought I could pass the variable directly into the AppleScript in Automator. The variable in "Set Value.." was "pageURL," and I thought I could just use that in a "tell Tinderbox..." statement.

The workflow worked up until the AppleScript, where it complained that the variable was undefined. So I asked ChatGPT if I could pass a variable from a Set Variable action in Automator to an AppleScript in Automator.

To pass a variable set in Automator to an AppleScript action in Automator, you can use the "Set Value of Variable" action to store the variable value and then access it in the subsequent AppleScript action. Here's how you can do it:

1. Add a "Set Value of Variable" action in your Automator workflow and set a variable name and value.

2. Add an "Run AppleScript" action after the "Set Value of Variable" action.

3. In the AppleScript action, you can access the variable set earlier using the following syntax:

```applescript

set myVariable to (variableName of variables)

```

Replace `variableName` with the name of the variable you set in the previous action.

By following these steps, you can pass a variable set in Automator to an AppleScript action within the same Automator workflow.

That suggested to me that I needed to create the variable that would ultimately be the one Tinderbox used to set the $URL attribute early in the AppleScript by setting to the value of the variable from the preceding Automator action.

Welp, that didn't work either. Undefined.

I figured I'd give the chatbot another chance. Here's its answer:

In your AppleScript action in Automator, you need to access the variable value set in the previous action correctly. Here's how you can modify your AppleScript to retrieve the variable value and assign it to `theURL` variable:

```applescript

on run {input, parameters}

set theURL to item 1 of input

-- Your AppleScript code using theURL variable goes here

return input

end run

```

By using `input` in the AppleScript action, you can access the variable value passed from the previous action. Make sure to adjust your AppleScript code accordingly to utilize the `theURL` variable correctly within the script.

And that worked.

I can't say I understand exactly why it worked, but I'm happy it worked. I've got a few ebooks on AppleScript and Automator and at least it's given me some clues to look for using Search. Might make things a little clearer.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:38 Wednesday, 13 March 2024

We’re All Preppers Now

In the unfolding catastrophe, we're going to want to try to turn to one another for help. That's why the idea of "social capital" is so valuable. Corporations try to divide us for their own profit. They don't care about us. If you don't care about your neighbors, then nobody will.

We're all in this together.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 14:56 Tuesday, 12 March 2024

Breakfast Take-out

The OM-1 with the 75-300mm. Swallow-tailed kite with a lizard in its talons

Brought the same combo this morning and I'm glad I did. Guessing there are two nesting pairs in the preserve nearby. Go to Flickr and watch the sequence (arrow-left) as it transfers the anole from its talon to its beak.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:32 Tuesday, 12 March 2024

Difference a Year Makes

AKMA noted that I've been paying attention to his blog, and I look forward to his new excursions from the day-to-day to the eternal. We all could use a little more of that around this joint.

Anyway, he linked to my micro.blog post from the other day, which still has my typo in the title. One thing leads to another, and I'm clicking around my micro.blog, which I something I seldom do. Anyway, I click on the Photos link in the nav bar and get this page.

I'm not sure how that page gets created, because I've posted more photos than that. Anyway, there's screenshot of the marmot, and I wondered what that was about, so I clicked on it and it's a post from just a little over a year ago. And what caught my eye was the screenshot of the Document pane of the Tinderbox Inspector window. 966 Notes, 377,351 words and 608 links in the marmot as of 18 Feb 23.

As of this moment, there are 1,480 Notes, 536,793 words and 1.047 links in the marmot. That's 514 more Notes (posts). The marmot's been around since late 2013 and in the last year I've added more than half the total number of posts than I'd written in the preceding decade.

That's what getting off of Twitter and Facebook will do for you.

I don't track my output here. It's not something I'm terribly interested in, I was just curious since I had a screenshot (snapshot) of that moment from about a year ago.

While you may have an account or a profile on some social media platform, "all your words are belong to us," to paraphrase something from a long time ago. The marmot is all mine, though I share it with you.

I think social media platforms are a net negative. While they lower barriers and reduce friction for people to interact on line, they do so to harvest our energy, our data, our souls.

I happen to think it's the corrosive, corrupted consequence of that misbegotten misunderstanding made by a marketer that, "Markets are conversations."

The commercial and the social are orthogonal concepts and dimensions. Trying to conflate them isn't "doing your best." It's about "making the sale." Whether it's the idea itself, or the products that poison us, it's all about making the sale.

Screw that. Look where it's gotten us.

"Begin with the end in mind."

"The end" is the place we're all headed for.

And it ain't the bank.

Figure it out.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:24 Tuesday, 12 March 2024

“You Can’t Command the Consequences”

I watched Hallelujah again last night. Rather, I finished watching it. We'd started it last week, but it's a two-hour documentary and we paused it. I don't think Mitzi and her sister were that into it, but I love it. So while they were watching some damsel in distress, princess and a dragon thing on Netflix, I finished watching Hallelujah in the Command Cave.

At some point, toward the end, Cohen is being interviewed about his late success and he demurs a bit saying, "You put in your best effort, but you can’t command the consequences."

I paused the playback and wrote that down. Partly because I love alliteration and the phrase "can't command the consequences" was arresting to me. And partly because it's a restatement of something I've learned, "Do your best, the rest isn't up to you."

We, in America, might be familiar with that notion in the aphorism, "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game that counts."

It's non-attachment to results, in Buddhism. It's the attachment, the desire, that leads us astray. Shifts our focus (everybody loves writing about focus these days), from the action to the objective. You can't control the objective, all you can control is your action, which is where your focus should be.

Yes, you must begin with the end in mind. But everything that matters is in between.

Great documentary.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:46 Tuesday, 12 March 2024

Overhead 3-12-24

Clear sky this morning. Star trails 30 minutes looking north.

The orange blur at the top of the frame is my big giant head, because I always forget how wide the fisheye is.

A lot of satellites, but you probably not big enough to see in this post. Larger version at Flickr.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:35 Tuesday, 12 March 2024

Like, “Nobody could have foreseen this…”

Don't move to Florida.

And if you can leave, get out.

While there's still time and people dumb enough to buy your place. This doesn't get better.

The "insurance reforms" are all in favor of the insurance companies and to the significant disadvantage of the insured. You may think you have insurance. You may have the receipts for all the premiums you paid. Good luck collecting on your claim. The board is tilted in favor of the insurance companies.

Almost because it has to be. Or there would be no insurance here. And therefore, no mortgages. And therefore, no housing market.

For now, I'm pretty confident USAA will be good to us. But I don't know for how long. There's a lot of activity duty and retired military in Florida. I don't know how much of USAA's portfolio is located here.

If I could, I'd leave.

And this was all entirely foreseeable. The article doesn't maintain that it wasn't, but it's the excuse I can already hear from the Republican Party of Florida, which has owned and operated the state for more than a generation.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 12:27 Monday, 11 March 2024

Tripping Around the Blogosphere

Jack is posting from the future! ("We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet.") I note that Jack's post claim's it's 15:20, while here in slow lane it's only 11:09. (I have screenshots, Jack!)

Garrett likes cedar waxwings, as do I, but I really dig decay. It's been nice seeing Loren posting on the regular. Bird photos always welcome. We have snipes here too.

AKMA is putting in his miles, one foot in front of the other, tending souls and soles, as it were.

I started following Chris Wiegman a year or so ago, I think, while he still lived in Florida. I'm pleased to know he's, literally, "in a better place." Florida can bring ya down. Life is weird, and all we really have are moments to live, and each other.

One Foot Tsunami (Paul Kafasis) is a reliable source of worthwhile links. And yes, 50% of people have below average intelligence. I think. "Median," "average," I get confused.

I love the blogosphere.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 11:07 Monday, 11 March 2024

Florida

Better living with chemistry? Airboat in a retention pond spraying chemicals to counteract the effects of other chemicals

Kind of a nothing shot (with the OM-5), except for the story it tells. I'm sure the guy must go to larger retention ponds where an air boat isn't as absurd. At least it's a small one, and very quiet.

But what he's doing there is spraying chemicals into the retention pond to control (prevent) the growth of algae and unwanted aquatic vegetation which thrive because of the fertilizer we spray onto our lawns.

It's a self-licking ice cream cone for the landscape and chemical fertilizer and herbicide industries.

<blockquote>But you tell me over and over and over again my friend Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction</blockquote>

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:29 Monday, 11 March 2024

Breakfast of Chapions Part Deux

Wood stork caugth catching its breakfast.

Before I had my breakfast, this wood stork had its. Brought the OM-1 with the 75-300 this morning. It was 50°F, so I wore a sweatshirt and my vest, which has nice pockets, into which I stuffed the OM-5 with the 14-42mm EZ pancake zoom. Fits well. Double-OM morning.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:08 Monday, 11 March 2024

Breakfast of Champions

Photo of a colorful breakfast

Kind of a "cheese sandwich" post, almost literally, for any who recall what those were.

I'm a creature of habit, so I don't have to think too much. I have this nearly every morning as long as I'm not in a hurry or out of something. It's two extra-large Eggland's Best eggs, a few sliced baby bella mushrooms, a large handful of spinach, black beans, turmeric, black pepper, avocado and hot sauce.

Basically, sauté the shrooms and the spinach (you can just put a cover over the pan, it'll take a while) while you're mixing the eggs, turmeric and black pepper in a bowl. The turmeric will clump up and stick to the side of the bowl, but the spinach takes care of that. Add the beans, and after the spinach is reduced and bright green, put it in with the eggs and stir well.

Pour that whole thing back into the same 8" frying pan, cover and go slice your avocado and do some cleanup. By the time you're done slicing the 'cado, washing the bowl and spatula and putting those away, it's probably done.

Slide it onto a plate, add hot sauce and eat. Might need to let it cool.

I used to make it with shredded cheese, but I decided that was unhealthy so I substituted spinach. It tastes great and ensures I don't get hungry until after noon.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:56 Monday, 11 March 2024

Local News

"All politics is local." Which is why local news is so important. We're still relatively fortunate here in northeast Florida that we have some good local news outlets. May not always be that way, but for the moment...

Speaking of "prurient," sometimes local history is newsworthy, or at least, interesting.

And this reminds me that I need to fire up Notes From the Underground ("It's darker here").

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:28 Monday, 11 March 2024

Bit of a Dr. Drang vibe, and consistently interesting if often over my head. New to me, now maybe to you.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:25 Monday, 11 March 2024

BBC News

BBC News has an excellent RSS feed. Some duplication, but not much. Stories fairly consistently interesting and worthwhile, no bullshit. While there are the occasional stories of local tragedies, they are interesting without being morbid or prurient.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:59 Monday, 11 March 2024