What's it all about, Alfie?

Another trip around the sun, and my birthday has arrived. I don't imagine I'll be doing anything all the special today... probably just watching the last three Mission Impossible movies - so good... and just staying home.

There is a little snow on the ground, and it's chilly, so the crazy 50s weather seems to have moved on, for now, and it's back to more normal December weather becore the cold stuff really arrives. Oh... it's coming, it's always coming...

No big plans for this year... just want a little peace. 🙂

Today, the first part of Advent of Code was to run an Intcode program, and move a droid around the inside of Santa's ship. It was really just an Adventure Game, and after exploring the game, you needed to pick up certain items, and then bring them to the pressure plate to make sure you "pass", and get through to see Santa.

I remember doing something like this with the original Zork, on the machines back at Purdue in the early 1980s... and so I was used to the idea of making a map as I explored:

Once I picked up all the things I could pick up - and there were plenty that I couldn't, I took them all to the room, and dropped what I couldn't carry. That was a lot easier than changing up the path each time to pick up only what I needed.

Now I need to go back and solve three more days to get all the stars... it's going to be challenging... but I've got a little time. 🙂

It's been a very interesting Christmas Break - as I use up my use-it-or-loose-it vacation time at The Shop, and still... I attend the meetings on Hangouts, and I do what I can to help those that are working during the break... but it's been an interesting time - no doubt about it.

I've watched some interesting TV... I really enjoyed the first season of The Morning Show - but then I really don't like bullies... and I've really enjoyed watching the last three Mission: Impossible movies... and it's been fun to do as much Advent of Code as I can.

There are certainly problems I don't understand the background for, and while I could learn it - I'm not going to learn it now, in 20 min, for a single problem. That's not going to last. But I can come back to it any day, and dig deeper into things like inverse modulo... and some serious computational search space pruning... but in all, it's been fun.

Christmas in a few days, and then a week and it's back to The Shop and the New Year. Lots of changes ahead... lots of things to think about in the next week.

Just finished the Day 1 puzzle to Advent of Code for 2019. And as expected, it was funny, and fun to do. I've been playing with the LeetCode examples - just to stay sharp, and one of the things that Advent of Code provides that LeetCode doesn't is the data files. Sure, I get it... they test after you write the code, but if, like me, you don't choose one of their languages, then you're really out of luck.

Still... I'll keep doing these as long as the authors make them, because they are fun and keep my mind sharp. I am very grateful for these folks... 🙂

UPDATE: some days are going well - others are computationally very hard, and I clearly need to figure out how to solve those. I won't get them all in the first go, but I'll keep at it... 🙂

This morning I was reading the newsfeeds, and came across probably my favorite Javascript graphing package: Chart.xkcd. The idea is that it can be used to create those seemingly hand-drawn charts the the xkcd comic so often generates as part of their work. But this is easily put into React and other web frameworks, and put on web pages for that casual look that brings a completely different feel to the data being presented.

From the simple docs on the web page, it seems pretty straight-forward... you have to set up all the data for the graph, and then it just renders it. There are some nice mouse-over features as you dig a little deeper, but it's the casual nature of the presentation that really appeals to me:

I don't have a project yet that's in need of this, but I can feel that there will be something coming soon that could really use this less-serious approach to data presentation. After all, not everything is a publication-ready presentation.

This morning I saw an ad for Google Fi, and it got me to thinking about the relationships between AT&T, Verizon, regulations and tech companies, like Google, and my phone. I'm not saying I like the size of my phone bill - and this includes two kids and my Mom, but I at least understand why it is the size it is, and the way they are profiting from me. When I think about an unregulated tech company being a carrier, it makes the data collection even more invasive.

I'm not saying that the people working at Google have evil in their hearts, but power currupts, and the power some companies are collecting about each of us is really staggering, and I'm in the position to know just enough to be really concerned. The collection and matching of data made Finance really powerful - but that was all about tradable securities and related information. This is about individual people... and the aggregations that can be done now make it possible to really look at the individual within the crowd.

I just wonder if we're a cliche - allowing technology to outpace society - again. I think I'm all for spending a little more, to a regulated company, than pay less to an unregulated one - certainly for utilities that just need to work, and not be tracked.

Some will say I've started early, but I had to walk 30 min in a snowstorm this morning, so I felt like I deserved it. One of the albums on my Fun Christmas playlist is John Denver & The Muppets - A Christmas Together. It's just a bunch of fun Christmas songs, and I just love Christmastime...

Today is the very best day someone's having... and it's the very worst day someone's having... or both.

UPDATE: I picked up some Frank and Bing as well, and added them to the list. It's some good music, and Frank reminded me of Christmas Seals, and how a disease, once cured, means the charity formed to battle it, also dies.

Last Thursday I realized that iTunes Match was something I had completely forgotten about - and with my newest iPhone, I was having issues with the syncing of playlists, and music... so I was talking to a friend and he reminded me of iTunes Match. I had thought that was just a part of Apple Music, and it is, but it's also a stand-alone service for $25/yr that will be to my Music what iCloud Sync is to my photos.

So I signed up, and it started syncing to iCloud... and I'd checked with my friends, and they said it'd take a while, so I let it run.

Four days later, we're at this morning, and it's still uploading - or so it says. I had my doubts, and the problem was that there wasn't a really simple way to restart the syncing, but I did find out that you could add the column iCloud Status to the table of songs, and almost all of mine were "Waiting"... that's not good... Quitting Music (no more iTunes) didn't help... so finally I rebooted my machine.

When everything was back up, and I looked at Music this time, all of a sudden things looked a lot better. Like nearly flawless. There were a few of my ripped CDs that didn't have the album artwork, but that was something I knew how to fix, and I started with the first album missing artwork.

Interestingly, when I updated the Artwork tab in the Info... settings, it didn't change in the Music app, so I tried another... same thing. Then I went back to the first and it had changed - so had the second. Ah... OK... Music is actively syncing the changes to iCloud and then representing that in the view I see. OK... I can deal with this... and I fixed the other albums.

One thing I couldn't figure out was why my iPhone didn't get all the album artwork for a single Christmas album. It tagged half of the songs with the artwork, but left the second half off. So I verified that the artwork was right on my laptop - and it was... then looked back to my iPhone - nope. Very odd.

But on the upside - making changes to a playlist on my iPhone does get updated on my laptop - so that's working... Now I just need to figure out how to get that artwork right on my iPhone...

But hey... at least it's not still saying it's syncing to the Cloud...

UPDATE: Fixed it! Here's what I had to do...

• Remove the downloaded tracks on my laptop - this is a quick right-click on the title, and removing the downloads.
• Select all tracks with bad album art - shift-click on all of them will do it, and they all should have the iCloud download icon next to them.
• Add the Album Artwork in the Info panel - this is important to do while the tracks are only on iCloud.
• Download the tracks - and all the places these tracks exist will be given the correct album artwork.

What a treat! This is just fantastic to get this working! 🙂

This morning, as I was checking Facebook for news from the extended family and friends, I saw a post from a friend of my Uncle David's - that he had died yesterday. He had bone cancer, and was in a lot of pain, and had been battling cancer for many years, and yesterday he finally got the peace he so richly deserved.

Here he is with my cousin, Ann - his daughter:

I think of all the stories I have because of him. What a man. A minister and architect, he had the most amazing voice - it erupted from his very being. It was amazing. The ghost stories he'd tell to us when we were visiting were - to this day - the most terrifying memories I have. I sit and laugh now, but back when I was 9 it was no laughing matter when Uncle David would start to tell a story.

He was well-read, but then again, you weren't going to be hanging around my Aunt Jo without being smart... and the summers we spent in Vermont with them were just more fun than a kid from Tara Lane deserved to have.

I will miss him, but I am so glad he's not in pain... that's no good for anyone.

Today Apple announced the new AirPods Pro, and they look really nice. Noise cancelling, and a Transparency feature to allow some level of noise in if you're in traffic or needing to listen to a little of what's going on around you. Nice feature, and clever - because that's something you might like to tune depending on your environment.

I've become a nut about wireless headphones, and so, of course, I ordered a set, and they should be at the house in a few days. Very nice. The stems of the AirPods Pro are shorter than the AirPods, and have a button on them. Nice. The specs indicate that they should last 4.5 hrs on a charge, and the case is good for 12 hrs. Very nice indeed.

Can't wait to try them out. Life can be fun. 🙂

UPDATE: they are small, light, snug fit, great sound, everything I was expecting from Apple. Just amazing!