This tree is really up there.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
Month: August 2021
Caveat: OGF Live
[This is cross-posted from my other blog.]
The OGFMirror became opengeofiction.net, over the weekend.
This is huge news.
So far the site is working okay. Not great, just okay. There are some issues.
- The ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken is frequent and painful, for users.
- Possibly related to the above – users keep getting forcibly logged out, over and and over.
- The render is still playing catchup on the whole world map, and seems to be lagging around 2 hours for high zooms.
- Incoming email is completely broken – possibly due to errors in the DNS tables at the opengeofiction.net registrar (and we’re waiting on the old host to fix this)
- Outgoing email is problematic for some substantial portion of users due to over-aggressive anti-spam efforts by several major email providers, including Apple (icloud) and Microsoft (hotmail, outlook, live). I’m not even sure how to begin fixing this. I’ve implemented DKIM, but this also relies on fixing DNS errors which are not currently being fixed, and that might help. I’ve looked into a blacklisting of my email server by spamhaus.org and discovered it is due to my email server sharing the same IP range with a Nigerian Prince or somesuch in the server farm where it lives.
Work continues. Meanwhile, to all the users of OGF: “Happy mapping!”
Caveat: Poem #1857 “Canvas”
ㅁ I look out the window at the fog. It's pleasant and calming to see: a blank slate where I can dwell. There's no mountain, no sea. I draft my own world. That works quite well. A bird calls. Fish jump. Splork.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #956
This tree is up there.
[daily log: walking, 2km; helpdesking new users, 6hr]
Caveat: Frame Shop Journal #11
I took a very long time between posts. And I think I missed taking some pictures of frames I made. But here, just for completeness, is a disordered list of some things I did in the frame shop over the past month and half or so.
Caveat: Poem #1856 “No GPS, either”
ㅁ If you look at the map, carefully, maybe you will learn where you are. But what if the map and world are not on the same page? What if you're dreaming imagined things and the map isn't real?
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #955
This tree is all spidery-branchy-shaped.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Depseudonymized
I have always operated under a pseudonym on my geofiction websites. But as of today, as I become the official host of the main site, opengeofiction.net, I had to depseudonymize myself – because a person hosting a website on a server with many users in countries all over the world has a sort of obligation toward transparency. This isn’t precisely a legal requirement – though who knows, with so many different jurisdictions involved. But it feels like at the least a sort of ethical requirement.
Opengeofiction.net was created in Germany by a guy named Thilo in 2012. I joined the site in early 2014, and served for many years as a volunteer administrator. Recently, Thilo has become disillusioned (or otherly-illusioned) and no longer wanted to maintain the site. But with hundreds of active users, it seemed unkind to shut the thing down. So I have taken it over, along with some colleagues, also fellow volunteer administrators. Effective today, the site is hosted on a couple of my servers down in California, and I’m the lead technical support.
This is not about making money, exactly. Though I expect some donations to help me at least break even on the rent for the servers.
Here is a screenshot of the “contact” page from the site – showing me depseudonymized for my fellow geoficticians.
Caveat: Poem #1855 “The monkey mind”
ㅁ some things lurk and wait and can cause stress and ask the mind to test its doubts no ghost can dodge this mind's work but nor do they bow down they just furl their souls drift through loose time leave their signs on stones dark
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #954
This tree was by the pond.
[daily log: walking, 1km; fishsouping, 1hr]
Caveat: Poem #1854 “The”
ㅁ The world, the places, the sky and sea, the people in it, the words they tend to use, the most common expressions, the scattered semantic fragments, the ever-flowing meaninglessness, the
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #953
This tree – located at the center of this map screenshot – is imaginary: a real dot on a real map of an imaginary place.
I placed this tree earlier today because I am testing the functionality of the new opengeofiction map server. As of right now, the “old” server is down. The new server is running, but only in testing mode, so I won’t place a link. I’ll add a link to the tree on the map server when it goes “live” – maybe later tomorrow or Sunday. This is part of a long ongoing project, mentioned before, to build a replacement website for opengeofiction. The moment of truth approaches…
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Poem #1853 “Primeval”
ㅁ First: nothing. Unholy. The road's imposed, the trees forced to yield, the small streams surmounted, and the rocks are crushed and spread. But below, the absences wait. The potholes are older than the road.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #952
This tree is under an elevated metro station from my past. Ten years ago this month I visited the Oksu station in Seoul, and took this picture. I don’t think the tree was the focus or subject of the picture, but nevertheless, there is a tree down there.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Poem #1852 “No, not nevermore”
ㅁ The sun was still a bit too low to see but dawn's begrudging fingers grasped the sky. A raven came and sat outside my room and watched me watch it staring down at me.
– a quatrain in blank verse (iambic pentameter).
Caveat: Tree #951
This tree disappears off the top of the photo’s frame.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Poem #1851 “Powerless”
ㅁ Another dream where I failed, and drifted lost, unwanted, goals veiled, as if jailed.
– an englyn cil-dwrn.
Caveat: Tree #950
This tree saw some morning light.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Poem #1850 “Joe’s halibut”
ㅁ At the southwest edge of Saint Ignace a mongo halibut was hooked the sea surged in sympathy and the blue-gray waves leapt and the wind drew lines while the fish fought but was caught reeled in died.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #949
This tree saw a salmon jumping up out of the water. Can you see it? (bottom just left of center).
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; boating, 40km]
Caveat: Fishing Report #(n + 28)
Joe and Arthur and I went out fishing today. Joe’s stepson had intended to accompany us, but bowed out.
We got a very late start. That’s because the batteries were dead in the boat. And then, even when we charged them up, the big motor wouldn’t start. It was an electrical problem. Troubleshooting revealed that one of the connectors to the battery was so corroded it had broken through (picture).
We had to repair the electrical connectors to the battery.
We finally left the dock at 9:15. We went to Black Beach, at the north end of San Juan, and trolled for salmon. Nothing.
We went to the north end of San Ignacio and trolled southward along the eastern side. We saw my boss Wayne in another boat. Maybe he was catching a fish – it was hard to tell from the distance. But we caught nothing.
We were skunked for salmon for the day. At about 12:30 we put in for halibut on the southwest corner of San Ignacio (Cocos Point).
Joe caught one humongous halibut. About 70 pounds, 56 inches long.
It didn’t fit in the fish-holding tank at the back of the boat – its tail stuck out.
Arthur and I were satisfied to have assisted, and we headed back. The sea, that had been flat in the morning, was whipped into a frenzy by increasing wind, going home, and we were slapping 3-4 foot waves all the way until we got inside Port Saint Nicholas.
We tied up at the dock at 2:45.
Year-to-date totals:
- Coho: 15
- Kings: 0
- Halibut: 10
- Mongo Halibut (> 50lbs): 2
- Other: 3
- Too-small fish sent home to mama: 28
- Downrigger weights left on the bottom of the sea: 1
Caveat: Poem #1849 “Hanging out in Panmunjeom, forever”
ㅁ I took a bus to the DMZ I didn't cross but just hung out then the dream got really weird the South Koreans said I couldn't come back so I was there like Kafka adrift trapped
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #948
This tree saw me raise my first wall-section for my treehouse.
Here are some other angles on the same object.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; hammering and sawing, 5hr]
Caveat: Local Bus Odyssey Across Britain
Mostly I don’t like it when people attempt “essays” or long-form journalism on twitter. It just doesn’t work, jumping from short little message to short little message. It’s a very constrained medium to develop any kind of narrative. But this morning I ran across what I felt was very good use of the medium.
Some guy in Britain decided to see how far he could go in 24 hours traveling by only city / local buses. No coaches, no trains, no anything but local bus routes. He started at Charing Cross, in the center of London, at 3 AM, and made his way, local bus by local bus, up the Island of Great Britain, tweeting all the way. Mostly it reads as a kind of “city and town bus stations of England” travelogue. I’m waiting for the coffee-table book.
He made it as far as Morecambe (a beach town just outside Lancaster) in the middle of the following night. The people following the story had been hoping he’d make it to Scotland – but he fell quite a ways short of that.
Caveat: Poem #1848 “Nonnet vs haiku”
ㅁ A reader noticed all these nonnets. They queried as to why nonnets? I said I'd tired of haiku. Now the default's nonnets. If you liked haiku, well, go make one. Or read one from before. Right?
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #947
This tree has been chopped up and turned into parts of a sort of pre-fab modular section of treehouse wall. This is my first try for my plan, but I ran into an issue so I didn’t install it. I think I’m on the right track, though. It got windy in the afternoon so I stopped.
[daily log: walking, 2km; hammering and sawing, 3hr]
Caveat: Poem #1847 “Naturalistic fallacy”
ㅁ The wind came and aroused all the trees. They danced and waved and carried on. The sky observed, unobserved. A dragonfly flew by. Clouds gathered and sulked. The sun peaked through. A branch broke. It fell. Creak.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #946
This tree saw me arrive with a trailerload of new ingredients for my treehouse, including the roofing material and rafters. This is the biggest single purchase I have made for this project.
[daily log: walking, 3km; carrying and moving heavy things, 2hr]
Caveat: the clockwork programmer
The field of computer programming is not immune from the coming automation-of-everything.
In this video, some guys demonstrate the current state-of-the-art in computer programs that are able to write computer programs. Which sounds weird and tautological. But it’s kind of cool to watch.
At the end, they use their computer programming computer program to use Microsoft Word, which long ago became too complicated for humans to use effectively anyway. So now… they have made a program that can operate Microsoft Word in response to your instructions. Progress!
This quote is relevant, and I like it a lot, by one of my favorite contemporary bloggers:
“Computers are just going to get better and better at stuff, and at some point probably they’ll be as good as humans at various things, and if you ask them if they’re self-aware they’ll give some answer consistent with their programming, which for all I know is what we do too.” – Scott Alexander
Caveat: Poem #1846 “A poor substitute”
ㅁ I had a dream where I wrote a poem. The dream-poem was quite amazing. The words were all well-crafted. It seemed a masterpiece. I knew I'd awake. The poem would fade, forgotten, unreal, gone.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #945
This tree is not very photogenic, frankly.
On the other hand, this tomato in my greenhouse is more photogenic.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #1845 “The greenhouse report”
ㅁ My greenhouse has its hits and misses. It has done well with cucumbers. Onions, though: mediocre. A few green tomatoes. A fine hot pepper. Some nice carrots. And always lots of mold.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #944
This tree is green.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]