Friday Notes (Aug 30, 2024)

Between it being kind of a weird month (on several counts), my increasing activity on Substack, and some hobby project work, I haven’t posted much here this month. In fact, this is only the second post this month. Given the date, probably the last.

Which may be something of a harbinger. I do seem to be migrating towards Substack and, to some extent, leaving this blog behind. It feels like abandoning a friend, though, and I’m finding it hard to let go. And probably won’t, at least not entirely.

But who knows. Maybe it’s all Friday Notes from here on out…

Probably not, but I suspect a lot of what I used to post about here I’ll now post on Substack. I suspect I’ll post the really geeky stuff here. I’ve been working on a post about the No. 5 Crossbar Switch that’s about as geeky as geeky gets and is mainly for my own amusement. And I may treat this blog more like a diary.

I’ve lost a lot of faith in WordPress over the years, and I have issues with their technology and development staff. Bug reports I submitted have never been acted on. Plus, the local ethic doesn’t seem oriented to long-form bloggers. Substack is and seems to be a place for writers.

On the other hand, traffic here seems to be slightly on the uptick. I have no idea why, but — despite that I’ve been less active here — I’m seeing more visitors:

No idea what that spike in the fall of 2020 is. Related to the election perhaps? I should go back and look at what posts people were hitting then. More to the point, that rise from August 2023. No clue.

I’ve been seeing old posts suddenly getting more hits than they ever have when first published. Here’s one example:

The post, Babylon (Anime), is about a lesser known but very interesting Japanese anime I watched three years ago. As you see, just rumbles and grumbles for two-and-a-half years, and then, kaboom goes the dynamite. The uptick in traffic, and the weird revival of old posts, if for no other reason than curiosity, makes it harder to leave just now.

[I just wish the uptick led to some engagement. My traffic seems to be all silent lurkers. I want to believe my posts don’t get comments because they’re so perfect that no one has anything to add. Yet an inner voice suggests that might not be true.]

The icing is that my programming blog, which has been even less popular than this one — getting low single digits of views per day, is also seeing more traffic. Which in this case means views per day in the low teens. I’m calling it 150% growth. And, again, old posts are suddenly seeing new life:

The Full Adder Code post was one that saw a bit of traffic (unlike most of the other posts, which see almost none). But suddenly it went mini viral. It’s already dying down, though. Got 127 hits on the 27th, 82 on the 28th, 33 on the 29th, and only 14 so far today. A bump followed by a decline. Someone rang my bell.

I do have one post on that programming blog that outshines the rest by quite a stretch. The Calculating Entropy (in Python) post has almost 8,000 hits. Its closest competition, the just-mentioned Full Adder Code post, has only 439. Most other posts have under 50, many only single digits.

As always, no idea what the attraction is.

I’m fascinated enough by all this to stick around and see what happens. How ironic would it be for my blog to become popular just as I’m thinking of leaving it. But isn’t that often the way life goes. So, once again, I guess I’m stuck on the fence.

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My only other post this month was about my Screaming Ceiling Cats. I didn’t get into it, but I was a little iffy on Service Today, the company that installed the ceiling cats in 2019 (see Whadda Week!). I was happy with the work they did in 2019, but from the beginning, the company seemed to have high-pressure marketing that put me off. As things turned out, I’ll never use them again.

For instance, they sent an email that had a big block of red type outlined in a bold red line that made it sound as if they knew my furnace was about to blow up. A closer read past the red showed it to be just a beg for service. I don’t care for fear tactics. (I’ve gotten spam from plumbers about the imminent disaster and high costs of my about-to-burst sewer main.)

I also recall the upselling the service tech did the first time. My $79 dollar service call ballooning to $2800 once it was all said and done.

But the smoke alarms they sold me apparently were inferior — the tech admitted as much this time. They don’t sell that brand anymore. Unfortunately for me, there was only a three-year warranty on my ten-year smoke alarms, so I ended up paying to have four new ones put in.

And the service guy really wanted to sell me more work, but — if I have it done — it won’t be by them.

For one thing, I called them on Tuesday and set up an appointment on Thursday. I was expecting to dog sit Bently that weekend and didn’t want the alarms to alarm her (and me). Around 9 Thursday, they called to say they weren’t coming and had to reschedule for next week. I’d had repeats of the alarms going off and not being able to turn them off and was very concerned about dog sitting.

I understand stuff happens but looking back, what I really wanted from Service Today was some display of concern. Maybe even a call with some advice about what to do. But they seemed upset that I was upset. Not good on customer care.

To top it off, when I called, it turned out I was speaking to an AI that acted like a human. No notice it was an automated call. The conversation rapidly degenerated (because it was fucking AI), and I hung up on what I thought was a very stupid human with impossible phone skills.

Then the damn thing sent me a chat message, again appearing human, to say we apparently got disconnected (ha!). The chat devolved as quickly as the conversation, and I finally realized it was an AI. This failure to identify is alone enough to rule out ever using Service Today again. I don’t like talking to machines, and I’ll accept I have no choice these days, but when they act human, that’s a problem.

Not that the human gal I eventually talked to impressed me much more.

They sent a survey, of course, and I gave them a good strong piece of my mind. Think there was any kind of follow-up? Of course, not. I have no complaint about the service techs, but the company they work for is another matter.

Final note: I have no idea what I paid for the new ceiling cats. I wasn’t given a receipt. I guess I’ll find out when I get my credit card bill.

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In the Friday Notes from last April, I shared a picture of a shopping cart someone was too lazy to walk to the cart corral. That was just one cart.

I was at Target last week, saw this, and had to take a picture for Notes:

Wow. What is wrong with people? This is exactly why I’m such a misanthrope.

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Well, no, not exactly. But a definite part of it. That roughly 40% of this country still supports the Biggest Piece of Shit in modern politics is what truly makes me think the human race is a failure. I don’t understand how it’s even possible. That recent stunt at Arlington National Cemetary should appall every American.

I don’t understand how:

• Any woman…
• Any person of color….
• Any veteran…
• Any disabled person…
• Anyone who values honesty…
• Anyone who values decency…
• Anyone who values character…
• Anyone who values intelligence…
• Anyone who values dogs…
• Any American…

Can support that old don. Emphasis on old. I can only assume insanity.

As a Minnesotan, I’ve been wondering if I should post about Governor (and hopefully next Vice-President) Tim Walz. But, for one thing, I’ve never paid much attention to Minnesota politics. I barely pay attention to national politics.

So, I don’t know much about him or his administration. I can say people I respect who do pay attention like him. A lot. He seems to be a very down-to-earth person with strong values. If he wins, most likely his Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan will become our next Governor, making her the first Native American Governor.

I’m nervous about the election. I live in a country with apparently insane or incredibly stupid or cult-addicted people (or all the above). There has been a whiff of Germany in the 1940s ever since that moral negative came down his gold-plated escalator. It has only gotten worse since the insurrection on January 6th.

I wonder if the abiding sense of horror isn’t what right-thinking people in 1940s Germany thought. What is happening? How is this even possible? What evil lurks in human hearts that is so readily brought to the surface?

And people wonder why teenagers are experiencing so many mental health issues these days. Hello. Have you looked at the state of the world we’re leaving them?

Suffice to say I hope for a massive blue wave in November. A clear and unmistakable mandate condemning the evil that has infected Republicans.

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Long ago, when I was in college, I went out with a classmate, and she had an epileptic seizure. Most memorable was looking into the eyes of someone apparently awake yet completely absent. As they say, “No one was home.” I recently had an interaction with a rabid P45 supporter, someone I’ve known online for almost a decade. I am again struck by an eerie similar sense of dealing with a human whose mind seems… absent. Not in the same way, but strangely completely out of touch with reality in a way I find challenging to fathom.

When someone actually says (and apparently believes), “Donald Trump loves people,” you know they aren’t operating in the real world. They’ve apparently never actually listened to him. Or they have serious issues reading people.

Most realize what a joke he is on first contact. What’s so weird is that he has supporters who know this and don’t care. Astonishing.

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Fah. Politics. Enough. Instead, here’s a picture of Bentley.

I’m dog sitting this weekend. A major balm for the soul.

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I finally completed fixing the HTML in all my old posts. Now I need to do that for my programming blog, but the backlog is much smaller there (and I’ve already done some of it). As I’ve mentioned before, in my mind this positions me to possibly move my blog, either to a WordPress instance on the same ISP server my personal website is on, or maybe even to Substack.

I’m not sure I’ll ever actually do that, but I do like having the HTML in better shape. It makes it easier to do the processing I like to do on the biannual extract. It’s fun, for instance, to do word counts and analysis. Having the posts in a consistent form helps.

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A stormfront blew through Monday early evening but had clear enough air behind it for the sunset to turn the overcast bright red. I took a picture with my iPhone, but (as I knew it would) the phone tried to compensate by shifting the white balance. I used my image editor to tweak it to more like it actually looked:

It was weirdly red. Unlike anything I’d seen before. Almost apocalyptic.

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I’ll leave you (for now) with this:

Maybe it’s just me, but I think sometimes we go a bit far on labeling.

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Stay apocalyptic, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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