Socially Federated
I'm really thinking hard about setting up a Mastodon and Pixelfed instances. And not just for professional reasons. I feel like social is going in that direction. Silos are alive and well. Don't get me wrong. And people are probably always going to want to gravitate towards a huge meeting place like Facebook where everyone they know is in one place. But I see my social desires changes from 8 years ago. And I think I am not the only one.
I've been on Twitter, Plurk, Yahoo 360, Google Plus and god knows how many other social networks. And back then when the concept was new and a majority of the reaction was benign people posted and said anything. You could be as kind, stupid, disgusting as you wanted and it was just noise in the ether of time. Now everyone see and remembers everything. Young people can't be young and mess up because they have a permanent record of their transgressions that will follow them forever. People can't talk about their political views for fear that they will be attacked by the stranger with no icon or the cousin waving dixie and their AR-15. It is part of the human condition to share and be noticed but unfortunately the Internet is not always the best place to stand out. And while I do feel it is a public service for out loud racist to scream out their narrow minded views and let me know where I stand in their world views I don't want to always be bombarded by their “views”.
Thank God For Federation
New social networks like Mastodon, gnuSocial, PixelFed are popping up to solve some of the old issues with silo social networks. Issues like doing for social what Wordpress did for blogging. Roll you own network that is based on a specific theme or interest. Or run is yourself for a specific group of people so everything you share can be off corporate servers and not made for all of civilization to view and critique. And these social network servers use a protocol called ActivityPub that allows a user on gnuSocial Server A to interact with both a user on gunSocial Server B and PixelFed server C.
Now I don't like the idea of echo chambers. And these servers can be used to help narrow minded people with narrow views of the world to gather and organize. Must like groups on Slack, Signal and Facebook can. But the thought of a safe haven for people to just find safe harbors to just socialize is more than appealing. And there will always be public gathering places like Facebook to post your Christmas and vacation pics and to setup class reunions. But I've come to terms with the fact that I don't need to log into Facebook when I just really want to talk with 5 people. And I can see the desire to eat on average $15 to $20 a month to socialize with the couple people that matter in my life safely and directly and a few select people in the wilds of the net. Need to pick up some AWS and Docker anyway.
#addtogoalsfor2019
...To Be Continued
You know what is scary? Being in your 40s looking at the reset button for your life. I mean when you are in your 40s you don't ever think to yourself “Lets start at square one”. Everything that you did the last 20 odd years doesn't count. How do you reinvent yourself after you are older, grayer with less hair, and financially “unresolved”. That is a pretty fun endeavor to tackle isn't it?
Truth is apart from the soul crushing fear you would expect from finding yourself in the US economy circa 2019 I think I needed it. For a long time I've been stuck. Stuck in a job that didn't fulfill me. I've had a self image that I didn't like. I had an optimistic view of life but a pessimistic view on me in that life. So I need that shot in the arm and kick in the pants that will make everything crystallize in my mind and make me do everything the right way for now on. Just one problem. Where do you find those shots and kicks? Nobody is giving them away anywhere. And trust me I've checked.
Things were so much easier in 1980's after school specials. Someone would walk in a room and just tell you, “You know the answer is ...” and boom problem solved, success montage and ending credits. But in real life you have to actually work and practice to change yourself. One of the true injustices about reality. So starting now I'm planning to work my way though this like I work all my problems. Overthink it completely.
1. Don't just say it... BE IT
Everyone has a vision of what they are. I'm no different. But for years now I've been what people told me I was instead of being what I know I am. Maybe it was because I was too lazy to work at making my inner vision my true self. Maybe it was me feeling like I wasn't worthy of being that person I thought I was. Either way I know for sure if you aren't yourself professionally and personally you are never happy. And not being happy is not fun. So I'm reminding myself everyday who I really am and how there isn't any choice to be anything else. And if they isn't enough reason to work at what I need to be then I got bigger problems than I thought.
2. Work to live and not live to work.
I am not an alpha personality. I'm not the football captain, the czar, nor the life of the party. I don't impose my will on anyone. And I perhaps like to make people happy for that praise to make myself feel better. This lends me to work harder and longer than I need to so I can be the ultimate team player. What I've found is this is great for my co-workers but not good for me and my personal life. I need to love what I do and be more efficient doing it. That way I am more sure of what I'm doing and spend less time doing it. Plus I just want to enjoy the work I do again. Liking who I do it around is nice. But loving the work you do is most important for me now.
3. Turn things I like into learning hobbies.
I have a lot of things I like to do. A lot of them dealing with computers and TV. I need to turn those likes into hobbies that will help me learn. I'm no spring chicken. So I need to take every chance I can to learn something I can use professionally. Be it a programming project, video and audio editing, photography. I need to direct my likes into skills I can direct into professional skills. Like maybe a political podcast for my state by 2020. Now that is a goal.
4. Health
I'm not in shape. My son reminds me all the time. And I would like to be in his life for as long as possible. And that is not going to happen at this rate. Walking, no sodas, less sugar are all on tap for this year. Less fried foods too. Oh that one is going to hurt.
There is more to come. But I need to focus on those right to to get to a good start. Because I known for a long time I didn't like who I was. But now I want to finally be who I am. And I hope that makes more sense in real life than how I wrote it.
...To Be Continued.
Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends Image on Wikipedia
I would like to say I grew up a fan of Stan Lee's writing since I was a kid. But the truth is my first exposure to Stan “The Man” was from Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. It was not a Saturday morning if I didn't watch Peter, Angelica and Bobby have their adventure for the week. Sure there were only like twelve new episodes a year it seemed, but it never got old for me. In the age before VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and DVR appointment viewing was all we had. And in the background was the voice of Stan Lee.
That was my gateway into the world of Marvel and a life long love of comics. And while I'm not so familiar with the writing of the man the voice is what hooked me into one of my life loves. Cartoons, comics, TV Shows, and now movies. All for the seed Stan Lee helped plant.
Did you know that the secret to the true nature of the universe is hidden within the simple task of laundry? People foolishly believe that we were created in the image of some super deity in his or hers own image. That they created the heaven and Earth for our pleasure and shunned us for the unforgivable mistake sin of knowledge. But all that is wrong. We are created for the sole purpose of washing and folding socks. That is all. We wear then and then wash them and must mourn their loss when escape to the one and only afterlife that contains all the mismatch socks ever created. And if we ever choose to not give full tribute and fold them properly we end up cursed forever. That is how crazy someone can go when they decided to fold socks for the first time in months. I'm one step away from throwing every sock away in the house and just buying all new ones. Everybody can just get socks for Christmas early.
Been in a programming slump the last few days. Laundry derailed me today. But mostly I've been hitting a wall in just sitting down and focusing. Think I'm going give it 20 minutes tonight so at least I feel like I'm doing something. Then I'm going to try to put in a solid hour or so each day this weekend. Also need to find a simple theme so I can finally create my web page with a few simple functions to it. I have the temperature and time of day working just fine. I just have to figure out the best way to cache the information so I don't get close to going over my free API call limit. Which shouldn't be too hard. Probably will save it to a file and refresh it every 15 minutes or so. It isn't like people will be using it to check their local weather. And I have a little blurb that will tell when the next full moon is. Maybe I might set something up to show a viewer the full moons in a given month. Or even what phase of the moon they were born on.
I want to still add the last three watched TV shows from my Trakt history. But that API is a bit over my head still. After I watch my videos for the week that might be what I focus on. Well. Onward and whatever.
This really feels like a bad sci fi script. President is no joke. Who doesn't like jokes or persistent reporters. I'm not saying stuff like this never happened before. But out in the open like this. If you don't know the meaning of the word fascist look it up. We will be hearing it a lot.
I really have to get to sleep before 3 o'clock in the morning every day. But I am forming good habits... kinda. Finally got to the moon phase API where I could find out the date of the next full moon. And used logic and iteration (not an iterator because that is different) to print that date out. Not a big deal in the bigger scheme of things but I got it right. In a module no less that can be reused in other places. So I'm happy. Should have taken less than two hours to do. But next time it will.
So about election night. It was interesting. Not all the results I personally wanted to see. I am glad though that some progress has been made that I agree with. The house is controlled by democrats. And a lot of left leaning and progressive even Dems were elected as opposed to incumbent establishment Dems. And more women of color than ever that have every been elected in one cycle. I guess diversity happens eventually. Democrats also picked up a few Governors. But the fairy tail ending liberals were looking for won't happen tonight. We are still a polarized nation at odds with fact and physical, sexual and faith based differences. Any healing we have to do will be over the course of time. But at least there is hope.
Can't wait to see how Trump spins this into a massive Republican victory though. I can see my emotions being poured into my mastodon account tomorrow.
So I voted. In the most conservative county in my state. A state that has a republican governor. Yet I voted. And I'm happy I did. When it comes down to it lessons have to be learned from 2016. For good or bad people have to vote for their wants to be counted. Call me naive but I believe that most people want the same things. Fair pay, good schools, healthcare. If we come together and vote in-mass most of these issues can be solved. I mean we have to believe that there are more good guys than not good guys in the world right?
But I digress
Took my first Uber ride with the kids last night. Was interesting. Mostly because there were only Uber X and XL cars available. Which I guess is okay. But my first request failed for a driver due to an app misconfiguration on my part. But when I tried again the price when up by $3 US. Did you create a demand of two that initiated a surge price? Sucks. But the driver was nice and safe. And the boys were ever so happy to not have to take the bus. I would have taken pictures but ... teenagers.
There was a time I would snap quick pics of every first experience. Now with the boys so cool and me so not cool in their eyes they run from me everytime I pull out my phone to capture a moment. Amazing how fast things change. I mean they are great kids. Just the right amount of pain in my ass. Well sometimes they excel in being a pain in my ass. But still good kids. Just interesting how quickly they become not kids and just you children with their own lives and personalities and desires. Who would have every thought the days where you had a second (and third) shadow would be missed. Emotions suck.
So I actually really happy with my Python/Flask tinkering up to now. I've been able to manipulate a couple of different datasets around to product output and use logic to change it depending on different criteria. A lot further along that I thought I would be by now. I am trying to think if I should do a separate Flask lesson each week and incorporate basic python lessons each day to incorporate into that lesson. That way I'm learning flask but hammering python each week. Guess I'll figure out eventually.
Google for the first time I can remember changed the doodle to something not Google. I'm sure there is a public relations slant to the message. But in this polarized political environment we live in any positive messages are welcome. Less dogma and more action. As long as everyone votes without any tricks or threat of violence the better.
In my limited research of testing out REST APIs to use for web programming I've found that looking for free is hard. I've found a couple cool ones. Phases of the moon, limited weather info. Even converting coordinates into zipcodes. But I can't find a good use for that just now. But phases of the moon I can work with.
I would like to be able to get my favorite NBA team's latest score and show how my mood is depending on if they won or not. But most the good sports APIs cost ###SO MUCH MONEY### a month. The cheapest one was like $90 US a month. I guess I could combine two I saw the get about the same thing for free. One was a fantasy sports site that had the team game schedules. And the other had a limit of 250 calls a day. But if I only count the last game result and let that be my mood until the day after the latest game that could work. Will need to store the API result somewhere so I can cache it. But I can do that with just saving the result into a simple file. I think I can manage that and the program logic to refresh the result after 6 AM GMT -5 in case the game goes past midnight.
After that I want to post my last Mastodon post and what shows I've been watching. I have an idea how to do both but I'm not sure how hard it will be. Then comes the hard part. Making it look “decent”. Fingers crossed.
You know what sucks about being out of shape. The utter lack of urgency to get back into shape. You body gets so use to being abused and neglected that the idea of getting healthy feels crazy and impossible. I know everything I need to do to turn my body and health around. But sugar and McDonald's taste so good. Doing something good should not be this hard.
I also need to be active. Way more active. I'm thinking three to five miles twice a day would be a good start. Although the thought of that much walking on my knees does scare me a bit. But I have to make some changes now. And I'll deal with the damage later.