TIFU

Vodka and I are no longer best friends.

[fiction] Eve's Sacrimony (alternate ending)

"I fight for my country, not it's government."

--Biff

"We are gathered here today-"

"Snow, stop," said Lawrence.

"What?"

"You're not doing this with that hat.  You're just not."

"You wanna do this?"

"Yes."

"Oh...ok."  Snow stepped down from the podium.

Lawrence stood up, glared at Snow, and then looked out at the few people clustered just inside the walls of Ravenhead castle.

"I am sorry for all of the secrecy..." Lawrence trailed off.  "Wow I don't know how to even begin."

"I was doing way better," said Snow.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP" Nikka shouted directly into Snow's ear, and kicked him in the balls for good measure.

Lawrence sighed.  "A few days ago, a teenage woman was pulled out of the line at the airport by TSA agents and raped.  There wasn't anything particularly abnormal about it, except that they failed to close the soundproof doors and Biff heard her screams.  He manually disabled about fifty TSA personnel and one police dog before being gunned down by airport cops.  Sadly, both Biff, and the woman he was trying to aid, were killed.   I'm sorry for all the secrecy;  obviously we aren't supposed to have the body, so this had to be a little clandestine...."

Lawrence turned around to raise the lid of the casket and jumped when he saw the woman standing there, just inches away.  She was dressed head to toe in black:  black boots, black dress, black corset, black hood, black gloves.  And she looked amazing.  Also she was crying.  Lawrence decided maybe not to open the casket.




Sometime later, when almost everyone had left, Snow and Nikka were watching the casket, waiting for the woman to leave.

"It seems so sad," said Nikka, "to go out like this.  Remembered briefly in the dark, and then gone."

Snow looked at the woman standing next to the casket.  "I don't know," he said.  "I think having just one person stand there like that means it was all worth it."



Lawrence approached the woman.  "You must be Eve."

"Yes."

"Snow and I need to lower him into the ground," said Lawrence.  "Normally people don't stay for that."

"There is a legend," said Eve, "about the water tunnels under this place.  Are you familiar with them?"

"What, you mean 'The Knight and the Widow' ?  Of course.  Why...wait.  No.  Really?  No."

"I'd like to do it."

"I don't uh..."  Lawrence started to protest by Eve turned her head and looked at him.  For a second it felt like her eyes were drilling through his skull, and piercing his soul like a tank round in concrete.  Lawrence suddenly felt an uncontrollable urge to shiver.  "Let me talk to Snow."



"What exactly is this ritual?" asked Nikka.  Her eyes were drawn towards Eve, who was in the middle of the courtyard, shamelessly stripping down to her underwear to and putting on the pink riding suit.

"Oh are you sure you don't want Lee to explain it?"

"Shut up and tell me," said Nikka.

"Well there was this guy, right?  He was a pretty cool dude.  He was like a knight and shit.  And he was doing some knighty shit when he got killed.  But there was this woman...wife or girlfriend or lover or something.  Oh wait, back up.  So the knights here had a tradition that they would be floated out to the ocean when they died.  I don't know why.  Ok, back to the girlfriend.  She was still alive, but she went with him."

"And then?" asked Nikka.

"I don't know.  I guess stuff happened.  All the stuff at the end was just a bunch of bullshit about peoples' feelings, so I never paid attention."

"What?"

"I mean the guy's already dead, so there couldn't have been any fighting.  Who cares what happens?"

"I care!"

"Well go read the legend yourself, bitch."

Nikka punched Snow in the throat.  "Don't call me bitch, bitch!"




Thirty minutes later, Snow, Lawrence and Eve met for the last time in the caverns below the castle, at the underground dock.  There was a barge with a mattress in it and a candle at each corner.  Eve took her sword and laid it on Biff, wrapping his arms around it.

"Now isn't that sweet," said Snow.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're an asshole?" asked Eve.

"All the fucking time," said Lawrence.

Eve got in the barge.  They started floating with the current.

"We'll send someone down river to pick you up," called Lawrence.

"Don't bother," called Eve.

"Wait what?"

"I won't be there."

Snow and Lawrence looked at each other, and then back at barge as it rounded a corner.

"Sooo..." said Snow.

"Is she..." asked Lawrence.

"Yes," said Snow.  "I like her."




Eve tied her laces around each arm, and then pulled her switchblade from her boot and flicked it open.  She had never really thought about ending her life--never really considered it an option.  I mean what is the point?  But after everything that had happened recently, she couldn't help but feel lost and alone.  And now she really was alone.  Even in the most crowded of places, she was alone, watching all of the people who weren't alone as if she was looking in a store window.  She looked down at Biff's face.  "Well, here goes, sugar."  She made a big ass vertical slice from her armpit to her wrist, following the exposed veins as best she could.  The pain was...well, she had felt much worse.  Once her right arm was done, though, she found she couldn't bring herself to hold the knife in her right hand, so she held it in her mouth and did the best she could to her left forearm and wrist.

Her biggest fear was failing to do it right, and to be found alive with blood pouring out of her arms like an idiot.  That worry soon gave way to peace as she grew colder and colder, and then lightheaded.  She lay down next to Biff, one hand touching his arm.  He was cold.  Just like she was.

Eve closed her eyes.

She was dimly aware of the motion of the boat, still, bobbing ever so slightly in the water.  It wasn't a particularly flattering passage.  She had assumed things would proceed roughly like a ride at a waterpark, but they weren't exactly always going "forward" because boat kept rotating randomly in the water.  At one point it felt like it was going backwards, and somewhere in the back of her mind Even thought they had gone down the wrong passage.

The sense of being in the wrong place, of being lost, magnified more and more until Eve opened her eyes.  When she did so, she found that they were enveloped in mist.  There did still seem to be an echo but she couldn't see the walls.  And she didn't feel cold anymore.

The boat continue for what seemed like an eternity.  Then something began to take shape in the fog. And everything seemed to get brighter.  She saw it;  it was a beach.  The boat continued to float lazily, then seemed to magically beach itself on the sand.  Someone approached out of the mist.

She was tall, blonde, and most importantly, was wearing a pink riding suit exactly like the one Eve wore.  And she was smiling.

"Welcome," said the woman.  "I'm Christine."  She held out her hand.

Eve's mouth dropped open as she took Christine's hand.

"Yes, I know.  It's a little disorienting."

Eve heard something move in the boat.  She turned and saw Biff standing up.  She jumped and tackled him, holding on as if for dear life.

"Woah there!" said Biff.  They held each other for a few moments, until they each felt Christine's hand.

"It's ok," said Christine.

They stood up.  "So we're dead?" asked Biff.

"From a certain point of view...to everyone who isn't yet, yes you are dead.  But obviously not gone."

Eve asked "So we're in..."

"The gathering," said Christine.  "Come on, I'll show you."

They walked up the beach.

"I don't feel dead," said Biff.

Christine laughed and pinched his ass.  Eve felt a surge of jealousy, but then paused to wonder why it was possible to feel jealousy in the afterlife.

They reached the top of a hill.

"I can see dead people!" announced Biff.

"How can you joke at a time like this?" asked Eve.

"This," waved Christine, "is the gathering.  It is where we wait."

"For what?" asked Biff.

"To enter the Timeless Halls, when the world is unmade," said Christine.  "Don't worry; it's not a long wait.  Time works differently here."

"They're going to let me in?" asked Biff.

"It can't be that classy if I'm going there," said Eve.

Christine smiled and hooked both of their arms with hers.  "Actually, there are several angels who are just dying to meet you--both of you."

[fiction] Eve Takes Command (alternate ending)

I don't want to live in a place where the cops are the only assholes with guns.

--Snow Monkey

The stadium floodlights were light at the their brightest setting, shining down on the thousands of people sitting on the field, all facing raise podium at the center.  In front of the podium, 13 holes and been dug, 13 men chained in those holes, and 13 piles of sand had been back filled into those holes so that only the men's heads were above ground.

Two men stood at the podium.  One spoke.  "Good evening, ladies and gentleman.  I would like to formally welcome you to another co-ceremony by Comcast," the speaker smiled at the man at his right, "and Time Warner.  The people before you here today were all part of a terrorist plot to undermine the safety of this nation by creating an unsanctioned, unauthorized computer network that bypassed our data caps and traffic filtering.  Make no mistake, this was not the only dark web pocket in this country, and it is not the last.  But we are getting better and better at finding them and," the speaker looked to stage right, where the police chief was sitting on an industrial sized riding mower, "punishing those responsible."

The crowd sat still, very still, with the exception of some children who were crying.  Most of them couldn't actually see the men mostly buried in sand, and didn't really want to either.

"Please remember," said the speaker, "that attendance of this ceremony is mandatory, as per your internet end user license agreement.  If any of you should try to leave, these officers," the speaker motioned to the 60 cops surrounding the crowd, "will shoot you and five people next to you."  It is likely that the speaker mentioned that fact out of cruelty, since every member of the audience was handcuffed--both wrists and ankles--to their chairs.

"Also please be advised that we have borrowed 3 kill teams from Monsanto who are camped out in the upper stands, so there is no need to worry about any vigilante--I mean terrorist, attack interrupting the proceedings."



Somewhere under the stands, under a tarp covered in dirt, a tiny radio squawked:  "Night Witch, you're up."   Eve opened her eyes.  After 36 hours of lying absolutely still, consuming a disgusting food paste out of a straw and peeing into a bottle, she slowly slid out from under the tarp and stretched.

Less than a minute later the Monsanto goon in section 37 looked down to find a sword sticking out through his chest.  He tried to grunt but there was a gloved hand over his mouth.  Eve lowered him to the ground slowly and moved on to her next victim.


Back in the stadium, the speaker had finished his short speech, and the Chief of police started the lawn mower.  Just as he turned the key there was a large cracking sound, as if the mower had backfired.  However one of the cops doing crowd control suddenly fell down without his head.  The Chief urged the mower forward, over the terrified head of its first victim.  There was a loud crunch, and suddenly the dismembered head flew out of leaf trap and into the crowd, knocking an old woman unconscious.  Somewhere in the back another cop fell.

The impact of the head had no effect on the speed of the mower, which continued towards the second sand victim.   At the other end of the field, a black muscle car appeared.  The speaker and most of the cops started shouting, but the mower was too loud for the chief to hear.  The chief mowed over the second "terrorist" as the black muscle car shot across the field.  Gun flashes lit up the outer stadium seating like fireflies as hundreds of well-aimed bullets pummeled through the bullet resistant glass, ripping everything in the driver position to shreds.  But the car didn't stop.

The car t-boned the mower at 90 miles power hour just as the third head was flying out of the leaf trap.  Both vehicles tumbled into a corner of the crowd, killing tens and injuring hundreds of people still handcuffed to their chairs.  When the car came to rest the cops surrounded it, all firing their sidearms into the car.  When their clips were empty, one of them walked up to the car and looked inside.

"There's no one in here!" As the cop spoke those words, a 50 caliber bullet tore apart his entire upper body.  A smaller rifle killed another cop.  The remain cops then turned and saw the growing body count thanks to the unknown snipers.  Atop the announcers box, Lawrence and Jason lay prone, reloaded.  A bullet stuck near them, showering them in splinters.  Lawrence clicked his radio and screamed:  "God dammit Night Witch move your fucking ass!"




Eve raced along the upper seating, running as fast as she could, barely slowing to decapitate each sniper with her sword.  She had watched carefuly for the muzzle flashes when they had fired on the car, memorizing every position, but it was still the hardest sprint she had ever done.  Her lungs were on fire, her legs felt like rubber, and the bones of her arms ached from every sword thrust.  When she reached the home stretch, with only the end zone to go, the sword got stuck in one of their necks, and she had to resort to her sidearm.  As soon as she killed the next one the muzzle flashes were pointed at her.  She dodged up and down the seats, jumping and ducking, until she ran out of bullets and was pinned down on the floor of the last section.  There were three men left.  She threw a grenade.  Actually she threw all of her grenades.  The shrapnel was still falling when her watch beeped, signaling that her time window had expired.

She stood up, looked towards the crowd of people, and screamed.



In the middle of the field, the Comcast rep lay clutching a stomach wound, but the Time Warner rep stood, unscathed.  He pulled his sidearm off his belt, and, as the carnage rained around him, calmly sent one bullet into each of the 10 remaining "terrorists."   Just after he killed the last one, Eve tackled him, snapping his neck before he hit the ground.



Eve fell to her knees when she reached Aaron, one of the last few sand victims.  Her body shook violently with sobs, her tears streaming down like a river as she stroked his hair.  The life was already gone from his body;  his entire left eye and a good chunk of his face was missing.  Yet still she cradled him, careful not to cause any more pain.

Soft footsteps approached but Eve didn't look up.  Snow stood there, ten feet away.  He didn't say anything.  Words at a time like this were for crybaby extroverts.  Instead, he observed, and shared, her grief.

Behind him, Jason and Lawrence and the others were busy un-handcuffing the hostage audience, loading them wounded-first into whatever vehicles had been procured at such short notice.

Much, much later, when the work was done they came to the sand line to interrupt Snow's Zen.

"Foul deeds," said Lawrence.  "And all 13...with everything we had we didn't save a single one."

"We failed," said Jason.  He looked behind him, at the shocking number of dead.  "We were supposed to stand between the cops and the people.  If we had done nothing.."  he saw Eve's shoulders tense, and stopped talking.

Snow looked at Lawrence.  "What's the plan, boss man?"

"We did very well," Lawrence said.  "It just wasn't enough.  We keep going like this; its like betting against the house.  No one ever won a war with ninjas--not in the 5th century; not now.  Muscle cars and true grit aren't enough to stop a State that can control what you see, what you hear, listen to every phone call, text, and tweet you make.  If Biff really is still alive..."  Lawrence trailed off when Eve looked up.

Her eyes were red.  Bright red.  Like a demon.  And her voice was horse and guttural.  "I am going to tear this city apart," she said,  "until I find him."  She stood up.

Snow looked at Lawrence, then at Jason, and then back at Eve.  He hoisted the 50 cal onto his shoulder and said:  "Where do you want us?"

[fiction] Eve's Commitment (one possible ending)

Snow: This suite has been booked for three weeks.  There's two thousand in cash in the dresser, and a credit card with a really, really high limit.

Eve:  This is a little...I can't accept all this.

Snow shrugs.

Snow:  It's Dave's money.  Spend as much as you can.

Eve:  I can't just sit here mooching off of someone

Snow:  Yeah I know its not like the best plan, or whatever.  But everyone is coming together for this.  Everyone had their own job.  Dave's was funding this whole operation.  Lawrence tracked the final book to this city--he'd stake his life (and mine) on it--and Jason...well Jason's too pussywhipped to really do anything useful.

Eve:  Oh?  And what was your "job" ?

Snow:  Finding you.

Eve gets a knowing look on her face.

Eve:  Because my job is...

Snow:  Finding Biff.  You're the only one who can.

Eve:  What?  I've never even been here.  What the hell am I supposed to do?

Snow:  I don't know.  Use that magic girl intuition of yours.  Or post flyers.  Or go to every shitty bar in the city, every night.  Whatever it takes.  You know Biff needs to regularly hang around smoky dive bars so he can sip lite beer and be a sad panda about Christine.

Eve:  Takes a lot of nerve for you to bring her up again.

Snow:  Hey, she's dead but she's not going away.

Eve: And I don't want to just be sloppy seconds!  To have him constantly comparing me to her...oh God why did I come here?

Snow:  Let me let you in on a little secret about Christine.  Christine was an average, ordinary, scared little girl hiding behind the shadow of her legend.  That's not an insult.  She was a friend.  Like I wasn't even trying to fuck her--that's how much friends we were.

Eve rolls her eyes.

Snow:  But all that shit about the pink rider...sure she mostly did some version of most of those things, but when we were sitting around talking shit about what we'd do, she was the first one to roll her eyes.  The fact that she played hard to get on that motorcycle and accidentally had Biff out there searching for her like a horny dog is really what got the legend going.  But that wasn't her.  She wasn't made of steel.  She was just a normal girl that liked to ride a little and was infatuated with Biff.  You, though....

Snow looks her up and down.

Snow:  I don't know what happened you, but something made you the badass road witch that people thought she was.  And I'm 90% sure that you're in love with Biff.  So you are going to find him, even if you spend every waking moment searching.

Eve looks out the window.

Snow:  Ok good talk.

Snow gets up to leave

Eve:  How do you know?

Snow:  Hmm?

Eve:  That I love him?

Snow:  Cause you're still wearing that suit.




----------------------------------------------------

Jason follows Lawrence into Wilson's Tire and Garage.

Lawrence:  This.

Jason:  Holy fuck!

There are hats everywhere.  Silly or otherwise unusual hats of every kind.  Pirate hats, pope hats, pimp hats, tircolour hats, cowboy hats, costume hats, helmets,  fedoras, sombreros, bowlers....

Jason:  This is like his entire collection.

Lawrence:  And its in my garage!

Jason:  I'm going to try calling him again.

Jason dials.

Moments later a phone rings.

Lawrence:  I hear ringing.

Jason:  His phone's here.

Together they move through the garage, listening, converging on a hat in the middle.  Its a red and yellow "jester" hat that looks like it was pulled from a medieval cartoon.

Jason lifts the jester hat.  Lawrence grabs the phone.

Lawrence:  there's nothing in here.  His phone is like empty.  No contacts, to texts, no history, nothing.

Jason:  Well....I guess he's sending a message?

Lawrence:  I guess....

Jason:  Well I gotta be getting back.  Tonight is movie night...

Lawrence:  I know, I know.  I think I'll take the night off.

Lawrence switches off the light as they leave.

Jason's little brother meets them in the parking lot.

Little bro:  You guys aren't hanging out?

Jason:  Not tonight.

Lawrence:  Hey

Lawrence tosses little bro the keys to the shop.

Lawrence:  take some cars out and get into trouble.

Little bro grins



-------------------------------------------------------------

Eve sat at the desk in her hotel room, half ignoring a police scanner.  A projector on the bed was plastering a news station onto the window curtains.  Uneventful.  All of it.

On the table was a map of the city.  Every dive bar was circled in red, every whorehouse in purple.  Eve had no particular reason to think that Biff would hire a hooker, but hell, he was a man.  With Nikka's help she had befriended as many hookers and strippers as she could, but none had seem him.  This motherfucking bastard was a fucking ghost.

But he was still here.  The last book was here, and he would be here until he found it.  And he hadn't found it yet because there had been no breaking news story about a major shootout or a car chase or a "terrorist plot" or some other big nonsense.

The other option was that he was dead.  He could be dead.  He wasn't invincible.

Eve sighed and looked at her bag of weed.  She had only bought it in case she needed some wild, out of the box ideas.  Tried it once hoping that her mind would be opened and think of some super creative, crazy idea for finding him, but instead she had just eaten 2 and a half pizzas and fallen asleep, waking only to the sound of her own farts.

Eve shrugged.  She had no other ideas.  She would try the weed again.

She rolled a fresh joint and went out to the balcony to light it.  That's when she heard it.  That engine.  It was a four-stroke, but too high to be a car.  And it was that four stroke.  She knew the bike that made that sound.  She knew every inch of that bike.

The rational part of her mind suggested that it might not be Biff, but the rational part was not in control...was more of an unwilling passenger to the person who barreled through people in the hallway and ran through the hotel's kitchen knocking several people over before setting off the fire alarm by going through an emergency exit.  It was the quickest way out.

She was on her own bike now, racing through the street.  Her Aprilia had a much deeper roar, but despite the lower pitch it was still drowning out the faint sound of her quarry.  She had to follow a maddening pattern of racing along a street, stopping, and turning her engine off.  On the bright side, she had spent weeks driving all over this fucking city.  She knew the roads.  And when she heard that familiar high pitched wine somewhere near River Drive, she knew exactly where that bike was.

Eve started her bike, gunned it, spun in place, and rocketed off heading south to accelerate so fast that she popped an unintentional wheelie.  When the bike was under control again it was a hard left, some scary shit on the wrong side of the road, then some crazy shit through an active intersection.  Thankfully there were apparently no cops there.

Then she was in a deserted section of town.  It figured he'd have a hideout in a place like that.

Eve saw the other bike when it was a mile away.  She braked hard, then did a hard left and straightened at the last second to pop over the median.  She stopped her bike and got out.

Snow was dead right, but he had missed something.  Yes, she was made of steel.  More importantly, Biff was the scared one.  He wasn't scared of people, or even of dying, but he was scared for everyone, and running around alone trying to fix the world.  And that, really, was the key.

Eve took her helmet off and stood in the road, legs apart, hands on her hips, staring at the oncoming rider, the way a cowboy stares at stampeding cattle.  The rider should have been able to evade her easily but he was riding with one hand.  He shifted his weight to go around her but she stepped just as he went for it.  He braked and skidded to a stop.

The man who got off the bike was the right height and build.  Maybe a bit thinner than she remembered.  His suit was torn and a few pieces of armor were broken, and he was favoring his left leg.  In one arm was a large black book.  He took his helmet off.

It was Biff.

Bleeding and dirty, with a cut lip and messed up hair, but it was him.  He stared at her widly, his eyes partly unfocused, like he was still in battle mode.  Whatever the hell he had just done was probably just hitting the news now.  Adrenaline was probably still in his bloodstream, his heart probably racing, his mind probably still switching gears to figure out how to corral her.  Not this time.

Eve had no adrenaline rush and her heartbeat had barely flinched.   "Biff Becker!"  she said as he stepped forward.  "Is that the last one?" she asked, pointing to the book.

"Yeah," said Biff.

"Then you're mine," snapped Eve.  She lunged forward, grabbed him by the collar, and kissed him.

Zipper Pants and S-Knots

Rock climbing.

Operation Shelf Life: Part 3

Prototype #2 is a success!  Mostly.

I made two units.  This picture shows them stacked in "shelf mode" with the lids in between the fucking shelves.

This is a top down view of the units separated and rotated on their backs for trunk mode.  One of them has the lid in place, the other has the lid laying over the opening:

As I expected the fit is extremely tight because the pieces are design to fit perfectly and its a vertical drop.  So for the next version I will probably need to introduce a slope to the piece edges that go inside each other.

As simple as this looks this design is actually incredibly complicated--there are a ton of edges and, as I discovered with my first prototype, a surprising number of them need to be matched perfectly.  Oh, you know what?  According to wikipedia these little ridges are called flanges.  Honestly that might be the first time I heard that word used correctly.

In addition to the sloping I need to also figure out how the trunk lids will be secure.  It kind of defeats the point if you have to get the packing tape out.  Deciding how to secure depends on first deciding whether to make it out of wood, plastic or metal.  Which brings us to the part that I know almost nothing about.

Oh shit...AND it needs handles.  Each side of each unit will need two:   one facing up in shelf mode, and one facing up in trunk mode.  They should probably be recessed for better stacking.  And we might want something even fancier to facilitate turning them sideways while the contents are still inside (since that is the whole point of this).




[Update]
Adding slopes has been more difficult than I thought.  So now I'm really just working my way down this list.

TinkerCAD doesn't seem to have a crop feature, so that's out.

I tried OpenSCAD which is cool because it is based on a language that says where to place things, except it has hardly any primitives to work with and its other functions (e.g. linear_extrude) are so sparse that I would have to hand-program even basic 3d shapes (like wedge, or flat pyramid).  So that's gonna be a last resort.  OpenSCAD links:

• first tutorial I found
• cheat sheet listing all the stuff
• linear extrude
• how to make your own "modules"

Currently trying FreeCAD.

Wenches

Finally managed to find a good club for salsa dancing, and it had a double lesson at the beginning of the night.  I think if I really applied myself, I could get into some trouble there.

Unfortunately I am too fat for all of my salsa shirts.    Had to go in a sweater, which was a dancing disaster.  I was barely moving and working up a sweat.  If there had been a girl or song I really liked I probably would have been drenched.  So I guess I have to either buy new salsa shirts, or find an FAQ on anorexia.

p.s. added onions to the stir fry.  AMAZING.

Hello

Hello, it's me

I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet

To go over everything

--Adele

No I would not.

Achievement Unlocked: Volunteering

Made it through my first volunteering gig yesterday.  I would write more about it but I think I thawed some shrimp incorrectly because now I don't feel so hot.

There is a lego robotics gig, but it requires a multi-month commitment AND its before 1pm...like way before.  So I guess I'll pass on that for now.

I have to say I really, really, really like not having a job.

Unemployment

Its been a long haul, but as my current job comes to an end, it is time to make the difficult decisions.  I think I am going to spend the next 6 months touring the country with my folk band Clifford and the Walrus.  I'll see you on the road.

Release Candidate, Part 3

According to the metrics, we've had a single real purchase.  By real, I mean a person that didn't know either of us found our app in the store and bought it.  She also gave us a 5 star review and said it had no learning curve, which is good because I put a shit ton of thought into making it intuitive.

So now I guess this app needs to be marketed.  Since I wrote the whole thing and paid for it, marketing falls to a certain other founder who has basically spent all of her time trying to figure out how to get someone to clone our app to iOS for free (i.e. for "profit sharing").  Strangely there has been no credible interest from the bottom feeders responding to her craigslist ad.

The woman who tried to offer 6 months of our app for free without our consent is no longer responding to our emails apparently...which I think is a win.

Anyway, my business partner said she would have gone door to door, but out of the 20 people she knows on this planet, most of them have iPhones, so she has decided to assume that all skin care providers have iPhones and doesnt want to go out and talk to people.

So I guess I need to come up with a marketing plan now.

Stirred, not Fried

All of the assholes who write stir fry recipes on the internet think that the perfect stir fry is about doing lots of work to maximize taste at the expense of more effort and more dishes to wash.  Fuck them.

I made one tonight and it turned out surprisingly well.  

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rice
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 slab of boneless chicken breast
• giant container of sweet and sour sauce

Cook & Wash Directions:

• put 1 cup of rice in the cooker
• play video games for like an hour or whatever
• oil in a skillet and turn on the flames while...
• cut the peppers first, because if you cut the raw chicken first you'd have to wash the damn cutting board
• peppers into a paper bowl (no need to wash!)
• cut the chicken
• put some water on your fingers and flick them in the skillet.  there should be a disturbing explosion of steam
• chicken into the skillet
• turn each piece of chicken over once
• wash the knife and cutting board
• peppers into the skillet
• i guess stir it and shit...whatever
• after a while eat a pepper out of the skillet to see if they are done enough
• flames off
• dump the rice in
• dump in some sauce (don't measure, just take a wild guess)
• stir it around for a bit, then dump everything in a plate
• you can't run the skillet under cold water because the heat transfer could warp the metal, however, you can put soap on a spone and just scrub it while it is still incredibly hot.  By the time you're done it should be cool enough to rinse with water

Cook & Wash directions I'll actually use:

• (start 1 cup rice beforehand)
• oil in skillet, flames on
• cut peppers
• cut chicken
• chicken in skillet until cooked
• (wash cutting board & knife)
• peppers in skillet
• flames off to add rice
• add sauce
• wash skillet while hot

Some key points to this recipe:

• the ideal recipe would involve cooking all of the ingredients in the skillet at the same time, however, sadly, rice just doesnt work that way.  It has to be cooked for a ridiculously long time, and you have to care about the amount of water and shit...in short, just buy a fucking rice cooker.
• we are using peppers because certain veggies take too long to cook (broccoli, carrots) and there is no way in hell i'm taking the fucking meat back out of the skillet and getting a bowl dirty.  Bell peppers are like the best veggie, and red peppers are the tastiest
• we only use one veggie because it is way less work
• the instructions are built around washing everything as part of the cooking process, because if there are any dishes that are still dirty when I start eating they will be dirty for the next 6 months.
• these instructions were written by someone who doesnt give a shit about whether the chicken is "too dry" -- all I care about getting protein sans food poisoning.

There is some room for improvement here...next time I need to cut the peppers and the chicken smaller.  Another thing is maybe I should buy a wok.

I think I could do this again though.  Sadly, I'm not sure how to improve the time any more...meat goes back super fast, and as soon as peppers are cut they go bad in a few days, so its not like you could do the cutting step for 20 meals in advance.  Maybe if you freeze the shit; idk.

Voy a bailar

Yo quiero estar contigo, 

vivir contigo

bailar contigo, 

tener contigo

Una noche loca

Ay besar tu boca

--Enrique Iglesias

Thinking about salsa dancing again.

No Stranger To Love

So I have a new girlfriend.  I met her while drunkenly wandering around midtown dressed like Waldo for Halloween.  I mean, really, only good things can happen when you do that.

Anyway, I was Waldo; she was dressed as Carmen Sandiego.  It was awesome.

I asked and she said I could share this pic with you guys.

You're welcome.

The Home Gym Option, Part 2

The basic floor plan is in place.  From bottom to top:

• Carpet Underpadding
• Plywood ( 4'x8' pieces )
• Gym foam
• although I'm starting to consider rubber

I also made a 3d sketch of where it would fit:

[Update]
Ordered the carpet underpads.  Total $ so far:

• $149.97  carpet underpadding

Operation Shelf Life, Part 2

I made the initial design with Tinkercad and ordered 3 test models from Shapeways.  I would upload a picture of the shelf prototype, but I'm at work and don't feel like it.

The Glassslinger

Glassware has been one of the most annoying things to move.  You have to wrap it in tons of material, which also makes the glassware take up a ridiculous amount of space.

I had this idea to just pack it in foam, like you would in a gun case.  After searching around I discovered that the closest approximation of a gun case where I wouldn't have to cut the foam myself would be an actual gun case:

That pic shows the bottom layer: 3 tall shot glasses, 2 wine glasses and two mugs, so I'm prepared for any kind of date.  There is also a normal sized shot glass.

The case is real nice.  It came with foam pre-cut into little squares that I could rip off to fit the shapes of my glassware.  However, because of how soft the foam is I had to pack the dishes farther apart, negating some of the expected space savings.  Also there were two layers of foam, and many dishes were too large to fit in either.

I have some ideas for improving on the design:  basically use a box instead of a gun case (case wastes too much space on armor) and find a less flexible foam, which I would probably need to cut myself.  However upon thinking though all this I realized that it would be far easier to replace my glassware with plastic.

I'm not really into plastic wine or shot glasses though, so I guess this wasn't a total loss.

Plastic mugs would suck...maybe I can start using steel mugs?

[Edit]
Another disadvantage is retooling an entire foam piece every time I get a new dish.  But what if I just created invididual foam blocks (halved) for each dish?

Five Stars

So the app has been live for a few days.  A couple people have tried it and one person gave it a 5 star review.  No one bought a subscription, but we also charge for the download, so technically, finally, we have made a little money.

[Edit]
Nevermind;  the review was from someone who knew one of the other founders.

[Edit]
And most of the people who downloaded the app also knew her.  So I think we have one genuine user.  Fucking hell.

Sea Chests

My work situation has been pretty volatile.  Even my short term future is a big question mark.  Yet no matter where I end up, I don't think I'm losing anything by further move optimization.  Today's trick:  sunglasses case.

I honestly didn't even know they made these until two days ago.  Previously all of my sunglasses would just get thrown in a "misc" box, probably individually wrapped in bubble wrap or something.  Now?  One box.  For all of my sunglasses.  Except for my daily pair, and my car pair, and the really nice pair that has been missing in action since the last move.

Up next:  I use a firearm case to pack dishes!

Why do Breastplates have Nipples

"I heard she got a breast reduction surgery."

"What?  That's like slapping God across the the face..."

--Superbad

You know who you are, and you know what you did.  Here is the list I promised.  Posting it here for everyone's enjoyment.  Please keep in mind none of the items are bought for their alleged resale value.  And look!  They add up to $400....



The Dragon Fall Collection

• $30 the lingerie equivalent of 'dont stop believin'
•  $35 never buy the skirtless version
• $23 actually try to find a better version
• $36 I know someone who bought this but refused to send me a pic
•  $40 sans the stupid loincloth
• $40 idk who the fuck this is but she has a better tailor than kitana
• $40 obviously
• $10 so much lace, so little money
• $16 red
• $7 classy, but maybe dont buy this exact one because it has two starts
• $7  daaaaaammmmmmnnnnnn ...I saved this to my own wish list
• $10 like shoelaces but more fun (i'll explain when you're older)
• $13 cool looking, but be advised the "handcuffs" are retarded
• $30 fuck yes!  i'm bookmarking this one too

Shit.  Amazon is tapped out at a mere $337.  We're gonna have to bring out the big guns.  Please be advised, the following shit is real lingerie.  Don't stare directly at it:

• $45 hell yes
• $14 fuck yes
• Optional: $66 this is a classier version of ... one of the amazon links.

p.s. why breastplates have nipples

Corsets and Katanas

A nightingale in a golden cage

that's me locked inside reality's maze

come someone make my heavy heart light

come undone bring me back to life

--Nightwish

Hanging out at a medieval/age of sail fair all day with awesome people is basically...awesome.  Next year though I need to remember a flask of 151.  Also, when trying to meet up with someone I got to tell him "we are off the port quarter of the pirate ship" in context.  Unfortunately he had no idea what that really meant.

There was a sword store there.  My friend wanted to buy some replicates that didn't have edges.  I got inspired to learn fencing...its back on the top of my to do list.  The idea of prancing around dressed like an eskimo bee keeper doesn't really interest me, but feeling a rapier in my hand does.


[p.s.]
Also discovered another person who knows Nightwish!   She had a boyfriend though.

parking

garage in jersey, but see if they will let me have two vehicles for one spot, so i could ride a motorcycle to the garage and swap for the WRX

Release Candidate, Part 2

I am now waiting at least four days for a certain person to finish the paragraph that appears on our store page.

Operation Shelf Life

"The objectives and targets always came from us. Who's giving them to him now?" 

"Scary version?  He is."

--The Bourne Supremacy

I have been on a mission, on or off, for...a reeeeeally long time.  In many ways I don't really remember how to live normally.  Cooking, eating, errands, socializing...it all took a back stage to crunch mode, to coding as much as I could stand, every day.

In theory, my next priority should be fixing my body.  Now, the way I'd like to go about doing this is just do some kind of marathon 96 hour exercise session until my body looks like I could be a body double.  However, sadly, human physiology doesn't work that way.  Instead I have to design a very time consuming and labor intensive process and make it part of my lifestyle for the rest of my life.  My first choice would be doing a lifting program, however I don't think my roomate actually wants weights here.  Lifting is going to consume 45 minutes three days a week, and to also have to deal with the possibility of going all the way to the gym only to find that someone is using any one of the 3 different lifting thingys that I need is just too much.  How the hell can I build that into my schedule if I might not even be able to use the equipment I need?  What do I have to have backup lifting days?  There's no fucking way I'm going to stretch a gym visit to an hour and a half just waiting for other people to finish their own workouts.  Man, they should have gyms where you can reserve the power rack...hmm......

For now, I can focus on the nutrition, however, if I can't convince my roommate to be ok with having a power rack in the living room...well I might have to move.

Or, I could just have two apartments.  One apartment for living in, and one with a parking spot and a power rack.


The Idea

I need a way to make moving less of a pain in the ass, though.  One of my ideas that I have had in the back of my mind for the last two or three moves is a special modular shelving unit that is easy to move.  Each shelf is a separate object, and each one has a back that is strong enough to support its contents, so that you can just take the shelves apart, rotate them on their backs, and you basically have a trunk.  Maybe a better way to describe it is that I want traveling trunks that can be rotated and converted into shelves.

The benefit of all this, of course, is that you don't have to ever pack or unpack the shit on your shelves, because its all ready to go.  Might have to stuff some packing paper in there, but I don't mind that.

Hell, maybe I could design shelves with power that you could put computer shit into, so I won't have to pack that either.  Really...everything in my life should fit one of these.  I don't want to do any packing.  Ever.


The Difficult Part

The units need to stack in two completely different ways.  In shelf mode, they need to stack one way, but when they are in trunk mode...well you still want to be able to stack the trunks properly.  So they also need to stack the other way.  This probably makes no sense to you...I'm just writing it here because later there is a confusing diagram that you won't understand without this paragraph.


The Fucking Lids

A key element here is the lid, though.  These things need to have strong lids, because without them you would need to fashion your own lid out of bubble wrap and moving blankets and shit.  Also the movers might refuse to move them unless you empty them.  They don't make you empty a trunk though.  So it needs a lid.

However, I have no intention of storing lids somewhere.  So the lids need to be part of the shelving unit when these things are in shelf mode.  Man I should just call this a transformer or something.  Anyway.  My idea is to store the lids between each shelf.


Latches

In chest mode, the lids need to stay on the chests.  Wait no.  In trunk mode, the lids need to stay on the trunks.  Man I wonder what the different is between a trunk and a chest...anyway.  Fancy latches would be nice, but too difficult in version 1.0.  Instead I'll just have screw holes, or something.


Some Engineers use the Left Hand Rule

Some shifting of contents is a given, and packing paper will be necessary.  It would be nice if all your books and shit don't get completely fucked up, though.  So maybe we need some arrows on the side reminding you which way is up for when you are putting the shelves back together.  You also might want an arrow showing which way is up in trunk mode.  So two arrows on the sides.


Fastener Bullshit

Some kids have died because furniture fell on them.  That's bad.  Most people who make furniture, though, think that I'm going to drill a fucking hole in the wall for an anchor point--that's a fuck no.  However, an anchor point will probably be very important.  I need to design something so that those temporary hook strips can be used (note: they make some for hanging pictures that are fucking amazing).


Handles

The sides need handles, for easy carrying in trunk mode.  Also useful would be handles to help stack and unstack in shelf mode...but those are less necessary.  Unless you want to be able to stack them in shelf mode while the lids are still attached.....

The Design

I finally worked out a basic design.  This is a side view of a single unit in shelf mode...pretending that the shelves dont have sides.  So the back of the shelf is on the left.

The light orange/salmon colored area is the actual shelf.  The four gray pieces show the four places that the lid must fit.  In shelf mode, the lid would go...I guess under the shelf.  However if you are gonna stack another shelf on top, its lid will go on top of the shelf.

The gray thing on the right shows the lid attached to the unit when it is in trunk mode.  The gray thing on the left shows the lid of another trunk fitting into the bottom for stacking (TODO: sex joke goes here).

Potential for Improvement

This is the simplest design that I could think of, and even that was too much to picture in my head.  I had to draw it out just to make it work.  This thing could probably be improved by having two different latching mechanisms:  one for the attaching the lids in shelf mode, and a different one for attaching the lids in trunk mode.  Then the actually shape of the shelf wouldn't be so funny looking.  Or unstable.

But whatever;  I'm a programmer not a furniture designer.

Oh also the idea about having power built in.  Maybe a standard 120 V socket inside the shelf, and a standard universal (computer power) slot on the outside.  Maybe optional USB ports.  Who knows?  Man I could even have a shelf that is just there to provide light.

Next Steps

So..................I'm thinking the next steps is to get a 3D printed prototype (small version).  Normally I would be keen to build something like this out of legos, but legos are actually a very poor medium for this kind of thing because the are not perfect squares in all dimensions.  So I guess I have to draw this up in a cad program (don't ask what I used to make the picture in this post...you don't want to know).

And after I can see the model in my hands, maybe I can pay a carpenter to make one.  Well, two.  Or three at least.  Or I could learn how to work with wood.  Damn I wish I had a wood shop.  Seriously.  I need a house with a gym, and a woodshop, and a lego room obviously.

Release Candidate

Don't hold me up now

I can stand my own ground

I don't need your help now

You will let me down, down, down!

--Rise Against

The production flags are set.  The code is checked in and tagged.  The apk is signed with the release key and uploaded to the store.  The only thing left to do is have a certain other founder run a quick test pass.

This fucking bullshit began in January of 2013 and has haunted me ever since.  And I am almost done.

[fiction] Darkside

Tell me what I'm supposed to do
With so much lost over loose ends and you
You don't know

And tell me how I'm supposed to fill
Our journey's nightmare butcher's bill
Cause you don't know

And I don't think you see the ghosts that trail me from the work undone
And I don't think you can stomach justice dispatched from a gun
And I don't know how to escape the web that gold and lies have spun
You can't solve it while we're on the run

So leave me at the dark side
Alone and free's the only way to fly
So leave me at the dark side
Alone and free's the only way to fly

And I don't think you see the ghosts that trail me from the work undone
And I can't go far enough to lose their interest in the long run
You can't solve it while we're on the run

So leave me at the dark side
Alone and free's the only way to fly
So leave me at the dark side
Alone and free's the only way to fly

And I don't think you see the ghosts that trail me from the work undone
And I don't think you can give up your old life under the sun
You can't solve it while we're on the run
So grab you're gear and run

The Home Gym Option

The backstory:  I'm pretty fucking skinny.  In high school ...blah blah blah girls.

So why a home gym?  According to everything I've read and heard from people who know how to lift, there are really only 4 or 5 lifts you need to do.  Thats the good news.  The bad news is that they are full body lifts that require power racks and you can't use gym machines.  Also these lifts are typically done by the real weightlifters who grunt too much and scare off the good customers who just screw around on the machines a little and buy $10 smoothies.  If you're lucky, a gym might have 4 power racks and they'll always be busy.

Anyway, this point is, this time, I'm going to go all in.  So the home gym option should remove ALL the obstacles.  No travel time.  No shower/locker room bullshit.  No getting judged by planet fitness assholes who will call me a lunk.  The living room is open 24/7.  And the rack will always be available.

This plan has actually been brewing for months;  the opportunity for having a power rack in the living room was a major reason I moved in with this roommate.  The only reason for this post is to remember all the shit I need to buy.  So.  Here is the home gym option.

• Power rack - $429
• Power bar - $318
• Plates - (one each X  [2.5, 45]) - $304
• actually roomate suggested 4 plates of 2.5, 5, 10, 20, and then 4 of 45
• Weight Rack - $41
• Bench - have one from high school

Stuff we're not sure about:

• gym mat -- probably not for under the rack - $105 x 2
• plywood - IDK how much - $200 ?
• carpet - ?

The bonus is we can put my video projector on top of the power rack.

Total:  $1502.

In conclusion, and I just want to make sure I start saying this while I'm still not "ripped" or a "meathead" or whatever --  fuck Planet Fitness and everyone who tolerates those shit heads.

Actually this isn't going to happen right away; we have to figure out how to do all this.  My roomate is pretty concerned about the floor, and rightly so.  Hopefully maybe we'll have this set up by end of Oct.  Maybe.

Building on Quicksand

When do you think it is appropriate to push for changes to the core feature set?

A certain other founder thinks that the appropriate time is during the final test pass.

And now we're talking about it.  A lot.

I hate this project.

Pot Bags

While looking at my pots and thinking about what a pain in the ass it would be to wrap them in bubble wrap or whatever and then make them fit awkwardly in a big box, I started to wonder if it would be more efficient via both time and space if I had a custom shipping canvas/bag for each pot.

Here is a blurry picture of my favorite pot that I used to use when I had an adequately sized kitchen connected to a gas company that didn't demand to see a copy of my fucking lease:

Mmmmmmm Top Ramen.

After spending 2 - 5 minutes searching Amazon for pot bags, I decided that I was the only person in the universe that wanted a custom-fitted travel bag for each pot that I own.

I set out to make one, and made a prototype with printer paper and tape.  Then I looked at it and briefly wondered how I could possibly still be single.  The prototype turned out ok, but it was clear that with whatever design I used, keeping the bag closed would require a latch of some sort, and it had to be something other than tape, because I was planning to use tape to connect the pieces of fabric, because I don't know how to sew.

Fun fact:  one of the salsa girls I knew in Philly was a badass fashion major and made me a trumpet case that strapped onto my back like a guitar so I could ride with it on my sportbike to the alumni concert.  Since the Trumpet is the greatest and best instrument in the universe, and since motorcycles are the awesomest mode of terrestrial transportation, I was unbelievably cool.  Sadly she stopped dancing and became married and boring years ago.  I miss her.

Anyway.

So I didn't really know what material I should use, but I figured that since "moving blankets" are what people use for moving, I couldn't go wrong.  For closing the bag, I decided on velcro, because that seemed like the least amount of work.  I happened to have some black duct tape to connect the pieces of fabric, which is awesome.  Add a pair of scissors and you're good to go:

That's the "moving blanket" in the top right.  Top left is a huge strip of velcro that was neatly rolled up before I got to it.

So then I sat down and set out to actually make the pot bag.  I had an idea for a design that would be better than the prototype, but I really didn't feel like making another prototype.  Or really putting much effort into it at all.  So I just kinda put the pot on the moving blanket and cut the shit out of the blanket, and taped it with the duct tape, and then slapped the velcro on it.  Here is a blurry picture of the final bag:

It has um...I don't feel like describing it.  So it looks like shit, but I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out.  I think it will do an adequate job of protecting the pot and protecting other shit from the pot.  Here is a picture of the pot in the bag:

So the handle is sticking out, obviously.  I couldn't figure out a way to deal with it without doing a lot more work.

I made a second pot bag for another pot, and that one looked even shittier because my patience was running out.  Then I gave up and just used packing paper / bubble wrap on the rest.  They all went into the same moving box.  So I don't really know what I accomplished here.  I guess if I move like 5 more times, I will have broken even, you know, as far as the time it took to make the bags vis a vis the difference in packing times with and without the bag.

Even if it doesn't save time overall, though, I do believe that anything you can do to shorten packing time is actually extra valuable, because packing time has a huge impact on how easily a move will go.  In fact if I can ever force myself to finish making these for all of my pots and other large cooking shit, I could probably cut the packing time for those items in half, or more.

Glassware and dishes and shit are another story.  I might just get rid of them.  For some reason I only have one large plate left anyway, and I can't remember the last time I used it.  Shot glasses are a huge pain in the ass.  It takes a ridiculous amount of time to roll them in bubble wrap.  I'm thinking maybe of getting foam, and cutting shot glass shapes in the foam.  Maybe in a suitcase.  It would be like one of those assassin's gun briefcases from the movies, except instead of a rifle and clips, this suitcase would hold a bottle of captain and shot glasses.  Man that would be cool.

p.s. If you found this post because you're a narcotics officer and it contains the words "pot bags" please go fuck yourself.

On Hoarding

Dragon's guide to Do I Really Need This?

If I throw this away, will I need to buy another one?  If the answer is yes, then maybe don't throw it away.  Unless it takes up a lot of room and costs like a dollar.

Have I even used this once the whole time I lived in this apartment?  Infrequent use can be a strong clue that maybe you don't actually need it.

It is still packed in the same fucking bubble wrap from the last time I moved?  Seriously.

The Climb

I managed to get two large tasks done yesterday.  Well, one large task and one medium task.  Well...one large task and most of a medium task.

The move is looming.  It will be consuming more and more mental resources, and time.  I really with I had access to a woodshop;  I want to design custom shelves where each shelf is basically a separate trunk  that stacks on top of one another.  That way all you have to do it unstack them and put the lids on them, which is a lot faster than moving objects off of the shelves and into boxes and moving the boxes and the shelves.  The key here is, I think, to make the lids have the same locking patters as the shelves themselves, so when in shelf mode the lids can be stacked in between the shelves they belong to.  Unfortunately my power tool experience is limited to a standard drill, a dremel, and a chainsaw.

If I had time maybe I could at least 3d print a prototype.  Oh and obviously there would have to be a locking mechanism with the lids.

Damage Control

Two Steps Forward

I did manage to accomplish an enormous amount of work Thursday and Friday morning.  Took a huge chunk out of the remaining list.  It is still very doubtful that we could launch by end of Sept, but I did an amazing job of closing the gap.  Mostly it happened because I wrote a bunch of tasks down on a whiteboard, drew lines between them...and then just sort of sent myself loose in the code and worked on all of them at the same time.  Not the sort of trick I can do in my day job, but I'll keep it in my back pocket.

Two Steps Back

Unfortunately I then discovered that the HTTPS cert that I'm paying for doesnt work on older android phones, so I'm fucked.  That alone could cost me an entire day.  Or more.  The only way to fix this without a lot of work is to convince the service I paid to sign with an older cert.

I Told You So

We've had a legal problem brewing for a year.  One of the other founders really liked this person that I'll call Sheila (after the Tank in Red vs Blue).  The founder thinks Sheila is a big deal in the industry.  To us she would be a marketing person.  I don't have the ability to verify how big of a deal she is.  I do know that a year ago Sheila thought her marketing impact would be too big to measure.  She wouldn't accept anything based on commissions because the people she told were going to tell other people.  She expected a cut of the profits.  We started working with her without anything in writing.

I've been telling this other founder that this is a major problem, but the other founder didn't believe me.

Fast forward to recently...this other founder and Sheila have sort of been working on some marketing shit where Sheila promotes us.  Nothing really explicit in writing of course.  And then Sheila went off and started this campaign offering our potential customers 6 months free.  Without really getting our consent first.  Fun fact:  we currently cannot offer 6 months free.  Implementing a coupon code system would take up valuable time that should be spent on thinks like getting SSL working, preventing injection attacks, preemptive database fixes, devices testing, adjusting the layouts for small screens...

So.  After all of us getting on a call, it turns out the damage is done.  The unauthorized promotion ran to its end.  Fortunately, even though a "huge" amount of people (5 or 6) showed some interest, no one has tried to take up the offer.  Because of the way it was structured, we will be in the clear in a few days.  Our official plan is to just hope that no one takes the 6-months-free deal, and if that falls through, I am in charge of dealing with it.

On the bright side, Sheila agreed to stop doing anything for us unless we have something in writing.  So that is a huge win.

Also this other founder feels bad for ignoring me for so long when it turns out they were so incredibly wrong.  Sadly mere vindication does not exactly make it any easier to implement a coupon code system from scratch.

Aaaaand now this other founder is bitching at me because I didn't sound friendly enough on the call with Sheila;  apparently I sounded like I was annoyed about something....

Exhaustion

Technically, all of the main features are completed, including adding cloud sync back in.  Mentally, I am completely exhausted.  It takes more and more willpower to make myself work on this project, I am perpetually swimming through mind fog, and it is extremely easy to get distracted.  Plus, in an effort to arrest sleep drift I have stopped working after 1 am, which slows my progress even more.

I now face a hideous list of "final" items that need to be done before release.  There are 53 items on this list, and I have 15 days remaining in the month.  Given that volleyball is starting back up and I'll lost a few complete days to the move, I need to complete 4 of these tasks every day in order to make my deadline.  Most of these tasks take at least 60% of a day.  So that's bad.

My stress levels slowly shot through the roof as I internalized what that means.  And this time, nothing seems to be helping.  Increased soda intake, meditation, long walks, naps, and even the serene meditative bliss of playing CTF-Face in UT99 and just sitting on the tower murdering people for an hour while my team occasionally brings a flag home have all failed to help much.

I am afraid it is time to accept the likely defeat, and switch to Triage Mode.  Come October, in addition to watching the Martian, getting drunk a lot and probably hitting on anything that was born without a penis in the 80's, I am also going to be still putting the finishing fucking touches on this stupid fucking app.  And I'll be back at work, ramping up on my day job project, and I've learned the hard way I can't focus on two projects at once.

So.  Normally I would pick up tasks based on whatever would allow me to code the fastest, which means a bias for pure coding and easy tasks with few decisions.  Now I have to switch to the opposite though.  I think the rest of this month is going to focus on doing all of the tasks that require my full attention.  Everything that is critical, everything that is difficult, everything with tough design decisions, every annoying non-coding task (like database/IT bullshit) and everything that requires me to go deep into the code and keep 50 things in my head at once.

Come October, when I'm back at my day job, I can spend my nights doing all the easy shit.

I will of course, continue to analyze the task list.  It's possible I'll be able to pull a miracle out of my ass.

On Sleeping

I think the best thing to fall asleep to might be documentaries.

The Final Sprint

He's only focused on what he wrote

his will is beyond reach

And now it all unfolds

the skill of an artist

--Fort Minor

This is it.  This is the month I finish the skin care app.  This is the season I get my life back.  Volleyball is over.  Salsa is on hiatus.  Dating and fucking are off the table, physical fitness went out the window and sugary caffeinated diabetus is back on the menu.  And for reasons I won't go into here, I don't even have to pretend to work at my day job for the next few weeks.

Its all just eating, sleeping, and working, and procrastinating.  Due to mental exhaustion, twelve hour days are a thing of the past, but I am still making good progress, and I have found an incredible life hack when it comes to procrastinating:  do it mostly when you're faced with a design decision.   I think even when my mind is elsewhere, some part of it is still working on the problem, and then a solution will just pop up.  And then the procrastinating doesn't even cost anything because work still got done.

This is the final push.  There remain many challenges, but they are all smaller than what I accomplished earlier this summer, and I'm unstoppable.  I'm going to dive into each one, one at a time, until they are all solved.  Then I'm going to tackle a huge checklist of smaller shit to be done before publishing.  And then I have to move apartments.  And then September ends.

After that, its all hookers and blow.

On Passphrases

"We got an email about a password reset for [something related to money] but then it got deleted somehow.  I think its an email glitch..."

You dont want to know who sent that to me.

Anyway, since I've suddenly had to read up on it, here is the best source I could find on using passphrases:

http://www.iusmentis.com/security/passphrasefaq/practical/#WhatifIusecommonphrasesorquotes

A friend told me that passphrases were supposed to be better and I didn't really believe him until I read that.  Actually I still don't;  technically it takes 8 words to give the same security as 19 random characters.  However they are obviously better than using common lyrics.  I honestly didn't think it was practical to assemble dictionaries of every text of every book and song, but apparently people have managed it.

Whatever.  I'll just be happy if we stop using single dictionary words.

On P-Values

My business partner just tried to sell me some bullshit hair loss shampoo.


Sooooo I just spent a half hour writing an email that explains how the scientific method works.

Yes, Amazon Really is a Shitty Place to Work

I've received this article from multiple people.  Not the most accurate, and the tone is a little weird.  The article makes it sound like a bad thing to toss a bunch of devs into working conditions so terrible that most of them quit.  I disagree with that tone.  The programmer I am today was forged in the fire of horrific 3am on call events, tense design discussions, vicious inter-team battles, and working a shit ton of hours on a system of enormous scale where mistakes cost millions of dollars.  And I made one of those mistakes:  I brought down digital in Europe for 11 hours.  I had a lot of silly, egotistical notions about being a professional software developer that needed to go away, and Amazon forced me to grow up, fast.  And it taught me politics.  I went from the kind of person a manager actively sabatoges, to the kind who has two managers break the rules to keep him on the team.  Still a lot of things to learn in all of those areas (e.g. I don't have much experience managing up when it comes to my skip level), but Amazon gave me a huge boost.

So again, Amazon IS a shitty place to work, but that's not a bad thing.

I am writing this post because some fuckwit on Linked In is going around saying "hey even though i'm not a real dev and only been at amazon for 18 months I can tell you everything is cool; NYT is lying."

I just want you all to know, he's full of shit.

Beta "Testing"

So with this stupid ass app....of the 11 beta testers we have, 1 has used it a little bit, 2 used it once or twice 6 months ago and haven't touched it since, and 1 basically didn't even use it at all.  I haven't checked the others yet.  Allegedly there are 3 willing to pay for it.  We will see.

Despite what you probably think I am actually psyched about the beta testers that aren't using it, because that means we can shut down their account instead of migrating them off cloudmine.  The ideal case would actually for all of the beta testers to have found it useless.  Then I wouldn't have to migrate anyway.

The Cloudmine assholes told me they no longer have their free tier.  I am 90% certain they are lying, and it would take about 10 minutes to check, however that would only make me more angry.  So I basically have to make an extra payment to protect my beta tester's worthless data an extra month while I migrate some of them off of cloudmine...who I will never be using again, for anything.

Honestly, we should have never even tried to do this cloud storage shit.  We would have been done in about 2 months.

The good news is, I think I'll have this shit wrapped up by end of summer.


[update]
Current guesstimate is we will end up with 4 people left.

[coding] OMG Google WTF Threads

Soooooooooo AsyncTasks.  The "official" way to do background shit.  Well.

On some versions of Android, including whatever a Galaxy S 3 Tab runs, the async tasks share a thread pool with a core size of 1.  In simple terms, that means if you expect more than one async task to run at a time, you are fucked.  According to some documentation I found, it is possible that Google thought they were doing us a favor.  Holy Fucking Bullshit is called AsyncTask.  Why did you name it Async if some versions can only run one at a time?

Apparently AsyncTasks are only useful for short running tasks (assuming you are ok with them running synchronously).  This is just like the fucking ListView all over again.

Idea: Lego Weed Smugglers Sets

Obviously I am loving not having to be at work every day.  I'm going to have to get another job or whatever, but if I didn't, this is what I would work on:  an entire line of Lego sets on a new theme:  weed smuggling.  It would be like pirates, but modern, and based on weed.

Here are some set ideas:

• weed smuggling trunk with replaceable panels (one could be the shell or octon labels)
• $10 car set - weed smugglers car with secret compartment
• weed submarine
• a grow house
• smugglers secret base with lots of cool shit including underwater escape route
• protest set, with protesters wearing weed shirts and getting tear gassed by cops dressed like stormtroopers
• medicine factory with a conveyor belt system inside that turns weed into cannabis-based epilepsy medication
• $150 set - cartel mansion
• $10 set - girl in hospital bed with epilepsy who needs cancer meds
• airport security scanner linked to a separate room where TSA employees jerk off to images of naked passengers
• house full of innocent people that gets raided by the DEA by accident because they got the address wrong (should be connectable to the grow house)
• DEA jail cell, including a prisoner who dies because they are denied being given medication that was prescribed by a doctor (this happened) and another prisoner who had a stroke during a car accident and was subsequently arrested after being unable to follow cops instructions, and dies while crawling along the floor of his jail cell
• $10 set - toddler that gets flash banged by cops
• a DEA hospital where texas border patrol offices rape 50 year old women who are near the border (they can be named after the cops who did this in real life)
• traffic stop set, two cop cars, one k9 dog.  Includes a black man watching his car  get dismantled on the side of the road, and a white man watching police rifle through his WRX without it being dismantled.

Obviously I would love to just do a kickstarter for this and sit around playing with legos all day.

I am Lord of NOSQL

meh

The Roomate Option

From about 2006, or 7ish until now, I have never had a roomate, and from about 2009 onwards I have never, ever had an apartment that lacked a washer/dryer.  However, I've come across an option that will give me roughly the same standard of living at less than half the price.  Technically it is 44% of the price.

I am roughly breaking even now.  With the roommate thing, and also wrapping up the skin care thing and not paying so much money every month...I am basically going to be drowning in money.  Having quieter sex and dealing with a laundromat seem like small prices to pay for that kind of advantage.

[howto] How to Clean Bathroom Sink

Normally I only clean my apartment once a year, however my bathroom seems to be developing a mold problem for reasons I can't possibly fathom.  Because of the amount of time that elapses between cleanings I pretty much always forget how to do it and have to figure it out again each time.  Until now.  Because I'm writing down how to do it:

Bathroom Sink - 5 minutes

• move:   hand towel, soap, toothbrush
• 409 + old sock
• top surface
• refold
• bowl
• wet paper towel (to clean up clumps of dirt that sock missed)
• another paper towel:  
• wipe bottom of soap container
• clean tootpaste scum from toothbrush
• please remember that this took less than 5 minutes, so maybe we could do the sink more frequently
• REWARD:  buy a cake to reward self for all of that hard work

Lego NYC

I've technically had an app in the store for a few years now.  Google will probably remove it eventually because I've ignored all of the emails they sent demanding that I give it a content rating and fill in some more summaries.

Its a lego scale calculator that tells you how big of a model you need for any real world object, and I just had the idea to do manhattan in lego.  So I downloaded it.  Turns out its still in the store, and the ads are still working, which makes me think there should be some $$ for me somewhere.

Anyway.

Manhattan is 13.4 miles long.  Replicating it at minifig scale would require a model 4.2 football fields long (or 0.2 miles).  Hmm....actually I think my app has the size of football fields wrong.  Lets just say 1547 feet.  The model would need to be 1547 feet.  So a two bedroom apartment would not, in fact, be large enough to house the model.  Also, I believe the volume of lego bricks necessary would exceed the sum all of the legos ever produced by the lego company.

Obviously I could reduce the scale drastically, but I have no interest in those types of models.

[Edit]
p.s.  apparently I have earned $1.64 with my app, however admob thinks it owes me $0.  So that's sad.

p.s.s. apparently I need to earn $10 to even select a payout method.  Maybe I should make an app that people actually use.