Saturday, August 02, 2014
Common beliefs, rare actions
Just noticed a sort of reverse parallel.
(1) Over and over, I'll feel that my beliefs are unique. I'll growl "Doesn't anyone else STOP TO THINK about these things? Am I the only remaining SANE OBSERVER?" .... And then I'll go and read Pat Buchanan or David Stockman, and quickly find that plenty of others are observing the same facts and reaching the same conclusions. I'm nothing special after all.
(2) Over and over, I'll run into a problem in programming or graphics, and I'll think "Well, this seems like a common problem. Lots of people must be bumping into this obstacle, so there must be lots of solutions available." .... And then I'll read various online forums, and quickly find that I'm nearly unique. Generally there will be two or three people who asked the same question at various times in the past, with no solutions or answers. I'm on my own.
= = = = =
A minute later: Writing (1) above reminded me that I hadn't looked in Stockman's blog for a while, so I looked.
Okay, Google. This is creepy. I know that you monitor what I write here, because blogspot.com is part of Google. But how did you know that paragraph (2) above resulted from writing a Python script to solve one of those unique problems? I didn't mention Python. The PyCharm 'assistant' might or might not help with today's specific problem, but it's an uncannily precise ad target, going beyond what I mentioned online. Are you monitoring my offline work as well?
FWIW, today's specific problem: I've got about 50 little SCO-module folders, one for each lesson. Scorm requires everything to be modular like this. As I debug and respond to the publisher's desired changes, the JavaScript and SVG parts of all 50 folders need to be updated. A few specific files must change when the file of same name is updated in the main source folder. I looked at so-called file sync software, which seemed to do this kind of job. After buying and installing one of those file syncers, I discovered that they DO NOT perform this job. The file sync software propagates from ONE main source to ONE destination. (Why in the fuck would you need software to do that?**) You can supposedly write scripts to make it propagate into many destinations, but why should I learn another scripting language and write a script that might not work? I already know how to do this sort of thing directly in Python. So I did. Took a half hour to write, and it will save me one hour of tiresome and HIGHLY error-prone copying every time I use it from now on. It sync's all 50 folders at once, in less time than stupid Win 7 takes to locate one fucking directory listing.
**Footnote: This is stupid in the same way that Excel is stupid. You don't need a spreadsheet to apply a formula to ONE cell by default. If you want to apply a formula to ONE variable, or ONE set of input variables, there are already things called CALCULATORS to perform that task. The SOLE FUCKING REASON for using a two-dimensional table is to apply the formula to ALL rows at once. This should be the default automatic behavior, and it should be difficult and complicated to handle only ONE row.
¶ 5:00 AM 
Okay, Google. This is creepy. I know that you monitor what I write here, because blogspot.com is part of Google. But how did you know that paragraph (2) above resulted from writing a Python script to solve one of those unique problems? I didn't mention Python. The PyCharm 'assistant' might or might not help with today's specific problem, but it's an uncannily precise ad target, going beyond what I mentioned online. Are you monitoring my offline work as well?
FWIW, today's specific problem: I've got about 50 little SCO-module folders, one for each lesson. Scorm requires everything to be modular like this. As I debug and respond to the publisher's desired changes, the JavaScript and SVG parts of all 50 folders need to be updated. A few specific files must change when the file of same name is updated in the main source folder. I looked at so-called file sync software, which seemed to do this kind of job. After buying and installing one of those file syncers, I discovered that they DO NOT perform this job. The file sync software propagates from ONE main source to ONE destination. (Why in the fuck would you need software to do that?**) You can supposedly write scripts to make it propagate into many destinations, but why should I learn another scripting language and write a script that might not work? I already know how to do this sort of thing directly in Python. So I did. Took a half hour to write, and it will save me one hour of tiresome and HIGHLY error-prone copying every time I use it from now on. It sync's all 50 folders at once, in less time than stupid Win 7 takes to locate one fucking directory listing.
**Footnote: This is stupid in the same way that Excel is stupid. You don't need a spreadsheet to apply a formula to ONE cell by default. If you want to apply a formula to ONE variable, or ONE set of input variables, there are already things called CALCULATORS to perform that task. The SOLE FUCKING REASON for using a two-dimensional table is to apply the formula to ALL rows at once. This should be the default automatic behavior, and it should be difficult and complicated to handle only ONE row.
¶ 5:00 AM
