Once again, I find myself wasting valuable scientific computing equipment on clerical work. This time around, I've persuaded my computer to evaluate BASIC programs. I began implementing the graphical interpreter back in 2023 without ever finishing it, leaving it in a utterly unusable state.
But, I resumed working on it the other day, overcome by a kind of creative fever, I finished it, released it as Sunflower BASIC and I haven't been able to put it down since. It's just too fun. Maybe this will appeal to someone's else nihilistic programming sensibilities!
What are we going to do? Return to the order of the day, presumably..
2025-09-01 What's Broken... - a
I have really enjoyed the past few weeks, which have been less travel-focused, and more centered around seeing friends, foraging for fruit(blackberries, plums and apples), and getting projects done. I have been making illustrations for the Victoria to Sitka Logbook project, which I hope to publish early next year. Putting books together is a fun, but very slow process. For the last few weeks we have been at a dock(for free, yay!) to watch over a friend's house while they are away, and so used this time to make repairs to our beloved vessel. The bilge pump, alternator, and anchor light all failed and needed replacing. When things on boats break, it is always in groups of 3 for some obscure reason.
Replacing these items is expensive. Repairing both the bilge pump and the alternator is not an option, both have broken in irreparable ways. One of the metal brackets used to secure the alternator to the engine is damaged, and for the bilge pump, the water sensor is completely sealed and can't be replaced. We would prefer to have a design that isn't sealed, but our options are limited at the moment. We just need something that works.
I am sad to say that while purchasing one particular item I was targeted by a malicious individual. All is ok now, but untangling it all was not fun. The timing was not ideal(to be fair, it never is). Devine & I make under 29,000$CAD(not individually, as a combined salary) every year on game sales from Itch.io, Bandcamp sales, book sales from lulu.com and monthly donations on Patreon. We are able to survive on this because we are thrifty, but keeping up with the rising costs of things, as well as the rapid devaluing of the kind of creative work that we do(hello, AI), is a challenge. We are not sure we can keep wintering in Victoria next year for this reason. We'll see how it goes, both of us are considering finding extra work.
HEALTH. Since I my last update, I can do 1 full pull-up from a fully extended position, and can continue on to do about 3 more. Progress is slow, but good. I haven't been as diligent with my resistance band training these last few weeks, mostly because being near land has allowed for daily bike rides.
ART. I drew some sunflowers for Sunflower BASIC. In this same line of thinking, I illustrated a tribute to an artwork by Moebius(a cover for Alice BASIC) for the Hundred Rabbits August newsletter, see it here.
I continue to draw entries for punk rabbits, I now have a collection of 34 rabbits! I try and draw one every 2-3 days, slowly working my way up to one hundred. Speaking of which, this coming November will be the 10th year anniversary of hundredrabbits!
BOOKS. I finished reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, a book several people had mentioned to me after I told them about wiktopher because the author uses she/her pronouns for every character. I enjoyed the world that Leckie built, she did a good job of characterizing the different cultures, by the way they speak, gesture, dress, etc. I had a hard time keeping up with the many political intrigues of the book, I think I will have to re-read it again.
MOVIE. Scavengers Reign is an incredible series about the survivors of the interstellar cargo vessel Demeter, stranded on an alien planet. The planet is a very beautiful but also very hostile place, with some local fauna and flora able to interact and integrate with machinery. The animation, background art, the characters, the dialogues, the story, all of it is absolutely phenomenal. It is so rare to come upon western adult animation of this quality nowadays, finding this was incredibly comforting, especially in this age of incessant generated soulless garbage. I think that it is the best thing I have watched this year, so far(with Sinners at its heels). Next on my list is Common Side Effects, another series produced by the same studio(Green Street Pictures).
The makers of AI aren’t damned by their failures, they’re damned by their goals. They want to build a genie to grant them wishes, and their wish is that nobody ever has to make art again. They want to create a new kind of mind, so they can force it into mindless servitude. Their dream is to invent new forms of life to enslave. And to what end? In a kind of nihilistic symmetry, their dream of the perfect slave machine drains the life of those who use it as well as those who turn the gears. What is life but what we choose, who we know, what we experience?
Moster's Frame Shop
CALL TO ACTION. If you can spare a few dollars support Elisabeth Potter, a reconstructive surgeon that is facing insolvency after publicly exposing the rotten work ethic of United Healthcare. Read about the whole story here.
GREAT FINDS OF THE MONTH
August was divided between heatwaves on the one hand, and lack of hot water on the other. The heat is abating by now (it's clearly late summer) but hot water still isn't back.
At least parks are still fun places to be. Most of the time, anyway. Managed to locate a nature trail close to home, that I kept hearing about. Can't wait to see what it's like. I miss field trips, and it's a good pretext to literally touch grass for more hours every day.
Oh, I managed to see an eye doctor for a checkup, after repeated delays. Got sent to another one for additional investigations. On the plus side I'm at no risk of cataracts; however glaucoma is a possibility. Not panicking yet.
Been writing another story, too! Not the same as last month. It's my third attempt this year, except this one is working out for a change. Was aiming for maybe 5K words, but I just got there and it's the halfway point at most. Tip: when in doubt, try writing good old-fashioned space opera, or your favorite equivalent. The campier, the better.
I've been writing more in general. My paper journal got eight new entries this month! Going to use it as a basis for these posts from now on.
Been doing programming stuff again, too. These days it's so hard to get excited about tech, but there are still small things to do here and there that might prove useful, or at least fun to learn. At the very least I can teach others.
But first to get a new monitor before my ancient spare gives out as well. Wish me luck.
Warm gusts passing through blackberry bushes on the shoreline carry with them that distractingly sweet summer smell inside the companionway, making it difficult not to want to be out there, either cycling or skating.
Whenever we're not busy playing outside, doing errands or stuffing our faces with wild plums, I spend some of my time translating the lesser known Solresol documents, more specifically Joséphine Sudre's Théorie & Pratique, and incorporating the different families and categories to the En-Sr Translator.
- Released Permacomputing 101 talk.
- Optimized Uxn11's screen drawing.
- Incorporated families and categories to Solrela.
- Enjoyed diving back into Middlemarch.
