Another week gone past. The year is almost over. How’d that happen?

Programming⌗

This week was focused on Checkbox. It is very slow going. I’ve spent basically the entire week on native language scheduling. First, I tried an existing crate that someone else developed that looks for date creation. I thought that would do well enough, but the issue is that I will end up having to account for every permutation of a date that exists. That is a ton of work, and obviously opens up problems with those expressions that I didn’t hard code into the app.

So, between Claude and me, I tried to implement Ollama support. This was a complete bust. First off it was slower than shite. Second, it was just bad.

This was about four days worth of work. Between trying to figure out how to get rust to do this on its own, and figuring out how to get AI integration to work at all and then reverting all that work, what I’m left with is going back to the original hard coded option.

Checkbox will support some native language scheduling. Things like “go to movies tomorrow” will work. But anything more complex than this isn’t going to happen.

What I might do is create a builder. The user can put in their own natural language expression and tell the database what it needs to do. We’ll see if that ends up happening.

Reading⌗

I’ve continued my reading streak. I finished another two novels in the Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone series (I’m now on book 6), and I’ve started a reread of Bride by Ali Hazelwood.

I’m getting a little tired of Brownstone. The series is a little repetitive, which is fine, but I’d like it if the author threw in some on-screen character development. Most of that stuff happens off-screen and that’s a bummer.

The good news is, that series got me back into reading when I’ve been in a serious slump for months.

Gaming⌗

Played some Cities Skylines II this week. A little bit. It took forever to update the mods, so I didn’t play as much as I would have otherwise. I will say that it plays okay on Linux, but not great. It has this very odd flashing thing that goes on with every element on screen. Not sure why.

Potpourri⌗

• I fell today. I was getting into the car to go to town when I slipped off the runner board and ended up on my ass. I’m mostly okay, but I’m very sore all over. We were at near 0 Deg F today, so I was damn cold by the time I got my fat ass up.
• I have started to use a video editor called Descript. It is very AI, but also kind of cool. Basically it transcribes your video, and then you just edit the script. It edits the part of the video associated with what you edit. The first video just went up on my channel. It’s rocky. The idea is way cool, and if I can get good at it, that will mean I can edit anywhere. But we’ll see. I will say that it’s pretty pricey.
• Still writing every day in my journal. I’ve found it very satisfying to the point where I’ve pretty much stopped my daily notes in emacs. I will probably return to digital at some point.
• I’ve settled on Moon Reader+ for my e-Reader on Android. It’s not perfect, but it has this really cool feature where you can scroll read on the outside screen and flip read on the inside. No other app has that, and I really love that, so I can ignore the flaws. I still hope to code my own some day. I pulled in a Katlin book from the library.
• My Secret Santa fic is stalled. I will have it done before the deadline, but I’m just not happy with the 1000 words I’ve written so far.
• Went over 100,000 words written on this blog for this year. That’s insane.

Small Web Links⌗

None. I haven’t even looked at an RSS feed all week. Too busy reading the books. I’ll get caught up here eventually.

Last Week’s Goals⌗

• Keep reading pace. I’m so happy to be reading again. ✅
• Keep working on music library ✅
• CLEAN THE DESK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! ✅ (Half way at least, so progress!)
• Upload to TLC, three times. Do Pod. ✖️
• 1 Video for HA ✖️ (no, but I did some outlining, so progress)
• Get Checkbox to the point where it’s fully functional. ✖️ (no, but progress is being made).

Goals for This Week⌗

• Read two books. I really want to keep this up. I don’t care if one of them is a reread.
• Finish the music library. I’m very close. Over 100,000 tracks redownloaded. My internet has been saturated lately. Over 5TB of downloads. It’s nuts.
• TLC has to take priority this week. I’d also like to get better at the new video editor
• Actually record that HA video.
• More dev work.
• Try out Cosmic Desktop for the first time.