Monthly Archives: September 2020

Today I choose to work the plan (TIC00065f)

The PolyBlog
September 30 2020

There’s a classic cliché or slogan in the time-management and personal planning industries about “planning the work and working the plan”. It basically is a form of “plan and execute” or “plan and do”, but it is more than that…it takes into account that you did the work to do a proper plan, taking into account the variables you had, and you came up with something viable.

Implementation though prompts a number of reactions. First and foremost, there are the rigid thinkers who will follow the plan all the way to Hades. Doesn’t matter, they have their orders, even if they gave them to themself, and they will not deviate it from it no matter what the evidence or results are telling them. Second is the other end of the spectrum…it is the type who knows that a battle plan never survives engagement with the enemy, and because they misinterpret what that means, they jettison the plan at the first sign of ANYTHING that deviates from the plan and wing it for the rest of the implementation. Their attitude is you can’t plan for everything so why worry too much about planning for anything. Get a basic idea and GO.

But in the middle is the workman who knows that a good plan is mostly about the process of building the plan. Understanding what the variables are. Understanding the interdependencies. Understanding the resources available, the starting point, the ending point, and the flexibilities to get from one to the other. You don’t “implement a plan”, you work with it, tweaking as you go, keeping what works, adjusting what doesn’t. A good framework helps you know where you’re going; building the framework helps you know what your capacity is for getting there.

I had a pretty good day today. We have set ourselves a basic 9-5 workday, with Andrea taking a break at 11:00 to spend time with Jacob when his class breaks for first rest/recess and me taking a break at 1:00 p.m. to have lunch with him. This morning, Andrea had a dentist appointment at 8:00 so we were up and out the door by 7:30. She had her appointment, everything is on track for her dental work, I picked her back up, and off we were home. With a pit stop at the grocery store to get milk, fresh bananas, and some ground beef for tonight’s dinner (tacos).

We were back to the house by 9:00 a.m., before Jacob even started his class. Nice.

My morning schedule wasn’t too pressed, first meeting at 10:30 so I had time to get ready, with a pre-conference call just before it to agree on what a co-lead was going to cover and what I would cover. Then the meeting, went reasonably well, some good follow-up, and on to the next thing.

I had a couple of impromptu meetings in MS Teams, set up a bunch of groups so we can stay organized going forward, got some buy-in and support to lead a couple of initiatives we want to do across the branch, and it wasn’t even lunch yet. I grabbed a snack, and started writing a speech. More like speech modules, but I did it up like a big inspirational speech that I’ll have to tone down tomorrow into more digestible chunks, but I gave my creative side free rein, and it felt good to flex those muscles.

I had lunch with Jacob, then back into the digital world of working from home. I finished the speech, handled a few other things that had cropped up, tasked out a few other things, and generally kicked butt and took names most of the afternoon.

I’m not sure exactly where in my career I would say I was my “best self” as an employee, firing on all cylinders and being uber productive, but I know it isn’t “today”. Still, I’m probably firing at about 80% of my previous capacity, and feeling good about the way forward.

I even found time today to reach out to offer some online support to two communities, where newbies are struggling with stuff that is a level beyond their capacity. I reframed it and explained what they needed to do (and how to understand it, which is part of my jam), and they were off and running again with renewed optimism after hitting the frustration wall.

Dinner was simple tacos, Jacob is doing piano theory and hanging out with Andrea, and I’m figuring out a couple of small web puzzles. And then I treated myself to a small binge of episodes of Monk from Season 3.

Today I choose to work the plan and today it worked well. It won’t always be that successful, but I’ll take the victory lap for today.

What choices are you making today?

Today I choose to look for some COVID humour (TIC00064f)

The PolyBlog
September 28 2020

I have no interest in people who want to argue that some people find everything funny, however inappropriate, or the huge social conventions that go with it. I’m a little bit closer to certain British comedians and satirists who believe you can and should find whatever humour lies within anything. Not to make fun of anything you can, but to find the natural tenets of humour that run through our lives, however dark or at least non-illuminated some of them are. However dark the current times, however bleak, there are still moments of amusement to be found, even if just in cynicism that it will only get worse.

Today I went looking for some of that, and not surprisingly, it was easy to find in various memes or mask layouts. Some started with some pop culture themes:

  • Social Distancing Social Club;
  • Buena distancia social club (i.e., a take-off on Buena Vista Social Club);
  • I find your lack of social distancing disturbing (i.e., with a Darth Vader image)
  • I will wear my mask here or there, I will social distance everywhere (i.e., like Dr. Seuss)
  • In Fauci, we trust. Trust science, not morons (i.e., for US politics)

Others made references to introverts (ignoring the huge number of Bigfoot images with the slogan Social Distancing Champion):

  • Stop! I’m not social distancing, I just don’t like you!
  • I’m a social vegan. I avoid meet.
  • I saw people through the window today. That’s enough social interaction.
  • Social distancing: It’s like a vacation for introverts.
  • Ewww, people.
  • I can’t people today.
  • When social distancing is over, let’s not tell some people.
  • It’s too “peopley” out there.
  • I was social distancing when it was rude (i.e., a bit different from the numerous ones about doing it “before it was cool / trendy / hip / required”).

Others still went for slightly quirky:

  • Camp Quarantine
  • Social Distancing Mode ON
  • Zero hugs given #SocialDistancing
  • Wanna hangout with me online?

And then there were the ones whose patience has run out:

  • If I Can Punch You in The Face, You’re Too Close
  • Back off Boogaloo
  • Back up buttercup
  • Stay out of my hula hoop
  • Just shut up and wear your mask, Karen
  • If you can read this, then you’d better be wearing a mask

But out of all of them, there were four that I liked more than the rest. Three of them in particular as I think they actually work as something you could wear on a face mask or a t-shirt.

The first was simple…it was an image of a Zoom call, and it simply said “Zoom University”. All students are dealing with some form of that, from kindergarten all the way up to graduate courses at university, and it would work really well as a traditional sweatshirt, in my view. It captures a lot of the zeitgeist of freshmen who are starting university this year wondering where their degree is even coming from or what exactly they’re paying all that tuition for, if they even registered this year and didn’t opt for a gap year.

The second was a simple mantra summary of current life: “Eat, sleep, repeat. Living the #SocialDistancing life.” An alternate version said, “Eat, sleep, social distancing, repeat. Living the dream.” There is a lot packed in there, particularly for single people living alone.

The third was a small play on words for the innuendo of “doggie-style”. The picture showed two men separated by a dog on a six-foot leash. The phrase that went with it was: “Social distancing, doggie-style“. I don’t know that I would wear this, but there are some people who walk their dog who quite like the meme.

The last one is also a play on words, and it is my favorite. The picture is of a person doing yoga, in Lotus position, with the words “Namaste six feet away”. One of my favorite comics in the last year that I’ve seen had a similar pun, where one character says, “Namaste” and the other says, “Nah, I’m gonna go”. The reason this one is my favorite is that it works relatively linearly, i.e. “peace” from six feet away, or literally, “Stay six feet away”.

Are any of them uproariously funny? Nope, but the topic isn’t funny. Millions are dying around the globe. The death experience for those infected are horrible, often isolated and alone, and struggling to breathe. And yet people have found the humour that lurks in the shared experience of social distancing, however cynical.

I needed that today, and so I choose to look for some COVID humour.

What choices are you making today?

Today I choose to time travel (TIC00063f)

The PolyBlog
September 28 2020

Okay, so time travel might be a little extreme of a description. But back in 2017, I was playing with social media managers to manage my sharing of posts, etc. I tried Buffer, Friends+.me, Hootsuite, a few others. I was basically looking for a free social media manager, and for a while, it worked.

I could write posts on my blog, go to my account on one of the generic apps, call it “social media manager X” (aka SMM X), paste the link, add some text, and post. The goal at the time was to start scheduling posts in line with the “best advice” of the day. Which, essentially, was to schedule posts so they would go out multiple times during the day, allow you to post at peak periods that would solicit feedback and reaction, and let you “build your brand”.

The overall selling point for the companies was that you could basically plan out and schedule a week or a month’s worth of engagement, do it all at once, and forget about it for the week. The autoposter would take all your pre-scheduled tweets and IG posts, and share them at the appropriate times. You could even monitor analytics to see that perhaps Tuesdays were quieter than Wednesdays, or afternoons prompted more reactions than mornings, or 3:00 p.m. was better than 4:00 p.m. when people were starting to think about heading home.

And for awhile, I let it sucker me in. I was thinking that I should be doing these things from my two websites, polywogg.ca and thepolyblog.ca. Drive engagement. Build a brand.

But it’s not really me. Sure, I produce a lot of content. But I’m not trying to build my brand. I’m not planning on monetizing any of it, at least I don’t think so. Maybe I will once I retire for some of my publications, but even then, I’m not convinced that is the way I’ll go.

It all seemed just a little too “commercial” for what is and shall always remain a personal site. But the real reason I switched to a plugin within WP for my site was because FaceBook changed the way they let outside plugins or sites paste to FaceBook. They require that you register as an “app” in essence, to make sure you are authorized to post to specific accounts, and for the site to be able to track everything you do. While they claim it is about security, most of it is about future monetization as you get bigger and bigger. At some point, they force you to pay for a business account. And part of the “choke” point setup is blocking certain types of links.

I found a new solution, or so I thought when I bought it, but I’ve had some annoying little quirks of late with my website and autoposting. I was finding that the plugin, which is designed to help me post, was just a bit of a pain in the patootie. As I said, I paid for a one-year subscription, and I suspect I’m going to kill it shortly from the site. And then leave negative reviews everywhere I can think to do it because they basically advertise mostly-false claims to get you to buy it.

As a quick recap then, I started off posting just normal i.e., manually — cut and paste to FB, Twitter, Google+. Then I went with a social media manager site, pasting one link there and letting it share to all three sites for me. But that was starting to be a bit challenging to manage as I was also doing all my TV episode reviews through there plus meme creation, and it all started to feel a bit too commercial for my personal musings. So I killed off Google+, dropped a lot of my auto-sharing, found a new tool, and again, I’m at that point where I’m asking, “Is this really the best approach?”.

Lots of the original sites I was dealing with have gone the way of the dodo almost. Well, maybe not quite extinct, but also not at the top of the heap either. Other services have come along, most have shaken the bugs out of the industry, and they have all for the most part found ways to monetize the management.

My needs are simple. Soooo, I am trying Buffer.com again. My old account is easily revived, I’m grandfathered into a free albeit limited account, and I’m playing with it. It feels like 2016, 2017 all over again.

One part of that experience though is different. If I want to share with FaceBook, I have to share to a page, not my personal profile. Which all things considered, isn’t a bad idea. Some people have found my volume on my personal account kind of high and muted me accordingly. I’ve also picked up a few people who friended me on FB but they really only want my website feeds. I feel like a couple of them should be in the page category only.

So I’m going to let all my friends know I have a new page, and if they want my blog posts, they can look for them over there. I’ll give it a week, and then my personal stuff will truly only be my personal stuff, albeit including comics of the day. Hopefully, I’ll also be able to set all the privacy settings a bit more normally this way too.

Today I choose to time-travel back to an old technique I used about 3-4 years ago.

What choices are you making today?

Star Trek: Picard – Season 1 (TVR00013) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
September 27 2020

Overview

The new show takes place after the movies and the end of the Next Generation timeline. There has been what appeared to be an AI uprising and a catastrophic attack that led the Federation to ban all cybernetic organisms (like Data or more inferior copies) and to withdraw from helping the Romulans as their planetary system collapsed. Picard fought for both communities and lost, and he resigned from Starfleet. Now he sits in his vineyard estate and watches his body and mind slowly stagnate.

The first episode sets up the premise of the show with a bang. A young couple is hanging out, getting to know each other in an apartment, and suddenly shock troopers enter the room, kill the boy, and are targeting the girl. She goes into super combat mode, takes them out, escapes, and while she doesn’t know how she did any of it, she knows she has to find a man she has never met — Jean-Luc Picard. It doesn’t take long for them to figure out she’s actually an advanced android, a synthetic human, based on the neural pathways that Data had before he died. Making her basically Data’s daughter. One of two “twins”. She’s killed and Picard goes in search of the second daughter, Soji, before someone kills her.

Episodes That I Liked

Episodes 4 and 6 were pretty cool, with a warrior caste of nuns and some battles, plus Jean-Luc visiting a Borg cube to visit Hugh and the Romulan reclamation project. Can anyone say PTSD? I rated both episodes 5/5.

There are another 5 episodes that I gave a 4/5 rating to…Episode 2 where you learn about the reclamation project and Soji (with a great health and safety sign on the cube that says it has been 5843 days without an assimilation); EP 3 where they’re getting ready for the voyage and putting a team together; EP 5 where they meet up with Bruce Maddox again; EP 8 where they meet Noonian’s descendant; and the season finale, EP 10, with potential space battles, cubes, and androids galore.

Episodes That Were Watchable

EP 7 is a giant fan favourite because it introduces you to Riker and Troi and gives you some of their history after the movies. It has not been sunshine and roses, but they have found a way to make it work. And EP 9, the first part of the finale, shows you the life the synthetics have built, so highly watchable.

Episodes That I Didn’t Like

I described EP 1 in the Overview above, and it SHOULD have been awesome with the shock troops and the new synthetic. Instead, it was actually pretty slow. And the super genius who supposedly built her? Bruce Maddox. The same one who tried to have Data declared a toaster in Season 1 of ST:TNG and whose proposals Data found “intriguing”, yet he’s the God of Cybernetics who built the twin daughters? Yeah, right. I would have accepted his children or his protegé being the creator, but Maddox? He was fun in Season 1 but a bit of a joke.

List of Episodes from Season 1

S01E01RemembranceReally? Maddox is the new Noonian? Doubtful🐸🐸⚪⚪⚪
S01E02Maps and LegendsBest line was the sign: This facility has gone
5843 days without an assimilation		🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
S01E03The End is the BeginningCan we go already? Yes, fine. Engage.🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
S01E04Absolute CandorWarrior nuns are cool, but Picard owes
somebody a ship		🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
S01E05Stardust City RagHey, Bruce, good to see you again🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
S01E06The Impossible BoxIf you can’t go home again, you might
as well revisit your last trip to hell		🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
S01E07NepentheWhen you need a refuge, find two old friends
and couch surf		🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪
S01E08Broken PiecesGood news, the cyberneticist won’t
kill anyone else		🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
S01E09Et in Arcadia Ego Pt 1Well, as synths go, it’s better than
Lal and Lore		🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪
S01E10Et in Arcadia Ego Pt 2One impossible thing at a time,
plus an obvious one		🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The Bottom Line

This is not your father’s next-generation show.

Today I choose to grind it out (TIC00062f)

The PolyBlog
September 27 2020

For my website management, it is probably trite to note that some parts are more enjoyable than others. Writing posts is fun; managing plugin updates is not. Solving gremlin issues is not.

A few months ago, I revamped the site. Mostly because I had accumulated enough little management issues that my site was running slow and I was starting to notice irregularities in different posts. You would expect that if multiple people were posting on a site, the back-end admin area might get a little cluttered. People might save photos in odd places, for instance. But my site is all me. Everything should have a place and everything should BE in that place. More or less.

Most of the time, nobody would ever notice. Except a lot of my posts are part of various series of posts. And on one page, I used “blah blah blah – blah blah” as the title, and on the next, “blah blah blah: blah blah and blah”. A dash in one case, a colon in another, and inconsistent wording for the blah part. Most people wouldn’t notice, but in some cases, it was off enough that it made me question what the title SHOULD be i.e, what was the goal of the post? Not simple pedantic naming conventions but actually what I was trying to communicate.

The images and tables were messed up in a number of places, and some people had noticed enough to point it out. But overall? It just needed an update.

So I did it. The last time I will be able to do that manually from start to finish, partly as I am close to 1500 posts in total. That’s a lot of chickenfeed.

I still have about 150 posts that are messed up somewhat for photos, and I’ll eventually “fix” those in the fullness of time. They’re fine as they are, I just flagged them so that when I finish some photo updating, I’ll fix those too. I’ve ground through a couple of layout and table issues in the last week. But I had a big one that was outstanding.

My book reviews list was not complete. I have 190 BRs on the site, all live. I failed to notice that #160 was messed up for format when I went through them earlier, but I caught part of it tonight. Anyway. The real issue was that the index only listed the first 50. There were another 140 to add to the index, and while I have a lot of the info in a spreadsheet, each item in the index needs to link to the proper post with the review.

I had done about 10 at a time previously and each batch was taking me over an hour to get into shape. I split it into a bunch of stages so that I could assembly-line-bulldoze some updates earlier, and it fixed the majority of layout issues in batches, but it still left me with the index not done. I figured this was something that would take me several months to update, perhaps 10 here or there, or even 20 in a day.

Earlier today, I started looking at it differently, and seeing if I could tweak my Excel spreadsheet to put all the info I could into a single “paste” and then just edit the remaining missing pieces. In the end, it worked. I added 130 records at once, complete with full HTML code for the links, and then just manually pasted the URLs one by one into the website’s database table. All together, it ran about an hour. The whole thing? Up and running? In about an hour? Woohoo!

Months worth of work the old way, and because I decided to just grind it out a bit today, I dug in, found a faster way to do it, and saved myself a ton of work. Plus moved my markers on what is “next” on my to-do list.

Today I choose to just grind it out on my website and update my Book Reviews index.

What choices are you making today?