Anonymole – apocryphal agitators – Page 2 – Mental meanderings of philosophical provocateurs

Cross Discipline Creativity – I wish!

December 18, 2021

Creativity may flow from an endless tank, once it’s activated. But, if you have access to multiple tanks, they can only be turned on one at a time.

The creative faucet I’ve been wielding recently has nothing to do with writing fiction. Which I lament. No, not just lament, I bemoan the fact that my energies are being spent toward a creation I despise: software that will be used to promote the further promulgation of the evil duo consumerism & capitalism. Yuck. And it’s not just the building of solutions, it’s the monitoring, worrying, fiddling, responding to “incidents”, and the exhaustive fixing of code that worked—and then just didn’t anymore.

It could be due to the fact that during this joyous season of giving, this data-broker middleman company is positioned exactly where the most “giving” flows. Literally millions of orders a day grinding through this system. What worked for five-hundred thousand cannot deal with two-million. And so the hours of hand-wringing, the feverish typing-testing-deploying of code. Oy! The humanity.

And throughout it all, the sad fact that I’d rather be writing fiction. But can’t. Because I can only turn on one creative spigot at a time. I’ve tried to run two. Can’t. The code flows—or the story does. But never the twain. Dream-time brings visions of syntax checks and semaphores dancing in my head. Of event-streams and data-queues, stacked and awaiting their processing turns.

Maybe when I was thirty I could have maneuvered and managed both. But here at sixty, what a sad number is sixty, I can only handle the one.

Happy Saturnalia, all.

-Mole

Go-GAN Generative Adversarial Network

November 28, 2021

She hauled up and quit on me just outside Rhemus Station. The harder I kicked, the louder she wailed. If I’d known she’d put up such a fuss I’d have walked the whole way from our dig site. Rinky had followed us, I knew he’d keep her company, maybe lead her back to her herd. I gave her a pat and walked away. From time to time, I still hear that odd trumpet sound. Without protection, I doubt she survived the night.

I beckoned with the two-handed wave described to us and it fluttered across the water toward me. I picked just two of its eyes, the others I ignored. I’d heard they took offense if you couldn’t focus. As it landed, just beyond my reach, it began to retch producing a viscous soup that spread like an oil-slick. The smell rose and I breathed it deeply—truffles. Its sick smelled like black truffles.

The natives use the bark for food, shelter, fuel, and if pulverized and left to rot in a shallow, swampy ditch, turns to an intoxicant which they slurp in revelrous glee. Their twilight dancing, a chaotic riot, ends only when the last of them concuss themselves against the trunks of the trees. Because of their lack of depth perception the locals can’t climb, leaving the heights for us to safely bed.

I hold as still as I can. The pollen, its tendency to burrow into my nostrils, has me on the edge of a constant sneeze. I choke it down and capture the shot. To its left I catch a flash of movement, low in the brush, the tips of the tracker’s ears barely topping the grass. But all of this specimen’s eyes are trained on me. I prepare to witness a predatory scene few, if any, have ever seen.

The line is deep and although I haul back, the weight at the end gives only in spurts. I keep at it. I see a flash of white, turned pale blue, and then a rush and splash as it surfaces. The hook tears at the side of its throat, snared, not a valid catch. I can only hope the damage done won’t leave it mortally wounded.

This is not the way we came in. But the map has brought us to this cove and this gaping maw, our egress from this hell-scape world. I see ripples at the edges. Is it quivering? With provisions exhausted we have no choice but to venture in—out? Through?

PRESS RELEASE: North Korean space launch explosion

November 14, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SOURCE: ROIDERS

TITLE: NORTH KOREAN ROCKET LAUNCHES & EXPLODES

Earlier this morning, UTC 03:27:00, North Korea launched a ballistic rocket of unknown intent.

The rocket reached an LEO (low Earth orbit) of approximately 390 kilometers where it separated into independent payloads, some continuing to travel out to 500 kilometers in altitude above the surface of the planet.

Fifteen individual payloads were identified, each accelerating to nearly 30,000 kilometers per hour, at which time they detonated releasing pellet sized projectiles, roughly seven mm in diameter. It is estimated that more than two billion pellets were delivered across 300 kilometers of LEO altitude.

The intent, as described by U.S. Military, ESA and NASA officials, can only be considered “all-out war on our communication systems.”

“We’re already experiencing satellite failures. Every satellite in LEO will probably be destroyed. Starlink? Toast. Network channel satellites? Gone. We’re looking at near-complete blackout.”

“And the Space Station? Thank God they had an emergency capsule they could deploy. But the station itself, total loss.”

An international response is pending. Early news shows that Chinese forces are already flowing across the North Korean border.

“As far as space exploration and communications go, we’ve been sent back to the 1940’s. Humans are never going to travel to LEO again. You can kiss the Moon and Mars goodbye. Sorry Elon.”

Another day, another software language

November 13, 2021

So, yeah. Due to my current team’s triumph in getting its shit done (in RUST), I’ve been tasked with getting another team steamed up and chugging along. Only, this new team uses TypeScript. TypeScript is a Microsoft invention that overlays strongly typed variables and objects on top of JavaScript. It’s used, for our purposes, on both the server (Node.js) as well as the front end (Angular/NGRx).

That’s what I’ve been doing — coming up to speed as quickly as possible on this new language and the different ways it’s used to generate AWS (Amazon Web Services) Lambdas (serverless functions).

This new team, five guys dropped into a project with zero comprehension of the bigger picture, had been languishing, essentially leaderless, for months. Well, I ain’t shy when it comes to disturbing the coding peace. I’ve already reframed their work, written all the specs for a half-dozen new services, and, to model the user’s data-flow, built a mock service that mimics what the project will eventually perform when completed. I wrote this over the weekend, last. It’s just a toy, and I present it here as evidence that I have been writing… just not fiction. This, in combination with the 10 functional and technical documents and diagrams written in the last three weeks, well, I’m all Typed(Script) out.

New tab view here.

I went and added it to my github — which it appears I’ve had now for eleven years… Imagine that.

https://github.com/davecline/scon