'2020' Archives
![[Busy computing... for you!]](https://www.bolsinga.com/comp.gif "[Busy computing... for you!]")
Here I am again, updating the site in the first time in about 4 years. Two years longer without an update than last time.
Last year I saw no shows! That's the first time in a long time that had happened.
I've changed states, jobs, and socks since the last update. I still ride the same bike.
I'm going to try to update this site more often. I want to get the code up to date for new versions of so much software. Catalina does things differently for LaunchAgents. I do this to have the ability to show the last song I've played in iTunes, althought I never had the chance to wire it up the my statically generated web site. I also use LaunchAgents to back up my iTunes XML file. I have monthly backups since January 2006. Someday this will be an interesting data set to mine. However in macos Catalina, the new Music app does not always update a XML file of all your music. That is how my entire site (except for the shows) is generated. I have so much technical debt in this java code that I started in 2003. Not only that but it requires Java8, and Java11 is the latest. And back in 2003, XML was cool so it uses weird Java JAXB stuff for XML support. Ugh.
So I have put the code up on github. It's private for now, but I think it will be fun to open up and share what I do to make this site. #
I'd like to update this project in public. So I looked over the source, and while it is un-linted and old fashioned, it's not really embarassing. Check it out on my github. I'll be re-discovering past technical decisions, trying to document them, fixing bugs, and generally tidying up the place. #
So I set up github to build the program on each push. I use an ancient build system called ant, and surprisingly github supports it. You can find the first build that was just triggered by me and not actually hand built by me here. #
I uploaded the source code to the carnival program I've mentioned here before. I also did a screen recording of it. The program uses "deprecated" code on macos. This means Apple does not plan to support it for long (but likely measured in a few years). Perhaps someday I will update it to handle modern GPUs, but today is not that day. I made a video of what the carnival program does. #
It has taken 9 years, but this site will now show the last song I played on iTunes. Also it no longer uses JAXB for XML support, so I was able to update the JDK to 14 (from 8!). You can learn more here. #
It's a time to listen and understand.
I will say that in order to keep Oscar's interest in the Lego Mindstorms, I've created a virtual machine instance that will be able to run 32-bit Mac OS X Mojave as long as that virtual machine can run. That means I may be able to update to Catalina soon. I still have to sort out the code I have that expects an iTunes music XML file, however. #
I've voted weeks ago. In Oregon, you can only vote by mail. Works very well, despite what you might have heard. I've voted by mail for years, while in California too.
I've updated this to build running on macos Catalina. It took awhile. I had to create a tool to make json versions of the data in iTunes. I then had to update the program that generates the web site to handle the new data. And here we are! #
Thank goodness. I hope now I can get some room back in my head.
A few recent fun Oscar things. He loves to listen to the first They Might Be Giants record. He also really likes Man or Astroman? We've also been playing my 40 year old deck of Uno a lot lately. He gets so excited. He has no poker face. He loves to play a Wild card. He's also been jumping and dancing as well.
Finally received the new Hum record Inlet on vinyl. Listening to it (again) made me imagine first hearing it live in a basement somewhere on Clark St. in Champaign. #
I'm excited for the new M1 (ARM-64) Macs announced today. Reminds me of when Apple transitioned to Intel, but hopefully an even bigger leap. Unfortunately I'll be waiting for a full size MacBook to buy. #
Today I have finally removed iTunes XML file parsing from the program that generates this site. Now it parses JSON data from my itunes_json program. It's interesting to know that it's nearly also 16 years to the day I first added iTunes XML data to the site! #
Just around when Metrowerks was going to be acquired by Motorola, I went home for a wedding. I decided to have Mike take pictures of me at Motorola World Headquarters. The page has always been on my site, I just somehow lost the link back in December, 2002. #
Oscar and I have been having a couple dance parties lately. We've danced to Rock Lobster and Burning Down the House, and more. He also likes to do silly things. This is basically me picking him up and swinging him around.
Last week while we were riding the bike to the park, he wondered if it was going to rain since it looked liked it was going to in "the heavens". Must have been from a book?
I've done a lot of clean up for the code for this site. I've also cleaned up my personal mac. There's so much ancient data there. I've basically been running this user on macos since the year 2000 or so. So much cruft gathered over the years. Here's a fun trip down memory lane: defaults domains | tr ',' '\n' | sed -e's|^ ||' | sort. #