Hello Everyone!
Waking super early, Freezing the bedding, A mattress strategy, Some early morning coding & The complex human mind!
Alright, I am on time again with the writing routine... and better dive in here before I let myself get distracted. I guess that it would be more accurate to say that I am mostly on time... because alas I am at the tail end of the time frame that I have set aside for the daily writing activities.
Today things were super wonky and although I will get into the details of that later... suffice it to say that doing my Hive engagement routine today was super tricky. Honestly, it was probably my 'weakest attempt' at doing so ever since I began doing it... except for that day or two when I more or less took a break from it altogether.
What happened is, that I awoke at three eleven in the morning today... and wound up staying awake until sometime after sunrise... before finally zonking out again. Later in the day (sometime in the afternoon) I awoke again... did a bunch of chores, cooked a big meal, ate and fell back asleep yet again... so yeah I was kind of in a daze for much of the day... and am still unsure if I am fully awake or not.
Waking at such an early hour was intentional... because I wanted to get up while the temperatures were still below freezing... and get as much of my bedding outdoors to freeze as I could. Given that I only have a few blankets and one sheet at this time (other than the bug proof sheet that I have yet to install) it is really tricky to both stay warm... and get all the bedding frozen.
I managed to do it by hanging one item at a time on the dog yard fence (where the cold wind would help expedite the process) and I even got my two pillows frozen by propping them up against each other on an outdoor table... so they were basically in the shape of a triangle. The only item that I was not able to get frozen... was the mattress itself... but I am going to either try to do it tonight... or perhaps the day after tomorrow when the temperature is set to plunge even lower.
If you have not figured it out by now (or are not a long time reader) I am freezing all the bedding so that it will kill any mites, fleas or their eggs that might be in them. Having wiped out the fleas months ago (with lots of aggressive treatments that I detailed in these entries whilst doing them) I am mainly focused on wiping out the dandruff mites at this point.
The real hassle in the entire process is getting the mattress in and out of the cabin... because in order to do so... I have to move everything out of the 'kitchen' area so that I have enough room to maneuver it out the door. I also have to be able to clean everything thoroughly while the mattress is outdoors... which yeah is a bit of a hassle given that it needs to be done in the middle of the night... when the dogs (and me) are inclined to be resting on the bed!
Hopefully, if all goes well and I can actually achieve all of the above... I can then cover the mattress (once all the moisture from the frost is gone) with that new bug-proof cover that I got for it. Although I have some concerns over the dogs toenails scratching through the cheap vinyl... it is a risk that I am going to have to take until I can get a thick enough sheet or some kind of cover for it to protect it.
I have actually been considering getting a cheap canvas painter's drop cloth to do that with... but have yet to either set the funds aside for it... or look online for them to see what my options are. The reason that I want to use that over a sheet or blanket is due to how durable they are... and how tight the weave is of the canvas itself... plus it will be much cheaper than any bedding of equivalent durability.
Anyways, I really do not have much else to report aside from getting inspired to work on a coding project (before falling asleep this morning) that has been nagging at me for a while now. It is really just a refinement and combination of some of my older projects... where I take QR codes made from the contents of a text file and create an animated gif and a video file from said contents.
I know that the utility of such a project is absolutely lost on most folks... and while this particular version does not process files or execute code from the QR codes (like some of my other projects do) I think it is pretty neat nonetheless. Essentially it (and those other projects) are a method to transfer (or transmit) data (or files) without the need for an actual internet connection or any other means of connectivity aside from a camera and some decoding software.
While I have yet to build any kind of web frontend, mobile device application or browser extension for the project... I did include a Python decoder for anyone that might be interested in tinkering with it all to see how it works. Although I occasionally tinker with the idea of using it on the 3speak network to store files in video format (or video files themselves encoded as QR codes) I might tinker with doing that eventually.
I am also tempted to use the gifs in these entries (or other posts) but have yet to endeavor upon that either. If anyone is interested in the project I named it 'qr-weaver' and it can be found here.
Well, I think that is all the words that I have in me for this entry. I sincerely hope that folks are doing well and yet again want to leave folks with a Terence McKenna quote to mull over... or not... as the case may be!
"There is, so far as we know, nothing more advanced than what is sitting behind your eyes. The human neocortex is the most densely ramified complexified structure in the known universe."
Ta ta for now!
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Cheers! & Hive On!
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