Perette's Journal: 2016

1. Preparing for the Big Loss

2016-08-15 22:35 (Monday) journal

I recently upgraded my Mac to El Captain. Afterwards, I was quickly drawn to some new organizing capabilities of Photos; I find it much more capable than iPhoto.

But the longer I use it, the more uncomfortable I am.

There’s a lot of subtle stuff that doesn’t work right, stuff done poorly. Photos, for example, has what looks like a forward/back button pair in the upper left. But they’re view mode selectors, not forward/back. It drove me crazy, because I knew I’d seen certain views before, but then couldn’t find my way back. And when trying assign names to faces, it… well, it stops behaving like a Mac application and becomes an iOS application. It fades to the photo I’m assigning a name to. It fades to other photos with the same person. It fades to a screen that shows the person and makes me press a “Done” button. I have a fucking Mac, not a goddamn phone. Make it behave the way it’s supposed to.

Photos crashes, quicklook crashes, Finder crashes, TimeMachine crashes, preference panes break and crash system preferences, iCloud settings get lost and I get prompted for passwords on every login.

Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) was incredibly stable. Mavericks (10.9) too was quite good. Now?

But I’m caught. Apple’s captured developers into the game: to sell on the App store, they have to develop on the latest version. Which means it’s hard to compile for, test, and support older versions. So users can’t get get software unless they play catch-up too.

Well, fuck you, Apple. Seven years ago, I would have said Apple was good value. Sure, the kit cost more, and maybe the software wasn’t always the most feature-rich. But it was very reliable. Considering the annual cost of subscriptions to virus scanners, and the cost of repairs and downtime when Windows broke anyway, and Apple was the better deal. Less hassle, lower total cost of ownership, totally worth it.

This OS sucks now. Why would I pay extra for this shit?

I’ve been reading others' horror stories, watching the writing on the wall, and I think subconsciously I’ve been preparing. More of my documents have been in Markdown, an open-source format. And much of the time, I’ve chosen to simply not write, knowing the looming loss.

My novel and some short stories are in Scrivener. That’ll be gone.

I’ll lose all the documents I’ve stored in Pages.

My photo collection is in Photos. I’ll have to reorganize that.

I’m going to miss Cornerstone. It’s a good SVN client.

I don’t know how I’ll live without Xcode. It’s going to be a brutal change, losing the development suite I’m accustomed to.

I bought a license to BBEdit last year, that’ll be useless. Filemaker (not that I’ve updated in a few years) will be gone too.

But day by day, I can see I’m getting increasingly disgruntled in the Mac world. Apple recently pushing an OS update across the board—iOS, Yosemite, El Capitan—with a security fix that borked all the subscribed calendars on every device in my house, really seems to have been the final nail:

My confidence, my trust, is gone.

I feel the resistance changing into resignation and acceptance. I see the data I’m collecting on alternatives, hear the conversations with others when I ask how things are in Linux land and the Windows world. There’s a real feeling of discomfort, not knowing if I’ll be able to hack a different world, fears that maybe this all resumes where things left off, just before the End of Software in 2003.

But what can I do? I can’t will trust into existence. It’s broken for a reason; ignoring it or denying it would be avoiding reality. If Apple isn’t going down the tubes, it’s better to move on now, rather than slog through the mud only to move on later.

2. Plan of attack for leaving MacOS

2016-08-31 00:40 (Wednesday) journal

1. Study up on alternate tools, where possible. Developer tools: KDevelop, Qt Creator.

2. If tools look acceptable, look into possible Linux distributions or Windows 10.

3. Wait for MacOS Sierra’s release, and watch for news on that to see if it’s reversing the downhill slop. If so, wait and monitor. If trends reverse, consider migrating to it.

4. If an OS seems viable, and Sierra continues the downfall, begin thinking about new hardware and mentally girding for the migration.

5. Migrate and don’t look back. If it fails, leave tech and do something else until things improve again.

3. 2016-10-14 19:27 (Friday) journal Goodbye, Apple

I’ve been a Mac user for 13 years. I bought my first Mac, an iBook laptop, in August 2003; within a few months it had supplanted my Linux desktop.

Over the next decade, I watched OS X and the Apple line grow and evolve: Power PC processors gave way to Intel kit; OS X got Spotlight Search, then Time Machine, Grand Central Dispatch, and cloud support. I eagerly read every one of John Siracusa’s analysis and critiques of new operating system editions, to learn what had changed—both on the surface and under the hood.

In addition to the hardware I invested thousands in software: Pages, iWork '09 (it used to cost money), Scrivener, Filemaker, and the OS itself (which also used to be paid upgrades).

What I got was perhaps not always the bleeding edge, but then, the bleeding edge is bleeding. I had a feeling of hope, seeing things improving little by little, and the trust that reliability brings in time.

And so it has been a hard time coming to realize I need to leave the world of rose-tinted glasses and move on. Apple did make an awesome operating system, but that day is past, and denying it because of the lingering emotions… isn’t helpful.

After Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6), I skipped Lion and Mountain Lion (10.7 and 10.8) because they didn’t have anything in there for me, and Siracusa and others were critical of the value added.

But Mavericks (10.9), like Snow Leopard, was a release with less focus on new features and more on improving performance and reliability, and fixing the snags. Perhaps the Lions were stepping stones.

Except Yosemite (10.10) was rumored to be buggy, and when David got a Mac I found the applications had been improved to be kludgy and awkward, with new bugs added.

El Capitan (10.11) had an even worse reputation, but I upgraded because I wanted a new version of an application that wouldn’t run on Mavericks anymore. The rumors of bugs were not overstated; there were frequent quirks and misbehaviors. I considered (and still do) reverting to Mavericks, but having the latest and greatest compiler is a real boon. It’s possible to use older, outdated tools to do a job—but improved ones always help.

I’ve been nervously looking forward to Sierra (10.12), wondering if my aging hardware would be dropped. It has been. And Apple’s replacements are horribly out of date, especially for the price. But new hardware is rumored at the end of the month.

I decided I’d wait for the new hardware, and see what the news is on Sierra.

I ugpraded David’s laptop to Sierra. It’s got Siri, the voice-activated assistant.

My software also failed unit tests, not because my software is defective—but because the command interpreter (the shell) has broken commands, specifically ksh’s sleep for ranges of 0–30 seconds. It broke the tests, which caused it to improperly perform testing.

It’s not that I couldn’t work around it. It’s that, if I can’t trust the shell, what can I trust?

The answer is nothing. I trust nothing Sierra, nor do I trust its maker, Apple.

I walked into a Best Buy to at least look at Windows laptops, and the sales guy asked me why I was considering Windows instead of Apple. The words just fell out of my mouth: “Because Apple sucks.” And I felt the impact of saying those words, with the vehemece behind them, that said my relationship with Apple was over.

I was once a switcher, one of the odd ones from Linux. Now I guess I’m an unswitcher, moving onto some newer pasture. I’m still deciding between Windows and Linux, but bash on Windows sounds to be worth trying. Worst case, I can ditch Windows and run Linux.

And yes, the reason I forsook Linux is because it’s administratively a pain in the ass. But so has the Mac been for the last few years, as quality has deteriorated. The advantage Macs once posed is no longer there.

4. Why

2016-11-09 23:33 (Friday) journal

I’m going to share a little more about myself with my friends.

I want to be clear: I’m not making any claims. I’m trying to convey how this one little bit of weirdness, 20-something years ago, has influenced my life and probably will continue to.

This writing is going to be long and complicated, involving myself, politics, and a 35-year timespan. It is friends-only. You don’t need to ever talk to me about it, or ask me about it. Just take it as back-story, maybe an attempt by me to relieve myself of the guilt I feel because of the stupid thing.

It goes back to circa 1993, when I had what is best described as a “vision.” Okay, may I should go back a little further.

Way back when I was little, I was in the back seat of the family station wagon. I suddenly looked up, and declared that I smelled a possum. Not that I even knew what one was. My parents were like, “What?” until we went around a corner—and there, crossing the road, was the first possum they’d seen in years.

And it’s not like that’s the only time it happened; I remember it numerous times growing up, and in college, my friends decided that if such things existed, I was the most likely candidate for the skill in our group. For my part, there’s a feeling to it, knowledge that events are a particular way, as clear and objective as looking at a house, tree, or boulder. It’s not like I think something is going to happen, it’s like it already did, just in the future.

The counterargument is, of course, that it was chance, and that through buggy human behavior and revisionist memory fitting explanations to bygone events, it seemed to me (and friends who have seen it in action) like I’ve got some a sixth sense.

Frankly, the idea that it’s bullshit is wonderfully relaxing. Because that thing that I saw in 1993 wasn’t good. So I often remind myself it’s not like I’m able to do it on command or reproduce it reliably. That maybe I remember the times it’s worked out because they’re spooky, but forget when I’ve missed. Still, despite my skepticism, there’s a part of me that knows the feeling, and knows the uncanny number of times it worked, especially when I was younger.

So there was 1993. Usually, anything I ever saw was minutes or at the most a few hours in the future. But in that instance, and I think only that instance, I saw 3 and 4 decades into the future. What I saw was terrifying to my twenty-something self: pretty much, the United States falling apart. Not just the boundaries on paper, but society, cities, everything not working; the systems and processes that make them go breaking down. The aftermath of that fucking vision has scarred me for the last 23 years. I want badly to move beyond it; I’m way overdue.

I spent the first 10 years post-vision developing a more spiritual side, trying to attune myself with the universe in a way that it would tell me more and explain what to do, or at least explain enough to figure it out on my own. It didn’t help, and in the end, it helped fuck me up as I went into burnout and mental breakdown in 2003. My software job, the layoffs that were happening and the 3 people’s jobs I got saddled with, were a big part of it. But this stupid goddamn vision, and the feeling of responsibility to do something about it, was there too.

Add to that, living the contradiction of being a good little American worker and consumer, who is supposed to save up for retirement—but underlying all my long-term financial plans was (and continues to be) an underlying expectation (or should that be certainty?) that it’s pointless. I’m not good with cognitive dissonance, so it’s hard to force myself into work to earn money for a future, when I “know” I’m better off enjoying the time now.

I rationalize this bit of bullshit well: there’s a ⅓ chance I’ll get some sort of cancer or other horrible disease, and even if I don’t, lots of things I want to do won’t be possible when I’m 65. So even if the vision is crap, doing the things I want to do now is a good idea. But don’t let that fool you: underlying justifications, there’s 1993.

Digging my way out from the mental illness, surely influenced by David’s Atheism, my last 13 years of coping have involved sublimating the damn vision with a scientific view of the world. Because if science, then the vision was just a dream, just nonsense. People who have had conversion experiences describe a special feeling—heck, I’ve felt it; I’ve had dreams where I met the Goddess. It’s awesome, it’s better than sex, full of love. But truly, it’s not good evidence of Gods or supernatural things; the loose science of Psychology offers far better explanations.

So if I ever seem hell-bent on disproving mystical things, understand I have a good reason for it. Because if the supernatural has any validity, then there may be validity in what I saw. Then why, and what to do about it? And down that road lies madness. So I’ve honed my skills at denial and repression, though they are shaken when I encounter a new, minutes-out prediction.

So why am I sharing this now?

Because I want to move past this damn thing. It’s done enough damage. Which is now complicated by recent events.

Because there’s a second feeling. It’s a feeling of disconnection, a malaise of sorts. It’s even harder to describe, but I’ve felt it before. And after some big world event happens, clarity and connection snaps back into place.

It had been been building up for a weeks, maybe months. Then on election day it snapped back.

And with the news Trump has won, there is finally an explanation which would explain what I saw, if it were real.

To be clear, this isn’t a new vision. It’s just that suddenly, the path from here to there doesn’t seem impossible anymore.

The divisiveness: the Internet has already polarized us. I know Republicans that have moved specifically to “red states” to get away from the politics of blue states, and Democrats that have gone the other way. We’ve gradually been physically segregating ourselves in the same way we have been divided ideologically.

Trump promised selecting a new Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Initially, this means it’ll fall to states’ rights; the overturning won’t make abortion illegal everywhere. Since “blue” states will (or already have) passed laws protecting abortion rights, the legal situation in blue vs. red states will diverge.

Given the Republican congress, I’m also betting Obamacare gets the chop or a significant cutback. Blue states will try to provide something in its wake, red states will prune as hard as they can.

Similarly, social service funding is likely to get cut back. And again, blue states will try to provide some framework, red states will prune hard.

All of these will accelerate the trend for physical segregation by ideology. For the latter two, that creates feedback: those in a bind will move from red states to blue states in search of social services. The additional need will burden blue states, driving up spending and borrowing. But costs moved from national to state level will drive up spending and borrowing. Banks will be able to pull a repeat of the 1975 NYC Financial Crisis, where they refuse additional lending until their terms are agreed to: to “protect their investment”, they will demand oversight of government spending. Corporations will gain control of state spending.

The economy could go either way. Republican denial of climate change and anti-regulation policies coupled with cheap oil in the Dakotas and plentiful natural gas from fracking could lead to growth in manufacturing. Trashing NAFTA could bring jobs back to the US if trade gets harder, or could damage trade and we could lose jobs. And the unsustainable level of national debt and deficit is looming too.

Whatever happens, Donald Trump won’t be responsible. Because if it looks like it’s his fault, that will be the goddamn media making up more lies. As a group, his supporters are no longer reachable with the truth: they listen to sources that tell them what they want to hear, but dismiss any dissent as media lies. It’s the latest step in the country’s polarization, and I doubt many Trump fans could be persuaded to consider alternate explanations.

Late 2024/early 2025 is when the vision says the shit will hit the fan. If Trump takes the 2020 election, then would put us into the 2024 election with a country split by 8 more years of divisive government, social media and self-selection. It sounds like we’d be ripe for a civil war, and that would fit what I saw.

Up until today, uncertainty of any path of events to get from where we are to where things fall apart, in the allotted timespan, made the whole thing seem impossible. So even if part of me was 100% certain of what it saw, another part of me argued fairly effectively that’s inconceivable. Not enough to eradicate the original vision, but enough to always question it as madness.

Even now, maybe because the skepticism has been there so long, I don’t find myself falling into it unquestioningly. But there is a sense of, “Holy shit, that finally makes sense.”

Which leads me back to the same goddamn crossroads: What do I do?

Which in turn leads to a recurring melancholy answer: do nothing, because there is nothing I can do. Probably, the original vision was madness. But even if it was real, there’s no way to know that. If there was a way to know it, there would be no way to prove its validity to others; attempting to do so would lead to others thinking I’m insane, for generally solid reasons. The world wouldn’t listen anyway, because they’re preoccupied with games, gossip and goods—and so I’d be better off doing the things I want my the remaining time, however much that is.

Whenever telepathy or ESP shows up on TV, it’s a “gift”. No, it’s not. It’s a fucking curse. I saw shit, and I can’t do anything to stop it; I don’t even know if it was real. What I saw was either insane, or I’d be judged insane for relying on it. And just having seen it, yet having no idea how to handle impossible information, is insanity-inducing. The guilt of inaction weighs on the soul, even as uncertainty, inability and the unknown make action impossible.

If we lived in the Harry Potter world, I’d have the damned thing Obliviated from my head. (Of course, it could be expected to be real in the Harry Potter world.)

It’s odd that what is best explained by an unusual firing sequence of nerves in my brain, maybe due to some sort of neurotransmitter excursion, has troubled me for 2 decades. It’s time I’ve moved on.

And I feel like I’m ready to move on.

Talking about things is a way we humans seem to move on.

I’ve now talked about it.

I accept that I may be unable to fully break myself of belief in it. But I also accept that the thing is probably craziness. I recognize those two are contradictory, representing an inconsistency in my thoughts. It can be written off as a glitch that can’t be fixed.

Refresh.

5. Worried about things

2016-12-02 18:02 (Friday) journal

The year 2015 was incredible. I could do no wrong; the new version of pianod blossomed as did my C++ skills. All kinds of stuff went right; I felt the best I have since the breakdown in 2003.

In 2003 I remember being utterly demoralized about the future of tech. There was so much trash out there, nothing seemed to work reliably enough to make me comfortable. And making anything work require Herulean efforts. Then I found Apple… and things turned around.

This year has felt like a repeat of 2003. It feels like piece by piece, any faith in tech has been undercut.

Apple is up the spout. Since I don’t trust the future of MacOS, I don’t trust documents to the word processors I own. Which means I no longer have good writing tools—I write what I can with MultiMarkdown, but it’s not the same as Pages '09 or Scrivener.

I’ve become dissatisfied with Arq, my backup solution. It works okay, but it packs data into inaccessible boxes in the cloud. It can’t be grepped or searched or pared down.

Skype quality was terrible for quite a while, maybe that’s on the mend… but my faith is definitely weakened there.

Then my e-mail started disappearing, and after 6 weeks of that I had enough of DreamHost after 15 years. It’s really unfortunate, because they had some bells and whistles that were really nice. They just couldn’t get the core stuff right.

And after fighting with transferring domains for a week, it’s becoming evident the pianod mailing list isn’t going to work right on the new provider either. They have mailman, it’s just broken.

I want to use my computer, not fuck around configuring it.

I want to work on my projects, not continually fight with infrastructure to enable me to work on my projects.

Throwing money at things could fix some of these problems, but that adds up. And I don’t want to throw bad money at things.

Like a few weeks back, I had to edit some audio for my upcoming cirque show. If I trusted the Mac platform, I’d have bought Sound Studio for $30. I had it back on my first Mac, but that version is too old and doesn’t run anymore. But if I’m leaving the Mac, why spend $30 on a 1-shot tool? It was hassleful, but I crufted the audio together with existing tools.

So the fact that nothing works well is creating pressure to not buy tools that would improve the situation. The problem gets exacerbated.

I’m questioning what to do. In 2003, I pushed through, injuring myself in the process. I’ve really enjoyed the last few years, the stimulation and fun of working on pianod. But there are just too many problems now.

If it was just working on pianod, that would be okay. And a website. But then there’s hosting, and mailing lists, and Subversion repositories and backups.

But the alternative is emptiness: if I don’t do tech, what do I do? I crave the challenge, but the grade has become to steep. I don’t want flat, and I can’t handle a mountain—but rolling hills don’t seem to be an option.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

6. Progress

2016-12-05 13:03 (Monday) journal

Tentatively, it seems like the domain moves are now moving along. I fired domain company #2, #3 had limitations, but #4 seems promising. I think the pianod mailing list working now, even though it’s the same cpanel/mailman configuration as the last guys, at least on the surface. Maybe the issue was #2 having security set to 11, or running some supposedly great 100% compatible but faster server instead of apache.

In any case, stress levels dropping.

But just to make sure they didn’t drop too much the goddamn toilet fill mechanism broke this morning. Thankfully, I had one ready to go in the basement. But that meant the job was too easy, the shut-off mechanism’s washer bought the farm and I had to fix that next.

Cross fingers. Hoping for a bit of worry-free relaxation.