Werner, on the other hand, did way better, and he even enjoyed being introduced to one of my neighbors and didn't freak out at all! He's gotten really mellow in his old age.
Aging cat woes
So for a couple of years, Werner’s been having issues with the litter box; namely he’ll get into the box and then pee, then he thinks he’s done and starts to leave, then the poop starts coming out, leaving a trail from the litter box to wherever he’s going. Depending on how constipated he is the radius of impact can vary quite widely; sometimes he makes it all the way into my living room before it comes out.
In the new house I have a clear line of sight to the litter box from my desk and fairly often I can see when he’s doing this. When the poop starts to actually come out he pauses and clenches (quite comically) and if I see him do this while leaving the box I can rush over and either try to hold him in the box, or hold the litter scoop under his butt until he finishes, at which point he relaxes and runs on his happy little way.
Unfortunately, lately he’s gotten wise to this utter indignity, and he’ll make a token effort to push out a turd or two while I’m trying to keep him in place, then he relaxes and runs off... under a couch or my bed, where he finishes pooping.
Fiona's been especially frustrating about wanting to go outside despite having been an indoor cat for the last 9 years, so today I finally found her leash and harness and put it on her. She was so excited to go outside! Then she took two steps out the door, then a car drove by and she was NNNOOOOOOPE.
The main difference between this and all the other firmware I could find is that configuring the key mapping is really easy, and its debouncing actually works.
It does require something with built-in USB host support like a Leonardo or a LilyPad. And since I'm using actual C++ flow control it does need a little more EEPROM space than most firmwares, but I mean, as long as it fits, right? You're not gonna be running an OS on this thing.
If you're preventing me from reading your articles, how the bleep do I know whether I want your mailing list? (Anyway, the answer is no. I never subscribe to mailing lists that only serve to alert me to new "content". I have an RSS reader for that.)
I was really annoyed at all of the Arduino-based DDR pad firmware out there so I ended up writing my own using modern C++ and what feels like reasonable software engineering practices. As a bonus it actually feels really precise. Check it out if you're at all interested. https://git.beesbuzz.biz/fluffy/DDRuino/
A weird/fun dream about a terrible TV show
So I had a dream about Fuller House, the Netflix continuation of Full House, a bland sitcom from the 80s and 90s.
No no hear me out.
So I haven’t actually seen the show, but in the dream the show turned out to be a really clever subversion of shitty 80s and 90s TV, where instead of it being a bland family sitcom, it turned out that all of the characters in the show were mutants with different superpowers, and the show progressively got stranger and stranger. It kept on wildly shifting styles, like one episode would be animated while another would be done in the style of kids doing their own crappy Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers fantasy roleplay in the back yard with a cheap camcorder.
And then the plot that developed was that neo-San Francisco was emerging with different mutant “alphas” who were treated differently in extreme ways due to their social class and assumptions about whether they’d be violent or dangerous. The main characters of the show were embraced for their powers (Danny, for example, had the ability to assimilate different animals’ characteristics and so he became a star of childrens’ TV shows, but then a random homeless person with the same powers was immediately persecuted by the cops).
Also Uncle Jesse was played by a different 80s archetypal heart-throb-turned-washed-up-old-man actor in every episode. I don’t think it had anything to do with his alpha power, it was just for comedy.
One of the subplots was that Danny’s powers had residual effects that gave him chronic pain issues, like he had a role on TV as a friendly snake but this made it very difficult for him to use his limbs when he’d get them back and he ended up preferring to stay a snake whenever possible. He also had an adorable powered wheelchair that he operated with his tailtip.
Anyway even with all that I found the show kind of difficult to watch and I ended up just checking out the scripts from the library, and they were a lot of fun to read... but you don’t have to take MY word for it. [ba ba baaa]
I downloaded Brave just to see what it looks like in the actual browser. Disappointed that the icon didn't come through, but I can surely fix that.
Seattle-based music/code/comics critter. Vaguely friend-shaped. Fibro-spoony, queer, ADHD, and anxious as heck. Handle with care.