Toby's Log page 80

Satellite flare

in

I believe I saw a satellite flare for the first time tonight. I saw a light moving across the sky about the brightness of a medium bright star, a little off of north to south. It suddenly started to get brighter and brighter, until it got well brighter than any star. It actually got a little halo around it, perhaps indicating some haze in the sky. For a moment, I started to think it was a slow moving meteoroid. But it began to fade at about the same rate it had brightened, until it went back to its normal medium star brightness. It then just continued on across the sky.

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Sign and submit PhoneGap app for iOS and Android

in

After some struggling, I got the PhoneGap app for the Akron Art Prize submitted to the iOS and Android app stores. Since it was a new thing for me and I wanted to ensure I could do it again, I took some notes on how to submit them to each store. I tried to do as much with the PhoneGap CLI as possible so it was easily reproducible from a git repo. Note that I used ‘cordova-icon’ and ‘cordova-splash’ for the PhoneGap-side assets, so I didn’t need to touch the platform folders beyond what is mentioned below.

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PHP ‘break’ argument

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I’m not sure if I ever knew this before, but the PHP break statement has an optional argument that declares how many levels to break out of, eg break 2. For instance, in the following example, the break will break out of both loops when the sub-item is found:

$theSubItem = null;
foreach(getItems() as $item){
    foreach($item->getSubItems() as $subItem){
        if($subItem->isTheSubItem()){
            $theSubItem = $subItem;
            break 2;
        }
    }
}
var_dump($theSubItem);

ensuring that we won’t loop through any extra items or sub-items.

in

Went on a riverboat cruise down the Cuyahoga. More industrial and history focused than cruises I’ve gone on in the past, which were mostly wildlife focused. Learned plenty of interesting things about the history of the river, bridges, shipping, the steel and other industries there, the fires and pollution, and the park and restoration plans. We got to see some of the steel operations including an ore bridge in grabbing and dropping stuff for a blast furnace. The operator saw us and did a demo pick-up and drop right by the river. It was pretty cool. Also saw a kind of heron I’ve never seen before. We went along almost the entire six miles from the lake to the end of the shipping route. I was there with my parents, brother, and his girlfriend in celebration of my brother’s looming birthday.

Ear jam

in

My ear is clogged. It has been since last Saturday. I’m not sure why. All I can think of is that I was listening to music extra loud on the commute home to help blast away the stress of a traffic jam. It’s a weird sensation, slightly disorienting at times. I can’t hear people or things well on that side. I can hear internal things very well, like chewing, breathing, myself talking, the clicking of my jaw, movement of my face, and ever-present tinnitus. I’ve tried several things so far, and the best I can say is that it might have gotten a little better, but not unblocked. I’ve tried q-tips, vinegar, alcohol, oil, carbamide peroxide, hydrogen peroxide, and blasting it with water from a bulb thing. I will have to try once more with these. I also saw some little ear brushes that I will buy if the chemical methods fail. And if that fails, I guess I’ll have to go to the doctors. I hope my hearing isn’t damaged, but the clarity with which I hear internal things would suggest otherwise.

Crash Dream

in

I had quite possibly my first car accident dream. Hopefully this isn’t foreboding. It was weird though, sort of like a video game in that my “camera” was behind my car, except down low, level with my eyes, so I couldn’t see the car ahead very well. Sometimes it would move closer like it was trying to meet up with my eyes, but then move back. The car ahead started slowing, so I did too, but then it started slowing faster than I could. My brakes were also weird, like I couldn’t press them down hard enough to make them slow like a real car. Just as I hit the car ahead, I awoke. There may have actually been a moment of post-crash reflection, but more of in a paused state just as contact was made: There was no impact or crumple or force.

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