Asynchronous Operations + weekend
2018-12-16 9:30pm

cmccabe and I have been  talking a good amount about asynchronous
applications and  (micro)pubnixes.  It seems that  these types of
applications  are perfect  for small  population systems.  Things
like message boards are perfect for small populations since users
do not have to be online at the same time.  As such,  I have been
trying to think up other cool things to do on a small pubnix that
do not require multiple users to be online at the same time. 

Obviously e-mail and the aforementioned bulletin board work great
in that regard.  I have been thinking  that correspondence gaming
is perfect. Chess, go/baduk, gomoku/5 in a row, all come to mind.
I have  single player (vs dumb-ai)  versions of  Isola and Gomoku
already written.  I'm thinking on a protocol that could be useful
for  various  games  that I could  use with my  versions of those
games as well, that would enable users to send people moves, make
conditional moves in advance, etc.

I'm wondering what other cool things could be done? I finished up
an alpha version of my bulletin board "cspc" and just got it live
on colorfield.space. We have chat, which is most often used in an
asynch manner as users are not often online together. 

Are there applications I am missing beyond communication and game
playing? I'll be thinking on it. If any of you out there have any
cool ideas you'd like to share, drop me a note: sloum@sdf.org, or
post a response. :)

- - - - -

I woke up Saturday morning and  made waffles from scratch.  A few
weeks ago my wife and  I treated ourselves  to an electric waffle
iron. This was my second attempt. The first were ok, but tasted a
little like baking powder. This time I used eggs, which I did not
use the first time. They came out pretty well!

Later in  the day we went over to my mother's house  to celebrate
an early christmas with my brother and his family since they were
going to be with my sister-in-law's family this year for xmas. We 
had a really nice day. The kids opened presents. I got them a few
small toys mostly to keep them entertained while at my Mom's  and
also got them some big soft blankets  (less  fun  on  the holiday
but nice afterward). We had a nice meal and got to visit for more
time than I had been able to visit with my brother in months,  so
that was quite nice.

Today was mostly spent  coding and cleaning up  around the house. 
In the late afternoon one of my best friends  and my god-daughter
came over  and exchanged  some small gifts as well.  I got a nice 
fuzzy blanket and my god-daughter got a new sweater and a stuffed
lamb that she  really loved.  We were actually  really happy with 
how much she liked the  stuffed animal.  We've been trying to not
give kids highly  branded and marketed things,  so it was nice to 
see such a simple thing bring a lot of joy.  She  hugged  it  all
night and wouldn't  let it  go even  when she was  playing at the 
playground by our home. 

Now I am watching a rerun of a show I've seen  a bunch and fixing
up some code (and typing this of course).

Have a good night everyone, and happy holidays!

- - - - - 

I did just think of one other great asynch  idea  and  wanted  to 
give a shout  out to tomasino:  if you have not been,  point your
gopher browser to cosmic.voyage  Super cool storytelling.