Tag: inner geek (Page 1 of 2)

wp5.8 upgrade issues

July 31, 2021 / laura bruno lilly / 38 Comments

The Fix was Simple. Finding It Was Not.

Consider this a blogger-buddy public service post…A little over a week ago I set up a staging site to make a few changes to my site, perform updates on various plug-ins and to install the new wp5.8 upgrade. I really like that my hosting company offers a fairly easy way for this non-techie to do this task. I’d even go so far as to say, it’s kind of fun to poke around in my cPanel!

That said, after doing a manual backup, then setting up the staging site, I began my task in earnest.

Plug-in updates – piece of cake. A few other minor fixes – done and done.

Now for the biggie – the wp5.8 upgrade.

At first glance, all looked just like it always looked. Upon further perusal, my site appeared to function as usual.

In my giddiness of having triumphed over the ever looming threat of a broken site due to update/upgrade glitches, I was all set to depress the ‘push to live’ button.

But – and I think this is where my maturity and ever nagging sense of doing things ‘right’ kicked in – I decided to check just one more thing. That being, actually writing up a new sample blog post using the extra Gutenberg Blocks that came with the upgrade.

Blithely clicking the ‘add new post’ button on my dashboard, I expected to begin a fun jaunt into exploring the nuances of the newly added Gutenberg Blocks.

What unfolded before my very eyes, however, was far from being anything fun…What unfolded before my very eyes was…

The White Screen of Death

I could easily navigate back and forth from the emptiness of that edit page to my dashboard, but what good is a website/blog if one has no way to write or publish new content?

Oh and, let’s not forget, I discovered this ‘glitch’ as an after thought! I almost nixxed all my hard work in the protected environment of a staging site with the single ‘push to live’ command.

While hugely grateful to my inner OCD self to have diverted such a disaster, I was more than a bit resentful that I had yet another hurdle to jump over just to get my site up and running on a basic wp5.8 upgrade.

WordPress is not for the faint of heart…but I digress…

Thus began my long and arduous deep dive into troubleshooting. I’ll spare you the details of that deep dive, but I do want to point out that for all the ‘help’ offered, there isn’t much related to what I experienced. So I began expanding my search in more obscure reaches of that ‘help’.

Which lead me to the WP.org support forum for the Hemingway Theme, thinking perhaps it all had to do with theme incompatibility (go here to read the rapid unfolding of what became The Simple Fix).

Turns out, Gutenberg Block Editor does not ‘play well’ with my browser of choice, Mozilla Firefox.

The Fix?

Update that darn Browser and make it ‘play nicely’ with my newly upgraded WordPress site.

SwS project status & my basic music score editing process

November 4, 2019 / laura bruno lilly / 38 Comments

4/6 ‘Final Finals’ music scores 100% finished!

First off, I’m thrilled to announce that 4 of the 6 ‘Final Finals’ music scores mentioned in the previous post are 100% finished. Nestled in their respective PDFs, each are ready to be distributed in multiple media formats when the time comes. Their timing is intertwined with the release of both the vignette and recorded music parts of related content from the overall SwS project.
That said, the Goat Suite (Saga) scores are not even ‘Final Finals’ yet even though the music has been recorded and ready for mastering since 2017 and the related vignettes are now nearing the formatting stage for publication. The original scores are still scruffy with scribbles from the recording sessions.
Given that Swimming with Swans: Goat Suite (Saga) will be the first section of the project to be released, those scores are now top priority for beginning the Final editing process. For a sense of what’s involved, my Goat Suite (Saga) is written for 2 classical guitars, mandolin, 12-string acoustic guitar and rain stick. I have the Master Score pretty much done, but the details specific to each individual part need to be entered onto each of the extracted part scores.
Here then, is an overview of my basic music score editing process, as promised.

Enter original hand scored piece in NOTION – just the notes, no dynamics, interpretive suggestions, fingerings, etc.
Fix weird quirks that NOTION places in score regardless of how info is entered (ie-stem direction, rests, location of text info, etc.)
Print it out and play from that score to approach fingerings with a fresh eye and jot down
Add fingerings, and simple dynamics in NOTION, print out for spacing/alignments and jot down by hand extra needs for score as play through it.
Continue with edits (#2, #3 & #4) with an eye for keeping the score uncluttered and easy to read for the player yet filled with the needed information.
Add title, composer, dedication, copyright, etc. info and arrange text nicely on score, sometimes defying NOTION conventions.
If composition has more than one instrument, extract each part from Master Score for individual print out.
Print Master Score and any extracted parts scores to PDF and print out to proof.
Proof as needed.
Repeat #5, #8 and #9 until becomes a true FINAL, then print to PDF.

Using my arrangement of Mo Giolla Mear as an example, here are photo’s of the process continuing from its mention in a previous post.

The following two score photos correspond to steps #1, #2 and #3 of the basic process overview:

My hand scored copies alongside newly entered NOTION scored parts of Mo Giolla Mear

My hand scored copies alongside (then) newly entered NOTION scored parts of Mo Giolla Mear

The next score excerpt photo corresponds to steps #5 & #6 – check out measure 8 for an easy to see example of a stem direction fix in addition to the overall inclusions of fingerings, dynamics, etc.

This last score excerpt photo corresponds to step #10 and is from the final PDF:

Whew! I hope this answers some of the questions you my readers have asked about what it means when I mention ‘doing score edits.’ Much like literary edits, it can be tedious but the end result is the pot of gold at the base of a very beautiful rainbow.

PLUTO my favorite planet next to Mars…

August 23, 2019 / laura bruno lilly / 32 Comments

When I was growing up I had an imaginary friend. Her name was Zelda. Zelda was a witch. That’s right, this little half-Italian Catholic girl had an imaginary witch-friend. She flew on a broom stick and traveled to oh so many places I could never go. Like Pluto. Actually, Zelda lived on the planet Pluto.
Pluto, my favorite planet next to Mars…
When I was an 8^th grader in what was then called Jr. High, I entered the science fair. It was kind of a new thing in the 60s, not at all required for students as part of any pre-set curriculum.
My project was an in-depth study of – you guessed it – the planet Mars. I won several firsts and seconds and ultimately made it through district with an Honorable Mention. That HM meant I couldn’t go on to ‘state’, but it was still quite a feat! Back then, this thirteen-year-old school girl scientist didn’t know that it was considered unusual for a girl to be interested in math and science.
Scroll up a few decades to the 21^st century.
When New Horizons was launched in 2006, hubby and I kept periodic tabs on its journey. As the internet improved, so did the ease with which we were able to keep up with all the photos and info NASA had to offer. The Jupiter fly-by photos in 2007 awed and inspired the world – talk about in-your-face beauty.
Early on in the mission, it came out that Queen’s Brian May is also Dr. Brian May the astrophysicist. Because he was dubbed an official “science team collaborator” to the New Horizons Team, I scrutinized his collaborations to see if rock stardom would overshadow scientific curiosity.
I was not disappointed, Dr. Brian is the real deal on both counts.
I’m confident he helped advance the cause of math and science showing nerdiness to be on a par with rock stardom.

Pluto & Charon from New Horizons

By late 2014 New Horizons began its Pluto encounter, rapidly entering into its approach phase to the planet. The infamous Pluto fly-by began in July 2015 while it was a mere 7,800 miles above the surface of Pluto. That’s just 601 miles above Santa Fe, NM in terms of an Earth distance comparison!
Because of this close encounter of the (formerly) 9^th kind*, a map of Pluto was compiled featuring names recognizing people of significance to Pluto. Approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in September 2017, it includes an area named after an 11-year old girl.

Map of Pluto with features approved by the IAU, September 2017

Burney crater honors Venetia Burney (1918-2009), who as an 11-year-old schoolgirl suggested the name “Pluto” for Clyde Tombaugh’s newly discovered planet. Later in life she taught mathematics and economics.
I wonder if Zelda ever visited Venetia as a young child growing up in Oxford, England back in the day?
*Pluto was considered to be the 9^th planet in our solar system back when I was a child…now it is classified as a Dwarf Planet.
Pluto photo credit, Pluto map credit

note: this is for day five of my 6 years on WP.org posts

Reaching the Finish Line and Zeno’s Paradox

May 20, 2019 / laura bruno lilly / 28 Comments

I have always been intrigued with Zeno’s paradoxes. Specifically, his Dichotomy paradox. As a mathematical concept it offers a glimpse into the world of infinity – an abstract concept of boundlessness – and by way of my own extrapolation: eternity – a reality outside of time, with no beginning and no end.

Yep, math is very cool*. People just don’t give it a chance.
We (I) tend to think of infinity as uncontained largeness, which it is, but Zeno’s paradox reveals another slice of that same infinity. Infinity as uncontained minuteness.
Mr. Zeno’s Dichotomy paradox simply stated says, Before an object can travel a given distance, it must travel half that distance then in order to travel that half distance, it must travel a quarter of that distance, etc. Since this sequence goes on forever, it therefore appears that the given distance cannot be traveled.
The way it was demonstrated to me back in the day was to stand a set distance from a wall, then take a step halfway towards that wall, then from that halfway point take another step halfway, and again until your nose is against that wall, but still some half of a half of an infinite half distance from that wall!
In this 21^st century, I am a living example of Zeno’s paradox.
It seems I’m in a constant state of being ‘almost finished’ with various projects.
To be clear, I am not talking about confusing perfectionism with professionalism in the (he)artistic creation process. There is a time when something is truly done and learning to know when to stop ‘futzing’ with a project is part of that process.
What I am talking about is how my projects get ‘done, except for…’. Which then get ‘done except for’ something else then on and on until my nose is up against that wall and I’m staring down an infinite number of ‘except fors’.
Oh, I know that’s not truly a real-life application of Zeno’s paradox, but it sure feels like it. The infinity aspect of it certainly, but the frustration of projects never getting to the finish line – achingly acute.
Most of the time the ‘except fors’ are dependent upon some other factors that I cannot control which only adds discouragement to frustration.
Case in point, Mr. Zeno came to remembrance a couple months ago while I was ‘futzing’ with the liner notes for my upcoming Swimming with Swans: Goat Suite (Saga) cd (who knows anymore when it will be released :-().
I had all my ducks in a row – the artwork, layout, format chosen, and wav. files ready for replication, but there were just too many other obstacles asserting themselves, blocking the finish line. All ‘done, except for’ factors beyond my control – thus, hindering completion of the actual cd packaging and its release anytime soon.
But those liner notes, hey man, let me nit-pick/futz with those because I can control all of that.
In general, once I realize I’m in a Zeno’s infinite loop of frustration, I search for some other unfinished bits that can be readily completed if I take the time to focus on them. In my small multipurpose studio, such projects are easily seen and found.

l-r: experiment in color & design limited to neutrals found in on-sale jellyroll pack; my take using the tiny flying geese border on ‘Red Rocks’ block; study in yellows using scraps in my usual free form piecing style

In this instance, my eyes strayed away from the practice stool and computer screen to the three quilt blocks laid out on my flannel design wall. They are each from three different projects and have been on the periphery of my quilting focus. I decided long ago to sew them the way they were arranged, but just wasn’t motivated to finish them.
In the name of surviving yet another cycle of Zeno’s dichotomy, I took to completing them and packing them away for later use in their respective projects.
That felt good.
And then that positive completion experience refueled my determination to work on a different slice of the overall SwS project while the aforementioned slice(s) are on hold. I opened my NOTION score files of related Swimming with Swans music and resumed editing several of those music scores in preparation for future inclusion in the project’s accompanying Music Folio.
That feels even better! 🙂

~~~~~~~~~

*Just for fun:

The dichotomy paradox leads to the following mathematical joke. A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer were asked to answer the following question. A group of boys are lined up on one wall of a dance hall, and an equal number of girls are lined up on the opposite wall. Both groups are then instructed to advance toward each other by one quarter the distance separating them every ten seconds. When do they meet at the center of the dance hall? The mathematician said they would never actually meet because the series is infinite. The physicist said they would meet when time equals infinity. The engineer said that within one minute they would be close enough for all practical purposes.

Seed Quote, by Hope Jahren

September 22, 2017 / laura bruno lilly / 28 Comments

A seed knows how to wait.

Most seeds wait for at least a year before starting to grow; a cherry seed can wait for a hundred years with no problem. What exactly each seed is waiting for is known only to that seed…

A seed is alive while it waits.

Every acorn on the ground is just as alive as the three-hundred-year-old oak tree that towers over it…they are both just waiting…the seed is waiting to flourish while the tree is only waiting to die.

When you are in the forest, for every tree that you see, there are at least a hundred trees waiting in the soil, alive and fervently wishing to be.

Each beginning is the end of a waiting.

We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.

From: Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren

October 26, 2016 / terry w. lilly / 4 Comments

Re-read the Riddle of the Wind Turbines post, ponder it once again, then scroll down as directed to read the answer-comment and our replies to that comment.
Congrats to Chris for being the first and only commenter to get the answer to this riddle.
Hope you guys had fun with this challenge. Now excuse me while I go watch the second game of the World Series…go Cubs!

Riddle of the Wind Turbines

October 24, 2016 / terry w. lilly / 19 Comments

Note: Now that we’re back from CO and home in SC with 24/7 access to secure internet, I’ve wondered how to re-enter the blogging scene after my precious ‘Summer of Dad’. Hubby sent this Riddle to his co-workers today, his first day back to work and it seemed the perfect segue…I asked him to pass it on and post it here for your comments/solution…Enjoy! ~LBL

Driving on I-70 in Kansas there is a stretch of highway where there are hundreds of giant wind turbines used to generate electricity. On Friday, October 21, 2016 Laura and I were driving through the area.

A common sight driving through Kansas along I-70

The wind was from the west going east. The wind turbine blades were moving from west to east (at its apex). All turbines were facing south.
Laura pointed out that some of the turbines were rotating clockwise and some were rotating counter clockwise. Given the above information, how could this be? Can you solve the riddle?
And oh, by the way, Yes, we are back.

———–
Answer starts at Chris’ comment below…read replies to her answer-comment for further explanations by both myself and Laura.

April 8, 2016 / laura bruno lilly / 8 Comments

Today is 2²/2³/2⁴.

Isn’t it a great Mathematical day?

What an exciting time to be alive.

(I’m always looking for cool date/number relationships; this is the absolute best. In fiddling with today’s date during an unproductive morning journaling, this phenom revealed itself to me. Hubby thought my discovery was so cool, he e-mailed a bunch of people. His enthusiasm inspired me to share the announcement with you, my blog readers)

Hatikvah

November 11, 2015 / laura bruno lilly / 6 Comments

The post following this sticky note, Alice Fulton Quote, Beethoven and My Music seems to have been an unknowing experiment. The cdbaby songplayer widget I placed at the end of the post functions differently in reality than as a previewed post.
I apologize for that.
Meanwhile, I’m going to wait out a few hours and see if this is more an exception than the rule to using this device. So that it won’t inconvenience your reading/listening experience of my most recent posting, I offer to you here another means to listen to the single off of unexpected with the most digital listens as referenced in Alice Fulton Quote, Beethoven and My Music.
Here then is Hatikvah.

From the Practice Stool: Mo Giolla Mear (an excerpt)

August 9, 2015 / laura bruno lilly / 13 Comments

My hand scored copies alongside newly entered NOTION scored parts of Mo Giolla Mear

The other day I came off of the practice stool elated. It was one of those sessions where everything went right. The tone from my perfectly honed right hand nails emitted a luscious aural tapestry of sound while working through completed scores of my own creation or arrangement. Fluidity of movement in the left hand during execution of certain passages, coupled with the flow of interpretive playing all within acceptable tempos…this is my dance, this is my place, this is my praise to the Giver of Gifts.
I was particularly pleased to master specific measures in my classical guitar arrangement of the traditional Celtic piece, Mo Giolla Mear. Written during our between homes time, it is part of my Swimming with Swans: the music project.
Yes, there is an entire story behind the discovery of this piece of music and how it relates to our life on the road. It remains scattered in the bits and nits of my mind, journals and ‘little list’ e-mail updates jotted down at the time. For some reason the words do not come easily right now. The challenge remains for me to sit down, focus and craft a vignette to include in my Swimming with Swans: vignettes of our three year journey between homes manuscript.
However, while immersed in my music, that challenge is mercifully set aside. Continue reading