Soarin challenge: update #3

After a few stops and starts - at times, during repeating guessing at answers, the game would stop or perhaps kick me out - I was able to push my score to 6,000,000.

By far and away #1 right now.

It's possible the guy at #2 will suddenly make a run and take over the top spot. But no matter. I'll still be the first to get that many points and should always remain far removed from any other competitors.

It was fun, and I enjoyed it. But I'm done.

My real player dropped to #9 by the way. I guess people got active again in the lower part of the top 10. Still. I'm happy with how this went.

What do you think you're doing, Dave?

I'm thinking about starting a newsletter on topics that I find interesting. 

There's work to be done with stylizing it and having a little more of my thinking. But here's volume 1, number 1. 

A bi-weekly newsletter about topics that I find fun, interesting, or relevant

June 1, 2023

Talk of the town

South Florida is *THE* hotbed for sports.  Live it up 305 and beyond!

Man, what a season for South Florida sports! Well, except for the 20th century perennial powerhouse football teams (the Dolphins and Hurricanes).

You had Nova Southeastern (or whatever they call it these days) win the D2 college basketball championship.  Both FAU and UM went to the final 4 in the NCAA tournament.

Now the Panthers are playing for the Stanley Cup in hockey.  By the way, this is their second trip to the finals, maybe this time they can win it all?

And the Heat, led by Jimmy Buckets and Bam are in the NBA finals.  This collection of who dat's and undrafted players is remarkable.  They just squeaked into the playoffs and have been very good....but they've been streaky all year.  What happens next?  Who knows!

Weird / Funny News

Miami often celebrates notable events by banging pots and pans.  But...why?

CBS Local has you covered.

https://youtu.be/K1g6p8CjS0c

In other news

There was an interesting story coming from the world of college football. LSU is partnering with a company which developed, essentially, a portable air conditioner for football helmets?  Whaaaa? That's crazy but, ahem, cool.

https://www.si.com/college/2023/06/01/lsu-tigers-air-conditioned-helmets-2023-season

Science News

Sometimes I'm simply amazed by how little we actually know about our world, and nearby space. There was an article about an object that has been in orbit around Earth for a very long time, and yet we didn't actually know about it.  How does that happen?

https://www.livescience.com/space/the-moon/new-quasi-moon-discovered-near-earth-has-been-travelling-alongside-our-planet-since-100-bc

Don't miss this

Maybe its just me, but the story about Walt Disney World shuttering the Galactic Star Cruiser hotel/immersive experience after a little over a year is just odd.

The idea for the experience mostly came from the previous CEO, and it was (a) expensive and (b) met with some early negative reviews.  So maybe its not a surprise.  Or then again, maybe its simply another political piece in the ongoing feud between Disney and the Florida governor.

And finally...One little spark, for your imagination....

For some reason, we seem to be all about banning books because they are deemed "inappropriate" by someone, somewhere.  Its rising in the level of absurdity...

But I am reminded distinctly of "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, which was published in 1953.  In this fictional work, Bradbury talked about a futuristic dystopian society where books were banned, and firefighters were used to burn books.

Who would have guessed that he was actually predicting a future 70 years out?

This book is recommended reading, and you don't even have to go to a library to get a copy.  Just go here:

https://www.ccsoh.us/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=16792&dataid=23409&FileName=Fahrenheit%20451.pdf

Soarin challenge update #2

As I noted in my previous post, I wrote about how I stopped playing the game myself. And mentioned that I had created another player who was at #3. 

Allow me to elucidate. I wanted to get all the way to #1, but getting there actually playing the game was improbable, given how everyone in the top 10 keeps playing to maintain their position. 

So I decided to write a *very simple* script that played for me. I won't bore you with the details of how I set it up, but essentially, I had the cursor move and click on random answers for each question. 

Boom. It took off. I climbed quickly into the top 20.  The hit rate was about 20% correct, but that's close to what I'd expect since I randomized answers and was really just guessing…

Of course, I could have written better code, or even tracked answers to up the percentage correct. 

But I didn't want to do more than my initial 30 minutes of work building the code. And I could just let it run, so why bother? I opted to leave it. 

I figured the program could outwork everyone, get to #1 and I'd set the number really high. 

Except … the person who was at #1 clearly had a similar mindset. 

As far as I can tell "he" has a more sophisticated automation, and it kicked off every time I pulled within 300k, and pushed his lead back to 500k. 

I started to think my "life goal" would remain unfulfilled. 😆

And then…something unusual happened. While it was running today, I slipped past him. 

I took the lead!

(That's my auto player at #1, bruh!)

I don't know how or why. And I don't care. 

I also don't care that in the evening, he started playing again and retook the lead. 

For a few glorious hours, I was on top. 

And no one can take that away. 

And if I continue to challenge the player, he and I can have scores so high that no one will EVER catch us. 

That was a lot of fun. And I'm glad I did it. Hopefully I can see my name in lights when I go back to the attraction one day. 

Oh. And I should point out that my personal game moved back up to #7 without me playing. I was getting points for other red team members playing while I was tracking my rise to fame. 

Soarin challenge. Update #1

I kept playing. Got to 1,500,000 points and was sitting in the #5 position.

But what I noticed was that everyone in the top 10 was playing at times, and trying to hold their position.

So I kept getting pushed backwards.

I decided that my stated goal of moving to #1 was going to be unachievable by just playing the game.

….and that's when I decided I couldn't take that laying down!

I opted for a new approach, which I'll detail in a subsequent post.

But I'll tell you this: in the screen shot attached, the player in the #3 position is also me. And that's why my relative position is #6.

An update on the job situation

A month has passed since my last official day at work. And I have to say I love being unencumbered by the nonsense that is work. My days of leisure are wonderful.

Being slightly older, I have friends in my age group who are retired, doing their own thing, or just living their best life. And their general advice is to follow my own dreams and not go back to work for "the man" … which is good advice but I'm not sure if that's feasible. We'll see, I guess?

In any event, before I left my old company, I had applied to around 30 jobs. A few were somewhat immediate rejections based on geography, desired skills, etc.

Most were still open but looked like interviews might happen after I left.

And 6 were in active status. For those, I had been through 11 interviews, including two on my last day in what was a very awkward sort of series of events that I won't detail here. But it was memorable.

And then…A little under a week after I left, I heard from one manager that I was THE candidate they wanted, and they wanted to make me an offer.

But.

There's always a but!

They couldn't because they needed a senior level person to sign off on hiring.

Because.

Oh good another caveat.

That same day, the company announced that due to the debt ceiling issues, there was likely to be an economic downturn and all positions are closed. No hiring will be done until further notice.

Thanks 11 congressional mother fuckers for impacting my life. Dumbasses. I need to send them a thank you letter for looking out for everyday Americans. (Quick aside: if it turns out I want to do something else then this was a blessing in disguise. But I'm in a unique situation. Most people will get royally screwed by this)

So that one job…it has to be approved by someone high up in the company. I'm not holding my breath.

And all the other jobs went into limbo. I got some rejections. A few nice well wishes from people I'd interviewed with. And a lot of nothingness in the void.

I did look at internal jobs just to see what was up. And there were just a few jobs - in the entire US - all in sales.

So here I stand. Trying to make my next move.

As I've noted before, my life is a bit different than it was in "the before time" and I need to figure out who I am And what I want to do.

Soarin' Challenge

Recently I was at Epcot, and went into soarin…great ride.

I started playing the soarin' challenge and was doing pretty well. For some reason, I wasn't geo blocked once I left the attraction, though my son was (go figure). So I kept playing. And I'm currently 7th best all time.

Missing the point…

Disney made an announcement this afternoon about vacation packages, for trips beginning in January, 2024.

And the bloggers seemed to have focused on the wrong things.

Disney said that the dining plan would be returning. Everyone was looking forward to the return of a free plan. But Disney didn't say "free dining," just a tiered plan. Perhaps it will wind up being included in the vacation package, but I'm sure it will be relatively expensive. But people will, ahem, eat it up. Assuming it's included in some way.

One thing Disney is particularly adept at is selling something to the paying public and telling them how great it is. Even if it is actually not a cost effective thing - because it's all about how you position it.

The second part was something that actually made me chuckle. "Disney is doing away with the reservation system" …. The fine print part was "for date based tickets; other tickets will still have to make a reservation"

If you are buying a vacation package, and have dates to visit. And you select your park (which is a component of the booking). Then you are, in effect reserving a date. Even if you don't call it a reservation.

And for annual pass holders, you still need to help them plan so you still need a reservation. But I'd wager they'll change the name from reservation to something else so they can say that did away with reservations.