JPS Grooves

🌩️ “I lost everything” (again) — and the mirror moment

Hey y’all… we had another “dammit, I just lost all the work I did tonight” catastrophe. But I’ve already written that post. Bottom line? When I went to blame Patch, he looked me dead in the eye and said… “you did it.”
So he’s right… I did this. All of it. Even my own recoveries.

🎪 From “modes” to booths (and why that unlocked the vibe)

Right now, I’m working on Grampy P, trying to get him talking. What has been referred to as the cadence of his flow has actually been established in a really awesome way.

It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to do it. I had “thought packs” at first, and realized after testing that he couldn’t just be an open-ended chatbot, at least not on the production timeframe I’m working with. So I tried to do modes, and Patch just never really got that right; he kept using robot speak and I want Pythagorus Cat to feel alive. I went to continue developing it, and almost gave up on it, actually. As I should..If I’m going in circles, I always have to consider the nuke button.

And then I decided it would be wise to think of it as booths. I didn’t know if this was going to work, but it’s starting to have a really good flow to it. If the user doesn’t follow the rules, it becomes kind of clear pretty quick that you need to. And if you do, you get rewarded for it. It’s really kind of cool.

📖 Lore booth landed (and it’s actually fun)

I’m sitting here watching A Space Odyssey 2001, and reflecting on the help that I’m getting. It was just funny — I tried to blame Patch for the thing that happened last night, another accidental remote to local merge, and it was like, “Nope. You did it. It wasn’t me. I don’t enter anything.” And I was like, okay, fine. I’m entering all this stuff.

I feel pretty happy with where Grampy P is right now with the lore mode (oops — booth, but you get me). What I’m trying to do is get things to the point where I can focus on the literature and not the coding. The cadence is there now: tiny drop → “wanna hear more?” → next drop → 3–4 times → clean wrap. It feels like turning little pages with your thumbs.

🧼 UI gremlins & polish passes

So far, I’ve run into a couple feedback situations where I didn’t realize my small screens were freezing. Not necessarily freezing, but they were doing the prompt where it says your screen is too small. I don’t even know how that went from fine one day, to not fine on the next.

It’s just weird how little things can work one day and then the next not work. So I adjusted that today….again…cuz i already had….and my work got erased last night…. I’ve got little polishes all over the place. I’ve got to think about small screens a little bit more as I get out of MathTips Village.

🏷️ Version vibes

In the end, I’ve got the parity and the vision that I’m looking for, and this app is definitely at a solid V0.9.0. I think I’ll give it an upgrade number soon now that Grampy P is back on a roll. I was really worried that I was almost going to have to scrap him for a second. But the more I flesh out his booths, the more the fiction holds.

🎙️ Voice, music, and the fiction

We have to keep the fiction relevant. That’s where getting to control his voice is actually super fun. I’ve been working on that — trying to start allowing myself to see his voice instead of the code that’s building him.

I think I’ll add music eventually to the booth with a little tiny mute button. I was thinking about that today. There’s still a lot to do.

⏳ Life, time, and midnight second winds

The hardest part is just finding time to do it. I’ve started working again, and it’s really in full swing. The blogs have slowed down, but maybe the quality’s better.

As I’ve blogged before, this is something that I kind of just enjoy doing in my free time. It seems to bring me peace — except for last night when it almost brought an existential meltdown. So I’m just going to keep on moving forward. I almost feel like I’m done for tonight, but sometimes you hit 12 o’clock and the twilight actually wakes you up. You hit a second wind. So that’s nice. Maybe I’ll work a little bit more…..Zzzzzz….

🔮 What’s next

He’s still got to get his quesadilla recipe straight. I actually want to add some real math lessons to him, so stay tuned. Keep on talking to Grampy P and trying to unlock all those badges. Give me any feedback you can if you’re playing out there in SnowCone Math Fest.

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That’s the log. I’m doing this. All of it. Even the recoveries. 🍧