Harper Kingsley blog

September 4, 2016 0 comments

Thank you for another crappy update @Microsoft #knthx

Last night, I was trying to go to bed and clicked for my computer to shut down. Instead, it popped up saying there were updates ready to be installed. Being me, I said okay to the updates, figuring it was going to take a few minutes and I could crawl into the warm comfort of my bed.

TWO HOURS LATER I was finally able to find my bed and I was glad.

Only this morning, when I turned on my computer, there was something new on the Lock Screen. A little pink circle with “Tap the circle and say ‘Microsoft stock quotes'” or something like that.

Turns out, the newest update has added Cortana to my lock screen. Which enables anyone with my computer to tap the circle and access things from the Internet, call up my calendar, and VIEW ALL MY PICTURES.

So yeah, go into Cortana and shut off some or even all of the privacy-killing settings if you have any plans to use your laptop/computer/device outside of your home.

Otherwise anyone can access your stuff, and they won’t even need to steal your passwords to do it.

Oh, and did you know that Cortana keeps a record of your browsing history? That it keeps a stealth copy of your stuff for ease of access? I shut that down too.

* * *

Seriously, what’s the deal with everyday programs beginning to act like freemium apps? If I wanted assholes to have access to all my stuff, I’d post everything on the Internet.

So Microsoft, if you’re out there, if you’re listening, please, please, PLEASE stop trying to invade my privacy in the most underhanded ways possible. If you’re going to be evil, just be evil. Stop trying to make it my fault that you’re stealing my stuff.

It’s getting to the point that I’m considering jumping operating systems. The only thing stopping me is that I want my programs to work on my laptop and I’m lazy. But if things continue on as they are…

I’ll have to break up with you Microsoft. Not because I really want to. But because you’re abusing the fuck out of my trust.

September 2, 2016 0 comments

Walmart: Pick it up Today program is garbage

I thought I would get over my anger, but you know what, days later, I’m still angry. Why? Because the Kid had to go to school with handfuls of nothing because Walmart’s Pick it up Today program is garbage.

School started Aug 31. Knowing that I didn’t want to have to push and shove my way through crowds of people all trying to get supplies for their kids, I had the bright idea of using money from Paypal and buying things online. Which led me to Walmart.com.

I’ve attempted to shop at Walmart.com before and it didn’t go well. (I had a cartful of stuff carefully curated over an hour of browsing, but when I clicked to checkout, everything in my cart disappeared.) I should have taken it as a sign that I wasn’t meant to shop at Walmart.com, especially considering how jank their site is. Seriously, their listings are nonsense, their pages take a ridiculous amount of time to load, and the UI is infuriating, like a step back in time to when the Internet sucked.

Anyways, I thought I’d give them another chance. More fool me.

I picked out a bunch of stuff with the expectation that I could get things delivered to my door. Instead, I was notified that only part of my order could be delivered, everything else would be gathered up waiting for me at Customer Service as part of the Pick it up Today program.

Considering I didn’t want to have to go to Walmart to pick up anything, I still put in the order and was told my Pick it up Today stuff would be ready by 10 am Aug 26. Plenty of time before school.

And I waited.

Meanwhile, packages are coming in the mail and we’re getting stuff, just not an email saying to come pick up the rest of the school supplies. Finally on the 30th I see on the website that my Pick it up Today stuff was still processing. So I called Walmart.

The local Walmart told me that there was nothing on their computer saying to put my order together. And without an order, they couldn’t do anything for me. Here’s the number to the guys running Walmart.com.

So I call Walmart.com, where I’m transferred to a supervisor and expect that my difficulties will be handled. Instead, I’m told that Walmart.com has nothing to do with my order once it’s placed, all Pick it up Today things are handled by the store. Oh, and by the way, “I can cancel the order for you and put in for a refund. That’s all I can do. It will take 5-10 days before processing.”

At that point, I was really angry. And even though I wanted to yell at the woman on the other end of the phone, I didn’t. Though I did say, “I feel so angry and disappointed right now. I feel like I might want to Tweet about your company’s horrible customer service, and post things on Tumblr” and whatever. I was mad.

But here I am. Days later, and I’m still angry and frustrated.

Why?

Because instead of soothing an angry customer and helping them get the things THEY PAID FOR, I was told by the Walmart.com rep that the only things I could do was cancel the order and request a refund, or call the local Walmart and talk to a manager.

And when I called the local Walmart and asked to speak to a manager? I was left on hold for 15 minutes with no hold music, after being on the phone for OVER AN HOUR begging someone to give me my stuff.

So I canceled the rest of the order myself and drove to Walmart to scavenge through the wreckage in search of school supplies. On the night before school starts.

And what do I find? They were out of graph paper, which was part of my order.

And I can’t help thinking that rather than tell me they couldn’t fulfill my entire order and giving me a partial refund, Walmart instead went “Pft, she won’t want the rest of this stuff without that graph paper. We won’t bother to tell her we’re screwing her over.”

But whatever excuse they have, they boned me.

Because of Walmart.com’s terrible customer service and lack of ability to do ANYTHING to fix the problem, the Kid had to go to school without some supplies. And once again, I’m the one that didn’t come through for him. Once again, I’m the disappointment that couldn’t get him the things he needed to have a good first day of school.

And that’s on me. Because I ignored my instincts and ordered from Walmart.com. Something I will never do again.

August 7, 2016 0 comments

WIP: Death and Layla Hanson [game]

I’ve been working on a couple of Ren’Py games and they’re coming along… okay. It’s been a lot better since I learned how to use screens (namely what “tag” does) and I think my first (very simple) Ren’Py game will be ready in a week or two.

At the same time, I’ve also discovered Twine. It’s a very simple to use CYOA story engine that produces html pages.

My first Twine “game” is “Death and Layla Hanson“. It is currently a work-in-progress, but you can take a look at it if you’re interested.

I’ve been adding to it and changing the styles and formatting, so you might see it change from one visit to the next.

To help with tracking the changes, I’ve added navigation at the top.

Death and Layla Hanson

This is the first screencap I took:
Screencap of Death and Layla Hanson

And this is the second screencap:

Screencap of Death and Layla Hanson

If you’re interested, you can check out “Death and Layla Hanson” at Kimichee.com/games/Death_and_Layla_Hanson.html.

July 19, 2016 0 comments

Aeridale: Working on my game

In case you were wondering what’s been going on, I’ve been working on my Ren’Py game(s). The first one is called Aeridale, which is the story of an orphaned girl that grows up to find adventure, romance, and possibly aliens. It all depends on the choices you make while playing.

^ Above is a screencap of the script.rpy file. The “[mc]s” will show as Aeridale’s name when the game is played. Because the name is left unspecified, this will allow the possibility of giving the player the ability to input their own name if I add that option. (I’m still thinking about it.)

When the player gets to the startingchoices option, they can choose Action/Adventure, Romance, Horror, or Science Fiction storylines. There are trophies to be gathered and bonus content that can be unlocked.

Depending on the storyline chosen, there’s the possibility of a love-interest, friendship, or just Aeridale learning to kick ass and take names. She starts as a lonely girl desperate to survive and becomes a woman that refuses to lay down and die.

Right now I’m finishing up the script and drawing/painting/stealing artwork to be used as backgrounds, objects, and sprites. Though at the moment I’m actually thinking that I won’t use an Aeridale sprite at all, leaving her appearance up to the mind of the player? Because honestly, how often do you see yourself when you’re talking? Like almost never, right? So maybe instead of a sprite I will represent her with an image denoting the romance choice, or the action choice, or whatever. I’m still working on that, and it’s not really pressing as it doesn’t affect the script much — it’s just the addition of a few lines of code here and there (“show Aeridale happy at left” will display the image defined as “Aeridale happy” standing to the left side. Simply enough, I add the image definition in the pregame code, then I can use those images anywhere I want.).

Aeridale will be about 4+ hours of gameplay to run through all the opened options, plus however long to go through the bonus material. It seems like a lot of work to put the game together — and it is, hours and hours — but it’s basically a lot of me thinking “Aeridale does this and then she does this because of that, which leads to this and that, the end”. Everything logically follows itself, though I did manage to write a loop which kept going back to the same menu screen over and over again before I figured out where I’d messed up. I’m learning a lot as I’m doing.

Other games I’m scripting: “Harper Kingsley’s Heroes & Villains”, “Kimichee 001”, and “Romantica.”

I’m hoping to release my first free game by early next month. I’ve already got an itch.io page and I’ll be sending out download keys to my Patreon subscribers.