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A few months ago, I entered a writing contest called "Dear Aliens." The concept was to write a short piece communicating what aliens visiting Earth should know before they arrive.
What a fun premise! I couldn't resist sending in an entry, which I've reproduced in its entirety below. This was also the first (and possibly only) "writing contest" I've entered. If you know me, I hope you'll find that my entry reflects perfectly my oeuvre:
Alas, I did not win, place, or even show. To see the entries that did win, visit the contest website.
The other day, I saw a brilliant idea come across my Instagram feed. I only wish that I knew who posted it so I could give them credit.
Instead of putting your telephone number or address on a luggage tag, the idea is to use a QR code with that information.
By now, thanks to the pandemic, everyone knows what to do with a QR code, and obfuscating your details in this way prevents a nefarious person from glancing at it and putting it to ill use.
I used the QR generator built into Apple's Shortcuts app to make mine, and then I printed them using a label printer.
But you don't need any of this. The easiest way to make a QR code is to follow the instructions that I posted earlier. It doesn't require a special app, just your web browser and DuckDuckGo.
Note: If you're using it to create a phone number tag, which is what I did, preface the phone number with TEL:. (i.e., tel:+13125551234567) This tells the scanning device that it's a telephone number for dialing, and the "+" ensures it works internationally. An iPhone will automatically do the right thing without these details, but you want this to be universal, so this is the surest approach.
I'm a big fan of "choose your own adventure" (coya) stories, so when I came across Jendia Gammon's new (2026) book in the ur-text series, it was an instant purchase.
But Dungeon Crawl at the Haunted Mall is no throw-back. It is very contemporary in its language and setting. It's all about a group of kids exploring an abandoned '80s shopping mall that is, as you may have guessed from the title, haunted. Gammon's prose milks the decade's theme in all the right ways. Descriptions of turquoise decor, pay phones, and leg warmers made me smile. But true to my advancing age, I stumbled over a character with an unexpected non-gendered pronoun. (It was good for me.)
The story has ten possible endings. The only flaw that I found was that my first several choices were very linear and led me to multiple dead ends. However, after experiencing a couple of the endings, I backed up and found most of the others. All of them were satisfying.
Tip: When I read a book like this, I use two bookmarks. One, as usual, to keep the place when I stop reading. The second one marks the place of my last decision branch. That way, if I suddenly hit a dead end, I can go back and try another option. (I also lightly check off my decisions at each branch.)
There is an overview map on the back cover. I think the first blue branch to the right is the long, multiple dead-end trail that I encountered. The map does a good job, I suppose, of conveying the gestalt of the book, but I didn't use it during my reading. (And it's probably not intended to be used, but I believe it's a new addition to the series.)
The illustrations are contemporary, but quite good, imaginative, and enhance the story. Also, the trim size of this book is larger than its predecessors, which makes the drawings more impactful than in older books in the series.
If you also enjoy coya books, or interactive fiction in general, I recommend you pick this up. I'm excited that there might be a retro-resurgence of the genre and that new books in the series are being published. Have a look at the website linked at the start of this paragraph or, of course, the Amazon.
P.S.: During lockdown, I wrote a short online non-linear game in a coya style: The Silver Ingot: A Las Vegas Adventure
I love getting mail. It's like a surprise gift that arrives six days a week, and I look forward to seeing what I've gotten, even if some days it is only bulk mail.
But I don't like walking out to the mailbox and finding it empty. That's always a disappointment.
So I decided to add a home automation sensor that would let me know when the box has been opened, so I can rush out and see what treasures the carrier has delivered.
The mailbox is too far away from the house for a traditional sensor. Fortunately, I'm already running a LoRa network, which has a very long range (up to 1/4 mile), so I investigated the devices available from YoLink. I briefly considered their vibration sensor, but rejected using it because my mailbox shares a mounting post with my neighbor's box. And both boxes jiggle whenever either is opened. I only want to be notified when my box is opened, not theirs.
I ended up using the YoLink motion sensor instead. It's a standard passive-infrared device, but putting it inside the mailbox avoids all the usual false triggers that those devices inevitably spew. Its sensitivity to shifts in light and heat actually works in my favor, reliably detecting when the mailbox door opens.
The device comes with a magnet for mounting, which works very well for deployment inside the metal mailbox. After trying different locations, I found putting it high on the back wall works best. It's out of the way of incoming packages, and pointing it towards the opening gives it the best chance of being triggered.
LoRa signals are capable of pushing through metal, but as I wrote twenty years ago in Smart Home Hacks, when a door is open any sensor's signal can escape. But I do receive a single daily notice from the YoLink app that the device has dropped offline. That's OK because the motion trigger still gets sent reliably, thanks to that open door, so I've mostly convinced myself not to worry about the hub complaining that the device isn't constantly checking in.
An unexpected bonus of installing this system occurred during a recent out-of-town vacation. I had filed a vacation-hold request with my post office, and after a few days I started receiving notifications that the box was opened. A call to my local branch revealed that a newly hired carrier had mistakenly resumed delivery. Without those notifications, I would never have known.
Finally, a technical note: YoLink devices don't integrate with the rest of my home automation setup. I'm a firm believer in redundancy when it comes to automation, and having separate, parallel systems doesn't bother me in the least. (But there are third-party methods for integration, such as Home Assistant and Homebridge.)