Sleepypete's Pillow

Spotting news stories again …

Apple are doing rather well it seems … That’s a Register link to a story where they are looking at stats which say that Apple PCs are not quite in the same minority as Microsoft PCs. A good thing too. Personally, I think it’s because Microsoft apparently being bent on destroying the credibility of their own software.

When a bit of software is released, it’s tough to answer “Where do we go from here ?”. And honestly, Microsoft had hit a pinnacle with Windows XP. In it’s early days, it combined everything you need out of an Operating System.

Reliability – I’d got some seriously big uptimes out of my desktops, only rebooting them for updates or if I’d turned it off over a weekend away. When things went bad, System Restore was robust enough to fix it.
Performance – Any current user of a M$ OS would scoff at this but it was different in the early days. XP was a very smooth OS and would run very happily in 256-384MB. My first laptop ran fine in 512MB. Nowadays, Windows is so bloated that I doubt it would boot up in 512MB and would be unusable if it did.
Enabling – this is key. An Operating System should let you do things on a machine (do not buy a Chromebook as they seriously fail in this) and it should enable that to happen transparently. Vista failed because it was incredibly annoying.
Compatibility – apart from some DOS stuff, XP would allow you to run your software. Try running old 16 bit software on 64 bit Windows 7. You would be able to on Linux … Same with old hardware.

However … around the time that Vista came out, an essential update (Service Pack) struck Windows XP. It effectively killed the disc caching, crippling the performance of the machine. We see it at work, where we are too often waiting for our XP machines to chatter away with their hard discs. The whole idea of disc caching is that you don’t have to wait for the disc. All the disc activity is looked after in system memory, with the changes being recorded to disc some time later. However, that update set “some time later” to “do now, make user wait”.

And so we wait for our Windows machines to do stuff while we watch the hard disc light flash away. I get the same problem on this Windows 7 laptop, it’s a fault in all current versions of Windows. My desktop is immune but only because it has a FLASHy hard disc.

Don’t get me started on drivers and software support … Ok, I touched on it above. Backwards compatibility is one of the most essential things in the computer world. (Apple fail hard here too.) Lack of compatibility comes from design decisions being made which change the driver model, with the intention of making machines more stable. What should happen is that the old driver model is retained and supported … but anything that uses it MUST be locked away in its own little sandbox. That’s how I got those 16 bit card games running – by having a WinXP sandbox virtual machine running. That sandbox emulation should be part of the underlying OS.

I’m ranting again aren’t I ?

I think my Windows 7 desktop will be the last Microsoft software I buy (although I may not get a choice). Coupled with an SSD boot drive and 8GB of system memory, it’s nice and smooth. It should last me for quite a few years before Microsoft swing their Compatibility Bat at it. From what I hear of Windows 8, it’s yet another step into horrid interfaces.

Whatever happened to the OS taking a back seat and just enabling you to do stuff with a machine ? Fancy shells do not make fancy machines. Gis the Explorer shell and we’ll put the fancy applications on top of the shell.

That’s the key error – trying to do too much with the shell. (The bit that is the base user interface).

Ok. Some shininess is good (like being able to wave over a taskbar thing and get a preview) but a lot of shininess is just a bad excuse for the horrific levels of bloating we are seeing in today’s software. And it should be achievable just by updating the shell, not the underlying OS. See Linux for an example of keeping the same basic underlying kernel and giving the user a more advanced shell.

And I think I’ve ranted quite enough for now 🙂

What is it that really makes Apples grow ? Water !

And it’s water, water everywhere at the moment. Although yesterday’s cricket did get called off due to the sun being out. (Nah – waterlogged pitch from there being so much rain). Hope people aren’t affected too much by this weather this weekend. It could definitely make the Silverstone GP interesting …

Feeling a bit :

Again right now … That’s the System Crash Pocket Dragon by the way. Poor fella’s wings will have given out on him sending him in for the crash landing.

With me it’s just tiredness. I wasn’t tired until someone asked when I had my summer leave booked … Then I got tired in anticipation. It’s only been a month since my last dose of a week off work, so I’m waiting a little longer before my next break.

Nah – the tiredness will be leftovers from the bugs from last week. Plus inactivity. Plus me running at hyperactive speed for I dunno how long. I have a problem building with doing too many hours, with not many chances to knock down the flexi credit on a Friday. Not really a problem but I don’t want to lose earned flexi credit if I can help it.

Especially if the earned flexi credit is coming at a cost to my health, which has improved enough for me to be quite possibly playing cricket tomorrow …

Possibly a little early because my right leg isn’t back to a level I’d be satisfied with yet but it’ll survive one game. Lungs have improved 🙂 I’ll play tomorrow night cos the team’s desperate for an extra body, so I’ll do the impersonation of a cricketer thing.

Yeah – it was one of those days today at work where for most of it, we’re in Necessary Evil type meetings Accepting something as big as we’re accepting doesn’t come without some really tedious meetings. But you still have to pay attention and be professional, despite your brain screaming at you to let it do something different for a while. And they’re only “tedious” because they’re dealing with minutiae which sounds boring now but which trips you up later if you don’t deal with it now.

What you don’t want in those meetings is for them to suddenly become “interesting” … because “interesting” would take on the same meaning as the old Arab curse : “May you live in interesting times”. A tedious meeting with no surprises is better than hearing about stuff that means all plans are up in the air and need revising. Excitement like that sounds great but you really don’t need it in a professional environment. I’d rather be excited about what we’re delivering than excited about clearing up big messes.

But that’s not going to happen in my project – we’re very good at spotting the problems early, anticipating which cans have the worms in and keeping things on track.

Yey for us 🙂

And this is usually the point where less anonymous type people would point to a news story and say “We Wos Ere” or “That’s Us”. I refrain from that here, although it is great to see what you’ve been working on hit the national news for good reasons. And there’s precious little of that around at the moment because the newsies have been out for blood lately.

Chill out mode at the moment :
I’ve run out of gaming videos to watch off youtube;
England cricket got called off due to rain;
I’m wondering about heading into a game;
My brain is too frazzled to pick the book up (Firefox by Craig Thomas);
“I Can’t See New York” is about to start on iTunes;
(and I will be singing along)
And I’ve had enough of watching recorded stuff.

Not watched a dvd or blu-ray for way too long now. Just had way too much recorded stuff to watch, combined with there being a huge amount of cricket on the telly (despite the weather).

OMG my singing voice is dire at the moment. Almost as bad as Emma Bunton attempting to sing What I Am and butchering it.

What else ? I must be feeling ill still. I’ve been eyeing up something called Minecraft. It’s a sandbox game where you mine stuff and build stuff. It’s best in multiplayer where you’d make your own stuff but also scout around what other people are putting together.

I’m Engineer enough to appreciate putting together an elegant building or machine or other stuff you could do in Minecraft but I’m a little too much Engineer to think of something to build … Ok. I’d see about making a replica of Lords cricket ground for one. And spaceships too.

Minecraft can wait – I’ll watch the Yogscast videos for now. I think that shows how frazzled my brain appears to me when I’d rather watch videos of people playing games than actually play the game.

Time for more Tori Amos – her Scarlet’s Walk album has been playing for the duration of me writing this post 🙂 Wonder if iTunes has any Tori Amos going cheap …

As oars.

I have my first choice bat, which is actually the second last one I bought. The new one got chewed up so quickly it almost became firewood (cheap n nasty – nothing to do with me clobberin’ edges) and I have an older bat that dates back to school that’s too tired to be of any use on the field now.

They’re not seeing much service out on the cricket field at the moment – I’d pass myself as fit to play now (legs are just good enough, lungs are almost clear of bugs) but we’ve had So Much rain lately. Standing water and puddles on the road kind of rain.

Gotta wonder how much more rain our roads can take before we get a repeat of the floods from a few years ago. Bristol, or at least the northern part where I live, tends to get away without being too badly hit by flooding or snow.

Looking at ’em, yeah – you could probably use them as short oars 🙂

By the way – the CT in my car’s name doesn’t mean Canoe Transport. How is that car going ? I’ve had a “6 months on review” type post in reserve as something to write when I get really stuck for ideas. I’m not going to do that one tonight cos I think it’ll need a fair bit of rational thought, which is something I’m struggling for at the moment. (Tired and using most of my energy up in work time)

While I’ll leave the Lexus CT thing for a while, what I will say is : If you can afford to get a New, Nearly New or up to 3 year old car, you should. It’s worth it in terms of the amount of trouble free motoring you should get. My car experience so far has been :

Fiesta – 10 year old. Tired and broke a major component (master brake cylinder = no brakes)
Astra – 10 year old. Bits kept dropping off it
Belmont – 5 year old (I think!). When we bought it, it was just going through the failures … It was sorted by the time I bought it from my mum but it still had things breaking on it.
Rover – 5-6 year old. DISASTER
Puma – bought at 2 years old, ultra reliable until it was mebbe 6-7 years old, then things started breaking.
Focus – 6 years old. And hitting the bits starting to drop off phase. One major failure (inlet manifold)
My dad’s company cars – were pretty rock solid (we looked after them)

I’ve not had the CT long enough to give any reliability info, outside of there being no failures, no rattlies, no niggles (outside of iPod software) to report over 9 months and 6000 miles. Fingers crossed that it stays reliable … There’s not many complaints of mechanical failure appearing on the Lexus forums, which is good news.

You can hopefully see the pattern there … New to 4-5 years old : car’s fine. Older than that and bits start dropping off it, on modern cars as well as the old bangers. This is despite full service histories too.

There’s 2 arguments going though :
Depreciation – a car loses a lot of its value over the first 3 years. For normal cars, the retained value after 3 years can be anything between 25% and 50% of the original purchase price.
Reliability – the early years of a car really are the best.

My advice – Figure out what car you want to get. Buy as young as you can afford. And then keep it until it starts to break. That worked well with the Puma – at £9,000 for 2 years old it was just inside my price range. And it gave many years of trouble free motoring. It didn’t owe me anything … but I did leave it a bit too long before I changed car, mainly because I didn’t have a clue what the next car would be – there just wasn’t anything on the market that stood out. I got bored with the Focus quite quickly but I’m hoping to hold on to the “I wanted it” choice of the Lexus for a good few years after I finish paying for it.

I’ll leave it there I think, except to close on marvelling that the rain outside is louder than the fan inside this laptop … Commencing to drown out both sounds with music 🙂 Current track : Misguided Ghosts by Paramore.

Beware – techie stuff below !!! 🙂

When I come in from work, I’ll usually do a round trip through various news sites. I can’t really do that at work (in lunchtime of course) because our archaic browser (IE6) either goes BANG or flat refuses to open the site. That’s even sites like BBC, which will crash at random, or Metoffice, which flat refuses to load at all.

Ok – random news stuff :

Facebook phone app attempts to seize your mail.
I’m on Facebook a fair bit. It’s possibly the best way to get a message to me with a chance of me responding wherever I am (phone supports it). But the Facebook people have been getting more and more obnoxious with what they do with other people’s data. This one is the latest from them and they do it without asking for consent or even informing you what they’re doing. Which just increases the NerdRage. And as we all know, NerdRage goes viral incredibly quickly.

My phone seems untouched by the latest stuff from the app but I don’t use my phone for email anyway. I can receive my normal email and Googlemail from it but can’t send due to ISP restrictions.

Microsoft – Overclocking causes BSODs
Well – duh ! But that’s only the title of a rather confused article. Parts of it suggest that if you get a machine from a good name, it’ll last longer. Not necessarily … My last laptop (an HP) died within a year of cooler failure and the extremely bad design meant it was easier to get a new one than it would have been to fix. (Think entire laptop rebuild). But they do have a point – I build my own custom PCs because it allows me to build in the reliability that gets lost in OEM cost cutting. And I would always tell people to avoid PCWorld / Currys / Dixons etc own brand machines.

On overclocking – this is where you take a standard machine and persuade it to go faster. My current desktop runs at 3.5 Wibblies. I could probably make it go at 5.0 Wibblies (1 Wibblie = 1 GHz). But it’s not worth me doing that because :
I can’t trust the overclocked machine is getting all of its sums right
It shortens the life of the machine

The article agrees with the shortened life thing. I like my custom build PCs to just sit there on the floor doing their thing. I REALLY don’t want to have to replace a £160 cpu inside 6 months because I cooked it through overclocking.

Steam … (not an actual news story)
What’s with Steam lately ? Stability seems pretty poor right now – it just blipped me offline yet again. Good thing I’m not gaming at the moment.

BBC – I’m ignoring most of what’s on BBC.

Most of what we see there is people with hyperinflated wages misbehaving themselves. Like seeing bankers yet again making news for all the wrong reasons. This time it’s Barclays, who I will do ZERO business with because a good few years ago they called me an idiot in a letter that was begging me for business. Big mistake. There’s plenty more competition out there from banks that have respect for their customers and value them. Barclays, however, have an attitude problem.

June – UK’s wettest on record
Hell yeah. I think we’ve had more cricket called off this year due to weather than we’ve actually had chance to play. How many games have we actually played ? I can’t actually remember. Anyway. We’ve have continuous rain today, next game is supposed to be Thursday and I think I’d be physically ready for it (after bugs + leg) but I don’t think there’s much chance of it happening.

Gamespy has … nothing of interest.
I’ll keep an eye on Gamespy because they occasionally notify you of big things happening in the gaming world. Trouble is though, they are part of IGN so if you do read something on there, have major doubts as to its accuracy. Think of them as the Sunday Sport of games journalism. But poorly written articles that you then peer review against other sites is better than missing out on news totally.

Ooo eck – it’s Tomshardware time …
Mouse introduced with finger cooling fan
This really should have been announced 3 months ago. Like – April fool’s time. I can see their idea but … very, very silly.

Aside – what have I done to my left shoulder ? OW. It’s felt like I’ve jarred it from since like 5.30pm at work. It’s still functional and I don’t have a clue what I’ve done to it but it’s … distracting. The shoulder joint is complaining, as is the elbow. Urg.

Particles that Oxygenate Your Blood
Very interesting. Said the crazy person who can see all sorts of Mad Scientist applications for this one besides the medical ones. An emergency injection of these might see divers with broken respirators have enough time to get to air.

That’s it for now. I need FOOD. And none of that nutritional pizza. Cos that’s just plain Wrong.

So – I was distracting myself away from the cricket by catching up on the various Youtube channels I watch …

One of them is DexBonus hosted by the lovely Dodger. I’ve mentioned it before, it’s a video-log that is guaranteed to make me grin. Anyway – the latest one had, at the end as one of its “this vids finished, here’s some more” suggestions : “iTunes Shuffle Game“. Oh dear. Can’t resist those …

I was originally going to try and remember what made me add : “It doesn’t bode well for potential night’s sleep when your brain clicks into blog post creation mode at 1am …” to the old Facebook last night. Think it was something about weight – I have a new target there. The Feed Me Dwagon will appear if I break through to under 12 stone. However, all the deep thought from last night disappeared along with application of Rubber Sleep Mallet.

On with the meme ! I’ve done the shuffle meme a couple of times before : “Soundtrack of my life” and a just plain 25 songs Music Shuffle meme. This one’s a little different. Here goes :

(I’m not going to do Youtube links this time but may add them later)

1 – What do your friends think of you ?
Katie Melua – Halfway Up The Hindu Kush
Lol – that must mean I’m half crazy. Sounds about right.

2 – If someone asks “are you ok?” You say?
Avril Lavigne – Too Much To Ask
I have great difficulty telling the whole truth when people ask if I’m ok. Cos I’ll hide it if I’m struggling.

3 – How would you describe yourself ?
Bjork – The Modern Things
Yeah – I’m a techie. But then again, I’m not so deep a techie that I’ll buy the latest Shiny because it’s the latest Shiny.

4 – What do you like in a (significant other) ?
Ennio Morricone – Il Treno Militaire (The Military Train)
LOL !!!!!!!! Maybe that means I need some kind of trainer person to kick my butt into doing stuff. Perhaps, cos I’ve always been better at doing stuff for other people than in doing the urgent Me stuff.

5 – How do you feel today ?
KT Tunstall – The Entertainer
Pretty song – not sure how much entertaining I’ll be doing today though. I’m in a middling mood, not depressive but also not in the crazy-hyperactive mood that sees all sorts of daft comments coming out

6 – What is your life’s purpose ?
Tori Amos – Baker Baker
Gorgeous song. I used to bake stuff and did ok at it too. But I haven’t done that in decades … Maybe I should give it another try ? Have to scour the kitchen clean first though.

7 – What is your motto ?
Stiltskin – Inside
Errrm – ookay … But actually, reading the lyrics … it kinda make sense. Keeping stuff bottled up causes more damage than it might solve.

8 – What do you think about very often ?
Norah Jones – Waiting
Oh yeah – I’ll juggle stuff, set things up so other people can do stuff and then do other things while waiting for the other people. This one’s more about lost love though. My waiting of that type is more waiting for the right person to come along. Thought I’d met her a few times but nope – not yet.

9 – What is 2 + 2 ?
Vangelis – L’Enfant
Spooky

10 – What do you think of your best friend ?
Arctic Monkeys – All My Own Stunts
Not quite sure what to make of that one …

11 – What do you think of the person you like ?
Snow Patrol – The Finish Line
Again – spooky

12 – What is your life story ?
Lulu – The Man With The Golden Gun
Lol – these are getting weirder …

13 – What do you want to be when you grow up ? Engine driver!
Bat For Lashes – Moon and Moon
And a little strange again. But maybe not. This one’s a very beautiful track about partnership.

14 – What will you dance to at your wedding ?
Alisha’s Attic – Breathe In
Yeah – that’s not bad. It’s a rare B-Side but it’s one of their better ones and it’s dancey too.

15 – What will they play at your funeral ?
Guns N Roses – Dead Horse
Muahaha – with my sneezing, there’s been more than a few comments of “if you were a horse, we’d have shot you already” (comments that tended to come from people who went off sick at the slightest opportunity)

16 – What is your hobby/interest ?
Elaine Paige – A Winter’s Tale (off her Christmas album)
I’ve always got excited about getting stuff for other people, whether that’s Xmas, birthdays or just making someone special feel … special. Not getting so much excuse for that these days and I miss it. Next birthday donut run will be in November.

17 – What is your biggest fear ?
Lisa Miskovsky – Butterfly Man
Yeah – this fits. Sad song about relationship breakups (lyrics) that kinda sums up my two major relationships. I’d connect to them but it didn’t go back the same way. I think I’ve changed though since then to hopefully more open.

18 – What is your biggest secret ?
Norah Jones – Above Ground
Lol – if I told you why, I’d have to kill you. Muahahaha.

19 – What do you think of your friends ?
Tori Amos – Sleeps with Butterflies
Again with the butterflies ! But perhaps this should be the other way around …

20 – What will you post this as ?
Kate Bush – Feel It
Lol – had already picked a title 🙂

I might come back a bit later to add Youtube song/video links but that will distract away from listening to more Dodger (and TB and Jessecox) in the podcast by The Game Station 🙂

Cheers Dianne 🙂

Nah – pizza gets kept for when we head out or when I think I really need it … (Works out to about once a month). If I had it more, I'd probably be closer to 15 stone now than 12 🙂

Not played in the "oh look! torrential rain again …" for a while now 🙂 Our evening games tend to get called off long before the start if the pitch is likely to be wet.

Think I'm doing ok with the depression. The legs worsening again threatened to get me down again but they've improved again. Now my biggest worry is perhaps losing too much weight, which is not a bad worry to have 🙂

I think about ya all the time
I wonder if you're eating nothing but pizza or playing in the rain 🙂

depression can really be a bear and strangle hug you
it might help to see a doc, just sayin

hugs kid

Today’s going to be a string of “I feel like …”

… I should be travelling today.

Not gone back up norf to see the parents for a while. We were intending to head back for Father’s Day but various things meant we did separate things. Mum & Dad had a respite (from caring for my nan) weekend, I had the sneaky Le Mans watching weekend. Various things have cropped up again since then, like this weekend’s potential travel being canned mostly due to my bugs.

… I should probably go see doctors more. (Nevah!)

Monday was ok with these bugs, although I did start needing to do fake yawns to clear my sinuses and ears. Tuesday and Wednesday were the major handkerchief abuse days, with one or two people questioning why I’d come in. Why ? Cos I ignore illness wherever possible. I’d rather my body be in an active state than feeling miserable in a “I can’t do anything – I’m worthless” state.

Being active, for me at least, keeps depression at bay. And if I’m away from a depressive state, I heal better.

… a plague victim

Ok, that’s ManFlu-ing what I feel like :-). I still have the cough but it’s manageable. I’ve been keeping very active this week at work (got a problem with gathering too much flexi credit – too many curious puzzles to investigate) but I fully intend to sleep for at least 12 hours. Yes. Deep restorative sleep is probably what the doctor would order (along with pills) and it’s definitely what Dr Mad Scientist Sleepy is ordering.

… I’m hopeful that my cricket season isn’t over already

When my leg infection started flaring up again, I was thinking “oh no – this is going to develop over the next couple of months – end of season for Sleepy”. But it’s actually reacted very well to a couple of doses of the Fucidin-H antibiotic/steroid cream. I wouldn’t risk it in a game tomorrow but I’m hopeful that the reason it flared was due to my other bugs and that it’s turned the corner in recovering.

… I’m in need of focusing on something new.

In the old days, that would be looking out for new games, new books, new tv series.
Games – just finished the latest DXHR play through and have nothing in the collection shouting “PLAY ME!” just now
Books – just devoured Invincible by Jack Campbell and same – looking for something new. I’m reading Firefox (novel of the film) by Craig Thomas to tide me over.
TV series – still got lots on the box to clear but I’m struggling for new stuff to watch. Falling Skies starts up again next week, that’ll be worth watching.

Those are all distractions though. What I need to focus on is something far more real than that. And I really don’t know where to look to find that at the moment. Been trying to get a picture for an online dating site (yes – really!) for a while now but my camera hates me. It’s not recording the same face I see in the mirror. So – no picture yet.

And talking of image …

… I’m in need of new jeans

I don’t think I’ve worn my jeans for a good few weeks now. I tend to wear jogging type trousers in the evenings and jeans when I’d go out. Work uses suit type trousers or the jeans (smart casual type) on a Friday. Last Friday was different cos I was visiting the contractor’s place. Today ? My jeans felt real loose.

And that’s a really good thought to have. My jeans are 36″ waist, my suit type trousers are 34″ waist (stretchy). And the weight is still coming off.

… I should be eating something

Friday’s are always a little strange. I like to aim for a half day at work to burn up some of that flexi credit. Last couple of weeks I’ve been escaping 3.30 ish. And then I have my lunch. So at 10.30pm ish, I’ve not felt hungry enough for dinner. I’ve had bigger than average breakfast, very late lunch, nothing since. However, I know I’ll need to have something because if I don’t, that restorative sleep will be ruined by IBS type acid.

The cookie supply is in danger.

… I need someone looking out for me.

I know a few people do. There’s a bunch of people who are repeat readers of this blog (despite the walls of text!), I know you’re keeping an eye on me and it’s HUGELY appreciated. But it’s things like having to take a day off work after the latest head injury and none of the work related people checking up. That really hurt. (Pokey-people excepted!)

Head injury + Living alone = Potential for unexpected serious A&E visit
That’s why I got very worried about a colleague who got a bump on the head around Xmas time. If I’d known about that at the time ? Daily “are you ok?” “still ok?” “got bruise to show off?” “does it hurt if you poke it ?” messages. You shouldn’t kid around with head injuries. Outwardly minor ones can turn Very Bad, Very Fast and the person with the injury may not be able to get to the help they need to stay alive.

Yeah – if my marbles hadn’t been scrambled by being thumped anyway, I was in danger of hitting that Dark Place where you think “no one cares”. And the Poke War of 2012 was one thing that kept that at bay.

… I need to avoid that Dark Place

Depression is nasty. If you’re prone to it, you’ll know what I mean. It acts as a negative feedback loop where if you get caught, every action or lack of action reinforces the depression. I suffer from it but try to keep it internal. It gets really bad news if you allow your depression to hurt other people, because the guilt from that hugely reinforces the depression. Self worth is the key. Anything that attacks that self worth will cripple someone prone to depression. So if I don’t achieve my work goals – negative. If I don’t feel I matter – negative.

I try and get out of my depressive cycles by grinning at everyone in sight. But it can be tough to raise that grin if you don’t think anyone will appreciate it. (Finance Angel K and a few others in the new team are AWESOME for bringing out the grin).

… I’ve been rambling far too much.

I’d planned for travelling this weekend, so I don’t have a huge amount of supplies. But I do have several packets of cookies that are in severe danger. And I’m about to watch Dodger videos which always make me laugh, grin and tear up with laughter.

Hi Colleen! Brass In Pocket is excellent. I have it on a "will I like 'em ?" speculative buying of Pretenders – The Singles. May well buy more Pretenders albums in the hope that there's more tracks just as good.

I just danced to Brass in Pocket by The Pretenders, REM and Ziggy Marley! http://looseleafnotes.com