A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

Unpublished

Drafts and scheduled posts that are not yet published.
Unpublished posts

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A Seer Without Peer

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 4/8/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 2
Hashtags: #ScienceFiction #Predictions #Technology #AI #AgingGratefully #SmartGlasses #AR #Implants #NFC #Nanomedicine
In 2013 I wrote a novel stuffed with tech that didn't exist yet. Thirteen years later, most of it does. Happy birthday to me.
Estimated reading time: 7 minute(s) (1466 words)

I turned 72 today. Most people celebrate with cake. I'm celebrating by tallying up the technologies I invented in a novel thirteen years ago—and discovering how many of them have since walked off the page and into reality.

Two Doors to Every App

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 4/2/2026 Unpublished
Hashtags: #Programming #AI #CommandLine #SoftwareDesign
Why every modern app should have both a graphical interface for humans and a command-line interface for AI.
Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s) (986 words)

This is advice for programmers, but if you're a regular person who's savvy enough to create a desktop shortcut that does something specific—and you'd be surprised how easy that is—you'll find something useful here too.

See Papa's CPAP

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/30/2026 Unpublished
Hashtags: #Autobiography #Aging #Health #CPAP #SleepApnea #MedicalDevices
A history of CPAP technology, a personal journey through sleep apnea, and a look at what might replace the mask.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (25 words)

[Draft in progress. See HTML comments for essay notes and structure.]

The Sleeping Prophet's Report Card

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/29/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 1
Hashtags: #Autobiography #Aging #Health #Spiritualism #EdgarCayce #Holistic #CastorOil #Almonds #Alkaline #Osteopathy
Grading Edgar Cayce's health predictions against what modern science has found, fifty years after I first encountered his work.
Estimated reading time: 8 minute(s) (1699 words)

In 1974, in the Spiritualist camp of Cassadaga, Florida, I met a woman named Marguerite Card. She was a medium, a teacher, and the first person who ever handed me a book about Edgar Cayce. I was twenty-three, recently out of the Navy, and open to anything that did not require me to sit in a pew. I read the book in two days. Then I read another one. Then I started ordering the actual readings from the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach. I have been studying Cayce's work, off and on, for over fifty years now. Long enough, I think, to offer a report card.

Why I Hate to Sweat

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/28/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 3
Hashtags: #HotSprings #Florida #AgingGratefully #Sweating #Thermoregulation
A lifelong aversion to sweating, and the surprisingly logical reason our bodies make it feel so awful.
Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s) (833 words)

In fifth grade at Cathedral Parish School in Panama City, Florida, first period was P.E. It was already muggy by 8 AM in late spring, and I'd just walked a couple of blocks from home after a nice big bowl of Cheerios with banana. Sister took attendance, and we headed across the parking lot to the old Lyceum building, where Coach Drozd promptly got us out of his hair by sending us on a morning run. Down the street we went—right past my house, which I could see but not escape to—and back again. And with the heat, and the running, and the sweating, I threw up the Cheerios and bananas on the sidewalk in front of God and everybody. I also hate throwing up. But not as much as I hate sweating.

Skills of an Author

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/27/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Writing #Fiction #Books #Opinion
Writing fiction requires at least five distinct skills. Most writers are good at two or three. Here's what to do about the rest.
Estimated reading time: 11 minute(s) (2457 words)

Everyone thinks they have a novel in them. Most people are wrong—what they actually have is an anecdote in them, which is a very different animal, the way a goldfish is a very different animal from a blue whale even though they both swim. But for those who genuinely do have a novel in them, the hard truth is that having the novel is not the same as being able to write it. Writing fiction requires at least five distinct skills, and most writers—including published, award-winning, commercially successful writers—are really good at two or three of them and faking the rest.

Three Minds

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/27/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 1
Hashtags: #ArtificialIntelligence #Dogs #Cognition #NeuralNetworks
How AI actually thinks, compared to the human mind and the mind of a dog.
Estimated reading time: 7 minute(s) (1530 words)

People ask me how AI "thinks." The honest answer is: a lot more like you than you'd expect—and a lot more like your dog, too. All three of us—human, canine, and artificial—are pattern matchers at heart. We just run on different hardware.

What Makes Science, Science?

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/27/2026 Waiting Page Views: 6
Hashtags: #Science #ScientificMethod #Neanderthals #Evolution #CriticalThinking #Epistemology #Vaccines #Supplements #AgingGratefully
From bathtub experiments to birch tar distillation, a look at how science became science—and why some brains handle it better than others.
Estimated reading time: 11 minute(s) (2553 words)

The pattern looks like this: You learn a little about something—vaccines, nutrition, climate, whatever—and your confidence shoots up. You've read an article! You watched a documentary! You feel like an expert. This is the peak of Mount Stupid, and we have all stood on its summit at one time or another, gazing out over the landscape of our own ignorance and mistaking it for mastery.

How Sharper Than A Serpent's Photo

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/26/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 109
Hashtags: #DigitalPhotography
What does 480i or 1080p mean? How we measure and improve photo resolution.
Estimated reading time: 7 minute(s) (1590 words)

Everybody wants sharp photos. Camera makers promise ever-more megapixels, TV ads scream about 4K and 8K, and your phone brags about its 108-megapixel sensor. But what do any of those numbers actually mean? And more importantly, do bigger numbers always mean better pictures? (Spoiler: not always.)

Slider

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/24/2026 Unpublished
Hashtags: #Organizica #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #OrganizicaLib #CustomControls #WinForms #UserControl #Slider #TrackBar
A custom trackbar replacement with transparency, diamond/round/square thumbs, an Items collection with snap-to and per-item enabled state, and built-in header labels.
Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s) (976 words)

Slider is a custom UserControl that replaces the standard WinForms TrackBar with a fully owner-drawn slider supporting transparent backgrounds, configurable thumb shapes, an optional Items collection with snap-to behavior and per-item enabled state, and built-in header labels for value display. It supports both horizontal and vertical orientation, RightToLeft layouts, mouse wheel navigation, and keyboard control—all painted flicker-free with double buffering.

OzListBox

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/24/2026 Unpublished
Hashtags: #Organizica #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #OrganizicaLib #CustomControls #WinForms #OzListBox #ListBox #SelectionColors
A ListBox with customizable selection highlight colors, owner-drawn internally so the consumer never touches DrawMode.
Estimated reading time: 2 minute(s) (458 words)

OzListBox inherits from the standard WinForms ListBox and adds two properties—SelectedBackColor and SelectedForeColor—that let you change the selection highlight to any color pair you want. The control handles owner-draw internally, so from the consumer's perspective it behaves exactly like a regular ListBox: you add items, read SelectedItem, handle SelectedIndexChanged, and never think about DrawMode.

OrientationGrid

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/24/2026 Unpublished
Hashtags: #Organizica #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #OrganizicaLib #CustomControls #WinForms #UserControl #OrientationGrid #Orientation #Alignment
A compact 3x3 grid of buttons for selecting a position or alignment—useful for crop alignment, watermark placement, and similar orientation pickers.
Estimated reading time: 2 minute(s) (385 words)

OrientationGrid is a tiny UserControl that arranges nine flat buttons in a 3×3 grid, each representing a position: TopLeft, TopCenter, TopRight, MiddleLeft, Center, MiddleRight, BottomLeft, BottomCenter, and BottomRight. Click a button and the control highlights it using ForeColor, sets the Orientation property, and raises OrientationChanged. It is ideal for crop-alignment pickers, watermark placement selectors, and any UI that needs a quick spatial position choice.

Aspecta Command Line

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/23/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 1
Hashtags: #Images #Photography #Automation #Software #Conversion #Tools #CommandLine
How to use Aspecta from the command line for batch processing, scripting, and automation.
Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s) (648 words)

Aspecta is not just a pretty face. Everything it can do through its visual interface, it can also do from the command line—which means you can script it, batch it, and let your AI assistant drive it without ever opening a window.

How Aspecta Works

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/23/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 2
Hashtags: #Software #Images #MagickNET #VBNET #ImageMagick #Architecture
A non-technical look at the technology behind Aspecta's image processing.
Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s) (816 words)

A non-technical look at the technology behind Aspecta—how it processes images, why your originals are always safe, and what makes the live preview possible.

CommandLineArgs

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/23/2026
Updated: 3/23/2026		 Unpublished Page Views: 1
Hashtags: #Organizica #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #OrganizicaLib #CommandLine #CommandLineArgs #Arguments #Parser
A command-line argument parser that maps positional files and named parameters into a case-insensitive dictionary.
Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s) (1009 words)

Every command-line tool needs to turn that messy array of strings into something useful, and CommandLineArgs does exactly that. It parses positional file paths, named parameters, and boolean flags into a single case-insensitive dictionary—so your tool can focus on its actual job instead of string-splitting.

AI-Bridge

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/21/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 2
Hashtags: #Claude #Windows #Automation #AIBridge #MCP #Screenshots #UIAutomation #Win32
An MCP server that gives Claude the ability to see and interact with native Windows applications.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (56 words)

AI-Bridge is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives Claude the ability to see and interact with native Windows desktop applications. It provides tools for taking screenshots, clicking UI elements, typing text, reading accessibility trees, and more—essentially giving Claude a set of eyes and hands on the Windows desktop.

LookHere

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 3/21/2026 Unpublished Page Views: 3
Hashtags: #Windows #Claude #MCP #NET #Win32 #LookHere #Screenshot #Grayscale #JPEG #PrintWindow
A lightweight .NET command-line tool that captures any Windows application window as a compact grayscale JPEG screenshot for Claude.
Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s) (679 words)

LookHere is a lightweight .NET command-line utility that captures any Windows application window as a compact grayscale JPEG screenshot. I built it specifically so that Claude, working through the AI-Bridge MCP server, could actually see what's happening on my screen—something that turns out to be surprisingly tricky to do well within the constraints of MCP tool results.

Converting Your Existing Site to OrganizicaWeb

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 12/27/2025 Unpublished Page Views: 2
Hashtags: #Organizica #OrganizicaWeb #WebsiteDesign #ASPClassic #ASPNET
How to update or convert your existing ASP Classic website to OrganizicaWeb (asp.net).
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (214 words)

Converting a web site from one platform to another is usually a Big Deal. And, obviously, the more pages the site contains, the bigger a deal it is. While a small site can be converted manually, it makes sense to have a program do the work. If properly designed, such a program would make converting a large site as easy as converting a small one; and could even facilitate a business doing that for various sites.

Dental Implants

By: Paul S Cilwa Occurred: 8/1/2025 Unpublished Page Views: 5
Hashtags: #Autobiography
My latest entry in Aging Gratefully.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (22 words)

I am missing upper teeth 1-7 and 9. I'd love to have dental implants so I can play Santa next year.

Creating a New OrganizicaWeb Site

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 11/30/2024 Unpublished Page Views: 2
Hashtags: #WebsiteDesign #OrganizicaWeb #ASPNET
With folders and subfolders it's easy to create, manage and maintain a website with OrganizicaWeb.
Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s) (601 words)

To create an OrganizicaWeb site, you have two choices: Either create a site from scratch, or copy a template project. Anyone can do the latter; but this section of my site is about understanding it, first. So we'll start from scratch, which means starting Visual Studio and telling it to create a new project of the type ASP.NET Web Application (.NET Framework). That brings up the configuration dialog.

Super Finley

By: Paul S Cilwa Occurred: 5/15/2024 Unpublished Page Views: 6
Hashtags: #Autobiography
My latest entry in Aging Gratefully.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (5 words)

The introductory paragraph goes here.

Creativity, Mark 2.0

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 9/26/2022 Unpublished Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Retirement
Just because things are being done differently now is no reason to not do them.
Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s) (990 words)

I had been writing stories, mostly science fiction and fantasy, since I was in kindergarten. (Okay, technically my kindergarten stories were mostly about the family driving somewhere and having to stop for Gulf gasoline; but by third grade they had become more sophisticated.) As a child of the Golden Age of Television, film and TV just seemed to me to be the preferred way of telling a story, which was my real goal. And I somehow had learned that the director is the one whose vision of the story most comes through. So it made sense to me that that was the career I wanted.

Organizica: Percentage class

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 6/28/2021 Unpublished Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Organizica #VBNET #Percentageclass #ObjectOrientedProgramming #OrganizicaExplorer
A general purpose class for easily calculating percentages and values without bothering with all that math stuff.
Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s) (495 words)

I have dyslexia, and as a partial consequence I can never get the equation for calculating percentages right on the first try. Which side does the 100 go on, and is it divide or multiply? And so, for me at least, it makes sense to get it right once…in a reusable function (or, better yet, object) that I can reference by name when needed? And thus is born the Percentage class.

Organizica: SqueezeBox control

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 6/23/2021 Unpublished Page Views: 1
Hashtags: #Organizica #OrganizicaExplorer #UserControl #PostFilterProperties
Creating the basic SqueezeBox user control.
Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s) (1162 words)

Visual Basic comes with a number of splitable panel-type containers. However, in my initial experiments, I found they had three major problems with regard to this project.

Organizica: Visual Basic project

By: Paul S Cilwa Posted: 6/22/2021 Unpublished Page Views: 2
Hashtags: #Organizica #VisualStudio #VBNET
Creating the Visual Basic Organizica project.
Estimated reading time: 2 minute(s) (384 words)

On this page we'll create the basic Organizica project. including the main form.