100 Days to Offload on Justin Vollmer

100 Posts in 100 Days

Sun, 02 Aug 2020 19:19:59 -0600

Well, I did it. 100 blog posts in 100 days. Were they of much quality? Most of them, no. There were a few that I think turned out okay.

Did I learn anything? Perhaps. Quality blogging takes a time commitment. And that is a time commitment that I am not prepared to make to turn this into a daily blog. However, I do think that I will aim for writing a single quality blog entry weekly from here on out.

I will probably also move a lot of these posts to an archive of some sort. I am considering a full re-vamp of the website in the near future, at which point I will move anything of quality to the new site, and archive the old. At least, that’s the theory. I still have some work to do to pull it off.

And thus ends my #100DaysToOffload. Thanks for taking the journey with me!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 100/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

The Making Of...

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 19:18:14 -0600

Every once in a while, I get distracted watching a video that goes into detail on how something was made. Sometimes it’s a movie. At other times, it may be a piece of art, or maybe a video game.

Today was the former: the making of Frozen 2. Was I a huge fan of the movie itself? No. It had some good parts, but overall I was underwhelmed. However, I very much enjoyed the first part of the behind the scenes video that I watched, and I look forward to finishing out that set of videos when I have a chance.

Why watch it? For inspiration. For perspective. To see what goes into the things that I enjoy. I remember watching and re-watching the Lord of the Rings extras many years ago, and it had roughly the same effect on me: it caused me to look at the movie as not just entertainment, but as a grand work of art, and as a marvel to behold.

And you know what? Sometimes, in this world, I think that can be a good thing… to gain a new perspective, a new outlook on something.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 98/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Haircut by a Robot?

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 19:17:28 -0600

Long day, so not many personal thoughts. Rather, since I ran across this article + video earlier today while on a break, I decided to share it. While I can’t say that I would want a robot anywhere near my head anytime soon… it’s definitely interesting!

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/video-friday-haircut-robot

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 97/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Congress and Tech

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 19:16:34 -0600

I followed some of the congressional hearings today involving Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon. And I must say… I get very worried about the lack of technical understanding by the people that are making the laws. Like, they can’t even keep two different services straight in their head (apparently)!

I didn’t watch enough to have any other immediate feedback, though I’ll probably try to catch up more over the weekend.

For a quick summary of what occurred today: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21335706/antitrust-hearing-highlights-facebook-google-amazon-apple-congress-testimony

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 96/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Everything Is an Experiment

Sun, 26 Jul 2020 19:14:02 -0600

I realized today that literally everything in life is an experiment. Or rather, I am constantly experimenting with different aspects of my daily life. Whether it’s tweaking my diet to see if I feel more alert, changing up the type of exercise I do, or trying to build new habits, everything is constantly open to experimentation. That even includes things that are, at this point, habit.

Why experiment? Because I’m sure there’s a better way. I don’t for a moment believe that I’ve “arrived” in any aspect of my life. That is part of what keeps me moving forward, a desire to constantly learn, grow, and improve.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 93/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Applying Self-Limits

Sat, 25 Jul 2020 19:13:19 -0600

I’ve talked about this before, but one thing I occasionally find tricky is following through plans or limits that I have given myself. For instance, I try to eat both a balanced diet (in my case, keto, but balanced based on that premise), and to also limit the number of calories I eat per day. Why? Because it’s easy for me to idly just sit and eat, or snack on something. And I don’t like the path that leads me down.

I’m still trying to figure out how to limit myself well without any form of cravings, but today I made it further than I planned on. I wasn’t overly hungry for lunch, so instead of a larger meal, I had around 300 calories worth of food. Dinner was a bit larger, and I even had a few snacks, but I kept myself from going completely wild, and therefore ended the day well below my max caloric allotment.

Will I do the same tomorrow? Hopefully. Like I said, I’m still trying to figure out a good balance of eating enough that I’m not hungry, and I can achieve my goals, while not just downing food any time I’m near the kitchen, and without having cravings. But, I’m slowly making progress in the right direction.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 92/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Living in Response

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 19:10:41 -0600

Note: I no longer recommend listening to Bill Johnson, as I have strong disagreements with his theology, but I’m leaving this up for historical purposes. (2024-11-03)

“I can’t afford to live in reaction to darkness. If I do, darkness has had a role in setting the agenda for my life. The devil is not worthy of such influence, even in the negative. Jesus lived in response to the Father. I must learn to do the same.” Bill Johnson

I was reminded of the opening quote earlier today. It’s something that I ran across years ago, and has stuck with me ever since.

Does that mean I’m there yet? No. I still struggle with reacting to events in the world, things going on around me, and in general, darkness. This is a reminder to myself that I need to live in response to the Father, and focus on His words, His plans, and His timing.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 89/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Choose Your VPN Wisely

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 19:09:12 -0600

One of the podcasts I listen to daily brought up a recent news article about several Hong Kong based VPNs that were found to expose private user data, even though they claimed that they didn’t.

Frankly, stories like this don’t surprise me anymore. As the saying goes, if you aren’t paying for the product, then you are the product (in most cases). “Free” is often too good to be true. Choose wisely!

Seven Hong Kong VPN providers accused of exposing private user data

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 87/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Bison Biltong

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 19:07:57 -0600

Yesterday, I got a delivery of bison snacks, including some Bison Biltong, with Southwest Verde flavoring. And let me tell you, it is delicious!

For those that don’t know, biltong is a form of dried, cured meat that originated in Southern African countries. Think of it as a jerky-type food.

I’ve been considering buying some bison-based snacks for a while, as I’ve heard good things about them, and they’re very high protein, low carb, low/moderate fat, which would work well for me when I need something healthy to munch on after a workout.

The trick, it seems, will be to not eat them too quickly this weekend…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 85/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Politics Politics Politics

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:06:04 -0600

Today has been another long day, and I don’t have a lot to talk about personally.

However, I would like to take this time to recommend a political podcast that I listen to: Politics Politics Politics (Px3) by Justin Robert Young (JRY).

Why listen to a political podcast? I like to keep up with what’s going on in the US politically, along with some commentary, but I don’t particularly care for either major side’s opinions. JRY is good at covering the important topics with interesting commentary, and doesn’t take any overly extreme positions on most topics.

By catching the Px3 podcast I can find out the major headlines, and not have to spend much of my time looking at (and potentially being upset by) the political news of the day. It helps keep me informed, but also even-keeled.

So, if you’re in the United States, or interesting in US politics, I’d highly recommend checking it out! It’s fun, informative, and definitely a podcast worth adding to your feed.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 82/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Long Tuesday

Tue, 14 Jul 2020 19:05:23 -0600

Today was another day where, for some reason that I don’t fully understand, I woke up an hour earlier than I intended to and was unable to fall back asleep. That, combined with doing a slightly harder workout than normal this morning, has left me tired.

Which means, that’s the end of today’s post!

Well, almost. Parting thought: I’ve been quite enjoying Cal Newport’s new podcast (I’m almost up to date with the latest episode). Check it out!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 81/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Monday, Once Again

Mon, 13 Jul 2020 19:04:11 -0600

Today wasn’t a particularly bad day. In fact, overall things went quite well. However, as seems to happen to me frequently on Mondays… I’m struggling with coming up with anything useful to write about. I considered a post of a music video, but I’d rather not. I considered some kind of length post, but… once again, I’d rather not.

I’ve read a bunch of things that I think are interesting today, but I’m not sure how much anyone else would care. And they weren’t so impactful that I need to reference them again.

And so… today’s post is just this. I’m keeping the chain from breaking, because I don’t want to be a quitter. But once 100 days are done, I do intend to reduce to 2-3 posts a week, with topics that actually matter.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 80/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Work/Life Balance

Sun, 12 Jul 2020 19:03:24 -0600

I frequently ponder the same question: if I’m doing what I’m enjoying, does it matter that I’m putting way more time into than is, perhaps, “healthy”? My question is generally specifically around the area of work. I’ve heard a number of arguments for why you should aim to achieve a “balance”, and why thinking about or focusing on work too much is a bad thing.

And yet, my question remains: what if I am actually enjoying what I’m doing? Am I getting paid extra? No. Am I putting in more hours than is perhaps “expected” of me? Yes.

But I’m enjoying it. And especially in times when I am actively thinking on a particular issue, or wanting to improve something specific with a project I am working on, I can’t necessarily turn it off easily for hours/days on end. In those cases, it can consume my waking thoughts.

I have heard one single, solitary argument for working more, and it went something like this: those who are truly great in there field didn’t get there by being balanced. Those that changed the world (or are changing the world) eat, sleep, live, and breathe the things they are passionate about.

Which leads me to my current conclusion, even though I will still question myself, I’m sure: for me, at this time, the balance is less important than doing what I’m enjoying. It’s not harming me. It’s not harming anyone else. If anything, it’s making improvements. And so, there’s no urgent reason for me to modify my routine.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 79/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Rain!

Sat, 11 Jul 2020 19:02:48 -0600

It’s raining! Again! We probably won’t get much, based on the radar. But it’s definitely welcome!

I mowed my yard again for the first time in 2 weeks. Parts of it needed a little trimming, while the rest of it is brown. Like… really brown. I’ve considered watering my yard, in an effort to keep everything looking nice, but I decided that the outcome isn’t worth the extra cost, at least at this point.

Anyhow. Other than mowing my yard, today was a relatively relaxed day. I played some 0 A.D., did a little work around the house, and spent 2-3 hours on a work project. All in all, a nice Saturday.

And… now I hear some hail. Hopefully that portion will be over soon.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 78/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Too Many Interests

Fri, 10 Jul 2020 19:02:17 -0600

I realized once again today that I have so many interests that I rarely have time to pursue them all. I can choose one to pursue for a period of time, but that unfortunately lets the others stagnate.

And to add to that issue, I constantly add to my interests. I find something new that looks or sounds interesting, and want to study up on it, or buy it (if it’s a gadget), or download it (in the case of apps). And so I frequently have large collections of things that I intend to get to, but in reality probably never will.

So what’s the solution? I don’t know. I’m getting a little better at slowing down my impulsiveness to try new things. But at the same time, I think that trait is also a strength… I constantly want to learn and do more.

And so, I guess I’ll keep pondering it…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 77/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

App Explorer: Notion

Wed, 08 Jul 2020 19:00:30 -0600

This is my first stab at another new concept post. Basically, my goal is to jot down my first reactions/thoughts on using a new app or tool.

A few weeks ago, I decided to download Notion. I’ve heard a lot about it over the years, and it seemed like an interesting alternative to Evernote/Onenote, with some added Trello/Todoist features as well.

So far, I’ve only used Notion minimally. It is a very good Markdown-based editor, although it hides the Markdown from you. You can use standard Markdown commands though, and export notes to Markdown.

It seems to be very good for taking notes, both on the desktop and on the go (mobile). I’ve never been happy with other Markdown-based tools on mobile, but this feels more like Evernote or Google Docs, not a standard Markdown editing interface.

Syncing works great. I don’t like using a 3rd party service, but I do like the ease of use.

I have yet to use anything beyond basic notes features, and some page-linking. Whenever I do, I’ll try to post another update.

Oh, and a bonus: there’s a nice Linux wrapper (AUR) for it as well!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 75/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Surprise Storm

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 18:59:45 -0600

I was outside at a friend’s house for the last hour, just standing around and talking. When we started, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. About 15 minutes before I left, there were a few sprinkles. But everything was still sunny.

Then, as I headed to my car, it started to lightly drizzle. A quick glance at the radar showed a few showers building to the west, and heading this way.

By the time I reached my house, 5 minutes later, there was a full-on storm in progress. And it’s still going on… The rain is coming down in sheets, there’s thunder and lightning, and there’s a possibility of hail even for the next 30 minutes.

In short… I was surprised! There was no forecast for rain today, and in minutes we went from hot summer day to summer thunderstorm. I won’t complain too much though, as we can definitely use the rain!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 74/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Distractions Are Easy

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 18:58:31 -0600

It’s easy to be distracted. It’s easy to sit down at the end of the day, turn on television, and turn off your mind. It’s easy to idly scroll through Facebook, Instagram, and other apps and news feeds on your phone.

You know what’s hard? Choosing to do something that makes a difference in your life and the lives of others. Getting up early to train, knowing you’ll like how you look better if you do. Choosing to read after dinner, because you want to continue learning and growing. Removing distracting apps from your cell phone, because in 20 years time you don’t want to look back at a life wasted.

Distractions are easy. Doing things that matter… it’s hard. But it’s worth it.

… And that ends Justin’s pep talk to himself for the day. 🙂

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 73/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

A Relaxing Weekend With Family

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 18:57:21 -0600

For the first time in many months (due to COVID-19), I finally got to spend a few days with my immediate family! I headed to my parents’ house on Thursday, spent the rest of the extended weekend there just relaxing, and then headed back home today (Sunday).

Honestly, this is probably the first time I really slowed down and relaxed in the last few months. When I’m at home, I am very good a keeping myself busy. I intentionally limited my options for things to do (from my normal routine) when I visited family, and so I spent an entire weekend without doing anything work-related (it’s hard to stop thinking about work entirely).

Anyhow. Now it’s time to get back into the swing of things with work, which means it’s time for me to wrap up this blog post and prepare for the week ahead!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 72/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Happy Independence Day!

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 18:56:03 -0600

It’s the 4th of July, the day that Americans celebrate Independence Day. Historically, in my family at least, it’s a day spent with family, normally with some good food (grilled, preferably), and maybe watching some fireworks in the evening.

That being said, every topic I’ve come up with to write about is much longer than I’m willing to work on tonight. And so, as I have a habit of doing… here’s a video to enjoy!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 71/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Initial Thoughts on Google Stadia

Fri, 03 Jul 2020 17:55:06 -0600

I have occasionally described myself as a technophile, due to my tendency to enjoy reading about, buying, playing with, and testing out the latest technology.

For years I was in the Google ecosystem. Name a hardware device, and I probably had it. And even though I am no longer as heavily vested in that world, I still pay attention to new products. And therefore, when Google Stadia was announced (nearly a year ago at this point), I quickly signed up, and purchased a Founder’s Edition kit (1 Chromecast Ultra + 2 controllers). I received it last November, but I’ve honestly only played with it a total of… 2-3 hours since then.

Until today. I decided to set up everything, charge the controllers, and see how things were looking after nearly 8 months of development. And you know what? It’s not bad! Most of my testing today has been 2-player “versus” battles in Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid (against another human sitting next to me). And it performed at least as well as an Xbox or Playstation does, in my experience. Gameplay and loading was essentially flawless. The graphics looked decent (mid-tier gaming PC level, I would say). And… there’s not much else to say! It just worked. No installations. Very little setup.

Now, yes, you do need a Stadia subscription currently, which I think is like $10 USD/month. But they’ve also been giving subscribers 2-3 games to add to their library a month, so for the ability to play literally anywhere with a good internet connection… it’s kind of a steal, in my opinion.

Do I still maintain a gaming PC? Yes. Will I get rid of it anytime soon? Probably not. But I do think that Stadia and similar services are the future of gaming. Being able to play a whole list of games with only a controller (or your browser + mouse/keyboard) is amazing, and for the average consumer, it opens up a whole host of new games to play without requiring a high-end gaming machine.

Some closing thoughts: doesn’t it bother me that this is from Google? Yes. I don’t like their privacy-invasive tendencies. However, I also only have this connected to my network when I’m gaming. When I’m not, it’s disconnected. And what about if they kill it off? So far I’ve only invested in the initial hardware plus the aforementioned monthly subscription. I’m not yet comfortable purchasing any additional games through it, since they’re locked to the Stadia service. If there were some kind of sync between my Steam library and Stadia, I’d be a lot more likely to make such a purchase.

In short, if you are into gaming (especially if you’re on Linux), and don’t have a high-end gaming rig already, check it out! I’ve tinkered with Stadia using Google Chrome, and it also worked extremely well. And even if you do have a gaming rig, I’d still recommend glancing at Stadia. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Final note: You do need a good internet connection for Stadia. I’ve had good success with anything higher than 50 Mbps. At 100 Mbps+, no issues whatsoever. But to perform well, you’ll need that connection. Hopefully companies figure out a better solution for lower-end connections in the future.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 70/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

The Upside

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 17:53:31 -0600

Wow. Two days in a row where I don’t know what I want to talk about…

Yesterday I picked up the first 2 comic books from Lindsey Stirling that go along with her latest album, Artemis. After reading through them, I decided to re-listen to the album today. And now I have The Upside stuck in my head. Which, I’m sure, means it’s my duty to get it stuck in everyone else’s head as well.

Enjoy!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 69/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 17:50:40 -0600

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Benjamin Franklin

“It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.” Aristotle

For some reason, both of the above quotes have been cycling through my head this evening. I’m not sure what reminded me of them, but as I have mentioned before, I tend to practice the habit of both rising early (around 4 a.m.), and going to bed early (by 9:30 p.m.).

Do those habits make me healthy, wealthy, and wise? That’s debatable. I do know that my mental performance seems to be increased when I go to bed early, and get up early. I also tend to feel better on those days than on days when I sleep in, or stay up late. However, I’m not 100% convinced that it’s not all in my head (ie, I’m convinced early to bed, early to rise is better, therefore I perform better when I follow those maxims).

Regardless, for me, it works. And it tends to be even better when I both avoid electronics for the first hour that I’m awake in the morning, and the last hour I’m awake in the evening. Therefore, it’s time to end my post for today. 🙂

Side thought for today: I may need to switch blogging platforms soon. I would like to be able to post snippets of code, and I’m not happy with the formatting options available in WordPress.I’m currently considering Hugo, or possibly using Wiki.js to create a wiki/blog/everything website. So if anyone has a good suggestion, let me know!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 67/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Movie of the Weekend: 21

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 17:48:48 -0600

I don’t tend to watch a ton of movies. In all honesty, it’s because I have a hard time sitting still and just watching something. But, this weekend, I was struggling to concentrate on other projects, and so… I watched a movie.

Which movie? 21. It’s the story of a group of card counters from MIT. I recall reading about the story it’s based on in the news years ago, and while I’ve been aware of this movie, I never got around to watching it till now.

Is it worth watching? I think so. It’s not 100% accurate, but it is interesting.

And with that, it’s time for me to start prepping for the week ahead. Happy Sunday!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 65/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

It's Friday

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 17:47:22 -0600

Short blog today. For some reason, I’ve had very little motivation. Not entirely sure why. I’ve tried a few things to get myself “in gear” to work on projects, and nothing has worked well yet. So, basically doing the minimum today, and planning to push again tomorrow.

Until then, here’s a song that’s currently on repeat in my head. Enjoy!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 63/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Haircut #2 Post-Isolation

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 17:46:39 -0600

Anyone who knows me knows that I like routine. And one of those routines, for many years now, has been a haircut every 2 weeks (occasionally slips to 3 around a holiday). Today was my second haircut post-isolation, meaning that I’m back to my normal schedule.

Why so often? Simple: it’s one less thing for me to think about.

I’ve learned (slowly) that the more things I can put on “default”, and not have to think about, the more I can focus on work, and other things in life. And for me, having my hair at virtually the same length at all times is one of those things. Is it minor? Sure. But I like never having to think about what my hair is going to look like. It’s always the same length, and I always do the same thing to it every morning.

Could I just shave it off? Again, sure. But I’m not ready for that yet. So until then… the routine continues!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 62/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Know a Little More

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 17:45:41 -0600

There’s a new podcast out from Tom Merritt, one of the hosts of Daily Tech News Show, entitled “Know a Little More“. Each episode is a short deep-dive into a specific topic (ex: 5G). I’ve been quite enjoying it, even as someone in the tech industry who has a general knowledge of most topics (or so I like to think).

Due in part to the recent announcements by Apple, there will be an ARM episode in the public feed in the next few days, which I highly recommend listening to as a quick overview. So… check it out!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 61/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Philosophy: Who Needs It

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 17:41:59 -0600

I have a habit of reading before bed. Sometimes I pick up a fantasy novel. Other times I read a cartoon, or something else that requires very little concentration. And sometimes, I challenge myself… as I did last night, when I started reading “Philosophy: Who Needs It” by Ayn Rand.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but after the first chapter, I already had a lot to think on. Favorite quotes/thoughts so far:

Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation – or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown. (Philosophy: Who Needs It, pg 7)

“Why should I study that stuff when I know it’s nonsense?” It is nonsense, but you don’t know it – not so long as you go on accepting all their conclusions, all the vicious catchphrases generated by those philosophers. And not as long as you are unable to refute them.

The battle of philosophers is a battle for man’s mind. If you do not understand their theories, you are vulnerable to the worst among them.

You have to understand the enemy’s ideas and be prepared to refute them, you have to know his basic arguments and be able to blast them. (Philosophy: Who Needs It, pg 10-11)

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 59/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Things That Work: Firefox

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 16:55:19 -0600

I’ve used a number of different browsers over the years. In fact, I’ve used more browsers than I realized, once I started compiling idea for this post.

When I first started using computers, my primary browser was Internet Explorer. I don’t recall exactly what year this was, but it was prior to the advent of Firefox and Chrome. And for years, that’s what I used. I vaguely recall using Netscape Navigator, actually, at one point, but I don’t think it ever stuck.

In the early to mid-2000s, I found out about Firefox, and switched to it as my primary browser. My reasoning, as I recall, was better support of web standards. At the time I was playing around with designing websites, and it just worked better.

Around 2005, I got my first Mac, which introduced me to Safari. I used it some, but I’ve always had weird issues with Safari, even to this day, and so it’s always a backup option, not my primary. I stuck with Firefox during that time (I think). Until…

The year I graduated from college was the year that Google Chrome came out, and I pretty quickly switched to using that full time. In fact, I would go on to use Chrome, or a Chrome-based browser, until about 3 years ago. I was heavy into the Google ecosystem, and overall I liked the performance.

Sometime during 2017 I gave Firefox another chance. I don’t recall exactly what made me try it, honestly. It may have been a podcast I was listening to. Or perhaps I was looking at ways to move away from the Google suite of products. In any case, slightly before Firefox 57 (Quantum), I switched back to Firefox, and haven’t really looked back since.

So why am I on Firefox? Is it the amazing performance? Not really. Firefox is good, but Chrome is often still faster. Is it the most beautiful browser? By no means. It’s good, but still not as good as Chrome, or one of the Chrome derivatives. My main reasons for using Firefox are two-fold: it’s a FOSS product (that actually works), and the extension ecosystem is amazing.

A few months ago I created a page on this site that listed all of the extensions I use, and why I use them. Of all of those, my absolute favorite is Multi-Account Containers. The ability to be logged into the same website with different accounts, and to keep history/tracking separate, has proven useful time and time again.

Anyhow. There’s a short trip down memory lane for me, and a very brief explanation of why I use Firefox.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 58/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

A Lazy Saturday

Sat, 20 Jun 2020 17:37:15 -0600

Okay, so maybe the title isn’t 100% accurate… But I honestly don’t feel like I’ve accomplished that much today (so far). I’m ready to blog though, so… here it goes.

I started out this morning at 4a. After some coffee and reading, it was time for a short workout. I’ve been neglecting doing any substantial training recently, which annoys me, so I’m trying to get back into the habit. After that, time for breakfast, then getting ready for the day ahead.

I had some work I wanted to knock out today (if possible), so by 7:30a I was in front of my computer, working my way through some datasheets. I managed to maintain my focus for about ninety minutes, then I broke to do some housework and talk to family on the phone. Once I was done with that, back to datasheets… I finally figured out what I was working on around 12:30p, and broke for lunch.

After a short lunch, I was back at my computer, finishing off a Name That Tune playlist for family on Spotify. I just finished that (got distracted a few times), and now it’s almost 3:30p, and I need to figure out what else I want to do with my day.

I (thankfully) have very few pressing things that I need to do right now, so I kind of have my choice. I’m leaning towards finishing a book or two that I’ve been working on. Once I get to the last 20-50 pages of a book, I kind of just want to sit down and finish it all so I can move on to the next book in my TBR stack (or, in my case… my TBR shelves…).

Anyhow. Happy Saturday!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 57/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Does the Mind Need a Break?

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 17:36:39 -0600

I’ve read many articles over the years emphasizing the importance of downtime, of relaxing, and sometimes “turning off your brain” (possibly my translation, but either way, definitely a phrase I’ve heard).

However, I ran across the following in the book “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day” by Arnold Bennett: “One of the chief things which my typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change – not rest, except in sleep.”

And personally, I’m beginning to believe that is true. While there are times when I just stop and watch something, I normally feel worse afterwards. Do I need a break from work? Certainly. But I should pivot to doing something else that exercises my mind and keeps me learning and growing, not stagnating.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 56/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Audio Tweets

Thu, 18 Jun 2020 17:35:57 -0600

I first heard this story yesterday, but didn’t read any of the details until today. Apparently, Twitter is going to allow users to record audio and then… tweet it. And in a throwback to the original 140 character limit, these can be 140 seconds long.

I checked, and I don’t have the feature yet. Which is fine, as I barely use Twitter at all, logging in only once every few weeks.

It will be interesting to see if this takes off, and what the overall reaction to the feature is in the coming weeks.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/17/21294481/twitter-audio-tweets-now-available-iphone-ios

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 55/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

So NOT a Massive DDOS Attack

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 17:33:41 -0600

Here’s an interesting Twitter thread I ran across today from Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare. Apparently the “massive DDOS attack” that I heard about yesterday was actually another series of events. It’s a fairly quick read, but definitely worth it for the tech-inclined, in my opinion.

There’s a lot of buzz right now about a “massive DDoS attack” targeting the US, complete with scary-looking graphs (see Tweet below). While it makes for a good headline in these already dramatic times, it’s not accurate. The reality is far more boring. 1/X https://t.co/4wDIlKnfQg — Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) June 15, 2020

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 53/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Kdenlive for the Win

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 17:32:53 -0600

Earlier this evening I was attempting to open a 25+ GB mp4 file to edit (1920×1980 resolution, 35 mins long). I tried using Premiere Pro on my Gaming rig (Windows), as I figured that I would get the best performance on that machine, and I’m the most familiar with Premiere Pro out of all of the Non-Linear Editors. However, the program locked up for almost 10 minutes on the initial import, and was pretty much unusable once the video was imported. I could attempt a proxy setup, but I didn’t think that the video should be that hard to import.

On to Premiere Pro on my Mac… which refused to even load. Crashed or hung every time I tried to open it.

So, what options were left? Well, I could go back to Premiere Pro on my PC, and I would have to use proxies, which would probably work. But it’s been a few years since I used proxies in Premiere, and I wasn’t looking forward to using them again.

As a last ditch effort, I decided to try using Kdenlive on my Linux PC. I’ve used it before, and have always been rather underwhelmed. But, since I had already failed a few times, I figured it was worth the quick test. I did a little reading ahead of time, and found out that proxies are also recommended for Kdenlive when using large files. So, I enabled them, and then tried to import my footage.

And… it worked! Kdenlive happily ingested my video, created the proxy on the fly, and I was able to start editing immediately! Was it as nice as editing in Premiere Pro? Absolutely not. Kdenlive has more lag, and feels less powerful than Premiere. However, since it’s currently working, I’ll try to finish out this project in it, and see how well it performs, especially after hours of use…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 52/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Things That Work: Soundiiz

Sun, 14 Jun 2020 17:29:51 -0600

A few months ago, around the time that the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect the Untied States, I began playing a weekly round of Name That Tune with my family. The premise is simple: I create a playlist with a variety of songs, and then the rest of the family attempts to guess, within the first 90 seconds of the song, the song’s title and artist.

Prior to the start of these games, I was primarily using Apple Music for all of my music-streaming needs. It wasn’t perfect, but in general everything I was looking for was present in that ecosystem. However, as I began to put playlists together for the NTT games, I quickly decided that I was going to need an alternative to improve the workflow. Apple Music doesn’t have a good web or Linux client, and I didn’t feel like using my old MacBook Pro for all of the work. Plus, I was getting fed up with Apple Music’s playlist system. I briefly looked at YouTube Music/Google Music, but quickly decided that was also not going to work, and so I switched to Spotify.

Now that I was relatively happy with the app and workflow, I began creating 1-2 playlists a week. However, I quickly found that keeping track of all of the songs that I had already used was painful. I had to either rely solely on memory, or switch between all of the previous playlists to check if a song had been used previously. There had to be a better solution. Ideally, I wanted a way to export CSV files from Spotify, compile them into a single LibreOffice spreadsheet, and then have an easy lookup table on my side monitor while I worked on playlists. Of course, that couldn’t have just been built into the Spotify UI. That would have been too easy. So, I began searching for a solution, assuming that I was not the first person to want to do this. And I was right…

Enter Soundiiz. Weird name, I know. I had actually ran across the service a few months prior, but completely forgot about it. Soundiiz advertises that they have the ability to sync playlists and favorites between platforms, and at the time, I didn’t need that functionality (I’ve since tested it out briefly, and I was underwhelmed by the performance). However, they also offer playlist export in, you guessed it… CSV! Which is exactly what I needed. And so, I signed up for an account, synced my Spotify playlists, and the rest is history.

Now, my procedure for creating NTT playlists is pretty simple. I first visit Soundiiz, and export the previous game’s playlist, which I then import into a master spreadsheet that contains all of the songs that I’ve previously used, along with the date used, artist, album, etc. It’s still a little time-intensive, but now I only ever have a single list to compare against, instead of switching between all of the previous playlists (currently at 12 and counting).

There are a host of other features that Soundiiz claims, though I’ve never actually tried any of the others out (other than what I discussed above). If you listen to a lot of music, or switch between multiple platforms, it’s worth quickly browsing through their feature list. I personally could see the playlist sync being useful in the future, especially if it becomes more robust.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 51/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

The Work Week Ends

Fri, 12 Jun 2020 17:25:22 -0600

As has happened many times in the past few weeks, I had elaborate plans for what to write about today. And… I don’t feel like writing any of them. So instead, I’ll just summarize my day.

Today I worked from home. I had a couple of Zoom meetings, then spent time debugging a few different issues, reading documentation in preparation for another project, and spinning up an EndeavourOS VM to run a test on for a coworker (thanks VirtualBox!). In the late afternoon I went grocery shopping, then I’ve just been relaxing at home. Friday afternoons/evenings seem to be the worst time for me to have motivation.

And… now it’s 9:30p, I’m wrapping up a few last minute tasks for tonight, then heading to bed. I’m attempting to stick to my normal schedule even on the weekend, as I find myself more productive and happier when I do. We’ll see how that goes…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 49/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Just Use the Website

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 17:24:41 -0600

For many years, I’ve heard recommendations from privacy-conscious individuals that if you choose to be on a social media platform, it’s best to just use the web interface, and not an app. That limits the ability of the company that runs the service to track and log data about you. Sometimes I’ve followed this advice, and sometimes I haven’t, depending on my perceived convenience of the app over the website.

However, recently I’ve begun limiting my app usage more and more, but not necessarily for privacy reasons. Rather, I’ve found that it’s easier to avoid mindless swiping or the nervous tick of looking for something to do on my phone if I limit those types of interactions to only the respective website. My (phone) screen time has dropped, and I don’t catch myself wasting as much time on my mobile device as I once did. I’ve actually gone so far as to not even use the mobile website, but only check certain things when in front of my home desktop, which has further helped to reduce the amount of time I waste during the day.

Anyhow. Hopefully that idea is useful to someone else, or to my future self when I’m reviewing this. I’m sure there are more ways to improve what I focus on and spend my time doing. If I find another that seems to stick for me, I’ll pass it along.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 48/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Avoiding Temptations

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 17:23:56 -0600

This is a short post that I will probably revisit later. The topic? Avoiding temptations in life. Why today? Because I once again failed, and need the reminder…

I have learned, over the course of many years, that especially at certain points in the day I have very little willpower to avoid temptations. This could be something as simple as avoiding overeating desserts (which I like), to limiting my exposure to social media, to reducing the amount of time I spend watching movies/TV shows/YouTube. To actually achieve my goal in whatever area that is, I often have to completely remove the temptation from my life, or put such severe limitations on it that I cannot easily slip up when I’m tired after work, and I no longer have the willpower to easily keep myself away from whatever the temptation is.

This has taken many extremes over the years. When it comes to food, the only sure-fire way to keep myself from overeating is to intentionally portion control my food as soon as it enters my house, and to avoid anything I can easily snack on. For video content, it has meant removing TVs from my kitchen so I don’t get distracted watching show after show (which leads to more eating too). For social media, it means not keeping anything other than Fosstodon on my phone, and even that is only web-based.

So what triggered this today? I ordered low-carb/keto desserts, because I enjoy them. The problem is, I tend to eat more than a single serving at a time. And when I eat multiple servings, I dislike how I feel afterwards. Yet that never stops me in the moment, nor does that cross my mind. What’s the solution?

I’ve been known in the past to actually throw away whatever is tempting me in the food arena. I may have to do that again tonight. And to keep myself from going there in the first place, I suspect I need to add a safeguard to my Amazon account so that I don’t simply order snacks whenever I feel like it.

Anyhow. That’s where I’m at today. And I’m rather tired due to waking up at 2:30a, so… that’s it till tomorrow.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 47/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Raspberry Pi 4

Sat, 06 Jun 2020 17:20:46 -0600

I got my first Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB) today, and took a short amount of time to begin migrating my Home Assistant setup to it. Thoughts so far:

I like the increased RAM
I’m a huge fan of the case I bought, which is black metal (like a computer case), and includes a small fan

I have yet to really tax the machine, so I haven’t seen how hot it gets, nor have I seen its full capabilities. I’m hoping to finish the migration from my Raspberry Pi 3 either tomorrow or next weekend, at which point I’ll re-purpose the RPi 3 for another home project.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 43/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Finish Work Week: Check

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 17:19:18 -0600

Well, I’ve officially finished my first full week back at work after 2 months of working from home. Overall, not bad. It will take some getting used to again, but I quickly found myself settling into old methods and habits.

Things that I still need to improve:

Re-enforce strict wake time. I was still struggling to be happy about getting up exactly at 4a.
Tighten up morning schedule so I arrive at work at my intended time. Throughout the week this slipped from 15m later than I wanted to 30m. My ideal is 7a.
Reduce television time post-work. I’ve caught myself watching more than one episode of something in the evening, which offsets the rest of my evening plans, or causes things to get missed.
Re-enforce strict phone-down and bedtime. I did pretty good on this overall, but I need to get back to turning off electronics at least 1 hr before bed, and then ensuring I am in bed by my set time for optimum sleep.

Do any of my readers really need to know all of that? No, not really. But it’s good for me to think through this on paper (or the e-equivalent of paper, my blog). And it’s a good way to pressure myself into actually doing it!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 42/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Things That Work: Zowie FK1

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:16:25 -0600

Inspired by Things that work! by Cliff Brake.

As someone who spends a very large amount of time in front of a computer, over the years I have built up a list of a number of preferences. Today’s post is about the Zowie FK1+, which is my default mouse choice.

I first learned of the FK1+ (and other similar models from Zowie) in 2015 when I took my current position at work. I was looking for a mouse that was comfortable, worked with all operating systems, and gave me the option of different DPI settings in the mouse itself, instead of having to use software. Somehow, during the research, I ran across the FK1+, and I haven’t looked back. It is now in use both at work and at home.

So, why use the FK1+ (or, again, a similar model)? It’s ambidextrous. It’s comfortable, in my opinion at least, for extended use. The DPI settings are amazing. And the mouse holds up well. Also, it is available in different sizes for different hands, so you can choose whatever size is appropriate.

Bonus: Along with the FK1+, I always use a SteelSeries QcK Gaming Mousepad. I’ve tried using desks without a mousepad, and the experience just isn’t the same. Lack of a good mousepad makes the entire computer experience lousy. Again, years ago I found the SteelSeries line of mousepads, and ever since I’ve used them in one form or another. I vary the size or design based on use case, but you can find one of these under every mouse I use.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 41/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Too Many Topics

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 17:15:44 -0600

Day 40!

Once again, as I sat down to write this evening, I was struggling with what I wanted to write about. I have a host of topics that I have opinions on, and I wouldn’t mind writing about. Anything from the case for owning physical books, movies, etc, to technical discussions on tools I use, to software, hardware, book, and other reviews. But I’m struggling to focus on any one to write about, especially after a day at work.

So, I will open that up as my question of the day: what topics would you find interesting? What would you like to see me write about, if anything?

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 40/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Back to the Office

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 17:14:10 -0600

Today marks the beginning of working from the office primarily again for me, instead of at home. I’ll still be working from home some, especially if/when I need to concentrate hard. But I expect that over the coming weeks the amount of time I spend at home will continue to decrease.

Somethings felt relatively natural in the office. Others, however, will take some getting used to. I was very much used to my normal routine at home, and lack of talking throughout the day… transitioning back to frequent conversations will be, shall we say, interesting.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 38/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Update on the New PC

Sun, 31 May 2020 17:10:30 -0600

Yesterday I wrote a brief blog post announcing that I had completed my new gaming PC build. Today… an update.

This morning I decided to run a few benchmarks against the machine (I literally only did initial OS installs yesterday). I very quickly noted during the tests that the CPU was getting much warmer than it should, and so I decided to take the machine apart and replace the CPU fan. I was using the stock cooler that came with the AMD Ryzen 5, but I had a spare CoolerMaster CPU fan that I didn’t end up using in a previous build, so I installed that. In all, it took me about an hour to remove the old fan and install the new one.

Now, with the much larger fan, the benchmarks run at distinctly cooler temperatures. They’re still a bit warmer than I am really happy with, but within safe specs, and comparable to my other Ryzen build.

I still have more testing to do to see if everything works as expected, but at this point I’ve played about 60m of WoW at “recommended settings” with no issues.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 37/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

It's Been a Day

Thu, 28 May 2020 17:08:11 -0600

I was originally hoping to post a more thought-out blog post today. However, after my normal morning routine, around 10 hrs at work, and just finishing dinner, I’m rather tired, and don’t have anything particularly insightful to talk about.

So instead, here’s a podcast recommendation: if you’ve never listened to Daily Tech News Show from Tom Merritt (and friends), I’d strongly recommend checking it now. It’s a nice daily tech news summary that I utilize to keep up to date with what’s going on without having to read a lot of news stories myself, unless I choose to.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 34/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Early Mornings

Wed, 27 May 2020 17:07:19 -0600

Every once in a while, I wake up super early, and can’t fall back to sleep. Today was one of those days. I awoke around 3a, and have been up ever since.

Oddly enough, I don’t mind it that much, other than it messes my schedule up some. I’m normally up at 4a anyhow. I have a rather lengthy morning routine, due in part to the fact that I attempt to fit so much into my mornings before work:

I make & drink coffee.
I do some reading.
I do a workout.
I eat breakfast.
I get around for the day in a leisurely manner.

And even after that, I’m still walking out the door (or in the current case, to my home office) around 7a.

So what do I do when I’m up an hour or more earlier than intended? Well… more of the same, normally. I may throw in some extra reading. Maybe I work out a tad longer, or start my work earlier. Sometimes I add in some brainstorming, or (as was the case today) I bring my task list up to date.

Anyhow. That was today. The one downside is, I’m a tad more tired than usual, so it will be an early evening for me…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 33/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Still Failing

Mon, 25 May 2020 17:05:05 -0600

Yesterday I blogged briefly about reinstalling Windows on my gaming PC. Unfortunately, even after doing so, I’m still having random BSODs and other crashes on the system. Therefore, last night I made the executive decision to replace the system (almost) entirely.

This morning I did a little planning (using the excellent pcpartpicker tool), spec’d out a new machine, and placed an order for the components. I believe that my graphics card (a GTX 1070) is still good, so I only needed the rest of the system. It wasn’t super cheap, unfortunately. But I want to be able to play the occasional game that isn’t supported on Linux with good performance, and maintaining a functional Windows machine appears to be my best solution for that.

If all goes well, the parts will arrive late this week, so I’ll be able to do the build over the weekend. And, hopefully, that will solve my computer issues…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 31/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Windows 10 Updates

Fri, 22 May 2020 17:02:28 -0600

Every once in a while I fire up an older Windows 10 PC, mostly to play games. Unfortunately, because it doesn’t get used much, it normally needs to run updates. And I officially hate running updates on Windows machines.

At this point in my life, most of my work is done on Linux. I understand the operating system relatively well, and I generally understand what an update will do to my computer.

Windows updates are too opaque. I can read what Microsoft tells me about them. But I can only delay installation. I can’t choose to never update (and expect things to work right).

I’m currently attempting to get my system functional again, so that I can play a game with a friend. And at this point I’m a whole freaking 75 minutes into troubleshooting and updating…

Anyhow. Rant complete. For now.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 28/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Timing Matters

Tue, 19 May 2020 16:58:47 -0600

Short post today. Been a busy day, with more to come…

Professionally, I do a lot of work with microcontrollers and real-time systems. I don’t normally need to focus much on the timing aspect, as the frameworks in place generally have been ironed out, and timing just works.

However, there are times, like today, when I find out that a system is failing to perform correctly because we are missing timing deadlines. When something like that occurs, it’s time to start digging through the code, looking for the point of failure. Sometimes it’s an easy fix; sometimes it’s a design flaw that requires a substantial amount of work to fix.

So which one is this? I’m not sure yet. I’ve found a handful of easy fixes. If those don’t work, it will be on to the more complex debugging and re-designing…

Kind of applies to life too, don’t you think? Timing is everything…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 25/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Musings on Life Habits

Mon, 18 May 2020 16:57:23 -0600

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Romans 7:15 (ESV)

Romans 7:15 has been on my mind a lot recently, though not necessarily for spiritual or religious reasons. Rather, it’s because I constantly find myself slacking in my habits and disciplines, and I want to know why.

I mean, I guess I know the general reasons. The human body and mind tend to shy away from discipline. It’s something one has to work on, constantly. And I know that, and have proven it over and over to myself.

Yet, despite my best intentions, especially over the last 2 months while I’ve been primarily at home, I’ve noticed certain practices slipping. Is it anything major? To me, yes, though it might not be to others. A few examples…

I pride myself on reading. I generally spend 30-60m each morning reading both my Bible readings of the day, and one or more chapters of whatever book I’m working on currently. That is part of why I get up early, so that I always have time. Because I’m now fully enforcing my own schedule, and no longer am expected to be at work at a specific time, I am more likely to sleep in, and my reading time suffers.

Another habit that has slipped some is my workout time. I’ve slowly built up to the point that, pre-lockdown, I was doing aroudn 30m of exercise 5 days a week (again, in the morning). Once again, that habit is has slipped due to my sleep schedule.

So maybe the issue is actually the fact that I am not bouncing out of bed on my normal schedule. Why is that? Well, I suppose one aspect of it is that I am working mostly remotely, so I can do certain things throughout the day, and don’t have to cram everything into the 3 hours pre-work, or the 4 hours post-work. I can handle bits and pieces on breaks during the day.

But even then, that’s not an excuse, is it? I still want to do all of my old routines, and I’m still getting roughly the same amount of rest. Do I need to simply force myself into action? Maybe. It’s definitely worked before.

Anyhow. Those are my current thoughts on the matter. Possibly incoherent. But I think it helped me to write them down and process them, at least.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 24/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Name That Tune

Sun, 17 May 2020 16:55:19 -0600

I wasn’t sure what to write about today. I didn’t want anything long, but I wanted an actual post as well. So, I decided to write up a little explanation of a game my family and I have been playing remotely!

For the past few weeks, at least once per week, my family and I have been playing Name That Tune via Zoom. The general setup and rules are simple:

I create a playlist with ~100 songs my family is likely to know ahead of time.
One by one I play through the songs (using the Random function to randomize the order).
Those playing have until the end of the chorus (ie, song intro + verse 1 + chorus on most songs) to tell me who the artist is (1 point), and what the song is (1 point). First person to shout out the answer gets the point.
There is a potential bonus point for anyone who also knows the album.
If no one guesses the correct artist/title, I get the points. I don’t get a point for the album.
Highest score wins. The goal is for me to be the lowest score, which means I chose songs well for my target audience.

It normally takes us 2 hours to play, but from what I’ve been told, everyone enjoys it (so far at least). My family is also getting competitive, and starting to intentionally try to listen to music they think I might incorporate into the game to get a leg up on the rest of the family.

Also, to keep track of what songs I’ve already used, and as a way for my family to look up the information at a later date, I’ve created a git repository with all of the playlists in CSV format. Obviously, what works for my family may not work well for others, but it gives you an idea of the songs we’ve used.

And a few notes on the technical side:

Every user needs to use headphones. Otherwise it’s VERY hard to play, in our experience.
I use loopback software on my computer to pipe the music to Zoom, while still monitoring it on my end. I can go into more detail on this at a later date.
While I like local media, for this I am using Spotify, as I simply do not have access to the sheer amount of music needed to keep this interesting. At this point we’ve covered over 800 songs since we began playing.

And that’s the game! If anyone tries this out for themselves, let me know what you think of it, and how it goes!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 23/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

A Quiet Night In

Fri, 15 May 2020 16:53:01 -0600

It’s Friday. Pre-COVID-19 that would normally mean a normal to slightly-longer than normal workday, followed by grocery shopping, and some down time. So what does it mean in a post-COVID-19 world?

Well, pretty much the same, just with a few tweaks. It’s still work most of the day, just from home instead of the office (most weeks). Then, mid- to late-afternoon, I head to the other side of town to do grocery shopping. And finally, down time at home, by myself.

So why down time? Am I not itching to be around people? No, not really. By the end of the week, I’m normally tired, and need a quiet night to myself. Time to recharge so that I’m not completely worn out on the weekend, and honestly, time to get some extra rest. Even when I’m only communicating remotely and working from home, I still get worn out and need a quiet night in. 🙂

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 21/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Moving a Git Submodule

Thu, 14 May 2020 16:49:25 -0600

A coworker asked me a question this evening about how to move a Git submodule to a sub-directory, and as it’s something I’ve had to look up multiple times in the past, I decided it would be good to post it here for easy lookup in the future.

How to move a Git submodule to a sub-directory

Delete the submodule reference from .gitmodules (normally 3 lines)
Check .git/config for references to the submodule and remove them, if they exist
Run git rm --cached <submodule name> to remove the submodule reference from the repository
Remove the old submodule folder
Recreate your submodule reference with git submodule add <git repo url> <local path>

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 20/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

100 Days and Over-Saturation

Wed, 13 May 2020 16:47:35 -0600

Earlier today, Kev posted an update to the #100DaysToOffload challenge on his blog. The TL;DR version is that, for reasons that make sense to me, and I generally agree with, instead of 100 posts in 100 days, the challenge will now be 100 posts in a year.

So, what does that mean for my own blog?

My current plan is to continue with the challenge, and specifically with the 100 days/100 posts version. While it is true that only a handful of the posts end up being of much quality, I’ve noticed that I am thinking about blogging more throughout my day, and I think that in general the habit that I’m forming of at least attempting to write a post a day is good for me.

However, that being said, I will only be posting 2-3 of my blog posts per week to social media, specifically the ones that I think are of higher quality and would be interesting to people outside of friends and family. If you’re interested in seeing EVERYTHING that I post, I recommend subscribing to my RSS feed. Otherwise, keep an eye on my Fosstodon page, where I typically link to blog posts that I feel the community will be interested in.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 19/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Thoughts from Antigone

Mon, 11 May 2020 16:44:28 -0600

I had grand plans today on what I wanted to write about. It was going to be an impressive post all about the power of clarifying what it is you’re trying to accomplish, and the tools I personally use. However, while I’ve started work on that, I simply do not have the energy to write that post this evening.

So… what am I posting instead? How about a few of my favorite quotes from Antigone by Sophocles that I just re-discovered earlier today while transferring my notes on the play to my personal wiki?

“Show me the man who rules his household well: I’ll show you someone fit to rule the state. That good man, my son, I have every confidence he and he alone can give commands and take them too. Staunch in the storm of spears he’ll stand his ground, a loyal, unflinching comrade at your side.” Creon

“Whoever thinks that he alone possesses intelligence, the gift of eloquence, he and no one else, and character too… such men, I tell you, spread them open – you will find them empty.” Haemon

“It would be best by far, I admit, if a man were born infallible, right by nature. If not – and things don’t often go that way, it’s best to learn from those who give good advice.” Haemon

“All men make mistakes, it is only human. But once the wrong is done, a man can turn his back on folly, misfortune too, if he tries to make amends, however low he’s fallen, and stops his bull-necked ways. Stubbornness brands you for stupidity – pride is a crime.” Tiresias

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 17/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Initial Thoughts on a Personal Wiki

Sun, 10 May 2020 16:39:35 -0600

Approximately two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post where I mentioned that I was interested in setting up a personal wiki, or something similar, as a way to keep an online commonplace book. I’ve been taking notes on the idea ever since, and today, I finally decided to give it a try.

Requirements

I had a few different requirements.

Easy to maintain & use
Markdown support
Accessible and editable on all devices
Web-based, so that I’m not handling syncing between devices
FOSS

Enter Wiki.js

After a decent amount of research, where I looked at pretty much every FOSS solution for a personal wiki, I settled on Wiki.js. There were a couple of features that lured me in.

First off, Wiki.js can be installed and maintained easily. While I’m technically capable of doing complex installs and maintenance of software, I very much prefer options that don’t require a lot of extra time to set up and maintain.. Wiki.js has install guides for pretty much every platform, including Docker.

Second, Wiki.js is designed to be both public facing, while still have private pages. I wanted a solution that I could post notes on and point others to, instead of having to copy files around (I historically have kept my own notes in Markdown, but they are not publicly accessible). Wiki.js allows me to do that, and store notes of my own behind a login (if I choose).

Third, Wiki.js has a number of page format options, one of which is Markdown. As mentioned above, I already use Markdown, and I prefer it for the portability and future-proofing it offers. So, I can simply copy my existing files to my wiki, and really the only extra work I need to do is choose the page hierarchy.

Fourth, Wiki.js, while being a web app, can sync all changes to a Git repository. In my mind, this is one of the killer features of the software. I can write notes on my wiki site, and they will be automatically synced with a private Git repo. So even if I choose to use another tool in the future, my notes are all in a Git repo that I can simply clone, and then import into whatever that tool is.

My Setup

I started setting up my wiki this morning around 11:30a.

My first step was to choose hosting. I use DigitalOcean fairly heavily, and Wiki.js has a one-click app in the Marketplace, so that’s what I went with. I chose a 5 dollar per month droplet (the smallest), and within a few minutes, the site was up.

Next up, initial login and setup. There’s seriously not much to talk about here. Everything was very straight-forward, and within another few minutes, I had my own wiki started!

The final step of setup was linking a domain name and setting up HTTPS. As I mentioned above, I started this journey a few weeks ago, and so I already had a domain purchased via porkbun.com. I once again followed the setup instructions on the Wiki.js website, and had no trouble completing the setup!

Total time from start to finish, including adding some pages, setting up a Git sync, HTTPS, and exploring the Admin area: ~ 60 minutes.

Current State

I’ve spent another hour or so creating and playing with pages since then. I’m very happy with how everything looks so far, and can’t wait to continue expanding the site. At some point, I will probably link to it here on my blog so that others can explore (it is primarily public-facing).

I’m also considering moving a few things that are hosted on Gitlab, or here on my personal website, to my wiki, especially the lists of the books I’ve read, and the books that I want to read.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 16/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Distractions and Time Tracking

Sat, 09 May 2020 16:37:07 -0600

Do you ever that weird feeling at the end of the day, when you know you were extremely busy, but you can’t point to any one thing you accomplished? Or do you occasionally wonder where all of your time has gone, and what the distractions were that kept you from accomplishing your tasks & goals?

As someone who loves studying productivity and ways to improve myself, those thoughts come up frequently. As in, on a more-than-once-a-week basis. When the thoughts reach a critical peak I generally try to do something about it, and improve my productivity. Sometimes my changes stick; sometimes they don’t.

Enter Time Tracking

Something that I read earlier this week triggered me to start thinking about time tracking again. In This 3-Minute Habit Changed My Life by Laura Vanderkam (found via Pocket), the author talks about how she has been logging her weeks in 30 minute increments for the past few years, and some of the thing she’s learned from it (how many hours a year she’s reading, amount of time spent in the car, etc). It sounds interesting, and useful, but also like a LOT of extra work.

Then I remembered Emergent Task Timing by Dave Seah, something I ran across back in (I think) 2013. At the time I was working for a company where it was useful for me to know the approximate number of hours I was working on a project for each of our customers. I started using the ETT, and logging my work day in 15 minute increments. Was it annoying at times? Yes, definitely. But it also let me see the amount of time I was having conversations with coworkers, handling administrative work, and being distracted by the internet, vs how much time I was actually working.

Farewell Time Tracking

Unfortunately, when I started at my current position a few years ago, that habit fell by the wayside. And it kind of makes sense that it did: I was no longer doing contract work, but was instead working for only a single company. Keeping extremely close track of my time was no longer overly important (or at least, that’s what I thought). And that brings us to today.

Today’s a Saturday, so while I was planning to do some work, I mostly intended to take time off and relax. Except, I also intended to relax by getting somethings done around the house. I’ve accomplished a few things, but not as much as I wanted to. And so, I’m seriously considering either using the ETT method again, or attempting to use the 30 minute spreadsheet. I would like to have a general idea of where I’m spending my time, and especially my idle time. I haven’t completely made up my mind yet, though when I do, I’m sure I’ll blog about it!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 15/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

VSCode for Markdown

Fri, 08 May 2020 16:34:42 -0600

Short post again today, unfortunately. Today, and this week in general, have been super busy. But a few quick thoughts today.

For most of my software development (C/C++) I prefer to use Sublime Text. I know it’s not FOSS, but it’s one of the better text editors I’ve ever found, and at this point I’m so used to it that it would be a pain to change (not that I don’t still consider it from time to time). And it works equally well on every platform I’ve ever tried.

However, when it comes to Markdown, I am finding that Code – OSS (VSCode, Open Source edition) is remarkably good. I have been using QOwnNotes on desktop, or Dillinger.io online, and both work well. But VSCode does better with previews than QOwnNotes (from what I’ve seen), and it handles folders of files better than an online tool like Dillinger.io can. Not a huge fan of the fact that it’s a Microsoft product, but it is fully opensource, so I’m not opposed to using it either.

And so, unless another tool shows up soon that is equally as good (or better), I will be using VSCode for Markdown editing. And who knows… perhaps at some point I’ll move to it for my other work as well.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 14/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Refactoring

Wed, 06 May 2020 16:32:32 -0600

Another short post today.

I’ve spent a large portion of the last few weeks refactoring code at work. For those not in the software industry, refactoring basically means cleaning up/reworking how a piece of software works, without changing the external behavior. Sometimes it’s simplifying the logic. Sometimes it’s renaming things to make comprehension easier. Sometimes it’s removing unused features. Sometimes it’s moving duplicate code to a common implementation.

I’ve been doing all of the above. It’s tedious at times. It’s fun at times. And it normally makes me feel good once it’s done. But it got me wondering… why don’t we use the same word in real life? For instance: if I’m reorganizing stuff in a room to make it easier to access? Sounds like refactoring to me. Or how about migrating from a few different note taking tools/methods to a single format? In other words, all of the small modifications/improvements that I make to my daily life that don’t change the end result, but improve the workflow… is kind of refactoring.

In short: I think I’m going to start referring to some real-life changes as refactoring as well.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 12/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Motivation

Tue, 05 May 2020 16:31:27 -0600

Author’s Note: I want to apologize ahead of time to the reader if this is incoherent. I have a ton of thoughts today on this topic, and they may not translate well to the written page.

Today is one of those days where I’m struggling with motivation. That’s not to say I’m not motivated. I have a number of things that are on my mind that I could happily work on. Unfortunately, none of those include a few projects for work that I really need to work on.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I like to study productivity. I frequently read blogs, articles, and books on being more productive, organization techniques, etc. And I frequently gain something from them. But even with all of that study, the one thing that I’m still struggling with is how to refocus my mind on a project when my mind is anywhere but there.

It doesn’t help that I’m struggling to sit still today too. My home office has a sitting desk, unlike my desk at work which is a standing desk. So I can’t easily do work while standing, walking in place, etc. I may need to figure out a way to change my setup here at home… it looks like I have at least another month of this to go.

The weird thing is, I was highly motivated yesterday. I got a fair amount done. And even this morning I was doing pretty good overall. But this afternoon my concentration started to slip, and the last hour or two have been brutal.

Perhaps I’ll take the rest of today off, do stuff around the house, and try to relax/reset for tomorrow. I have no idea if that will actually work, but it’s worth a shot.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 11/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Leadership Talks with Banning: Bill Johnson

Sun, 03 May 2020 16:26:31 -0600

Note: I no longer recommend listening to Bill Johnson, as I have strong disagreements with his theology, but I’m leaving this up for both historical purposes, and because the quotes I listed are mostly still applicable. (2024-11-03)

I have been listening to the Jesus Culture Podcast for years. Originally called the Jesus Culture Leadership Podcast, it has evolved over time to include not only leadership talks, but also discussions about topics that apply to the church at large. I’ve been listening/re-listening to a number of them today, and one with Bill Johnson from last year really stuck out to me. Below are a few notes/quotes from the podcast that I found especially profound.

Quotes

“Self-promotion is to obtain an identity that you rejected in your relationship with the Lord. It’s to obtain something through your own voice that you missed from His voice.” Bill Johnson

“Self-promotion is actually competing with the promotion of the Gospel. You have to sacrifice something to promote yourself, and at some point you’re going to compromise the Gospel. At some point you’re going to compromise your effectiveness on the world around you.” Bill Johnson

“If I cannot handle being overlooked, I cannot handle being looked at. If I can’t handle criticism, I can’t handle praise. If I can’t handle disappointment, I can’t handle success. Those are the things that He takes us through to build Christ-like character in us.” Bill Johnson

“The fear of man will take you places; the fear of God will take you another.” Bill Johnson

“I try to make it a policy to never talk to a person about a problem unless they are involved in the solution.” Bill Johnson

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 9/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Day 8 Recap

Sat, 02 May 2020 16:24:50 -0600

I had a bunch of ideas for blog posts today. And then I got busy doing other things. So this will just be a short recap of my day.

This morning started with me playing 0 A.D. for a few hours, until I finally won a skirmish on “Very Easy”. Then, off to the store for the week’s groceries. On the way I stopped and chatted w/a friend (while staying 6 feet apart); good to catch up a little.

Late morning/early afternoon consisted of podcasting w/my sister (hopefully that episode will be released in a day or two). And after that was done, I had a late lunch (cheesy scrambled eggs), then did some work on projects around the house that needed attention. Around 4p I got a call from a coworker that propelled me into trying to solve a field issue, which I’ve been working on off and on ever since.

Post-dinner, I also had a family Re-Zoom-ion, as my sister and I have started to call it. Just a fun time w/my immediate family to play Name That Tune. We had fun, as usual, and now it’s time for me to wrap up this blog post, and wind down for the evening!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 8/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

0 A.D.

Fri, 01 May 2020 13:43:58 -0600

Today’s post will be fairly short, for a few reasons. First, I’ve been busy, and don’t feel like writing a lengthy post. And second, I have been distracted playing 0 A.D., a free and open-source game of ancient warfare, akin to Age of Empires.

I’ve heard of the game prior to today, but it was brought back to my attention via a post by Kev on Fosstodon. And so, after work, I downloaded it and started to play.

Initial impressions: 0 A.D. brings back the nostalgia of playing Age of Empires for me, which was one of my favorite games growing up. The graphics are decent, though there is some noticeable lag and screen tearing at times (to be fair, this game is in alpha, so I can’t complain too much). The soundtrack/audio are great. And the gameplay is fun, although in all honesty, I have yet to win a game (played at Normal difficulty).

Now, back to trying to win a simple skirmish…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 7/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

RSS For The Win!

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 13:39:36 -0600

I love reading. I have read ever since I can remember. Before I was around computers, I read physical books. When our family got a computer in the early 2000s I continued reading books, but also began reading news online.

Fast forward to the early 2010s. My reading habits had not changed much, although I added some digital books and magazines to my reading collection. But then, I discovered blogs.

Blogs were amazing! It was a way for me to get inside the minds of other people, and get their perspectives on life. I read all sorts of things: personal blogs, self-help, productivity, tech, you name it. But I quickly found a problem: it can be very painful to keep up with multiple blogs on multiple websites. If only there was a way to collect all of that to a single location for me to read…

The RSS Aggregator

Enter Google Reader! Perhaps a year or so before it would be sent to the graveyard, I somehow found out about Google Reader (an RSS aggregator), and quickly became a fan. It was a little clunky at times, but I was able to use it to aggregate everything in one location. I quickly added all of the blogs I followed to the site, and then just kept adding more as I found new topics I wanted to follow.

Of course, as I alluded to earlier, Google Reader was eventually killed off. In 2013, Google announced that it would be shuttering the program, and so I began looking for another RSS feed aggregator. I quickly found Feedly, imported all of my feeds, and life was good!

Fast forward to early 2019. Feedly was still working well, but I occasionally get the urge to move to using self-hosted solutions, and so I decided to look for ways to host my own RSS aggregator. I found a number of options that looked intriguing, but I really wanted one that was both FOSS, and would integrate with Nextcloud (a self-hosted cloud alternative), since I was already hosting an instance on a DigitalOcean droplet for personal use. And that was when I found Nextcloud News.

My Current Setup

Nextcloud News was amazingly simple to setup. As with most apps on Nextcloud, it can simply be installed via the Nextcloud App Store. You also need to enable a cron job or use an updater to queue the background tasks, but the guides on how to do that are very easy as well. And so, I had my own self-hosted feed aggregator! Great!

Next up: find a mobile app, as I do a large amount of my blog reading from my phone. At the time, I was using Android, and so I tried the Nextcloud News app. It worked, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. But I stuck with it for a few months, until I ultimately switched from Android to an iPhone back in September 2019.

One of my first tasks after switching to iOS was finding a good RSS reader. I tried multiple over the course of a few months, but finally settled on Fiery Feeds. Unfortunately, it is closed source, but looks amazing, and so far has worked very well for me!

And that’s my setup! It has worked well for months now, and as you may have guessed, I am now using it to actively follow all of the #100DaysToOffload blogs! Huge thanks to Amolith for putting a single mega-RSS feed together!

Finally, for those of you who are interested in following my blog using a similar setup, you can find my RSS feed here.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 6/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Improving My Zoom Audio Qualtiy

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 13:05:03 -0600

Zoom: The New Normal

In mid-March, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect daily life, many companies (including the one I work for) began having all employees work from home that could with reasonable efficiency. For me, this meant taking what is a fairly social job (of the 8-9 hours I’m at work a day, 1-2 hours tend to be impromptu or scheduled conversations) and moving it almost 100% online. Fun…

Thankfully, we already use Slack at work heavily in the software department, and so transitioning to using it almost exclusively wasn’t much of a problem. What did take some getting used to, for me at least, was using Zoom. Prior to mid-March I had used Zoom all of 2-3 times. Now, I have 2-3 work Zoom chats a week, 1 church-related Zoom chat, and 2-3 family Zoom chats. I quickly adapted to using the tool itself, but about a week into it I realized that the audio quality of the built-in mic I was using was a bit rubbish (I’ve chosen to use my old MacBook Pro for conferencing, as it has the best web cam of any computer I own, even though it’s 8 years old).

Initial Mic Improvements

Now, I’ve dabbled in audio and video production off and on for about 12 years at this point, so I had some equipment lying around the house that I could use to improve things. My first attempt was using a gen 1 Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 as the input to my MBP, and a Blue enCore 100 dynamic mic (SM58 equivalent) that I had lying around. That worked in that I could hear myself, but it wasn’t great, and my mic stands didn’t accommodate using that comfortably while in a video conference.

My next try was replacing the enCore 100 with a Blue Bluebird SL condenser mic. This microphone is (frankly) gorgeous to look at, and has a nice sound. However, I ran into the same issue with it as I did with the enCore: none of my mic stands worked well with it when video conferencing (my setup was geared around voice-over work for that mic). And so, it was time to get creative.

I happened to remember that I had a Rode NTG2 shotgun mic in a drawer that was from the time period when I was shooting videos for the church I was attending previously. It sounds relatively good, but being a shotgun mic, has specific positioning that makes it work well. Luckily, I also happened to still have the (freakishly) large stand that I bought at the same time, which allowed me position the mic above the frame of the shot I was capturing. And so, as ridiculous as it looked, I set up the full boom stand + NTG2 in my home office. At last, I had decent audio! Except…

The Next Step

I have a few computers in my home office, and between them and the desktop power supplies I am often working with when bringing up/testing embedded projects, there is a lot of background noise. So I spent a few hours (very) early one morning figuring out how to do post-processing on the audio before sending it to Zoom (via Software). The whole setup I was and am using is an entire blog post in and of itself, so I won’t go into the details here.

And with that, I finally had what I was striving for: non-rubbish audio for my Zoom chats! And that’s what I ran with for about a month. But in the back of my mind, I knew that I could still improve on my setup, and the boom stand was taking up WAY too much space…

The Final Solution

So, two weeks ago, I ordered a Rode PSA1 (professional studio boom arm), plus a Rode PodMic (cardioid dynamic broadcast microphone). And, at last, I have a setup that I’m relatively happy with. The boom arm slides out of the way when I don’t need it. The mic sounds great, almost as good as my Bluebird (though not quite) from extremely basic tests (I’m sure the Bluebird would prove much better with additional testing; I haven’t done much of a comparison personally). Yes, it does look a little over-the-top. But that doesn’t bother me, frankly. I sound good to others, and to myself when I care to check on it.

And thus ends my Zoom audio improvement saga… that is, until I get around to replacing the Focusrite…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 5/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Author’s Note: The links in this article are provided solely to improve the reader’s ability to see what I’m discussing and to look at the specs. I do not receive any financial benefit from them.

Unwinding

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 13:04:21 -0600

As I start writing this blog post, it’s already 8:50p. Normally I try to at least come up with what I’m going to write about earlier in the day. But today I kept busy enough that I only thought about blogging once or twice.

I started out working from home this morning, but then something came up with work that required me to head in to the office for the afternoon (first time in around 2 weeks). After a few hours of beating my head against a wall, I managed to find the issue, and push a fix. By that time it was already after 5p, and so I headed home, while keeping up with Slack chats along the way (and throughout dinner).

Post-dinner I did some more testing at home, then tried to unwind slightly while installing Ubuntu 20.04 on a small PC I am putting in my kitchen (I’ll post more on that at a later date). And yes, I do generally find tinkering with hardware/software somewhat relaxing. However, that’s up and running, but I still feel like I haven’t really relaxed, as I’m still thinking about work.

Which leads to my conundrums/musings: how do I safely unwind at the end of the day, and stretch (or relax) my mind so that I am ready for what the next day will bring, without feeling like I’m putting off doing work that I should be doing?

I don’t have any good answers for that, and therefore, I’ll continue to ponder…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 4/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Monday Miscellany

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 13:02:11 -0600

I was struggling a little today with deciding what to write about. So instead of one large topic, I have 4 mini-topics!

Into The Storm

First up, a podcast I’ve really been enjoying recently: Into the Storm. Technically part of the Froning and Friends podcast (made up of Rich Froning and others in the Crossfit community), Into the Storm is currently a weekly podcast where the hosts take a passage/chapter from the Bible, read through it, and discuss it. It’s not highly structured, nor is it deeply theological. Rather, it’s just a good discussion, and is something I am looking forward to listening to every week.

Introvert Retreat

Next up, a website that I just discovered today: Introvert Retreat, which contains both articles and discussion groups for introverts (yes, you guessed correctly). Over the past few days I’ve become interested in studying more about how introverts operate, and how to balance that personality type in a largely extroverted society. This site has some good ideas on both of those topics (at least, from what I’ve seen so far).

Chris Wiegman’s Blog

Oddly enough, I ran across Chris Wiegman’s blog as part of the #100DaysToOffload challenge. I try to glance through the archives of all of the various blogs taking part in the challenge, and when it came to Chris’s blog, I quickly started saving off links to older posts where I either want to do more research on the topic he talked about, or try some of the projects that he’s done (especially moving from WordPress to Hugo, something I’ve considered many times before but never actually done).

Readwise Alternative

And finally, another website that I just ran across today: Readwise. I don’t recall where I found this at (probably Twitter), but the premise is that Readwise makes it easy to revisit and learn from your book & article highlights. The design is that you sync your highlights & notes from Kindle/Instapaper/iBooks/Pocket, and then their service helps you review the best parts easily through a daily email and app while building a database of your knowledge over time. Sounds nifty, right?

Two problems. First off, no support for physical books, which is my preferred way to read (I take somewhat heavy notes in books as I read, or on a pad of paper next to me). Also, it’s a closed system, and if I’m going to put time into anything like this, I want to control my data and host it myself.

In the past I’ve wanted to build a digital commonplace book for myself. I’ve looked at using Evernote (or a similar tool), but I’ve never been happy with their implementations. I’ve heard of personal wikis before, and while I’ve previously skipped over them, this specific application seems like perhaps the ideal use for a wiki. And so, that led me down the rabbit trail of researching personal wiki systems, which is still ongoing. If anyone has a recommendation for me to check out, please let me know (easiest way to contact me is via social media). Ideally, I would like something that I can host myself, and that is available cross-platform (desktop/mobile, and maybe web).

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 3/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Turns Out, I’m an Introvert!

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 12:56:49 -0600

I consider myself an introvert. There’s never been a time in my 30 years on this planet where I didn’t think of myself as an introvert. But over the past few years, as I became more and more involved in both work and church, I started to believe that maybe I was some kind of introvert/extrovert hybrid, or that I was evolving into an extrovert. I still enjoyed time by myself, but I was constantly going places with people, chatting with friends (in person and online), etc. And then the COVID-19 pandemic happened.

When the news first came (around March 15) that people should start working from home, I’ll be honest: at first I was a little concerned with how I would handle being “on lock-down”. Would I begin to go crazy? How hard would it be for me to only be at home, by myself, and not interacting with other people (except online)?

It turns out: I’m still an introvert! As I write this, I’m now well over a month into working from home, and overall, I’m loving it. On most days I don’t talk to anyone verbally (I am still in contact with family and coworkers via various instant messaging platforms), and I frankly don’t miss it that much! I’ve been able to get more accomplished working from home, at least by my own measurement, than I normally would in the office. Interruptions only really exist if I let them, so if I really need to focus, I can put my phone on silent, close down my chat clients, and just work. It’s amazing. I think I’m actually spending more time working at home than I normally would in the office, but it doesn’t feel nearly as draining.

However, I have noticed something odd while working entirely from home. Even though I technically should have more time for personal projects, reading, exercise, and gaming, I don’t seem to be spending much additional time on those pursuits. I’m not entirely sure where my time is going, other than to work (as mentioned above). That’s in no way a complaint, more just a commentary on a lack of mindfulness on my part that I want to correct. Perhaps this week I will keep a journal of exactly how I’m spending my time…

Now, I said that I don’t miss talking to people. That is mostly true, but it’s also a slight stretch. I do, after all, still participate in Zoom chats, which keep me in some semblance of face to face communication with family, coworkers, and friends. And while I don’t necessarily want to go anywhere and hang out with people, I do miss the freedom to choose to do so. I’m not particularly a fan of being told that I can’t travel to see family & friends, go to church, concert, etc.

So, what do I think the next month of continued shelter-in-place looks like for me? I’m kind of looking forward to it, to be honest. I’ve started to get into a good groove with working from home. I want to make time to work on a few more personal projects, but I hope that my time tracking experiment will help me figure that out. I also want to take a few more workout breaks throughout the day, to counter the extra sitting that I’m doing (I have been using a standing desk at work). Stay tuned for an update!

Now, back to my morning coffee and catching up on my RSS feeds…

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 2/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

100 Days to Offload: Day 1

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:48:17 -0600

I sat down approximately 5 hours ago to start writing this post. And then, as often happens anytime I write a blog post, I promptly got distracted making completely unrelated tweaks to how my website works. Therefore, I now have a new theme installed, updated my plugins, and cleaned up my blog post categories. And with that, I am finally starting in on the new post!

I have found over the years that some of the best changes in my life happen when I choose to do something somewhat at random, and don’t put a lot of extra research and planning into it. My switch to the keto diet a few years ago is one good example. Another was the choice a little over a week ago to join challenge to do 2000 lunges in 10 days (1000/leg) with my sister, which turned out to improve my workout habits some while working from home. And that brings us to last night…

100 Days to Offload

Yesterday evening, while scrolling through my Fosstodon timeline, I ran across this post from Kev Quirk:

So what’s the purpose of the challenge? Put simply: Just. Write. For 100 (ideally consecutive) days, write a new post for your blog. It doesn’t matter what you write about, or how great the content is. The goal is simply to write daily.

I thought this all sounded like a fun idea, and so I mentioned it to my sister, who immediately wanted to join in (you can check out her blog here. And so, with very little thought or planning (other than to make a note to start today on my to-do list), I decided that I would give it a try!

Day 1

With all of the introduction and explanation complete, here are my actual thoughts for today.

It’s a dreary, rainy day where I live. I won’t complain much though, because I needed a day off to relax. I work in the agriculture industry, and this is one of our busiest times of the year. Even while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been staying at least as busy as normal, and perhaps busier. Most weekdays I’ve been working on projects in my home office for 10+ hours a day, and some on the weekends. Rainy days tend to bring a slight respite to that schedule.

So today I took a relaxing morning, enjoyed my daily dose of coffee, continued reading Console Wars, which I hope to complete this weekend (it’s really interesting, just rather long), and then began working on my website, and this blog post. Once this is complete, I will probably perform some tech maintenance around my house (updates need ran on multiple machines), and work on creating a playlist for my family’s next remote game of “Name That Tune”. We’ve been playing together using Zoom (my sister and I already had it for work, so it was the most natural choice), and so far it’s been a ton of fun, although it takes some preparation on my part.

I’m unsure of what the rest of the posts in this series/challenge will look like. Some days will probably just be passing on an interesting article I read. Other days may include musings on life, home projects, the news, or anything else that is on my mind.

To that end, if you have any recommendations on topics for me to write about throughout this challenge, please reach out and let me know! I have contact via email disabled currently, but you can reach me on social media (yes, I’m back on social media, I’ll explain that another time) using the links at the bottom of my website.

And if you’re super bored, check out the podcast that my sister and I host, Sibling Summit! We post new episodes twice a month, and discuss pretty much any topic that crosses our minds!

Final Thoughts

As I was reading through my RSS feed over lunch, I saw a post by Cal Newport (from today) entitled “Bring Back Blogs?“, which advocates for the use of blogs over Twitter for experts to publish long-form information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interesting timing, and I completely agree his assessment:

When confined to Twitter, pandemic experts mainly express themselves through 15- or 20-tweet long threads. Not only is this format cumbersome to consume, it also can’t easily be updated. To make matters worse, these threads are quickly pushed out of view by the downward pressure of the growing user timeline. A page or post on a blog, on the other hand, allows the expert to more easily write long-form content, including links to their articles and rich graphics, they can easily update as new information arises. In addition, a stable section of core articles can be maintained at the top of the site where they will be immediately visible and not pushed out of view by new content.

In this proposal, these experts wouldn’t abandon social media. On the contrary, they would continue to actively engage with these platforms to summarize their ideas and comment on events, while the platforms would continue to work their algorithmic magic to amplify the more impactful content. The big change, however, is that this short-form content can now be pointing back to their longer, more stable elaborations.

I’m definitely not an expert on anything health related, but I would strongly advocate for experts (and amateurs) in a variety of fields to return to blogging for long-form content!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload. You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.