2024 Week 15/16: Thoughts and Photos

2024-04-22

---

For the moment I have given up on my plans to use OpenBSD on my ThinkPad. I don't want to use a heavy server like Syncthing on it to synchronize files; I'd rather use asynchronous tools like git or NNCP, and NNCP is my current tool of choice. Unfortunately, I simply cannot get Go to compile statically-linked versions of the NNCP binaries on OpenBSD 7.5, so I'd be stuck on 7.4 or lower. If I can figure out how to fix that problem, or if NNCP releases an update to fix it, I might switch back. In th meantime, I'm still deciding which OS to use.

After moderate success growing strawberries last year, my wife bought several potted plants to decorate the house, which have grown beautifully. This year we decided to take the next step and build a garden. This weekend we constructed a raised-bed garden, filled it with high-nutrient dirt, and planted a few different kinds of fruits, including cucumbers, tomatoes and more strawberries. In full disclosure, I killed a lucky bamboo at my last employer's office in 2021, so if these garden plants merely survive until autumn--even if they bear almost no friut--that will be a win in my book.

My temporary weight gain has reversed again. Sometimes I need a reminder that weight management really is a simple thing: if I exercise, I lose weight, and if I eat poorly, I gain weight. I just need to keep things up.

What saddens and frustrates me the most about smartphones is what a wasted opportunity they are. People often say smartphones are supercomputers in our pockets, when in reality, smartphones are more like pocket-sized televisions. Only some models allow the user to perform any independent tasking at all, and even those require mountains of tweaks to get it working. On top of that, no smartphones come with true administrator access out of the box, and only custom ROMs allow rooting without requiring an exploit--you must resort to literally attacking your own device just so you can fully control it. Smartphones are a huge disappointment to me.

I wish it was easier to interact with resources on the mainline internet entirely through a command line. That's why I use Gemini (and Gopher) so much.

I'm considering moving my password database out of KeePass and into a different format. It would be nice to just have a simple PGP-based solution, such as pass^, that can work on any device. The reason I haven't yet switched is that KeePass has many features I use heavily, from searchability to fine-grained password generation to attachments. I'm open to looking at other tools, though.

---

Photo of the week (week 15):

Eclipse on a Phone

(PNG, 600x450, 134 KB)

Monday saw a partial solar eclipse pass over the area. We had solar-rated glasses to be able to look at the sun, but we discovered that it was impossible to get a picture on our phones: the remaining glare was just too powerful, and the glasses darked the solar disk too much. However, a crescent was visible in the camera's lens flare. In the absense of more sophisticated equipment, this was good enough.

Photo of the week (week 16):

Baby Birds

(PNG, 600x450, 180 KB)

We have a decorative wooden box mounted on the wall of our porch near the door, which holds a few fake plants. A few weeks ago we found that a robin had made its nest in the box and laid four eggs. All four eggs hatched on Wednesday. This picture was taken when the chicks were just six days old.

---

Up One Level

Home

[Last updated: 2024-04-22]