Above the trophy case hangs an elvish sword of great antiquity.
Microsoft is like a very expensive, but sleek and featureful car. It is static and monolithic and richly serves a tyrant called Economy… and yet requires a lot of upkeep, somehow.
Linux is like a custom built hotrod. It’s literally free and respects liberty – volunteers have band together to forge the parts themselves. It is standardized yet dynamic… and even being based on modularity and openness and diversity… it requires very little upkeep, somehow.
None of us know exactly how long we have on this Earth.
Let your self expression be your legacy in life. Let your uniqueness, your one-of-a-kind nature be what people remember; what the cosmos record of you.
There was a horrible tyrant, and his henchman.
The henchman was loyal, truthful and always did his best to appease his master, as he is also master of all beneath him. Though he dreamed of one day being the ruler of all, and armed with the faults he saw in the horrible tyrant, he felt as if he was falling deeper and deeper into a dark abyss.
The ruthless and dishonest tyrant – one who would deceive and sacrifice the ones he was responsible for the sake of himself, would chain his henchman to those he manipulated. He would fool many and entrench him, soon to benefit but long to hold the lies. He would execute plans and invite his henchman to his quarters, which would offer gold, and riches, and influence. The henchman, forever starved of importance and acknowledgement, took what was offered.
The trollish tyrant would remark, “Aren’t you glad you’re on my side?” to which the henchman would respond… “Yes I am, so as I am.”
Yes I am, so as I am.
“Trump/DeSantis 2024”
Growing up I always had pretty strong feelings about different genres of music.. but like many things in life, as I got older I got wiser and sort of zoomed out a bit from myself to see the bigger picture.
Yes, I am an individual. Yes, I have my own preferences and tastes and opinions and beliefs. This is inherent in all of us.
It would be ignorant to present ones preferences, tastes or opinions as ‘truths’ or anything but completely objectional. Like the old saying goes, “Opinions are like assholes; everybody’s got one.”
When I was growing up in the early 1990’s my musical taste lied loyally with hard rock and heavy metal. Guns ‘N Roses, Motley Crue, and later alt/grunge made a lasting impression with me with bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana…you know. And everyone in my 4th grade who pledged allegiance to rap….were the enemy.
Adolescence is something many people don’t grow out of. And for good reason! Being an adult sucks. Sure, there’s perks.. I’ll always remember the last day of 3rd grade when one of the teachers told a friend and I, as we played kickball against a wall, to cherish our youth and make the best of it. I took that to heart that day and never forgot. I’m proud to not have allowed the more jaded aspects of life and responsibility get to my head.. though I may be much wealthier if I had the aptitude to do so, I know I would have been miserable underneath and I’d never lie to myself like that.
But “growing up” and “getting wiser” aren’t the same thing. I ‘zoom out’ as often as I can remember now. It’s sort of like meditation..hard to do, especially if it’s not a normal practice yet.
I respect all genres of music at this point in life. I have my preferences, and one of them is definitely rap now. But that doesn’t discount the amazing talent of every creative artist who puts their true self out there for the world to do what it will with. That’s so fucking inspiring to me that, how dare I act so self centered to say any one genre, artist or song sucks. Ok, I may not like it, but I’ll keep myself in check because I’m not the fucking center of the universe.
Both sides want peace.
Both sides want prosperity.
Both sides want freedom.
Why are we pointing fingers at each other? I feel like we’re all being led to this grande climactic point in time when the light bulbs come on and everyone is shown through this fantastic narrative that, “See? We’re all the same – how could we have been so blind for so long?” It’s corny and patronizing and I’m embarrassed to think the human race needs to be told a story to realize what’s been happening.
Will he just fucking die already?
If this U.S. midterm election has shown us anything, it’s that representation is in almost _perfect balance_. I think that’s something to be proud and hopeful of. There’s a lot we have to work on; mutual understanding, respect for the rule of law and due process, empathy, honor, conviction… but balance is key to a healthy and vibrant nation, I think. Whether it’s in two, or even three, four or more. As long as all of the parts understand the duality of their purpose, as party and as nation – and the latter never being dishonored.
I wonder what huge mega-corp proprietary software vendors think about when they see volunteers making software in their “free time” as their biggest threat?
Democrats have been blamed for high inflation but I find it “interesting” that the fallout from the complete mismanagement of Covid-19 in the U.S. during the Trump presidency isn’t even considered a factor. It seems painfully obvious to me that the long term impacts of that as well as everything else that was mismanaged and/or purposefully sabotaged between 2016-2020 has everything to do with our economy now. But I guess we all have goldfish memories.
Fake/bot Facebook accounts that friend hundreds of millions of people that are “friends of friends” and just *occasionally* about pro-Trump propaganda. Like a slow drip.
Happened to me a few times already. Smells like the work of Banon or one of his slaves.
At any rate, fuck you.
I had a rough day today. But coming home, and not just getting into other tasks and to-dos, both personal and business related, did me a lot of good.
I looked at my bass guitars hanging on my wall, silently. That little voice in my head was whispering to pick one up and just play. So I did. I started a simple drum beat in 4/4 on my loop pedal and just alternated between a single interval of two notes, back and forth. Like rocking or swaying, I just lost myself in the simplicity and rhythm. It bloomed into triplets, moving up the scale, and back down. Then doubles, and back, up and down. At times I’d hang out with three notes, repeating them over and over, and then slowly rising and falling again throughout the scale.
It was hypnotizing. In simple practice of playing single notes on a bass guitar, in a very simple arrangement, I lost all of the shit that clouded my head all day until that point. It was like meditating. I forced myself to pay attention to that and that only. Even now typing this the shit is trying to seep back in, intrude on my conscious mind and I’m fighting with typing this sentence on my keyboard right now. But when I was playing, I had to stay within the beat, I had to be on time. Every second of the way. It helped that I was out of practice and had to pay extra special attention ;)
The struggle is real. But we have tools…tools to save us. Hang in there.
I’m being pulled in by the
Riptide
If I want to live, I have to die
Riptide
Pull….
Pull me in….
I’m ready
Ready Freddie, ready Freddie
It’s about time that CC, F/OSS and Social Impact meet up for a beer and discuss a joint venture. I’d say we’re long, long overdue for a major ‘shift’.
Money will quickly become obsolete when we all sync up with the tools we currently have and forge an understanding of each other and a motivation to cooperate for the bettering of our species.
Sometimes I think it’s necessary to move backward to figure out how to move forward.
We ordered Mexican food from a local place off of E. Holly St. and took it down to Boulevard Park. We found a nice picnic bench and as we made our way toward it, a man played a Melodica.
The Sun was setting beautifully over the islands. There were many people there, yet the park was enchantingly quiet, leaving enough acoustic space in the air for the Melodica’s notes to carry far. Even the children played on the big play structure quietly. I think everyone was enjoying the music.
It was a very memorable evening.
I love this town.
Listening to an old gig I played bass in, and fucking a…I sucked so bad. I mean, we all sucked, I guess. But holy shit, I’m glad bars sell beer because everyone seemed to still have a good time.
That is all.
I don’t watch a bunch of television but recently ran through Mike Judge’s “Silicon Valley”. I really enjoyed the series; it’s refreshing to find such high quality production consistently get technology and business right. John Stafford (the Datacenter manager, pictured) is hilarious. I’m just happy to see areas like this get some attention I guess!
I’m really enjoying i3 (tiling window manager). I’m no expert but after using it for about 2 months I’m pretty comfortable with it. I used to be intimidated as tiling WMs were so foreign to me. For many years I was a fluxbox faithful but I found myself constantly arranging my windows in ways that a tiling wm does naturally. Seemed like a good idea to just take the plunge and force myself to learn how it worked. It wasn’t that bad! I’d say I’m much more productive with it. Moving stuff around is much faster, and I really enjoy the each-monitor-is-a-workspace concept. This way I can switch workspaces individually on each monitor. In fluxbox each *set* of monitors was a workspace, so I’d change workspaces and *both* monitors would have different apps running. The general concept of workspaces in i3 is really just more up my alley.
How to get away with cheating – the MAGA Republican way
Step 1: Accuse others of doing the same thing, loudly and ad nauseam. Pay no attention to evidence, facts or reality – nobody cares.
Step 2: If you get caught, deny it. See step 1 re: evidence. Use the legal system to drag it out until people get nauseous and don’t want to think about it anymore.
Step 3: Double-down on your original accusations. Pepper in additional lies along with personal insults. Do it louder than before. “Flood the zone with shit”.
Step 4: Profit!
Some people believe God created man.
Others argue that man created God.
I believe both to be true.
Those who “follow the leader” are, by definition, not leaders.
It’s like clockwork.
I remember when I went to tech college, a classmate/friend of mine said he always wanted to form a band with 2 bassists – one for the low end and one playing as lead.
I always thought that was a fucking cool idea.
He also once said about our networking teacher: “He’s got a T-1 directly to his brain.”
He was also the one that first said to me, if you do acid three times, you’re considered legally insane.
He reminded me of Trent Reznor.
He was cool.
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say man what are you doin’ here?
In between the moon and you
Angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
Why do you
Talk to yourself
Like you’re someone else
Why do you
Talk to yourself
Talk to yourself
If we’re gonna make it through tomorrow
Down in the dirt and fallin’ out on the street
Crossin’ the line myself (to make it to me)
Mother Nature’s still on her knees, and we’re the reason of her disease
Hangin’ off the ceiling, climbing up the walls
Crawling on my hands and knees to make it through it all
Now we can change or stay the same, one’s the answer and the next insane
Solution is a world of change
If we’re gonna make it through tomorrow
The solution is to make a change today, oh yeah
Make it, I said make it!
(Solo)
Down to the wire, on the end of the road
Down to the wire, all the kids don’t know
Mother Nature’s down on her knees, and we’re the reason of her disease
Hangin’ off the ceiling, climbing up the walls
Crawling on my hands and knees, just to make it, just to make it
Now we can change or stay the same, one’s the answer and the next to blame
Solution is a world of change
Juice my body
I like to feel it
Flow right through me
A smile can contradict
All of this entropy
“You are having difficulties because you are fundamentally at conflict with your thoughts and feelings and you are using X as a weapon in this conflict. You are hoping that if you do X for long enough you won’t have to feel any of these difficult feelings. This is why it feels so uncomfortable and you are having physical symptoms, it’s because you are fundamentally resisting your emotions which is to fundamentally reject yourself.
As long as you want your emotions gone, that is you want to battle with them, to control them you will always lose and feel overwhelmed. Whatever you resist, persists.
It is a good idea to get out of the habit of resistance because it is resistance to our negative emotions that cause us suffering and not the emotion itself. Emotions are truly neutral, resistance turns them into negative.
To fully accept an emotion:
1. Be honest – don’t gaslight yourself. If you feel angry, sad, ashamed then that’s how you feel and that’s how you SHOULD feel simply because you are feeling that way.
2. Don’t try to feel better – this is our bad habit of resistance. The good intention to feel better is a way of saying I don’t want to feel how I’m feeling now which is rejection. A good test to see if you are accepting is if you can honestly answer no to the question ‘would I mind feeling like this forever?’ (It’s okay if your answer is yes, it takes time to cultivate this attitude, Rome wasn’t built in a day!)
3. See that what you are is acceptance. True acceptance doesn’t come from the mind, it’s not an action that you do. Acceptance is your nature, the nature of consciousness. Consciousness has no way to deny any appearance in it, it’s like an open space. If you understand that that is your true nature you will know it was never you resisting in the first place, it was all the mind
4. Be kind to yourself, it takes time to undo the habit of resistance – we’ve been doing it for so long!“
– u/Wannabe_Buddha_420 on Reddit
As I climb the crest of the mountain
Exhaust from the dump truck in front of me lingers and flows into my windows
I’m setting upon another journey on the same tired road I’ve driven ten million times before
Would I be crazy to think that this time would be different?
To think that all of my good deeds and karma would finally pay off?
Or would they simply lead me to entanglement and yet another spider web
And force me to lose an arm to break out…
Mercury heads back out along its way
After an unusually harsh retrograde
While everyone here on the ground is still dizzy
Still drunk from a fortnight of chaos and evil
But I hold steadfast and strong
With a never ending hope that one day
Some day
Things will come back around to me
And the just will once again lead those who need leaders
And the cold blooded reptiles will once again burrow under the hot sand
To hide away and ponder a day when they are allowed to come back again
This road is like a maze, with twisty passages that all look alike
I’m an adventurer, seeking only to explore
But to be free, you must be prepared for war
So with a sword and a stiletto in my hands
I will face the trolls and thieves
And in the underground I find light
Much brighter than above, from a lantern
And I must bring it with me
Else be eaten by a grue
For it lurks in the shadows
Below and above ground
With no discrimination
But for adventurers like me who hold no agenda, but to find happiness and comfort
And maybe some treasure
But let me break the fourth wall
Let me run from the forest directly into the cave
Let me pierce this reality
This is all just a game
So when it’s all over
Let me return
To this bright, familiar road
That I’ve traveled ten million times before
Only to convince myself that maybe this time things will be different
And while Mercury continues out of sight
We will all once again forget the evil and wrongdoing
That comes with confusion
That comes with unease
That comes with not knowing
The source code
(Transcribed from a voice recording taken in 2019/07)