Two months later

Mon 11 December 2023 by R.L. Dane

Content warning: This post deals with loss

As I have alluded to before, there is a certain process of effacing that time does to loss and grief, as well as the memory of the departed.

I'm staring at the two month mark, and while I've had some truly dark moments of loss in the weeks since the last big milestone ...
I'm ok.
I'm ok?
I'm OK.

Life moves on, even when you'd rather it didn't. No matter how much you want to stop everything and set up a shrine to the memory of the one you're missing, that's just not going to happen. Nor would they want you to.

That's about it. If this post seems rambly and seemingly aimless, I beg your pardon.

I'm posting this to post it. Its existence is the only goal. There is no great weight I must "expectorate," as Kierkegaard would say.

And that, in and of itself, is a good sign.

Cheers, friends.

More nerdy updates coming soon this week.

Until then, kindly raise a glass to Hobbes for me. He deserves to be remembered.

And with apologies to the great Jorge Luis Borges,
"The world will be Hobbes."


NaNoWriMo Debrief

Fri 01 December 2023 by R.L. Dane

I've heard about NaNoWriMo going back at least eight years. I had classmates (back when I was a middle-aged college student ;) talk to me about it, but I always thought the 50,000 words goal was just unattainable.

This year, I finally stepped up to the plate and participated, although …

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On "Zoomers" and Generations

Thu 30 November 2023 by R.L. Dane

One thing I've noticed as someone who has lived in *gulp* six decades is that we Americans have a thing for generations. Well, in broad terms, looking at life generationally is absolutely not new, nor uniquely American. But naming generations just might be. Several European FediFriends have expressed to me …

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Web 1.0 is (unironically) going great

Wed 29 November 2023 by R.L. Dane

I resolved never to put a web browser on this machine, which is a Thinkpad X200t from early 2010 with the Libreboot firmware flashed to it, and the wifi card replaced with a FOSS-driver-loving atheros-based card. Ever since I got it in early 2019, it's been my "writing machine," my …

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On the Fediverse and FediFriends

Tue 28 November 2023 by R.L. Dane

You may have seen me mention The Fediverse or "FediFriends" in previous posts. Now, I anticipate that 100% of my readers are already in the Fediverse (or within a rounding error of 100% 😄), but just in case someone doesn't know, the following is a succinct description and discussion of the …

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I can fly!

Sun 26 November 2023 by R.L. Dane

Content Warning: This post involves illness and extremely stressful situations

Have you ever had a lucid dream? One where you could just bend reality to your will — fly freely by thinking, become POTUS, rule a banana republic (two things that are becoming tragically similar), or propose marriage the famous person …

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*Don't* use what works for you

Sun 26 November 2023 by R.L. Dane

I was watching a youtuber I rather like, and he closed out his video talking about his pragmatic approach to operating systems. He said he used multiple OSes (some FOSS and some non-FOSS), and he summed up his approach with "Use what works for you."

This is not a polemic …

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UNIX is "dead," Part II

Sat 25 November 2023 by R.L. Dane

I was re-reading my original UNIX is dead. Long live UNIX article, and I realized something that helped me better classify the various types of UNIX OSes:

I see OSes like the BSDs as UNIXes, while I view MacOS and many Linux distros (particularly the Gnome-oriented ones, more about that …

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How to Raise the Dead: An Instructional Guide to Necromancy, as it were

Thu 23 November 2023 by R.L. Dane

I got into a humorous discussion with a good "FediFriend" today about cloning and necromancy. The result of our rather bizarre conversation was that I would write an article on necromancy if he would write an article on cloning.

His resultant article was not at all what I thought it …

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Fading into Memory (the cruelest stage of grief)

Wed 15 November 2023 by R.L. Dane

Content Warning: This post deals with grief

Yet again, I had planned to write about healthy mourning, and yet again, what's on my mind being hijacked by what's rattling around in my heart.

There is this innocent, necessary, and healthy stage of mourning that is also so terribly cruel: the …

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