Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Worm first day

    Strange first day.

    It's also my first day without coffee, I wonder how that changed my energy. I worried most of the day about my daughter's travel. The road to Vancouver was quite snowy.

    I slept until 10 this morning and still went for a nap this afternoon for a few hours. I wonder how depleted my energy has been, what was I fueling on for all this time? I'm still tired.

  • In Praise of Shadows

    Meanwhile in the Babylon 5 universe praising shadows may be problematic, but that universe cleaves rather closer to various Western norms.

  • Take My Hand: Chapter 40

    Walt sat on the corner of the cart, kicking his heels against the frame, just inside Douxie's reach. For now, while Douxie was negotiating, he was behind him.

    He had developed the habit of drumming his heels on whatever he was sitting on to be more believable as a bored five year old--and because Nurse had constantly warned him not to do that before he could even start, he knew it had to be really common--but today it was driven more by nervous energy than anything else. Douxie could turn around and grab him at any time. He could probably escape that because of the time it took to turn around, but it was still nerve-wracking.

    The farmer was another step farther away, and out of reach. Walt knew he could get to the other side of the cart before the farmer could reach him.

    He also knew that Douxie would have to turn around and move closer once he finished negotiating, to get whatever he needed to trade from the cart. And today, he was going to stay right there, while Douxie rummaged through the cart right beside him. In reach. In *close* reach. Almost in *front* of him and easy to grab, and no performance for being close for just long enough to hand over some item, because Douxie wasn't far enough away to ask him to find something while he walked back. No plan, no show, no idea what to expect.

  • Booped by a sedan

    WELP. That was not an ideal ride.

    I mean it was fine for the first 85% of it. Was just cruising, wandering. Rode through the (relatively) quiet Sunday night city, west out to the water, enjoyed the quiet open roads and the cool air. Head toward home, through downtown. I usually enjoy riding through downtown, the chaos of city riding - you never know if a homeless person is gonna walk out in front of you (they are), and there's tourists and ubers and all sorts of stuff to dodge. It's exciting - I like the chaos.

    While I'm riding through downtown I'm on a three-lane road, one way, I'm in center. There's an ambulance in the left lane, what I think was a black BMW in the center lane, and the right lane was free. The ambulance and the black car were going really slow, just creeping along. I shoulda fuckin realized like, there's a reason they're basically stopped in the middle of the fucking road. Not a good reason - not like something was in front of them, but there's usually a reason. "Uncommon thing in a common situation."

  • Worm first morning

    Dreaming about a house that is on fire. It's not my house, but I am helping putting out the fire. It's not difficult, and I visit a room or the other, check how the fire is going and extinguishing it partly. The house is going to be okay, I just need to manage the fire until it's done.

    I feel this is connected to my healing. One thing that surfaces right now is my body. The small pains and hurts that I am not caring for are coming to the surface. My left side, left leg, my descending colon, left armpit all need some care. My teeth, my neck, I got a nerve stuck in my right arm. My thumb is a bit numb. All this care for my body, and then there is the mental and emotional that needs care too.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Moved Diode Square Approximation Circuit to PCB

    I wanted to use sockets this time, so that it would be much easier to swap out the op amp ICs if one of them got zapped or whatever. All I had on hand was some 16 pin sockets, so I just set the two 8 pin ICs next to each other in the same socket.

    After moving everything over to the PCB, I tested it on the bench and, remarkably, it still works! I was using up a bunch of ancient carbon resistors I got from somebody a while ago. I have to take care when soldering them, as they will start bubbling if I apply heat for too long.

    I have ideas to hook up some connectors to those leads. I would use 2.5mm banana sockets for the input and output leads, so I could connect it easily into a THAT circuit. I was still thinking to reuse old molex connectors for power connections, but I haven't been able to get more male connectors yet.

  • Carrie Sundra Announces Alpenglow Industries' Closure, Puts Everything on Sale at a Steep Discount

    Maker Carrie Sundra has announced the closure of Alpenglow Industries, the company behind devices like the Glow Gauge and SkeinTwister for fabric projects and light-up wearables like the Glowie jewelry range for electronics fans — with current stock being sold off at a steadily-increasing discount to clear inventory.

    "Hello friends, family, supporters, and fiber community. I've had to make the incredibly difficult decision to shut down Alpenglow," Sundra writes of the company's closure. "Even though we had a great fall and holiday season, the short story is that we aren't making enough continuous sales to cover our shop space and employee costs, and it's too much of a gap for any short-term solution to cover. So it's time to call it, and just send out a huge thank-you and hug to everyone who has supported us, been excited about our products, and sent us kind words ever since this business started in 2009 with actual hand-dyed yarn."

  • That right there - that's a clue!

    Debugging why my Gemini server stopped responding, since I managed to catch it in the error state with enough energy to debug. I'm learning to use new process debugging tools and digging into the details to try to understand what's normal and what signals help find root cause. The digressions are excessive.