Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • 🔤SpellBinding: ALCFHKB Wordo: BEAUS

  • air

    It's been a while since I last wrote here, huh? This semester was easily the hardest one so far. Many projects, many rehearsals, and many sleepless nights later, I've pulled through and now it's time for archival and regression into calm.

    I always loved the metaphor of wind: breeze, wind, tempest, storm. I can't quite put my finger on why it works so well, but it works. Life doesn't ever become anything other than what it is. It's the intensity that changes. Every day is filled with joy and sadness and celebration and loss and grief. On a breezy one, you don't mind them. When the storm arrives, it's the only thing you can mind.

  • A kind deed for the youngest member of the family

    Recently I learned a lesson in motherhood. It's on-the-job training, so I tend to bumble quite often but as I learn I try to do better.

    For years, when I had a toddler with a runny nose, I would grab a baby wipe to wipe their nose. It seemed like a good idea. Wash and wipe all in one. You know how you might get busy with chores for half an hour, or 45 minutes while the toddler is busy playing, and then when they come walking up to you again, arms stretched out wanting to be held, their face is all crusted with streaks of dried snot and shiny mucus while twin streams of green goo pour out of their nostrils. It's a scary sight. A simple Kleenex didn't seem to be sufficient. And we buy the baby wipes in bulk from Costco and nearly always have lots available. That was why I used a baby wipe.

    Of course, my kids hated it and would scream and whip their head away trying to avoid getting their nose wiped.

    I just figured all little kids hate having their nose wiped and putting a 1 year old in a headlock in order to wipe their nose is one of those parenting skills you have to learn.

• Technology and Free Software

  • vintage digital cameras pt. 2

    continuation from the previous post.

    another digital camera i recently purchased is the nikon d2h. released as a professional dslr in 2003 and had a price tag of $5k. i was able to find one in near-mint condition with a shutter count of less than 500(!, 493 to be exact), for $240 shipped. also included was a battery charger and a near-dead battery pack. the good thing about the battery pack is that i can dismantle it and replace 18650 batteries contained within. the shutter count surprised me, as the camera's original listing only mentioned "less than 15k actuations". serial number also indicates a very late production, so hopefully the shutter/meter issues that have plagued this model have been smoothed out by then.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • In praise of email

      Perhaps this is a strange title, now everybody is returning from the X-mas and New Year break. Returning from a break or holiday usually triggers the dreadful thoughts about overfull inboxes.

      In organizations, email inboxes, along with inboxes from the latest hyped workflow technology, can be overwhelming and stressful on their own.

      This is for work related email, but when I see the amount of traffic on some developers mailing lists, like the Emacs developers list and the org developers list, I can imagine that for the people involved, who have to respond and react on those messages, it can all become a bit overwhelming.

      For private use, however, I think email is wonderful.

    • That Time my Friend and I Kinda Invented the App Store

      It was late 1993 or early 1994 or so, and I was in my early-mid teens. I had this friend Erik, who was blind. Erik is now some kind of attorney, while I'm a bum on hospice with a failing heart and some programming and Unix admin skills. As some young people will do, Erik and I would have these hours-long bullshit sessions. We were huge Star Trek fans and played a lot of Trade Wars 2002 on local bulletin boards. He had a bit of sight where I have none. He was from a strict Christian background, so I strongly encouraged him to look at pictures of naked chicks on the early Internet.

  • Career

    • back. ready for action.

      i always wanted to become a hunter.

      hunters are like an orchestra, all dressed in similar outfits, at least in some way its evident that they are part of some family, all carrying their shiny weapons. They meet regularly for drinking sessions, sometimes go together for a hunt, like wild boar chase. last time they even found a dead body. who was he?

      even if i liked the idea of being a part of them, im not really that type. I like to wonder the woods alone and in quiet. then meeting deer from close and looking into the surprised curious eyes when they spot me. they move on in a calm phase. autumn leaves crunching under the hooves. couldnt tell if they are a family, they were almost the same size. to survive as a hunter, you actually have to hunt-down, kill, clean the cadaver... and i am not that kind of person either.