Month: April 2024

April 16, 2024 – Have You Considered a Portable Monitor?

April 16, 2024 /

I have. All the way back to 2010, I had a co-worker that had one. They have been around a long time and the original ones were more like an iPad size. I was amazed at how inexpensive they have become as well when I was looking. They used to cost more than a real monitor. Only recently have I put it more in the want category.

I resisted a second monitor for a long time. Most of my co-workers had second monitors long before me. My logic was that I spent a lot of time on the road 25-50% travel and I didn’t want it to become a necessity. I finally got one in 2013. I think it was because the company was making so much money that the owners decided to re-invest some of it.

I worked for a small company and everything other than what they gave us, we had to justify or buy it ourselves. I have come nearly 180 degrees since that time. I used to feel like I would spend nothing from my own money because it wasn’t necessary. But, today I prefer to own my own equipment and comfort and productivity are worth the money. Not to mention that if I own the stuff, I can use it how I choose, like my work with AltF4.

One day, I showed up at work and voila, I had a new monitor. The owner said ‘Got to protect those eyes from strain’. I said thanks. I also got a new chair that way as well. It really does help as a programmer and those things that go along with the job. I can have the code open on one screen and a document open on another. It can definitely be done without a second monitor, but the process takes probably four times longer.

When I got back into the workforce in 2021 I was a contractor. In that case, I didn’t even have options to requisition additional job hardware so I bought my own. I held off as long as I could but it was just so inefficient flipping back and forth amongst screens that the cost was worth it.

Should you have a travel monitor? That depends. How much mobile work do you do (meaning not having a dedicated space)? How valuable is having a second screen? How small is you laptop? I purchased one a few weeks ago so that I could move from my office to the dining room table while my wife was in bed. Here are some of the things that I learned.

  1. Setting all of that stuff up every day is a pain. It probably takes 5-10 minutes for setup and take down.
  2. It is hard to get comfortable in a confined space. There are extra cords for the monitor and to be effective, the monitor has to be positioned correctly. This interferes with where I want to place and use the mouse.
  3. If you truly are travelling, this adds a lot of weight and bulk. My backpack has room for two laptops. I must warn that it is heavy.
  4. It has been helpful for my work however. I can do all the things I do in my office, just not quite as well.

I think that I am going to come down on the side of ‘I like the idea more than the practice’. It is worth all of the effort for setup if I am going to stay in one spot all day but not moving from place to place. If and when I am travelling for work, I very well may not take it unless I can leave my setup day after day. Travel work is usually more support work and not document writing, having a second screen is less necessary in those cases.

End Your Programming Routine: Should you get a travel monitor? My advice is no unless you absolutely need two monitors to work. It really is not worth the space, time and hassle. Since I am at home, it really isn’t a big deal but I really don’t see myself actually travelling with it.

April 15, 2024 – Is It That Simple?

April 15, 2024 /

Sometimes an epiphany hits. The truth is that I thought this complicated issue was going to go the other way until I started looking at the history. All of the sudden I made a a 180 when I actually saw what was going on. The simple part was making the link between the problem and the result. Note: This podcast was recorded before the NAIA ruling on transgender athletes (4-8-24).

April 12, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Purgatory, Canto XIII – XV

April 12, 2024 /

This week is the second cornice or the level of Envy. Once again, the punishment is relevant to the crime. It goes from dress to behavior to attitude. When in this level, souls are wearing brownish, grayish cloaks that blend into the surroundings. The point of that is that it is opposite of envy. While something catches your eye that you want, in this case the souls cannot be seen.

Once they cannot be seen, then they cannot see. The souls eyes are sewn shut so that they are not able to look, the nature or conduit of their sin. There isn’t a lot to do there except pray and sing. A lot of the vitriol that proceeded the previous stops were absent here.

I have been thinking about this for several weeks now. There have been very few mentions of women to date. We of course have the pursuit to Beatrice and there have been a few spirits or furies, but no real characters. It makes me wonder exactly what the colloquial feeling on women and the afterworld was at the time.

For sure, this was a patriarchy but does that mean that women were considered sinless? I highly doubt that but they probably didn’t have the same opportunity to commit all the politically motivated sins. It is also likely that because this piece is making fun of all of Dante’s enemies, he may not have had quarrel with women. I will be curious to see if the proportion of women pick-up through the remainder of the book.

This is another week that had a long diatribe of people and events, specifically Canto XIV. I happened to by trying to read in the hospital. It was really difficult flipping back and forth between the footnotes and text as well as paying half attention to what I was doing.

I suppose that I should be grateful that there is more notes than actual text. Without them, I would be lost in the mythology references. And, I could probably ignore them and just read the text straight through. But, it is really hard to maintain continuity of the story flipping back and forth every couple of minutes. In general, an average Canto takes me about thirty minutes to read.

End Your Programming Routine: This is going to be a short one. Next week, Cornice 3 is going to be Canto XVI only. Truth be told, the farther I go along, the more confused I am between the separation of Hell and Purgatory. Notes give me a small backstory with each interaction but there are still characters that were murdered, committed suicide and killed others. Maybe it was a matter of asking forgiveness? Otherwise, I just don’t know.

April 11, 2024 – Ready to Roll

April 11, 2024 /

Can I tell you, I used to love looking at gear lists on forums for the go bag. They were full of firearms, ammo, dynamite, hatchets, blowtorches, trauma kits and the like. But lets get real here, there is nothing to put us on our knees like discomfort. The other day, I went to go meet my wife at chemotherapy and I was hungry.

A snack is not a meal. I don’t take charcuterie boards as dinner nor am I satiated by fast food. In fact, I stopped for my wife on the way to the doctor’s office to get her a request. I ordered too and after I ate it, I honestly felt sick. The simple carbohydrate bomb of 2/3 of my daily calory limit is sickening after an hour.

The reason I also got fast food was because I intended to eat before I left. However, I was working and I ran out of time before it was absolutely time to leave. I figured, I would gut it out until dinner time but when she requested that I stop, I went ahead and ordered as well. I am also a pragmatist but I wasn’t prepared. This is why I went and got my own snacks.

A constant theme in my life today is that time is not my own. Almost without fail, I sit down to work or do something and then ten minutes later I have to get up and provide care or I have to go to something or from one appointment we unexpectedly have to go to the next. Rather than extra magazines, it would be far better to have some snacks.

Here are some of the lessons I have learned. I am not saying candy bars aren’t delicious, but being fulfilled would nice. Unless you can predict the weather conditions, you need to consider the melt temperature as well. The packaging should be protective or the items should be hard. Nobody wants a bag of chip dust or fruit paste. It should also be shelf stable.

I like jerky or pepperoni/jerky, nuts, granola bars and the like. Unless you want to portion out servings into bags, I would steer clear of glass jars and steel cans. Keep one serving with you and not a week’s worth. The goal is not to live out of your bag but to meet you where you are at. Those items can be replaced when you get home.

Before I went to stock up, I looked at some ideas on the internet to make sure that I have considered the possibilities. To be honest, there is nothing wrong with making your own banana chips, but who has the time right now. There were all kinds of protein balls and the like. A bunch of grapes or fruit full of water doesn’t meet my weight and storage criteria either. Take a banana to eat when you get to the hospital, not to carry around in your bag in case you need to skip a meal.

Spending the night at the hospital when the cafeteria is closed and you have to go through airport security to come back is a drag. It is much better to have things with you because no matter what you decide, that gives you choices. It is also much better to spend twenty minutes working before you leave than twenty minutes after you get back home. No matter how good the plan is, it is better to plan for contingencies.

In addition to the food, I also take a water bottle with me. The nurses have always been very accommodating when it comes to drinks, but never food. It is not because it is punishment or torture but most often in the hospital, diet is restricted and controlled and it is for the patients. I can fill my water bottle any time I like and they will lead me right to the station.

Sleeping in a reclining chair is much better when you are warm, comfortable and your belly isn’t growling. These are the items to have with you rather than a sword or fire starter. Of course, the contents of my bag will change when ‘The Stand’ comes to life but for now, I can’t even get into the hospital with a pocket knife.

End Your Programming Routine: As stated earlier, I don’t like snacks as a meal. It doesn’t beat mashed potatoes and meatloaf or even pizza. But, it is a heck of a lot better than factoring in another stop or even worse, starving. Even though granola bars are not really a balanced and healthy meal, it also beats the sugar in a fast food burger and fries and my body feels better too. These are the real lessons in preparedness.

April 10, 2024 – When Experts Are Not Experts

April 10, 2024 /

As preparation for being sick, my wife wanted a new bed. She wanted one of those adjustable beds so that she could sit up and watch TV. We went shopping and tried out a number of them and settled on one. The goal was to get it delivered and setup before chemotherapy started.

I have a lot to say about these things after seeing them and using them for a couple nights now. I haven’t fully decided yet whether to cover the whole ins and outs of the adjustable bed. Maybe I will split the difference and talk about some of them.

First of all, they are expensive. I would say 5-10 times what a normal mattress would cost. If you are single, then any size bed could/would work. Queen size beds are single function, meaning the bed actuates as one unit. If you each want separate settings, you are going to have to get a king sized bed.

I am a morning person and not a big TV watcher. I do read in bed a lot of nights and go to sleep when I finish my chapter while my wife continues to watch TV. Consequently, we moved from a queen to a king. That meant that we had to also purchase another bed. Well, anything we could get quickly, was inexpensive and required self assembly.

This bed frame was flimsy. Each rail came in two pieces and the whole thing is engineered as a system. After the main assembly, I decided to put the slats in just for lateral stability. Fortunately, the adjustable beds have their own frames and sit inside of a traditional bed. But it also means that the box spring does not provide any rigidity. Of course, when the deliverers/installers came they said that the slats would not work. I questioned them and they reiterated that it would not work. They sat in the truck while I removed the slats.

I gave them their space. When they were done, we wanted to check out the new bed of course. I started looking at the situation and there was plenty of room to put the slats in. So, I put them back in.

I suspected that there was enough room and that they just did not want them in their way. That being said, their approach was not honest. And this is the point, a lot of people would have struggled to assemble the bed in the first place. After the fact they wouldn’t have checked to see if what was told was the truth. In this case, no big deal other than the sense of trust being slightly violated.

In the bigger picture, I think about places like oil changes and unsuspecting rubes getting told, ‘you need this’. While that is probably the lesser of two evils like changing fluids before they are due. What is probably worse is not doing something that is needed just because the ‘expert’ doesn’t want to do it.

Not every time I want to spend the energy to check and, I am not an expert in everything. The best advice I would give is go with your gut. Sometimes, you get a diagnosis that doesn’t make sense and it is not true and sometimes it is. This is why the colloquial advice is get a second opinion. Of course, I am not going to get a second opinion on setting up an adjustable bed nor am I going to drive my car to another oil change spot. But, if it doesn’t seem right or feel right, it probably is worth investigating.

End Your Programming Routine: Given that I have only slept on the bed a few nights at this point, I am going to reserve judgement. We also had to re-adjust the height and take the bed completely apart after the setup was complete because we determined the initial height was too high. Even if you don’t know the truth, use your senses and make your own assessment.

April 9, 2024 – Archiving, The Old Fashioned Way

April 9, 2024 /

What happens when your cloud drive starts to fill up? I am not there yet, I have probably only used a quarter of it. But what I didn’t know was that the cloud function synchronizes everything to my hard drive and I don’t have a free terabyte to do so. So, I am going to start archiving some stuff off of the cloud.

Many years ago, I was in charge of the physical act of backing up when I worked at the lab. I would burn data to DVD on a month by month basis. This is an option for things that don’t need immediate recall. I tried my DVD burner and while it could read disks, the write portion failed.

I thought about my options. I moved my mechanical hard-drive from my laptop to my desktop computer. This is a decent option because a mechanical drive failure can be re-built from the One Drive synchronization. Then, I resynched everything to that location. That at least gave me breathing room.

At some point, that is going to run out of room as well. So, I thought about media again. Each podcast I make runs between 1-2 GB with the raw files and these are things that I really don’t access other than to look for episode numbers or certain content. I decided to order another DVD burner. I was just about to start archiving things and then a thought occurred to me, what about Blue Ray?

It turns out that DVD only holds 4.7 GB of data making this project take forever (over 20 disks). The newest quadruple layer Blue Ray burners can do up to 100GB per disk. That is for me, I ordered one of those. I am waiting for it to arrive and then I will start archiving certain items particularly all of the AltF4.co content.

Do I think that there is any perfect solution? Ideally, I would have a backup array of hard-drives that had infinite storage and access at my finger tips. The downside of disks is that they can degrade and technology moves on. I think about the stuff I have on 3.5″ floppy drives that I have never accessed since I moved to a computer without a floppy drive. The good news is I still have a floppy drive in an old computer if I really wanted the files and you can buy a USB floppy drive for $30.

It is definitely a new world. My laptop does not have an optical drive or even an expansion slot. Policies on business owned computers prevent any sort of plugin devices, everything is moved electronically via the network. Disk images have to be ‘mounted’ in a faux drive fashion to emulate physical media. In many ways, a physical device is simpler and easier. I don’t like all that run around to get around having the device.

Other options would be an external hard-drive but those are not infallible either. I might eventually do both, but for now I just want to make sure that I do not have a problem. I am going with BD-R at 25GB per disk.

End Your Programming Routine: In the old, old days the professional way to go was tape back-up. That still may be used, I don’t know. We had Zip and then Jazz drives, then CD, DVD and now Blue Ray. It is not likely that I will really ever need these files again, but I hate to just delete them if I can get them into a easily storable and compact fashion. It is my life’s work after all.

April 8, 2024 – Gotta Get Better

April 8, 2024 /

This is no toolbox fallacy, podcasting is what I am really up to. Unfortunately, it takes me too long to put one together. I enjoy the process and am happy to do it but for the time. I need to practice having less notes and still talking, making sense and not having too many fillers or pregnant pauses, especially in this difficult time. Bear with me as I practice with a story about how time is taken during this process.

April 5, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Purgatory, Canto X – XII

April 5, 2024 /

Finally, we are into Purgatory proper. Honestly, it wasn’t exactly as I thought it would be. I guess knowing nothing, I probably should have had no expectations. But, it seemed like a kinder and gentler hell. Maybe that was just my prospective. I was expecting a holding area until you served your time; kind of like jail.

If I understand Purgatory correctly, it is a place to atone for your sins before advancing. This is the first cornice and it is pride. On this cornice, souls will be penalized equal to their sin. As an example, the soul was proud for 40 years, therefore there is 40 years of cornice one. I presume that someone does not have just one sin and therefore once the soul advances, he will continue with the punishment regime for that amount of time until all sin is expunged.

Interestingly enough, when Dante entered purgatory, his forehead was marked with seven ‘P’s. This apparently weighed him down to the point where he could not proceed. Once Pride is atoned, one ‘P’ is removed and so is the weight for him to advance. The punishment for pride is carrying a giant bolder around. It was said that the souls were ground to dust by the weight of what they were carrying. It is as if the lesson of pride is the weight of the attitude will crush them.

One other key distinction between Purgatory proper and all of the previous levels is that temptation is no longer an issue. It seems that if you make it through the gates, you are guaranteed to move forward after you served your time. I don’t recall that being a subject earlier, but it was mentioned here.

Another feature of each cornice is a relief on entry and on leaving. In both of those cases, they are featuring characters through history and mythology that show the cause and effect of pride. I suppose it is a reminder of why you are here and the price paid for worldly behavior, specifically sin.

I have to admit, when it comes to a lot of names, I kind of zone out. First of all, I know next to nothing about mythology. I am uninterested in local, recent history as well. As a result, I have a very difficult time with who is who and what the backstory is on all of the relief figures or even conversations.

I think that I have evolved into a bigger picture person. When I was young, I was all about details. That saying ‘see the forest from the trees’ comes to mind. The world needs both types of people. But for me, it causes me to try and get to the point of things. I suspect that I was always this way but didn’t know how to analyze or distill all the data into something actionable. Therefore, when presented lists of names, I kind of glaze over or even skim. There needs to be a point of reference for perspective otherwise it is just a factoid that has little future bearing.

End Your Programming Routine: Next week is onto the second cornice for Envy. That would be Cantos XIII – XV. It is also worthy of noting that the climbing gets easier for Dante and Virgil. So far, there has been a lot of surprises in Purgatory. I guess that is what it means to be naïve.

April 4, 2024 – Never Have I Ever…

April 4, 2024 /

Listen very carefully at the beginning of this video and you will hear the tail end of someone shooting 15 successive shots. As far as I know, no person was found nor was any evidence. The 911 call revealed that several people had also called this in. However, like all recounts of evidence, the story was all over the place.

I happened to be outside when it happened. This is the reason the camera was on in the first place. I was putting some chairs back away in preparation for the weather to change and then all of a sudden, there were 15 rapid shots that sounded like it came from somewhere very close. My first thought was fireworks and I was looking in the sky. But, when no lights followed, my mind was trying to figure out what happened.

It is context. If I was at the rifle range, I wouldn’t have given a second thought about it. I have never heard fifteen successive shots at my home. In the country, you occasionally hear one shot or maybe some erratically spaced groups when some predator or pest shows it’s face at the wrong time.

Before I get completely speculative, no information is really known. Was it someone who just went into their backyard and fired a magazine? This would explain why there was no evidence. I talked to both neighbors next to me and we all thought the shots came from the same general direction.

You, the reader may not realize this but there are some other firsts here too. This is the first time I have ever downloaded a video clip from Ring. This is also the first time I have embedded video directly into WordPress. I think that function may be new because I have always put it to YouTube previously. So, this post was a little more than just ‘hey, I just realized I live in a war zone’.

I am not going to deny that I believe the social and moral fabric is eroding quickly in this town. That being said, I can remember thirty years ago my wife saying ‘that is where the coke dealers live’. I think what has changed is the level of violence and the quickness of escalation. There is more gang activity than ever, there is more police involved shootings and the frequency is getting shorter. Over half of the high school students come from families qualifying for reduced lunch, there is bound to be trouble.

In many ways, I feel like my home location’s greatest weakness is also it’s greatest strength. Because I live on a state highway, there is constant traffic and no legal parking. That keeps trick or treaters away but it also keeps people from stopping or loitering. The side street has seen it’s share of people up to no good, but vigilant neighbors keep an eye on things. It should be mostly empty due to a church taking the majority of the block across the street from me. Anyone stopping is immediately suspicious.

This morning I woke up to the garage door being open all night. Apparently, my son left it open after I locked up for the evening. It really makes me mad because I really try to perform good operational security. But that is only as good as the people in the system. Fortunately, we have never had any sort of theft other than a birdbath in our first year of living here.

End Your Programming Routine: So yes, I am in shock that I heard an entire magazine fired off very close to me. Yes, I do believe that this city is experiencing urban decay and increased violence. But, to put it into perspective it is a fact of life wherever people live, I am not one of those people that believe nothing ever happens, it is just a matter of whether I know about it or not.

April 3, 2024 – Always Say Yes

April 3, 2024 /

We had a wonderful weekend a couple of weeks ago. Since spring is here, so does the yard work. Since I pay someone to do most of it, when it comes to extras they check if we are OK with spending more money. They came with two propositions. One is to treat the grass and the other is to treat the pavers.

I am not big on chemical usage. I don’t care so much about weeds in the lawn but I really don’t want moss in it because it will eventually take over and kill the grass. I said yes to that. But, my wife and I differ about moss on the driveway. On one hand, it does cause degradation of the block setting, but I don’t feel like it hurts much. So, I said that I will do that.

This is probably only the second time I have used the sprayer in the picture. I remember getting it from my grandparents when we got into our first house in the late 1990s. I didn’t know if it worked even since it has been sitting for so long. Once I figured that out, I also learned that there was a lot of pumping involved.

This particular model has a port for a hose. The act of filling up the water pressurizes the vessel. Very nice until all the air leaks out. That happens when some of the powder (moss killer) gets into the threads or the rubber seals are dried out because they have never been lubricated. By the time I really figured all of those problems out, I was on the last tank.

The whole process took me about two and a half hours. My out of shape body was wondering if this was really worth the effort. But, it was one of the very first 70 degree days in spring and it felt really good to be outside with pleasant weather. As the moss killer works, I also notice that there is some grass also springing up . That actually requires a different treatment. So, now I have to go with a second application. I am less enamored with spraying something like Round-up than a zinc based moss killer.

If I look at this analytically, I saved myself $170. That is $180 for the job minus $10 for the moss killer. Given the time I spent, the pencils out to $68/hour. I am sure that I would not pay someone that rate to do this job. But, if I have to do it twice that is going to take it down to half of that and now I am getting into the rate that I would pay for.

I am not going to say that I didn’t learn some things, like how to use my sprayer. But, you always have to do the calculus of would that time be better spent doing something else. In my case, I am very close to that line. I am not too proud to do the job, I just have limited time to do things and I am not sure this is how I want to do use it. I also know that there was a significant amount of inefficiency in my doing the job and messing with pumping and the sprayer.

My grandfather was a farmer and my dad wishes he was one. Spraying has been in my whole life. Being a chemist and a believer in whole, natural foods and environment I think chemicals has a very limited place. One place is to not destroy property and infrastructure like my driveway. If you look very carefully at the picture, you can see some patches that are loose. I have tried to repair them several times. I don’t want that to get worse.

End Your Programming Routine: So, for now I will see how it goes. I feel like I should have paid the money. The last time I did this, I had a quote to prune the apple tree for $200. I did it and it took me 16 hours, plus I had to deal with all of the clippings. It is not like I have a burn pile. So you would think that I learned, it is just hard to spend the extra money.