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2023

A Timber Tom-n't Christmas

This is the second Christmas that I spent without my dad, and it was A LOT harder than the first. The first Christmas I was more "in shock" so to speak, like the whole concept of my dad not being there was so foreign that I literally half expected him to show up and say "sorry I'm late, my truck wouldn't start" or something like that. The second Christmas, however, was a lot different. It was really hard to care about Christmas. I had all of these fun memories of when me and mom and dad would do all of the gifts all wrapped all nice and pretty, how I would play games in my room on my Xbox and my dad would yell "I need a finger in here" and I would put down my game and sprint into the dining room to put my finger on the spot where he would tie the ribbon around the present to get it nice and tight. Looking back, he definitely didn't need me as it is quite easy to do by yourself, but he wanted to keep the tradition alive.

  • in tech
  • 3 min read

Linux, the Steam Deck, consoles, and other tech gripes

I really love the idea of Linux taking off. It would not only be the beginning of lightweight operating systems in modern day as a gaming system, but also would start a "we don't like megacorporations" movement that may save the free and open internet. It would mean that people would hypothetically start developing and/or improving personal cloud programs, meaning more selfhosting. All of these things that are a wet dream for tech-lovers would start to occur or at least become more common. As a tech professional, it would also give me a LOT more work. The Steam deck is even moving this into the mainstream, with Linux now being on AT LEAST 1m new devices basically overnight (I even bought one for myself, thanks Dad!)

I damaged my truck and now I can't stop thinking about object impermanence

Info

This post was a voice recording transcribed by my Pixel 8 Pro, then cleaned up, proofread, and formatted by ChatGPT. It has been carefully scrutinized to make sure that it still accurately conveys my original message, and is less than 2% different outside of grammatical changes

I was driving home today and I started thinking about the impermanence of objects. I damaged the fuck out of the right side of my car today – or my dad's truck. I hit the tree on the top of my driveway, and, pissed off, I ended up cutting it down. There's a huge dent and scrape on the right side of the truck. It's bad. It's not something that can't be fixed with some touch-up paint, but it made me think.

No matter how hard I try to keep this truck perfect, or how much effort I put into it, it's still going to eventually break down. I could keep this truck better than anyone has ever kept a truck, but eventually, even if it hits 400,000 miles, the engine will blow up. Or something unavoidable will happen, like I'll get hit head-on or t-boned, and the truck will be ruined. No matter how good care you take, something's eventually just going to break.

Kicking the can down the road

Reddit thread discussed in this post, or rather, the idea for this post (hopefully it doesn't disappear!)

Dear readers, I ask you a question: do you know who controls you? Most will say the government, some of the funny ones will say a wife/girlfriend, others might say something like an addiction or money (an object or goal), but as far as the tech world is concerned, it really comes down to conglomerate entities, and there isn't really a way to get around it.

I had a fear some time ago about my google account arbitrarily getting banned because of reading a post about how the creator of the hit game Terraria had his google account deleted for no reason, and lost a ton of stuff like his steam library, all of his email, a ton of services like netflix and whatnot, and most importantly, a lot of his game development stuff like servers and licenses. Why was his account banned? Actually no reason. "This could happen to me!" So as a kneejerk reaction, I moved all of my email over to a zero-trust provider, in this case ProtonMail, and purchased a custom domain because it's cool.

I don't really understand journaling

Before and during taking care of my dad while he had cancer, I started to journal. I am not 100% sure why, though, and that fact has been bugging me lately. It didn't really feel good or relieve any stress, I didn't share it with anyone (not like that would have helped anyway), and I still cannot bear to look back at it due to the sad feelings it reminds me of. Maybe one day I will look back at it, but I doubt it. I guess the point of this is that I do not fully understand the point of journaling or diaries. Like, do people write down the mundanities of their life and then just never look at it again? What benefit does that provide?

I could understand that it would be for documenting what was going on at the time, or like life lessons and teachings that were imparted at the time. But I guess it is a little late for me to try and document anything about my dad at this point. Too late to cry over spilled milk, though.

This site isn't as good as it's inspiration

I made this site after I saw my dad's old site because I already had the domain and thought it would be cool to try and recreate something that my dad did in my own way, as sort of an homage to him. However, I just had the realization that I didn't really make any of this. My dad posting my baby pictures comes to mind: he would put a banner at the top of the page to show everyone, but how would I do that with this ready made solution? Is the creation of something unique and personal and greater accomplishment and constructing than the retrofitting of something to work for your own purposes? My dad made his site by scratch, and while it is a lot more basic in functionality and technologies than my site, it is more personal and unique? I sure wish I could ask my dad his thoughts about this, but knowing him it would be something along the lines of "Who cares? Just have fun with it."

I guess I care, but I don't really know why...

Google is probably evil (and I don't really care)

Has any of you readers ever tried to use Bing? What about Apple maps? Aren't they just fucking awful? What about iCloud for windows? 🤮

I use Google not because I think they are moralistic and wholesome but because there isn't another choice without significantly gimping myself. There two backup services for windows are one drive and Google drive. The only worthwhile maps service is Google maps. The only worthwhile review service is Google reviews. The only worthwhile search engines are Google and DuckDuckGo. The only email that is any different is proton mail. The best assistant is Google.

Google makes the best stuff. But they are also a shitty company that loves to chip away at society's privacy. Don't even get me started on phone->app and phone->pc integration: Apple devices are fucking awful for using outside of other Apple devices. So until Apple makes gaming on mac good, or until kagi gets their shit together an releases the rest of the suite and a phone, or until a privacy focused linux ecosystem competitor comes along, I'm just gonna stick with a domain email as a failsafe and hope my Google account never gets banned for no reason, and assume that Google wont know anything I actually care about.

Bad solution, but best solution. I really wish Mozilla had email, phone OS, search, maps, reviews, notes, and cloud storage solutions, because I really like their browser.

Remembering Configuration I Did Yesterday

I am finding it hard to remember shit that I did yesterday when it comes to the mundanities of computers. I often wonder if it is because I am good with them so most of these things I ought to remember are naught but passing thoughts, or if it is because I really don't care that much about it and push it out of my mind to make way for things I subconsciously think are greater (currently, playing Mechabellum). Oh well, time moves on ⌛

The ever retreating internet

Article referenced throughout this post

This article proposes two really interesting points that seem to counteract each other: point one is that people will retreat to the most convenient place on the internet while still holding on to the previous places they were a part of, and point two is that people desire like-minded communities and will skip out on the bigger internet in order ot find that. This idea of the dark forest and cozy web is interesting because it is both new and old (like most of this concept, it fits and yet is self contradicting). Historically, people in the 90s did a lot of stuff on the federated internet, like browsing forums for specific topics (a lot of this still remains in car forums), IRC was the discord/slack of that era, and personal blogs were all the rage (even my dad had one!)

Remembering Timber Tom Part 1

Often times when nothing at all is going on I tend to have a drink. Usually vodka, straight, and only because I liked to get it down as fast as possible to skip the tasting part. Unlike my father, I think mixed drinks and cocktails are disgusting unless it's a kind of milkshake. I digress. This particular evening I decided that I wanted to archive my dad's facebook posts, as, in his later life, his facebook profile was a lot like his old website: a convenient way to share his thoughts with his friends and family. I think he really transitioned over only because it was more convenient and public, but the part that is unknown to me (and likely will be until I myself meet him in heaven or whatever lies beyond) is why there was such a large gap between Motman's Hideaway and Facebook dad, something like 14 years.

Like my dad, I carve out a place here on the net for myself in hopes that maybe one day someone will read this. Unlike my father, however, I have yet to live a full and rich life, knowing many people and doing many things, so the chances of someone stumbling upon this out of the blue is fairly unlikely. But, I hope, maybe, someone comes to look at my server tutorial for long enough and gets curious. Who knows...