I've done basically nothing of significance for about a week. Why? In no particular order...
The weather has been flipping between "cold, wet, and dreary" to "hot, humid, and hotter." The former is terrible for my mental health. The latter is terrible for my physical health.
Related to the heat, I don't sleep well once the temperature gets much above seventy. It's regularly been above eighty when I've gone to bed.
Also related to the heat, once it gets to about eighty degrees, my digestive system says "I cannot tolerate food, and will violently rid myself of anything you put in me."
The multiple, ongoing, total catastrophes happening both in my country and around the world have been really sticking in my brain-craw. I've mentioned here and elsewhere that it's hard to be productive during an apocalypse. This week, it's been impossible for me.
I've got a bunch of little, nagging health...concerns, which have been building up and bringing me down in an increasingly-concerning manner.
As a result of the above, my daily schedule has been looking a lot like this...
Get up anywhere between 4:00 AM and 7:00 AM.
Drink a cup of coffee and have a smoke.
Stare at my computer screen for half an hour before I realize I have zero motivation to do anything on my list.
Watch videos for a few hours.
Try to eat something.
Nap for between two and three hours.
Watch videos for a few hours.
Try to eat something again.
Put on an audio book and try to go to sleep.
Fall asleep anywhere between 7:00 PM and 11:00 PM.
Last night was really bad. I don't think I got any meaningful sleep before midnight, and woke up at four this morning with no chance of getting back to sleep.
What's more, I have tentative plans to go out for coffee with friends this morning, and hang out with my Dad this afternoon. I do not have the brain to do either of these things, but I really need to get out of the house.
So...yeah...
I've got no idea what, if anything, I'm going to get done today. I mean, apart from staring at my computer screen without any motivation. I've already checked that off my list.
Busy slacking
The last few days have been a combination of Doing All The Things and Doing Absolutely Nothing. I don't really know how else to say it---I was either running at full speed, or crashed down to zero, with no in-between.
Overall, I think I was more productive than not, but since nearly all of my energy was spent on research, I have next to nothing to show for it. So that's fun.
Today? I feel kind of crappy. My eyes are bothering me, have a bit of a sinus headache, and a firm desire to make like a hermit and hide from everyone. (To be fair, "hermit mode" has become my default state of existence lately.)
Maybe more coffee will help.
It's a long, hard road
After a fair bit of searching and experimentation, I finally found a program which lets me manage my tasks and to-dos in a reasonable way. It's GTG, which stands for "Getting Things GNOME."
I think I've seen this program before, but it was either clunky and/or unmaintained at that point. Now, they're back in action and actually quite good! I can set tasks to repeat, give them tags, create subtasks to block larger projects, etc.
I'm not quite fully up to speed with it, but GTG is already tremendously helpful. I miss the integration with my notes, though. I don't always make use of that feature of Org-mode, but when I do, it's pretty critical.
Of course, since both GTG and Joplin support plugins, it's theoretically possible that I could hack out something to create better linkage. Hmmm...
In related news, I'm growing more frustrated with Sublime Text. To be fair, it not being FOSS is probably doing the most to frustrate me, but I keep running into little issues and inconsistencies which I don't like. Sure, some of that is because it's Not Emacs, and thus it confuses me, but a lot of it is just...well...glitchy.
Like, as I type this, Sublime flat out refuses to indent "article" tags sensibly. There are other points of hate, but that's the one in front of me at the moment.
There are some things I like, though. I'm enjoying tag completion, and I really like how it handles line and column numbering. The default window layout is reasonable, and I like the side panel which shows the whole document. (I would like it to always be showing me my position, though, instead of waiting for me to mouse over it.)
Still? I'm getting dangerously close to saying "fuck it" and switching to Vim. The only reason I haven't done that yet is because I'm trying to get away from obtuse editors with impenetrable command sets.
*sigh
Maybe I care too much about this shit and should just stick to Sublime Text.
Other than this, I don't have much to report. Mistakes were made, I overslept, and I have no idea what I'm going to be doing with the rest of my day. I'm mostly just waiting for the coffee to kick in, then I'll see if I can get some actual work done as opposed to fooling around with my tooling.
The replacements
Work progresses on getting Emacs out of my life. Obviously, one does not simply replace Emacs with a single application, so I've had to collect several. So far, here's what I've got...
Thunderbird
I'm using this for email, and taking a stab at using it's task list and calendar. So far, I don't hate it, but I don't exactly like it, either. Email is fine, but the task list doesn't work the way I expect. And the calendar is kind of ugly.
Joplin
I hear tell this is what the cool kids are using for their notes, so I'm trying it out as a replacement for Org-mode. So far, it's OK. It gives strong OneNote vibes, which is fine. And I like that it has finally given me an excuse to learn Markdown. I haven't used it enough to have a real opinion. I see that it can also do tasks and to-dos, but there doesn't seem to be a way to set them on repeat.
See, my workflow with Org-mode is that I have a list of activities I wish to do every day, so I set them on repeat. When I do an activity, I mark it done, it logs that I've done it, and it reschedules it for the next day. I also have one-off tasks and whatnot, but this complete->log->repeat behavior is kind of central to my flow.
Sublime Text
I'm using this as a code editor and...I'm unimpressed. First, I really wanted to stick to FLOSS replacements, and this is proprietary software. Second, I'm not sure what it's doing with indentation levels (particularly editing HTML), but I don't like it. Third, the arrangment of menus and menu items seems...unintuitive. Yeah. Let's be charitable.
In the interest of fairness, I'm trying to ignore how slow I'm working within Sublime, because that's almost entirely down to how badly my fingers want to use Emacs keybindings and I keep needing to stop and slap my hands.
I should add that I tried to use VSCode Open Source, but I couldn't get it to build with my version of Node.js and I couldn't be arsed to do anything about that. And I won't use a single piece of proprietary software which has the name Microsoft on it.
I really miss my Emacs keybindings and commands. History has shown me to never remap the keys in other software so they "work like Emacs", because the translation is never perfect and it always causes more trouble than it's worth. But it's not even really about which keys do what. It's about me having to hunt down how to do things in Sublime Text that are second nature for me in Emacs. Like C-l. In Emacs, I pound that all the time to center the text around the cursor, or bump it up to the top. In Sublime Text, there's C-k C-c which kinda does the same thing, but not really.
Whatever. I knew I was going to have exactly these sorts of headaches when I made the switch. I guess I'll give these things a week, then try alternatives if they still aren't bringing me joy.
In other news, I'm hoping to get some actual work done today, but I have to go run some errands with a friend, then do some things around the house. I really don't want to go out, but I've been in hermit mode for too long.
And we're done
This morning I tried to get GNU Emacs to act sensibly when I'm trying to edit HTML and PHP.
I failed.
Coincidentally, this morning I stopped using GNU Emacs.
I'm done.
I really, really love Emacs. I've used it for about thirty years. In particular, I've lost count of how many human-years I've spent in it hacking on C code or keeping my notes and tasks in Org-mode. Its keyboard shortcuts are burned into my hands.
But let's face it...it's a dinosaur. And trying to get it to Just Fucking Work with any language, tool, or technology released in the last twenty years is an exercise is frustration. The guides are outdated---if they're even present at all---and every mode I've tried which was written this decade seems to actually work. They all feel like they were put together by people out of sheer spite.
So, I'm writing this now using Sublime Text. And I've moved my email, tasks, and calendar over to Thunderbird. For several stupid reasons, this required me to update my PGP key, so if you ever bothered to copy my public key on my Contact page, you should go grab a new copy now.
I'm still very new to Sublime Text, and I still have to look for a tool I can use for my notes, but the breakup is essentially complete. (I hear Joplin is nice, so I'm trying that first.)
In other news, the heat is finally breaking around here. I'm hoping this means I can get some sleep, which has been a rare commodity lately.
Also? I'm finally making some progress on a project I've been wanting to do. (The shitcanning of Emacs is directly related to this.) I'm obviously not talking about it, but I'm hoping it will be fun, within my abilities to pull off, and that others will find it useful.
Now to get some more coffee.
Recovering
As foretold by the prophecy, those sleepless nights set me up to come down with one hell of a bug. I spent most of the last two days either under a blanket or on my toilet. Everything hurt, especially my joints, and I was either shivering and sweating with no room in the middle.
So that was fun.
This morning, I'm feeling pretty good. I didn't get as much sleep as I'd hoped for, but my body no longer feels like it went ten rounds in a washing machine.
I'm keeping my expectations low for today. I'm going to take a shower to wash all the "sick" off, then I'm going to try to work through a pile of reading. I also still need to clean up my notes.
My goal is really to just make the day go by quickly, or at least more quickly than they have. One of the worst parts of being sick---at least for me---is that time slows to an absolute crawl.
I'm hoping there'll be less of that today.
Ooof
Last night, mistakes were made.
Anyway, today, I'm trying to work through the repercussions of said mistakes. I'm not sure how that's going to go, but I'll give it my best.
Now? I need more coffee.
Ureaka!
Finally, I got some sleep---about seven hours over the course of ten hours of laying in bed. Not perfect, and my back hurts from all of that being horizontal, but I'll take it.
I'm hoping this means that I'll be able to do some productive work, today. Seeing as I'll have the house to myself for most of the day, it's definitely possible.
In other news, I'm seeing more people talking about the state of accessibility on Linux. More specifically, I'm seeing more people calling out the absolutely pathetic state of text-to-speech, braille terminal support, and similar technologies on modern Linux desktops.
And I'm really happy to see this.
I know at least one person who would be using Linux today, but can't because he's almost totally blind. I don't know what the exact term is for his particular amount of blindness, but it's such that he has to use a screen magnifier at all times, and often has to augment it with text-to-speech.
No modern Linux distribution comes with these tool functional right out of the box. And after they've been set up? He found that they often failed randomly, or were otherwise less than helpful. His experience is that both Windows and MacOS handle this much better.
I have another friend who really wants to move from MacOS to Linux, but he also needs to use a screen magnifier. He uses his television as a monitor, and his eyes don't work as well as they used to. We've talked about his options---including buying a dedicated monitor and moving it closer---but none of them are free or as simple as just sticking with Apple.
Then there's me! I lost about half the vision in my right eye when I suffered a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage back in September. And my eyesight, generally, is getting worse. I may very well need to lean on one or more accessibility technologies in the not-too-distant future.
These are just three data points, sure, but there are many, many more out there.
And I'm happy they're finally getting some attention.
Still?
Once again, I got almost no sleep. I did a little better than the night before, but spent most of the night just laying there.
I don't know what's going on, but I don't like it.
Anyway, since my brain was mostly non-functional yesterday, I spent it alternately doing housework and watching television. During the one or two brief moments of clarity which surfaced, I went over my lists of stuff and broke some of the Big Things down into Small Things.
I had some success with this, but obviously not much.
Today? I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel physically and mentally fried. Also? There's a thunderstorm moving in, so I'm probably going to have to unplug everything and shut it down.
(Actually, I did just unplug everything. I'm writing this on battery power.)
I guess I'll try to poke at some more housework, or whatever else won't take much brain. Mostly, I expect I'll spend most of the day on the couch, in a sleep-deprived haze of bad television and doom-scrolling.
Yay.
Still tired
I got almost no sleep last night. I just laid there, sweating, my mind refusing to shut down, and drifting in and out of strange dreams whenever I did fall asleep.
So that's neat, and it means I'll probably get absolutely nothing done today.
Yeah, I got nothin'.
Tired
Last night, I stayed up late. This morning, I woke up late. I have a headache. These things are all related.
The only other "news" I have is that I decided to play "House Flipper" yesterday. This is a game I own through Steam which is not marked as supporting Linux. So, I had to use Steam's "Proton" compatability thing. It worked pretty well! There was a weird issue with the sound cutting out at one point, but then again I was watching a movie in VLC while I played, so that probably explains it.
And now I need more coffee.
Everything is on firefine
Wow. Call me "Nostrajeffmus," 'cause yesterday's blog post was downright prophetic.
I've been wanting to do something with that domain I registered a couple of months back. I was going to use Mediawiki to drive it, but eventually decided that was overkill, and probably not the path I actually wanted to go down.
After many weeks of hemming, hawing, and thinking about just what it is I wanted to say with that project, I decided a more traditional, basic blog would be the way to go. And after further weeks of staring into my navel about this, I decided to say "fuck it" and go with Wordpress.
I hate Wordpress, for reasons I've discussed before, but it's well-supported by my default hosting company, dead simple to set up, and I'm used to it. I figured I could overcome its drawbacks through careful theme and plug-in selection, and I could eventually write my own theme and replacement plug-ins. (I've written Wordpress themes before.)
So, yesterday morning, I held my nose, and used my hosting provider's "one-click" install system to get Wordpress up and running.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Despite my saying no, multiple times, the installer insisted on "helping" me with "AI" "assistance." I swear, if there was a "Skip This" and "No, Don't Do That" button or checkbox involved, I hit it. I do not want "AI" to "assist" me. At all.
Well, despite my furious non-consent, the "AI" got all up in my areas and generated multiple pages filled with buzzword-laden bullshit it made up using the three-sentence meta description tag I provided.
What sort of content did it make up? Among other things, it made up a staff.
On the "About" page, there was a section for "Meet the Team." I do not have a team, so my reaction was: "What the fuck?"
What was in that section? A diverse cast of half a dozen AI-generated people---complete with photos and profiles. Reader, the "AI" "assistant" made up black people, with the explicit claim that the site was created by them, and not this white dude from New Hampshire.
This is what's known as "digital blackface." And the "AI" just went ahead and did this, not only without prompting, but also against my explicit instructions.
Oh, one more thing: It fucking published this live, on the Internet, before giving me a chance to review it.
I frantically deleted the pages and posts that had been generated, then disabled any plugins that had been "helpfully" installed for me which even smelled of "AI". I'm hoping this solved the problem, and will prevent such insanity in the future.
But oh boy, this killed all of the enthusiasm I had for the project. It was flat out one of the most disheartening experiences I've ever had trying to do something on the web. I was all keen to get writing yesterday morning, but after this? All I wanted to do was burn the domain to the ground.
I'd write more about this, but really? Do I even need to? Is there even one person who could possibly read the above and not think it was every bit the disaster that I think it was? Especially the part where I, as a fairly computer and web-literate person, specifically tried and failed to opt out of the "AI" "assistance"?
"Anger scars over into despair."
Anyway, today I'm going to try to get over this and get some work done. Not sure how that will go. Maybe I'll just end up in a recliner watching TV.
How the sausage is made
I've seen a few good write-ups and conversations about the most recent Apple kerfuffle. I haven't yet read the judge's 80-page ruling (and I'm probably never going to), but I'm enjoying the quotes I'm seeing from the internal Apple messages cited in it.
Specifically, I'm enjoying that the public is being treated to a full-frontal display of the kind of Captain-Planet-Villain-Level Evil that monopolist corporations routinely sink to when even vaguely threatened with the slightest ding to their profits.
I mean, reasonable people already knew that Apple was a terrible company which does terrible things. It's just nice that Average Joe gets to see how the sausage is made, now. Will that stop people from buying Apple products? No. It's still nice to see, though.
Had a mostly chill day, yesterday. Didn't get a lot of work done, but I did manage to cook a pork butt, so I have tons of pulled pork for tacos today.
In other news, we're just never going to be rid of "AI" now.
I've seen so many people---even otherwise really intelligent people---lean into the spicy auto-complete in ways I didn't think would happen a year ago. I've also seen a lot of arguments of the form: "People who use AI have an advantage over people who don't, so everyone needs to use AI to level the playing field."
One of the places this last argument has shown up is in cybersecurity. The line goes...
Hackers are using AI to break into systems and create malware.
These AI-assisted attacks are often successful.
The success rate of these attacks is likely to increase as AI improves.
Therefore, defensive security tooling needs to use AI in order to compete.
I'm not quite sure the conclusion is supported---there are some hidden premises and unspoken assumptions in there---but this argument seems to be convincing all the right people.
Regardless, I'm struggling to think of a historical technology or fad that society abandoned and that was so deeply entrenched, and so thoroughly pushed by the powers that be, as AI is now. And when I say "abandoned," I mean completely shelved and not just "upgraded."
Like, typewriters were the shit for a long time, but they died when computers became a thing. Slide rules died to calculators, personal letters and greeting cards basically died to email, etc. These are all examples of upgrades. We didn't give up typing, doing math, or messaging our loved ones---we just moved to new technology which made all of these things easier.
I'm looking for a deeply-entrenched technology which we, as a society, eventually said: "You know what? Fuck that whole thing. Burn it to the ground and replace it with nothing."
I can't think of anything.
Anyway, time to get some more coffee and do something productive.
Relax
We had thunderstorms passing through the area for pretty much all of yesterday. I took this as a perfect excuse to unplug my computers and spend the day chilling with Netflix.
I'm quite happy with that decision.
This little vacation allowed me to not only get some decompression in, it also gave me some time to think about how I can break down those "piles of stuff" I talked about in my last post. I think I have a handle on how to proceed with that, but I won't know until I start going through my notes and breaking things out.
And I'm not doing that until I've had more coffee.
The weather continues to kick my ass. My body reacts exceptionally poorly to rapid, forty-degree swings in temperature. It also reacts badly to temperatures over about seventy-five degrees. This last week? Yeah, I've been dealing with both of those things.
A positive note? I went out to a burrito/taco joint that opened up in town since I moved away. It was most excellent. In my previous location, we had a really good burrito place, and that was one of the things I feared I was going to miss in moving back. This place here? At least as good, and significantly cheaper.
Today, I've got a pork butt I'm going to throw in the slow cooker. Food for days that I won't have to think about.
Other plans for today include organizing some things in my room (finally? maybe?) and adjusting my VM lab setup.
That last part is a bigger deal than it sounds. Maybe I'll write up my needs and config later.
For now, though, I need coffee.
Piles of stuff
The first ten or so years of my employment---starting at about age fifteen---were spent in white collar jobs. For most of those years, I worked on computers, but was sales-adjacent. That is, I mostly worked for and with sales and marketing people.
I also spent a lot of time in meetings with executives and other members of the so-called "C-Suite."
As a result of sitting at this very weird intersection of corporate culture, I was exposed to many, many business books, productivity courses, and management training talks. I'd hear buzzwords and terms like "QBQ" and "Five Whys" and "GTD." Someone would see my bewildered expression, then they'd either hand me a book, or I'd find myself signed up for a talk.
And I can say, with almost-absolute certainty, that most of "productivity culture" is bullshit. Or, rather, it's all re-hashing the same handful of points: don't self-censor when brainstorming; ask open-ended questions; evaluate your assumptions when things go wrong...etc.
The one exception to this is "Getting Things Done," the "GTD" I mentioned above. This is a book/productivity system written by David Allen, and it's quite good! His method is basically "Don't Remember, Write It Down," but he gives you specific techniques which makes the system much more useful than typical "to do" lists.
For example, he correctly points out that most people don't really have "to do" lists. Rather, they have "piles of stuff." Take the seemingly simple task "Clean the kitchen." This is a classic pile of stuff which most of us have had on a list. It's not a single, atomic task. It's a collection of tasks, such as...
Clean out the fridge
Wipe down the fridge
Clean the stove top
Clean the burner pans
Clean the oven
Wash the counter tops
Clear off the kitchen table
Wash the kitchen table
Sweep the floor
Mop the floor
Take out the trash
Wash the trashcan
See what I mean? "Clean the kitchen" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It bundles up a dozen or more discrete tasks into a big blob. And when you look at that big blob, it can be hard to figure out how to even begin. Furthermore, it can be hard to motivate yourself to do it, since your brain knows it's a big blob---a big job which will take a lot of time.
When you break down piles of stuff into discrete tasks, it's much easier to take action. Instead of one big project, you have lots of little steps. And these steps can be taken as you have the time. Waiting on hold? Clean out the fridge or wipe down the stove. Waiting for your pasta water to boil? Wipe down the counter or clean off the kitchen table.
I think GTD is great, and I've used it on-and-off for more than a decade. I often fall short of perfection, but when I remember to apply the concepts, I feel more productive and experience much less stress.
This morning, I'm looking over my lists and projects, and I'm realizing that all I have is piles of stuff. Nothing on my "to do" list is a task, none of my notes are broken down into discrete items or atomic steps. I'm awash in big blobs with no obvious, actionable steps to deal with them.
That probably explains why I've felt so adrift, lately. Every morning, I look at my lists, and I'm like "Well, should I do X? Where should I start? Maybe this?"
All of which is a very verbose way of saying I need to spend a good chunk of today going through my lists, breaking things down, and getting organized.
Unfortunately, I have a ton of errands to do today. Grocery shopping, filing paperwork, trying to find some electronics I want locally---there's going to be a lot of Going Outside and Being Around People.
We'll see what I get done.
Woot!
Yesterday was good, but exhausting. The center point was my friend coming up with some of my stuff I unintentionally left at my previous place. Specifically, my fishing gear. We also went out to eat, then hung around on my porch for a while.
I was really not in the mood to be out in public, and even though the restaurant was quiet, it burned off most of my energy just to be there.
Surrounding this visit was even more company in the morning, and various other interactions.
Reader, I'm totally out of social spoons.
I did get some work done, though. I ditched Kali off the secondary laptop and installed Ubuntu. And therein lies a bit of a tale...
The chief allure of Kali for people who know what they're doing is that it gives you just about every off-the-shelf tool you'd ever use for pentesting. The chief drawback of Kali for people who know what they're doing is the same thing---for any given test, you'll only ever need maybe twenty percent of what's in the box.
My primary use-case for Kali is auditing people's home networks looking for unpatched systems, forgotten devices, and unnecessary running services. For that, I only ever need to use, like, three things.
I'm not the professional red-teamer auditing enterprise networks with thousands of endpoints. I'm the helpful hobbyist telling their friends to replace that ancient Roku device, and maybe choose a better password for the Wi-Fi than "clover".
Also? My success rate with upgrading Kali has been...questionable. I quickly learned to just never install xfce, and stick with Gnome. But even with that countermeasure, it felt like "sudo apt upgrade" always broke something.
I guess Standard Operating Procedure is to always do a fresh install from the latest snapshot when starting an audit, then just never upgrade anything during an engagement. Again, I'm sure this is fine and proper for people who do this for a living. It's not ideal for me, though.
Given the above, I decided to go with a pared down Linux which had only the tools I need on it. I wanted this to be Arch, since that seems to be what all of the cool kids use these days. However, after about an hour of looking at the wiki, I decided to just punt and install Ubuntu.
One day, I might be willing to hand-roll my own operating system and live on the bleeding edge, but that is not this day.
I feel like a broken record for saying this, but I think that the most important job of an operating system is for it to get out of the way. I care deeply about the tools and utilities I run, and the work those programs let me do. I shouldn't have to care about window managers, filesystem types, or kernel versions---at least not for normal, everyday things.
Granted, we could argue about whether or not what I'm doing with my machine is "normal," but the point remains: I'm frustrated that after more than 30 years of working with these machines, I still spend a lot of my time staring at config files and throwing line noise at a command prompt.
On a unrelated note, the temperature went from eighty degrees yesterday afternoon to around thirty degrees this morning. My body is not happy.