Done last week (20160221Su - 27Sa)

[mdlbear]

Productive? Got a fair amount done at work, and finally went ahead and bought a solid-state drive for (laptop) Cygnus. And spent almost all day yesterday installing and configuring it. In preparation for the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS release, I installed 15.10. Naturally, a lot of things broke. Boots faster, but what I was really looking for was the self-encrypting feature.

Interestingly, you can't even get into the BIOS or boot from an external drive without giving the disk password. That's good, if occasionally annoying.

In other news, the Younger Daughter has moved out of the house, and in with her boyfriend. That feels indescribably weird. With N's kids still in the house, it's not exactly an empty nest, but... weird.

We have an extra room upstairs now.

Notes & links:

0221Su
  * Up 7ish; W=198.2; laundry, dishes
  @ Colbie Caillat - Try - YouTube Beautiful women taking their makeup off and
    becoming more beautiful.  f(Amy Bradley)
  . still reading 3:16
  @ Best SSDs of 2016 - Solid State Drive Comparison Charts - Tom's Hardware 
    Samsung 850 EVO 250GB is their top value pick
  @ Figs & Thistles: What is a Christian? | Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
  * Woodworking with Naomi.  planing and marking the wood for the box.  Which will either
    be an ottoman or a coffee table.
  * Ordered Samsung SSD for Cygnus.  It does hardware encryption -- that may prove
    useful.  It's also considerably bigger than the linux portion of the drive that's on
    there now (about 150GB). I am accumulating a supply of 2.5" drives I'm not using.
    Could upgrade more laptops...

0222Mo
  * up 6:15; W=198.2; laundry, dishes
  @ General Relativity - 100 years of the most beautiful theory ever created
  " Mom: So what will you do if Trump gets elected?  Leave the country?
    me:  We've thought about it.  Probably.
    Mom: Where would you go?
    me:  Belize is a good possibility.
    Mom: You should look into Costa Rica, too.
  " (OTOH, the official language of Belize is English.)

0223Tu
  * Up 5:25; W=197; laundry, dishes
  @ Messages to Orbit on Vimeo
    This has a TERRIFIC performance of "Rocket Ride" from Tom Smith
    specifically for (Sasquan) GoH Kjell Lindgren. (who attended the convention
    remotely from the ISS.) f(Jennifer Kilmer)
  * 7:49 finished 3:16.  Just as interesting as the last time.

0224We
  * up 6ish; W=195.4; ..., dishes, laundry
  * Woodworking with N and j.  Tablesaw and sander.  Doing the miters is going to require
    a router to do right.

0225Th
  * up 5:30; W=195.4; laundry
  * Tortellini Alfredo because that's what Emmy wanted for her last family dinner at
    Rainbow's End.
  * The Samsung 250GB SSD showed up today; now I have to install it.  Probably, do a clean
    install with an empty /home partition, and copy the existing /home to it.  Especially
    if I want to do whole-disk encryption (which it supports in hardware), and is going to
    be a lot less laggy than encrypting my home directory.
    ... so do I do it right now, or wait a little for Ubuntu 16.04?  I could put 15.10 on
        it now and have an easy upgrade in two months.  Certainly better than waiting
        until 16.04.1 somewhere this summer.

0226Fr
  * up 6:45; W=196.6; laundry, dishes

0227Sa
  * Up 4:30; W=197.6; laundry, dishes
  @ 18th and Early 19th Century Cookbooks: Searchable, and FREE. | Savoring the Past 
  * 9:35ish go with E to pick up BF and friend at the ferry.  Started by going to the
    wrong ferry.  Got somewhat lost going to Burien for the U-haul, but everything's good
    now.
  * Installed new drive in Cygnus; set ATA password.  Installed Ubuntu 15.10.
    -> Didn't boot.  Now doing a manual upgrade/reconfigure:
    # http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2228437&page=2
    sudo mkdir /HDInstall
    sudo mount /dev/sda1 /HDInstall
    # Mount virtual file systems:
    for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /HDInstall$i; done
    apt-get autoclean ;     apt-get clean
    #refresh
    apt-get update #resync package index
    apt-get upgrade #newest versions of all packages, update must be run first
    apt-get dist-upgrade
    # fix Broken packages -f
    apt-get -f install # not needed
    dpkg --configure –a # broken!
  ... and updating to.do while waiting for stuff to download.  The unpack/install step
    is, as one might expect, *much* faster
  : html-helper-mode seems to have disappeared from Ubuntu, sometime after 14.04.  I am
    grumpy.  But I have git, and https://github.com/emacsattic/html-helper-mode
    It is listed as obsolete (hence, emacsattic), so maybe there's something shinier and
    newer to replace it.  Doesn't mean I want to change, though.
  : Stupid Ubuntu also puts everything in one huge partition, with a tiny *logical*
    partition for swap.  WTF? Fortunately, I have a USB drive and gparted.
  * YD and company finally got the truck loaded up about dinnertime; after dinner I drove
    E and M to the ferry.  Pretty quick drive now that I know where it is -- 99 to Seneca
    and hang a couple of rights.

Comments

[montemplar]

That Colbie Caillat video made me smile - thanks Bear. :)

I did some hardware configuration of my own this weekend - adjusted my old workstation to make a DIY standing desk. Will take some getting used to, but I think it'll do me a power of good in the long-term. Was spending a lot of time sat down at the computer, which can't be doing much good for my circulation.

I hit another milestone in my quest to become more productive this year. I've been using RescueTime (https://www.rescuetime.com/) to track my time spent on the computer and motivate me to stop procrastinating. Not only am I now managing at least 4 hours of productive time a day during the week, but a few days I've gotten up to 5½. :) Now I'm extending it to my weekends, looking to get at least 4 hours of productive stuff done then. A lot of my success has been down to finding applications that help me spend less time on attention-sucking stuff like email and social media. (Down to just G+ and Tumblr now.) I've also removed as many distracting things from my view on my various screens as possible.

[freyjaw]

They're supposed to fly from the nest. Hopefully she ends up with someone as good as Chris. It will take her a few tries first (it did for me). Your job is to turn them into independent adults. Hooray! You never really stop being a parent though, ask my father. Daddy's voice on the other end of the phone can be the most soothing thing in the world.

Now what to do with the room... ;-)

Empty Nest....

[shaddyr]

You know, from time to time, I think about what it would be like if my kids moved out.

I'd have the house to myself
I'd have the bathroom to myself
I wouldn't come downstairs to find:
- a sink full of dirty dishes
- socks and shirts on the floor
- laptops, tablets, phones and game systems on every conceivable surface
- drawing books / coloured pencils / fimo / random art supplies everywhere

But then they wouldn't be here and I would be sad. So I am glad they are here.

*hugs*

Re: Empty Nest....

[mdlbear]

It's going to be especially rough for Colleen.

*hugs*

Re: Empty Nest....

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

I hope you still see her often and enjoy the released degrees of freedom.

Re: Empty Nest....

[mdlbear]

I hope so too. We're going over to visit in about a month for her birthday. It's a longish trip, so I don't expect to see them every week; maybe every month.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Wishing you fresh joys.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[mdlbear]

Noether's Theorem linking conservation laws to symmetries is one of the most deeply surprising results I know of.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[mdlbear]

So do I, occasionally. Arithmetic is what computers are for.