Done last week (20160410Su - 16Sa)

[mdlbear]

Done with my taxes. I owe quite a lot, but it's less than last year and about half what I was afraid I was going to have to pay based on what the software was showing me when I started. Not complaining.

I fastened a large cardboard box to my desk and lined it with a towel. The cats love it. Hardly any trouble anymore with cats walking across my keyboard. In addition, Desti is a great lap cat, especially when I'm sitting in the Rainbow Room with Colleen.

The work downstairs is almost done! There's still some electrical work left in the garage, but other than that it's basically habitable. Movers come tomorrow at noon for the big stuff, i.e. furniture.

xmonad is still cool, though not quite as much so on my work laptop due to downrev versions of xmobar and dzen2, the auxiliary status bar programs. Neither of them works well enough to give me clickable desktop names. But the only time I really care about being able to navigate without the keyboard is when there's a cat on my desk, and that only happens at home.

Notes & links:

0410Su
  * Up 4:50; W=197.2; laundry, dishes
  * Taxes:  organizing; found the casualty losses.  Not going to be nearly enough.
  * After some work with xrdb, emacs (running on Nova, displaying on Trantor) has
    excessively large fonts.  Highly readable, but it doesn't really fit.
  * fastened a cardboard boot box to my desk.  Desti approved, though I think she was more
    interested in nibbling on the sides.
  * N. is eager to get working on the ottoman; I need to buy a router.
  * 7ish: kids mostly moved in.  G got pizza from Papa Murphy's -- *excellent*
    bake-your-own.
  & some hassles fixing default font on emacs@nova.  Turns out there isn't a system
    default that it can latch onto.  :P
  @ ysabetwordsmith | Poem: "Out of This Dull World" 

0411Mo
  * up 5:45ish; W=197.2; laundry, dishes
  * Bought router and lock miter bit on $A -> going to be a pain in the ass to set up, but
    hopefully it'll be worth it for more than the present project.  Though I'll want a
    better router table.  I may *need* one, if I can't make do by just making a new fence.
  : Ticia *loves* the box on my desk.  Curls up and makes herself at home.  And purrs.
  * watched week 5 of the scala course, and a bit shy of a third of week 6.

0412Tu
  * up 6:09; W=195.8; laundry, dishes
  @ This House Costs Just $20,000—But It’s Nicer Than Yours | Co.Exist
  % Some nice time with Desti on my lap in the morning.  She seems to be the only one of
    our cats that really likes lap-time.
  % managed to leave my laptop at work for the second time in the last two weeks.  Wonder
    if it's trying to tell me something.  Serious one-on-one with my manager.  His
    attempts to psych me up/challenge me don't seem to be working much; if I get through
    the next quarter it'll be by sheer doggedness.  Succeed or fail, I'm probably not
    going to stay there.
  * Picked up compostable garbage bags and coffee at Whole Paycheck on the way to work,
    having conveniently taken the 21.  Also bacon.
  * Router arrived.  It was sitting on my desk when I got home.
  * Taxes.  Unreimbursed losses have to be >10% of AGI, so that fails.  Bletch.  Nearly 6K
    in the hole.  Fortunately, I've been saving.  I have to withhold another $650/month to
    break even next year.  (because only 9 months left)  Spent about an hour and a half.

0413We
  * up 5ish; W=195.8; laundry, dishes
  : Apparently, the answer to "how do you convert IO boolean to boolean in Haskell is that
    you don't.  You use the value inside of the monadic context.  This is not really a
    problem, because that's what "main = do..." provides.  Took a while to figure out, in
    part because there are some monads you _can_ extract values from.
  @ Gone in Six Characters: Short URLs Considered Harmful for Cloud Services

0412Th
  * up 5:30; W=194.2; laundry, dishes
  @ Treatment Stops Deadly Cat Virus : Discovery News
    PLOS Pathogens: Reversal of the Progression of Fatal Coronavirus Infection in Cats by
    a Broad-Spectrum Coronavirus Protease Inhibitor Wow!  HOPE
  : 7:40ish - I have Ticia in the box on my desk.  She's adorable.
  @ xmobar clickable workspaces
  : grump.  My income is too high to deduct student loan interest.

0413Fr
  * Up 4:50; W=194.8; laundry, dishes
  @ Lost In Translation: Study Finds Interpretation Of Emojis Can Vary Widely NPR
  @ Business Musings: Serious Writer Voice – Kristine Kathryn Rusch Don't use it.
    " If you write in your own voice, you will discover one thing: readers will
      react. Some readers will hate your work with a fiery passion. Others will adore your
      work with equal passion. "
  * took advantage of a lull in the action during lunch to install xmonad on my work
    laptop.  xmobar was sufficiently down-rev to be unusable, so I'll probably go with
    dzen2.  Which means that I have to get that working. -> done
  @ Remapping Keys in Ubuntu 14.04 - Radu Cotescu's professional blog
    The modifier keys are mapped in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/pc

0416Sa
  * up 6:50; W=194.2; laundry, dishes
  : Downstairs apartment basically done; there's still some electrical work left in the
    garage which I *hope* is going to get finished.  The closet is 5x7 (minus an inch in
    each direction) -- Elfa on one of the long walls, and probably the back wall.  Will
    require rails, one wire shelf, and closet poles.  3 2' modules, which works out to 4
    uprights.  -> G thinks doesn't N want wire, so...  
  * 15min:  Puttering in the garage.  Moved ladder outside (under the overhang -- nice!)
    I think I can finish clearing and removing the metal shelves this weekend.
  * N is ok with wire shelves in the back of the closet, though I expect she'd prefer dark
    wood, and Elfa brackets wouldn't match.  Closet pole on the back wall, dresser on long
  : Ticia managed to snag my shirt getting out of my arms.  Big triangle tear.  *sigh*
  * 15min: cleared off the metal shelves.  (Some stuff isn't particularly put away, but
    not a serious problem at this point.  And there are still about 20 boxes that don't
    have homes.  Hmm.  Move the metal shelves into the corner by the door?  *Might* be
    room, and it isn't far. -> There's room.  Whether it's a good idea or not remains to
    be seen.  Might block access to the part of the wall that's still being worked on,
    and that's one of the only good spots for hanging pegs.
  @ Red Blood, Black Ink
  * 15min:  moving some stuff downstairs from the pile in the GR, the objective being to
    clear the day bed of stuff that doesn't belong downstairs in the master suite.  But
    the many trips up and down the basement stairs probably account for my being more
    tired than usual.
  % 10:20 somehow it got late -- I've been drifty.
  & sitting in bed trying out xmonad on blackroot (the thinkpad in my bedroom).  Used
    Gnome's keyboard applet to select ALT_R = AltGr, which let me set modMask=mod3Mask.
    Turns out that it's running Ubuntu 12.04, so I'll need to either uninstall xmobar or
    upgrade. -> wrong -- it's 14.04