Done Since 2018-10-28
2018-11-04 06:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearGood and bad, more-or-less as usual. On the good side,I started NaBloPoMo and started working through the Ruby on Rails Tutorial. That led to my making accounts on GitLab and Heroku, and reviving an old BitBucket account. (Plus making a new one because I couldn't remember which email address I'd used the first time.)
I somehow managed to pull off a better-than-usual singing lesson, pretty much nailing Ripple and Mary O'Meara (though I still have doubts about the melody on that one). I love Ripple, as you can probably tell from yesterday's S4S post. I think the song's calmness is good for me.
On the other hand, I made little progress toward getting a job; five applications, no responses except for a rejection from GitHub, where I applied sometime in September. I've been reading about consulting -- I am really not in a good position to become a consultant. WTF was I thinking? Total writer's block on a job application to DuckDuckGo, a business card for computer-curmudgeon.com, and the text of a DrewsList ad.
The common problem with all three of those is that I can't think of anything I know well enough for any company to want to pay consultant's rates for it. And there are damned few I could get a salary for, for that matter. Java, and that's about it. Git, but everyone knows git by now. (I'm working on a post about git for non-programmers, but I don't know how far I can take that.) I should probably save the brainstorming (brain-drizzle? more like that than a storm) for another post.
I'm kind of beyond panic by now -- I feel like I'm just re-arranging deck chairs. Anyone need a web site? Git expert?
1028Su
* Up 5ish; S=5:12;
% managed to annoy my right QL. Naproxen and heat are indicated.
* Applications at Tidelift (not expected to do well) and Carbonblack.
* spent some time looking at comment and contact form solutions. The most interesting
of the comments post them to your GitHub site, which doesn't really work. Hmm. I
_could_ move the blog.
IBM buys Linux giant Red Hat to thrive in the cloud
@ underground_rail | American women buying abortion pills from Third World
countries ! it's getting some use!
. really need to get started with the DrewsList ad
@ iA Writer | iA Inc. Minimal Design. Maximum Focus.
minimal markdown editor with some nice features.
c.f. Emacs vs iA Writer detailed comparison as of 2018 - Slant
larstvei/Focus: Dim the font color of text in surrounding paragraphs
@ Gab loses hosting provider following Pittsburgh mass shooting
@ How do we make remote meetings not suck? – Chelsea Troy
=> worth riffing on this and the moderation that goes on in filk circles.
follow up on #iwrotesomething
1029Mo
* awake 5ish; cuddled Ticia for about an hour
* up 6:15 or so; W=200.4, S=6:38;
% left shoulder hurty. Deltoid? Naproxen and heat.
@ We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else
@ thnidu | Michael Chabon, to those of our fellow Jews who support Trump
@ Chapter 1: From zero to deploy | Ruby on Rails Tutorial (Rails 5) | Softcover.io
make a repo under prj? steve?
% 2pm blood sugar crash. Ate the rest of C's pork chop, but it's not working fast
enough. Having a couple of fudgies. Apple and cheese. 3:30 still a little flaky.
% trying to write a DrewsList ad -- not going well. Weird -- I write fluently when it's
about something I know...
@ How to Survive a Heart Attack when Alone (with Pictures) - wikiHow
: C had a bad experience at UNW. Nurse was rude and didn't give explanations; she
didn't change her catheter, and wouldn't take it out even though it's completely
blocked. Baffling. C will call in the morning.
* dinner: roasted roots (with Brussels sprouts and bacon)
1030Tu
* awake 5ish; cat cuddle
* Up 6ish; W=200.8, ;
% spent over an hour total just drifting/ruminating - not so good
@ Red Hat takes over IBM - I, Cringely
* called LG tech support about the power usage and slow charging popups -- the latter is
unfixable; the former can be "fixed" by clearing cache and data on the apps, but I
don't necessarily want to do that. So I'm stuck with them. Annoying.
-> the Anker fast charger seems to work, though.
-> moved the LG charger to the bedroom; the Anker is a 3-way and one port is on the
printer bridge. Could replace that, but I want both USB A and C out here.
* started Rails tutorial
@ Tim Ferriss‘s 5 Morning Rituals [PDF] S(L)
Morning Pages - A Clearer Mind, Better Ideas & Less Anxiety 3pp of longhand
* 3ish remind L to start chili
* 4pm new slot for music lesson @NN's
=> Ripple and Mary O'Meara. Pretty much nailed 'em; only a couple of misses.
% I was pretty much "on" the whole time. Not sure what's different. Possibly the
fact that I'd been earworming each of those for quite a while, and ran through the
guitar parts this morning. It _felt_ right.
% I also seem to sing louder and more confidently when performing than when doing
exercises. Probably because I'm much less sure of myself in the latter case.
@ Marianne's Politiblog (NN, Drew's)
Island County Guide – The Guillemot Guide (Drew's)
: C got up to go sit in the living room; sat next to her chair instead of on it. 911.
She hadn't turned on any lights; at first seemed confused about what had happened.
& spent my waiting time improving wssetup - it now takes an optional list of workspaces
1031We
* up 7:15ish; W=202.2, S=6:37; shower (S almost certainly off by an hour or so)
@ Create your own dysfunctional single-page app in five easy steps
@ The Cost Of JavaScript In 2018 – Addy Osmani – Medium
" stop taking fast networks and fast devices for granted. "
@ Lighthouse | Tools for Web Developers | Google Developers
" is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. You can
run it against any web page, public or requiring authentication. It has audits for
performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, and more. "
@ WebPagetest - Website Performance and Optimization Test online
@ The “Developer Experience” Bait-and-Switch – Infrequently Noted
" A decent hedge-fund strategy would be to run a private WPT instance and track JS
bloat and TTI for commercial-intent sites — and then short firms that regress
because they just rewrote everything in The One True Framework. "
" QOTD: V: OK, google...
phone: [silence]
V: I hate my phone.
phone: I'm sorry to hear that. "
* job application at Auth0. Abandoned Salesforce because the form at myworkdayjobs.com
is execrable and the low probability of even being noticed -- no place to even paste a
cover letter, let alone attach one -- makes it not worth the trouble. Passed on
several more for the usual reasons.
% restless. Something feels off.
* ported most of the software posts from curmudgeon to github; opinions and so on
filtered out. Back-ported some changes to make excerpts work right.
@ Szechuan Sauce | Gimme Some Oven
1101Th
& Awake around 3? 2? Ticia wandered off, and when I woke up I found that Desti had
taken her place. Very sweet of her.
* up 8ish; S=7:34; cat cuddle.
: 8:30 C still asleep in the LR.
@ Protecting your safety-minded friends on social media (redsixwing)
@ System76 Announces American-Made Desktop PC with Open-Source Parts | Linux
Journal ... and a case that's partly made of wood. WAAANT! Expensive
Thelio - System76
@ EditorConfig -> simpler to configure in
emacs, since it's the only one I use. If anything gets widespread, though...
@ joostkremers/writeroom-mode: Writeroom-mode: distraction-free writing for Emacs.
configurable, iA Writer-like minor mode.
@ crowdfunding | Can you mix crowdfunding and NaNoWriMo? Yes!
@ NaBloPoMo Guide - Unofficial (links to blogher.com broken)
@ posted mdlbear | Meta: NaBloPoMo (NaNoNotMe)
* voted
* L went up to Oak Harbor and came back with a T-Mobile femtocell.
-> I took advantage of the opportunity to swap UPSs with the one from the bedroom, and
move Nova down a shelf so that it can be reached for the occasional reset.
-> nova came up without a reset; the occasional instances where it doesn't probably
correspond to how it was shut off (UPS and/or pure power fail)
-> phone doesn't seem to be connecting. According to the lights it's set up (it can
take as much as 2 hours; been 1 but all the lights are green)
% very shaky; standing too long + blood sugar crash -- I didn't have much if any
breakfast and just fried rice with no protein for lunch
* AMEX payment due 11/18 -> paid 2500; more than the balance due but about half the
total; the large charge was car insurance for the year.
1102Fr
* up 7ish; W=202.2, S=7:11; shower
@ The Asus Eee: How Close Did the World Come to a Linux Desktop? | Linux Journal
* applied at https://www.7cups.com/about/jobs/4020709002/?gh_jid=4020709002
* downloaded Talkspace | Emergency Information for PHQ app.
* schedule ping to (builder)Mike
* shopping - the Red Apple in Ken's Korner has cheap chicken thighs.
* checked in on ysabetwordsmith | NaNoWriMo: Link your landing page!
& Wrote Journal/word-count, for NaBloPoMo stats.
489 2018/11/01--nablopomo.html
89 2018/11/01--thankful-thursday.html
615 2018/11/02--learn-enough-to-be-dangerous.html
--------
1193 words in 3 posts this month (average 397/post)
615 words in 1 post today
* post: review: curmudgeon: mdlbear | Learn Enough to be Dangerous 615 words
% right shoulder hurting. Heat.
% 10ish - sleepy. head for bedroom 10:39
1103Sa
* Up 5ish; W=202.2, S=6:53;
% right shoulder still hurting. Washing heavy pots didn't help. Heat.
* looked up Island Disposal and Skagit Farmers Supply/Propane for calls Monday
* bought Yesterday’s Songs Transformed – Gary McGath don't know why I waited so long.
* working on Rails tutorial. Wants me to create a bitbucket account. I have one, but
can't get to it; ended up with ssavitzky1 (s@t). Wants a 2048-bit ssh key.
-> I now have 2 atlassian/bitbucket accounts; ssavitzky (s@s) was still around, with
my current key. Should generate a new one anyway. -> done. Id instead of id
-> gitlab, too. ssavitzky on all of them.
-> heroku (s@s) - pretty slick. heroku create in a repo adds a remote. Then push.
* Finished Chapter 1: From zero to deploy | Ruby on Rails Tutorial
* post: mdlbear | Songs for Saturday: Ripple 333 words
@ Git Workflows That Work | End Point
* Singing: Ripple, October Country (C's request), Mary O'Meara
NaBloPoMo stats:
489 2018/11/01--nablopomo.html
89 2018/11/01--thankful-thursday.html
617 2018/11/02--learn-enough-to-be-dangerous.html
340 2018/11/03--s4s-ripple.html
1867 2018/11/04--done-since-1028.html (includes ~1500 words in the notes)
--------
3402 words in 5 posts this month (average 680/post)
1867 words in 1 post today
no subject
Date: 2018-11-04 03:51 pm (UTC)For journalling and most writing, I'm using Sublime Text on the Mac and Editorial on the iPad with Dropbox synching between them. I installed some extra packages into Sublime specifically for writing, and those are working well. I was using Ullyses, another of these Markdown writing tools, for a while, but I found it got in my way sometimes by being too helpful, plus a lot of its features tied me to iCloud, so I ended up ditching it.
I've announced a novel on NaNoWriMo this year. But with my current Real Life (caring for terminally ill father) I will be lucky to do 500 words this month. Still, it's a project file with some notes and prompts, something I can poke at when I have time. And that's an achievement in itself for me.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-04 04:46 pm (UTC)Yeah; I don't need much in the way of a steady stream of work -- I have some retirement income, just not enough to break even -- but I need something and have no idea how to get it.
A Framework for Deciding How to Specialize - Devs: learn how to go from coder to consultant might be helpful for you.
Good luck!
no subject
Date: 2018-11-04 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-04 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-04 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-04 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-04 08:40 pm (UTC)The problem with designing a better Twitter -- it's been done, several times -- is that all the users are on the real Twitter. I think the best of the alternative social networks currently is The Mastodon Project, and while I could stand up a server I don't see how I could attract enough users and give them enough value that some of them would be willing to contribute (the Dreamwidth model). Might be worthwhile running a server, though, if I can figure out how to do it on the cheap.
My main area of expertise is Java, on the server side. I'm not all that good at user interfaces. I'm trying to learn JavaScript and app construction, but that's kind of long-term. A lot of server-side code has moved to Ruby on Rails (which is the tutorial I'm taking) and Python.