mdlbear | Done Since 2020-04-26

I don't think this was a good week. Right now I'm severely depressed and hopeless (mostly over politics, but also about how little I've been getting done for the last few {weeks, months, years}*, so that may be coloring my judgememt).

I have done some music, including setting up the RainbowCouch virtual filksing (although I only ran the first, frustrating part on Jitsi; it went went a lot better once it moved to Zoom). It's too bad, because I really wanted to like Jitsi. But it's not ready for prime time. It would probably work well for a small group, after everybody was already set up. Probably. Muting, in particular, works badly. (It's pretty confusing on Zoom too, only not quite as much.)

I did sing more than I have in a while, including "The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of" in the FK-No Dead Penguin circle.

The 10th anniversary of my DW account (first post here) passed without notice on Monday. I'd looked it up and intended to make a post, but... DW postedUpdates on the security changes (how to keep your client working!) on Monday. The fix was pretty trivial -- if you're using a client (as opposed to posting on a web page) and it isn't working, see that post on how to fix it.

That sent me off down a bit of a rabbit hole learning about the new REST API under development, and both of the old ones (XML-RPC and "flat"). I still mean to replace my current kludge with a real command-line client. I may wait until the REST API is ready, although the only difference at this point between it and flat appears to be punctuation. Annoyingly, none of the APIs allow you to post raw HTML: In XML you have to escape HTML markup, in the other two you use C-type escapes, including "\n" for all the newlines.

I got the jbackup utility going the week before last; it proved to be an excellent tutorial for the XML API, and some of the code could be ripped out and used as the basis for a client. It would be in Perl, though, if I did that. Not necessarily a bad thing -- I like Perl, though maybe not as much as I did a few years ago.

* those are set braces

Notes & links:

0426Su
& awake 3:30ish; pain in left hip -> ibuprofen ~4am, heat; congested -> neti
% anxiety mostly about politics
* up 6:30ish; S=6:04, W=195.6; shower
* -look for or- _order_ acetaminophen
: Code push - tomorrow (April 26th, 2020) at ~1PM Pacific / 2000 UTC
/ major cleanup
% 9am very sleepy. Haven't had my coffee yet; that may have something to do with it
* got Colleen on zoom via her kindle fire
@ Bob Dylan’s 50 Greatest Songs – Ranked many I've never heard. Should fix that.
Desolation Row is #5.
: several things having to do with windows don't seem to work well under Xmonad.
* ~1pm Updates on the security changes (how to keep your client working!)
clients can continue to work, but you will need to reconfigure them. See below!
x Lamplighters livestream
* Sang "Stuff that Dreams are Made Of" in the dead penguin. Got badly lost between
first and second verse because I wanted to try dropping the first chorus. Sort of
worked anyway, and I think that may be the right way to go in the future.
: out of cat litter :P -> ordered at Chewey

0427Mo 10th DW blogoversary litter boxen
* up 7am; S=7:03;
= 10th anniversary of my DW account: mdlbear | Is this thing on?
@ The Lab That Discovered Global Warming Has Good News and Bad News - NYT
" “The laws of nature don’t care whether we believe in them or not,” [Dr. de Menocal]
said. “The tragedy and inconvenience we’ve seen from this pandemic pale in
comparison to what’s in store from climate change. There is a much bigger crisis
knocking on our door and we have to remember the big lesson from this pandemic:
Science saves lives.” "
* scooped the LR litter box.
@ updated RC web pages for RCouch on 0502Sa
Since RainbowCon has been rescheduled to next year, we've decided to hold the
RainbowCouch virtual filksing this year, starting 4pm on Saturday 5/2.
Meeting information goes up Saturday morning on https://rainbows-end.net/RCouch
-* #filkhaven, DW, RC and FotLR FB pages.
% C's weight is down to 202!
~ vacuum floors esp. around cat boxes -> vacuum cleaner totally plugged. working on it
-> got the hose unplugged, anyway. There seems to be a section of pipe missing
x 1:45 C Dr. Harper Harborview (gastroenterology) -> records transferred to Everett
* last few posts didn't get posted urls because charm-wrapper was no still scraping the
(obsolete) hpasswd line in .charmrc. Thankful Thursday for 4-16 didn't get posted at
all. (post backdated)
@ COVID-19 – CMO Update and Overview – 8th Edition | PartnerRe
@ Plan Old Recipes Take a recipe website URL and remove the cruft.
poundifdef/plainoldrecipe: Takes a recipe website URL and transforms it to a
plain-text version for reading or printing. Neat!
@ Stuffed Cabbage Recipe | Ina Garten | Food Network pretty close to Mom's
Stuffed Cabbage - cleaned up
javascript:void(window.open('https://plainoldrecipe.com/recipe/?url='+location.href));
/ 10:30ish major cleanup -> % back hurting -> meloxicam

0428Tu
& Awake 3:30ish(?); cleanup; tried to get back to sleep; gave up at 4:15
% pain, L hip large part of why I couldn't sleep -> 4:20 acetaminophen; heat
% back to bed ~5
* up 8am; S=5:52;
% back still hurts but not as much. vague memories of dreams, involving a convention,
something that was supposed to be a concert (Seannan?) but turned into a mad science
demo involving a tiny submarine; before that there was something about a house, etc.
/ major cleanup. % heat on the back * took out bathroom and bedroom garbage
@ Some States Shouldn't Ease Social Distancing Until At Least June, Modelers Say
Forecasting the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital demand
and deaths for the USA and European Economic Area countries | medRxiv
based on existing capacity and 1 new case per million population. WA is 5/28
: last Tuesday, so no water until the afternoon.
@ ‘Zoom fatigue’ is taxing the brain. Here's why that happens.
" the sudden shift to video calls has been a boon for people who have neurological
difficulty with in-person exchanges, such as those with autism who can become
overwhelmed by multiple people talking. "
" However, other people on the autism spectrum may still struggle with video chatting,
as it can exacerbate sensory triggers such as loud noise and bright lights "
@ Get Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa
Release notes were a bit hard to find. So was the code name.
FocalFossa/ReleaseNotes - Ubuntu Wiki
FocalFossa/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuStudio - Ubuntu Wiki
Xubuntu 20.04 Release Notes ‹ Xubuntu Wiki
ARM/RaspberryPi
% a muscle on my right arm is aching. Almost certainly from scrolling with the
trackball. That thing isn't meant for scrolling, is it? Typing some keys, too.
% quite a lot of nice Desti time. Hard on the leg, though, so I had to set her down.
* made a batch of "boursin" - 1/2# cream cheese, 1/4# butter, 1tbsp herb mix.

0429We
& awake 3:30; S=4something
% 3:30 took a meloxicam preemptively
/ semi-major cleanup
* up 8ish; S=6:27, W=196.4;
@ Coronavirus treatment: Gilead says positive data on remdesivir coming !!
Coronavirus: Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine could be ready by fall
: 10:30 MAC clinic called to confirm tomorrow's appointment
@ What’s a Pulse Oximeter, and Do I Really Need One at Home? - The New York Times
* load C's drugs. Forgot for the second week in a row, so set reminders for May
/ 2:50 semi-major cleanup
% no bad effects on my back, which is a little surprising but encouraging
: the shower doesn't seem to be draining properly. I hit it with the plunger which
seemed to help. The barbed cleanout thingie didn't bring up anything.
% pain between left thumb and forefinger do presumably to chopsticks. -> diclofenac
~ damn - forgot to put gin on the shopping list.
& reading DW using Lynx in a terminal, which lets me keep it on the same workspace (2)
as Emacs and Discord. DW is a little awkward in Lynx, but not too bad
/ major cleanup

0430Th
& awake 4:45; S=5.4; ibuprofen
: Desti at the foot of bed on my side; Ticia nowhere to be seen
~ just realized that L' doesn't appear to have gotten cat litter.
: 5:22 Ticia arrived, probably from S's room. Briefly on arm of recliner
* up 10am; S=8:30; ibuprofen
@ Vote Hindsight 2020 on Twitter " It's been a bit since I went on a Twitter rant,
but I made the mistake of actually checking my stream, so now I have to say some
things about mental health. "
" it's a terrible mistake, in the quest for acceptance of neurodiversity, to refuse to
allow for the idea of temporary or event-based mental illness. Y'all like to equate
mental health with physical health to make your points, right? So let's do that. "
" I cannot be cured, but if you CAN be, I want you to be. If your poor mental health
is caused by external circumstances, I want those circumstances to change so that
you can be healthy. And I also respect that you truly are disabled by it, temporary
or not. "
~ 2pm C catheter change (she checked; it's still on)
no it isn't -- no less than 3 weeks apart. :P
* new 16x20 air filter for furnace. 3-month replacement schedule after this

0501Fr-03Su RainbowCon 4 -> 2021

0501Fr scoop litter boxen
& awake 2:30; back hurting -> ibuprofen, heat. Cats. Trying to get out of and into bed
around the cats didn't help my back any. Back to bed 4:20
@ 1. Introduction to the [flat] Protocol
* up 6ish; S=5:18;
@ siderea | Summer is a-comin' in and winter's gone away-o [music]
* change disposable CPAP filter; nosepiece; tub. (month 1 mod 6)
@ Cringely's Rules for Home Schooling in the Age of COVID-19 | I, Cringely
@ Communities of practicea brief introduction (via 7c)
@ Death of the office | 1843 or else not, but one can hope
* _Finally_ got the external monitor connected via mini-DP _at the correct resolution_
Steps: 1. join displays 2. select and accept correct resolution for monitor
3. apply 4. _then_ drag the displays into the correct positions; re-apply
* took out the DVI cable and replaced it with a HDMI+adapter. (The VGA cable is still
there because the monitor has an actual VGA port as well as 2xHDMI)
* laundry, trash
% it's after 3pm and I haven't done anything except reading and housework.
@ How Long Will a Vaccine Really Take?
@ Why do human beings keep getting diseases from bats? | 21st Night
Turns out bats have a _really different_ immune system:
" Recognition couldn’t work in the same way. So bats’ immune systems decided to be
always on, instead. Then, to avoid the problems with that, bats’ immune system also
evolved to never reach the same levels of inflammation as other mammals. The end
result was that bats were much more able to live with deadly viruses, neither
ignoring nor overreacting to them. "
: getting a little worried about Ticia's coughing.
* singing - Desolation Row. Fingers hurt a little, so I need to practice more.
but I already knew that
/ semimajor cleanup % ubuprofen
@ Video Call Apps - Mozilla - *privacy not included

0502Sa
& awake... don't know exactly
* up 10ish; S=2:48 + unrecorded;
* ordered CPAP tubing from $A; last was 2019/12/28 (and apparently didn't get logged)
* post meeting info for RainbowCouch via jitsi. Easy.
https://meet.jit.si/RainbowCouch2020-05-02
@ Tomorrow (Sunday 5/3) at 3:00 PM PDT--Summer's RainbowCouch concert streaming live at
http://streetjelly.com/summerrussell :rainbow:
~ 4pm meeting RainbowCouch2020-05-02 starts -> moved to Zoom due to sound problems
Lem took over -- he's good at it. The Bose headphones don't work well with the
adapter I'm using with the UA25. Still looking for the ones I used to have. Growf.
Sang Bigger on the Inside, Go No More A'Roving, Riverheart, Weird Load, Stuck Here
/ C depressed because she's not at a con and able to mingle with people
@ siderea | ALERT: Dextromethorphan cough suppressant [COVID-19, sci/bio/med]
We found and tested 47 old drugs that might treat the coronavirus: Results show
promising leads and a whole new way to fight COVID-19 but this paragraph:
" Interestingly, a seventh compound – an ingredient commonly found in cough
suppressants, called dextromethorphan – does the opposite: Its presence helps the
virus. When our partners tested infected cells with this compound, the virus was
able to replicate more easily, and more cells died. " is way toward the bottom