Done Since 2023-07-31
2023-08-06 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearHow am I supposed to summarize a week that includes the last three days of a good trip to Netherlands, but also includes bringing home Desti's ashes? Not gonna try.
This part of the trip (three days out of a 12-day trip) was spent in Amsterdam, with a side-trip to Tilburg. (That was just N and me, on Tuesday. N and j made a separate side-trip to Leiden Monday because j hadn't seen it.) Tuesday also included a face-to-face visit with our immigration lawyer. Up to now it's only been Zoom.
I'm going to try to do an actual trip report on Going Sideways, which will probably get partially mirrored here. (Partially, because my workflow doesn't make it easy to include images or formatting.)
After we got back I noticed that one of the zippers (the one that opens the expansion section) on my Travelpro suitcase was separating; another (on the back panel) had lost its pull some years ago. So I promptly fell into a rabbit-hole looking at luggage. That deserves a separate post as well. That 23" Travelpro rollaboard has served me well for over a decade (I don't know how long becase this blog doesn't go back that far. But I know that it wasn't the first Travelpro I've owned, either.)
Travel tip: the Our House "Immersive Dance Music Experience" (about the history of "house music") is LOUD -- earplugs are required. It also has flashing lights.
Rabbit hole report: somebody elsejournal was complaining about losing a day's work thanks to a browser or Google docs glitch. That reminded me of something I'd recently read about called Local-First Software (see more under Thursday. Also look at "offline first".) Or just use git, with your choice of text editor and either HTML or markdown for formatting. You can back it up for free on GitHub. (I know I've written about this several times; maybe I'll give it another try some tie.)
Notes & links: 0731Mo * up 6:50; S=6:53; 10ish eyedrops * append Sunday's entries to .mm.done and .draft @ Moselland Cat Riesling: The Legend Revealed - Wesley's Wine Tips @ MIT engineers fly first-ever plane with no moving parts | MIT News *RijksmuseumOur House "Immersive Dance Music Experience", with G (30m walk), while j and N go to Leiden -> we took a cab there, had coffee (somewhere near there) -> warning: VERY loud, with flashing lights. -> Thank goodness (or thank Delta) for the earplugs we got on the plane -> not nearly as interesting to me as it was to G, but ok. -> had lunch a block down the street at Kitchen & Bar Van Rijn -> after looking unsuccessfully for a taxi stand, we walked home. % 7ish drifty : Found the missing bamboo tableware -- it had slid to the bottom of a compartment of my sling bag that appeared to be divided in two, but actually just had a velcro patch ! blunted affect. Or something like that.. : Dinner was mushroom double cheese pizza for me and j; N and G had double cheese % I seem to be wearing an old person's skin. It seems very odd. 0801Tu * up 7:30(alarm); S=8:01; (minimal) exercises, 8:40 naproxen @ Axess Lab | Toggles suck! * downstairs by 10:15 * to lawyer's office with N and G * Train to Tilburg with N. Drove around with a taxi driver who gave us a bit of a tour after explaining why Tilburg was an unsuitable place for our bookstore. -> spread out; most of the non-Dutch students are Asian and don't read for pleasure, and everyone goes to Eindhoven to shop. -> Eindhoven is definitely worth checking out. -> lunch (breakfast?) in Tilburg. Falafel * call Petco to cancel the repeat order for Desti's methimazole % got the email that said that the order was being prepared for shipping, but there was no way to get to it from the email, and the website appeared to be broken. @ (more about the room-temperature superconductor papers) | Hacker News * packing: put the sling bag in the suitcase and just carry on the backpack and cpap the bottle of gin has to go in checked baggage, per TSA regs. 0802We * up 5am; S=6:57; (some)exercises * Taxi to airport at 6:45 * return from Netherlands -> for next time -- don't bother taking a water bottle -- they're available on plane -> but _do_ remember longish USB A-C cable, nail file, and maybe the sling bag % forgot to do nose care this morning. breathing a bit of a problem -> but the air on the plane is dry, so it gets better. * in-flight movie: March of the Penguins. : working on Desti's Rainbow Bridge page : n.b. passport and HX cards are in left-hand trestle drawer * The chargeasap battery is doing an decent job of recharging Sable. : Flight landed ~10:45. The international terminal at Seatac is HUGE * home ~1pm. : somehow I seem to have lost track of the adapter plugs for the Zeus charger. Grump. -> (0804Fr: found them underneath a pile of books and papers on the guitar case) ! depressed? Grieving, more likely. Or as well. % 4pm drifting. % 6ish sleepy 0803Th * litter boxen Before picking up cats! & Awake 3:20am; S=4:44; had to search for blue blockers, which had fallen % QL pain -> heat. Should try to get back to sleep at some point * up 8ish; S=7:54; (slept through alarm apparently->no, it wasn't set)... Dutch % at the "I'm not going to ____ anymore" stage of grieving for Desti. I know this one. ! I feel hollow. If that's a feeling? : the Travelpro's expansion zipper has started to separate -> so there's at most one trip left in it. * by 11am: pick up cats at purrfectcatboarding -> Ticia is prowling around the lair and purring -- I think she's looking for Desti ~ ask m about Desti's carrier; collect if necessary -> had gotten back to boarding; came out to the car with the kibble etc. @ Leprosy now a big thing in Florida. Leave it to Republicans to bring disease and terror to America @ Covid's Summer Wave Is Rising—Again | WIRED @ 14 Best Electric Bikes (2023): Affordable, Cargo, Folding, Commuter, and More @ The Cloud Is a Prison. Can the Local-First Software Movement Set Us Free? | WIRED Local-First Software: You Own Your Data, in spite of the Cloud (PDF) Pluralistic: Cloudburst (03 August 2023) –: Daily links from Cory Doctorow Local-First Cooperation: Autonomy at the Edge, Secured by Crypto, 100% Available Designing Offline-First Web Apps – A List Apart @ Local-First Cooperation " You can build collaborative applications for your friends, family, or customers. These applications can work together with other computing devices [...] And you can do all of this without using the cloud. " : ok, this is weird. My computer glasses apparently had some kind of coating on them, which has deteriorated somehow. Noticed it while washing them. They're now useless. The surface is now sort of crinkled around the edges. Alcohol helped only a little % itching, mainly left hand. Allergic to something? WTF?? Also swelling: can't remove my wedding ring. Don't know how long that's been a problem; haven't tried. 0804Fr & awake several times -- lost count. Ticia is cuddly but also pointy. : apt-get-all put Panther into a very wierd broken state. deleted mate, firefox, etc -> fixed by `apt-get uninstall --purge ubuntu-system-adjustments`, then using tasksel to reinstall mate. There may be a few things missing, but ok -> Panther now upgraded to Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria * up 5ish(?); S=4:38; (some) exercises, Dutch * posted Amethyst Rose: 33 : Animal Medical Center called to say they have Desti's ashes ready for pickup % eyedrops 19:25 R; 20:04 L * upgrade Sable to Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria % lethargic % Today's earworm: Wayfaring Stranger. Except that when I get to "I'm going there to meet my mother..." it turns into Silver Dagger, because I don't know any more than the first couple of lines of W.S. Go figure. 0605Sa & awake several times * up 5:30ish; S=5:25; kitty-cuddle; exercises, Dutch @ The Uselessness of Phenylephrine (ysabetwordsmith) * singing: For Amy @ Silphium, The Ancient 'Miracle Plant' Rediscovered In Turkey Next Chapter in the Legend of Silphion: Preliminary Morphological, Chemical, Biological and Pharmacological Evaluations, Initial Conservation Studies, and Reassessment of the Regional Extinction Event - PMC * reduced Chewy autoship order to 5/2weeks. May have to adjust occasionally * pick up Desti's ashes at Animal Medical Center - 17518 15th Ave NE, Shoreline, WA large building -- used to be a Walgreen's, IIRC. They brought her out to the car. % a surprisingly small package, though I don't know what I was expecting. Two paw prints -- G wanted one. The urn came in a blue velvet (? velveteen?) bag. There was also an envelope with some fur and a noseprint, and a booklet titled Coping with the Loss of a Companion Animal @ Two-Wheel vs Four-Wheel Luggage: Why Roller Bags Are Better - AFAR * posted mdlbear | River: R.I.P. Destra 2011? - 2023-07-30 0706Su (a week ahead of time, but I didn't want it to wait) : The Atomic bombing of Hiroshima was 78 years ago today.
Local-first
Date: 2023-08-07 05:31 am (UTC)The long and short is, if it can't be stored on a system under your control, off line, do you even own it any more? What is the impact on intellectual property? What recourse do you have if Google Docs loses, say, your dissertation or lifework?
Cloud backup, if properly secured, is useful, but "cloud first" should never be "cloud only", IMO.
Re: Local-first
Date: 2023-08-07 08:53 am (UTC)The only times I've ever used Google Docs have been for collaborative writing, which in fairness is probably the best reason for using Docs. (Yes, you can do that in Microsoft Word too, but then you're swapping the need for an online connection for faith in Microsoft's gnarly code and file formats, and I know from bitter experience that that's a fool's endeavour.)
Likewise, I use and appreciate iCloud Drive for sharing documents between my iDevices, but with the proviso that I absolutely do not allow it to 'manage' those documents!
I don't mind subscriptions per se, but they have to be reasonable, by which I mean reasonable to me not the developer or corp behind the product or service. Unfortunately, too many subscriptions are framed as the former when it's all about the latter.
Re: Local-first
Date: 2023-08-08 01:26 am (UTC)GitHub pull requests work pretty well for collaboration if you don't mind that it's not as fine-grained as Google Docs. Which I consider an advantage.
Re: Local-first
Date: 2023-08-08 08:41 am (UTC)Git is one of those things that I've been meaning to learn more about for a while now, mostly for personal stuff today, but collaboration via GitHub or other services in the future on projects that fall within my interest and expertise orbits.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-07 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-07 07:44 pm (UTC)Desti's is different from Curio's. Colleen's came from Etsy.