"I'll be curled up under my bed all day because I got an unexpected and (IMHO) unnecessary Emergency Alert on my phone that one time."

🙄

510 Pyro: The Best First Developer - by Derrick Buckner

One dilution, one bottle. No drama. I’m going to explain why this belongs in a beginner’s arsenal as much as it belongs in mine.

I've always been leery of Pyro developers, but based on this article, I've ordered a bottle from Freestyle Photo

I'm about a third through "Devoted", by Dean Koontz and I've been enjoying it. I finally decided to add it to my Hardcover list. When I did, I saw that I'd already read the book in 2020 and gave it 3 stars. It's not uncommon for people to re-read books, but I honestly have no recollection of any of "Devoted". None of it sounds remotely familiar. That's weird, right?

I'm definitely going to try littleFedi | A small ActivityPub server written in Go, the minute it ships.

(h/t Mark Hysted)

I feel like relaxing on the couch all day with my laptop, Linux, and some music in the background. Maybe I'll take a break from this keyboard and go write on one of the typewriters for a while. That's been fun, too. Typing directly onto paper is cool, and something everyone should try, imo.

Speaking of Linux, on my desktop I'm running Fedora w/KDE, but here on the laptop it's Fedora w/Dank Linux and Niri. I'm getting comfortable with it and it's pretty nice.

You may have noticed that I haven't been putting images atop these journal posts. There are a couple reasons for that. First, it's kind of a pain to find a photo I want to use and then add the date/weather overlay. It's not hard, it's just friction that I'm finding difficult to overcome. Second, they're mostly decorative, and I dislike using decorative images on posts. Sure, it is a way to share photos, but I have other ways of doing that. If I want to highlight a photo, I can just make a post about it. Anyway, not using featured images on journal posts feels like a simplifying, decluttering move and that's where my head is right now.

As repetitive and unimpressive as this blog can get, it's still the one place I have consistently put things for nearly 26 years. When I ask myself, "When did THING happen?", I often find the answer here. Maybe that's enough of a reason to continue, even though I haven't really been feeling like it, lately.

My stepson writes test harnesses for the EV support systems at GM. We got to tour the engineering building yesterday during "Family Day" in Pontiac. It's ginormous and impressive. There was a parking lot full of classic cars. Also impressive. Not only did I not take any photos, I didn't even bring a camera. Something is wrong with my hobby.

I've stepped away from blogging and social media for nearly a week. RSS feeds have been my only consumption engine. I like it this way. Mastodon starts to feel repetitive after a while. My blogging has been repetitive for 20 years. It's a little depressing how little has changed. How little I've changed. I may decide to quit blogging altogether, but, repetitive or not, I feel invisible when I'm not writing somewhere.

Have you ever felt like you've simply run out of things to say?

I don't know what's worse: the whining about macOS from Mac users or the constant bickering between Linux users.

Well, I've retired the saltwater tank. I just couldn't keep ahead of it. Bad algae, unwanted critters, water changes, chemicals, testing, etc. It got to the point where the effort I was putting in wasn't worth the pleasure I was getting out of it. It was a good four-year run.