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Uren. Kijken naar het scherm van de telefoon. Berichten inbox. Doen of niet doen is geen keuze het is een emotie. Het ontstaat aan de lopende band, wie zie je en wat voel je, wat lees je wel en waar lees je over heen, wie vraag je? De personen die doen of niet doen. Waar is waarneming van gemaakt, wat is de trend van deze periode, wat zie je om je heen, en hoe voel je je. Er staat een zin in een boek die precies zegt wat hoe jij je voelt. Andere zinnen lees je over heen. De loop van zaken is op dit moment goed gekeurd, niet doen is geen beslissing het is een bevestiging. Het komt overeen met het beeld van jezelf een beeld gemaakt door woorden en gebaren van anderen, gewoonten gemaakt door de jaren. Jaarringen van gedrag. Gemaakt, begonnen op een lang vergeten moment. Herhaling op herhaling. Dit is wie ik ben, dit is wat ik doe. Doen. Wat zorgt voor energie, waardoor verlies je energie, is er spanning voelbaar, bevestiging van vermogen. Welke spanning en hoe is het patroon om die spanning te reguleren. Zoeken we het op, gaan we met de spanning mee en het langzaam laten afnemen of snel de stekker er uit. Is het een andere ervaring hoe beoordeel je deze? Zoek je de antwoorden en welke antwoorden zijn er voorradig, zijn er 2 of 20 en is het genoeg? Kijk naar je beeldscherm, hoe sta je op. Wat zegt de tijd. Wat kan. Is er alles wat nodig is om te doen of niet te doen. Welke van de twee is acceptabel en voor wie. Welke berichten komen binnen in je lichaam en welke van buiten op je af. Voorzichtige of spannende. Is het een dag van herhaling of verandering en merk je er iets van. De televisie stort beelden over je uit, je ziet maar een paar details. De camera laat alleen een klein stukje zien, de man vraagt maar 3 vragen uit een voorraad van 1000 mogelijke vragen. Valt het op. Zijn stem is bekend, merk je nog wat hij zegt en hoe vaak, wat is zijn normale doen, zijn houding, zijn verhouding met de werkelijkheid. Afgestemd op veranderen of behouden. Welke emoties zie je vanmorgen. Heb je goed geslapen en waarom. Kijk naar het beeldscherm de inbox van de mail, de sociale berichten, deze mensen ken je dit zijn hun berichten, deze volg je en die volgen jou, uit een keuze van >1000000, dit is de taal waar je in denkt. Dit is de cultuur achter de taal. Heb je bereik? Is het doen of niet doen. Maakt het wat uit, het is geen keuze, het is een moment opname en het effect is mijlenver weg op een ander die vandaag zo is zoals jaren geleden bepaald is wie ze is, en onduidelijk is of het doen een doen of niet doen effect heeft want er staat een regel in de krant, een bericht voor een bericht, en in alle waarheid zitten 101 andere. De ene actie is voor rede vatbaar de andere komt niet over. Doen of niet doen is geen keuze het is de fase van een leven, de energie in een lichaam, de aanwezige omgeving. Het ligt even vast als je lichaamslengte of de kleur van je huid. Ik doe dingen en achteraf maak ik een reden. Ik doe dingen niet en achteraf maak ik een reden. Vooraf bepaalde redenen zijn beperkt voorradig en mijn zoektocht is even beperkt. De moeite die ik doe kent beperkingen; tijd, honger, afleiding en zo voort. Ik kijk in het postvak, ik kijk naar “Je bent helemaal klaar!”. Daaronder een rondje met een potlood met zo’n gummetje aan de onderkant. Ben ik vandaag de hele dag helemaal klaar!

This is a test.

Socialmente estamos presionados para obsesionarnos, temer y amar la competitividad. La competitividad es tensión. La competitividad es innecesaria porque realmente sólo se va a necesitar de verdad, en plan o compito o me lo quitan, en muy contadas ocasiones. Lo que nos proyectan es que la competitividad, es decir la posibilidad de que nos quiten lo que hemos conseguido o sobre todo lo que vamos a conseguir, estando en juego nuestra propia persona, es permanente y continua. Lo que es bueno, realmente bueno es la colaboración. Con la colaboración no te agotas, te revitalizas, te suma, te aporta, sumas fuerzas, no restas. La competitividad no es necesaria, la colaboración sí y es saludable, al contrario que la competitividad, que es tóxica incluso para el sistema inmune por la tensión, odio, miedo y otras emociones generadas a raíz de ella. La colaboración es vitalidad y es disfrutar. La competitividad continuada es sufrimiento.

Nos han metido el miedo a compartir abierta y naturalmente con los demás por miedo a perderlo todo y que nos ganen “ventaja” (qué absurdo). Cuando colaboro me siento bien y los demás también. Cuando colaboro todos ganamos y nadie perdemos. Con la competitividad sólo “gana” (qué obsceno) el debilitado.

La competitividad es ganar-perder y sufrir ambas partes que están en conflicto así como perpetuar el conflicto. Colaborar es sumar e incluso multiplicar en positivo en diferentes medidas; nunca restar.

La competitividad es perversa.

#competitividad #colaboración

I'm an incurable hobby coder. The rate changes depending on what's happening at work, but it never stops completely. Even during 2018, when I left Hipmunk, joined Asana, and got married, I made:

• Roguelike tools for Swift
• Roguelike tools for Nim
• A roguelike
• Half a web forum in Python
• A TypeScript library that generates imaginary star systems
• An iOS app that plays audio loops for drum practice
• A toy Electron app just to see what it was like

The year before that was similar:

• Roguelike tools for Python
• A roguelike
• An interactive fiction game engine
• An interacive fiction game
• Another roguelike
• A sophisticated web-based MP3 player

These are not outliers. The topics change, the technologies change, but the output is consistent. Some years it's been Python, some years it's been Swift, others it's been JavaScript, TypeScript, Nim, Go, OCaml, React, Vue, Cocoa, a web API, Postgres, or Brainf**k.

I used to throw up my hands once in a while and say, “It's all too much! I have to slow down!” But I don't slow down. So now, instead of trying to slow down, I'm trying to understand myself better and make decisions about what I work on more consciously.

My projects break down cleanly into the categories defined by the contents of my ~/dev directory:

apps/             # GUI apps for iOS and Mac
cli/              # Command line utilities
games/            # Games :-)
libraries/        # Reusable libraries
steveasleep/      # steveasleep.com
websites/         # non-steveasleep.com web sites

# other stuff:
3p/               # clones of 3rd party libraries
irskep_dotfiles/
old/
scratch/

The apps and games are ephemeral: I release them and move on. The libraries are benignly neglected, with patches getting merged quickly and releases going out sporadically. For example, I used to work on Literally Canvas a lot, but now all I do is merge pull requests and close the occasional GitHub issue.

Of all the subdirectories of apps/, games/, and libraries/, 75% have been shipped to “users” in some way as itch.io uploads, App Store apps, PyPI/NPM packages, or live web sites. Every single one has a bitchin' README.

Another way to look for patterns is to identify what's absent. There are no major contributions to third party libraries made in my spare time, though there are a few small ones. There are no Project Euler solutions, or any other “algorithms for fun” exercises. I don't use difficult-to-learn languages. And I haven't written any libraries that weren't an important building block for something else.

For most projects, I can identify the thought that made me start. Those thoughts fall consistently into two buckets. Either I'm doing a game jam with the intention of making something better than what I made for the last game jam; or I have what I think is a great idea that needs to exist, and I think I'll do a great job at making it happen.

The first bucket hasn't resulted in any stress or heartbreak. I make a bit of art and move on. The second one has all the problems. Here's why:

Some hobbyist programmers feel like they can never finish anything. I'm the opposite: I don't drop a project until it's “released” to some degree.

Too many times, I implement a set of neat ideas, but it doesn't feel like an accomplishment unless I commit to spending more energy than I have left. That's how Computer Words ended up. Literally Canvas was at least successful, but I still feel some ongoing guilt for neglecting it or even failing to rewrite it from scratch for the modern JavaScript ecosystem.

Here's how I want to think about starting these kinds of projects in the future:

Or, in “mission statement” form:

1. I will do time-boxed game jams when I have time, I have energy, and I have an idea that motivates me.

2. I will take on non-game hobby projects if they won't feel like work and might be useful to me personally.

So I am jumping about right now trying to figure out the best way to do things. But I am write.as at this point seeing how much I can actually customize it. If I can make this work I may stay here..or we will move. Dunno yet.

Tim

In 1108/1696–97, the Ottoman sultan issued an imperial decree ordering the reorganization of the yörüks in Rumeli into a corps called “the descendants of the conquerors (evlād-ı fātiḥān).” The name derived from a legend in which their ancestors crossed the straits from Anatolia to Rumeli with sultans and viziers for the Islamic holy wars.

(More fragmented notes from a pocket notebook, dated March 2014.)

• Automate everything
• “Geopate” is not an acceptable word. I thought, just maybe, a worldly mind or something.
• Help! I'm launching a web app and need advice. Where do I get a Macbook Pro, a distressed wooden table and an overpriced cup of coffee?
• Blog post: The “heh” factor
• “Foxed”
• Husbandry – jam/bread
• Keeps smells in [2019 note: see Shrapnel]
• Lid closes slowly and quietly when you take your foot off the pedal
• Blog post: The ideal text editor
• Blog post: “Successfully”
• Blog post: On being first, on being lucky
• The paying clients aren't who you think they will be
• Blog post: The false economy of annual discounts
• “There are yogis in the house”
• Guiltless napping
• “Failure is always an option”
• “A truckful of web”
• I thought for a moment he was reading a beautiful leather-bound book, but the glow on his face gave his iPad away
• “Does that make you want to be a patron of jazz?”
• Join up what already works

(Fragmented notes from a pocket notebook, dated March 2014.)

• Words With Friends Policy: you nudge, I resign
• Overhead at GDS: “That gives me a web address and an opportunity”
• Once a week, dive into someone's blog, then blog about it
• On keeping one's notebook open
• On notebook shorthand
• Blog post: how a clutch works
• On emailing twice a day
• The great thing about getting out of your email: any [illegible] you can shove into it, by definition, stay out of your way [2019 note: I love that the crucial word cannot be read]
• Entreating @blogtrotter to save my sanity
• Revenge haiku
• Blog post: the end product doesn't have to be words
• Got a new bin. It's better than the old bin.
• Cylindrical, Weighty. Cream. Nice sturdy pedal.
• Blog post: Long-form – there is no one true way
• Talky thing theme tune: Duke Ellington – In the Hall of the Mountain King
• Not so big that a full liner would be too heavy
• But big enough for, I reckon, seven whole chickens
• Floc. Noun. A woolly mass of particles. E.g. the flock's flocs.
• Taking up pancakes for lent.
• Automate everything

[2019 note: On reflection, I think some of these were draft tweets, including a series on a new bin. Fucking hell.]

(Found in a notebook, sandwiched between items from February and March 2014. I think I must have been planning to pitch this as a troll-bait article to a gaming site with a sense of humour. Judging by the placeholder text in the list, I wasn't remotely fussy about the actual games.)

x. Donkey Kong ix. Super Mario Bros. 2 viii. Donkey Kong vii. Donkey Kong vi. Donkey Kong v. Weird iv. Weird iii. Donkey Kong ii. Donkey Kong i. Average

During me being at my parents over the holidays (Christmas 2017) I had the usual IT-support stuff to do, that always happens to tech savvy kids when they are back at home.

As I am a happy Linux user for over a decade now, I asked myself if it would be a good idea to switch my parents away from Win 10 to a GNU/Linux (I will call it only Linux during the rest of the post. Sorry Richard ;) ) based system.

I did that and now 2 years later I still think it was a good idea: I have the peace of mind, that their data is kinda safe and they also call me less often regarding any technical issues with the system. (Yes, Win 10 confused them more than Ubuntu does).

In the following I would like to describe this ongoing journey and how you can follow my example.

The post is structured in three parts:

• Preparation
• Switching over
• Ongoing improvements
• Conclusion

Please keep in mind, that this setup is my very own solution and it is likely, that you need to tweak it to your needs. Disclaimer: I do not care about “FOSS only” or something.

Preparation

Background about my parents computer usage: They mainly use their machine for email and web stuff (shopping, social media, online banking,...) and are not heavily into hardware intense gaming or so.

As my parents already used a lot of Free Software as their daily drivers (Thunderbird, Firefox) I did not had to do a big preparation phase. But still I switch them (still on their Win 10) to LibreOffice so that they could get used to it, before changing the whole system.

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That is my first big advice for your:

Try to not overwhelm them with to much new interfaces at once. Use a step by step solution.

So first of all, keep them on their current system and help them to adapt to FLOSS software that will be their main driver on the Linux later on.

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So two steps for preparation here:

1) Sit down with your folks and talk trough their daily usage of their computer (Please be not so arrogant to think you already know it all)

2) Try to find software replacements for their daily drivers, that will work flawlessly later on the Linux machine. The ones I would recommend are:

• Firefox as Browser (and maybe Email if they prefere webmail)
• Thunderbird for Emails
• GIMP for Image Editing
• VLC as Media Player
• LibreOffice instead of MS Office

So as you now did find out and setup replacements for the proprietary Windows software, you should give them time to adapt. I think a month would be suitable. (FYI: I got the most questions during this time, the later switch was less problematic)

Switching over

So your parents now got used to the new software and that will help you to make them adapt easier to the new system, as they now only have to adapt to the new OS interface and not additionally also to a lot new software interfaces.

Do yourself a favor and use standard Ubuntu

I know there are a ton of awesome Linux distros out there (Btw. I use Arch ;)) but my experience during this journey brought me to the conclusion, that the standard Ubuntu is still the best. It is mainly because, all the drivers work mostly out of the box and the distro does a lot automatically. (Because of that, my parents where able to install a new wireless printer without even calling me...beat that Gentoo ;))

On top of that: The Ubuntu community multilingual and open for newbies.

The journey until Ubuntu

Until Ubuntu we tried different other distros, all suffering at some point (Please bear in mind, that this are all awesome projects and for myself they would work 100%, but for no technical people as my parents a distro just needs to be real solid):

1) Chalet Os as it was promoted as most lookalike to Windows. As it is based on XFCE it is lightweight, but the icons and styles differ all over the UI. So you get confused because the settings icon always looks different, depending where in the system you are.

2) Elementary OS because I love the UI myself. No clue why, but my parents never got warm with it. It is just a bit to far away from what they are used to.

3) Solus OS has again a more windows looking ui and it worked better for my parents. But after all you have to say Solus is just not there yet. The package manager has to less packages and whenever you have a problem it is super hard to find a solution on the net. Plus: The UI crashed at least once a day. (IMO a driver problem with the machine, but still after hours of work we did not find a solution.)

4) Finally Ubuntu and that now works nice and smooth (For over 8 month now)

Nuke and pave

So you selected the distro and are now able to nuke and pave the machine. I think I do not have to explain in-depth how to do that, just two important things:

• Backup all you parents data to an external hard drive (Copy the complete C: drive)
• Write down upfront what software you want to install and make sure you also backup the configuration and data of those

**Cheating: ** If you want to amaze with the new system even more and the machine is still on a HDD, replace it with a SSD, so the Linux system feels even better and faster ;)

Configuration

After you installed the distro, do a complete configuration. (Yes, go trough every setting and tweak it if needed)

Now install the software your folks already used on their Windows machine and make sure it is configured in the exact same way as it was on the old system! (That will help a lot in keeping the moral up, because then their is already something that feels familiar to them)

I found, that it is best to place the shortcuts of the applications your parents use the most in bar on the left side on Ubuntu, so they find them easily

Sit down with your parents and ask them, what data the need from the old system and copy only that over. Hereby you clean up the file system by not copying over the old crap they did not use for ages and if they find out later, that there is more data they need it is stored on the backup drive.

Introduce them to the new system

After the configuration and setup is now complete you need to allocate some time for introducing them to the new system. You know you parents best so do it in the way the like it.

---

For me the following routine worked best:

0) Explain it to them in two individual sessions (as mostly one of them is more tech savvy then the other one and so both have the chance to ask you individually)

1) Shutdown the machine

2) Let him/her start the machine

3) Tell her/him to try to do their daily business and whenever questions come up explain how to solve the issue (Never touch the mouse or keyboard! If you take it over, it is very likely that you will be too fast)

4) Stop after 60 minutes and if there are still questions do another session the next day (Imagine yourself learning something completely new to you – maybe Chinese – are you able to concentrate more than an hour?)

---

Some topics I would recommend you to cover during the introduction:

• How to setup a new wifi connection (especially if the machine is a laptop)
• How to install new software
• How to setup a new printer/scanner
• How to print/scan
• How to restore deleted files
• How to get data from/to a USB-stick or mobile device
• How to shutdown the machine (not that easy to find on Ubuntu)

Ongoing improvements

So normally now the system should work as intended and if you are lucky it saves you a lot of problems in the future. In this section I will give you some more recommendations, that helped to make the experience even better:

• Linux does always ask you for your password if you are doing something that could deeply harm the system. So I told my parents: Whenever that dialog (I showed it to them) pops up, they should keep in mind, that they could destroy the whole machine with this operation and if they want they can call me first.

• Show them the app store and tell them, whatever they install from there is safe (so no viruses or something) and they can install everything they want as long it is from there. It makes fun to find new cool software and games, so help them to experience that fun too :D

• Backups! As it is really easy with Linux you should do a automatic daily/hourly backup of their complete home folder. I use borg for that. (I plan to to write an in-depth blog post about borg in the future, it will be linked here if it is done). So now, whenever my parents call me and tell me that they deleted something or that the machine does not boot anymore I can relax and tell them, that we can restore all there data in a matter of minutes....you can't image how good that makes me feel.

• It is not FOSS, but I did install google chrome as it was the easiest for watching netflix and listening to spotify.

• I would recommend installing some privacy plugins and stuff into the browser your parents use, so you get them even safer.

• If you have some software that does not have a good replacement, try to use wine for it. Worked well with MS Office 2007. (Sorry LibreOffice, but you still can't compete with MS here). PlayOnLinux did help me a lot with the wine setup

• If possible activate the automatic update and installation of all security updates.

Conclusion

For me the switch made a lot of sense, as my parents are not heavy technical users of there systems. Should yours be into Photoshop, video editing or gaming I do not think it will be so easy to do the switch over, as Linux and its software is still not a good competitor in this areas.

I would love to get your feedback on this blog post: Did you switch your parents to Linux and how did that work out? Do you have other insights that should be added to this post? Hit me up via meet@simon-frey.eu

Thanks for reading! Simon Frey

p.S. One reason why my parents machine did not boot anymore for several times, was a plugged in usb stick and the bios tried to boot from it. So do not forget to reset the boot order to first boot of the hard drive ;)

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Old Tux Image Source (CC BY-SA 3.0): https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/mint-xfce-old.html

Welcome to this week's edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I've found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.

It's hard to believe that we're entering week three of 2019. I don't know about you, but I'm still getting something of a 2018 vibe from the year. Not sure whether that's bad or if it's good. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Let's get this Monday started with these links:

Science

Digitizing the vast 'dark data' in museum fossil collections, wherein we discover how much museums hold and which we never see, and the efforts to preserve that mass of fossils to ensure scholars can continue to study the past, even if a disaster strikes.

The Concrete Jungle, wherein we discover how urban environments are jumpstarting evolution for various species of wildlife, at a rate that even biologists find astounding.

Science’s Freedom Fighters, wherein we learn that science isn't always as apolitical as we've been told it is, and how that was especially true during the Cold War.

Technology

Forget Zuckerberg: the tech giants don’t have to own the future, wherein John Harris ponders whether our technological future lies with smaller firms outside of the U.S., but only if those firms can survive and thrive.

Why Doctors Hate Their Computers, wherein Atul Gawande looks at how complex software not only frustrates doctors (and others), but also puts a dent in their productivity and forces them to work even longer hours.

Fifty years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal, wherein we're taken on a trip down computing memory lane and discover the origins of BASIC, and why and how it influence a generation of computer users.

Odds and Ends

A New Front Line, wherein we enter the worlds of modern reporters and citizen journalists, and the dangers many of them face while trying to uncover and report on stories.

Do You Even Bake, Bro?, wherein we see how (mostly male) denizens of Silicon Valley have taken the simple act of baking your own bread and turned it into both a competition and something more complex than it needs to be.

Inside the Great Electromagnetic Resistance, wherein we briefly enter the world of electrically-sensitive people, learn about their struggles, and about their fight against more wireless technology being deployed.

And that's it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.

— Scott Nesbitt

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If you enjoy The Monday Kickoff, please consider supporting it by buying me a coffee or a smoothie, or making a micropayment via Liberapay, Plasso, or PayPal. Even if you don't, I'll keep doing this. Your support (even if you just read this space) is appreciated!

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The Monday Kickoff is licensed under CC0 Public Domain.

Annoyances

(Scribbled in a notebook on February 13, 2014)

Someone:

• waiting for a train blocks the “up” stairs at Stratford Station
• wants to show me a video … it's 10 minutes long
• calls me passive aggressive¹ for holding a door open for them because they were a long way from a door … though their hands were full

1. No really. It could only be passive aggressive if I in any way minded waiting. Why assume that?

Anyway – I call that a light day.

(I jotted this in a notebook February 11, 2014.)

This is not a defence of poetry. That would be unnecessary, I hope. But I'm thinking a lot about poems lately – much more than reading them, or even writing them, shamefully.

I've been here before. This was last a thing when I was writing long, dry engineering specifications full of phrases like “provide and install…”, “the contractor shall be responsible for…” and “including but not limited to…”

These recent years I've been writing much more interesting things, but things which, if I've done my job, call for clarity more than expression. And I find myself thinking, again, about how to tap into a more expressive vein.

Try free writing, the internet said. I think if I had tried that in my engineering days, a lighting spec for a hospital MRI ward would have fallen out.

I think of poems as writing in its most rarefied form. They're a reminder of words' power to evoke or inspire. But these aren't, in themselves, the aim of writing – at least not for me. But it's a tool to have in the kit for when you need it.

Most poems don't resonate with me. Neither does much fiction. Though I am a fan of expressive prose. [2019 note: Frankie Boyle and Marina Hyde are masters at this.] But I'll keep looking out for poems that do.

And if I knock out the odd purple blog post in the meantime, I'm sorry. It's not for you, it's for me.

-Mi volt ez? – kérdezem magamtól restellkedve. -Az első könnycsepp. – felelem bűnteljes vigyorral. – Most pedig hallgass, te szerencsétlen, hallgasd szavam! – torkollom le önmagam, még mielőtt hadakozni kezdhetnék, álmom követelve. -Felfordul tőled a gyomrom – suttogom remegő ajkakkal. Hallgatok. -Mi maradt belőled, ó, nagy lélekharcos? Ki pátyolgat, ki tűzi fel melledre a “TÚLÉLŐ” feliratú kartonkitüntetést? – figyelmesen hallgatom szavaim, miközben újabb s újabb könnyhullámaimat igyekszem elfojtani, nehogy felébresszem a szomszéd szobában alvókat. – Megvan, kitaláltam! – suttogom ünnepélyesen. -Te voltál a kőszívű ember kőszívű fia, de elbuktál, alkalmatlanná váltál. Ezért most jogosan szenvedsz a kőmorzsolóban! – hisztérikusan felnevetek, majd egy újabb árkot teremtek arcomon.

-Ismeretlen szerző

Far Away

A child wondered how things work And made up answers when she didn't know

The world grew crystalized shapes that spread Through space on contact and she knew the true answers

One day she walked through soaking wet stardust A thick fog through blurred moonlight behind a shaggy fir tree

Looking far off where her star might have been and many more might be