Poking My Head Back In
It seems that I occasionally end up mentioning that I am still out there. This time it came about through leaving comments on a merge request. I haven't done such in a while due to the demands of my job. My account hasn't been hijacked on Launchpad and it really is me. After some time to reflect during the day I've come to recognize how jaded and cynical I can get in my day job.
Other Changes
It feels horrible not being a online content creator lately. I'm still a podcast listener and a working list of what I subscribe to is available via gpodder.net. I encourage everyone to subscribe to Cybersauce World News, the Podcast Of Power.
I will be creating some content and presenting it on August 21st. This will be done primarily with F/LOSS tools. On behalf of the domestic missions Field Activity for West Avenue Church of Christ I will be preaching and leading Sunday services at the Music Along the River festival in the Harpersfield Covered Bridge metropark. The event has a Facebook presence. I've submitted a holding title for the Sunday sermon but may still change my mind as to what I'm speaking about. Initial thoughts were to be working from James 5.
Repeating Something From Elsewhere
My job is not good for my health. My last medical appointment was one
where the medical provider yelled at me asking why I was still there.
Complaints about having to pay the bills, keeping a roof over not just
my head but also the heads of my parents, and more were offered as
reasons as why I'm still there.
We've been trying for games to help keep stress down. One has been to
take a somewhat blanked out map of the USA and just put tick marks down
each call to track which states are calling. That way you can see if the
flavor of your day is Sunny Southwest, New England Chowder, Cajun/Gulf
Coast, Cloudy Northwest, or EXTREMELY ANGRY New Yorker. Too many of the
EXTREMELY ANGRY New Yorker especially with a helping of snotty Jersey
boys leads to having A Bad Hair Day. My
call queue keeps coming up Cajun/Gulf Coast.
It could be said that The Process Is
The Punishment in dealing with my employer. That brings up Eighth
Amendment concerns over cruel & unusual punishment. Then again, so do
random thoughts about how unusual flogging might be if you took out the
horse whip and substituted in the biggest fish possible and greased it
in while lashing at a person in a flogging. That amendment to the
constitution prohibits not just cruel punishments but also unusual ones
that may shock the conscience but are not necessarily considered
"cruel".
To bail me out of my nation's federal exchequer for something more
stable yet sane such as the aerospace research project trying to
consider the Outernet platform as it wants to move to cubesats even
though it ignores cubesat history and suffers from a rejection by NASA
to its aspirations while also evaluating what the startup is doing now,
funds can be donated here:
https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/fixing-potholes-of-the-information-superhighway/
The deadline for that is September 30th, the end of the federal
government's fiscal year. I may be furloughed at any time before then as
it stands now but September 30th is the hard upper limit due to the
current lack of approved appropriations legislation. After furlough I am
out without a job until an indefinite recall date. Raising the cash lets
me quit my current post and conduct research for two years, publish
papers, present at conferences, and build new directions.
Upgrade Paths
My laptop is now on Xubuntu 16.04 (64-bit). Assessing the household's machinery shows a surprising number of 32-bit machines. The one currently active is sitting on Lubuntu 14.04. Other machinery is in mothballs but is still usable. I've got some hard decisions to make.
Omnibus Grab Bag by Stephen Michael Kellat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://identi.ca/alpacaherder/note/SvpAZ05qTcy4mRdMZcWBaQ.