Do You Have a Passion Project? I’m always fascinated when I hear or read about someone who devotes significant time and effort into what they call their passion project. I mean, how do they come up with those ideas? What makes something a passion project? Dictionary.com defines a passion as an intense desire or enthusiasm for something. So someone’s passion project is borne out of their intense enthusiasm for whatever that project is. But how do they find that? I mean, I have a lot of interests. I spend inordinate amounts of time on some of those interests (computers and related technology, for example) but I would not call those passion projects. Nor would I even say I have a passion for technology. There are many in the open-source community that are quite passionate about the philosophy of open-source. Some to the point of being extremist. I appreciate the open-source philosophy and try, whenever possible to support it. I use open-source software and generally look for open-source options when looking for software. But am I passionate about it? No, not really. Am I going to go out and proselytize for it? Nope. Nor am I going to look down on those who choose not to prioritize open-source software. ...

Senior Socializing If you’ve read any of the literature on aging engaging in social activities with others is one of the most commonly cited contributors to an overall sense of well-being, maintaining cognitive function, and even to longevity. As a rule, I’ve always been a bit of skeptic on that front believing that while this may be generally true, it really depends on the person. I am not a social person. I have always been a bit of an introvert. No small part of that is because, as I discussed in this essay I believe I may have some autistic tendencies that show up through social awkwardness. I’m never really comfortable in social situations because I really don’t know how to make small talk, a necessary skill in most social situations. My skepticism comes in the form of wondering if the stress and anxiety that comes from being uncomfortable in most social situations counteracts any benefit of those situations. ...

Revisiting OpenBSD Roughly six months ago I documents my efforts to install FreeBSD on a Lenovo X250 that I bought for that purpose. In that post I noted that the one problem I had with FreeBSD on that device was that the suspend/resume feature did not work. Since this was a laptop and my plan was to use it as a dedicated writing machine that I could take with me on the go, the inability to suspend and resume the device made the whole process a no-go. Yes, I could shutdown and reboot as needed, but I’m lazy and that just didn’t work for me. Moreover, often times I’m just shutting the lid for short periods of time and so the shutdown and boot up for those short periods seemed a bit much. ...

Learning Emacs For some time now I’ve had a preference for using plaintext files where ever I can. I explained in this post why that is, so I won’t repeat it here. But in order to begin using plaintext it is necessary to have an editor that will support it. Now, over the past few years I’ve preferred using nano, a simple, easy to use plaintext editor on linux (and other devices e.g. mac). Nano is just a basic editor and while it served its purpose, I was looking for something a bit more flexible. Prior to nano, I periodically turned to vi or its more recent incarnation, vim. Vim (or vi) is so deeply rooted in the unix-y space that, unlike nano, it does not need to be installed. It is part of the OS. The problem with vim, though, is that it is a modal editor. Modal editing has its charms and its benefits but also creates a few, not obstacles, per se, but frustrations. Modal editors have different modes (hence “modal”) and in order to accomplish different actions you find yourself frequently changing modes. Once you’ve worked with a modal editor for a while those actions become more or less automatic and I am slowly getting there. Still, it’s frustrating to have to stop and think about what mode you need to be in in order to accomplish some action. ...

Finding Your Purpose in Life What is your purpose in life? Do you know? If not, why not? Oh? You haven’t found it yet. I see. Fueled by books and YouTube videos and seminars and other such influences many people have come to believe that to be happy in life they must find their purpose. They believe, as these influences tell them, that we each have some innate purpose. That we were placed on Earth to fulfill that purpose. We are then told we need to first seek to find that purpose, then to align your work and lives with that purpose. And, they all purport to tell you how to find that purpose. To all of this I say “BULLSHIT!”. ...

So, I began reading Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, creator of Nesslabs.com and was intrigued by the idea of setting short-term goals with very specific actions and deadlines. Her original experiment was to write 100 articles in 100 working days. In the book she also discussed Andrew Kallaway’s 100 Days of Code challenge in which he publicly committed to coding for at least one hour a day for 100 days. The whole concept of making that kind of public commitment, together with clearly defined actions. ...

A Few More Thoughts Regarding Lost Manuscripts Sometimes weird sorts of coincidences occur. A week or so ago I shared my thoughts about the Death of Lost Manuscripts. This week I ran across an article on the Saturday Evening Post that spoke to the topic of lost manuscripts but provided a different take and it’s one that has given me pause. The article questioned the ethics of the posthumous publication of an author’s works. That article addressed two concerns. One I absolutely agree with and the other, well, I’m still on the fence. ...

The Death of Lost Manuscripts Every once in a while I run across an article that describes how the family of a late author finds, tucked away in a box in the attic or in the back of some forgotten cupboard, a manuscript the author has left behind. Maybe it’s a completed novel that, for whatever reason, the author chose to not submit for publication. Or, maybe it’s an incomplete manuscript that the author started but abandoned. Or, perhaps they started it but met their demise before completing it. Whatever the case may be, the author left behind as part of his or her legacy, this unfinished, unpublished work that the family chooses to complete and publish so that the world benefits from their late family member’s efforts. ...

I have watched Youtube videos for many, many years. Not only that, I actually created a Youtube channel and created videos for a while. Recently, though, I’ve begun to reassess my relationship with Youtube. Youtube can be a great source for learning. Just about anything you want to learn you can learn on Youtube. There are, in fact, entire courses available to teach you anything from philosophy, to math, languages, and, of course, a metric ton (or two) of courses on technology. I love that I can learn what I need to learn using Youtube. ...

Introduction Way back in the day (circa 2000) I was introduced to Unix-like operating systems in the form of Sun Solaris running on a Sun Sparc server. I was intrigued. And wanted to know more. Of course, at that time running a Unix-like operating system at home, on an x86 machine, meant Linux, not true Unix. Why? Well, to start, Unix simply didn’t run on x86. It has been ported to x86 in recent years, but at thetime it wasn’t. So, I started playing with Linux and have spent the last quarter century mucking my way around that system. And I think I’ve got a reasonably good handle on it. ...