2025-01-08
I begin checking disks for my NAS build
badblocks doesn't know how to check a disk with more than
232 blocks.
I guess that for a hacker in the 90s, 18TB was unthinkably large
I suppose there was the old limit of 32-bit CPU architecture as well.
Other things
- In a pinch, you can 1:1 mix little bit of coconut oil and baking soda to get deodorant
- Fascinating
January 9th, 2025 ⬤ ⬤ ⬤ ⬤ ⬤
The first disk passed the long smart check!
I move on to the second, which will complete some time tomorrow.
Also calculated power consumption for my NAS HDDs, and updated the NAS page.
January 10th, 2025
I said, "I want to spend all day in the shop"
Then, I spent all day in the shop
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It occurred to me that gi-bottoms are the hardest wearing clothes I own
I happen to think they're rather stylish too— and no elastic in the waistband
I repaired a torn belt-loop on an old pair and commissioned them as my new shop-pants
: : : :
My second disk has passed muster!
January 11th - January 13th, 2025
Spent much of the weekend in the woodshop
I've been engaged in an ongoing improvement of my office
Last summer I repainted it the colors of the sky -- but I never got the baseboards in
It's a rather strangely shaped room, as it's on the outer edge of an octagonal geodesic dome
The baseboards have joints at angles I found difficult, and I put them off.
On the 10th, I measured the room and cut them all, then painted them.
Then, on the 11th, I nailed them into the walls. To my horror and dismay (/s) I discovered the walls are somewhat crooked. Some of my baseboards, particularly on the outer wall, refuse to lay flat.
One can of foam-fill later, the outer-wall baseboards are laid flat.
I will admit that I became sloppy in my approach with the caulk. . .
: : : :
It's worth asking "Why am I doing this nice-to-have home-improvement projects, instead of making more music. Am I procrastinating?"
I do really love music, love to make it, love to practice guitar and look at sheet music and think about intervals and modes and about narratives and stories and scenes and characters and,
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When I say I'm going to do something, I really prefer to see that thing through.
Even when it's tedious or seemingly irrelevant, I would rather see it through.
I do want to do all of these other things too, and I will.
: : : :
I have these samples set aside in this project on the octatrack and when I put them together, things like this happen.
January 14th, 2025
Having this site as a public record keeps me writing to it, even if I'm the only one reading.
Success!
January 15th, 2025
please, no AI art.
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I was brushing semi-gloss varnish onto a chair and thought to myself--
"Fuck, I am bad at this"
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Mostly I am bad at things.
I'm pretty bad at things until I've done it for hours and hours and hours
Over and over and over and
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It's all art. If I'm serious about that, then that means it all really has to be art.
January 16th, 2025
So many things to do.
: : : :
As I go about my day, I will have an idea like "oh, I should make a mix of a bunch of songs I like."
Oh, I should make a song that sounds like this:
Oh, I should draw little comics for these posts
Oh, I should write about ideas that I have, so that I can remember them.
Oh, I should get a matcha cup and brush, so that I can make "traditional" matcha
Oh, I should have a website that other people can read, and so that when I need to reference something I can go look at it.
There's a constellation here:
"Do things, to be in the habit of doing things"
"Limit the things you do, to make it easier to do those things."
Like water eroding a channel, the more focus/activity/attention/awareness in a direction blows shit out of the way
More awareness is always good.
I used to obsess about "authenticity", about going and living the "authentic" life
But I second-guessed a lot and thought that I couldn't decide on the "authentic" life. Is it studying hard and getting my degree, then going for graduate studies, then working in a lab to cure cancer and solve the problem of human mortality? Is it hitch-hiking across the country? Is it taking estrogen and going to parties and having a lot of unprotected sex? Is it shaving my hair and becoming a nun? Is it moving to the woods? Living off the land? Living off a sailboat? Getting married and having a family? A career? A million dollars?
I couldn't ever decide, see, they all sound good, but they're over there and I seem to be right here.
See, if I could dream of anything, and do that, maybe I'd dream of what and where I am right now.
so maybe the authentic life is whatever I can do, right here, with complete presence, avoiding nothing, needing nothing in particular other than what there is
It's a working hypothesis.
To get back to my original thought: I was thinking of doing something. If I do it, I'll post it [here].
January 17th, 2025
Do something other than the default
January 18 - 19th, 2025
What you measure is what you do?
: : : :
Last year I decided to start tracking my live-rolling time down to the minute. I had a hypothesis that at about 30 hours of live matches I would have a blue belt.
I was given my blue belt in December after 29 hours -- and I immediately set out to add more time
I stopped keeping track after 30 hours. I would guess that now I'm at a little more than 35 hours now based on how much I tend to get in during a week.
The road from blue to purple takes at least two years, per IBJJF belting rules. However it seems reasonable to say I'll be well on the way at about 100 hours.
Maybe 300 hours?
: : : :
I've reached the point learning my open chord fingerings on guitar — that I must now learn F.
I've been following along with a book Guitar From Scratch. I'm taking the approach I normally do with such books -- go one page at a time, and attempt every exercise at least once.
But text is only so useful for describing finger shapes. I found a video about it from Justin Guitar
: : : :
Since guitar-fretting and collar-choking are rather surprisingly similar, I wonder if I'd benefit from tracking my hours with guitar
In fact, I think that's a tried-and-true approach.
January 20th, 2025
Environment is stronger than will.
The Interstices of January 21 - 23
More or less a blur of grappling training and work
January 24th, 2025
Shop day!
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I decided to pull the trigger on a Corsair CX-550 for my NAS power-supply
After this, I'll have all the pieces of the puzzle needed to power the thing on and actually serve storage-space.
Time to go back out to the shop, and scrape lacquer off the cabinet doors
January 25th, 2025
Picking up garbage & cigarette butts in the Costco parking lot, I am reminded of my reason for doing fix-it-up work for my parent's house.
Maybe the receipts and the cigarettes and empty bottles are perfect and the cracked walls are perfect and the whole world is perfect, it's already done, and if we could really see that we'd just be there.
If we, I, whomever could see that, it might be really something, it might just be really ordinary.
So, in the mean time, I'll pick up cigarette butts and re-mud the walls.
: : : :
In the mean time, I finished Hidden in Plain Sight and made a remix of Yuudachi.
: : : :
You see, I can't ever get to bed on time . . .
January 27th, 2025
With only two days left in the month, I am feeling some urgency about finishing my work restoring the cabinets in my parent's kitchen.
At this point it is inevitable that it will bleed over into next month. Actually, there's quite a lot left to do. I'm going to see it through, but I'm also learning that I don't love stripping and staining wood that much.
January 28th, 2025
Mostly went and trained today. Insomnia meant I only slept about 3 hours.
It occurs to me that martial arts is (naturally) taking up the bulk of my free time. Maybe this makes sense. But I need to make some decisions about if I'm going to keep working with a music teacher or not.
Probably, not.
: : : :
Set up a tool for work called `kube-linter`. Wrote about it here
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Maybe there is a natural ebb and flow to my involvement in different arts at different times -- and it's not something to get anxious about. Possibly. it doesn't have to mean that I'll never make music again.
January 29th, 2025
The month has come and gone.
: : : :
It occured to me today that really, this month has been about finishing what I've already started -- no new projects.
I've come down with a cold, so I called out sick.
I meant to rest, instead I stripped and stained cabinets.
I could make some kind of observation like "I'm learning this new skill, staining and finishing wood, isn't that marvelous, I could become a woodworker —"
It's not about that, though; this excursion in home improvement isn't a way to "upskill" into a career in house flipping.
It also occurred to me it could be some way of "learning to communicate effectively with my environment" , but it really seems false (and simpleminded) to say that's why I'm doing it.
It occurred to me that it would look nice if I painted the trim for my room and installed it properly, without gaps — so I set out to do that and then I kept at it until it was finished.
Then it occurred to me that it would look nice if the heavily-water-damaged kitchen cabinets had a fresh coat of stain and sealer — so I set out to do that and am now keeping at it until it is finished.
: : : :
I have this much time in my life
Exactly this much time: no more, no less
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It is wonderful to start a new project.
It is wonderful to be finished with a project.
It is tedious, time-consuming, boring, often pain-staking to finish a project.
That's why I like to start so many new projects, never finishing them.
It's candy.
It also piles up.
What would happen if you went and did all of them, and refused anything new until you finished up what you had?
That's what I'm trying to find out.
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It is wonderful to start a new project.
It is wonderful to be finished with a project.
If there's no criteria for "finished", then accomplishment is impossible
This is why a "life project" is impossible. It's finished when you die.
The black belts at my gym weren't "done" when they got the black belt.
I couldn't imagine a master pianist ever saying "yah, I finished the piano."
Engaging in the arts to "finish" them, or to "master" them seems flawed.
Provisionally, it is useful to build a container to express the art.
That is one function of a "project" — a container for expression.
It has a beginning, middle, and end.
You might have something when you finish.
You might not.
You could engage in an infinite, linear series of projects , but that's not the art. Those aren't where the art "lives".
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If there's no end-state, it seems risky to embark on a project.
That's not a good container -- you could pour everything you have into it, and it might all pour out.
It's not that it's "bad" to have such a thing, but you wouldn't expect to drink out of a PVC pipe like it's a cup.
A goal will pull you along -- you'll make certain decisions and not others to fulfill it.