-Paid bills [20 mins]
-Read logs, wrote review on Shinjiru and Host One [1 hour]
-Called a family member [1.5 hour]
-General house cleaning / cooking [30 mins]
May 4, 2020
Eric’s log: May 3rd 2020
May 3, 2020
JFW plan, week of 4 May 2020
1. Blog: gscm, gbw, router setup, bitcoind notes, differential backups, moar outdoorsy photos, maybe something on the local covid politics… 8h.
2. JWRD: remote training setup, landing page, prospective client conversations, other: 8h.
3. JWRD: prep and delivery of a first remote training session for Panama student, with reciprocal management instruction: 4h.
4. Continue TRB/BDB/Boost study: 6h.
5. Personal administration such as insurance and some accounting catchup: 2h.
6. Young Hands chat, reading, comments: 6h.
7. Unexpected: 6h.
8. Weekly review: 2h at 16:30 UTC (12:30 local) Friday.
9. Next week’s plan: 1h.
Time permitting:
10. Continue work on human-sized differential backup tool.
Eric’s log: May 2nd, 2020
Today was slow to start. I had roughly 4.5 hours of productive time spent:
-Mowed lawn (my landscaper from last season fell off the earth, so I bought a ride-on mower and called it a day. I won’t lie, it is kind of fun to mow now.) [1 hour]
-Blogs, logs, answering comments, responded to billymg’s mp-wp survey) [1 hour]
-Social call [1 hour]
-General house cleaning / cooking [1 hour]
-Worked out [30 mins]
JFW review, week of 27 Apr 2020
1. Continue health insurance search: 3h.
3.85h, in which I ended up partly offloading it after assorted unproductive flailing. So far I’m not as satisfied with this outcome as I thought I’d be, like it’s an admission of defeat or avoidance of manly responsibilities. But at least it gets things unstuck, and “discretion is the better part of valor” i.e. choose your battles, right?
2. Keep in touch with past students + remote friends and family: 1h.
I got in some written correspondence, and a birthday visit for a local relative.
3. Continue conversation with prospective JWRD client in Vermont: 2h.
I haven’t heard anything this week and am not sure where this stands.
4. Discuss to clarify direction, focus, scope, priorities for JWRD: 2h.
Good progress was made here (though I didn’t get the time labeled separately from general YH chat). Priorities for me are writing on the blog and preparing remote training infrastructure and processes.
5. JWRD tasks as needed (eg. if documents show up to review): 2h.
3.9h – reviewed sales article draft.
1.25h – purchased domain name, ((My registrar was being a pain in the ass due to “upgraded” web site.)) configured and tested email.
.5h – misc.
Subtotal: 5.65h
6. Blog: priorities suspiciously little changed from last week at trb build system patch, gbw, gscm, router setup, differential backups. But could be anything if it gets the ink flowing. 10h.
4.12h – wrote up my TRB build system patch.
7.
Continue work on human-sized differential backup tool.Remote training infrastructure setup (video conferencing, shell accounts). 5h.
6.5h – dug up an old desktop for use with Windows-based training tools: dusted, inspected hardware and BIOS, reinstalled OS and drivers, configured OS, configured restrictive external firewall.
2.3h – deep-cleaned an old keyboard. I felt a little silly spending that time compared to just picking up a new one, but it was interesting and kinda fun exploring its innards.
1.15h – installed Zoom, created account, began configuration.
Subtotal: 9.95h
8. Unexpected tasks: 6h.
Predictable but slipped my mind at planning time was assessing the situation in Panama and deciding on continuing to pay for the apartment. The owner wasn’t willing to write off the upcoming month but would accept gradual repayment if I return, so for now I’m still holding it. I also wrote up an inventory for my man on the ground of things worth saving if I ditch it. 4h.
.6h – wrote script for pasting HTML log snippets from the new tabular format.
.35h – fixed a bug in my new time reporting tool “treport”, exposed by the change of month: the sloppy typing of Awk finally bit me, wherein the string “01” works like the number 1 except when it doesn’t (in this case, array indexing).
Subtotal: 4.95h
9. Chat in #ossasepia, or otherwise engage blogs: 5h.
7.53h – Young Hands related.
1.7h – mod6 blog reading and comments re TRB “wedge”.
Subtotal: 9.23h
10. Weekly review: 2h at 16:30 UTC Friday (12:30 local).
3.2h (and that’s after I finally got started). ((Hey, apparently I’m productive enough at least to fool the outside observer! And btw, if you’re still a lurker out there reading this in your RSS feeds… what are you waiting for? We don’t bite (much). Time, on the other hand, works against you.))
11. Next week’s plan: 1h.
12. Continue TRB/bdb/boost study. It seems I didn’t quite convince myself to put this down and did a bunch more reading already. If I’m doing it anyway, I can make it more active by reporting on questions, interesting finds, or ideas that come up.
4.93h – reading TRB code and BDB manual, keeping some notes as I go. I’ve got some ideas for cleaning up the demented database code and behavior, though I’ve also had the notion of ripping it all out and replacing with SQL.
1.27h – reading Linux manuals about process group management. I think I got into this by pondering differences between threads and processes.
Subtotal: 6.2h
Total: 47.15h
A focus on writing, remote training setup, and TRB looks doable for next week.
May 2, 2020
ejb: Review of April 2020, Plan for May 2020
I’ll start off by responding to my master’s query in #o:
lobbes – I guess I’ll read all about it in the review & plan; otherwise from here so far it seems rather as initially predicted that dropping the shorter-term plans & reviews just works as it always “worked” – to not get anywhere.
Yeah, I’m convinced that I should probably go back to daily reporting. I appreciate you letting me test it out, but I can see that the daily reporting serves a crucial role of keeping me anchored to time. Especially now when I have virtually no walls to ram into.
I have a quiet, empty home in which to concentrate in, and I no longer need to commute to the saltmine. Not only that, but about 75% of the work I currently do for this saltmine has me in a position where I have little day-to-day oversight so I pretty much manage myself. Back before I had all this time I was actually much more productive with the time I had (I’m reminded of the “lottery winner bankruptcy syndrome” that Jacob pointed out to me back in 2019).
So I’ll resume the daily reporting starting tomorrow (Saturday). I’m going to copy Nicole’s format; just a quick recap of whatever I did that day and time spent. The review and plan I still want to do monthly, but the daily reports will serve as stand-in walls for myself to keep me from wandering too far off course.
Speaking of not wandering off course, I need to close some other threads.:
The above is pretty much why I say that leaving doors open is a good strategy but not that great of a goal – if you make it a goal in itself, then you won’t be able to make much choice even when/if you do find something you really want to choose. Because at that point, the choice might come with closing some doors and even burning some bridges – and if you refuse to do it at that point, the meaning of it is that you also refuse to fully choose what you finally found to really want. Like a lot of other things, it’s useful up to a point and it’s downright in the way in unusual circumstances.
This makes sense, and I’ll reclassify it in my head as a strategy as opposed to a goal. As I think back I can definitely see some instances where I should have burned a bridge or two, but didn’t.
Anyways, also contained in the above comment thread was me stating that I had some plans I wanted to get out:
With regards to immediate plans and longer term plans, I have some things on my mind that I want to get out in these here comments, but I should probably both think on them a bit more and also get to bed for now. I’ll write more later this week.
Now, I definitely didn’t get them out later that week, nor the week after. So, I can review April with one word: bupkis. As for my immediate plan for May, I’ll keep it simple and doable. I want to get my two articles out: penance #3 and my review of those two hosting companies (while I was too slow to be of use to Diana Coman, there’s still use to me in recording my experiences on my blog). I also want to respond to billymg’s survey on mp-wp usage since he is doing a lot of work on something I use quite a bit and I want to help him out.
Aside from that I really need to focus more at my saltmine job as well. I got lucky for the time-being in a lot of ways I won’t go into, but if I don’t get back up off my ass soon I could be in turd soup in short order.
If I somehow go from 0 to 80 units-of-distance/time during May and knock all of the above goals out, then I’ll gladly add more to my plate. But I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.
Now, it is time to think longer term. First off, I need to be realistic with myself. In the years past I got swept up in a butt-load of very apparently rational goals for myself that I would somehow achieve in mere months, despite my inadequacy for achieving any of those goals.
I’m talking about things like me running off to a different country, or me following a step-by-step guide to “learn how to be a master of my own harem of womens just like MP”.
Yes, it’d be great if I could sprout wings tomorrow and poop out diamonds, but I’m a long ways away from any of that. Decades, realistically speaking, if that. But it doesn’t mean all is lost. I think this ties back into most of the above: the choosing of the right doors/opportunities when they come my way, and *knowing* my own limitations on *which options I can actually take* at any given time. I fucked up with that mp-wp-bot delivery for MP because I a) didn’t bother to understand what the job required, and b) didn’t understand my own limitations on meeting that requirement even if I did know what it required! (Require!)
My point is that I need more realistic goals that fit what I can actually do. These will obviously change as things tend to do, but to start off, here is my 10-year plan for myself (so, by the time I’m 42):
– Eliminate all monetary debt
I have indeed read that Trilema where MP presents the option of just saying ‘fuck it’ and ignoring any existing debt. But I have to face the fact that I am not of that caliber; at least not now. No, I’m the type that will slowly but surely pay off all of his loans the slow way. There are also reasons why (specifically within the next 10 years or so) I do not want to leave the U.S. permanently (as in, burn bridges for my return if I so chose). I’m not saying I plan to die here, but I doubt I’ll be leaving for good any time soon. Some of these reasons I will not reveal into the public record because they are, well, private. Very boring reasons, I may add, but operational security and all that.
Nevertheless, within the last few months I have already paid off a few of my smaller lingering student loans. These days I can at least say I no longer consume more then I bring in, which I have to say is a great feeling. I simply plan to keep on cutting costs and eliminating debt, and increase my monthly intake of dubaloos, and converting bits and pieces into BTC when the opportunity strikes (I can say, that over the last 7 years I have never once said “aw I wish I *didn’t* convert that small amount fiat into BTC”).
It is a slow and bite-sized strategy, but it fits me.
– (Re)Build the House of Benevides
Right now this is a blank slate. My great grandfather (I only heard him called “vovô”) from my father’s side came over to the U.S. from São Miguel Island back in… idk probably the early 1900’s I think. Anyways he apparently was great at fixing shit- televisions and radios and such, and he ended up doing pretty well for himself. I guess he owned several local hardware shops or something. Eventually, the USG decided that they’d put in a highway in the zone where his shops were, and well that was that.
A few generations later and it is just me. I’m the last surviving male that carries my name in the family I believe; everyone else is dead. I remember my mom would always tell me this story of this one time when I was an infant and he was still alive. At this point he was quite old, and half of his face was paralyzed due to a stroke I think- in any case he couldn’t speak words, just noises. I was always told that when he saw me for the first time he held me up above his head and was crying tears of joy. I was a baby so I just freaked out, but still, whether exaggerated or not the image stayed with my whole life. He died well before I could ever converse with him, so that’s the only thing I know of him and I.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve always felt a drive to build a powerful and strong family. This is more of a general goal, but over the next decade I want to keep this in my sights. It is really my name to spread as I may, and I’d like to make some mark with it before I also leave this world.
In order to do this, though, I need to make sure I am healthy n’ wealthy first. First step would be the elimination of debt I mentioned earlier, then I work on building wealth and resources.
A family also needs family members, but I can’t be a proper patriarch if I can’t even rule myself. So I’m mainly focusing on the wealth building for the next 10 years, and with trying to do things that will put me in a position to do more things later.
Deadlines
– billymg’s survey (done)
– Hosting company review (done)
– Have a topic for Penance article #3 and a few paragraphs written (Sunday, May 10th)
May 1, 2020
DG Agenda 2020.05.01
1. Study Awk (3)
2. Go for a walk (1)
3. Write article considering options of where/when to move (1)
4.Read, reply to YH articles; be in #o to talk @ 7pm UTC (2)
5.Publish timestamps for day’s activity, review of day’s work; agenda for 2020.5.02 (2)
A Week in #Ossasepia 1-7 March 2020
On Sunday, March 1st 2020
dorion announces imminent publishing of weekly review; diana_coman comments on said review, emphasising need for purposeful time allocation; reckons her comments are useful for all YH members. Bingoboingo reads; decides he’ll be more productive working from home than joining in the local pantsuit election jamboree.
Lobbes announces he has nothing to say in the upcoming meeting; states what he’s gonna do that day. Diana_coman brings to dorion’s attention a post from MP on #t aimed at him – the content of which points out that things aren’t true just coz people claim ‘em to be so – whether they work for a big software company or not. People lie routinely; they don’t need a reason.
Bingoboingo and diana_coman remark on how Latin culture doesn’t value time generally, and specifically in the case of public holidays.
Bingoboingo links to a qntra article based on jfw’s lead, documenting Fiat-BTC exchange Bitstamp derping over SegShit integration into their platform. SFYL.
On Monday, March 2nd 2020
Bingoboingo and jfw discuss yesterday’s Bitstamp SegShit qntra piece. Bingoboingo notes that he hasn’t stayed up to date with the power ranger nonsense bolted ontop of Bitcoin. He notes that the currently proposed diddles are different from those originally shat forth by CIA agent Gavin Andreesen, but that different diddles are diddles nonetheless; and thus need stomping out dilligently by him.
In other stompings, diana_coman links whaack to her comment on his weekly review. The comment encourages whaak to get to the root cause of his derpery; not to skim over it superficially. Diana_coman points out that if one “uses” something one doesn’t understand, it’s usually oneself that’s being used – and without much say in how. Whaack resolves to consider what he’s currently using without understanding.
On Tuesday, March 3rd 2020
diana_coman criticizes whaack for the preceeding conversation chain, on account of lots of talk but little action. Whaack says he likes to talk, but also wants to do. Diana_coman enquires regarding jfw/dorion’s usage of clock and ledger programs; they both affirm their usage.
Dorion bigs-up jfw’s mostly-homebrewed Bitcoin computing stack, linking to a successful transaction broadcast; jfw plays it down by noting that he didn’t invent everything himself, and it’s just another day at the office, anyways.
Diana_coman couldn’t get jfw/dorion’s ledger program working on her box; criticises its dependency requirements, and recommends they genesis the program. She continues to use a simpler bash alternative.
Diana_coman berates whaack for continuting to do just enough to get by – even when responding to that fact being pointed out. Diana states she won’t comment on any more half-arsed word salad from whaack; considers reviewing/abondoning the YH project if students don’t try harder. Whaack says he understands.
Jfw retreives his bitcoin from a PRB to TRB wallet, but hasn’t been as productive wrt writing as he’d hoped.
Diana asks dorion when he’ll have the feb tmsr-os report done; “today” is the reply. Diana and dorion discuss discounts for referrals, in the context of a prospective student who wants to bring others and be taught in a group. Along with jfw, the potential workings of group teaching are hashed out.
Diana suggests BingoBoingo report on postive stuff as well as the antagonistic on qntra; encourages him to recruit more reporters.
Diana and dorion discuss the difficulty in dealing with large corporations, on account of beurocracy. Dorion wonders about presenting their services as a remedy for said beurocracy – perhaps via “augmented intelligence” branding. Diana cautions that the client might think the branding means something completely different, and remarks that bigger companies don’t so much have a problem with beurocracy as they are beurocracy. As a result, what dorion and jfw actually do for them takes a back seat to ticking the beurocratic boxes; form subordinates function.
Jfw remarks that knowledge is the only real intelligence amplifier, and that most people need less stupid – not more knowledge.
On Wednesday, March 4th 2020
diana_coman and BingoBoingo discuss the latter’s scripting progress. diana_coman splits the problem into parts – what’s working, what’s already been achieved, what’s next and how far have you got with that? BingoBoingo presents his current results; diana_coman asks for clarification as to what he’s trying to achieve and how; suggests cutting the problem into smaller pieces – divide and conquer.
Jfw posts an article after a week of no publishing, according to diana_coman. The latter asks why he didn’t ask the questions he had regarding a signatures thread in #t; jfw says he didn’t have a clear idea of the questions. diana_coman thinks the article is highly-strung/tortured, on account of the author’s frustration at its non-definitive content. diana_coman points out the absurdity in waiting til something’s figured out to ask questions: the whole point of questions is to figure things out!
diana_coman and jfw discuss the questions the latter posted in his article; diana_coman expects that jfw suffers from a lack of practice when it comes to asking good questions – perhaps because he’s been surrounded by idjits not worth the asking. Diana notes how helpful mandatory questions in academia were for practicing the skill of good questioning. Jfw and diana_coman reckon mandatory questions would be a good idea at the former’s Junto meetings.
diana_coman wonders if jfw has been reading the #e logs for the day, on account of his framing of his questions as having introduced bad assumptions because of too-much-complexity.
Jfw doesn’t know what “high strung”[sic] means; makes several incorrect guesses and notes he could’ve asked diana_coman what she meant instead. diana_coman corrects his grammar and clarifies the analogy: jfw over-tuned/fiddled with his article.
Whaack has a query regarding memory usage stats; jfw clarifies the workings of virtual memory – a course that whaack failed at MIT. Whaack commits to further reading on the subject, and heads to the airport.
On Thursday, March 5th 2020
BingoBoingo has two visits with Uruguayan document registrars – presenting his birth certificate for local ID renewal. Many lolz are had with diana_coman discussing beurocratic bullshit of various kinds; with a particular examination of the beurocratic woes of professional qualification standardizaton when moving from one orcistan to another.
Dorion is planning to write a piece documenting the history of Bitcoin, but wonders about establishing prior context first – whether this should be in the form of additional articles, or merely as an introductiory section to the Bitcoin piece. Diana points out that his main area of focus should be on the topic he knows personally, via his prior employment with Euro Pacific Bank. Many Trilema articles on and around the topic of money are linked for use as context. Among them, a 2014 contravex article; diana_coman remarks that its author, Pete Dushenski, was in the habit of rehashing Trilema articles at the time of publication. Dorion points out that nasty central bankers like Greenspan know they’re diddling, and deliberately obfuscate that fact by spouting nonsense via “syntax destruction”[!].
The relative novelty of both monetary theory and fiat money is brought up by dorian and BingoBoingo, respectively.
Jfw and diana discuss Knuth’s work on separating code from comments.
On Friday, March 6th 2020
jfw, dorion and diana_coman discuss incentives for getting students to complete their training course on time. Ideas involve a rebate for timely completion or fines for tardiness. diana_coman suggests that rather than trying to police the students’ progress, they simply refrain from promising things they can’t ultimately control.
diana_coman calls out jfw for mismanaging his time, and as a result, wasting hers. Jfw states he’ll improve; feels bad about his fuckup.
lobbes acknowledges not having posted his lasted update – due the previous day. Says he’s been busy in the saltmines all week. Clarifies that he has an indexing bot running, but it’s quicker to manually enter URLs into archive.is
On Saturday, March 7th 2020
diana_coman follows up on discussion from the previous day; notes that there are very few people who reliably, timely do their homework; and they tend to be easily noticed. Moreover, that it’s impossible to insulate the dilligent from the slowing effect of the lazies they’re grouped with. Additionally, that the cost:benefit of policing homework vs the few sessions’ worth of time it could save ain’t worth it; and everyone thinks they’re great at doing homework, so’ll pick the lower-cost-more-homework option if given the choice. All this means it’d be better to offer a discount specificially and privately to the studious, reliable, punctual students instead.
diana_coman recommends jfw use the painful memory of his wasting her time from the day before as incentive not to do it again and have to relive the feeling.
diana_coman asks BingoBoingo for an ETA on his latest plan, since his blog has been rather quiet for a while; he plans to publish that evening (and was planning to even before the prodding). BingoBoingo briefly sketches out his itenerary for the next coupla days.
Jfw is having issues downloading zip files from archive.is; lobbes hasn’t been logging his process, so can’t check – but has noticed quirks with archive.is recently. Lobbes says he’ll start logging and check the output next time he uses it.