We have nothing to worry about when it comes to AI.
Microsoft should rename their AI to Cletus.
And That’s That.
Fedora was was real fun but, in the end, after a year, I gave up and moved on.
A couple of things happened:
A few weeks ago, I was installing Linux updates on this here laptop and on a restart things started acting weird. My audio interface was nowhere to be found. My mouse started acting real janky. And apps (mostly DAW) were just crashing randomly.
I didn’t have time to dive in and look so I booted over to my Windows partition and made a note to look into whatever was going on sometime later.
This week, I had decided to trade laptops with my eldest as hers was just not handling the workload anymore. It’s an old, refurbished Dell Latitude that was purchased just before the shutdown in 2020. With it’s fifth gen i5 CPU and 4GB of memory, it was simply no longer up for the tasks she needs it for. I’d backup all the stuff off the HP laptop, (at this point only used as a Plex server) format it, install Windows 10 and then she would have something very workable. Then I’d install Fedora on her old laptop and use it to run Plex.
Getting her setup was a breeze. There were zero hiccups getting the HP back to factory and getting Win10 running and she’s now happily doing schoolwork, playing games, and chatting with friends.
As for the Latitude, Fedora installed easily. Past that, I wouldn’t do the one single thing I wanted it to: run a Plex server.
I simply do not understand why. Plex installed. The Plex service was running. But Plex would not see the mounted external drive nor did it see any folder on the local drive. All the permissions were correct. Everything was showing up in the file manager. I spent hours searching the net for solutions. I tired every command line “fix” that was posted, and there were a lot of potential fixes. I even tried starting fresh by reinstalling Fedora only to wind up in the exact same spot.
I finally just said, “fuck it”.
I formatted that little laptop back to factory (Windows 10). Then I installed Plex, pointed it to a folder and …
It worked.
I went upstairs and tested it on the TV and …
It worked.
So yesterday I said, “fuck it”. I made the decision to flatten this computer back to factory and just move on with Windows.
I just don’t want to fight to use a computer anymore. Windows 11 is actually, surprisingly, really good. It’s stable and you can uninstall and disable all the bloatware and advertising bullshit with a few clicks and it just hums along doing its thing.
I still support Open Source and Independents. While I’m running Windows now, I still run and fully support the applications listed on my “Things I Use” sidebar.
Sadly, Linux just turned out to be a no go for me. I will say that it is absolutely better than it was even a decade ago and I was able to use it as a my primary desktop for nearly a year (and I got to start and finish a song in it!). For me though, it’s still not 100%. So here we are.
Music I Used To Listen To: Omen
Every once and awhile, just for fun, I’m going to listen to some music I enjoyed when I was a teenager and and post about what I think of it now.
Today’s entry is Omen: “Battle Cry”
Learning New Skills, Part One: The Backstory
I started this as a single entry, but it became so long that I decided to tackle it in a multiple parts.
While I’m not going to go over the complete backstory, this abridged version does help set the stage of what we were dealing with that led to the decision to just DYI things.
Ms. Tucker owns a small condo. By small, I mean small: 530-ish square feet.
While tiny, it’s a cute, modern, open space layout, with 10 foot ceilings and huge windows that is located in the heart of downtown. It’s also very nostalgic for both of us as that’s where we started to build our life together nearly twenty years ago.
As time went on and we decided to have kids, we moved out of the condo and a relative moved in.
This relative lived there from 2008 to 2017 – and when they moved out they left the place practically destroyed. Between the water damage that completely ruined the pine hardwood floors (which was caused by a broken washer/dryer unit that they never bothered to have fixed, or even tell us about) to the unbelievable smoke damage (they chain smoked and basically hot boxed this small space for nine years), we didn’t know where to start. It took nearly two months of evenings and weekends, some elbow grease, a couple of favours, and a pile of money to make it livable so a new tenant could move in… who also happened to be a relative and, at the time seemed pretty responsible.
Fast forward to this summer, nearly five years later, where we asked said relative to vacate (for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, non-payment of the already heavily subsidized rent).
After they left, we walked in and. it was like deja-fucking-vu.
The appliances were all but destroyed. The kitchen counter was warped and peeling. The kitchen faucet was broken. A sizable area of the floors are damaged and popping out. The bathroom counter has some kind of permanent, white burn mark on it. The bathroom shower curtain rod and shower head were completely rusted. The whole place smells like cigarette smoke and the custom blinds were so smoke stained and stinky we ended up having to throw them out.
At this point, Ms. Tucker was done. “Let’s get it renovated and get it on the market,” she said. No more renting.
Nostalgia or not, the condo had become a money eating albatross and she wanted it gone. Quickly.
Since this particular late Summer/early Fall happened to be super busy for us and we were starved for time, we figured it would be best to get someone else to take care of it all for us.
Enter contractors.
Continue reading “Learning New Skills, Part One: The Backstory”
Music I Used To Listen To: Helloween
Every once and awhile, just for fun, I’m going to listen to some music I enjoyed when I was a teenager and and post about what I think of it now.
The inaugural entry covers two releases from the pioneers of Power Metal: Helloween.
Mantras
My About blurb, has some mantras listed and I’d like to talk about them.
This took a long time to write and then I waffled about even posting it. Then I thought: fuck it.
So here we go. And my apologies, it’s long.
Downsizing
I have three songs in the works. All of them need lyrics and vocals. Two also need drums.
One of them turned out to be pretty terrible so I shitcanned it and now I have two songs in the works. One only has a single verse of lyrics to complete, which I’m just being completely lazy with, and the other needs a full set of lyrics and drums so near the end of July I recorded the drums.
A few days later, I realized that the drumming for the outro is little off everything else so now I have to redo all of the guitars.
“Wait,” you ask, “why re-record all the guitar parts? Why don’t you just re-record the drums?”
Well, you see, I recorded the drum parts, gave it a quick listen and was happy at the time. Then I sold my drums.
It’s Pretty Wizard: The Magic Of The High Pass
So you’ve recorded your tracks and are ready to mix but you’re kind of bummed because everything always sounds so muddy and you know that whatever you try will not help much.
We’ve all been there. A lot. Yet there is one thing we know about but rarely seem to pay very much attention to:
The High Pass.
Continue reading “It’s Pretty Wizard: The Magic Of The High Pass”
2023 Books, Part 1
At the end of last year I decided to post about the books I’d read in 2022. In that post I said: “… for 2023, I plan to read even more.”
Six months in and I’ve already surpassed last years count, so why not do two entries for 2023?
As a fun aside our family did the Book Advent Calendar again this year but I bag I chose, for some damn reason, was Popular Thrillers. I first book I unwrapped was The Davinci Code, which I hadn’t read as I’d been led to believe that it was shitty and not worth my time. Undaunted I decided to give it a go…
… only to find that it was shitty and not worth my time. I put it down after three chapters. It’s just so eye-rollingly bad in every way a book can be bad.
The rest of the books that came out of the Popular Thriller Advent Calendar were more of the same: Tom Clancy, John Grisham, and a couple more Pat Browns. I read only one of them and donated the rest.
Anyway, here we go…
Perfection Is The Enemy Of The Good
Well, shit. It’s been three whole months. So much for trying to keep up on this here blog on a regular basis.
Remember this? Well, let’s see how it going.
(Note, I’m not going to comment on each specific topic in that NY post, just some of them with added colour commentary.)
Exercise
“I plan to start moving again. I’m going to get myself a bike and start using it for all the errands that I currently drive for – like going to the store that’s literally less than 5 Km away”
I bought a bike. A nice, basic fitness/city bike. While I’ve never been the worlds biggest Cannondale fan, this bike checked all the boxes for me:
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- Light
- Rigid fork
- Single chain ring on the front.
- Disc brakes
- Interior cable routing.
The test ride in the store parking lot sold me. This bike is limber and, so far, it does what I ask. I haven’t really pushed it yet due to weather and springtime chores but as we move into May, I will be going farther and farther. I haven’t realy biked anywhere in well over 5 years, so I’m going to ease back into it.
Food and Drink
Uh-huh. This is not going as well as planned. While I have shed a little weight, I’ve spent more time eating useless, carby, packaged food (and take out!) than I should be. Also, have been drinking a little more than I should be.
Music
I haven’t worked on anything since early March. Musically, the new tune I have is done but only has half its lyrics. I need to get back on this in a big way.
Writing (Non Blog)
I’ve picked back up on this. FocusWriter is my app of choice (I did try a few other, Open Source writing apps and found them overly complicated) and I set a daily goal of 500 words. I kept this up for about two weeks, then tapered off a bit. Now I try and find some time in the wee hours of the morning. Or I spend time pecking away at this rather than doomscrolling through the news.
Tech
This is an edited version of what I originally had here. I felt like i jumped the gun on a few things and was very, very reactionary about the computer bit which is stupid because it’s just computer shit. I’m trying to not be whiny about things like technology. I want to take deep breaths, look at my options and move forward. I don’t want to hit a snag and just stamp my feet and yell.
So I’ll put a little tech/computer update here and shitcan the incessant whining.
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- For various reasons, I needed to use Windows, and right around this time Linux started acting up (after a system update).
- I flattened the computer to Windows swearing to never touch Linux again.
- I found that I really missed Linux so I tried Ubuntu Studio which I didn’t like.
- I got Fedora back up and running. I’m on version 38 and things are smooth.
- I’m still dual booting Windows for when I need it.
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And that, as they say, is that.