I don't really know what I want to write these days. However, I think
I want to get back in the habit of writing. It has been a long absence.
As such, I think I'll end up with some odd writing for a bit, or maybe
uninteresting is the more likely thing than odd. For today, I think I
will just note out, in list form, some things that I have been doing,
working on, feeling, etc.
1. Winter was depressing. Spring has come and I am feeling a lot better
than I was.
2. I am glad to have found my way back to colorfield.space, that small
raspberry pi zero sitting on a shelf near my desk. On the system I
am running a shell that I wrote myself (slosh). It does not have
working job control. I couldn't figure out how to implement it. I
definitely miss it. If you know how to implement job control in
golang where the parent runs processes via os/exec, and those sub-
processes will be backgrounded/foregrounded: please get in touch.
I'd love to talk ideas. In addition to the shell, I am writing this
in my recently written editor (sled). I am enjoying the editor a lot.
It is vaguely vi-like, but without a concept for windows. It does
have buffers and a tab-bar, though. Using your own tools feels really
nice, in a semi-janky sort of way (if your tools are anything like
mine).
3. I do not buy computer hardware often anymore. I got it into my head
to do something stupid. I ordered a Light Phone II. It should get
here on tuesday. I want to break the habit of looking at my phone
all the time. I don't want a web browser on my person anymore. I used
a Nokia bar phone for a few years, but it had some things about it
that I just couldn't get used to (T9 texting and very limited support
for displaying the emojis people send me -- I really dislike texting,
but everyone still wants to text me, so I need to be able to read
and respond). I really love eInk as a technology, so that is something
to look forward to. I hope to lose the tick of taking out my phone. I
don't use apps on my phone as it is, other than the web browser, an
alarm, and the wikipedia app (basically just a browser). So it really
is the browser I need to lose. I ditched social media beyond gopher
and gemini a long time ago. I include those under the banner, since
they have been major social outlets for me... but without a lot of the
stink of what has become traditional social media.
4. My partner is having a hard time of things right now, and I am trying
to be supportive. We are both sleeping poorly for some reason lately.
Not sure why. It is definitely adding on another layer of things being
tougher.
5. Only reading the news on Sundays has been good for my mental health.
6. We are going to Joshua Tree National Park again on Saturday. It is
supposed to be windy. We would have shifted the day, but friends are
going too, and they already arranged a dogsitter (apparently that is
a thing? I am not a dog person). I think it will be a fun day. I just
need to remember to bring ear-muffs (I get bad ear aches in high wind
situations). Hopefully we can do the "Hall of Horrors" again. I had so
much fun last time!
7. I have not been working on the most recent programming language project
of mine lately ("fa"). It started out as an implementation of FALSE, but
has since grown a lot. I am coding it in C, to get a better handle on C.
I have never been very good with it. Valgrind has kept me busy plugging
memory leaks. I don't have many at this point (not through the testing
I have been doing anyway), but do occasionally get bad read/bad write
warnings. I'm having trouble finding a solid way to mark structs as
having been freed. I am reference counting, and when I get to 0 I free
any heap allocations... but something isn't quite right. I'll figure it
out whenever I feel like wasting time writing needless code (I do not
really have a use for this language, and my main language--slope--does
everything I need it to do, more or less... so there is no need for
another).
8. I finished all of the replies for my short fiction magazine (see:
https://hearthstories.org). So the June issue is set and all e-mails
passing or accepting stories have been sent, contracts have been signed
and countersigned, money has been sent to authors. Next week I will need
to reread each of the stories we are publishing and note any edits I can
find (typos/spelling, grammar, logical issues, confusing parts) and send
them out. Then I'll need to build up the epub scaffolding and start adding
metadata and inputting the story text as edits come back. Then I need to
work out a cover. Then I need to get the authors to interview each other.
Then update the website with the issue and go live. After that I announce
the new issue in a few places. Lastly I go to draft2digital and get it
added to Kobo store, Branes & Noble, Overdrive, etc. (we do not do
amazon, and will not in the future either).
9. A new season of Taskmaster is starting! We are happy about that. They have
an American (one I like, too!) on this season. I think that is a first.
10. We have been eating a lot more lettuce and greens at each meal. I am
happy about it. I have also been eating a 7 grain "hot breakfast" in the
morning each day. It has been good. It reminds me of being at my
Grandmother's house. She always ate oat bran in the morning. I miss her
and my Grandfather a lot. They were the best people. I think about them
a lot, and I like things that connect me to them. I ahve deliberately
started saying certain words the way my Grandma did. I suppose to, in a
way, honor her and keep her in my thoughts regularly. For examply, I will
say cemetry instead of cemetary, or battry instead of battery. I also
say catsup instead of ketchup. I know it is silly to deliberately alter
your speech like this, but it makes me happy, and I do not think it does
any harm. It is not like I am taking on a cultural accent. Or if I am,
it is a culture I am a part of and connected to (she grew up in rural
PA, and it is likely related in some way to Pennsylvania Dutch and the
rural speech of the region). She also always said davenport, which was
a brand, instead of couch or sofa.
Have a good night gopherspace. I am glad to be back around these parts. See
you around.
