===================================================================
DATE : 2020.12.24
TIME : 19:08
AUTHOR :
[email protected]
TITLE : 2020 YEAR IN REVIEW
===================================================================
It's been a while...since Feb. 29th; that was pre-COVID.
What's happened since then?
Work-related: I worked from home; I worked on-site; and I got a
promotion. I do not enjoy working from home. I end up working
more, and working harder to get the work done. I am just more
productive on-site. I can get more done faster compared to working
from home. I also sort of feel the need to be hyper-available when
I work from home, and usually end up working longer days than I do
on-site. I just feel like I get more done, with less effort, during
the day working on-site. One disadvantage working from home is that
it is a routine change. In my case, this change in routine has led
to more eating, less exercising, and 25 extra pounds of weight. I
completely stopped running right around the first time that my
employer started having us work from home in March. I have recently
started back running, and will lose the extra weight.
Non-work-related: Because of Covid restrictions, the wife and I
have had to cancel a couple of previously planned vacation trips
this year. Vacation trips are a big deal for us. We have a separate
budget just for travel and we make vacations a priority. Canceled
vacations due to travel restrictions has been the worst part of
2020 for me. That being said, if that is all I have to complain
about, then I have had a pretty good year. My immediate family did
all end up getting Covid in late November, but we all survived that
just fine. My 92 year old mother in law even had a mild case.
Computer-related: I was gifted a used Dell Poweredge R710. The R710
replaced my old Dell Poweredge P1950 server. The P1950 was doing
it's job just fine, but the R710 was a nice upgrade, so I retired
the P1950 and migrated my plex, gopher, minecraft, web, and ssh
server from the P1950 to the R710. The R710 was performing just
fine until my house was hit by lightning and it wiped out several
USB ports on the R710. After the lightning strike, I bought a new
server just for plex, a Dell Poweredge T40. The T40 is a great plex
server and the Intel UHD Graphics 610/630 Series card and the Xeon
E-2224 handle transcoding just fine. I am very happy with this
purchase. Now that the T40 is just doing plex, the R710 has been
upgraded with a Nvidia P2000 and in addition to being my web,
gopher, minecraft, and ssh server, it's now a steam streaming
server too! Both of these servers run Debian stable, and the server
migrations went off without a hitch. When Debian 11 is released,
both of these servers will upgrade without a hitch as well--just
like each release's upgrade that I have performed since Bo in 1996.
I love Debian!
I am also running Debian stable on a raspberry pi 3, and old
thinkpad T520 (which is now my wife's computer). I am running
testing on a $20 acer aspire that I bought at a thrift store. I am
running Debian sid (as I have for years) on my daily use computer
(a thinkpad T590). Did I mention I love Debian?
Also this year I replaced my 2015 Nvidia shield with a 2019 Nvidia
shield. I moved the old shield device to the upstairs bedroom.
Overall: 2020 was a pretty good year. 2021 should be too, as long
as Thom Tillis is unsuccessful in overhauling copyright law or
making streaming a felony.
--norris
(o\_!_/o)
