Formula One is not traditionally seen as an American sport. Most of the American's who have been involved in the sport do a terrible job at it. Logan Sergeant was in his rookie year last year, so his performance was forgivable, now that he's in his second year... not so much; I'm still rooting for him, and I'll be watching Williams to consider them for my fantasy teams, but he's definitely the weakest link, and the most disappointing driver in the entire sport. But there are only 20 drivers, so it's an incredibly competitive position.
Why do I even care? What IS Formula One? And, why is it better than NASCAR?
All of those are interesting questions to answer, because auto racing and motor sport was never anything that I grew up with... that is to say my father has never been interested in racing so I didn't inherit an interest in racing cars from him (genetically?) or through it being on the TV all the time growing up (osmosis?). At least, that's how I imagine most people become fans of the sports that they're passionate about. I did have several friends growing up, and over the years, that were interested in cars and auto racing, and who in-turn shared their passion with me.
Well, as you may have guessed, I got fed up with Slackware. It's unfortunate because I thought maybe it would be a good distro to use. But, since it is the most Unix-like of all the Linuxes, I decided I should just go full-Unix. All of the BSDs can claim direct lineage from Bell Labs without all the AT&T proprietary bits. I've always had a fascination with Unix proper too. You need a specific application for it though, and as a server without any GUI is where it truly shines as an operating system. Everyone jokes about the year of the Linux desktop, but Linux really is the system you want to use for a desktop. Turns out BSD is a great choice for a lot of the other stuff that you need computers for.
For a moment there I was thinking this might have all been for naught. Turns out though, I just didn't have the 20 pin connector snugged in tight enough. It does run! How embarrassing, but by admitting these small snafus we can all learn to not feel stupid by simple mistakes.
There was also a brief moment where I thought the power supply wouldn't fit, and I was genuinely confused as to why, but then I remembered that I had bent the tab that the psu normally sits on backwards to try and fit the old Dell psu. There's a picture below where you can see the rectangle-shaped cutout toward the back of the case in the upper-righthand corner. That's where the tab bends forward into the case to act as a little shelf for the psu. It's really not needed, but it does help you guide the psu into place so that the mounting screws are easier to line up.
So I was sort of right in my guesstimation about which, or what, parts I had. Unfortunately, about the only thing you can swap out of a Dell are the hard drives, PCI cards, and maybe the memory sticks. I thought I could get away with cannibalizing the power supply, which would have meant that I could've gotten this Green Frankenstein up and running last night... That didn't happen.
I've desperately wanted a reason to build a Slackware server for quite some time now. Just recently, someone on Mastodon finally gave me a great idea for what I could do if I ran one. There is a bunch of old hardware sitting in my garage just collecting dust. As much as I would love to buy some refurbished server hardware to play with, at the end of the day I'm not going to be doing anything too special with whatever hardware I use. So I may as well try to just re-purpose the stuff I already have.
A new chapter has started, in a way it's like revisiting a book series you loved and finding a new entry. I'm on my second week at the new job.
I had a shot at something different (working in the casino gaming sector)... But, I knew that it would involve being awake at all hours, and having to devote an inordinate amount of my time to the company.
The law firm I interviewed with offered me what I was looking for: straight forward expectations and a realistic workload. Law offices can be notorious for having to work overtime, deadlines are critical, and you have to juggle hearing dates and things like that. But every so often you find an attorney who has put in enough time (often several years) and has struck a nice balance. I've never worked with this particular attorney directly before, but we know a lot of the same people from as far back as decade (or longer) ago. So I felt comfortable taking the job.
A friend of mine and I meet up every week just to shoot the shit and compare notes. We keep each other motivated to continue moving forward and improving our lives. This week he shared with me a “Life Audit” document (specifically, it was a PDF). I was thinking about doing a blog post with basically all the steps from the PDF and talking about my approach to them. But I don't see the PDF publicly posted anywhere, or it's not easily accessible. I would say that the author is a pretty notable internet personality and “self-help guru.” It is branded content, but doesn't appear to be copyrighted... In any case, I'm not looking to be sued (should more than 10 people read this), so I'll spare you the specific steps that he walks through with his system. Instead I'll summarize the process without also promoting any one specific personality—there are a myriad of them online, you're free to pick the personality you like the best, they all essentially say the same things and they're happy to take your money. Sometimes these people are controversial figures, and I have no real context for this guy other than the title of a book he wrote, and this one PDF that my friend sent me.
December 30, 2023 was the last Pixel Pints podcast episode that will be recorded for the foreseeable future. All of us founding members have decided to put the show on hiatus. It's been a good ride. I can't speak for the others, but I can speak for myself. Somewhat in honor of that, I thought it might be good to do another top 20 list. Don't worry I'll get into the titles on this list, but first, I'm going to muse and rant a bit on the gaming industry as a whole. More specifically about “journalism” and gaming enthusiast media.
Special shout out to MobyGames. I reached out to them last year when I was going through my frontend development course, and they provided me with API access. I haven't done much with it yet, but all of the links and images for this list (with the exception of the above image created with Topsters 3) are all from Moby. Maybe I can come up with a creative way to use the API that would be beneficial for the site and that community as well as offer some cool utility... I'm open to suggestions.
If you're so inclined though, and want to skip ahead to a specific title, just click the number next to it on the list above.
Holy shit... I've always wanted to read the original James Bond novels, and after reading this first one, I think I'll definitely continue with the series. At least read all of the original ones that Fleming wrote (there are twelve of them, if I'm not mistaken). Although this is quite an old book being originally published in 1953, I know there are plenty of people out there like me who have only seen the movies and haven't read the novels (or are just getting into reading the novels which is why you might be reading this review). Like always, there are some major differences between the book and films, in order to point out those differences though, I'll have to reveal some critical plot points, and I will be spoiling the ending.
While the movies can be fairly predictable and formulaic, there were some twists here in the novel that I didn't quite expect, and do not remember there being sufficient enough analogs for from the films.
Everyone has their own winter rituals. Either you make them or you follow what has come before, or you choose to ignore them all together, we're all acutely aware that it's something that a lot of us do every year. Figuratively, symbolically, or astrologically, everything in the human condition is a cycle of some sort, like a series of a million different Venn diagrams creating infinite combinations of various overlapping factors, perpetually in motion like celestial gears; these cycles dictate a number of things related to our lives. Or, the cycles at least preside an influence over our perceptions, emotions, and actions during certain times of the year, or periods in our lives over the course of several years.
(The first snow of the year finally touched down in the Humbodlt-Toiyabe National Forest.)
