And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone If your time to you is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’ Bob Dylan (1964) tl;dr In these times, we must speak out everywhere Some may not know of David [ ]
tl;dr reboot it or shoot it Two mornings ago I discovered my ca 2015 Dell Optiplex 9010 was non-responsive, with the power button flashing amber. From experience (with mechanical disks obsolescent, power supplies are the most likely computer component to fail), I assumed the power supply to be the problem. So I ordered a replacement [ ]
Narcotics Anonymous has a pamphlet The Triangle of Self-Obsession which says, in part, We never seem to outgrow the self centeredness of the child. We become self-obsessed; our wants and needs become demands. We reach a point where contentment and fulfillment are impossible. People, places, and things cannot possibly fill the emptiness inside of [ ]
Before childhood amateur radio projects, before college freshman radio work, before sound engineering in San Francisco, at the Vulcan Gas Company, and the Armadillo World Headquarters, my mother taught me to repair lamp wiring when I was very young. I began building electronics projects with a crystal radio kit when I was 6 years old. [ ]
A Mastodon thread initiated by Erik Uden today unleashed discussion of two seemingly separate controversies: the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian crisis and the massive proliferation of Large Language Models (LLM) aka Machine Learning aka Artificial Intelligence. One of the technical challenges is calibrating the multiple versions and rapid changes in the major LLM ChatGPT/Gemini/Mistral/others. Uden…
It seems I am easily distracted. One thing leads to another. Inquiries spur new thoughts. Anomalies suggest investigation. Surprises remind of well-worn adages, e.g., newer isn t always better, particularly regarding software. But, I keep on keeping on. Though I ve been aware of Lions A Commentary on the UNIX Operating System since 1983, I ve never taken [ ]
I seem to be adding projects to my todo list faster then I m finishing them. I can blame two of the recent additions on Anthony Bonkoski s writings: SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes Learn you Galois Fields for Great Good The former made me start (re-)learning x86 assembly language enough to understand the compiler s [ ]
May you stay, Forever Young Bob Dylan (1973) Friday morning, an Austin impresario, typically loquacious, needed few words, mostly inflection and tone, to rouse me to realize I was ignorant of the importance of Stan Alexander. In particular, I had recorded Stan July 10, 1970 and neglected to make that recording available, but I [ ]
There never was another man who could inspire more love or hate if you were in the park and it was 1968. Daley s Gone Steve Goodman (1977) tl;dr A movement animated by rage and fear isn’t ready to embrace life and love. [ ]
I didn t use to pay much attention to Lee Oskar as a harmonica player, thinking of him as auxiliary to WAR and tunes such as Low Rider: That was before early this year when a Facebook post from Led Kaapana extolled: At first I was mystified as to how Lee was doing this, but eventually [ ]