iMac Project
#Model: MC813LL/A Apple iMac 27" i5 4GB RAM 1TB HDD Silver
#Drives
#Ram
Our only Amazon choice for ram @16gb
Ram @16gb & 32gb
*notes: source everymac Officially, this model supports four 4 GB modules -- one in each slot for a maximum of 16 GB of memory. However, third-parties have discovered that it actually will support 32 GB of memory using four 8 GB modules."
#misc -Original link
#Write a romance novel#
D10.31.22
I’ve had some good talks with Dee lately. She writes and I respect that. She writes. I envy that she writes. To write one must write.
Technology
I am lying to myself if I don’t admit I love fiddling with things. I forget it sometimes, usually if i’ve failed and wrenching life out of some end of life thing.
To me all computers have some value. Computers must live in their moment though. Computers are assembled to pair with software. Mostly computers fall out of favor when we upgrade them past their abilities.
Music
I’ve been listening to Isabelle Pierre. Casey Neistat played one of her songs in the background of a video. It perfectly matched with the sentiment of the footage. When I find a song I like will usually make a note about it and see if I feel the same in a week. I’ve gone decades not knowing the words of a song. This has never been a big issue for me, in my head that’s the song. When you tell me what the right lyrics are, my version does usually seem to be the better song. New songs don’t have that same protection and my mind greedily digs through the words. Really looking at lyrics can beat down an otherwise catchy song.
Markdown
This is my fourth go at Markdown. Each time i’ve come to this simple way of formatting a doc I have failed. In each instance Markdown was paired with a vintage computer. I have a closet of thin and light laptops that i’ve bought for executives over the years. These computers have all had three things in common: they are small (12 inches is the biggest), weigh less than 3 pounds, are underpowered.
An underpowered portable laptop is the perfectly wrong computer. Most users come to the relationship seduced by the size; the light and tiny wins them over. They then go on to use their tiny computer. They exalt all the freedoms of not being weighed down. They disregard the bruises and challenges of always bumping their head on the performance ceiling. Eventually, these devotees to the tiny go in search of a nother small computer, one that is as awesome as the one they have, but faster. Back in the dark days (before ARM*), there wasn’t really “faster”. Yes! The machine was quicker, but always paired with a new operating system, thus a heavier load, the cycle repeats.
More on Markdown later…
references
[Colon vs semicolon] (https://www.grammarly.com/blog/semicolon-vs-colon-vs-dash/?gclsrc=ds)
[exalt] (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exalt)[*ARM] (https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/linux/what-is-arm-processor)
#J 10.26.22
10.26.22
Life
10.26.22 midnight
I’ve been reading the Kindle lately. I don’t know which library (Kindle vs Nook) is trashier… It may really just be that i’m so cheap that my digital library just doesn’t look like my personal library. I should even be willing to admit that i’m so neurotic about the cost of things that it really has affected my reading habits.
I used to just be invigorated with taking things in. I think I still am, so much static though. I am not confused about why Spalding Gray killed himself. I get it.
10.27
All i mean to say is that (insert “The internet has changed our lives” blabber) we’ve deconstructed knowledge. I grew up with the internet in rooms and buildings and knowledge was sequestered to books. Every community had its own internet and we called it a library. You got the paper, the tv offered some view into the world.
I read on portable devices to ease my mind, that stuff is lighter fair.
I don’t miss the library cause it still exists. It can’t compare to the Internet, but the same can be said for Internet as it relates to libraries.
Cars
The Miata has been gone for months. I did most of the tear down and the more advanced work has been sent to a shop I found through Trav. I’ve seen nothing but one pic of her. She looks better than when she left me.
They say you can’t go back. I’m in the midst of it. They’re probably right.
The cars are such a weird luxury. I look at other people with one car. And this one car is a lot of money a month on a note. It’s a lot of money a month for insurance. How can you like that? How do you park next to other cars when your car (and insurance), is like $1300 a month? I don’t know what happens with the Miata. I don’t think this car is my truth anymore. It is a fantastic drive, but i’m a little more comfortable in the MR2 now. I don’t feel nervous when i’m flittering about here and there with the MR2. In the Miata I feel like i’m only doing a little better than if I was driving a motorcycle.
None of cars I have are what I want. All the cars I have are a joy to drive though.
Survival is less luxurious
GEAR
Envy meets lowered expectations
I ordered a 28” iMac. This will be interesting. I’m mildly excited. I’ve always wanted one. This one is right up my Mac alley, it’s too old to run the latest shit, but I think it’ll be fine with itunes and get me by on the web. And i’m going to load my software stash on it and call it a day. I’m then going to take the outgoing “kitchen mac”
All in 1
I ordered a Logitech K400 multimedia keyboard? This keyboard is used by folks to pair up with appliances (streaming tv, web boxes), that require input. It is generously spaced compared to a laptop keyboard, but not so much a full sized keyboard. And there is a built in track pad. It also has a second left mouse button in the upper left hand corner that some folks find to just be great. I dunno. What I do know is that I have this old as puck (no NUC), computer that i’ve buried under my couch and i’m using it as my primary computer of late. And i’ve not perfected my ergonomic position on this couch. This is because you can’t work ergonomically on a couch.
You buy all the gas up front
Electric cars and Electric bikes are the same. You buy your miles in advance.
There isn’t an electric bike you’d want to ride with no power. You can ride an electric bike with no power, but you don’t want to ride one with no power. The whole system that augments your riding is expensive two ways. First forget what they’ve told you. Maintaing an aging electric conveyance will cost you. You buy all of your fuel upfront and then you have treat it like a baby or it will degrade on you. It will eventually fail and when it does you have to buy your fuel in advance again. Such a shit show, only in that there is nearly no repair infrastructure out there. So you just have to turn into “Intern Engineer Guy” who might burn his house down. Or you buy a new battery.
Wonk Wonk.
My battery management system is probably the culprit. Who knows though.
Frivolity not greatness
My writing voice has always been me talking aloud and to an imaginary audience. I’m haunted by the past though. Truth be told the audience was not imaginary, it was my self, it was my friends and family; it was people I didn’t even fucking know. Public speech is a prism onto the mind of the person writing. It doesn’t matter if your soul is laid bare, or you’ve crafted a narrative. I was telling a story in a world and that world had gravity, a north and a south. Leylines. In a Tiger Woods kinda way I was really great at that, I’d at least honed some voice. Now it feels like a costume made of the flesh of others, with goodbye horses playing in the background.
I just gotta start doing the work.
It wasn't James Blunt dude.
12.4.21 #article #blog #kfo #thisisthenew.me #movie #musing
The first two minutes and fifty eight seconds of the movie Closer is shot in slow motion. The Damien Rice* song “Can’t take my eyes off of you”, (the entire song mind you), plays for this entire sequence.
Thirty seconds in it was fine. Forty five seconds started to feel tedious. At one minute it feels like a gag.
A soft chuckle, with a little bit of “wtf, dude” escaped me. At two minutes in I realized Jude Law did not look sexy and I was uncomfortable looking at Natalie Portman, with her terrible “Pay attention to me cause I’m the red colored object.”in the scene. To be clear, I wasn’t feeling weird cause she looked like an eighties troll doll you’d have on your key ring. I was uncomfortable cause this was no longer the little girl from the movie with Jean Reno. This was her adult self.
I just want to point out that Damien Rice is still singing and the video is still in slow motion.
Anyway… I won’t spoil the rest for you.
“I can’t take my eyes off of you”
*I originally attributed the song to Jame Blunt.
Failure to pace yourself.
12.2.21 #article #blog #kfo #thisisthenew.me #hardware #holiday #family #computers
I have a series of states that communicate to me where my headspace is.
In blood science (ok, dude), they can analyze the current about of glucose in your body, they can also test to understand what your average glucose level was for about two months. Getting a “workup” of your blood is akin to reading a computer log file.
I love photography. It is a way that I express and also take in the world. Photographs and video are a form of engagement and memory for me. If I’m not obsessively taking pictures it always means I’ve “tightened” up and stopping reaching out to the world.
I tend to load myself up with so much stuff. For a time I can really juggle everything and make it work. I inevitably though begin to mentally and physically wear out.
If we start to think about it in spurts though…Uhm. If we start to think about it in sprints. A computer processor can be greedy and inefficient with power and really crunch a lot of data. A computer processor can also be very economical and reserved. It will process and work well, even sprint(ramp up the processor), to try to chug through a heavy task, but then it will “ramp” down before overheating.
“As a baby someone cares for you. As an “Old” whatever provisions you hurled into the future are what you’re left with.”
If I can’t see to take pictures I’m maxed out. The free space in my mind that allows me to wonder and a imagine like a child, has no room to spread out. This is ok for a time, I guess, in the sense that this temporary sacrifice of part of my headspace is being devoted to crunching a lot of task.
Sprint.
When I would run The Peachtree Road Race I was always so excited. You’re packed in like animals going to slaughter. Everyone in their own colorful, synthetic swirl of moisture wicking fabric. How do you pace yourself at the beginning of an event where thousands of people are directly in front of you and thousands more are behind you. I run like hell. My first mile is thrilling, I barely feel it. My second mile is good about halfway through, then the klaxons start to go off, the adrenaline is gone, the sprint is turning into a unsustainable descent. Once I’m at mile 3 I’ve regulated to my normal pace, the problem here is that I’m only able to sustain that for about another half mile.
At mile 3.5 I’m always in trouble. Every body part in distress is demanding I stop. My heart, not the smartest of organs is just revving away, demanding fuel to continue. If we imagine our body like a hybrid engine. Again, the battery portion of the hybrid is highly efficient, it steps in when the ICE* is less efficient. Sitting at a stop light? Turn the ICE off and just let the battery do the initial work. Once your’e going down the road, the highly efficient ICE is going to go as long as you have fuel in it.
Now, let’s look at a different hybrid engine of sorts. The ICE combination of dinosaur juice and nitrous is a different story. In this instance, the sprint, those first few miles is the engine revved up to its maximum ability, and it is also a tank of nitrous which is being piped right into the combustion chambers, allowing the ICE to produce even more power, this is until the ICE fails catatrosphically cause you’ve stressed it.
You can use your nitrous at the beginning of a race, or at the end of the race, but you only have so much of it, once you run out you can keep going, but you’ve lost that peak power and further more, you’re running on reserves.
I am so excited I live the life of a faster more capable person, for a time. I then spend the rest of my experience beat down and exhausted, until about the end of the journey and this is when the excited is so strong, you proudly do everything you can to overcome your “let’s just survive” mind and you push yourself again. You walk through coal, you break the waves, you straighten your back and proudly do more. This is all going on inside your head, in reality what really happens is you take two or three very enthusiastic strides, go right back to about where you were before. You are more dignified, present, even excited again, the accolades, some part of them really are for you. You’re just making a good show, before your heart attack.
I don’t run the Peachtree anymore. I never figured out how to pace myself. I always die on the hill. Every year my heart (a slow dim witted fell), would muse aloud about our chances, and rattles a little more than it used to.
I can’t stop life.
I can’t stop this ride I’m on. It happens regardless of whether I’m pacing myself or not. I set up all these goals and efforts, to make money, to make moves, to prepare for the time when I won’t be able to work again. It seems like a small period of your life to have to send so many resources to care for things.
“As a baby someone cares for you. As an “Old” whatever provisions you hurled into the future are what you’re left with.”
I have failed more than I’ve succeeded. Life. Life experiences, where does the sprint power go? When do you pace yourself. If everything was Logans Run, your palm glows, you go out at the top of your game, would that be better?
It is winter time and we continue to tear away at the house, while building. What I have accomplished in this project is a feat. Staying in place while on the exterior (and interior), people tear and add to the house at the same time. This is a marathon, it always has been. I gotta stop with all of these sprints.
ICE* Internal Combustion Engine
#Journal #Pilot
11.30.21 #article #blog #kfo #thisisthenew.me #hardware #holiday #family #journal
#triggerwarning
This piece is a mess with no editor to be found…
I’m continuing on with a trickle of discussion about Thanksgiving, then I blather on about computers.
This year there was less. I spent the same budget I usually do, but there was less bought, less cooked. For reference to the exact current events. The recession is picking up steam. Inflation is at 6.25%, shit is not going well if you have money saved. If you’re financing shit, whether it is a mortgage, or say a car-for a decade, you’ll be fine. Hell, these days people are borrowing money to gamble on the stock market, and to buy bitcoins.
The rules have been thrown out the window.
There are a lot of bad signs around.
I don’t know how it all goes down… I mean, it hasn’t happened yet.
I also bought an intel Mac. To be clear It is one year since Apple released the M1 processor
Apple in November 2020 released the first Macs with an Arm-based M1 chip, debuting new 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini models. In 2021, Apple added the M1 iMac and the M1 iPad Pro. The M1 chip has received rave reviews for its incredible performance and efficiency, and it is the culmination of more than a decade of Apple's work on chips created for the iPhone and the iPad. ∫source: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/m1/
Previous to buying the MacBook For the sake of full disclosure, I bought the best portable that Apple had to offer, the sixteen inch MacBook Pro. It was a beast. I managed to keep it for 72hours, before sending it back.
I spent months wringing my hands about buying the 16”, then it took three days to realize it wasn’t for me.
#stopreading #gotonext
I’m in a weird place. I want a nice computer. I only every really seek out the computer that fits my needs. I’ve owned score of computers, only bought two, till now.
Computer 1 was an Acer Chromebook(A spitting knockoff of a MBP 15”), not my proudest moment. It served its purpose and drove me into the arms of a VPN, and left me about two streets up from the dark web, where I live now, hidden, sorta…
Computer 2 was the aforementioned 16” MBP. The cost was extraordinary, and thus I spent 6 months building up to buy a computer and kept it for 72 hours.
I don’t care what something costs if I love it, but I want to be knocked out, otherwise I’m very concerned about the costs. I was concerned about the cost to performance ratio. I was not knocked out.
The past always wants to eats its way to the future.
#rightnow #on the nose
I am on the phone with Deja. As this post lives and breathes, we’re in year two of the pandemic. It is going terrible, the worst combination of “back to normal”, meets “we’re not in Kansas anymore”.
Deja and I are also in year two of working at Reach. This experience is great, a beautiful swan song (?), to my life in IT. One last chance maybe to support an organization and get back behind a computer.
I’ve had a good run. I’m tired of working. I hope I was able to get free and I’m reading this post from some shady spot.