fyrfli's musings

Well, I've gotten a few things done since the last time I posted.

The DO droplet has been successfully downsized and I finally got caddy working as proxy ... nginx is disabled. I gotta tell you that I love working with Caddy. It is so much easier to manage than nginx. And so much fun too. I don't even have to manually do a certbot renew on my certificates because caddy does this automatically. It also forwards all the usual headers (X-Forwarded-For, etc) to the backend by default. It also servers SSL by default. You have to tell it not to. There is even a tutorial for running caddy on your development machine locally with SSL but it's for Linux users and I haven't spent any time researching how to do it on OS X. I am not in any hurry at the moment. The Python built-in http server works just fine.

The other stuff I have been doing is trying to sort through an episode that happened 6 years ago, in a public post on Facebook where my “sister-in-law” and “aunt-in-law” decided to give into their inner trump and lay into me for expressing my opinions on the USian thanksgiving holiday.

Apparently, I have no right to criticise the US. I should be grateful ... or at least have ... I dunno ... gone back to where I came from ... if I don't like it here? Or something. I still don't understand why they felt the need to attack me like that. I have been holing on to a lot of anger about it. Anger and hurt. But in all honesty, that isn't helping and only hurting me some more. I am stuck, now, on figuring out whether to just put them in my rear-view mirror and just move on as if they don't exist ... or some other strategy. I was able to write it all out in a private draft but it is so toxic that I think I'll just keep it private. The post is up on Facebook still if anyone is interested in reading through it all. But I don't need to rehash it here.

But I will summarise for those who would rather stay off Facebook.

Here is what I posted:

I have been having difficulty with the Thanksgiving holiday ever since I moved to the United States. I don't understand the history of it or the contemporary meaning of it. I have difficulty associating it with a feeling of gratitude. There is a thought that it had to do with giving thanks for the harvest, but unless you're in the south, the harvest should have long come in before now, yes?

So it must be something else.

The other bit of history that I can recall has to do with the pilgrims and the Native Americans ... which planted a seed of doubt and cynicism in me when I first heard it.

This year ... the whole idea of it feels even more distasteful than ever.

As an immigrant, as a black woman ... I am not excited to “celebrate” Thanksgiving this year.

The dogpile that followed is memorable only in that it is your typical white womaning on a public post of a supposed family member in the only way trump cultists know how to do. It would be funny if it wasn't so damned sad. I am not over it, but I am getting there.


Finally, I discovered Calckey and decided to make the move from Misskey. Why? I am not entirely sure right now since the last few weeks have been a little topsy turvey with an update that almost completely screwed my server. Somehow I managed to get it working again and I don't intend to touch it until I know the next release is stable. It works right now.

On the sidelines I have been testing out a new medication that is supposed to help with some of my symptoms – my anxiety symptoms, that is. Long story short, the meds I am on tamp down on the anxiety and panic attacks, but they don't really help with the levels of anxiety I still feel. So the psychiatrist I have been seeing has me trying out different things to balance out that negative side effects as well as do a little better at managing my anxiety symptoms. It's not going as well as I thought it might – the side effects of this one is ... uncomfortable. I get awakened in the middle of the night with some really bad reflux, my mouth constantly has a kind of metallic, rubbery taste, and I am sleeping too much again. But ... focus is a little better and sleep is more refreshing so I guess there is an upside.


This post originally appeared on fyrfli.me.


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

I will confess that while I absolutely LOVE writefreely ... I went ahead and looked for a python based blogging solution because ... well ... I would have to replace my blog at fyrfli.me with this blog and I am not 100% sure I am ready to do that yet. My search lead me to pelican which ... I must admit ... is SO MUCH FUN to work with that this site got left in the dark for a while.

Ultimately, I think I want a way to connect fyrfli.me to the #fediverse and that is going to mean figuring out how to activate RSS using pelican and build me a bot to post for me when I make a new post.

Sounds simple enough, but right now I am exhausted with the all the effort it took out of me to migrate all my VPS stuff onto a smaller VPS. I need to cut down on my expenses. The effort was solely in me trying to figure out how to:

(a) run nextcloud in docker with data storage on digitaloceanspaces.com (b) proxy to wordpress using nginx proxy manager (or NPM).

I haven't figured (a) out yet. And (b) ... well ... (b) wore me the fuck out. I ended up going back to a manual reverse proxy using nginx on the host machine. I suspect caddy would work better but I need to learn about it first.

And today, I have been messing around with it at home, but the issues I found with NPM haven't turned up since, but then again I haven't really tried to access anything using a connection that is pure ipv6 so .... fixed or not remains to be seen.

Anyway ... thought I would drop a line to let the fedi know what I have been up to ... long form. ;)


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

After a conversation with a friend about how reading had become more and more difficult for us as we aged, I decided to stop beating myself up for not reading as much as I used to.

For each of us, the circumstances why we found ourselves reading less than we once did are vastly different. For them, increasing demands at work and marriage and children were the biggest factors. For me, an escalation of my anxiety symptoms, coupled with reading fatigue after a graduate degree were mine. It also seemed as if my reading preferences had changed. I no longer enjoy horror and drama. I found I was more interested in nonfiction – biographical, political, social justice, and true crime. But it was also harder to sit and read for hours on end – I am also married with responsibilities.

One of the things I also noticed was what seemed at first to be an inability to focus on what I was currently reading. I would lose interest at some point and just stopped reading altogether. Our discussion helped me realise that that was perfectly acceptable and instead of stopping out of some sort of guilt or shame, to simply put the back on the shelf and choose another one. There really is no shame in having a dozen or so half-read books. Sometimes that's just the way things shape up.

And so ... since that discussion, I've started looking for more books that interest me. I just finished the first of Anne Rule's true crime series and I feel good about my reading for the first time in years. 😊


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

So I was able to use gpartd and remove the disk partitions. That allowed them to show up for the Manjaro installer. And I was able to install and use Manjaro.

The good news: I didn't brick my chromebook.

The bad news: I still am not using EndeavourOS.

I am going to try one more time with that strategy and see if I can get Endeavour to install this way and if that still doesn't work, I am just going to sit with Manjaro until I understand the whole UEFI/Legacy boot/MBR issue some more.


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

So I tried it. I backed up my chromebook, downloaded EndeavourOS, dd'd a USB stick with the iso, and installed.

The install itself went very well. But when it was time to boot into the newly installed OS ...

I get:

“Booting from 'endeavouros' failed: verify it contains a 64-bit UEFI OS”

I tried a few different ways, including tried updating the grub install and not even that worked. So I am going back to Manjaro for the time being.

/sigh

I sure know how to break things.


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

This puppy

Did this while I overslept:

/sigh


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

Nothing. A whole lot of nothing because my motivation and energy levels have been so low that I can barely put clothes on when I wake up. I am soooo tired. And I keep forgetting that rest and relaxation is just as important as working ... no matter what that work is.

I tend to get involved in something and I can't stop until it's done. Take for example that frontendmentor.io project I got into the other night. It took me two hours, but it was two hours waaaay past a reasonable bedtime and after several nights like that one, I am tired. REALLY tired.

Further, I saw a post on the fedi about Manjaro and that EndeavourOS is a better option. And now I am not entirely sure what to do. /sigh

Maybe what's best for me to do right now is just do nothing.

I still have to figure out forms in Django and Flask, so that's something I can probably get into when I feel a little better and leave the rest for the moment.

Yeah ... that sounds like a plan.


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

oh ... my ... I even got a mouse working with Manajaro ... color me impressed ...

what's on the agenda for today? probably nothing. Probably not a bad idea to just take a break and breathe for a bit


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

When I initially got this chromebook, I intended to install Arch Linux on it and learn another distro since I've been a Debian user for ages. But the Arch Linux didn't want to work and digging showed that this particular processor was not supported by Arch Linux.

I thought I had read somewhere that it is possible to build a kernel/version that does support it but that felt like a lot of work. I kept digging though because I know I can't have been the only person to want to do this. I think it was a reddit thread that introduced me to Manjaro so I had a looksee and decided to try it.

Backup the old debian install, burned an iso to my little USB drive, and hit the gas. I've been going at about 200kph since. The first install I borked because I think I got my password entered wrong at install. So I reinstalled. And now here I am with a basic setup. I've already sort of gotten the hang of the keyboard shortcuts on Manjaro. I've changed the default browser, added tmux and added my ssh key to my servers.

Looking around, I am finding that this is a MUCH better option than Debian. While Debian is stable and easy to use (for me, at least), it really does not do software upgrades too well. Like, I can't replace the python3.9 on Debian; I have to install Python3.10 alongside it. Manjaro already has the latest Python installed by default.

Oh yeah ... I am in geek heaven right now. Excuse me while I do some more experimenting...

I did realise that i3 works on Debian and briefly considered putting Debian back on this Chromebook ... but the trackpad works in Manjaro and doesn't in Debian so ... yeah ... I am sticking to Manjaro on here.


elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org

So the hubster and I pony up for a small Nitrado instance to run a private ARK server for ourselves and our friends. We've been playing with the core Primal Fear mod for a few weeks now and having tons of newly-discovered ARK fun ... except for the fact that the map we were playing on (Ragnarok) had a couple of dead spots start to crop up.

When I say “dead spot”, it's a spot on the map where the game client just crashes with a horrendously long error message (as ARK is wont to spit out) and the inability to actually interact with anything in that spot on the map. So far, we found two or three. So today, we sort of decided to move to a more stable map (Genesis II FTW) and start again. Hopefully with no client crashes.

I just wiped out the old map directory (or at least copied it somewhere else) so we can start afresh. The first startup is kinda long though ... hmmm ...



elsewhere on the fedi, you can find @fyrfli at: my misskey – bkgrdclrschm.link coffee! – mastodon.coffee fosstodon -fosstodon.org