2022-01-01

Hello 2022

So another year Gregorian Calendar style has begun. Hello New Year! And a Happy New Year to all, who adhere to this calendar. Good day to everyone!

How did I fare with the 2021 resolution?

/en/2021/20210101-Hello-2021.gmi

The Alfa is gone :-)

/en/2021/20210908-good-bye-alfa.gmi

Scanning Slides --- has not happened. I got a machine to do this, and I attempted to get the scanner going, but failed. My windows-literate colleage unfortunately was absent for several months, so no progress until now. Which means, this item stays on the list

I did not panic. Which is good, don't you think?

Two out of three, yes, well, but "the list" was much longer of course.

Best of 2021

I did so far not personally have to deal with SARS-COV2. Sure I'm vaccinated, but that doesn't garantee anything.

In June lightning struck in the neighbourhood and zapped the internet DSL Modem to death. Very fortunately, I had a second such modem in the cupboard, configured and all just for such an occasion. An hour or so later, my wifes homeoffice was online again. Of course I haved organized another spare modem in the meantime.

I wrote a little over 100 posts on this gemsite/capsule. That's like two per week. Excellent! I received a few very nice emails from fellow geminauts. And I send a number of hopefully nice emails myself. The lack of likes in gemini space is a good thing, imho. It raises the bar to respond by just so much, such that the responses can be a lot more thoughtful. Thanks to everyone, who contacted me or made an "Re:" post. You brightened my day.

I am still enjoying the old vinyl collection quite a bit. I even started to buy some more, mostly second hand.

My smart phone died and I'm "offline" again, as soon as I leave the door :)

2022 Resolution?

Get the scanner scanning. Left over from 2021. If there is no progress by 2023, abandon the whole thing.

A tech goal for a techie/nerd? Isn't that kind of boring? I mean, whenever I feel the irresistible urge to learn rust and rewrite everything I ever did with it ... I could start any ol'time, right? Same with Go, right? How about something a bit more challenging like

Learn Morse Code, aka CW (continuous wave)

or alternately

Learn to use dasher for computer input? Maybe, just maybe this could come in handy in the future?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software)

Dig out my Spanish again to the point that I can actually read "La region mas transparente" by Carlos Fuentes.

These days I thought that there should be one entry of a thing to let go. Let's face it, one cannot really increase the pile of wanted activity, while the available time to do this is not increasing at all. So? Giving away my guitar? Well, yes maybe, but that would not free up any time.

After more than 30 years I will not be a member of the youth hostel association any more. But that was quite easy and required only one email after the decision had been made. Already done. So it doesn't qualifiy for this list any more.

I will NOT cut the bushes and trees around the house any more. I will delegate this to my professional neighbor, who has already done some of it in the past. Ok, well. But does it hurt to let go? No. So it's still the wrong item for this list.

Give up the archery club? --- While this would surely free up some time, I do not consider this idea particularly brilliant. Because then I should have said "No" to the chairman role earlier last year. So no.

Stop teaching Linux classes? --- This would free up some time for 4 months of the year. Not sure, whether this is desirable.

Nonetheless, there is this thing, that would hurt to give up. Its a software project, where the benevolent dictator for life was called off this planet quite prematurely. I was his number one user. I really used this stuff. I send a lot of bug reports. I participated on the mailing list. I donated code snippets, documentation, and worked project descriptions. I gave talks about it here and there. I taught this stuff to others several times. I even met the author a few times in person and we had a very pleasant time. I managed to find a few very elusive bugs. I managed to find and fix a few not so obvious bugs. I was able to get authorization to manage the website and the subversion repository. All well then?

No. At the end of the day this project is too big for me. There is a fundamental difference between a "power user" and a "designer" of such a piece of software. It has grown over time to accomodate four target platforms, where I only know and use one of them. I would be interested in one other target, but I have not found the motivation and time to wrap my head around something quite different.

This project I should let go. But its not easy. I kind of owe the original author to at least keep the project available, with all its quirks and shortcomings. Nonetheless, this wonderful piece of programming art sits somewhat heavy on my mind and chest.

Choose wisely,

~ew

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