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<title>Mark Cornick&#39;s Blog</title>
<updated>2023-09-02T23:16:37Z</updated>
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<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/08/11/5q-august-2023/</id>
	<title>Five Questions August 2023</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2023-08-11T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/08/11/5q-august-2023/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">christyotwisty has questions, I have answers.

=> gopher://gopher.club/0/users/christyotwisty/phlog/2023-August-Five-Questions.txt


> What, if anything, do you try to commit (or limit) to an hour per day?

I try to limit TV watching to an hour a day, if that. If I'm watching something that goes longer than an hour, I'll not watch the next day to offset, etc.

I also try to exercise half an hour per day, but often fail. There are other things I should try to limit.

> Have you met your elected representative at the council, mayor, regional, or national level? Did your representative address you by name?

Not recently (since moving out of Maryland a few years back.) I got to meet several city councillors in the city where I lived in Maryland. Once, while at university, I got to meet the state's governor at the time. None of these people knew me by name.

> If you had the opportunity to attend any concert or music festival, past or present, which one would you choose and why?

I'm finding it hard to settle on one - my tastes in music are many and varied, and there are many opportunities I can think of to be present for live performance of any of them. I suppose I'd like to be present at the first performance of something new and controversial, like Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport festival, or the first live _Bitches Brew_, or even the premiere of Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_. I really enjoy being challenged by new music, so anything along those lines would be fun.

> What's the dumbest thing someone ever lied to you about?

My late wife once lied to me saying she had put Italian sausage in a dish, when she had put in some plant-based sausage substitute. I say this is the dumbest thing because I wouldn't have objected if she'd told me what it was up front, especially since it tasted good enough to fool me (and we had it again.)

> How often do you declutter the electronic media and files on your devices?

All the time. I cannot relate to the mindset of having bunches of files on the desktop, hundreds or thousands of messages in my inbox, so many browser tabs that you can't tell them apart, etc. All of that stuff gets cleaned up as I go, even if it does mean deleting things I end up needing later (which happens about once a year or so.)
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/07/03/5q-july-2023/</id>
	<title>Five Questions July 2023</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2023-07-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/07/03/5q-july-2023/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">It's that time again?

=> gopher://sdf.org/0/users/christyotwisty/phlog/2023-July-Five-Questions.txt


> What's your favourite way to stay active?

I have always enjoyed bicycling. My prior home (in Washington, DC) was in a neighborhood that was not too hilly and had good bike infrastructure, such as bike lanes, so I would bike often to and from places that were a little too far to walk but a litle too close to drive (the latter list being made longer by the fact that parking in DC is scarce and expensive.) My home before that (in Greenbelt, MD, a suburb of DC) was a few miles from the closest Metro station, so I would bike from home to the Metro and lock my bike in their bike garage (very handy!) then take the train into work.

These days, I don't bike as much, for two reasons: (a) I can walk to most things that I need (a supermarket is on the ground floor of my building, the nearest Metro is a little more than a five-minute walk, and my office is between my apartment and Metro); and (b) I have an elderly dog who gets audibly upset if I leave him alone, and taking him with me on bike rides isn't a realistic proposition.

> What's the best way to stay focused and productive?

Don't watch TV. If you must watch TV, don't watch TV news. If you must watch TV news, don't watch the 24-hour cable TV news. If you must watch that... no, you seriously shouldn't.

(I don't watch TV news, but I do watch soccer and hockey on TV. So do as I say, not as I do, I suppose.)

> If you could have any sport or game instantly mastered, unrelated to your current interests or abilities, which one would you choose and why?

I would choose basketball, so that when people who see my unusual height (6'4", 1.93 m) crack jokes about me playing basketball, I can answer in the affirmative, instead of coming back with "no, do you play miniature golf?"

> Share with me an interesting trivia tidbit about your favourite historical event.

One of my middle school teachers was in the running for NASA's Teacher In Space program in the mid-1980s. She was not selected. Of course, the teacher who was eventually selected, Christa McAuliffe, died aboard Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

(This is not my "favorite" historical event, but is one that was quite memorable for me. I remember it like my parents remembered the JFK assassination or the moon landing. I was in high school, about to go to science class where we were going to watch the launch, which would have happened just before the class started. Instead, we watched the aftermath. Hard to forget something like that.)

> Share a summer recipe.

Cold Brew Coffee

Ingredients: 2 cups cold water; 1 cup coffee beans (increase as desired, maintaining the 2:1 ratio)
Equipment: Coffee grinder; Chemex or French press; Chemex filter (optional)

1. Grind the beans as coarsely as your grinder will allow.
2. Mix ground coffee and water in Chemex or French press.
3. Refrigerate for 12-24 hours.
4. Separate the coffee grounds from the liquid and discard. I find removing the mixture from the Chemex, then running it through a filter back into the Chemex works well. (If you used too fine a ground in step 1, this step is much harder.)
5. Taste a small amount. If it's too strong for your taste, add water.

Serve chilled without ice; I prefer it black, or with a little vanilla or caramel syrup.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/06/24/5q-june-2023/</id>
	<title>Five Questions June 2023</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2023-06-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/06/24/5q-june-2023/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">Once again trying to keep up with christyotwisty's Five Questions.

=> gopher://sdf.org/0/users/christyotwisty/phlog/2023-June-Five-Questions.txt


> Describe the most expensive object you'd like to buy.

Part of me wants to say "nothing, I need to stop buying expensive things" but that's a copout.

Part of me wants to buy a new car, preferably electric (and preferably not a Tesla.) But a bigger part of me wants to not buy another car at all, and continue adjusting my life so I don't need to drive. Already I live above a supermarket, and five minutes from the Metro, so that eliminates a lot of driving for me.

I'll go with the car. Barring that, those Mac Studios look pretty sweet (but are also much, much more computer than I need.)

> What is something the generation preceding you loves that you don't understand?

"Smooth jazz."

> What is something the generation succeeding you loves that you don't understand?

Memes (in the internet sense, i.e. "I took some random picture from the internet and put some text on it. Now it's a meme!")

Bonus: Something the generation succeeding the meme generation loves that I don't understand: TikTok.

> what holiday in your calendar needs to be replaced, and with what other observation or commemoration?

I can't think of one currently, but I can think of one that was recently replaced: Virginia, my home state (I don't want to give you a kiss, sorry) had, for a long time, a holiday called Lee-Jackson Day, celebrating the lives of Confederate traitors Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. This was part of the decades of odious racism that followed the U.S. Civil War, and was celebrated around the same time as when we now celebrate Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. Indeed, for a time, the two holidays were celebrated on a single day as Lee-Jackson-King Day, which is still not even the largest insult perpetrated on Black Virginians by their government (King later got his own day separate from the traitors.)

In 2020, as part of the wave of reckoning following the murder of George Floyd, Virginia did away with Lee-Jackson Day. It is not missed. It was replaced on the state holiday calendar with Election Day, which should have been a state holiday all along. (Unlike most U.S. states, Virginia has state elections in odd-numbered years, combined with the even-numbered federal election years, so there is an election every year, making Election Day work as a holiday.)

> what do you think it means to be redeemed? Have you felt redeemed at one time? Can one be redeemed an iota without the drama of a constructed fiction narrative?

I don't believe in redemption in the religious, or at least Christian, sense of the word. I'm not sure I believe in it in a secular sense, either. To me it implies that something you have done has magically undid some prior malfeasance on your part, which is rarely the case.  In the case when that actually does happen (to some extent if not entirely), such as returning something that has been stolen or righting some prior wrong, there is often a better word, such as "restitution" or "correction."
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/06/24/kiln-notes-avoiding-duplicate-pages/</id>
	<title>Kiln notes: avoiding duplicate pages</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2023-06-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/06/24/kiln-notes-avoiding-duplicate-pages/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I'm using Kiln to manage this site. Kiln is a static site generator that has especially good support for the Gemini format, which I'm trying to get back into.

=> https://git.sr.ht/~adnano/kiln Kiln

Kiln is very flexible about what types of inputs it will accept and what outputs it will create from them. However, it's not always easy to get good-looking HTML and good-looking Gemini text (aka GMI) from the same input, so sometimes I want to have a Markdown version for HTML output, in addition to the native GMI format.

I initially did this using this Kiln config setting[a], which mostly worked, except that when there was both a Markdown and GMI version of the input, the resulting HTML would be listed twice in the posts index. This is, obviously, not what I wanted. What I wanted was for HTML to be generated from a Markdown source if available, and only if no Markdown was available, for a GMI source to be used.

=> https://git.sr.ht/~mcornick/mcornick.srht.site/tree/main/item/config.toml#L20 [a]

It turns out there's a way to do this. In the frontmatter of input files, you can set the outputs variable, which specifies which formats should be generated from that input. (Technically, it specifies which Kiln "tasks" to run, but since I have one task for each output format, it amounts to the same thing.) By default, if outputs isn't set, it gets generated for all formats. So all I needed to do was, for each GMI file that has a corresponding Markdown file, set outputs: ["Gemini"] in that file's frontmatter.  And bam, no more duplicated posts! For example, compare the Markdown source for this page with the GMI source.

=> https://git.sr.ht/~adnano/kiln/tree/master/item/docs/kiln.1.scd#L119 outputs
=> https://git.sr.ht/~mcornick/mcornick.srht.site/blob/main/content/posts/kiln-notes-avoiding-duplicate-pages.md Markdown source
=> https://git.sr.ht/~mcornick/mcornick.srht.site/blob/main/content/posts/kiln-notes-avoiding-duplicate-pages.gmi GMI source

I don't know how many people use Kiln, so this post may be of very limited interest to anyone other than me, but I figured I'd share it and let the search engines find it, in case someone else has this same problem in the future. Teamwork, dreamwork and all that.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/06/24/my-back-pages/</id>
	<title>My Back Pages</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2023-06-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/06/24/my-back-pages/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">Over the years, my efforts at blogging have been variously on and off, more off than on. Nevertheless, I've tried, and when I've succeeded, I've tried to pull in the prior attempts as well.

Hence, I have recovered some of my old blog posts going back almost ten years (but not continuously through those ten years.) Note that some of the links in these old posts may no longer work.

Hope you enjoy reading through this stuff that I never intended to be held for this much posterity.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/05/09/better-living-through-old-computers/</id>
	<title>Better Living Through Old Computers</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2023-05-09T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/05/09/better-living-through-old-computers/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I've been trying to wean myself off the yearly cycle of buying new tech.  Be it phones or laptops or whatever, it's expensive and I'm not really using the "new and improved" features. In fact, my needs are pretty low-tech. I am comfortable in old UNIX and text-based applications. I don't need advanced graphics or cloud synchronization or whatever the AI flavor of the day is.

At the same time, I'm not into nostalgia for its own sake. If I'm going to continue to use older computers, they need to work well on Today's Modern Internet. The software needs to be current, and I like having reasonably fast network connectivity. Old spinning hard drives need to be replaceable with SSDs.

Lately I've been having fun refurbishing old computers (Thinkpads mostly, from about 2008 onward) with new components, OpenBSD, and Libreboot. I'm typing this from one right now, actually. Old Thinkpads are really cheap on sites like eBay, which is good since I've bricked a few in learning my way around external BIOS flashing. They're also very easy to work on, with (in most cases) easy-to-disassemble cases and mostly standard components that are still readily available. OpenBSD suits me well (it reminds me of SunOS, my first UNIX) and works admirably on this era of hardware. Libreboot provides a current BIOS that removes things like WiFi card whitelists (so I can use newer cards) and the Intel Management Engine (which is a backdoor I don't need.)

I've done a few of these now, and it's been a blast. I get to reconnect with some of the electrical engineering I haven't done professionally, and I'm saving some old hardware from ending up in a junk heap somewhere far away. If one of these laptops breaks, I've got spares.

Granted, this isn't for everyone, not even entirely for me. I still have a MacBook and I still use it for things that it's good at. But I'm not planning on buying another Mac for the foreseeable future; not when I'm getting such good results from my refurbishing efforts.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/05/02/5q-may-2023/</id>
	<title>Five Questions May 2023</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2023-05-02T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2023/05/02/5q-may-2023/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">> How would you describe sleep to an alien?

"You close your eyes, nothing happens for a while, and then you're in this alternate universe where none of the laws of time or physics apply. Then you 'wake up' back in your previous universe, confused about what you just experienced."

> What in your opinion is a fascinating cultural tradition or  practice?

I sometimes enjoy watching the Gaelic games, hurling and Gaelic football, which were developed in Ireland in antiquity and promoted in modern times as an assertion of Irish identity, as opposed to British or English and the games they invented, such as soccer. To this day, the Gaelic games are almost exclusively played either on the island of Ireland, or by Irish people abroad. They used to be on local public TV here, but that stopped years ago.

> What's a beverage you loved, but was discontinued?

When I lived in Washington, DC, I was two blocks from a microbrewery that made a great ale with a lot of rye (this part of the US has a long history of making rye whiskey, so it checks out.) Sadly, it was discontinued sometime in the depths of the pandemic, although it returned for a brief time last year.

> Have you ever experienced a "healing crisis" or withdrawal  symptoms while recovering your health?

Not really. I did once experience withdrawal from a medication that wasn't administered to me when I was hospitalized after a reckless driver hit me on the Beltway, but I don't think that's quite what you're getting at here.

> Have you recently had a rediscovery?

Much like I came to appreciate jazz more after I left music school, the same is now true of 20th century classical music.  I'm enjoying the works of Reich, Riley, Glass, et al much more now that I don't have an overbearing music prof telling me about them with disdain.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/12/13/law-of-mobility/</id>
	<title>The Law Of Mobility</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-12-13T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/12/13/law-of-mobility/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">Open Space Technology is a means for organizing meetings, discussions, seminars, and the like. As opposed to other methods which depend on lots of pre-planning, Open Spaces ask the participants to create the agenda and the ways of carrying it out. The idea is to recognize that those who are most interested in a particular topic are also most likely to want to foster discussion of it.

=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology

This post isn't really about Open Space Technology, but about one of its central tenets. It was once called the Law Of Two Feet, as in the two feet you should use to move about, but since that's discriminatory to those who don't have feet or can't use them, it's now usually called the Law Of Mobility, and it goes something like:

"If you find yourself in a situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, go someplace else."

The intent here is to convey the agency that each participant has over their own participation. If you are enjoying the conversation, contributing to it, and/or learning from it, that's a good place for you to be, and you should stay. If you are not, then it's time to go and find something else that is more fulfilling.

I feel like the Law Of Mobility is applicable to, and should be applied in, much more situations than just Open Spaces. Really, it applies to any kind of community in which you have the choice to participate. If it's fulfilling to you to participate in said community, that's the place for you to be. If it's unfulfilling, then it's probably best that you leave.

This becomes especially true if the community has some code or rules that make you uncomfortable. If you cannot be fulfilled in a community while following its code of conduct, then it's not the right place for you. It is instead the right place for people who can abide by that code and reach fulfillment through being active there. No community is right for absolutely everyone. No community that is wrong for you should make an attempt to accommodate you, nor should you change to fit in there.

I bring this up in the context of the various public access systems that I've been active in this year. Most of them have codes of conduct. Most of them are somewhat similar; they are variations on a central theme of "don't be an asshole", with the differences basically coming down to an enumeration of the ways one could be an asshole in contradiction of the code, and how such assholedness would be dealt with. The point, though, is this: these are all free systems, operated by people (usually at their own expense) who have a certain outcome they hope to achieve by operating them. They are using the Law Of Mobility to contribute to something they find enjoyable or useful. They are writing the codes of conduct to ensure it stays that way. But at no point are they requiring you to follow a code of conduct you disagree with, when you have the option under the Law Of Mobility to go elsewhere.

The moral of the story is this: if you disagree with the way something is run, use the Law Of Mobility to find something else. Create it yourself, if you need to. Leave the thing that is wrong for you to the people for whom it is right. Let them seek fulfillment there as you seek fulfillment elsewhere. Simple, right?

And you need not feel remorse, anger, sadness, or obligation towards a community that is not right for you. Consider it an experiment that didn't yield the desired results. Remember, there is no such thing as a failed experiment, as long as it yields data; even if that data is "Don't do that again."

Find the things that work for you. Shun the things that don't. That's the way to happiness, really.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/10/16/this-has-been-the-freshmaker-show/</id>
	<title>This Has Been The Freshmaker Show</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-10-16T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/10/16/this-has-been-the-freshmaker-show/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">The upcoming 40th episode of The Freshmaker Show, at 0000 UTC on October 19, will be the last.

As I mentioned in my last post, it's become somewhat of a grind to do two shows a week, and with more commitments coming to my schedule this fall and winter, something has to give. So I will draw the Freshmaker Show to a close with a Very Special EpisodeTM this coming week.

Listener counts have been very low on tilderadio the last several weeks, and while I do feel bad for the few people who are still listening, and know that my departure won't help much in that regard, the good news is there are new DJs coming on board at tilderadio that will keep the lights on there and take the channel in new directions. I hope those faithful listeners will show these new DJs the same love that was shown to me when I got started back in January.

I am going to continue doing Giant Steps. I still enjoy doing a show, and there is a lot of jazz territory left to cover with more listeners around to enjoy it. Once I've had time to decompress and relax, I have some other show ideas which I'll try to get onto either tilderadio or aNONradio.

Once again, thank you to everyone who tuned into the Freshmaker Show over these past nine months. Be seeing you...
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/09/16/changes-at-the-freshmaker-show/</id>
	<title>Changes At The Freshmaker Show</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-09-16T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/09/16/changes-at-the-freshmaker-show/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">For the past eight months and a few weeks, I've been doing The Freshmaker Show, first with a weekly eclectic set on tilderadio, then with a second show on aNONradio, focusing on jazz.

=> https://tilderadio.org/
=> https://anonradio.net/

I have called both of these The Freshmaker Show, and I've decided that is a bit confusing. Therefore, starting with tonight's show, I'll be calling the jazz show Giant Steps. (Because I'm a Coltrane fan, and because at 6'4" and 270 pounds, every step I make is a giant step.) Nothing else will be changing for the jazz show.

For the eclectic show, I'll still be calling it The Freshmaker Show, and it'll still air at the same time on tilderadio... for now. To be honest, I'm getting a bit burned out, and if I had to choose one show to draw to a close, it'd be that one. I'd feel bad about it, because tilderadio is where I got my streaming radio start at the beginning of this year, and its listeners have been very loyal, even with the departure of many key DJs from the schedule. So I'm keeping the flame alive for as long as I feel I can. All good things do come to an end, and while the end isn't here yet for either show, I have to be realistic and think about how much longer I can do two shows. The answer is I can still do it, at least for the time being. How much longer is to be determined.

I know this news will disappoint some very loyal listeners, and to you, I'm sorry. The good news is that nothing is changing yet on the tilderadio side, so please continue to tune in at 0000 UTC on Tuesdays. And for the jazz lovers, the newly-renamed Giant Steps is on aNONradio at 0000 UTC on Fridays.

As always, thank you for tuning in and making this fun. I may not have a lot of listeners, but they are engaged and enthusiastic in a way thousands of radio listeners can't be. That's what makes it fun. Cheers!
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/07/04/phone-experiment-update/</id>
	<title>Phone Experiment Update</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-07-04T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/07/04/phone-experiment-update/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">A few months back, I posted about an experiment I was undertaking in using a CalyxOS phone with mostly free/open source software as my daily driver. Here's an update.

=> https://mcornick.com/blog/2021/04/30/a-phone-experiment/
=> https://calyxos.org/

First of all, I've switched back and forth a few times. This was to be expected; I've been using iPhones so long that I have lots of muscle and mental memory built up on how to do things. There are, simply, some things that are easier to do on my old phone. But I've mostly found ways to do the same on CalyxOS.

I really like the DuckDuckGo browser included with CalyxOS, but its "burn after reading" privacy model makes staying logged into things a hassle unless you "fireproof" the site (read: exempt the site from the privacy model that is the main reason for running the DDG browser.) For the most part, this isn't a problem; logging in again is easy enough. For some sites, however, it's a pain. I try not to "fireproof" many sites, but it's there as an option.

Speaking of logging in, I downloaded (from F-Droid) an excellent app for the pass password store, which I use to keep track of hundreds of passwords. Combined with the OpenKeychain PGP app that's included with CalyxOS, this allows me to do password autofilling in the DDG browser (and others.)

=> https://f-droid.org/
=> https://www.passwordstore.org/

Another app I've greatly enjoyed is Termux, which provides both a terminal emulator and a comprehensive set of packages running on CalyxOS's Linux kernel. I don't often want to drop into a terminal on such a small device, but with Termux, it's there, and without having to do any additional hacks beyond what was needed to install CalyxOS in the first place (in other words, this should work fine on a stock Android phone as well.)

=> https://termux.com/

As for the Aurora app allowing access to apps from the Google Play marketplace, it's a mixed bag. Several apps that I may have wanted to run either are not there at all, or are there but require proprietary Android bits that CalyxOS has removed, making the resulting download unusable. Long term, I've only kept two proprietary apps from Aurora, Twitter and WhatsApp, both of which I use only because too many friends and/or family use them. I'm not a big fan of either, but I'm also not going to convince everyone to drop these apps and use free substitutes. That said, I do use free substitutes when people I want to communicate with also use them, and I've installed things like Tusky for Mastodon and Element for Matrix.

=> https://tusky.app/
=> https://element.io/

Some things are just easier without the old phone. I had my Smartrip card (for DC area transit) on my iPhone, but am finding the good old physical card is faster. Same goes for tap-to-pay, which I'm not using on the new phone. And the Pixel's fingerprint reader is a hell of a lot more convenient than facial recognition, even as the need to wear a mask in public is diminishing.

Overall, the experience has been positive, if not without the need to make a lot of adjustments to habits and methods. I anticipate I'll stick with this phone for some time to come. If you want to try, I highly recommend it.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/06/30/five-answers-july-2021/</id>
	<title>Five Answers, July 2021</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-06-30T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/06/30/five-answers-july-2021/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I am going to try to answer Christina's Five Questions more often. In keeping with the spirit in which Ms. O'Twisty presents the questions, my answers are available in Gemini format.

=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/users/christina/
=> gemini://tilde.team/~mcornick/

Five items you are most likely to buy at a convenience store?

Diet cola; coffee; snack foods; antacids; some fifth thing that would further justify the fourth thing. I don't smoke, don't do drugs, and drink alcohol very sparingly, so junk food is my main vice and heartburn is my penance for said vice.

Tell me about the last book you read.

Dull documentation for work. Oh, you mean for fun? A Dance With Dragons, the fifth in the Song Of Ice And Fire series by George R. R. Martin, known far and wide as the basis for the Game of Thrones TV series. I resolved to read the books before watching the corresponding TV episodes. This worked well until the TV diverged radically from the books. Anyway, I enjoyed both. I still don't read much for fun, though.

Do you have a favourite postage stamp?

A few years ago the USPS and Canada Post jointly issued a series of stamps featuring the history of hockey. Those were pretty cool.

What is your current favourite hobby?

DJing on tilderadio and anonradio. Takes me back to when I was a DJ on a "real" FM radio station in college. Our station was only 390 watts of power due to being in a "quiet zone" established for the benefit of radioastronomy and spying - barely enough to reach the entire town we were in. But, as Kick-Ass said, with no power comes no responsibility, and we had a lot of fun.

Who was the most famous person you shook hands with?

I got to meet Dave Matthews when his band came to play a benefit concert put on by said college radio station, before they became big international pop stars. He and his band got their start in Charlottesville, where I'm from. Nice guy, very good to the community, but I can't stand his music. /shrug
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/04/30/a-phone-experiment/</id>
	<title>A Phone Experiment</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-04-30T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/04/30/a-phone-experiment/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">Like the majority of people who carry smartphones, I've stuck to the stock operating system on them over the years. My preference has been for iOS, since I've used Apple gear for over 30 years, but I've used Android, too. I've also come to appreciate that, while I can't know exactly how phone makers use my information, Apple has less incentive to be evil; they are primarily a hardware company that has a small advertising business, as opposed to Google, which is primarily an advertising company that has a small hardware business. As online advertising necessarily depends on evil, the contrast is obvious.

Which leads to my next point: like many (but probably not the majority), I've also been concerned about privacy, tracking, and other associated nefariousness connected with smartphones. My approach is a little less paranoid than some: as the son of a former civilian scientist who held top secret clearances with the US Army, I've always assumed the government had a file on me whether I want them to or not. Likewise, I've always understood that, for instance, being a homeowner meant my name and home address were public knowledge. I am not looking to, and could not, "disappear" from the internet. It's just not possible. But, I can also make it a little more difficult for those who would seek to "know" me through my online activities.

So for the month of May (actually, I started this a few days ago, but let's go with May) I'm trying something new: using a phone without as much tracking/analytics/other evil as I can manage. Here's how:



=> https://calyxos.org/



=> https://f-droid.org/



=> https://microg.org/



As I said, I'm not aiming for a perfectly "invisible" state. I'm still using the same SIM card that I had in my iPhone. I'm still assuming that anyone who really wants to know who I am can probably find out. And I'm not planning on starting a life of crime. I'm just another average dude using a phone. If those doing surveillance are looking for wheat, I'm chaff. But at least I'm making it a little harder for them, while not making things overly hard on myself.

So that's my plan. After a month or so, I should know if this is really a viable way forward. So far, it looks good; there are just a few habits and behaviors that will need adjustment, which will come with time.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/04/24/coming-to-anonradio/</id>
	<title>Coming to aNONradio!</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-04-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/04/24/coming-to-anonradio/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">As you probably know if you read here regularly, I do The Freshmaker Show on tilderadio. I'm excited to announce that I'll soon be doing a second show on aNONradio, this one airing at 0000 UTC on Fridays (Thursday evenings North American time.) The shows will have different music; one won't be a rerun of the other. Just like I hang out on tilde.chat during my shows and banter with my listeners, I plan to do the same on SDF's com chat.

=> https://tilderadio.org/
=> https://anonradio.net/
=> https://tilde.chat/

Thanks to the folks at SDF for hooking me up with a slot. I look forward to being able to share even more of my musical mind with you.

=> https://sdf.org/

(As an odd counterpoint to this, there will be no tilderadio live show this coming week due to a schedule conflict, so the next live show will be the first anonradio show.)
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/03/24/fsf-rms-wtf/</id>
	<title>FSF/RMS/WTF</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-03-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/03/24/fsf-rms-wtf/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">Update: After weeks of radio silence, both FSF and RMS have issued statements. The statements acknowledge that mistakes were made, apologize for certain things, and overall seem sincere. I will take them as such and thank them for their sincerity.

=> https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-of-richard-stallman
=> https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community

I'm still not going to support the FSF, however. My criticism of their drift in focus from advocating for Free Software (capital F and S) to bullying and belittling un-Free software, and those who make a free choice to use it, stands, and I don't see anything in these statements to indicate that either the FSF or RMS intend to change their approach. Again, I believe the Free Software idea is strong enough to stand alone as the FSF's focus without jeremiads against the un-Free world detracting from it. If anything, I think it's stronger now than it was when I first raised the issue at LibrePlanet, in spite of the FSF's drift in messaging. Should FSF and RMS (who, as I said before, is the FSF, with all apologies to the other board members, staff, and supporters) choose to moderate their approach and return to their original focus on Free Software, I might consider being a supporter again. Since I, the FSF, and RMS would likely all agree that this is unlikely to happen, my non-support stands.

My original post follows.

~~~~~~~~

I think it is possible to acknowledge and admire the good deeds of a leader while acknowledging that they hold/held beliefs and/or do/did actions that make it impossible to be an effective leader.

RMS' idea for GNU was brilliant. The software he produced, and the software that others produced because they were inspired by him, created not just a movement but an entire class of operating systems and applications. His position in computing history should not be in dispute, or subject to erasure due to factors that have nothing to do with computing.

I once was an FSF associate member. In that capacity, I went to one of the Libreplanet conferences. In an open Q&A session, I rose to express concern that the FSF's tendency to refer to unfree hardware by names like "the Kindle Swindle" and "iBad" constituted name-calling and thus bullying, and that (a) the Free Software idea was strong enough to stand alone as FSF's objective without belittling the unfree world, and (b) as a parent I wanted Free Software to be the predominant idea of my kid's generation, and being associated with name-calling and bullying didn't advance that and in fact hurt the FSF's position. tl;dr "We're better than this" (or we should be.)

The FSF staff moderator (I don't recall now who it was) replied that RMS was behind this and the question should really be addressed to him. In a later session, RMS basically dismissed the question, calling these bullying terms "their true names" or something to that effect.

FSF started to lose me at that point. I was extensively bullied as a kid, and I recognize bullying when I see it. To see bullying dismissed as no big deal by the FSF's founder and leader, and his staff decline to go against that position, poisoned the well for me. I let my membership lapse some years ago.

Seeing the current FSF board reseat RMS didn't surprise me. It didn't surprise me because, to paraphrase Louis XIV, "le FSF, c'est lui." There are good people in the FSF, but ultimately, if they're not willing to go against RMS, then RMS is the FSF. That he is returning to the FSF after leaving due to his repugnant opinions reinforces that he always was the heart and soul of the FSF. And now, even though that heart and soul is infected with this controversy, the FSF has apparently realized they can't survive divorced from him. Who can survive without a heart and soul, really?

I didn't sign the "open letter", and won't, because as a lapsed FSF member, non-GPL developer, and all-around nobody in the greater scheme, I don't think I'm in a similar position to the other signatories. I also think this open letter is ultimately doomed to be ignored by the FSF, although I will happily eat these words if they act upon it. But I agree with the gist of it: that RMS' divisive opinions and actions on matters unrelated to the FSF, repeatedly acted out and publicly stated by the man himself, make him unsuitable as a leader of an organization that seeks to unite people behind a cause. He should resign (again), and the FSF should figure out whether it can continue to exist independent of his leadership. I hope that it can - in spite of my disagreements with it and its founder, I feel like it has a useful purpose and, with some new blood and appreciative inquiry, could do great things. But having RMS and his opinions and actions on board is like a pair of cement overshoes at this point. As someone said on the bird site, yes, he accomplished a lot, but think of all the accomplishments we missed by people who were otherwise sympathetic but whom he drove away.

A leader can't drive people away. That defeats the entire purpose of leadership. It's to inspire, not to repel. If you believe that people who were repelled by RMS had and have no place in Free Software, well, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. But I, clearly, disagree.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/03/01/old-hardware/</id>
	<title>In Praise Of Old Hardware</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-03-01T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/03/01/old-hardware/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I have been fortunate over the years to use a variety of state-of-the-art hardware for my work and play. I've used several generations of MacBooks, as well as highly tuned modern Windows machines. Whether supplied by my employers or purchased for my own use, I've had access to the best.

And yet, these days, the machine I find myself using the most (including to write this very post) is a ThinkPad W500, which hasn't been state-of-the-art for at least a decade now, probably longer. Why is that?

For one thing, the build quality is superb. ThinkPads of the W500's generation are famous for their quality keyboards, the TrackPoint device, and their bento-box design. Yes, the thing is as heavy as two or three MacBooks, but I'm not hauling it to too many places these days.

Unlike many modern machines, the ThinkPad was also designed to be repaired. Swapping the old, slow wifi card for a newer model was a matter of removing several screws, gently removing the keyboard, removing a few more screws, and switching the card. Same went for swapping in new RAM when one of the old DIMMs went bad. Switching to an SSD was even easier. None of this is impossible on modern systems, but they make it a whole lot harder.

The limited horsepower compared to this year's model is not a big problem for me. I don't run things like machine learning or AAA games on this machine. I've tried several versions of Linux (and recently settled on NixOS; maybe that's a future post) as well as the BSDs, and they all run fine. I even use this ThinkPad to stream my weekly radio show using the excellent and free Mixxx DJ software, without the machine suffering at all. Sure, this would all run fine on the latest and greatest, but it's not required.

=> https://mixxx.org/

This machine is even hackable to remove the proprietary BIOS (which needed to be done to support that newer, faster widi card) and replace it with Coreboot. I got someone else to do this for me, but if I felt like acquiring the necessary tools and expertise, I could've done it myself. Try that with today's increasingly-locked-down machines.

=> https://www.coreboot.org/

And lastly, I'm happy knowing I've taken some steps off the planned-obsolescence cycle. When I moved last year, I threw out (well, responsibly recycled) lots of old electronics. I don't anticipate throwing out this machine any time soon. With the repairability I mentioned earlier, and spare parts fairly easy to find, it'll take something extremely complex and heavyweight to make this machine unusable. This is good for sustainability, the planet, etc. as well as my wallet.

Granted, it's not for everyone. If you are a gamer, or a high-end graphics specialist, or just the type of person who wants "nothing but the best", my ThinkPad probably isn't for you. But if your needs are more like mine, you can probably get a machine much like this one for much less than you'd pay for something newer, less flexible, with a shorter life span. And it just might work for you like it does for me. Good luck!
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/27/five-answers/</id>
	<title>Five Answers</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-01-27T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/27/five-answers/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">Answers to Christina's Five Questions (in native Gemini format here):

=> https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/users/christina/
=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/users/christina/

This year, did you try reading a book in a genre you usually don't gravitate to? What did you think of it?

Not yet. I honestly don't read much for pleasure. (Shock! Horror!) But I'll probably get to this eventually.

Have you ever made a New Year's resolution that you stuck to? (Are you still sticking to it?)

I resolved to lose weight this year, and I was down about 19 pounds at last weigh-in, due to diet changes and an adjustment to my blood sugar medication. I'm pretty psyched about this but also realize there's more that I can do. So yes, I'm sticking to it.

What does "healthy" mean to you?

Good question. For a long time I have been reasonably well and un-sick, while also having a few chronic conditions under control (see previous answer.) By those terms, I could be considered "healthy" and I did so consider myself. But recent deaths and unwellness in the family have made me reconsider this and try to take a more active approach towards eliminating chronic conditions or at least having them reduced to less concerning levels (such as my weight - again, see previous answer.) So maybe I consider myself less "healthy" overall, although certainly not in imminent danger of death. tl;dr I dunno?

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Definitely a night owl.

Will you get the COVID vaccine? Why or why not?

Yes. I am at high risk due to having ruptured and subsequently lost my spleen when hit by an out-of-control driver on the Beltway many years ago, as well as other underlying conditions. I trust in science and medicine, and believe it is the right thing to do for me and those who depend on me. That said, I was already a crowd-avoider before the pandemic, and continue thus, so if I have to wait my turn for the vaccine (and it appears, based on current DC Health guidelines, that I will) it is not a big deal to me.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/23/my-home-vps-test-lab/</id>
	<title>My Home VPS Test Lab</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-01-23T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/23/my-home-vps-test-lab/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I learn by doing; always have. If I want to learn how something is done, the most effective way for me is not to read about it, or to listen to someone talk about it, but to get my hands dirty doing it. It's true for so many things I've learned, but especially my trade of UNIX system administration. Ever since I first got root on a UNIX system (my first Slackware installation way back in 1994) it's been this way. Sure, I've looked at the man pages from time to time, and read a tutorial or two, but mostly, it's just been a matter of, to use old BASIC terminology, poking and peeking and seeing where it gets me.

Over the past several years, that experimentation has often taken place on VPS instances I've rented from various providers. For $5/month, you can have a VPS with about a gigabyte of ram, one CPU, and a big enough disk to install the OS and a bunch of packages, from any of a number of providers. This makes the cost of entry for experimental instances pretty low, and I've had great success trying things this way.

And yet, I was ignoring a resource available to me essentially for free (in that I've already paid for it): a PC under my desk that I used to use for gaming. I put Debian on it several months ago, and it works great, but I wasn't using it to its full potential. My daily driver these days is a MacBook Air, so the PC was mostly sitting there.

And then one day I heard about Proxmox Virtual Environment, a customized Debian distribution which provides a solid UI around the QEMU/KVM hypervisor system. From its web UI, you can create and monitor virtual machines running all kinds of operating systems. While there are paid subscriptions available, Proxmox is perfectly usable without one.

=> https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve

The machine has 12 Intel i7-8700 cores, 32 GB of RAM, and 2 TB of disk (not including the NVMe boot disk.) That's plenty of horsepower to run a bunch of instances comparable to the VPSes I mentioned above. In the end, I settled on 12 VMs with 1 CPU, 2 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of disk each, with the following operating systems:



That's 12 systems, running the gamut from Linux to BSD to Solaris, all at my fingertips whenever I'm at home (which, let's be fair, is pretty much all the time under current conditions), all for essentially nothing (given that the hardware is already paid for.) And I've got plenty of room to try other things if I want.

If you've got a spare PC at home and want to explore the world of open-source virtualization, give Proxmox a try! It's powerful yet very approachable, and you can have a home VPS test lab like mine in no time.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/11/unix-refused-to-die/</id>
	<title>UNIX - the operating system that refused to die</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-01-11T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/11/unix-refused-to-die/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">The UNIX operating system traces its roots to 1970. On UNIX, time is calculated as the number of seconds since midnight UTC on January 1, 1970. At that time, it was an internal system within Bell Labs. Within a few years, UNIX was available to the public at large. And thus began a journey that, remarkably, continues unabated to the current day.

Almost no one runs the original UNIX any more. Along the way, various hardware manufacturers created their own versions. Sun had SunOS (later Solaris), SGI had IRIX, HP had HP/UX, IBM had AIX, and so on and so forth. Academics tended to prefer the Berkeley Software Distributions (BSD) from the University of California. And by the 1990s, Linux, a free version of the kernel of UNIX, combined with various other free software from BSD, the GNU project, and others, meant everyone could run a UNIX-style system on commodity PC hardware. Linux, plus free BSD variants like FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, opened up UNIX to a whole new audience.

The continued rise and expansion of UNIX and descendants paralleled the explosion of the Internet. Although non-UNIX systems have always been present on the net, UNIX, and especially Linux, have made up a significant percentage of systems that serve email, the web, and so on. There's a very good chance that any web site you go to is powered at some point by some version of UNIX. The same can be said for your email.

Along the way, public UNIX systems (or "pubnix" systems) have popped up. These allow the public at large to connect to a UNIX server and receive mail, interact with other users, and so on. Before the era of telecom companies providing email, and later services like Hotmail and Gmail, this was how a lot of people got their first experience with the Internet.

SDF is a longtime pubnix host that is still going strong after more than 30 years. Recently, a number of "tilde" pubnix servers have popped up and a new generation of people are discovering UNIX. I've been exploring these servers this new year, and it's been a lot of fun. Each of them runs versions of UNIX that are similar enough to be familiar, yet quirky enough to be interesting and differentiate themselves. For an "old school" UNIX guy like me, that's interesting.

=> https://sdf.org/
=> https://tildeverse.org/

More than 50 years on, UNIX has thrived where other operating systems have fallen to the wayside. And it's not just thriving on web servers that no one ever really logs into, but on multi-user systems that bring back a sense of what the net used to be. That makes me smile.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/04/back-in-the-saddle/</id>
	<title>Back in the Saddle</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-01-04T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/04/back-in-the-saddle/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I did my first episode of the Moose Hour tonight. This was the first time I've done a radio show, live or otherwise, since I graduated from university way back in 1996. Yep, 25 years. That's a long time.

And, aside from a few minor technical glitches (which are to be expected, after all) it went great! It felt like old times, just playing music and talking about it. I'm looking forward to doing it again.

I'm going to be accumulating playlists in a section of this site. It's linked from the home page and the first playlist from tonight's show is already up.

I'm grateful to the folks at tilderadio for giving me a time slot and to my fellow DJs and other listeners who tuned in. I very much appreciate the community-oriented, people-over-profit approach of the tildeverse and urge other people who remember the way the Internet "used to be" to check it out.

=> https://tilderadio.org/
=> https://tildeverse.org/
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/02/dc-vs-washington/</id>
	<title>The District vs. Washington</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-01-02T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/02/dc-vs-washington/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I live in the District of Columbia, known locally as "DC", and worldwide as the location of Washington, the capital of the United States.

Outside DC, people tend to use the terms interchangeably, but here, we like to make a distinction:







So remember, when you're complaining about the government in Washington, don't blame DC. DC doesn't like Washington any more than you do; in fact, most of us like it even less because of the countless ways Washington screws us over.

Thanks!

(Some of you will say "well, actually, DC is the Federal District provided for in the Constitution which contains the city of Washington blah blah blah..." You are technically correct, the worst kind of correct. You win nothing. Please don't say DC when you mean Washington. Thanks.)
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/01/starting-over/</id>
	<title>Starting Over</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2021-01-01T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2021/01/01/starting-over/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I've tried blogging at various times over the years. My most recent run was from 2013-2017 in which I averaged about one post a year. Suffice it to say, I wasn't into it.

I'm trying to get back into it. Recently I've renewed my focus on the Internet outside of the big social networks; the network as it used to be, back when I first cut my teeth in the 1990s and 2000s. As part of that, I'm making a 2021 goal of writing more, or at least more often. And it starts here, now.

Thanks for reading!
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2017/10/23/closing-time/</id>
	<title>Closing Time</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2017-10-23T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2017/10/23/closing-time/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">Yesterday, DC United played their final match at RFK Stadium. For the first time since it opened in 1961 as DC Stadium, RFK has no tenants. United is moving to Audi Field in Southwest next year, and threw a big "Last Call at RFK" party to mark the end of this era.

The less said about the actual game, the better. United started strong, but folded late, and with some help from the officials, the New Jersey Red Bulls headed home with the win. They're off to the playoffs, where they will certainly fail as they always do. United, on the other hand, finishes dead last in the Eastern Conference, and tied (on points) for dead last in the league with the LA Galaxy, another historically great team which had a historically bad year. (United did win one more match than the Galaxy, so we escape the Wooden Spoon on that tiebreaker.)

RFK was a lot of things for a lot of people. For those who were longtime, hardcore supporters of United or the local NFL franchise that once played there, RFK was home for several weekends a year. Tailgates in the parking lot were always epic. Friendships, partnerships, even marriages were born of the time spent there.

For me? It's only been in the last few years that I've been a season ticket holder, but I've been around since almost the beginning for United, going to a few games a year. Back in 2015, when I decided to take my love of soccer up a level, I found the Screaming Eagles and American Outlaws DC, and instantly had a crew to hang with. Most of my tailgate time was spent in the beer tent, checking IDs and sampling some of the fine craft brews along the way. Inside the stadium, I sang and clapped and drummed and even capo'd a few times. And I helped make some great tifo, including one (for a US men's national team match against New Zealand) that was seen on ESPN, which I consider a major accomplishment considering it had nothing to do with Lavar Ball.

Beyond the last few years, I had fun with the Nationals for the first three years before they moved across town (just blocks away from Audi Field, coincidentally - or not.) They were awful for those first couple seasons, but I could say I was there when it mattered. I was never a fan of the local NFL franchise, so I didn't see them there, but I made it to a few concerts, most recently the Foo Fighters' 20th anniversary extravaganza on July 4, 2015.

RFK is one of the last relics of the "multipurpose" stadium era. One by one, the stadiums that were built to house both baseball and rectangular-field sports have fallen. RFK might not have made it this long if the quest for a new United stadium had not taken as long as it did. You could tell, by the end, that RFK was old. Chunks of paint, concrete, and who knows what else have fallen. A large number of seats are broken or just plain missing. It smells like everything you can imagine and some things you can't. Towards the end, visiting fans would taunt us with a "RFK is falling down, falling down, falling down" chant, and we really had no response. You got us there.

As much of a dump as it was, it was our dump. It was a place where we could stand and sing and drum and wave flags and generally be inmates running an asylum. And that's why the move to Audi Field is bittersweet for a lot of people. Yes, it'll be new and shiny and clean and we'll get MLS All-Star Games and national team matches and other things that might have passed the grubby old RFK by. But we won't be able to do all the things we did at RFK in the pristine new place. Between all the excitement and passion of last night were some public displays of frustration and anger. Smoke bombs are a no-no at RFK these days, but many were deployed. There were disputes and altercations with security. As the game slipped away, the bad mojo took over for lots of people.

Many of those people won't be following the team to their new home. I understand. For a certain class of long-time, devoted supporter, what has come out (and, perhaps more importantly, what has not come out) from the team about next year has been not just discouraging, but seems almost hostile. It's as if the team wants the passion, but wants it to be well-behaved. Some of us are OK with that; some of us clearly aren't. For my part, I'm waiting and seeing. Next year is just too hard to know right now. Maybe it will be fun - not in the same way as it was at RFK, but in some new way to be determined. Maybe it won't be fun any more. When it stops being fun, I'll stop going. Until then, I'll give the new place a chance.

Between today and the opening of Audi Field around the middle of next season, the team will be nomadic, playing a lot of road games. The supporters will follow them to some, and gather on their own for the others. At some point next year, the new place will open and we'll get to see what the future is. But for now, we get to remember the past, and what a past it was. A club that won 13 major trophies, both national and international. A stadium that hosted 24 wins for our national soccer teams, and hosted matches for two World Cups. And that's just the soccer. It's been a great run for RFK. Remember it fondly, and I'll see you next year, wherever it is we meet again.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2017/07/06/the-breaking-point/</id>
	<title>The Breaking Point</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2017-07-06T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2017/07/06/the-breaking-point/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">My first experience with Metro was in the late 70s, when my grandparents lived in Arlington, VA. The first ride I remember was getting on the Blue line at Rosslyn and riding over to Smithsonian to go to my favorite museum, Air and Space. Several years later, I remember parking at East Falls Church, which wasn't open for train service yet, and getting on at Ballston to do more or less the same trip. (We must have gotten a bus from EFC, but I don't remember that.)

I moved to Arlington after college and started riding Metro every day to my job in Bethesda. By now, it was 1996, and everyone still loved Metro. We could point to how it was clean and didn't smell bad, unlike New York or Philly or other places. Trains ran on time and didn't break down often. Later in 1996 I left that job in Bethesda and got one in Greenbelt, but in those days the Green line wasn't complete, and it was easier to drive. I still rode Metro when I needed to get downtown for some reason. It beat driving and parking in the District by a long shot. For the next almost two decades, I didn't ride Metro to work often. (I did ride MARC and MTA light rail when I worked in Towson.)

Fast-forward to 2015. I've left TeamSnap, where I worked at home and thus had no need for any commuting option. My next job was downtown, and I started riding Metro every day again. And that's when I started to see what people who had been riding every day since the early 2010s were seeing. Trains didn't run on time, and broke down much more often. Track issues were frequent and disruptive. Even station infrastructure broke down; Dupont Circle, right underneath my workplace, lost cooling and became unbearably hot at times.

I've always been a fan of mass transit. I prefer not to drive if I can avoid it; I've tamped down my road rage a lot in recent years, but there's still a Mr. Hyde that lives inside my usual Dr. Jekyll. Even if I'm stuck in traffic on a bus, it's not me that has to negotiate the road. If there's a way to get around a city using trains or buses or anything other than me driving a car, I'll find it and use it.

The past few years have been especially shitty. By now, everyone knows about SafeTrack and how it shut down entire sections of the system for weeks, even up to a month at a time. Greenbelt, where I live, was cut off from the rest of the system for four weeks, even after College Park, the next stop down, reopened after two weeks of SafeTrack. Even before SafeTrack, Greenbelt was frequently closed or single-tracked in evenings and weekends while a test track for the 7000-series cars was built. Everyone who rides Metro has suffered, but Greenbelters have suffered more than most.

And then, once Metro finished their year of SafeTrack closures, they have the gall to make customers pay, both literally and figuratively, for their failure to keep the system in good repair. Services were cut, hours of service shortened, and fares were raised. In particular, the Yellow line rush hour service to Greenbelt was eliminated, drastically cutting rush hour service and causing the same number of commuters to squeeze into fewer cars.

And after all this, Metro tries to make things right by piping in elevator music at stations and handing out coupons for McDonald's coffee as a "thank you" for suffering through their ineptitude.

I've been a booster of Metro for a long time, but I'm done. I'm not interested in paying for Metro's inability to get the funding they need from the local and federal governments. I'm not willing to get crushed in my train home because they somehow think removing trains from my line is a good idea. And I'm sure as hell not going to forgive what they've done to their customers in exchange for a cup of crap Mickey D's coffee.

I'm not driving to work (I don't need that stress) but I'm not riding Metro if I can avoid it. I'll find another way into downtown. MARC isn't perfect, but I've had mostly good experiences. My office isn't so far from Union Station, so I could walk, or get a bus, or, if MARC ever follows through on their plans to put bike cars on weekday trains, bike from Union Station to work, where we have a bike room and, soon, a shower. Maybe, if I get really motivated and into better shape, I could bike all the way to work, but that would take over an hour. I'll figure it out soon enough.

I'm done apologizing for Metro. Metro's customers didn't take it to the point of no return. It was Metro itself, and the governments that refused to adequately fund Metro, that caused the shitty state Metro is in. And I absolutely refuse to be part of Metro's collective punishment of its customers. If Metro returns to pre-SafeTrack service levels, frequency, and fares, I'll reconsider. Until then, it's my transportation of last resort, even below driving, and nothing more.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2016/02/25/a-streetcar-named-misfire/</id>
	<title>A Streetcar Named Misfire</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2016-02-25T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2016/02/25/a-streetcar-named-misfire/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">The DC Streetcar project has been an ongoing boondoggle for a long time, but it may finally be coming to something close to an end. The system will open for business on February 27, or at least something close to "for business." In what appears to be a rush to get the streetcar running before some arbitrary date, a few unfortunate choices have been made.

=> http://www.dcstreetcar.com/event/dc-streetcar-launch/







=> http://www.dcstreetcar.com/riding/fares/

As I said in the opening, this looks like a decision to just launch some kind of service with what's ready now in order to meet some self-decided deadline or keep some promise to someone, not a ready-for-prime-time opening. How hard would it have been to keep at least some Sunday service? Or to get a few of the handheld SmarTrip readers that MTA light rail ticket inspectors carry?

I suppose after the perpetual "Charlie Brown and the football" situation that has dogged the streetcar for years, this is still some kind of progress, but it still feels like Lucy yanked the ball away again. This is no way to run a customer-friendly, sustainable business.
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2015/07/01/gratitude/</id>
	<title>Gratitude</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2015-07-01T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2015/07/01/gratitude/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">By now, just about everyone's heard of the DevOps virtues of Culture, Automation, Measurement, and Sharing, or CAMS. (Some also add Lean in there to make CALMS, or CLAMS if you're into seafood.) While it doesn't make for a snappy acronym, I think we should add one more virtue: Gratitude.

Whatever you do with your life, there's something in your life to be thankful for. For those of us who've been working in the DevOps fields for a long time, there's a lot to be thankful for right now. We have skills that are in demand. Cloud computing has, for many of us, made our tasks much simpler and eliminated those dreaded treks to the data center. Automation and the infrastructure-as-code concept have brought discipline, agility and flexibility to our stacks. The DevOps movement has broken down the walls that kept people separated from each other instead of working together towards common goals. These are all things that have made my life better as a long-time system administrator and developer, and I'm grateful for them all. My late father was a sysadmin in the days of big iron and dedicated systems, and in his retirement was always impressed with what we can do today compared to the rigors and limitations of the old school. When you can do something better than your dad, that's definitely something to be thankful for.

Beyond gratitude for the current state of our industry, and the bright future ahead, we should be grateful for the real heart of the industry: the people. If I have taken nothing else away from the DevOps community, it is that the community itself is the greatest thing about DevOps. Not the philosophy; not the culture in action; not the tools that tool-vendors are lazily labeling as "DevOps" tools; but the people who are out there doing great things, and talking about them, and sharing their playbooks, and helping others do great things as well. You see it in events like DevOpsDays and Monitorama, in publications like The Phoenix Project and the DevOps Weekly, and in the meetups and other gatherings of like-minded people looking to connect.

=> http://www.devopsdays.org/
=> http://monitorama.com/
=> http://itrevolution.com/books/phoenix-project-devops-book/
=> http://www.devopsweekly.com
=> http://devops.meetup.com

And while the people putting on conferences need to pay the bills, and the authors of books would love if you bought a copy, for the most part, they're not in it for the money. They're in it as a way of saying "thank you" to the community that helped them get where they are, and to likewise help you get where you're going as well. Is it paying back, or paying forward? Both, if you ask me. Gratitude goes both ways - as an acknowledgement of what's come before, and an encouragement of what's to come.

If you're doing great things with DevOps, take some time to express your gratitude to those who've helped you get there. And as you do great things, share them with the world and feel the gratitude of others. If you ask me, there's no better feeling in the world than knowing that something you did made someone's life better, and that's what gratitude is all about. And, in the end, isn't that what DevOps is all about, too?
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2014/10/25/work-life-balance-necessarily-includes-life/</id>
	<title>Work-Life Balance Necessarily Includes Life</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2014-10-25T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2014/10/25/work-life-balance-necessarily-includes-life/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">I've just returned from a week in Colorado, meeting with my colleagues at TeamSnap. We do these company-wide meetings about twice a year, bringing in most (if not all) of the team from around the world to discuss business, collaborate on new ideas, and have fun doing so. (If this sounds a lot like what some other businesses call an "offsite", you're right. That word sounds a little odd to me given that around  3/4  of TeamSnap works remote, but maybe I'm overthinking things.) At this meeting, many people commented on the quality and humor of my writing for internal consumption. So I'm starting this new blog to share some of that style with the rest of the world. And I'll start with a story about how we do things at TeamSnap.

=> http://www.teamsnap.com/

The thing I like the most about working at TeamSnap is that when we say there is a "work-life balance", we mean it. We understand that in order for people to do their best work, they need to have time to pursue their best life, too. We don't do "overtime" here. You work until your job is done for the day, and then you sign off and go have some fun. If that means you only put in five hours one day, so be it. If that means you pull a few extra hours to get something done right, that's great. What it doesn't mean is that we want people stuck at their desks for eight hours a day and five days a week. You are, within reason, empowered to work when, where, and how you want at TeamSnap, as long as you are doing your job and delivering the expected results.

Andrew Berkowitz, who co-founded TeamSnap and is now our Chief Product Officer and Minister Of Culture, recently discussed this philosophy in terms of our vacation policy, or lack thereof. We do not have a fixed number of days off, and TeamSnap employees are encouraged to take time off when and where they want or need to. There are probably law-and-order-type HR managers who bristle at this idea, saying some people would take advantage of this policy to slack off, never show up for work, and not deliver. These managers are right, but our response is simple: we do our best not to hire this sort of person. To paraphrase Stan Lee, with great freedom comes great responsibility; we look for people who are good at managing their own time, who don't need managers checking in with them daily to stay on task, and who can deliver what's needed when it's needed. The type of person who doesn't show up and doesn't deliver doesn't fit in at TeamSnap any more than she or he would fit in elsewhere.

=> http://blog.teamsnap.com/editorials/why-the-best-vacation-policy-is-no-policy-at-all/

What this comes down to, in the end, is treating people like people, and specifically treating adults like adults. Too often in the world, we say that people come into our organizations as untrusted plebes, and must earn the trust and respect of the elders, or some such thing. At TeamSnap, if we've offered you a job, we implicitly trust you to do it and do it right. There is no inner sanctum, but if there was, you'd be welcomed into it on day one. This is how we're able to do things like allow most of the company to work remotely, take as much time for life away from work as they need, and speak up whenever you feel the need, to whoever seems appropriate.

I'm not posting this to recruit for TeamSnap, but to challenge those of you in a position to influence your company's culture. Why do you have the policies you do around things like paid time off? Do you believe that setting limits on responsible adults prevents the irresponsible ones from screwing up? Does one bad apple really spoil the whole bunch. What would really be the impact to your business if you let any of your "crucial" people take off whenever they like? Is one person that "crucial", really? Isn't that a lot of pressure?
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
	<id>gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2013/08/23/better-ticketing-for-marc/</id>
	<title>Better Ticketing for MARC</title>
	<author>
		<name>Mark Cornick</name>
		<uri>gemini://mcornick.com/</uri>
		<email>mcornick@mcornick.com</email>
	</author>
	<updated>2013-08-23T00:00:00Z</updated>
	<link href="gemini://mcornick.com/posts/2013/08/23/better-ticketing-for-marc/" rel="alternate"/>
<content type="text">Getting tickets for MARC is a fairly confusing process. There are various ways to get a ticket, all of which have their own idiosyncracies about them:

=> http://mta.maryland.gov/marc-train

(Update: MARC fixed things in 2018. See the Postpostscript.)

=> #postpostscript













I live in Greenbelt, which has a MARC station with no machines and no ticket office. If I want to ride the train, and have not had the forethought to buy a ticket ahead of time, I must have cash on hand to buy a ticket on board. Otherwise, I need to find the nearest ticket office, which is in New Carrollton and a 45-minute bus ride away, or the second nearest, which is at Union Station and a 30-minute Metro ride away. Since I rarely carry cash any more, this becomes sub-optimal.

So I've been thinking recently about how MARC could improve this situation, short of putting Amtrak machines at all stops, which they seemingly do not want to do for whatever reason (or else they certainly would've done it by now.) Two approaches come to mind, both demonstrated by other commuter rail systems in the country.

The first approach would be to accept SmarTrip/CharmCard, as MTA does for local transit services. This is what Caltrain and Sounder do using the Clipper and Orca cards (the Bay Area and Puget Sound equivalents, respectively, of SmarTrip/CharmCard.) You tap a card reader when you board a train, and then tap again when you get off. The system calculates the appropriate fare and charges it to your card.

=> https://www.smartrip.com/
=> http://www.caltrain.com/
=> http://soundtransit.org/

Advantages: There are lots of these cards in circulation; many people riding MARC already have one, and thus it would be one less thing to ask commuters to manage. MTA is set up to load commuter benefit funds onto these cards. SmarTrip/CharmCards are fairly easy to acquire these days, with machines in Metro stations, sales at Giant & CVS, etc.

Disadvantages: You have to remember to tap off. Caltrain handles this by deducting the maximum fare when you tap on, and then refunding some of it (assuming you're not actually paying the maximum) when you tap off. MTA would have to do something similar. There would be some cost to MTA to install card readers at all the stations, as well as to give conductors the same card readers that light rail ticket inspectors currently carry. Unless MTA installs something like the light rail ticket machines at all stations, you'll still need to load funds onto your card somewhere else, and if MTA can do that, why can't they put Amtrak machines everywhere?

The second approach would be to have a smartphone app for purchasing electronic tickets. This is what the T does for commuter rail around Boston, and NJ Transit does for commuter rail in New Jersey. Amtrak also offers this across the system. Using these apps, you buy a ticket ahead of time, store it on the phone, and show it to a conductor when they do their ticket collection.

=> http://www.mbta.com/
=> http://www.njtransit.com/

Advantages: Doesn't require MTA to install any new equipment at stations. Lots of commuters have smartphones.

Disadvantages: Lots of commuters don't have smartphones. Conductors need to be trained to recognize valid e-tickets and, depending on how strict you want to be, need to be equipped with handheld code readers to verify tickets (Amtrak does this; the T, as far as I can tell, usually does not.) Unless your e-ticket purchases are backed by an online account (they are for Amtrak and NJT, they aren't for the T) you are screwed if you lose your phone. Cash purchases wouldn't be possible. Loading benefit funds might be hard.

So neither of these approaches solves all the problems, but either one could work at least for the Greenbelt scenario. Greenbelt is a Metro station, so SmarTrip cards and reloads are readily available, and so the SmarTrip-based system is viable. I think I'd prefer that over the smartphone approach-having one card for all transit-related needs, and not needing to carry my phone (although I always do, anyway) seems like the best solution to me.

(Tangential to all of this is that SmarTrip/CharmCard's days are numbered; eventually it'll be replaced with a system based on contactless credit/debit cards and NFC, as is happening in Chicago and Philly. That's a subject for another post, which I'll probably write next year at this rate.)

## Postscript

I wrote this article two years ago (as of the date I'm writing this sentence.) Nothing has changed for MARC in this department. (However, MARC does have new Bombardier bi-level rail cars, similar to those used on NJ Transit, so that's nice.)

I neglected to consider a third approach, which is basically a combination of the first two: a smartphone app linked to a SmarTrip card. This is what Metra is going to do to join Ventra and thus make Ventra usable across Chicagoland transit. Metra had a page (which seems to be offline now) explaining why they didn't go with my first approach above - basically, Metra has a lot of stations, and the cost to put tap-on/tap-off readers at each station would be prohibitive. In addition to allowing Metra tickets to be bought with Ventra, the app would also provide Ventra account management services and, eventually, permit you to use your NFC-equipped phone to pay CTA and Pace fares from your Ventra transit balance (as opposed to your credit/debit card balance, which you can do today - basically, it'd be like using your Ventra card without actually using the card.)

=> http://www.metrarail.com/
=> http://www.ventrachicago.com/

MARC has approximately 1/6 as many stations as Metra, so maybe the first approach wouldn't be as cost-prohibitive for MARC. However, the current governor isn't a fan of spending money on transit, so perhaps that's irrelevant. Nonetheless, I like this idea of combining an existing smartcard infrastructure with an app. Perhaps WMATA and MTA can get together and come up with a plan, the humble narrator said, ignoring for the moment that MTA has to beg for money and WMATA has more problems than that Jay-Z song.

## Postpostscript

It's now 2018, and MTA has finally made some changes to the MARC ticket process. The first is that there are now MARC-specific ticket machines, which have been rolled out at more (but still not all) stations. All of these machines accept credit and debit cards via magstripe, EMV (chip) or NFC. Some machines also accept cash. This is a welcome step and I hope MTA gets around to putting these machines at all stations, since Greenbelt still doesn't have one (but College Park, which is nearby and has more trains stopping there, does, so apparently the most-used stations are getting the machines first.)

The second is a new mobile app called CharmPass which allows you to buy tickets for not only MARC, but the Baltimore local services (bus, light rail, Metro subway) and commuter buses as well. You can buy either single trips or all the different types (as far as I know) of weekly and monthly passes. Apple Pay is accepted in the iOS app (I presume the Android app supports Google Pay, but I didn't test that one) along with the traditional method of entering your card number. It's made by Moovel, a division of Daimler that has made apps for a bunch of other transit agencies, and the app seems to work well enough.

=> https://mta.maryland.gov/charmpass
=> https://www.moovel-transit.com/en

CharmPass joins CharmCard as a means of buying MTA fares, but doesn't replace it. Since a CharmCard is basically a WMATA SmarTrip card with different artwork, running on a system operated by WMATA, this gives MTA a system that doesn't depend on the increasingly dysfunctional WMATA; should WMATA downsize itself into the ground as it appears intent on doing, MTA could continue using CharmPass and migrate its CharmCard customers over. Intentional or not, it's a shrewd move. (CharmPass is presumably dependent on Moovel technology, so it depends on Moovel continuing to be a going concern, but that seems to be a good bet at this time.)

The only slightly silly thing about CharmPass is using it on the Metro Subway. Because the turnstiles can't recognize a CharmPass ticket, you have to show the pass to the station manager, who will print a paper ticket for you to insert in the turnstile. That seems wasteful, but I hope it's a short-term solution; if MTA is serious about CharmPass, they should look into new turnstiles (and perhaps bus fareboxes) that can scan the barcode from the app.
</content>
</entry>
</feed>