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Title: Trendy Thoughts

Published: 2021-05-02 15:12

Author: Rev. Fr. Robert Bower

Tag:

layout: blog

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Trendy Thoughts

I listened to this week's Trendy Talk and few thoughts came to mind. Some are related to the show and some of are thoughts that popped into my head while watching.

One of the questions that was pondered are computer nerds different today. Not knowing many young computer nerds I cannot tell you if they are different. But I can tell you what is like to be an old computer nerd.

1. There was a time before the Internet. When a 2400 baud modem with FAX were blazing fast. Prior to the Internet you dialed up a BBS that some guy was running in his basement. When you needed to download software often it meant dialing into a BBS and downloading a patch that took all night to download. Everything was text based. Compuserve was king and the interface was terminal based. Email took days to go from one person to another. When to get multilocation email at work you had to set up your MHS server to dial a provider like Compuserve every few hours to exchange email with the outside world.

2. I remember going to a seminar at Illinois State University about this new network call the Internet. When OS/2 was the only 32 bit OS and was the OS you wanted to use to visit the net.

3. To install a card in your PC you had to set switches on the card and make sure IRQ didn't match another device on the PC. I remember the very first computer virus in the wild. When a 386 with a hard drive cost $14,000.

4. The first computer I used didn't have a monitor. It was a Digital Mini hooked up to four teletype machines. You typed instructions in and the computer printed results out.

5. IT was called Data Processing.

6. You had to be a jack of all trades. If your computer broke, you were the guy fixing it. Installing software meant editing configuration files. It was the time when to use a computer you were under the hood making things work. When vim didn't exist and if your machine didn't boot you were editing configuration files with vi running on a floppy.

7. Usenet was not a pirate place.

For some reason every time one of the three suggest something I have to give it a try. Which is a verrrrry scarrrry thought. Let me make it clear, the first sentence is limited to Linux. Hex mentioned he was coming up with a script to update his Gemini capsule with a list of the music he listens to. So I came up with a script that lists what songs I listen to along with the videos I watch. If you look on the site here you should find my listening and watching list. I could give you a link but then you might not look around. Eventually I will post it on GitHub.

Today they mentioned a font called ComicMono. I am using it now for my default terminal font in place of Hack. I haven't decided if I like it or not. The first five minutes I hated it but it is starting to grow on me.

One of the things I would like to do is use the script that created ComicMono to create a monospaced Lexend font. The Lexend font is supposed to be the best font for reading. The Lexand project can be found on GitHub. Since I don't know anything about font creation or using python it may take awhile.

For my E-Reader I went with the Amazon Fire 10. It is good hardware for the price. Once you get F-Droid installed you can make it a nice tool. The majority of my time is either spent in Moon Reader, Termux, or one of the two Gemini clients for Android. I usually don't read in direct sun so I went with the Fire than with an actually E-reader. I have heard that with the ADB you can turn off most if not all the Amazon "phone home" apps including upgrades and the Ad screen.

Chris, you could try Parrot Home Edition which is a rolling Debian based. Kali is also rolling Debian but I don't think you would want to use it as a desktop Linux.

IRC, IRC

Remember the slogan for Mutt also applies to Web browsers.

Suggested Web browsers

Lynx, Links, w3m, and edbowse

Links does have a graphical client.

Any other web browser is a trap, use at your own peril.

Chris, if you have found any text to speech on Linux that isn't awful I would love to hear it. I find TTS on Linux painful.

Zettelkasten ID **trendythoughts-2021-05-02-1512**