Bobby Moss @trechnex@mastodon.sdf.org

Colleague: Why doesn't everyone just use Nano instead of Vim?

Me: Because given the choice between completing a task in 30 seconds and completing a task in 28 seconds only after years of practise, Linux people always choose the second option.

Colleague: Wait.. don't you use Vim?

Me: I was forced to use it by evil sysadmins that wouldn't let me install any new packages on their servers, and they broke me!

Okay, I have now finally fleshed out the "about me" section on my new homepage. 🎉

http://trechnex.freeshell.org/

I am already working on a few ideas for my first blog post of the year. More details will follow when I settle on which one I'm actually going to commit time to write. 🙂

* Used Debian as my primary OS for the first half of the year, then Fedora after

* Created and developed bobbymoss.com as a personal blog replacement for "Bob's Tech Site"

* Ran the first three binary releases of @forktogether on bobadon.co.uk and made my first code change for the project

* Started @glimpse and worked with dozens of awesome people to build the community around it and push out our first binary release

* Built a modern IBM XT clone using the Monotech NuXT

* Use and support SDF.org instead of spinning things up myself

* Switch to UNIX-based systems for my home computing (eg. macOS, BSD, etc) so it feels less like I'm at work!

* Continue to progress the Glimpse project so we have a solid base, a macOS port, automated tooling, and a community that can focus on usability & bug-fixes

* Finish off my existing stockpile of retro computing projects (there are many!)

Much like my Fable III playthrough, this will also be the first time I'm both openly gay and comfortable enough about it for my hero to also be gay.

If I recall correctly, the relationship mechanics are a *lot* deeper in Fable II. But we'll see how that pans out, and also if there are any gay villagers that are into a dude with giant red horns that *might* murder them if they're in a bad mood. 😂

I've actually played that game many, *many*, MANY times since 2008.

However it was over 5 years since I last did so, so this time around I've been role playing my Fable II character as a morally-complex kleptomaniac. He defaults to being a villain, but can sometimes be persuaded to the right thing.

(And yes, it's already a *lot* more fun than Fable III, which I re-played towards the end of last summer)

I spent 6 hours this afternoon/evening doing Glimpse stuff, so now I'm going to cook something awesome and then play some Fable II. ⚔️

I haven't done thrown myself into dating (mental health is "fun", but I have time!).

It's a bit early to say how well retrocomputing projects are going. I have been playing more retrogames though. 🙂

I haven't gone "all BSD", but I have started learning how to use it and I'm using SDF.org for this Mastodon account, my website & public email.

I am actively working on Glimpse Image Editor 0.1.1 right now.

I quite like this approach to resolutions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGuFdX5guE

Although, I have to say that mine are still holding strong so far.

https://mastodon.sdf.org/@trechnex/103399175213979248

On the upside, at least that wasn’t harrowing like the marshmallow thing the other week. I am *still* bleaching my eyes after that one. 😂

In other news, I just googled what a dreidel was and discovered an Easter egg.

*buddum tisss*

FLOSS: "I hate that Google is so powerful and dominates search and browsers"

*Microsoft changes the default Chrome search to Bing when a user installs a paid product on an operating system they don't use*

FLOSS: "THIS INJUSTICE SHALL NOT STAND. MY SWORD IS UNSHEATHED AND I WILL COMMENCE BATTLE UPON THEIR PERSON. LET FLY THE DOGS OF WAR!"

I can’t believe I’d forgotten about “Bison Dollars” 😂

If they haven’t been made into an Internet meme yet, someone needs to get on that.

So, this is how my evening is starting!

(And yes, I’m one of those weirdos that watch the trailers on a VHS tape before the movie because NOSTALGIA)

I’m about to watch that Jean-Claude Van Damme classic “Street Fighter”

It was a fun project to work on, but I started finding that the PyQt wrapper has limitations and re-implementing things that should really be machine-compiled in Python would have caused some nasty performance problems.

At some point I will write a better replacement, but I've been distracted by a much bigger project! 😂

Also just updated the Mastodon client I don't develop anymore to account for a security vulnerability in one of the dependencies. 🎉

(There's probably no one using it, but I'm thankful Github flagged it just in case)

https://github.com/TrechNex/mastodome-legacy

And with lots of jiggery-pokery I've been able to get PGP working as well.

No one has ever sent me a PGP-encrypted email apart from myself, but it's supported god damn it! 😂

I had previously tried and failed with Mozilla Thunderbird and Apple Mail, so I'll be trying to replicate these settings on those mail clients.

My "achievement unlocked" for today is finally figuring out how to get emails hosted on SDF.org to work in email clients 🎉

The wild thing is that I did it in Outlook 2019, a program where I have to use a completely separate program from the Windows control panel to have access to the settings I need to actually do that. 🤦‍♂️

tbh the biggest surprise of this picture is that it didn’t start a “why do British people do their laundry in the kitchen?” discourse. 😂

(You can just about make out a washing machine in the top-right corner. My tumble dryer is on the other side of that fridge)

The way it moves around on Pokemon Go as your buddy btw is exactly as awesome & hilarious as you’d expect it to be.

Instead of sliding around like it did in the classic cartoons, it flings its arms forward and hops around like a complete goon.

(I was going to do a screen capture of this, but as that would reveal the GPS location of where I live I thought better of it)

Well, that’s terrifying!

Introducing Allohan Muk, a creature from Pokemon Go that’s inexplicably in my kitchen this morning.

And yes, I did try BSD! 🎉

The impression I get is it's probably a learning curve roughly on a par with using Arch. But as the community around it seems very different than the one for Linux as a whole I'm more enthusiastic about trying it.

I am using SDF.org and have a netbook set aside specifically for me to learn how the operating system works as a desktop, so hopefully that should help. Mostly at the moment I'm using it for personal server stuff. 🙂

For those interested, these were the Linux distros I got along with in 2019:

* Debian stable with Flatpaks
* Fedora 31 Workstation
* Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

I had exactly zero interest in trying Arch or Manjaro. If you enjoy using them though, then all power to you. 👍