I started exploring what I learned from an interview with Guo Gu, a teacher of Chan Buddhism, in my meditation practice. I have been cultivating equanimity as a centering focus. Chan seems to favor what he called contentment, expressed with the phase, "It's all good". To me, I thought that could be a blending of the stable abodes, a bit each of equanimity, loving kindness, compassion, and vicarious joy. I am also drawn to what he called the junctures of life, opportunities to practice as we live our lives. This is a focus of my study and practice right now, expanding the work I do meditating into the rest of my life.
I bought a copy of Guo Gu's The Essence of Chan and started reading it. I have not practiced reading for curiosity as much as I used to. I am remembering how the more I practice, the more motivation I have to practice.
Posted in #general
This week I reached the finish line of a project I've been working on for my $dayjob for a little over a year. I've worked on a handful of projects like this in my career, few of them were successful. I thought writing about my experience would help consolidate what I've learned. I've been wanting to write more. My strongest inspiration over the years has been my own experience. Reflecting on this project I recognize a handful of topics I could write about from personal, team, and department perspectives. Writing about what I went through, witnessed, and learned will complement the preparation I did before starting this project.
Posted in #general
At the end of my last post, I mentioned my new home server opening up more possibilities. There are some projects I would have liked to run in the past but hosting them at Digital Ocean felt like too much. These are quality of life ideas that would help me work more coherently across several different machines. Not anything that would benefit from public hosting either. I would need to be on top of my security configuration. My home server makes that far less of a concern, limiting access and encrypting everything.
Posted in #tech #resilience #hands-on
Encouraged by my success so far with my home server, Lovelace, I wondered what I might add next. I enjoyed getting single sign-on working using my forge as the identity provider. I am proud that I found a way to have usable hostnames on an entirely private network with full TLS support.
Posted in #tech #resilience #hands-on
I have continued to work on my new home server. Since my last post a few months back I've actually upgraded the hardware because the next service I added was a media server, Jellyfin.
Posted in #tech #resilience #hands-on
I am catching up on some news drafts, including ones from the end of last year, like this one.
Justine Calma, The Verge, wrote about an environmental protection bill in New York state.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/30/24332241/climate-change-superfund-act-new-york-state-trump
Modeled after superfunds, the law would require oil and gas companies to pay into a fund that will be used to increase residents' resilience to climate change caused problems. The specifics remain to be worked out. If successful, other states could adopt similar, and for other policies, as a back stop to what the incoming administration is likely to do to our federal rights, privileges, and protections.
The unique role of states here is important for technology policy too. Hayley Tsukayama and Rindala Alajaji from EFF shared several stories about state legislatures and online privacy.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/12/state-legislatures-are-frontline-tech-policy-2024-review
Some federal law, like the ACA, are modeled on successful state laws. The potential impact of action at the state level is greater. The distance to representatives is far shorter. In smaller states you can easily visit your state legislators in person to discuss your concerns. Maybe a route to a meaningful federal privacy law is to experiment, as the article suggests, at the state level.
I debated deleting this draft but honestly think local is even more important given what we've all witnessed here in the US in the last month.
Posted in #links
I rely on the bundled file sync service on my network attached storage (NAS) appliance to work across my devices. I recently added a MNT Pocket Reform to the set of devices I use regularly. The Pocket Reform is a lovingly hand built and supremely open mini laptop with a seven inch display and a clacky, ortholinear keyboard. The sync service on my NAS has clients for the rest of my devices. The mini laptop has a different CPU architecture from the rest of my Linux machines and hence no compatible client. Figuring out an alternative started a fun incidental project a few weekends ago that lead to some interesting learning.
Posted in #tech #resilience #hands-on
I've had a security key for a few years now. I've always been fascinated by these kinds of devices, a supremely minimal computer hardened for use in an intricate cryptographic exchange that promises simpler, stronger security than a mere password. I didn't realize at first that the latest evolution of password free authentication, passkey, wasn't device dependent. My security key is capable of creating and securely storing a few passkeys but support has now been rolled out to browsers, operating systems and tools like password managers. A couple of recent stories reminded me of my interest and provided some good information on the technology.
The blockhead post I wrote the other day reminded me of my interest in the question of how creators can find their own ways to sustain their art. Late stage capitalism is evolving through chokepoint capitalism into something else entirely. The question of what else could work for independent creators is more important than ever. A couple of stories caught my mind this week relevant to the question.
Posted in #links
A year ago I was burning out. I had been on the edge of burnout for several years. When I left that job, a very chaotic early startup that hid its dysfunctions better than most, I consciously worked on processing the experience, restoring my well being, and preparing for my next steps more thoroughly than I have ever done so before. As a result, I am ending this year feeling far better than I started. I am especially surprised since it seems like much in this world has continued declining and at a worryingly faster pace.
Posted in #general