Tidy
2019-11-26 05:14
by zlg

My physical possessions are a little more tidy now. The shed has been prepped
for the winter, everything of mine that's important is indoors and has a place.
I bought a new hard drive a while ago to expand Windows to 2 TB. Sadly, Windows
doesn't like being cloned. It's been quite a battle but it more or less runs
correctly. If it goes to shit again, I'll wipe it before I reinstall. At any
rate, Windows is setup and ready to be used if anything happens to my other OSes
or I want to game. That's a major source of anxiety crossed off the list.

I sold a bunch of games and systems. It was less than what I wanted, but I
considered the opportunity cost of selling 20+ games and 4 systems. I took out
the most valuable game for myself, since they were offering less than half of
what it was worth. My thirties are teaching me to pick and choose my battles.
This one game can fetch almost as much as what I got for the rest of it, so I
can at least get around half of what the whole collection was worth once I've
sold the valuable one. So, I have a fatter wallet and less clutter. That's nice.

The decision making of various computer-oriented organizations continues
to depress me. From the .org domains being sold to for-profit interests to
the corporate incursion of Linux land to the hit pieces, astroturfing, and
misinformation campaigns of the media, etc. It just sucks. Humans create so many
problems for themselves.

I'm researching ways to run GNU/Linux without Red Hat software in the userland.
dbus is a particularly difficult target to get rid of; I can't even launch CUPS
without dbus! I found a patch to remove the accessibility bridge from GTK+3;
once I verify it's working I hope to adapt it for the last release of GTK+2.
That'll get an entire toolkit off the teat. KISS Linux is an interesting project
along the same lines as what I've been doing, but I'm waiting to see how its
author makes decisions in software as it progresses. For now, my efforts will be
focused on reverting my Gentoo installation to something sane and reading LFS so
I can set up a new environment. I'm getting sick of the drama and churn in Linux
so I may pursue other OSes.

I find myself becoming less interested in video games, mostly due to my emotions
while playing them or the value proposition changing when we consider day-one
game patching, piecemeal DLC, Early Access, Free-to-Play, digital exclusives,
etc. If games go to a format where I cannot ever have a physical copy, I
will probably stop playing (new) games. Emotionally, I don't like playing
against others in Smash Bros. Whether I win or lose, someone's walking away
disappointed, and I don't like that. I don't want to spread bad vibes with my
gameplay.

I'm learning how to make better use of closures for game states in PICO-8. [1]
Animation and coroutine management are my next learning targets. Then, I want to
do text boxes with flowing text. PICO-8 is fun, but I've also installed LÖVE2D
[2] so I can make games with fewer restrictions. Being the change I want to see,
and whatnot.

Overall, the theme of the past few days has been reducing any and all stress in
my life so I can focus on things I care about. My anxiety remains, but I'm at
least directing it toward something.

Now to remove a bunch of games from my vgstash...

-z

[1]: https://lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
[2]: https://love2d.org/