Renovating a house produces images that look like album covers.
Entry created on 2022-11-02 Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Blåhaj (1) Photos (29) Renovation (1) Speakers (1) Languages used: en (257) edit
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Dream Ideas
Entry created on 2022-10-31
Authors: steeph (376)
Categories: Dream Recall (1)
Dreams (4)
Ideas (6)
Memory (3)
Neurodivergence (3)
Story (5)
Thoughts (73)
Languages used: en (257)
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Did you ever have an idea while being asleep, maybe while waking up but still half dreaming, that was so good and possibly life-changing that even 10 years later you can't get over the fact that you forgot the idea moments after thinking "I have to write that down after I went to the toilet!"? Me neither. But notworthyly many people do.
It is often said that many famous ideas and inventions have been perceived in a dream before sharing them or creating them in the waking world. The sewing machine needle story is exhausted. I for one don't think that many ideas or inventions have been or are perceived in dreams. At least not so many that it would be a fact worth mentioning. Considering that most people spend almost a third of their life in the state that allows for such perceptions to occur, why wouldn't many of the ideas that are being had be perceived in a dream state?
Because of volatile memory. (I'm not talking about elektroncs in this entry.) Dream memory is notoriously unstable. Even to people who make a point out of remembering and possibly creatively working with their dreams it's not uncommon to forget the weirdest things. Dream recall can be trained (and usually fairly easily at that). But even for those who remember multiple long dream every morning it takes an especially exciting or important-seeming dream to lift the dreamers memory of it so high that it can be recalled with no more gaps and changes than is usual to rememberig waking memories from about the same time ago. It is a very rare exception, a handful dream excerpts a century maybe. Every other dream content is gone after year, most after a day or two. (By the way, that's not necessarily true for more or less direct effects on the dreamer's feelings, toughts, instinctive behaviour and intentional decisions.)
But many people do attribute enough importance to their dreams to usually remember them when anturally waking up in the morning or when waking up at night. Even when you don't, you'll wake up with dream recall every now and then. And if there seems a solution to a problem that occupies your mind currently, then that recall is more likely to stay afloat for long enough to be dragged over to less volatile long-term memory.
But that's not always the case. When your thoughts drift or you're distracted by something before your brain has fully switched to waking mode, even the biggest and most important thoughts can vanish quickly. I'd assume that that happens more easily or more commonly to people with AD(H)D and possibly to other neurodiverse people. I'm sure that it has happened to you numerous times. If you don't rmember it, maybe it wasn't a big deal to you. (It usually isn't.)
I've had genius story ideas for a movie, short story or book, several times in dreams. I mean actually genius, never-before-done storytelling inventions or an actually innovative story telling trick, not just ideas that seem like I might be able to sell them or something. Most of them I've completely forgotten except for the fact that I had them. (Maybe I forgot about even more but so completely that I don't even remember that there was something that I forgot.) I don't mind though. I know enough about dreams and the difference between dreaming and waking judgement. In dreams the evaluation of thoughts and perceptions (dreamed or from the waking world) are often different, sometimes very very different, from what one would consider normal, but don't seem that way to the dreaming, perceiving, thinking person at the time. I know how common of an error of judgement it is to believe to have an amazing, revolutionary, genius idea in a dream/while waking up, write it down while still not quite awake, read it later and be rather amased by the memory of believing that that would be a good idea. The written down scribble (Those notes tend to be of less than great handwriting or contain more mistypings than usual.) range from
- (indecipherable - but what would I say about that? It could be anything or nothing.)
- a meaningless string of words (or the meaning may be lost because of omitted context)
- to possibly interesting thoughts that don't unfold their meaning after fully waking up and aren't as deep as initially perceived
- to a banale insight with no importance (may be because of lost additional memory or because of misassumptions in the dream)
- to actually good or important ideas, that are old and not practically usable
- (Or actually genius new inventions/revolutionary ideas above that. But those seem to be even more rare than in waking life.)
That is why I don't feel bad about losing a great idea when I seem to after waking up. I know it never turns out to actually be a good idea. Even banale thoughts or random strings of words can be used to create meaning from or to attribute meaning to. But I can do that with pretty much any of my dream recall. And I rarely do that.
The Old Fediverse
Entry created on 2022-10-30
Authors: steeph (376)
Categories: Fediverse (2)
Internet (3)
Social Media (2)
Thoughts (73)
Web Browsers (5)
World Wide Web (10)
Languages used: de (90)
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Gestern dachte ich mir: Wieso gab es früher (vor 2016? 2015?) so wenige starke Bestrebungen, ein Fediverse in Form von Sozialen Netzwerken zu entwickeln?
Die häufig verwendeten Vergleiche Telefon- und E-Mail-Netz sind ja nicht die einzigen Beispiele dafür, dass es sinnvoll ist und funktioniert. In der Geschichte des Internetz waren schon fast von Anfang an fast alle und so gut wie alle weit verbreitet eingesetzten Protokolle dezentral aufgebaut.
Ich denke es liegt daran, dass es das Web schon gab und Menschen, die Dienste baueten, versucht haben, so wenig wie möglich neuzuerfinden. Es heißt ja in Sprichworten, das Rad neu zu erfinden sei Recourcenverschwendung und produziere neue Rad-Varianten mit neuen Nachteilen, die tendenziell überengineert sind. Und nicht nur Unix-Fans finden, dass Technologien simpel und modular aufgebaut sein sollten. Das Web ist schon dezentral. Und es gibt schon lange genug Technologien, mit denen die Funktionen der großen, beliebten Sozialen Netzwerke abgebildet werden können. Weblogs mit öffentlichen oder auf Mail basierenden Kommentaren, Pingbacks, Commented Re-Shares, … Und um den Content so wie er in App oder Webseite üblicherweise von Menschen abgerufen wird darstellen zu können braucht es auch heute nichts als einen Webserver, HTML und CSS.
Dass ein eigenes Protokoll dafür benötigt wird, um Plattformen zu bauen, die von Massen akzeptiert und zügig adaptiert werden, obwohl es seinerzeit Facebook, Twitter und Co. auch nicht brauchten; das ist eine Einsicht, die von der entwickelten Community erst mal breit angenommen werden musste.
Mit dem World Wide Web hat sich das Internet bzw. dessen Nutzung sehr weit verbreitet. Aber das liegt nur teilweise an den Möglichkeiten im und Fähigkeiten des Webs. Unkonventionelle, textbasierte Kommunikationsformen, auch mit großer Asynchronität zwischen Sender- und Empfängerzahlen, waren schon vorher die größte Stärke des Internets. Von daher finde ich es richtig, in Teilen gut vergleichbare Massenkommunikationsplattformen aus Vor-Web-Zeiten Fediverse zu nennen. (Zuerst stieß mir das ein wenig auf.) Das war ein guter Gedankenstarter.
[Still (Not)] Budgeting
Entry created on 2022-10-30
Authors: steeph (376)
Categories: Money (1)
Personal (13)
Thoughts (73)
Languages used: en (257)
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~ 10 years ago I listed to a podcast about budgeting software for private households and learned how much it can help and how much of a difference it can make. Back then I had the time and energy to try out various software and pan and budget the heck out of my monthly income. But it didn't work. I didn't manage to stay in the budget unless I planned to not ever save anything and to not ever eat right. At the time I didn't realise how much more money people in regular jobs make than me.
Now I have a proper job, but not the time and energy to plan things right unless I make it my only hobby. I could probably even save money "for later" (whenever that will be). But it's hard for me to not opt for the more convenient and less time consuming option in almost every decision. And I can't stop myself from buying nice things to make up for the stressful life that I have otherwise.
Today I'm slacking off, after a quiet day at the home office yesterday because of IT problems that shouldn't be my business and therefor prevented me from doing much work. No checking out budgeting software today either.
But I need this lazy, unproductive time from time to time. Time and time again I have to remind myself that time relaxing is time invested in my health, which will be useful at a later time. For the time being, I keep ignoring that time flies by when I spend time instinctively satisfying my basic needs instead of using time efficiently and getting things done in time.
Sorry, people whom I have promised to do or make things for. I sometimes have the time, but not the energy.
I wonder how savings richt I could be if I would seriously start to budget.
Film: Have Dreams, Will Travel
Entry created on 2022-09-13 (edited 2022-10-08)
Authors: steeph (376)
Categories: Adventure (2)
Child Abuse (4)
Films (22)
Travelling (1)
Languages used: en (257)
Topics: Films (15)
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I don't know what the more correct title of the movie is. Some call it Have Dreams Will Travel, some call it A West Texas Children's Story and I don't know where either title was originally used.
It's about the adventure that Cassie and Ben have after her parents die and his don't even notice that he leaves without saying anything. It's also about trauma processing, communication in relationships (parental, friendships and romantic). That's what I see in it at least.
Cassie: I think it's time for us to leave.
Ben: Leave?
Cassie: Look. Those two people who you live with. They're nice and everything, but-
Ben: My parents?
Cassie: Right. But from what I can tell, they don't really have anything to offer you and they certainly don't have a thing to offer me.
Ben: So, where're we goin'?
Cassie: Baltimore. I have an aunt and uncle there. I haven't seen them since I was five but from what I can remember they're both extremely hip.
The overly compressed sound (accoustically compressed, not in terms of saving storage) is so cinematic that it's conspicuous for a movie made in this century. But it fits the overly grainy film-look and does a good job at creating this big-life-story vibe that dominates the whole movie. Like many dramas this movie has a recurring melody, creating a melodramatic yet optimistic mood.
The characters are so well defined at first that it almost came as a positive surprise that they both have deeper personalities. But I soon got used to the movie not becoming as comedic as I first thought it might be.
There is something about some of the dialogues that make them refreshing and simultaneously irregular for child characters and very fitting for these particular child characters.
Cassie: See, a real plan is more than just some pipe dream.
Ben: Pipe dream?
Cassie: A pipe dream is an unrealistic fantasy that deludes oneself into thinking that it's an actual plan. It's a very popular expression. I'm surprised you've never heard of it before.
Ben: I didn't say I'd never heard it.
Cassie: Anyway, a real plan is an actual goal that you believe in enough to create a set of circumstances. Which leads you to, and into, a plan. Comprende?
Ben: Where do you come up with this stuff? I mean, what part of your brain works so hard it makes you think and talk like that?
Cassie: My father was a professor with a very wide vocabulary and lots of unique ideas. When he wasn't teaching his students, he taught me.
Ben: So what does your mom do?
Cassie: She never did anything.
The last line of that quote may have a different meaning that I thought when I watched the movie for the first time.
The fact that I was surprised by the dramatic loss of Cassie's facade later on may make me naive, but for me it just means that I got a non-obvious important change of the story route. And it's nice to get a story told with a non-obvious route. Whether that's because you're tired, three, stupid, naive or because of excellent writing doesn't really matter. Other viewers may have been able to deduct more about Cassie early on than I was, with her efforts to do things in grown-up ways. I didn't even know what Ben meant when he asked Cassie what she's hiding. That just created all the more potential to be sucked in by emotions to be discovered by my naive movie-drama graving brain.
Over time I think Ben proved that he is the more grown-up one in the relationship. Not by having a large vocabulary or a life plan, but by simply addressing the issue he sees.
In the end, Ben makes his parents choose (in a away) what's more important for them to have - their passionate hobbies or their son - and decides for them at the same time. The result is the most glorious mixing of (fake) sad cry tears with (fake) happy cry tears I've seen in a mov- anywhere really.
I sort of expected this movie to end without any closure. It seemed like one of these movies. But not only did it have a closure for Ben's parents and a happy ending for his part of the story. It even has a happier ending above and after that, depicting the best possible futures Cassie and Ben could have perceived to have together. An utopistic extra happy ending that I didn't see necessary. I keep saying that I'd like to see more movies without a happy ending. This one has two but also shows that a movie can still be as emotional and melodramatic as it is even with a double happy endling. Maybe they felt they needed to quickly tell how happy they both end up in the future so that no viewer with a similar life story or trauma kills themselves after watching the movie.
I think it's interesting that AnnaSophia Robb (Cassie) isn't seen more in movies as an adult now. She has this sort of model face that men find so beautiful and she can act, I think. Maybe she's working more as a model. Cayden Boyd too. He looks like a model for a shaver commercial now. But he only had some small TV show roles in recent years. I haven't seen him in any other role. Maybe he sucks at acting.
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ITAP of the Moselle
Entry created on 2022-09-25
Authors: steeph (376)
Categories: Mist (1)
Photos (29)
River (1)
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Friday I drove a few km alongside the Moselle when I heard my compact camera yell from inside the glove box. It yelled 'stop right now!' and 'why do you even have me?' So I stopped, remembered why I have it and took this photo.
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Fred - Part 3 - Power Supplies
Entry created on 2021-04-18 (edited 2022-09-14)
Authors: steeph (376)
Categories: Case Modding (11)
Computer (78)
DIY (17)
Fred (3)
Hardware (16)
Hoarding (5)
Projects (41)
Languages used: en (257)
Topics: Projects → Case Modding → Fred (3)
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This entry is a reply to or continuation of the entry 'Fred - Part 2 - The Case Lid And Cooling'.
After getting rid of the fan wall, the power supply was the main source of noise. The original PSU was a 3U redundant (2+1) server power supply. Noise does not matter with machines like that. I wanted to be able to have it running in my living room though, so the noise had to drop a fucking lot. Seriously, that's said so many times for people who don't work with servers like this. But people are still surprised when they hear a server fan for the first time. One of original 60 mm fans in the back is louder than my vaccum cleaner. And there were two of those, four 80 mm fans and five 40 mm fans. Three of the latter in the power supplies. Because I have no means to control the fans in software and don't need all the power the power supply can supply, I tried how much I can lower the noise by adding resistors in series to the fans. That did reduce noise a lot. But not only aren't these fans optimated for quiet operation, they are 40 mm fans. They will nver be quiet enough.
So I looked online for a power supply that
- fits in the case (it's not completely an ATX case)
- can supply enough current for everything and
- is trustworthy/doesn't appear to be too cheaply built
I found a Newton Power Model NPS-300AB B, which doesn't meat points 2 and 3 but fits so perfectly into the case that it was a weird feeling to accept that it is mostly coincidence. I got it for a couple of euros on ebay. Most sellers seem to think it's some piece of premium equipment because it's used in some Fujitsu servers or something. But it's really just a cheap ATX power supply in a non-standard case. But because of that non-standard case fitted so well into my non-standard server case, I got it anyway. I only had to drill the screw holes and that was it. It's hardly enough for 14 HDDs and the internet says it's really cheap and not trustworthy. But I went with it anyway in order to pay tribute to r/thingsfittinginthings.
Not a year later the PSU died. Probably overstressed it for too long. I replaced it with a better SFX unit. I had a nice and thick plate of stainless steel lying around, from which I cut an adapter plate.
I'll attach some photos below. Maybe I'll continue this series of entries on Fred some other day with experiences of dust and heat and such over time.
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Useless Memories (Part 3)
Entry created on 2022-09-13
Authors: steeph (376)
Categories: Useless Memories (5)
Washing Up (1)
Languages used: en (257)
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I'm helping a friend who is carering to a group of businesspeople at their company-organised yearly get-together. For him it's a gig he is hoping will become a regular thing and a relatively reliable income some day. For me it's mostly cleaning glasses between refills. For a while, that is all my friend and I were doing: cleaning, rinsing. We took turns. At one point this guy comes up to us to let us know that his drink tasted a bit like dishsoap. He was nice and really just wanted to let us know so we can be more careful in the future if necessary. I don't see a reason for him to lie or exagerate. And he was sure that's what the taste was. It makes sense, too. We were hurring a bit sometime because there weren't that many glasses, a residue of dishsoap would be invisible but ruin the taste of the drink. But, for some reason or not, I defaulted on "But I'm not aware of me or us doing anything wrong." I didn't quite put it into those words. But my hesitant reply must have conveyed that that was how I felt about the "unterstellung". My friend was (and still is, successfully) more customer-aware than me, thanked the guy and assured him that it won't happen again. Guy was happy, friend was mad (today I think at me; back then I thought at the guy). And my stupid non-committing and abweisende reply is what I think of nearly every time I wash any dishes by hand, which since my dishwasher broke a few years ago, is a lot. I don't think I will ever either get rid of that memory or figure out how remembering it might still help me.