divide and....co-operate?

lessons from history...

regarding saudi despots and murdered journalists...

i want to pull back on this a little, as, as vicious as this was, it's not that unusual. the russians do it. the chinese do it. the americans do it, too - albeit usually in latin america. i mean, consider the case of julian assange, or what would happen to edward snowden if he came home. journalism is a very dangerous profession. it's how it's always been, and how it will always be - so long as there is power to disturb, it will react.

so, why is the case of the turkish journalist being singled out?

is there something specific about the geopolitical situation, the ancient rivalry between the saudis and turks that is in truth every bit as volatile as the rivalry between the saudis and iranians? 

is it because it was an act of insolence, because the journalist was "american based"?

is it indicative of infighting in the saudi theocracy itself?

i don't know. really...

but, this event was less unique than many would like you to believe, and is in many ways a threat that is a part of the job description.

so, i meant to stay up all night and take a brief trip out to the store in the morning, before getting home and taking a shower. unfortunately, the second hand smoke got to me and i passed out immediately after finishing my cereal. i wasn't up and out to the store until close to 14:00, and i ended up taking two trips because i overpacked my bag and needed to cart it. that means i got more shopping done today than intended, and also that the day is mostly gone.

so, what's next?

i'm going to do lots of eating, take that shower and then see if i can rebuild these old machines. if that's all i can get done before i have to crash, so be it.

so, if i go back to june 15th, 2017 and read forwards to about july 15, 2017 i think i'll have a good idea of the logic i had constructed.

but, i need to eat..

let's hope the fucking idiot doesn't succumb to retard hour. it's -15 out, but i'll open the window and drive up the heating bill, if he wants to pay for it.

....because polluter pays. that's how it goes.

so, i've sorted through my notes from 2017 and pulled out the following:

old laptop - nothing <---it was in the closet, at the time.

old desktop - nothing  <----still the tv

access point - rca sound out, ps/2 mouse/keyboard combo.   <----this was the converted recording pc, with several parts stripped out.

cq60 - guitar interface   <-----i wanted to turn the compaq laptop into a real time guitar effects processor. that's no longer feasible, due to the broken screen.

pav g6 - editing software?  <--- at the time, it still booted, but the screen was dead. i was going to connect this to the access point via rj-45 and use it as an external processor for editing videos for vlogging, strictly. and a big part of why i haven't uploaded any vlogs in several years is that i never got around to it....

new desktop - square dvi or hdmi monitor,  new audio receiver & studio monitor speakers <---new recording pc, built from new components and old parts.

how can i update this?

old laptop - i need to get more ram for this thing. i can max it out for cheap and should. it could still work as a tv.

old desktop - i previously upgraded the ram in this machine for cheap and put a firewire connector in it. it's pretty much maxed out, but i can't use it as a tv, as it just can't run an html5 browser, even maxxed out. but, it is maxxed out and that's something i can take advantage of in putting 98 on it. it has a working dvd-reader (no writer) in it, which is ironically less important than it was even five years ago. it has a tv tuner (and could take a cable in if i had one) and i'm putting the sb live it came with back in it, with the front-end interface. so, it's going to be just like when i bought it, but upgraded as much as is possible to take maximum ram specs. i don't think i need to add anything else to it

access point - i was using the cq60 as the access point and would like to go back to it if i can get it to work. i have newish ram, a newish battery & a newish hard drive. but, the machine has seemingly been heavily hacked, for what reason, exactly, i don't fully understand. until then, i need to use the chromebook to get on the internet - and the ability to powerwash the device is highly useful given the constant police harassment that i'm apparently under.

guitar interface - i no longer have a laptop that i can convert into a guitar interface. this idea is not entirely ejected, but no longer makes much sense to think about it. i mean, the logic was that i had this extra laptop that was perfectly fine - i no longer have an extra, perfectly working laptop but rather have four mostly broken laptops.

pav g6 - if i can fix this, i'd like to convert it into a video processor. if i can't, i need to find something else to process video with.

recording pc - keep the same, more or less. this machine works, but i need to keep it off the internet to prevent interference in what i'm doing.

new pc - build into 64 bit recording pc for eventual use. i'm penciling in the matlab project, iirc.

the new item is "mobile device", which i had used both the broken hps for in the past and never really got to use the chromebook much for. i should try to fix the chromebook one way or the other; if i can fix it well enough to salvage it as a mobile device, great. for now, it's the access point. and, it would no doubt make a better tv, if it comes to it. but, then i need a new mobile device.

ok.

i've got these ideas clear in my head, again.

now, i need to find a more detailed post that explains what i wanted to keep in the old pc and move to the new one, before i put the old pc away for a bit.

polluter pays.

right?

if he can afford the drugs, he can afford to compensate the people around him for the externalities caused by them.

...and if i'm wrong? if the heat is too much, and the hot water is hurting him?

simple answer: spend less money on drugs, then.

i mean, that's ultimately what he's broadcasting to me - that he has so much money, he can waste it on drugs, and i don't need to worry much about his utilities, as a result of it.

it's hard to focus in the filth, but i'm trying.

and, if he wants to pay extra to heat the place, and extra on hot water for me to redo laundry, that's his stupid choice. i'm concerned about my health, not his finances. the more he spends on utilities, the less he has to spend on drugs.

that fucking loser upstairs has turned into a worthless, welfare case drug addict as a consequence of the pandemic - he's taking my disability check and blowing it all on drugs on the first of the month. i've noticed it a few months in a row, now. the drugs clear up mid-month or so, and are worst the day after i pay him.

so, he's taking my welfare check and spending it on drugs.

fucking pathetic.

so, i got distracted there.

as i'm dusting everything off and making sure it still works, which is not the first time i've done that, i'm realizing the need to rebuild the machines. i ultimately want to put the 32-bit machine in it's spot in the desk and plug it in, but i need to figure out what i'm putting in it and not putting in it, which has changed since i initially bought the parts for the 64-bit machine, which i haven't gotten around to building yet.

i should go back and check my notes from 2017 to see exactly what i wanted to do with each item, and each part for each item, before i commit to doing anything with them, now, just to make sure i don't miss any ideas i may have had at the time. 

i now have three pcs (the 90s pc, the 32-bit production pc and a new 64-bit machine that i haven't set up yet) and four laptops (two broken modern hps, a 90s laptop that still works but is impossibly slow and a falling apart expired ibm chromebook) to utilize, and need to figure out the best way to set them up, relative to what i want to actually do. back when i lived in the other basement apartment, i initially had the oldest pc set up in the living room as a streaming device to send youtube out to an old tv set, the hp laptop in my bedroom as a glorified typewriting gateway device and what i'm calling the 32-bit machine set up as my main production machine in the recording room. what happened was that both modern laptops lost their screens in sequence within a few months, leaving me without a good access point, and i decided i'd be foolish to buy another laptop, given that laptops are just mass manufactured garbage, in today's world.

it's just based on empirical observation; i've learned, by experience, that laptops are simply designed to break  - they're made of shitty components with intentionally short lifetimes. it's planned obsolescence. so, i decided i wouldn't waste my money on them, and i'd stick with good asus boards in all of my machines, moving forwards, instead. i'll never waste money on a laptop that is designed to break within a few months, ever again.

so, what i wanted to do was move the 32-bit machine into my bedroom to replace the broken laptop, and then use the new machine as the recording machine in the music room. the intent was to take large amounts of what is currently in the 32-bit machine (the recording stuff) and put it in the 64 bit machine. i think i even wanted to switch the cases, which i now think is insane.

i then wanted to convert the newer hp laptop - which has 8 gb of ram in it - into a video processing console, and connect it to the bedroom pc via a network cable. i was intending to use the other hp laptop as a real-time guitar effects processor. i had no plans for the oldest laptop, except as an emergency backup. 

when i moved to the apartment building, i went from three rooms to two rooms and that plan no longer made any sense. first, i lost my server room, which buffered the noise from the old pc, which it no longer made any sense to leave on all of the time. on top of that, there wasn't really room for the tv, which ended up sitting in a corner, and was ultimately left there; the 90s laptop was still able to connect to the internet with minimal effort, so it made sense to just use that by putting it on the coffee table, instead. so, i decided that i'd convert the old pc (which was no longer being used as a tv) into a 16-bit machine for recording, keep the 32-bit machine as it is, and build the 64-bit machine when it was time to do so. the idea was to swap between them using a kvm.  but, things did not work out there, and i never really got around to setting up any of these things.

after i moved into the space i'm in now, i kept using the 90s laptop as a tv and i bought a cheap chromebook, which was intended for use strictly as a mobile device, given that my laptops were now both non-mobile. this is, itself, now falling apart. it lost the battery several months ago, and i've got a usb mouse and keyboard attached to it, just like the other ones. that means it's no longer of use as it's intended purpose, leaving me in the same scenario as previously (without a mobile computer), although it still connects as an access device, which is what i've been using it as, recently. i can't type on a phone, which renders it useless to me - i just have no interest in it, i think it's useless. if i get my climate money in, i could conceivably use it to buy a new laptop for mobile use, and then convert the chromebook into a new tv. that would solve all of these laptop and tv problems, and clear up the 16-bit pc for further musical use.

it's a shame that i can't just use the old laptop, which is built like a tank and still runs. i mean, it's a perfectly functional device. i actually winlited an installation disc specifically for it, and specifically to use it as a tv, but it's of minimal use to me at this point because i need an html-5 ready browser to access youtube, now. that is the specific thing that broke the 90s pc, and the specific thing that broke the 90s laptop, too. this thinkpad should have no such problems for quite some time. so, i could use it as a tv replacement, in the medium to long run.

i want to go back, though, to make sure that i didn't have some other plan for this 16-bit pc, before i turn it back into a recording console.

it may seem obsolete, but i think it makes sense to keep dedicated 16-bit and 32-bit recording machines, on top of the incoming 64-bit machine. i have both hardware and software that only really works right with 16-bit drivers, and that is no doubt true in a 32-bit environment, too - although i truly don't know, because i honestly haven't tried. i have a very detailed winlited install disc with a complex script that was built for the 32-bit environment. i need to upgrade to get more ram - 4 gb is a real and hard limit - but i don't want to lose the functionality. so, it makes more sense to set the three devices up in parallel and kvm between them.

i just need to go back over my notes and remind myself how i wanted to do it.

so, that's the plan for the next few hours, and i should at least have the 16 and 32 bit machines properly rebuilt by the end of it.

but, if i'm going to be sitting at home all summer with a little bit of extra cash in my account, i should use it to fix these broken machines up, one at a time.