Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
so, i got some eggs this morning and crashed half way through eating them, took a nap, was up in the afternoon, spent a while cleaning myself and made it to the blood lab at the nick of time, at just before 18:00. i'll do a write-up soon, but my blood test results came in very fast.
my estrogen levels seem to be ok. my cholesterol is absurdly low, as always. my glucose is in normal reference ranges, but i remain concerned that it keeps coming in at over 5 on fasting - it's at the high end of reference ranges, which is a little out of balance given that everything else is low.
but, i'm apparently dangerously anemic - or that's what it looks like on first glance. but, while a number of 12 ug/ml may be dangerous for men, it's not that unusual, if definitely on the low end, for women. my rbc counts are pegged as low....for men. they're not that off, for women.
so, i'll need to have a talk at my appointment on friday, but i'm not sure what the right reaction is. how should i be measuring this, given that i've been estrogen dominant for my entire adult life?
i clearly get a large amount of iron in my diet - if it's too low, i'm just not absorbing it, which means what? internal bleeding? what?
while i get frequently annoyed by people smoking, i don't otherwise think i have the symptoms of anemia. but, both my father and his mother were always very concerned that i might develop some level of anemia, like they were concerned about something genetic. if it was ever explained to me, i've forgotten.
i'm surprised by this - my b12 levels are extremely high. i'm absorbing that. if i'm not absorbing iron, it's not anything i'm doing wrong, it's something broken in my instruction set. and, i guess we'll have to have a talk about this.
that said, these results can be finnicky as well, and i'm going to request a second test to confirm it before i react.
i'm probably going to need to finish the diet saga up to what exists - or at least produce a rough first draft of it - in order to finish the fruit bowl.
for now, i'm just going to post an update on what is actually in the pasta bowl, if you want to give it a try:
- 55 g of fortified al dente durum wheat pasta
- 1 beet (~120 g)
- 1 garlic clove ~(5 g)
- 1 lime, including the peel (~ 67 g)
- 1 red pepper (~150 g)
- 1 italian tomato (~100 g)
- 50 g of broccoli
- 110 g of carrots
- several dashes of frank's red hot
- several dashes of ground black pepper
- 5 tsp of pasta water
- 1 tbsp hulled hemp seeds
- 1 tbsp rubbed oregano
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 large tsp of sunflower seeds
- 1 large tsp of nutritional yeast
- 1 medium tsp cayenne
- 1 small tsp mustard
- 200 ml of fortified vanilla soy milk
- 3 tbsp of fortified pro-biotic yogurt
- 70 g of cheddar cheese
again, i didn't find myself learning much from the aztec episode, but it was enjoyable and engaging to watch.
where did these people come from? we should be able to trace the archaeology, but it largely appears out of nowhere. the sources we have are beyond terrible, to the point that they come off more as myths designed to uphold the conquest than anything else. if ever there was a place where archaeology was important, it's central america. but, it really does just pop up - like it came from somewhere else.
and, a commonality in the civilizations of these regions is that they tend to disappear, too - something that is true as far north as st. louis. there are good theories about cities being built and abandoned to the rains, to the tornadoes, to hurricanes, to earthquakes, to fires - this continent is horribly unstable. so, if people tend to disappear then it provides some guidance as to why they tend to mysteriously appear, as well. but, this idea of parallel or convergent evolution has truly never sat very well with me.
it's for that reason that it would be nice to have some histories, but even the story of what happened to the history seems whitewashed, itself. we see this in the norse sagas, too - these christianized histories that are really designed to co-opt the culture and put the church at the centre of it. the video points this out, but it doesn't put the emphasis on it that it really needs to have on it. so, the story is that these people used to have histories until a few years ago, when they burnt it themselves, because the rulers didn't want the history leading the people astray. i see. "it's not my fault, it was like that when i got here.".
what remains is essentially a story.
and, that story is probably almost entirely mythical.
archaeology in this region is difficult because the jungle reclaims everything very quickly. but, it's the correct approach, as difficult as it is. while the video is actually unusually interdisciplinary, and i actually respect that, it's a mythology more than it is a history - and a real history would be focused more on what the archaeology tells us and doesn't.
but, i mean, the details are lost, whoever or whatever is responsible for it. if you want a story, this is the best one we've got.
....until we invent time travel.
it is what it is, and it can be; it's not what it isn't and it cannot be.
Monday, March 8, 2021
i found myself pent up and frustrated and couped up last year and needed to get out.
that's not going to happen, this year. this year, i'm just looking to maximize productivity, as much as i can. and, if she wants to fight, we're going to fight.
it would be easier if the cops just got a new spy, because i can smell this one from 100 yards away.
that was more sleeping than i would have liked today, but at least it was during the actual day. i need to finish my coffee and make some pasta...
i am going to finish the fruit bowl write-up this week, and get the other two ready for further analysis.
tonight, i'm going to focus on cleaning the other side of the apartment, as i prepare for total war with the disgusting pig upstairs, who just won't go the fuck away.
i just want to clarify where i stood regarding "the war on terrorism".
after the 2001 attacks, i was one of the first people pointing to the pnac documents. i opposed all of it, and i opposed all of it for years. i wrote songs about it:
there's no question where i stood, and it was in strict opposition to all of it.
but, unlike some other people on the left, i've never developed a level of naivete around islam and, as time went on, it became clear that the reasons i opposed this war were drastically different than the reasons i was hearing around me, and a source of disconnect in media started to become apparent.
the arguments i had heard against the war were mostly from academic secularists, of which hitchens was one of them but ended up aligned on the wrong side of the debate, who argued that this is just not how self-determination works - you can't just eradicate a despot and watch people rise up out of the desert like magnificent mushrooms. that premise is utter nonsense. there has to be a base to build on, some framework to erect the society on. otherwise, you will at best end up recreating the soviet union (which is something like what they already had). if you want a social democracy in iraq, it's necessary to build from below and not above. this may, in the end, result in supporting a bombing campaign once there is a movement on the ground to provide air support to, should it happen to align with those interests (and nobody cares what the imperialists think or why they do what they do, what's important is if they could be taken advantage of to push the goals of iraqi self-determination), but nothing of the sort seemed remotely likely to happen in the iraq of 2003. the iraqis were not ready for this kind of intervention. now, yes - it became rather apparent, rather fast that the bombing campaign was punitive in nature, but that has nothing to do with the initial logic in whether to support it or not. even a bombing campaign with punitive intent should have a positive outcome if there is a force on the ground to take advantage of it. it just doesn't matter why. but there just wasn't....
what i started to realize when i was talking to people around me was that these were not the arguments they were making. rather, they were making much more conservative arguments that the historical left would have largely rejected as utopian, backwards and naive. so, you'd hear them argue for the preservation of "iraqi culture" in the face of "american imperialism", and you just had to chuckle a little when you did, as though the culture in the region was anything worth supporting, as a leftist. you want to cut off peoples' hands? you're into corrective rape? really? but, it became apparent over time that they seemed less concerned about the nature of iraqi culture and how it may affect the lives of iraqis (that is, they weren't interested in consequences) and were more concerned about the sovereignty of iraqi citizens to make their own decisions, however terrible those decisions might be. so, they seemed perfectly happy to support the most right-wing islamic fundamentalists on the ground that they could find, if that was the opposition to "american imperialism" that actually existed. this was often kind of more about them than about the people in iraq - and they seemed to see any opposition at all as their enemy's enemy, and therefore their friend. call them useful idiots, but it's what was real.
(and, of course, most of these groups were actually created by american imperialism, and exist to carry out their goals. but, neither of us knew that then - and i suspect they mostly still don't know that, now.)
i had to grapple with this fact in front of me - the opposition to this war was widespread, and i was a part of it, but it was not a leftist opposition at all, but was rather a conservative, pacifist, non-interventionist opposition. and, if the spectrum was already confused, this is where it becomes incoherent, as the terms flipped meaning almost entirely. the quakers became the far left, and trotsky became the far right.
we can dispense of the terms. maybe you opposed the war because you thought it was wrong to intervene, in which case we have very different perspectives. i did not oppose the war out of "respect for traditional iraqi culture", but because it was clear that there was no revolutionary foundation to build upon. and, i claim my argument is left-wing and your argument is right-wing, and we might argue the point, but we can probably at least agree that the utility of these labels is not what it once was.
and, i continued to strictly oppose the war from what i claim was the left in every way up until something switched over, and that was the rise of isis. unless you are a non-interventionist pacifist that opposes all war on moral grounds (like a quaker), then you have lines where war becomes acceptable. isis is where that line crossed, for me. and, we can understand our differing reactions to isis by looking at the reasons we opposed the war to begin with.
my argument was that bombing iraq was counter-productive and would just make things worse, in the long run; your argument was that it was morally wrong to bomb other countries. so, when bombing iraq did make things worse in the long run, and created a force that actually needed to be contained, the bombing became a self-fulfilling prophesy, from my perspective - i was arguing that we shouldn't bomb iraq because something like isis would happen (whereas hitchens seemed to welcome the anarchy), and you were arguing we shouldn't bomb iraq because you thought something like isis was perfectly ok, if it was indigenous in character - i was arguing tactics, and you were pushing cultural relativism. so, when isis appeared, my argument flipped over - now we have to bomb them because we created a mess, and look what came out of it: utter barbarism that simply had to be destroyed. and, you're just still lost in the same relativistic argument you were in before, where you can't tell what's right and wrong to begin with, anyways. to me, the creation of isis proved i was right to oppose the initial invasion; to you, bombing is bombing, and there's no difference in supporting this or that campaign.
i'm a subtle, careful thinker; you're a zealot.
i was arguing for immediate withdrawal all through 2004, 2008 and into whenever it was - 2012? 2013? - that isis started appearing. but, i changed my position to bomb isis, specifically - now, we had to finish the job, first. i didn't like this change in position, i didn't want to stay in iraq, but i felt it was now the necessary position. we could cut and run when the society is in anarchy, but not when it's being taken over by fascism - you have to fight fascism, whether you like it or not.
and, yes, i was aware that isis was funded by the saudis under american influence and guidance - that we created this force to bomb it. it's a ploy. i understood that. it didn't matter - they had to be mercilessly annihilated and permanently destroyed, anyways. and, we could figure out what's next, after.
standing in 2021, i haven't rescinded my calls for the utter destruction of what is left of the caliphate, but i realize at this point that it doesn't matter. there's no group to align with on the point. the united states is in the process of recreating isis, and is using it to attack syria with. it will no doubt be used to threaten iraq and keep it in line, and it may be used to harass iran. and, we don't seem to need the fake narrative any longer - we're now just giving them direct air support, and arguing they're an indigenous uprising, which is ridiculous and directly from the fucking cia.
my solidarity is where it always was, which is with the secularist, leftist, socialist groups on the ground. i stand with the apostates and the queers looking to do away with islam and radically revolutionize the society on the ground. that's who i stood with then and who i stand with now. i have no patience for people supporting "nationalist insurgencies" or arguing that islamic rule is indigenous to the region - i support global socialist revolution, everywhere. i realize that global islam is an imperialist force in it's own right and a dominant threat to world peace that needs to be restrained and dismantled. the next world war will be fought to neutralize islam as a force of fascism, which is a historical narrative going back centuries, and not something william kristol thought up.
so, i will stand primarily with the russians and assad by proxy as the lesser evil, as they attempt to fight off an absolutely vicious saudi-american invasion force, and i will continue to cite reasons that i believe align with the internationalist left, and not with the isolationist right.
we may again find ourselves aligned in policy, even if we don't find ourselves aligned in intent or ideology. but, i've become wary of building temporary alliances with islamist sympathizers, as i no longer trust your intents, and am not likely to look the other way any longer.
just to be clear on a point...
i tend to prefer to buy almost everything second hand; yes, i'm poor, and it's cheaper, but i'd still buy things second hand if i was rich, and there's reasons for it that are intended to jam up the economy.
so, with the exception of things like socks and underwear and shoes, i buy clothes second hand. always. and, this is a very conscious economic choice. the fact of the matter is that you cannot find clothes made new in this economy that are not created by children in third world countries - it's just not an option. every company at every store in every mall is selling clothes made with child slave labour. i want nothing to do with it, but i can't walk around naked. so, i go to value village - and i would still go to value village even if i was rich, for that reason, and that reason explicitly.
with furniture, i prefer, under normal circumstances, to buy used in order to prevent the manufacture of new items. this seems backwards, you say - don't i want to support the economy? absolutely not, no - or at least not this economy, which is wasteful and doesn't recycle. yes, generally speaking, i can get usable furniture at kijiji for 1% of the cost you'd get it in a new bourgeois store, but that's really besides the point; i'm trying to reduce the amount of waste in society, and reusing perfectly good furniture is a far better idea than paying through my nose to support union wages to create more and more waste. these are where my priorities are.
and, we can go through item by item, but it's usually the same basic logic - i'm going for the second-hand options because i don't want to support the economy. sorry...
so, after looking at the options available to me, i decided that the cheapest option in front of me was actually to get a table shipped to me - for free - from walmart. i'd be paying almost exactly the same price for virtually anything on kijiji, but i'd have to find a way to drag it here. if shipping is free, i'd might as well take it.
so, i got a 40"x20" table to put the monitor and speakers on for $30 and a 20"x20" end table to put the receiver, cd player and laptop on for $15. there's $5 in tax. i'm not going to do better than that, and it comes straight to my door - and free of smoke.
so, where am i with the cleaning and reinstalling, then?
- i have completely cleaned my bedroom space from top to bottom. every nook and cranny. i've scrubbed the floors. it's spotless...
- i have reassembled my dresser and washed every article of clothing in it, as well. so, all my clothes are clean for the first time in over a year. the problem was that there was a hydrogen sulfide leak in the basement floor directly beside the dresser and i wanted to be 100% sure it was fixed before i set the dresser back up and washed all the clothes. it's all done.
- i need to get a table and a bookcase for this space with the carbon tax refund, which should be easy enough, if i can find it.
- i'm using my old homemade makeup table as a shoe rack in the closet
- putting all these clothes away meant i could clear out the space intended for recording, finally. that has been done, and everything has been cleaned as much as is possible - including a thorough scrubbing of the floors. this space was absolutely filthy....but i want to keep it clean...
- i have a lot of gear to reinstall and/or fix as i set it up in here. i'm starting with 2 of the 3 pcs, which i'm using as 16-bit and 32-bit windows recording consoles, respectively.
- i have purchased a large bookcase for $15 that has a broken top but is otherwise perfectly fine and now overlooks the studio space. it will probably hold recording related materials in some currently unclear way. some time ago, i also purchased an organizer for wires and cables. so, this space is actually considerably more organized than it was, previously.
- i'm going to install racks for the two bicycles along the stairwell. that will clear up space and keep dirt off the floor.
- i still need to clean the kitchen & the bathroom before i get seriously back to work. from here on in, i intend to get back to the monthly cleaning schedule that i had before i got frustrated by the sulfur smell and second-hand smoke from upstairs.
- i have put all of the various items that need to slowly be reinstalled into the other room, which i have been using as a combo storage space + dining area. the process of reconstructing the studio and generally setting things up in here will be reduced to a process of cleaning up that space, bit by bit. when it is done, i will be be done what i'm doing.
so, i've been posting less because i've been vacuuming and lysoling and scrubbing things, but i'm over a bit of a hump with it.
let's check to see if there's anything new up on kijiji regarding tables and bookcases.
ok, so i can't do a brute force hack on the pasta bowl or the eggs and i don't want to do a final run for the fruit bowl. i've got too many loose threads open and i'm just totally unravelling. how do i reweave myself back into some semblance of coherence?
i was building liner notes, and i stopped to fix my diet - thinking it would take a few days to build. six months later, and i'm reaching a conclusion, but need to move on.
i realized my fluoride data totals were wrong, and went to backtrack to fix them. in the process, i decided i'd make a final fruit bowl post because i was almost done and set about compiling it. but, then i wanted to build a book documenting the entire saga. but, then i decided i wanted to build a book documenting my comments on the pandemic. and, i kept going further back, until i decided to go back to the start...
the idea was that, if i start at the beginning, in august 2013, i can spin off a series of different narratives, not just the food saga and the pandemic commentary. these would all be little books to read. in the process, i could spin off the liner notes, as well. i'd actually be multitasking.
but, then, i realized the need to get to the alter-reality, too.
as i was cleaning, i came to the decision that i need to create a schedule and more effectively multitask or i'll continually get lost in these complex recursions. so, i need to be doing three things at once:
1) moving through the alter-reality, starting in 1989
2) actually getting back to the discography, at period 3
3) starting in 2013 with the blogs and rebuilding them, moving forwards
if i do any one of these three things, strictly, then i'll never get any of the others finished.
so, what if i get in the habit of spending:
sat/sun/mon building the blogs
tues/wed/thurs working on the discography (starting at period 3)
fri on the alter-reality.
eventually, these things will crash into each other.
and, i need to finish cleaning and fixing machines in here, first.
i don't actually want to do it like this but i think i absolutely have to.
Sunday, March 7, 2021
the who is right - this is utter stupidity. but, it's what i've come to expect.
if i caught this thing and beat it last year, i don't want or need to get vaccinated - and i'm not going to. these vaccines will be useless in 24-36 months, anyways.
i want access to an antibody test, i don't want a vaccine.
pasta bowl
so, to start with, this is what seems to be sufficient in the pasta bowl:
- vitamins: beta-carotene, b1, b2, b3, b4, b6, b9, b13, c, d, e, f2, k2
- minerals: na, mg, p, k, ca, mn, fe, co, cu, zn, se
this is what seems to be lacking, after adjusting to the 50% requirements, from the 33% ones:
- vitamins: retinol, b5, b7, b8, b12 (natural), b15, b16, b20, f1, f3, f4, k1, s
- minerals: f, cl, mo
and this is what has not been measured at all:
- minerals: b, si, s, cr, ni, i
- all amino acids
- luteiin
- lycopene
- chlorophyll
- flavonoids
so, this is far more complicated than i thought.
if i boost the cheese & yogurt by a tad each, it should get the a, b5 and b12 up. the broccoli should get the k1 up. i think i have enough s from the oregano. but, i need to actually do the work for the rest of it - i can't hack through this. like, i was considering replacing limes with peas, but it seems like i might need to add both.
i've spun myself around in so many circles that i can't tell which direction is which, and can't right myself. i'm doing way too many things at once. the story of my life.
ok.
i need to clean the floor. that's what i need to do.
the fruit bowl is almost entirely done; it doesn't make sense to mess with this further until i can do it right.
i've also been watching that han thing though, and i'm reflexively drawing parallels to rome, something the video actually does, as well. this is a crash course in a complicated topic by a westerner that is necessarily approaching it from a distance, but i'm not about to delve into it in too much detail, either - this is an appropriate narration for the audience, insofar as that audience includes myself. as it is, even somebody with only a rough outline of chinese history, such as myself, has delved into this more deeply, already; each of these emperors of course deserves their own feature-length film, and i've already watched a handful of them. so, i'm not learning that much. but, it's useful to have it pieced together, too.
one of the differences seems to be that the northern barbarians of the east seem to have been less primitive and consequently less appealing; the germans, for example, based much of their resistance to roman rule on the rejection of taxation, whereas the huns & mongols were largely just another extractivist force that levelled punitive taxes on their populations to fund their empire - including, in later years, on slavs and germans, themselves. if the purpose of identifying with the germans in their struggle against the romans was that they were defenders of anarchy, freedom & democracy in the face of imperialism and tyranny - even when the resistance necessarily turned vicious and violent in self-preservation - then no such identification seems apparent with the barbarians of the east, who implemented all of the violence of imperialism without adopting the benefits of settled civilization, and consequently seem to embody the term "barbarian" with a much deeper level of accuracy. but, maybe i shouldn't be trying to understand the han by focusing on the huns - and maybe that's an error the source is making, in presenting it to me that way.
one of the more useful things i'm pulling out of it in regards to the han themselves is how chinese civilization has grappled with religion. i already knew that this wasn't a communist thing, that chinese culture has this conflict between an atheistic/confucianist ruling class that sees superstition as backwards and an ignorant, rural, superstitious peasantry baked into it - that mao was reacting to his own culture, and rather openly so. maoism couldn't make sense anywhere else, and isn't intended to; it was intended as an application of communism to china, rather than the other way around. and, it's a reminder that the ccp is a chinese empire first and a communist state second. so, the narrative presents confucianism first and then taoism later both as disasters that had to be undone. this perception of religion as this kind of dangerous force of ignorance perpetuated by the peasantry is really decidedly unmarxist, but it parallels the kind of thing you heard from the late pagans, like proclus - the difference is that the religionists won in the west, and the atheists seem to have won, in the east. china consequently doesn't go through the kind of internal destruction that rome goes through, or at least not until the mongol invasion, when the society is totally transformed.
i think that reading up on chinese history is probably a good idea right now, however it is that you want to do it.
there's about an hour left on this, and we'll see if i want to post another comment about it or not.
after getting hit with a minor headache (not a migraine.) in the morning and deciding to sleep it off, i slept all day, again. they're putting something in my coffee, i think, when i'm out, and it's just forcing me to sleep it off. wasting my time with their stupidity...i'll just have to wait for it to stop.
with the weather getting a little warmer, it's a good excuse to get girled up a little when i go out, even if i don't have anywhere to go except get groceries. *shrug*.
i was up around 14:00, got some fruit and then had to crash yet again. i was up around 19:00. annoying urges that i do not want and choose to suppress aside, i hope i'm awake for the night, now. i should get some pasta fairly soon.
fruit bowl
so, this is my total fruit bowl for now. note that i do not have numbers for phenylalanine, tyrosine, threonine or trytophan. i need to derive my own numbers for the first two, and i haven't done the calculations yet for the last two. but, i think this is sufficient for all of them. the other amino acids do not have calculated rdis at this time, but they are not considered essential and can therefore wait.
fruit & vegetables
- 100 g strawberry (c,s...cr,se)
- 30 g guava (b8,c,s)
- 70 g kiwi (b8,c,k1...b,cr)
- 150 g avocado (b5,b8,b9,b16,b20,c,e,f1,k1,s...b,na,s,k,cr,zn,se....h,l,k,m,c)
- 120 g banana (b5,b16...cl,k,se....h)
- 45 g raspberry (c,s...b)
- pinch of cinnamon (s, mostly)*
- 1 tbsp of paprika (pseudo-a + lutein & zeaxanthin) (see below)
+
- cherries (from yogurt, ice cream) (extra pseudo-a,c,e,s + flavonoids)
- 45 g of blueberry or blackberry or cranberry (or multiples of them) (extra c,e,s + flavonoids)
this week, i have both blueberries and blackberries.
again: flavonoids are probably useless in vivo, but i haven't yet done the research to hone in on them and try to figure out which, if any, can be absorbed. in the mean time, if you're taking the chance on blueberries or cranberries for flavonoids then you should find pure juice, as trying to get much of anything at all from a handful of blueberries or blackberries is probably totally silly. i'm just adding berries for taste and enjoyment, primarily - if they're on sale, as blueberries were this week.
*i'm currently using a pinch of what i presume is cassia cinnamon and that i purchased more or less by accident. when that runs out - or perhaps sooner - i'll see if i can find some ceylon cinnamon, to avoid issues with coumarin. this is not in the chart at this time, and is the only thing i might expand this bowl with, that i can see, at this time. the primary purpose of adding cinnamon is for the aspirin. cinnamon, of course, also tastes pleasantly.
"dairy"
- 400 ml fortified soy milk (a, b5,b7,b8,b16,b20,d,f1...b,na,p,s,k,ca,fe,co,cu,zn,se,mo....h,i,l,k,m,c,v)
- 82.5 g of cherry ice cream (a,b5,b12,b13,b16,b20,k2...na,s,zn,se....i,l,k,m,v)
- 50 g cherry yogurt (a,b16,b20...na,s,co,zn,se....i,l,k,m,c,v)
the soy is heavily fortified, and these are major sources of protein, as can be seen.
cereal
- 40 g of vector (a,b3,b5,b7,b9,b15,b20,e,f1...na,cl,fe,zn,se,i)*
- 45 g of all bran (b5,b8,b15,b16,b20,f1...na,mg, p,s,cl,k,mn,fe,zn,se....h,i,l,k,m,c,v)
- 14 g wheat bran (b8,b15...s,cl,zn,se....c)!
these cereals are both heavily fortified, and the all bran is a source of bran - meaning it is a source of betaine, inositol, selenium....and, yes, fibre. you will pass this meal, trust me.
* - while the vector cereal is presumably a substantive source of protein, the amino acid amounts are not listed on the packaging, and the manufactured nature of the product means it is difficult to ascertain from the nutrition facts. this is therefore left as uncalculated and extra.
! - note that i have doubled the amount of wheat bran, for now, to meet the selenium amounts by brute force and have otherwise not recalculated anything. se has been added to all of the other items based on existing amounts. the raw wheat bran is consequently probably going to end up as a source of more items, including as a major source of betaine. this is done at minimal cost, but in an inefficient manner. this will be made more efficient in time.)
seeds
- 8 g of raw, hulled sunflower seed (e,f1...s,se....c)
- 12 g of ground flax seed (b16,f1,f2...b,si,s,ni,zn,se....c)
while listed as sources of protein, both only appear to be useful in this meal, at these quantities, for cysteine. rather, the sunflower seeds are a source of omega-6 & vitamin e, while the flax seeds are a source of omega-3, primarily.
fungi & protists
- 5 g of nutritional yeast (b1,b2,b3,b4,b6,b7,b9,b12,b16...s,cr,se....k,c)
- 5 ml of algal oil (b12,16,f3,f4)
the yeast is loaded with b vitamins and the algal oil is the only substantive source of epa & dha in my diet at this time.
while i haven't finished calculating amino acid levels, this minor tweak for the wheat bran means that i am confident that this bowl is otherwise complete, at this time.
some other considerations for future additions:
major minor carotenoids
1) lutein + zeaxanthin - there was a major study done a few years ago:
so, it seems like a rough rule of thumb is that i should be aiming for around 12 mg a day, total, with 4 mg per meal, minimal, on my current schedule, given that this is fat soluble. this is very rough. for this meal, i should get about .4 from avocados, .0612 from raspberries, .0854 from kiwi, and only .026 from strawberry. there's only .1416 in the total bran consumption, at most. i can add .07812 from flax. and, that's it.
.4 + .1416 + .0854 + .07812 + .0612 + .026 = 0.79232 mg.
so, that's a little low. and, it doesn't seem like fruit is a good source of this nutrient, in general - it seems like it's a vegetable thing.
the exception seems to be paprika, which is technically a fruit. paprika is an easy, cheap source that i have on hand. to get to 4 mg, i'd need to add:.
.79232 + 13.158x > 4 <---> x > (4 - .7932)/13.158 = 0.24371485028
so, that's about 25 g - probably two big tablespoons.
.7932 + .25*13.158 = 4.0827
what's that going to taste like?
if you really want lutein without a supplement, it seems like you're going to be forced to eat leafy greens. we'll see if i think i need to add this to the pasta bowl in the presence of a capsicum onslaught or not, but the addition of a bit of broccoli should help, too.
let me commit to adding one tablespoon, for now. this is fat soluble. so, if i'm getting lots in my other two meals, i can maybe cheat a little. or, maybe i can add more to the pasta bowl, instead...
how are my eyes? i had an unnecessary surgery performed on me as a child, on the insistence of my psychotic and clinically retarded mother. my father took me to see several specialists, who insisted there was nothing wrong with my eyes. but, my calvinist mother, who neurotically thinks everything is genetic and perfectly pre-determined, and doesn't believe in the slightest concept of free will or chance or randomness in the universe at all, decided that i must need the surgery because she needed it. i need to be clear on this - there was no evidence at all that i had any vision problems, but she insisted i must need the surgery, simply because she needed it - the genetic relationship left no space for chance in the matter (an absurd misunderstanding of genetics, to say the least) and i had no choice in the matter, nor did my distraught father, who had to watch his only son have his vision destroyed in some kind of perverse ritual sacrifice to the gods of genetic predisposition. my father fought her as hard as he could, but the court gave her custody because she has a vagina and he didn't and she found some hack that was willing to do it, in the end. my eyesight has been horrible ever since - i can barely see five feet in front of me.
so, i've had to learn to live with poor vision; i need more than lutein to fix my eyes. i doubt it's reversible, but i don't even know.
but, i have little to lose by following the above report as best i can.
there's a review here:
2) lycopene - the fact is that we don't yet have any positive data indicating that lycopene actually does anything, but we at least can absorb it, and that's pretty different than this list of flavonoids that we don't absorb at all. so, it works as an anti-oxidant in vitro and we can actually absorb it. so, it seems promising, but the studies just aren't extant, yet.
i've assumed that the lycopene data for guava applies strictly to pink guava rather than the green ones i'm eating (which are less domesticated and have more vitamins, overall), but is there a little in there? there's otherwise really no substantive source of lycopene in this meal, at all.
that said, based on this study, i think i should be aiming for about 5 mg/meal, to start, until i can get a better grasp of it:
with the exception of 100 g of pink guava (3.33x more than i'm currently consuming), there is no source of fruit that gives me anything close to that. i'd have to drink a carton of grapefruit juice, or start adding in large amounts of watermelons - which are otherwise nutritionally void.
so, realistically, you'd really have to get it from tomatoes, and i have added a tomato to my pasta bowl for that reason. but, until i can get some more serious data on the actual efficacy of the chemical, i'm not going to worry much about it.
i'll do a more serious write-up when the time comes.
chlorophyll
without seriously looking into it at all, i'm going to baselessly assume that there's plenty of chlorophyll in the guava, kiwis & avocados, together. in fact, i think i can taste the chlorophyll in the guava & the kiwis - i think it's what gives it that piney taste.
...green kiwifruit has one of the highest concentrations of chlorophyll, after avocado (Ashton et al. 2006).
flavonoids
as mentioned, i'm going to throw some extra berries in for fun, whenever they are on sale.
i'll put the pasta bowl in a new post because i'm stopping to eat.
Saturday, March 6, 2021
i also found a much cheaper (read: free.) solution to the getting-the-bike-out-of-the-living-room conundrum: i've locked it to the railing in the stairs. in fact, i've lodged it in the wall by the handlebars, but it's locked for extra support. twice. so, i can avoid buying that nook, at least for now.
i still need a bookcase for my bedroom, and i'm looking to replace my destroyed cabinet/dresser thing (which i had little utility for) with a sturdy table. it's a shame about that thing, but it just couldn't handle the moves - it was really the movers that destroyed it. i won't call that guy back.
so, they deposited my $300. and, i double checked - the loan isn't cancelled. that would imply that my letter writing campaign did actually work.
so, if you're in student loan debt and you got your carbon credit this time and didn't get it before, then you're welcome.
as i said at the time: it was probably a stupid oversight, and they probably missed it because it didn't cross their mind. it makes no sense at all that they intended to withhold it - it counteracts the intent. they just needed somebody to point it out.
have you heard a word from the ndp about this? i haven't.
Friday, March 5, 2021
but, let us stop and be empirical for a moment.
fact: canada is relying on a fund designed for third world countries in order to vaccinate it's citizens. it will be unable to do so, without relying on this fund.
if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, what is it? a mechanical duck, perhaps - but a duck, nonetheless.
and, the cause is clear - this is the devastation wrought by years worth of free trade, which is exactly what the british did to india.
the scandal here is that we have to dip into a supply intended for third world countries because free trade has destroyed our manufacturing capacity, not that we're putting ourselves ahead of other countries, which is simply acting rationally, and which every other country in the world is doing.
the fact that this is even a debate is reflective of the reality that something like half of the country is foreign born and sees themselves as transplants, and canadians second. we shouldn't even be debating this, and it's a reflection of where the country is in terms of immigration that we are. it's completely absurd to suggest that we ought to be more concerned about vaccinating citizens in other countries than we are about vaccinating ourselves, but here we are.
i just watched that byzantine documentary and was reminded of the battle of manzikert, where the emperor was forced to rely on turkish soldiers for defence, who defected and handed him over to the barbarians. canada is not only oblivious to these lessons of history, but seems focused on intentionally repeating the mistakes.
but, historical comparison aside, the focus from the left should be on how unchecked globalism has led us to this disaster, not a further embrace of it and a deeper articulation of globalist perspectives. i'm not surprised by anamie paul's reaction, as she is a perfect representative of the fake left. but, i am a little taken aback by stephen lewis' lack of commentary on the economic factors that led us here, while realizing that the cbc may have decided to cut him off in his response, or may have framed their questions in an intent to produce a specific response.
so, i spent the whole day sleeping and skipped everything, which i'll now have to put off until monday.
i left on thusrsday afternoon to go to the dentist with the hopes of securing a low dose doxycycline rx, and what he told me was that my mouth was unusually clean and the recession simply isn't being caused by bacteria. so, antibiotics wouldn't make any sense. when i pointed out that i was requesting doxycycline to inhibit collagenase production and not explicitly for it's antibiotic properties, he responded that he did not accept the idea that the recession may be being caused by a host response to the bacteria (which, if true, would model some gum disease as a kind of cancer, or even a kind of allergic reaction; it would suggest your body is losing gum tissue because it is attacking itself, in overproducing collagenase, rather than being attacked by bacteria. but, i have to acknowledge that this is not the accepted science at this point - it is an alternative theory, and i shouldn't be surprised if most dentists tell me it's wrong.), and retreated back to the idea that i simply didn't have any bacteria in my mouth, and that an rx would consequently not be appropriate. he told me my recession was simply the result of aging combined with overbrushing. what i'm going to say is that i understand his diagnosis and respect his reluctance, as he has rules he needs to follow, as a licensed dentist; what i need to do is find somebody who has experimented with this previously, and is willing to go beyond the accepted science. like, i can't say for sure that this is going to work, but i kind of don't even care why because the other option is letting my gums rot away and watching my teeth fall out. whatever the reason for the recession is, i have to do something....or else....
he also argued that he wouldn't recommend a gum graft in my mouth, because the success rates for gum grafting is very low. i've looked into this a little, and the best way i can make sense of that claim is that he's arguing that gum grafting doesn't undo the causes of recession, so i'll just end up re-receding any grafted tissue (again with the causes). well, that's maybe true, but i want to be more optimistic than that, and i want to approach the root causes the best i can. i already quit smoking a long time ago, so we can rule that out - as much as i can control it, which is less than i'd like. i'm hacking through the guy's habits upstairs, even right now. if i'm having issues with over-brushing, we can correct that. the one thing i probably can't actually fix at this point is crooked teeth (and air pollution), but i'd rather regraft over and over if i have to than watch my teeth fall out...
but, i mean, it's not covered unless the tooth is about to fall out. so, the only way i can pay for a gum graft is to wait for it to get so bad that my teeth are going to fall out if i don't do it. and, i'm thankfully not there yet, so it's not a feasible approach, anyways. i can point out that this is legitimately flat out stupid, and even the ford government seems to be slowly realizing how stupid it is, but i can't undo the stupidity of capitalism via convincing rhetorical devices, as though the bourgeoisie would just give up if it only understood. so, there's no path there - but it uncovered the dentist's attitude, which is more pessimistic than i want. i was happy to get the more conservative diagnosis, granted. but i need somebody that's a little less risk-averse. so, i've found his analysis invaluably useful, but i'll need to call around looking for somebody that has done this before - and i may need to travel for it. that's fine. it's a race against time.
so, i left the dentist without what i wanted, but with a better grasp of reality than i previously had. i'm asking for an experimental treatment and need to be cognizant of that fact in approaching licensed practitioners. that's a step forwards
on the way back, i stopped at the grocery store to pick up a number of items that i would normally pick up at that store and in fact bought too many things to get my bicycle home, including some extra additions to the pasta bowl, namely tomato and broccoli, which i'm adding blindly as a temporary stop-gap. a temporary update to the meal plan will follow shortly, as i add a few things to plug known holes, until i can get back to it. i should point out that the weather on this day was deceptively cold, with the temperature itself not being so bad but the windchill making it seem much colder than it really was, so my decision to bicycle was in truth in error. nonetheless, i found myself forced to walk with two extra jumbo boxes of vector and a plastic carton of grapefruit juice, in excess to what i could fit in my bag.
i initially tried to cart it but found myself blocked from further movement at the exit to the plaza, and on the way home found a wasteland of locked carts along that strip of tecumseh, discarded every couple of metres. i walked by about ten of them, and tried a few, but it was the same thing with all of them. this clearly indicates that there is a strong demand for carts in the neighbourhood, and that the grocery store is performing a disservice in the community by putting these radio sensors in them. further, we're banning plastic bags and bringing in a carbon tax, when one of the simplest things we can do to reduce unnecessary pollution is encourage people to walk to the store to do groceries! again: i can convince you this is stupid, but it doesn't fix it. and, one of the things you learn studying history is that nobody listens to the people arguing the society is destructive and stupid...not even after it's too late...
when i was nearly home, i scored a walmart cart just past crawford, and it's a good thing i did, too.
and, a curious thing happened as i was walking, too - a woman with a bag of red onions and a bag of potatoes sneaks up behind me and drops them into the cart. her english was very broken, but she was able to get across the point that she reasoned that if we were walking the same route then i should help carry the load, and i quite frankly had no debate with the premise - i'm an advocate of community cart use, as i've pointed out repeatedly. so, i got her onions and potatoes a good way up the road for her, but then i had to turn off. i wish i could have left her the cart, but i knew i needed it myself - to bring a bookcase home.
when i arranged for the transaction in the morning. i figured i could get the bookcase home by putting the shelves in a knapsack and carrying the case home myself. i did not initially intend to cart it. but, once i found myself in the possession of a cart, i immediately realized the utility of it and subsequently immediately formed the intent to further utilize it. this woman was definitely disappointed, but i insist my claim on further use was justified. and, it turns out that it was actually necessary - my initial intent was starkly naive.
but, this woman should have had access to a cart. she should not have been forced to carry this load on her own. shame on these stores for forcing her to walk home with a heavy load like that.
so, i got my food away and then took a walk up campbell to get get what was advertised as a 70" tall bookcase - and turned out to be made of solid oak and closer to 72" than 70" - a key fact given that the space i wanted to put it in is 70.5" tall. gah. good thing i had the cart, right? the seller had told me to pick the unit up from her porch and leave the $15 in the mailbox, presumably to avoid contact, which i did do, after i broke the top off getting it into the cart. oops.
the reality is that it's well more than $15 worth of wood, and i'll take it based on that fact alone, even if i end up leaving it here, in the end. i was only able to get it in here by sliding it down the railing, which converted nicely into an inclined plane. and, i have to put it in a different space than initially intended, because it's about an 1/8" too tall to fit where i want. well, one thing at a time, right? i needed two and now i need one.
so, i got my book case in here and then had to go get my bicycle. i left the cart where i turned off, and hope somebody else can find a use for it, although it was still there when i came home.
i got my bicycle home with a bag of avocados, some toilet paper and some ice cream and set immediately to making myself pasta, with the intent to get everything in order here over night, but found myself slow to actually eat due to the need to clean in the kitchen and put food in tupperware, and then needing to sleep as soon as i finished eating. i intended to nap, but i didn't wake up until after 10:00.
given my reliance on off-peak electrical, i need to be nocturnal in my habits and plan to sleep during the day. i can't be waking up at 10:00 am like this. so, i made the conscious decision to force myself to sleep - and did, quite spectacularly, getting some high quality sleep in, and not waking up until almost 17:00.
so, here we are then.
i'm going to catch up on eating, first. then, i'm going to clean all night and all day. so, here we go...
Thursday, March 4, 2021
i'll write something up after i eat...
i was hoping to train the youtube suggestion algorithms, but it's really pointless. they take ridiculous guesses based on fake vloggers and paid accounts. so, i've avoided this yanis varoufakis guy because i think he's a neo-liberal, but youtube keeps sending me link after link about him. i think zizek is a pseudo-intellectual dunce, but they keep pushing him on me, anyways. and, jordan peterson? really? jordan fucking dumbass peterson? almost every refresh, unavoidably...
years ago, i had this really long youtube watch list that i sorted through when eating that was based on loading up entries from a long series of channels that i had actually mostly built up over facebook. what actually happened was that i got really far behind on the newsfeed, then went to each of the sites and just added all of the videos at all of the sites to it. i never got my way through it...
i'm going to be a little less systematic about it this time, and i don't intend to vlog about it. but, rather than rely on these awful algorithms to sell me garbage i don't want (both literally and figuratively. you don't think youtube manufactures consent?), i'm going to pick out some specific channels and run through them.
and, then i'm going to subscribe to them.
so, i'm not adding my fake youtube account to the side, or at least i'm not until i upload anything to it. but, it seems like that's where i'm commenting from, for now - by necessity, if not by choice.
i will get back to the stanford lectures, but perhaps not just right now.
this is the first channel i'm going to key on, and i'm going to move backwards because i just watched the byzantium documentary. i can't say i learned much from it, but i enjoyed watching it and talking to myself in reacting to good or weak points made by it. and, we'll see how i react to the rest of them.
i am 100% self taught in history. well, i took a classics 101 (we read homer.) course and a third year course in byzantine history as a breadth requirement for the math degree. yet, i have little if any direction in the topic - despite clearly having substantive knowledge. there are a few topics that i preferred to avoid at school, because i consider studying them recreational, and you only get so many time slots at school. history was one of them, for sure - don't let my complete lack of education on the topic trick you into thinking i haven't read any history. like, i've read tacitus. and gibbons (can you tell?). for fun. how many history majors have actually seriously read tacitus?
i had this genealogical project i used to work on where i was trying to create a constructive proof for a theory of class dominance. my intent was to demonstrate that class mobility just doesn't happen in this society, by tracing virtually everybody of any value back to a global ruling class, with roots in the various ancient civilizations. i don't know even know what i wanted to do with this; i told myself i wanted to do statistical analysis on the dataset, but i was really more interested in the anthropology. so, researching the genealogy gave me the excuse to do research on a huge array of topics, from reading gimbutas directly to the genetics, the linguistics, and history of every place and every sort imaginable.....except that of normal people, who i didn't have much time for, as it turns out. i kind of reversed the contemporary trend in teaching history, but then i avoided the academy on purpose, didn't it?
so, this is how i taught myself much of what i know, and it means i have a sort of hard block somewhere around the indus river, where the genealogies really flip over and dry up. i've argued repeatedly that islam and iran are inherently western civilizations, and it has a lot to do with these bloodlines - you can see how the culture really saw itself by seeing how it married, and the arabs and iranians alike clearly saw themselves distinctly as westerners. the broader iranian cultural sphere includes most of central asia (up to the desert and the mountains) as well as the northwestern part of india, and it's only here that the thing really flips over into something else - and where my understanding dries up with the blood. i have an outline of indian history, and it's really pretty blurry when it comes to southeast asia, india, korea and china - let alone subsaharan africa, which was an entirely different universe until a mere few centuries ago.
there is some value in watching these, for that reason - i know all about the byzantines, and a bit about the han and the aztecs, but i'm likely to learn a fair bit by watching documentaries on the khmer or the songhai, although i can at least say i know where they all were and a little about what they were all about.
so, here's channel #1:
and, i should try to stay caught up when i get caught up.
it is fair to say that the turks wanted to be romans, but the romans did not want to be turks. so, the turks tried to model themselves after rome as a successor state, but what was left of the population got up and left - some of it returning to rome (where it kickstarted the renaissance) and some of it fleeing north to russia. i hold to the historical idea of moscow as the third rome, and see the russian empire as the continuation of byzantium. as such, the fall of constantinople was not the end of the romans, exactly - so much as the loss of the capital to the persians. empires shift over geographic boundaries and ethnic groups, but very few are ever truly destroyed.
yeah, the going price seems to be roughly $10/stick, meaning it would cost me $40 to buy a backup set and $80 for two. and then i need to pay shipping...
what am i willing to pay for 25 year old ram? about half that, max - but something close to $2/stick would be reasonable, and feasible to find if you search around enough.
i'm going to need to make a pawn shop rummage run for old ram when i can.
no sd ram for sale in windsor or ontario, for that matter...
this is a 1998 model board. i need to get it while i still can, because it wont boot at all when there's no more ram to kickstart it with. and, let that be written of these asus boards, as these macs and dell and hp laptops pile up in landfills - they last until you can't find any ram for them anymore.
that's impressive. truly.
so, i went to boot the reconstructed machine and...
nothing.
shit.
no beep codes? no pc speaker.
so, i had to build a new pc speaker out of electrical tape and a piece of cardboard (i exaggerate only slightly.) to get the beep codes to figure out why it wasn't booting. and, it was ram.
so, i stripped the thing right down and did a component-by-component test to realize that....everything works after all.
hrmmn.
so, did it just need a reseating? that's maybe an oversimplification. reseating it on it's own didn't help. rather, it seemed like once i triggered the circuit with a 65 mb chip that the 256 mb chips started flowing, too - meaning it's more like i had to warm it up than that i had to reseat it.
the machine is currently sitting at the bios screen with just a video card and hard drive, in addition to the maxxed out 1 gb of ram. so, it works. hooray.
and, it's quiet - which i don't even understand. it should be as loud as it ever was. but, i'll take it.
i need to check kijiji for 256 mb pc100 sd ram. that's the most the device can take, and a little back up will definitely help.
it's otherwise nice to get things back and running again, even if everything around me remains in disarray.
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
so, i've rebuilt the hardware in the machine, at least.
i was able to find an iso at archive.org. we'll have to see if it works or not.
i may otherwise be stuck trying to find the 16-bit drivers and software for the device. i at least seem to have a useful user manual that will remind me of what i'm looking for and ought to have.
so, i'm making some fruit and will get back to it afterwards.
hey, if it works on both partitions then great.
i actually have two legacy soundblaster cards, and i kind of had them installed in a foolish way, because i was splitting the functionality of the machines off pretty strictly.
so, i put the older live! card in the recording machine because i wanted to connect it to the bay in the front. then, i put the newer audigy in the older machine, to use it as a media pc in the living room.
but, i really want the audigy in the newer 32-bit box and the live drive! in the 16-bit environment.
i'll have to find the old disc if i even still have it, but the problem might have been that they sold me a demo with reduced functionality....so i had to load the install from the disc, and the setup file wouldn't launch in the 32-bit environment.
there are other reasons why i want a 16-bit system besides this, so trying to force the eax to work in a 32-bit system is missing the point.
the eax + the live drive meant i could plug my guitar into the device and use it as a real time reverb processor, which is something i haven't been able to emulate since.
but, the audigy can also connect to a front end, and i should probably see if i can find something cheap on ebay. one thing at a time; i need some furniture for in the other room and haven't heard anything back yet.
did i always have it set to condenser mic? it might explain why the audio in was often less than stellar. lol.
there's a jumper to trigger it for use with an actual 1/4" microphone. that's been set, now - maybe for the first time. rtfm, right?
but, this is what i wanted, and isn't in the manual. i'm going to archive it here in case i need to find it later, and that page (dated to 2005-06-16, 14:32) disappears. but, it turns out that there's not much of use here.
JP2 - When jumpered, connects SPDIFIN#1 from a cascaded Digital I/O Card to the AUD_EXT header (back to the Live! card).
JP3 - When jumpered to DD (default), connects SPDIFIN#2 from the Live! Drive's Digital DIN header to the AUD_EXT header. When jumpered to CDB, connects SPDIFIN#2 from the cascaded Digital I/O Card's Digital DIN header to the AUD_EXT header. (I'm not aware of anything that even uses this input...)
JP4 - When jumpered to OUT0, sends the SPDIFO#0 signal (front-channels) to the CS8414 CODEC for the headphone output. When jumpered to OUT2, sends the SPDIFO#2 signal (front and rear channel mix) to the CS8414 CODEC for headphone output (default).
JP6 - The default position on my Live! Drive was to OPT/P_IN, which routes the incoming coax S/PDIF signal to SPDIFIN#1 on the AUD_EXT header. Moving the jumper to the RCA_IN position sends that signal instead. The RCA_IN signal appears to come from the CT4861 riser card, which hosts the optical S/PDIF and AUX I/O, and is found on the Live! Drive II.
for now:
this device actually has a very powerful dsp in it, that i could never get to work with a 32 bit os. virtual machines didn't work right - and this is relatively complex, on an old processor. i kind of gave up on it because you just can't put windows 98 on the internet, and you have to connect to the internet. right?
but, access to that dsp is actually sort of fundamental to completing unfinished work that was left incomplete and started over a certain period of time.
at this point, the device is essentially useless to connect to the internet with, anyways. so, i'd might as well put 98 on it and just leave it offline.
i'm actually going to dual boot it with a winlited 32-bit xp install that i built as a glorified type writer for that machine specifically, if i can find it. that way, i've got access to a basic xp typing environment as an absolute backup, in addition to regaining full access to the hardware. so, i should be able to access this machine in both 16-bit and 32-bit windows environments.
it's a somewhat unusual but actually very functional project that i don't expect to take so long. uch-o.
i also spent some time last night looking at tactics regarding what to do about storing my bicycle on the landing upstairs and decided to hold off on it. i could potentially get a hook and screw it in the wall for relatively cheap, but i ran a studfinder over the wall and it's just full of electrical spots. and, i'm not even sure that a stud is a good idea for a solution like that - i want a brick or tile column. and, who wants that?
so, i could get something called a "nook", and i might even be willing to shell out for it, but it's not a cheap device. i should wait to see if that money comes in or not. if it does, i should get one.
that will stop me from having to bring the bike in and out of the space i'm living in, which should make cleaning it a lot easier.
so, i think i have an answer for the bookshelves figured out, and it's nice and easy. i also might have an upgrade for the rickety headboard i've been improvising for too long, now - but that's tentative. one thing at a time...
that would be all of the furniture required for the bedroom, for now.
i'm also toying with getting a big bookshelf from ikea to cover over the sliding doors in here. i know you haven't seen pictures, yet.
i've decided what i want to put into the 16-bit machine as well, based on what was in there previously. when this was a production machine, it had a regular cd drive and a cd burner - not dvds, cds. i replaced the cd reader with a dvd reader when it broke, and bought a dvd-writer for it in 2006 to replace the cd-writer, which ended up in the other machine when this one was converted into a media playback centre. so, to reconstruct the spirit of the initial machine, the three slots should be a dvd-writer on top, a dvd player below and the sb! live drive! card on the bottom. ok....
i need a nap.
unfortunately.
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
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.
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.
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