Linux Rants

It's been an amazing journey with Fosstodon, and I can't believe we've been doing it for five whole years now. I'm super proud of the community we've managed to attract to our instance, and I can't wait to see what the next five years brings.

Five Years Of Fosstodon Mostly The Lonely Howls Of Mike Baying His Ideological Purity At The Moon

I don’t think I’ve done this before, but maybe I have. I’m too lazy to go back and look, but it doesn’t really matter in the long run. I just finished a book and I thought I’d put up a review of it here. The book is called Klara and the Sun.

For those that are interested, here’s an Amazon Link to the book.

The book was written by Ishiguro Kazuo, a British novelist, screenwriter, musician, and short-story writer. He’s also one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction authors in English. He has received four Man Booker Prize nominations and won the award in 1989 for his novel The Remains of the Day. Time named Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go the best novel of 2005 and one of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.

I know this because Wikipedia told me so, and I copied it and pasted it here. It’s not plagiarism if you admit you copied it. Probably.

Klara and the Sun is a story told from the point of view of an artificial intelligence named Klara. In the story, she’s called an “AF”, which I don’t recall being defined in the book, but I believe stands for “Artificial Friend”. Everybody else seems to have come to the same conclusion, so I’m running with it.

AFs are designed to be friends to children who are lonely for whatever reason. Avoiding spoilers as much as I can, the story starts with Klara in the store and details her extraordinary observations about the world as seen from the confines of her store. It later continues after she is chosen to be the personal friend of a young girl named Josie. Josie lives in the country and suffers from a mystery illness that is the result of her being “lifted”, or genetically modified for increased intelligence.

All in all, I loved this book. The perspective of Klara made the story really unique at least in the history of books I’ve read. Klara is designed to deal with early teen children, and sometimes her perspective can come across naive, and sometimes the conclusions she reaches seem almost child like. Sometimes her perspective can be weird, and her view of events is often described using boxes.

After reading this book, I’m going to suggest it to my brother (who’s an English teacher). I hope he reads it so I have someone I can talk to about it. I’d definitely suggest it for anybody. An interest in technical material isn’t a requirement by any stretch, and the writing style makes it very available to just about anybody from young adult on.

Day 20 of the 2021 Series.

Book Review: Klara and the Sun Mostly The Lonely Howls Of Mike Baying His Ideological Purity At The Moon

The news came down today in a big meeting with our CEO that we will be returning to the office in at least a limited capacity in July. That still gives me several months to prepare for what I’m going to need. This time, being in the office is going to be a little bit different. I’m not sure how different, but there are things that at a bare minimum, I want to do differently.

OK, let’s get this bit out of the way first. I have no idea how things are going to look regarding COVID in July. It’s still March for one more day, and which gives me three full months and some change before I’m expected to walk through those doors again. What’s going to happen with vaccinations or possible outbreaks in those months is anybody’s guess, so I’m going to assume we’re going back in July just like they said that that everything is going to go swimmingly until then. Assuming things are going to continue on their current path does not mean that I’m not going to take precautions.

My company issues all of us laptops because we are fortunate to have the option to work from home. The pandemic wasn’t the first time that I’ve worked from home. The last time was when my company was building a new building for us, and they miscalculated how long that would take and let their current lease expire before they finished the new place. Oops. Unfortunately, despite the fact that they issue us all laptops, they tend to issue us crappy laptops. Mine is an HP ProBook 640 G4, with a 1.7GHz i5 and 8GB of RAM. It’s not fast, but it runs the latest version of Windows 10 (unfortunately required). Its keyboard is passable, but the touch pad is quite literally the worst thing I’ve ever used. I hate it with a capital hate.

I’ve been putting up with this thing at home because it lets me do things like work from my couch without issue, but going back into the office is going to be putting me back at a desk. Keyboards, mice, and monitors are supplied for our computers, but their tendency to buy crappy hardware extends to those kinds of things as well.

Besides the fact that they’re crappy, the COVID situation doesn’t give me warm fuzzy feelings about using a keyboard and mouse that anybody could be licking in their off hours. It creeped me out pre-COVID, and I have no desire to do it post-COVID.

So, I’m going to starting bringing my own hardware into the office so I can feel a little bit more comfortable. More comfortable because I know where that hardware has been and who has been using it, and more comfortable because it’s not crappy hardware that my company spent as little on as they possibly could.

Mouse wise, I’m probably going to go with a Razer. Why? Because I like them. They’re comfy to use and meet my needs.

Keyboards are a little bit more complex. There are a myriad of different things to consider when it comes to keyboards. I like mechanical keyboards. The feel of them is just better in my opinion, but I have to take into consideration the noise factor and how that will impact people sitting around me. At home I’m using blues, but I think that might be a little loud for corporate America. I’d like to get a keyboard that’s small enough to conveniently fit into a backpack, but not one that’s going to feel cramped when I’m typing on it. I’d also like to get something off the shelf rather than fall down the rabbit hole of custom keyboard builds, which I just don’t have the time to do right now.

I’m hoping the combined knowledge of the Internet can give me a few suggestions that will meet my needs and not break the bank, though I’d prefer to get something nice and not skimp just to save a couple dollars.

Day 19 of the 2021 Series.

Preparing To Return To The Office - Keyboard Recommendations Mostly The Lonely Howls Of Mike Baying His Ideological Purity At The Moon