I've noticed something...
Apparently my brain thinks this "Sunday Reboot" is more of a "Weekly Reboot," in that it only wants to prioritize it on the last day of the weekend; and since today is a holiday, it's going out on a Monday again, instead of a Sunday.
I don't plan on changing the name, but it's worth setting these expectations for my many ones of readers.
With that said, I figured I'd keep the intro short this week and get straight into the content, so here... we... go!
Pondering...
"Other people can be wrong, and we can be wrong, and that is another thing we have in common. The capacity for fucking up. And for forgiving." — Matt Haig
My impostor syndrome has been extremely high lately, so this wonderful quote from Matt Haig's The Comfort Book has been top of mind for me.
It's a good reminder that we're all human, myself included, and as easy as it is for me to put my trust in people and forgive their faults, I haven't been doing a good job treating myself with the same level of care.
It's okay to be wrong, it's okay to fuck up, and it's okay to forgive yourself.
Tinkering...
I've been making a lot of small changes to my blog—and my overall habits—lately. I think that, over the last year-and-a-half or so, I've lost myself in a few different ways. For one, I've lost sight of the slower technology consumption that I loved so much, so I've been tinkering with some of my old devices quite a bit again.
I have also moved my blog infrastructure (again) over to fly.io. The basic web host I was using made my life pretty easy, but I was limited in what I could actually do with it. I knew I needed to change something, but I don't have the mental energy to manage any actual virtual servers, so I landed on Fly as a compromise.
I'm hosting both this blog and my gopherhole there, all neatly wrapped in a single Docker container. The only thing that is (unfortunately) not working the way I want it to is Internet Explorer 1 and 2 support (tested on my trusty many-browsered HP Compaq TC1100). Neither of those browsers send a Host header, and while I have a dedicated IP address, it seems Fly's load balancer isn't happy with that arrangement.
I don't have a solution to it quite yet, but will see what I can come up with.
Watching...
In other news—and clearly inspired by my rekindling love affair retro technologies— I've started rewatching the incredible AMC show, Halt & Catch Fire (2014-2017), a fictional narrative about people working in tech during the 1980s-1990s.
In full transparency, this is probably my fifth time through this series—it's seriously just that good. But what makes this time a bit different is that I'm also following along with the amazing Halt and Catch Fire Syllabus by Ashley Blewer.
The Halt and Catch Fire Syllabus is an incredibly well researched and organized curriculum surrounding the history of the computing industry, from the late 70's personal computing boom, through to the early internet in the mid-90's.
It seriously scratches all of my itches, and if I ever find myself teaching a computer science or other type of computer technology class, I will be borrowing heavily from it, because the history of computing is a fascinating one that every budding nerd should learn.
Struggling...
It hasn't been all fun and games around here lately, though.
My anxiety has come back in a seriously big way, to the point where I've been having fairly frequent panic attacks. I know why I'm struggling so hard, but I'm not quite ready to write about it yet.
What I do want to write about is balance.
I feel like, ever since about 2022, my whole life has been way out of balance. Sure, COVID wasn't a walk in the park, but it was a time that at least allowed me to slow down and embrace the simple joys of writing a letter with a typewriter, or tinker around with retro technology in a way that I never did before.
But for the last year and a half or so, I've been seriously struggling with mental balance. I've tried a lot of things to help, from establishing shutdown routines, to embracing transitional spaces, daily meditation, and even splitting workloads between devices to reduce unhealthy distractions.
It's helped some, but my ability to compartmentalize the different parts of my life isn't very good lately, so I find myself spiraling pretty frequently.
I know I'm on the right track, though, and I'm hoping that reinvigorating my hobbies will be the next right step in my quest towards healthier balance—and, I've started embracing some potential new hobbies, such as ham radio, leatherworking, calligraphy, drawing, and painting. I'm sure most of them won't stick, but the idea is to discover some leisure activities that I can use to better calm the swirl in my mind.
I'm not sure if I'll share the fruits of the more creative hobbies I'm trying out, but I'm considering it. I can't actually draw, paint, or do any of the other things that interest me, but I suppose that's not the point, is it?
--
If you like this post or one of my projects, you can buy me a coffee, or send me a note. I'd love to hear from you!
--
This is post 023 of #100DaysToOffload