I think I need to get myself going on my hobbies again. Every time I have a moment outside of work to do something of substance I find myself vegetating over a TV show or some brainless youtube videos. In the past I would spend considerable amounts of this free time learning something new about computers or electronics. I haven’t done much of that since overhauling this blog to conform to Hugo. I did grab a Raspberry Pi 4 and set it up, but I did a very minimal job of it, and there’s really quite a bit left to go. I’m actually thinking about getting a second Pi 4 to continue on with, as the Pi 4 I’m on currently is acting as a print server. Kinda can’t live without a print server. I’d like to get a 8GB Pi 4 and a 4-6TB external drive and make myself a large storage server. A place to offload stuff to that’s not incredibly important, possibly isn’t backed up in the cloud. I dunno. We’ll see, I guess.

I’m thankful for my kids. They’re awesome little people and I love them. I’m thankful for my family. I’ve both been blessed with family members I’m blood related to as well as dragging people into my inner circle. I’m grateful for Amber, because she’s wonderful and amazing and literally the best. I’m grateful for my career. It has taken me down some really interesting roads in life. I get to be a professional geek. There are a lot of reasons that I’ve been grateful over the holidays, and I don’t take things for granted. I just felt like I had to share these things as they’re the things I’m thinking about.

It feels really weird to be back in the office. I’ve been working from home for a couple weeks now and I can’t say I’m used to the structured corporate feel anymore. It was kind of a shock to come back to. I am, however, finally able to make some progress on the projects I’ve been assigned. It’s not really possible to install automation equipment that weighs more than two cars in a two bedroom apartment, so I haven’t been as productive as I’d prefer.

I just ran across Trumbo (2015) on Netflix and I have to say; It’s a pretty damn good film. It’s also strange to me how little things have changed since then. It’s insane to me that not only is McCarthyism emblazoned permanently in historical record, but the fact that we haven’t learned shit from it is duly noted. It’s really unfortunate.

Another damned good one is Don Verdean (2015). I think both of those films cover different aspects of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance that still wreak havoc on society to this very day.

Things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

• The people in our lives who make us feel things no one else can.
• The sigh of relief coming from D.C. with Biden taking office.
• A Coronavirus vaccine is on the way.
• Happy and healthy kids.
• The promise of open borders and traveling once the virus subsides.
• A future borne from hard work and maximum effort.

I think I could go on more, but I’ll just leave this here for now.

This is a pain in the ass. My user profile is prevented from accessing the “Windows Store” by my administrator, because they’re dumb I guess. I dunno. It’s really not a clever move if you think about it, because you’re ensuring that people source their software from places other than “vetted distribution sites” such as Windows Store. But, whatever. This is the workaround. All you’re required to do is open powershell and execute the command Add-AppxPackage file.msixbundle. That’s pretty much it. You may want to do so as administrator, that way the bundle you install is available to everyone who uses the computer, but I’m sure it doesn’t matter either way.

As I write this, Donald Trump is lobbing salvo after salvo of attacks against Democracy in the United States.

Other than politics, how do you lose a case where large numbers of voters, far more than you need to flip Pennsylvania, are disenfranchised? Vote Observers thrown out of counting rooms. People going to vote finding out they have already voted through a fake ballot - go home!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2020

When people get out and vote in massive numbers, Republicans lose. Trump knows this, and he’s twisting this fact around to make it look like the 47% of racist assholes in the United States are actually a majority, when they clearly are not. Joe Biden pulled record numbers and managed to get black voters to turn out in record numbers. But this arrogant piece of shit constantly spews trash like this:

I figured I’d take a moment and expand on this, as it’s going to determine the next few decades and how we’re able to heal as a nation.

If Trump and his associates are not prosecuted, they argue, it might set a devastating precedent. Others worry that the desire to prosecute Trump could amount to no more than “vengeance” that would further erode democratic norms. This vigorous debate on the left asks how we as a nation can get to the bottom of the Trump administration’s criminal behavior, while also ensuring that no future administration can act in such a manner again.