Dropbox… interesting

The other day, whilst parsing webpages in my usual manor, I stumbled across a nifty service called dropbox. So far, it seems to offer all the perks of rolling ones own solution but with better OS integration, and a network server. I’m planning on putting it to the test for replacing my existing rsync based system.

What dropbox is capable of, is not far off from what one can do using rdiff-backup and your own server. Main difference I reckon is tone meshes well with SSH and the other relies upon SSL. The way dropbox claims to integrate with the OS however, would more than make up in time lost to configuration.

My main gripe of course, is that dropbox does not yet offer their desktop application for FreeBSD :-(. Which effectively limits how much I can use it until suitable builds become available for testing.

rdiff-backup can solve the problem just as well for me, since my home server is about as reliable as the rock of Gibraltar; the only problem being the software involved. The lowest common denominator among versions of rdiff-backup available for my platforms, are not compatible enough, 8=). Which is why my computers rely on a custom set of scripts built around rsync: rs-mgr rs-pull, rs-push, rs-touch, and rs-vars.

If dropbox became suitably available under FreeBSD, my life would be a heck of a lot easier, and vectra’s roll could be reduced to backups rather than storage central.

Well, perhaps one upside of working off less than an hours sleep, if I don’t pass out closer to late morning maybe I’ll be ready for an afternoon nap later today. Lately I’ve been sleeping a bit later or a bit earlier, usually waking up closer to 0200 local/0600 gmt or some fractions of an hour before 0600 local/1000 gmt. So I haven’t been napping during the late afternoons.

I never thought I’d enjoy a siesta like nap so much, lol.

Threads upon black moods

For the last several days, as my status message would indicate: I’ve been in a black mood. Except for xfire, where my names been set to `Spidey01 = status message`, because of issues with the software I use to login to xfire with.

Status messages like this, is generally meant to serve as a warning, like a rattle snakes sound, only much less dangerously. It is meant as a warning, of the nature: that you shouldn’t expect to find me roundabout in a chipper mood. Unlike my family, who’ll rip anything or anyone apart when in such a  mood: I don’t take things out on people around me. So I’m more likely to be extra polite, rather than unnaturally snappy. I’m more snappy when I’m in a good mood lol. The closet I get to taking my blacker frames of mind on other people, is making it known that I’m not in a mood to talk (and thus think) further about it at the moment.

Within my small inner-circle, I rarely hide or conceal anything: I wouldn’t be allowing friends much chance to know me, if I hid from them, now would I? My belief in that, is part of why most of my life is essentially an open book. I’m an easy person to get to know, just hard to stand being around lol. Although I generally trust people to respect my right of privacy (as I do theirs), or I wouldn’t speak;  things of a truly private nature rarely stretch beyond me and GOD. Over the years, I would have to say the fact that I’ve never been struck by lighting, is proof that GOD is extremely patient (if you believe in the existence of such a divine power). My journal only sees entries I’m tolerable of being within public view: I have little to hide, beyond my computers login password.

Something running through my mind, among the thoughts being pushed aside on the way to sleep, was of a morbid nature. Along the lines that if I died, and everyone I know, both in person and digitally made aware of it, who would really notice my passing? While there’s plenty who would be sad (yes, I know who y’all are), the only ones I believe would truly shed a tear at it, amounts to a sub set of my inner-circle, that I can count on less than one hand. This isn’t a bad thing in my books, in fact one is arguably one of very few candidates I could honestly call the best friend I have in this world, still above the grave (don’t worry, I’ve no plans to leave you that soon). The thing that hurt with that morbid collection of thoughts, wasn’t that the majority of people who would be sad, are people that I have never physically met (although in one or two cases, that is likely to change in time), but instead that none of my own flesh and blood can be counted on that ‘less than one hand’ of people, who really would care that much.

For much of my life, I’ve just been ‘here’, I’m the reject, the asset, not something people can care for, just something they can use—that very much describes what my relationship with blood kin is like, and how they’ve damaged it over the course of things. In fact, I would say that it has been suitably fractured, that it is the source of certain equationals that I’ve often wrestled with GOD over; of which only 1 or 2 living souls know even a fraction of that. Undoubtedly, most of the people within my inner-cricle of connections know me better than my own flesh and blood relations; a price of how I’ve been treated.

Much of what, I describe as life having given me a fairly high pain threshold compared to most (people that I know), is also due to that. For some reason, I can remember the doctor cutting on my toe and sliding cardboard under my nail, and finding it remarkably low on the painometer: I also know the people I’ve got to thank for that (which remarkably is not far off from whoms responsible for how my toe ended up in that situation). I’m not sure if that’s a positive or a negative train of thought.

For years, my family has generally stripped away the good parts of my life, and I’ve come to have an unhealthy level of sympathy for such plights, as  that of Edmond Dantès. The existence that’s been imposed upon me, is not that far off from a prisoners, only the food here is better.

It’s part of why the success of Operation Redeemer, is such a critical aspect of my life’s goals. If I’m going to close my eyes on this world someday, I think that freedom is not to much to ask for. I’ve given family, a large percentage of my life-thus-far, and have generally been made utterly miserable for much of it. As someone who has essentially reached the half-way mark, in the time I expect to live for, leaves me little reason to dilly dally, and even less, as I hope to live twice that long. As I’ve said more than a handful of times over the years, because of my father an certain aspects of family medical history, I consider whatever time I have past my 30s and 40s, to be a gift: not something I’m entitled to.

My family cannot of had a more negative impact on my life, if more things were intentional, and I believe the chapter after redeeming my right to life, will likely be to solve that issue.

To barrow an axiom from a favourite film: time not important, only life important. It would be nice to have the latter, worth the former.

Shitsville

Around 22:00 I went to bed, thinking about recent mmods, when I managed to convince my brain, to push it aside and “Worry about that later”. I fell sound asleep. At 22:45 her royal pain had to wake me up, in order to get me to make a waffle.

and now I can’t get back to sleep short of being hit in the head with a mallet o/

Somehow I think it’s sad, responding to a butlers duty, having to deal with the apartment being almsot pitch black -> the only light source being the LEDs on the cable box. And I can almost see plane as day lol.

Shit, how many years did I spend hacking at stuff after nightfall….

Pouring gasoline on an open fire – FML.

Yesterday, well, relatively speaking; 3 hours sleep is enough for me to call it yesterday irregardless of hours passed, even if I’ve been up since 2am local lol. Beyond having to authorize my mother to deal with the issue (as she was the master mind), I was largely ear shotted into a phone conversation that came as little surprise.

Some years ago now (bah), the place that my high school course work was with, was getting pissy about the massive over times involved in getting it done. A lot of working hours (from 1 day a week, to 3 jobs per day per week) and a lot of self-studying else wheres on my own, tends to make for homework that’s about as challenging as breathing, and thus makes for limited interest in getting it done promptly. Eventually I knuckled down on it between busy seasons, because a H.S. diploma or G.E.D. would be required to have any chance of moving forward later (now near future). Her Royal Pain however decided to change distance “Schools” after getting annoyed with the first companies policy on sending out text books. That lead to me having to go through a fresh reboot on another set of course work with a new company.

Which I gave up working on after a few cycles, because I knew there would be zilch chance of getting that glorified piece of paper, once my mother stopped paying the damn thing off: reaching the point of calling it a brush off! Plus knowing that any long term savings of my own, would likely end up towards paying off her debts rather than catching up with a GED later (which came to pass twice, as she acquired debt since then).

The principal issue of yesterdays call, was that the company wants their outstanding balance paid off; blood from a stone anyone? My mother managed to lie herself into a corner about it, by using her recent health issues as an excuse to cover cheating them out of the money years prior, and I do believe court was mentioned :-S. The real royal screw however, is since the mega bitch saw fit to run the bills for the course under my name instead of her own that time out, it’ll likely be my arse if anything comes of it. I knew consenting to that stipulation, just for a chance to work towards finishing HS, was going to come back and haunt me someday… family is too good at fucking me over. If things were still as they were in Charles Dickens era, my mother would have become well familiar with debtors’ prison over the years, and this affair would aqaint me with one. Luckily things have changed a lot since then. So much as anticipated, if there ever been any decency of credit associated with my name, it’s well flushed: and that tends to cause trouble later on, in modern America o/. As if I didn’t have miserable enough a mood already.

The really ironic thing in this whole mess? High school and a loving heart is what made a slave of me in the first place. When I was something like 15~16 years old, ma decided to start her present business as a way to help pay off the coming course work, and to save up for when things were to get tighter; thus invalidating my employment plans. I was asked to ‘help‘ out with the work, because part of it would be going towards paying for my schooling: and I’ve gone unpaid since. Sure enough in the end: no diploma to be reached, my mother wouldn’t know how to save a dime if you beat her with one let along before the bottom dropped out, and I’ve spent the last 6 1/2 to 7 years of my life, being used and treated like a slave for it all. Arguably I would have been better off, taking the antifreeze cocktail out of here in the early 2000s, instead of discovering a reason to live for the rest of my life. Instead I’ve had to spend the last 4-5 years, all but imprisoned here.

To quote a friend: Fuck My Life.

Joys of being home and in a dark mood

  • Not being allowed to get anything done
  • Not being respected enough that it may be assumed that you have anything to get done
  • No one cares that you have anything to get done
  • Mood is irrelevant at home as in the work place o/
  • Getting pissed on is still the norm.
  • Yet another reminder that no body cares.

Need I go on?

Now this article by Paul Graham was one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Although it might not be obvious to outsiders, it’s actually rather tastey for its wit ;).

In my web travels, I’ve just come across an interesting web-focused application and service, called Teambox. So far it seems to offer, a rather interesting stack of tools. Assuming it could be suitably extended into the neccessary work flow, by adding things such as SCM integration, code reviews, and issue tracking, it would be darn freaking useful.

Little old me, is used to projects where the best things in life are e-mail, XMPP, and Git, hahahaa!