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It’s been an unusually full weekend. A couple friends were in Atlanta making for a nice chance to hang out. As someone that already passes for a potato during my time off, this was probably the most time out I’ve spent since the pre-COVID age. Between work and medicine schedules it’s been difficult to get very far on the weekends, even after being vaccinated.

I’m also reminded that driving in Atlanta isn’t quite as bad as I remember, thanks to it being the weekend. But I’m still going with the accurate statement that Atlanta is a gravity well where cars go and pedestrians can walk faster 😅. Driving on the interstate doesn’t bother me, it’s just a case in methodical driving and trying to avoid the psychopaths. It’s more specifically the metropolitan gravity well that sucks.
Oddly the thing I’m most looking forward to about the coming week is coffee. I’m able to be a fully functional human being without caffeine, and did so the first twenty or so years of my life. Yet, I’m still in favor of an IV drip of espresso given how little coffee I’ve had this weekend.
As a side note, a entry in embarrassing life moments: wondering why the parking machine refuses to acknowledge my credit card exists, and then noting the machine is too old for chip cards which meant my mag strip was therefore on the wrong side. Or as my brain’s internal monologue phrased it, “Damn, I shouldn’t have skipped coffee”. Yes, never skip coffee. Something, something. Mm, coffee.
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Thus far, getting the 2300c up and running has proven to be a bit of a longer running side project than expected.

Part of the juggle:

  1. Most of my software base targets M68K and system 7: about the time PowerPC support began.
  2. Most of my media for installing MacOS 9 either can’t boot on older than a G3 or is media that can neither be booted nor readily connected to the older hardware.
  3. Which parts will end up in which machine.
Now that I have a second IDE to SD adapter, I can fit the 2300c with its own internal drive. I’m thinking the larger RAM card from my 230c will get swapped with the 8 MB RAM card from the 2300c. At least if I can get the machine running MacOS 9 or 8.x where memory use will probably be higher. I can’t say that I care as much about the modem card given the process to swap that and my lack of a local test loop.
I’m thinking that the 2300c will get nicknamed “Maxwell”, after Gundam Wing’s Duo Maxwell.
Looking like the next steps will be creating an image for the SD card via emulator or trying to arrange booting my G3 machine and seeing if it can run an install to the 2300c using Target Disk mode and a SCSI connection. In the meantime, I might just see if the 230’s system 7 install will boot on the 2300c. If so, a whole lotta Zip disk swapping and multiple partitions might be an effective solution.
While the 2300c has proven to be in much better shape than I expected, the fancier color screen looks like it would benefit from recapping far more than the 230’s B&W. Figuring out replacement capacitors though, may be a project for another year. When it comes to the trouble of dismantling that section of PowerBook, it would probably make a good opportunity to do the same to the motherboard. Especially if the PowerPC model also has most of the caps in the same zone near the DC input.
Actually, come to think of it, I believe the baseline floppy setup system 7 that I used for the 230c should be viable if I make a PPC disk utilities floppy to bootstrap from. Decades after the fact, I’m not entirely sure I want to know how well an upgrade process from System 7.x to MacOS 9 would work.

Random thought

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I think I can now say it is universally known that I love coffee.

That, or the only way to make it better known would be having coffee paraphernalia tattooed on my face….. lol

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For the most part, lately I tend to find myself in an often-tired state. Part of this, I reckon is simply how life is right now. Between work and home, I’m usually kept busy at both ends. I’m used to it being a busy season by now. Another part, I think is that spring just doesn’t tend to be a great time of year for me in practice. Most years, actually I’ve been kind of glad this time of year leans towards busy much stronger than idle.

Recently, I marked 6 years since ma passed away. Events like that seem to make up the lion share of events on my calendar for the early parts of the year, that don’t involve meetings and appointments. It kind of bugs me that that trend has only grown since I was a kid. In many cases, it’s the death of someone I care about or the birthday of someone I care about whose no longer alive. That sums up the key highlights of my personal calendar for early months of the year. But I also guess that comes with getting older.

My grandfather used to say, “Adapt!” My mother was fond of pointing out that most of the things her dad said were utter non-sense, but she also had a talent for re-iterating the ones that were wise. For me, adaption has usually equated to get things done whatever needs doing.

In the course of my life, I’ve learned that I probably adapt a bit quicker than most folks I know. For things that I can file under doing, that’s kind of easier. It’s a more mechanical type of processing that leaves you something to focus on, whether or not it pisses you off in the process. It’s the things that aren’t as focused that I find harder.

For life in general, well, I’m pretty sure if I pointed out the times that my family had to adapt growing up, my momma would have both slapped me in the head for implying that she hated change that strongly and have listened to my two cents that she did well at making the most of it. That’s just how life is. You adapt or you stagnate.

Over the past few years, I’ve felt that my life has been headed towards a different chapter.

Oddly, this reminds me I’ve got about 30 more years until my age hits the next power of two…. 🤣

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Passing thought: if personal cybernetics or portable nuclear power cells are ever a thing, I so need an integrated espresso machine.

For some reason this makes me remember Killing Floor’s Fleshpound. A type of zombie that effectively turns into a meat grinding berserker when the squad’s gunfire causes its chemical injectors to respond to its rage.

You know, having an espresso machine built into you would probably be a case of be careful what you wish for.

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Great plan: saving leftover chili, macraroni, that could be smothered in cheese and tossed in the oven.

Bad plan: eating the entire pan for chilimac. Then polishing off a bunch of cheesecake.

Or was that a perfect plan….

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Sometimes random things make you frown.

  1. Paper weight falls off the tea bag.
  2. String falls in the cup.
  3. Can’t reach the teabag or the string.
  4. Flip over cup and it still won’t come out.
  5. Tie the string to the handle and it flies off when adding water.

When they all in a neat streak of events: I call this an incremental frown.

On the upside sitting down with a spot of tea and not going ass over tea kettle in the process 😅

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Think I understand how the Tin Man felt about needing that oil can. I managed to sleep sounder and stiller than many a log and passed out snoring quite early. By the time I started to work up there was the distinct feeling of having not moved in many hours.

Willow of course is the smart one. Every morning I get up at a certain time because Misty has her medicines on a schedule. Willow debated getting up and decided if her pillow was moving, she was still going back to sleep, lol.

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Things I should never forget: that Windows and USB always makes Linux and USB look like heaven.

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A big bet to kill the password for good

Rather interesting, but I think the real question is when will existing systems catch up.
For the most part the only real problem I’ve experienced with 2-factor authentication is exactly the one that they outlined. In fact, it was a key reason why I stopped using Google’s authenticator in favor of physical keys around Lollipop.
The notion of storing keys in a synced keychain also intrigues me. My password manager of choice is synchronized between devices, and I generally don’t worry about it because.
  1. Database is locally encrypted with a pass phrase. I’m not getting those back if I forget how to unlock the password manager.
  2. Local storage is typically an encrypted file system, and typically on a system where applications aren’t allowed to access each other’s files without permission.
  3. Synchronization is to remote storage that should be encrypted at rest and transferred over the wire at least as secure as HTTPS/TLS.
  4. Accessing that account requires 2-factor authentication, or an emergency code that is difficult to obtain over network.