sinisterporpoise

Things are going well here as far as I know.  I've signed some paperwork I need to sign. I think I've figured out what the problem with the food stamps is. I'll get to avoid oral surgery in January because they payment won't go through. Right now, things aren't that bad. I've got one more semester to deal with at Ivy Tech, but I have some time to recover between now and then.

The only minor problem, other than there seems to be bursistis in my left hip as well now, is that I had to get my ankle braces fixed. This was done today, but i didn't listen to the message on the answer machine until after 3:30. Oh well...

I'll be having a small Christmas dinner here, and I hope everyone has a happy holiday or just day, regardless of what they celebrate or not. 

 You can use crontab -e to run the script that come below this. Just add this line to it:

00  0  *  *   *   /home/<yourhomedir>/Downloads/backup.sh  
# This assumes you have left the file in your Downloads folder instead of moving it to a more appropriate place.
# The hashtag is just  makes a line a comment in Linux/Unix scripts. (Mac OS X is Unix.)


Now, exit out of Crontab. On my Linux systems, Crontab uses nano, but many other Linux/Unix distributions use vi/vim.

Here is the script if you want to copy and paste it and put it itno a more convenient directory:

How does this differ from the previous versions?  As written, it will only back up the home directories. For entire hard drive backups, simply switch it to the /home line to / .  First, it creates multiple incremental backups.  Second, unlike the previous versions, it excludes files that have been compressed into a tarball, as long as they have the .tar.gz extensions.  Is this better than Time Machine for Mac users? No, probably not. However, it is a handy backup for it.

This works on Linux, Unix and Mac OS X orlater, which I just checkeddoes have cron and the /etc/cronta file. It will create incremental backups.  For Mac users, this can be a way to add additional backups to Time Machine.

To schedule it regularly, you add the favorite line to the /etc/crontab file.   (I use Nano in Linux.)

02     00    *         *        *   /<path to dir>/bakup.sh

To make the script executable run the following commaind

chmod +x backup.sh


Now for the script:



There you go. It's just a simple script. 

 Not that I think anyone's that interested on this channel, but I'll be doing a Lara stream Lara stream at twitch.tv/sinisterporpoise77

I've gone through this semester and it's been okay so far, with a small complication with database management. Again, this is one of those courses that provides useful information, but falls outside of my main focus area. At least some programming-like stuff is involved. I just wish we would get to it faster and not spend so much time on the less useful "theory." I don't know if I'm ever personally going to need to know about 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Normal forms. How to fix SQL errors is something that is needed. At least we have written *some* SQL. I don't understand the teacher's like of the Visio product, but I'm sure her methods are useful for visual learners. (I am not a visual learner.)

I am having one problem that comes partly from carelessness and that's with the Linux server administration class. I am not bad at using Linux, but my grades so far do not reflect that. Part of the issue is the teacher's insistence on using fill in the blanks for online tests. It doesn't work for a class where there are about 3 right answers to everything!  I've pointed out some examples where I had a question right to her but the quiz software marked it wrong. I have not heard back from her about it.

As for routing and switching, I need to be careful of my  resentment of this class. Every networking class I have to take is only offered at night and I need this class broken up into smaller chunks.  It's also annoying that they offer it at a time when you can't ride the bus home, which is useful for someone who doesn't currently have their own vehicle. I don't know if it's offered online, but I know I wouldn't want to take it online. It'd be even worse than the one economics class I took that was offered at night.

As far as everything else goes, I spent last Saturday putting together a new computer. It's finally up and running.  I hurt for a few days afterwards and I was surprised by how much sweating I did when putting it together. I think this was just my chronic illness reminding me that I still have it.  I can almost forget sometimes, but that's mostly due to medication and not overdoing things. 

As for Borderlands, I can't see why people like it so much. It's a lot of unnnecesary coordination manuevers. Fallout with its VATS system is far superior, but to each their own.  

I've also encountered a game called Space Engineers, which seems to be Minecraft in space. It's still in beta, but I liked the basic concept, which is using a lot of actual physics and real engineering concepts to build things. It also seems to be set up to be a lot that you can do.  I do wish the "tutorial" missions were not so combat-oriented, and instead focused on building a base. I suppose, like Minecraft, it will develop a dedicated fan base. Minecraft, however, is written in Java and can run on many different computer types. Space Engineers is written in a completely different language.

 http://acecake.news/index.php/2017/09/08/111/

I'm just going to link to it.  I've seen all the arguments over the past few years. While I don't like taking down confederate statues (I support putting up plaques reminding eveyone that they were put up as a racist statement during the Jim Crowe era), I am even more sick of people who think that their right to free speech resolves them of any responsibility for their actions.

I'm not sure why. I hope it's just my thyroid hormones being slightly off.  I had thought it was pushing myself through finals. 

There's one more week left in the summer semester. My pain levels are slightly higher, as they usually are when the classes are winding down. I have the stress of the two finals I have left. CompTIA A+'s certification test is the most important one for me. I'm sure my biology teacher would be disappointed to hear this, but I've figured out that a lot of what I learned in High school biology no longer applies. It's not just that it's paired down. It's that a lot has changed.  But, this is entirely okay, I took the class to update my knowledge of biology and because the class interested me. I'll keep the textbook and tried to read it again when I have time. I'm afraid I couldn't learn as much in a summer class as I should have. The pacing is too fast.

However, that's not what is on my mind. I've been thinking about my bizarre relationship with Otherkin. Before I learned that this group existed, I held the belief that I have a female spirit and that was the cause of my gender identity issues. When I learned what Otherkin believed, I dropped the idea because I was embarrassed by it. I was even more embarrassed when they claimed they were the only people who could understand what transgender people were going through. I did not want to associate myself with people who believed that they had the soul of a dragon, a werewolf, a vampire, or a Tolkeinesque elf.  It was even more embarassing when the Lord of the Rings came out and some of these people said the depictions of the elves matched their memories from their Elven lives.

My belief about my gender identity came from my Mormon background, where we have spiritual as well as physical bodies. It made sense to me that, for whatever reason, god would sometimes put a female spirit into a male spirt or vice versa. If you want to believe god is perfect and does not make this sort of mistake, you can shift the burden of blame to his angels. Some people reconcile this by saying god didn't make a mistake. Such placements, when they occur are deliberate.  Like many people, I wanted a cause for my suffering. It's easier to tell yourself that god is testing you when you hold beliefs like I did. (Mormon theology holds that life is a test, after all.)

If pressed on this issue in public, I would not admit to holding this belief for the reasons state above, but like it or not, it is an explanation that dovetails nicely with Mormon belief. It also dovetails nicely with what Otherkin believe.  This does not mean I am Otherkin; I associate this, -- rightly or wrongly -- with people who believe they have the soul of mythological creatures.  I also no longer hold the Mormon beliefs about the pre-existence.

Taoism offers a better explanation for this, although modern science offfers the best one. The two dovetail with each other. I am transgender because of natural processes that occurred within my mother's womb that caused my brain to develop differently from my body.  As someone whose gender fits neatly into the gender binary, I can at least fall back on this. I do not know if agender people will have a similar explanation or not later.

All of this may be interesting, but what I believe is not the important issue here. It's how I react to what other people believe. For a while I wondered if Otherkin suffered from a mental illness. I used to worry about it. (This makes sense if you know my history and understand the time when I fist encountered the Otherkin belief system.)   Eventually, I came to the conclusion that as long as the vampires otherkin aren't killing and drinking the blood of others and the werewolves aren't actively hunting down their prey, that these beliefs were harmless. This is how I'm dealing with multiples right now, or at least how I am trying to understand them. There's no harm in saying that I do not understand multiples right now. The belief that they are inhabited by multiple individuals isn't much different from me recognizing thoughst as coming from different parts of myself. The only real difference is that I never felt the need to give these parts a name.  Strangely, I've not felt that there are different parts of myself any more. Perhaps this is a side effect of transition.  I'm no longer fighting between how I present myself to the world and how I feel about myself on most days. Perhaps it is not.  Multiples who do not harm themselves or others should not be a concern for me.   If they are wrong, they have committed no worse crime than being wrong.  Heaven knows we've all done that.

P.S. I still believe in spirits and that spirits have gender. I just don't believe in the Heavenly procreation narrative the Mormons push.  

 I actually want one of these....

[A rusty blue mini refridgerator.  The words Nuka Cola Quantum are emblazoned on the front.)



The first part of the A+ certification test is today. I wish I were better prepared for it. I'm pretty sure I know the material, with the exception of memory speeds and anything involving laser printers, but I think TestOut's prep tests just love asking questions about laser printers, and they aren't a major part of the certification test.    The second part is next month.  You need to pass both tests to get the certification I'm a little nervous. (It's a bit more useful than the PC Pro certiification I already have.)

I have enjoyed parts of the Steam summer sale. I managed to pick up Red Alert 3, Final Fantasy VII, and Bioshock 2.  I had Left for Dead 2 from a previous Steam sale, but I find that one a little confusing..

Anyway, I just wish it didn't take so long to do anything in Fallout 3, although I do approve of the code that makes every character in Fallout 4 essentially pansexual. (And fortunately, the developer's one attempt at an extremely transphobic joke backfired on them.)

 I've had a busy few weeks, and this is understandable.  I think I've complained about this enough and everyone knows the reason why. I'll just have to make sure I don't do this again in the future. I do not think I need to go over all of this again.

Cathy had a migraine today. I've put up with her crankiness, in part because I understand what being in a lot of pain is like, even if I don't understand migraines from the perspective of a migrainesufferer.  I doubt I ever will, but the fact that I never will  understand what she's going through when she has one comes down to quirky genetics.  (Ironically, this is the biology chapter I am on at the moment.)  Because she needed a nap and some rest more than anything else, I went out this evening and had some fun at a local table-top gaming store. I should have spent the time doing homework, but I've been stressed out lately and getting some fun in was much needed.  I even managed to study some biology.

While I am still annoyed at the broken Dell laptop screen and their lack of customer support, I managed to get a new IdeaPad from Lenovo.  (It has replaced a ThinkPad made by IBM I owned several years ago.  It has a fair amount of graphics power compared to my other systems, and it might be good for non-strenous gaming. I'm not too sure about this, however. Gamergaters showed the dark underbelly of this hobby, and they have left a bad taste in my mouth. I should not let them prevent me from doing something I enjoy.  The one thing that might stop me from a lot of games is my poor hand-eye coordination.) 

Next week is midterms, and I will be busy. I have to do a lot of practice tests for the CompTIA A+ hardware exam. All of this culminates in the test. When this week is done, the next four weeks of the class are spent on the software portion of the test. I'm not looking forward to either of them.

All in all, it was just nice for a little break. I hope Cathy is feeling better tomorrow.   

I think I had something introspective to post tonight, but I seem to have forgotten what this was.  Maybe I will remember it later.

Also, I need to add "Oxygen not Included" to my Steam wishlist.