Recently, I got again into one of those retro-computing nostalgia phases.
I’ve been reading material about old computers like the TRS-80 or the Apple ][, older mainframe ones like the PLATO and PDP-10, and random retro-games blogs like The Digital Antiquarian and The CRPG Addict. Finally, stumbled upon this site: OldLinux.org, dedicated to the very early history of linux, and decided to try to run some of the software available for download there.
Some of the things that I’ve found are, in historical chronological order:
Next, I decided to give them a try in my laptop via virtualization and emulation… with quite miserable results up until now. The results report goes next, but first, a list of the virtualization / emulation software that I’ve used up until now. This is the current result report:
debian 0.93R6 boots and I get to the first or second install screen. Then, my keystrokes don’t have effect and can’t continue installing the system on the HDD
RedHat 1.0. I can only boot the system, but then I don’t know what to do. It’s asking me for the root floppy, but I can’t find it in any folder
The linux kernels. I don’t even know how to start with them, so parked for now
Slackware 1.1.2 goes next
I have tried with VirtualBox, Virtual Manager (libvirt) with Qemu, and Mess.
Even with all the complications, I have found the process quite fun. If anybody finds this post and has some ideas on how to continue with the exploration, please feel free to add your comments
Somehow, I have managed to be a vegetarian during all the last week.
It all started as a promise/bet/challenge with the staff at Lagnaa. Due to the incoming Earth hour, they were trying to get the people involved with different actions that would make a change in Earth conservation. So, I accepted to play the game, and the “temporary vegetarianism” deal started.
After the meat consumer that I am, I realized fast that I don’t really know what’s allowed and what’s not in order to be “vegetarian”. Then, checking its page in Wikipedia, I found out that there is different concepts involved and types depending if you eat eggs, dairy products, fish or maybe just nothing but -WTF- raw beans and fruits??
So, after some moments of consideration, I decided to pick the most common one: I would allow myself to eat any kind of vegetables, fungus stuff, eggs and dairy products. I’m nothing without my morning coffee.
So how was the experience? how has it gone?… I manage to finish the week without cheating! But with mixed results:
When eating outside, the first problem is that it makes difficult to find something to eat! A lot of food served in Singapore include even small quantities of either meat, fish or seafood, but most of the time all the previous three. It’s a pity to be limited to half page in a menu with 4 or 5 pages full.
Meals are boring and frustrating.
When eating at home… nah, I don’t eat at home in Singapore. It’s cheaper to do it outside.
Generally, I feel like having more energy and being less sleepy after lunch than before. This is a nice outcome, but can be due to eating less quantity of food per meal, that I have also tried.
Will I keep doing it? Definitely no: it’s boring, and Asia is a big playground of tastes that I don’t want to miss. But I want that extra energy so I will pay more attention to the veggies from now on.
Update: after thinking on this, I have decided to do some easy, but permanent dietary changes: I will eat meat or seafood based meals, only on weekends.
Up until then, travel and the idea of going far away had just being a dream, and dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice. That way, we avoid all the risks, frustrations and difficulties, and when we are old, we can always blame other people -preferably our parents, our spouses or our children- for our failure to realize our dreams.
It’s Saturday morning in Singapore, and a non-stop rain advances me a long wet weekend. Look at this prevision from google results:
That sunny spot is a fail, of course. I'm here, I'm now. No way to see the sun anywhere
This happens all time. There are no seasons here, but something like “chunks or days with the same weather all in a row”.
So, you can take 10 days of rain, rain, rain, thunderstorm from hell, rain and rain…. after what you can get 15 sunny days. Of the sweaty 35ºC plus 98% humidity version, of course.
It’s being some time already that I try to simplify the life around me. Before this, every day, I was receiving more than 50 emails, SMSs, chat conversations, regular facebook and twitter updates and notifications, tons of updates in my news feeder, events from google calendar… a big torrent of information to process, answer and read.
So I decided to put a stop on that and concentrate on listening to less things at the same time. So I made it to bring my emails down to zero, remove some old mail and messenger accounts.
So, next is facebook: a big fountain of crap. I have some notifications enabled, so that’s already two places to check: the facebook counter and the associated email that I receive each time. I will limit those.
But that’s not enough, so next comes to remove some other sources of information that I don’t need: people. It’s nothing personal, but that I want to reduce the level of stuff that I receive to the things that just interest me.
Basically, I’m going to “unfriend” people I can contact in other ways and:
I have no updates from them. Either they don’t really use facebook or are stalkers: people that just goes around looking at profiles but never say a thing. We’re not using the thing to talk anyway, so I’m losing nothing here.
Repeat all time too boring or too negative stuff. You hate Mondays? you hate snow? you hate heat too? you hate lazy Sundays? You hate boredom? You hate work? You hate negative people? Wait, Really?
I met one or two times in the real life, I know them from nothing else, we never speak and they keep feeling strangers.
This three groups should give me some margin. The first one does not post too much, but is a clean up in any case.
Up until then, travel and the idea of going far away had just being a dream, and dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice. That way, we avoid all the risks, frustrations and difficulties, and when we are old, we can always blame other people -preferably our parents, our spouses or our children- for our failure to realize our dreams.
