Third Alien Shore

In a struggle to be happy and free

Drystone Wall

Category: me Page 1 of 76

So when I was a kid…

by

On Tue October 26, 2021

In children, me, relationships

When I was a kid, I was told many times to turn down the music. Even when I had speaker cables running to the basement, so my music and my sleeping parents were separated by an empty level of the house, I still recall my dad coming downstairs and asking me what the hell I was doing. I just kept boosting the volume … until it was too loud.

These days I don’t listen to music quite so loud as I know it could do to my hearing, and I no longer feel any need for rebellion. Rather, I just listen to music. Sometimes it does need to be louder, granted.

So when I moved in with Julie some months ago, I fully expected to have the roles reversed. I’d be the one going downstairs in the middle of the night. But to my great surprise, it hasn’t happened, and it’s not likely to ever happen. Her kids have their TVs and computers, but no stereos. The closest they come is their phones, but they listen with AirPods and other headphones.

From the hallway looking into my ‘study.’ You’re looking at the back of one of the Magnepans … which sounds exactly like the front.

Far from me telling them to keep it down, they are the ones coming to me, telling me to turn it down! It’s mostly the subwoofer the kids want turned down, and it’s mostly the main speakers Julie wants turned down. The kids are a level lower. And one of my Magnepan speakers sits right in front of the door, so since they radiate sound equally forward and backward, it’s like I’m pointing the speaker out the door into the rest of the main floor, where Julie is doing something that doesn’t involve my music.

I get it. Others are doing their own thing and don’t want to be interrupted, but it’s strange that after all these years of living alone, I’m again the one being told to turn down the music.

Goodbye Mom

by

On Sun October 17, 2021

In me, relationships

I’ve had such a difficult time even contemplating writing about this even though most of you already know. My mother died on May 14.

She had a number of health issues plaguing her in her final years. It came to the point that she was under palliative care at home for the last month (or so) of her life. In fact, in addition to the twice daily visits from caretakers, she was scheduled to have a nurse come to spend the nights with her to take care of her. The nurse was to start the night of May 15, so that didn’t happen.

When my father died some years ago, Mom told me that he was lucky because he went very quickly. He rode his bicycle to get the mail on Friday and was dead Monday. She said it wouldn’t be so easy for her. I’m glad that she was largely wrong. She died in her own bed at home. If how she looked was any indication, it was a very peaceful departure because the next morning, I peeked in on her and thought she was sleeping in. Only when I tried to wake her for her medicine an hour later, was I shocked to find her cold to the touch.

Mom and I, quite some time ago.

Many years ago she told me, with a hint of apology in her voice, that I would be the one to find her. She was right.

In the time since then, my sister and I have dealt with almost the entirety of her estate, including emptying her home. It was more work than I could have imagined. It was more difficult than I would have ever imagined. I continued to live in her home for three months after she died and that was not good. There wasn’t a moment I wasn’t reminded of her, and while I certainly won’t ever forget her, being submerged in it was not good for my mental well-being.

I’ve since moved in with my fiancée and things have improved for me a great deal. That’s not to say that the grieving is over, because it’s not. I miss her so much and I don’t think that will ever change. She was my mother. She gave me life. I love her and I always will.

Best heater ever!

by

On Fri October 1, 2021

In animals, me, music

I’ve moved, and in my new digs, Kitty has discovered the best heater ever, perhaps besides the electric blanket. Feast your eyes:

IMG_3898.jpg: iPhone12, back camera @ 4.2mm, 1/12, f/1.6, 640 ISO

She started lying on top of my power amplifier so I had to do something. You see, the top of the amp is covered with vents to let the heat out. Vents her hair might end up dropping into. Can’t have my amp clogged with cat hair!

Many years ago I had a piece of glass cut to protect the amplifier from dust, but dust wasn’t such a big issue so I stopped using it. The cat sleeping there is a big issue so I resurrected the glass and hunted up four hockey pucks to act as spacers so the heat could escape more quickly than placing a piece of glass on top of the amp would allow.

Everyone’s happy now.

NB: Yes, my cable management is a mess. I’ll get to it. I’m still unpacking and I certainly needed music before worrying about tidy cables.

It's 1993 again!

by

On Mon January 25, 2021

In computers, me

I recall that the company I was working for had a computer system set up specifically to burn CDs in 1993. Of course it had a CD burner. It also had a special AV hard drive that didn't interrupt the reading of data during thermal recalibration1. On regular hard drives, this operation paused the data flow and therefore the burn would fail, resulting in a bad disc suitable for the garbage. The computer also had no software, other than the operating system and the burning software, that might steal CPU time and slow the flow of data. Burners now have a feature where the writing will be paused while the data flow drops below the rate of it being written to the disc, but back then, as soon as the write buffer emptied, the disc was garbage. So in the old days, once the disc burn started, no one even touched the computer. Just in case.

Oh, did I mention that the blank 650 MB blanks cost in the neighbourhood of $25 each?

So why is it 1993 again? I burned a data disc today that cost me $24 and it took in the neighbourhood of three hours. It wasn't a 650 MB CD, but rather a 100 GB Blu-ray disc. Yes, I know writable CD/DVD/Blu-ray data discs for backup are on their way out. I certainly agree that I won't ever back up my hard drive to writable discs. But in this case, I have my photos backed up to two removable hard drives (one stored off-site) and I'm worried about bit-rot2...which I have experienced. A large capacity optical disc is ideal for this irreplaceable data.

It seems that writable optical discs have undergone some advancement since I last stored any significant amount of data on them.

The obvious advance is capacity. When BD-R discs were introduced, they came in the form of a single-layer 25 GB capacity or a two-layer 50 GB capacity. These days BDXL discs are available in a three-layer 100 GB capacity and a four-layer 128 GB capacity. Given that most years I've taken digital photos have resulted in files that easily fit on a single 25 GB disc, the files are easy to back up. But last year I took photos that total 99.04 GB in size. Sure I could split them across four discs, but that offends my sensibilities, and prevents me from trying these cool higher capacity discs.

The other advance is longevity. M-Disc is a new type of optical disc that uses a non-organic data layer. Regular discs use an organic data layer that is subject to chemical changes, especially if the lacquer fails and oxygen comes into contact with the organic material. As a result, these newer discs are more focused on long term storage and claim to last anywhere from a few hundred years to a millennium. Of course that's overkill, even if it's true, but regular discs can fail far more quickly.

I loaded up on 25 GB M-Disc BL-R discs and have backed up all the music I purchased online and I'm starting the process of backing up my photos. I ordered one 100 GB M-Disc BL-R disc for last year's photos. Happily, the burn and verification were successful.

Now I have my photos backed up a fourth time in a non-modifiable form that should take care of things if I find damaged copies on the backup hard drives. All I'll have to make sure of is that I have a working optical drive that can read a BD-R.

  1. Or did it recalibrate only while idle? I'm not sure. It was 27 years ago!
  2. See the Wikipedia entry on the topic.

Steps

by

On Tue January 5, 2021

In health, me

Pictured is a graph from my phone. It shows the number of steps I took on the last five days of my holiday vacation followed by the first day of school this term.

Yep…

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