Hard matches ahead (LFC, then PSG)

am so pleased today, almost ecstatic and in very good mood, having found another large sack of premium seeds for the birds. I got it for a special price again .

We now have enough of those seeds to last until Christmastime and the birds will be delighted. They’re crazy about this stuff, unlike the bread so many people give them (it’s not healthy and actively discouraged).

There’s a match here today (last match until mid-October when Paris Saint-Germain, now a serial European Champion, comes to play here), so we plan to cross the stadium and visit the park where the birds wait. After that we’ll relax and prepare for another week of GNU/Linux links – it is the third day of our 15^th year as a married couple and feeding/watching birds is already a joyful hobby of ours, sort of like pensioners (who cares about stereotypes of age).

Next year, if our application is successful, we wish to go to the Court of Appeal and set the record straight. We’re just a couple that shares news, the only people we upset are slaves of monopolies, working for those monopolies like a Kapo. One day they’ll come to accept they just got used by those monopolies, then inevitably discarded, as always.

A Kapo (or catspaw) is still just a Kapo.

A Kapo does not wish to think of himself as just another Nazi.

Healthy fish for healthy mind

ast night I added a fluorescent light for the fish, it is external to the tank, and so far it also helps illuminate the desk area at night (days are quickly getting shorter), so it is double-purpose ‘thingie’ really. There is a light switch that controls whether it is on or off, it is easy top use, and it is within arm’s reach.

The fish tank experience next to my own desk (not Rianne’s) began a week ago. So far, so good.

An uptime of 1000 days

did not know if I’d ever make it. But I did:

roy@bubi:~$ uptime
 07:43:19 up 1000 days, 22:55,  3 users,  load average: 7.07, 7.03, 7.04

And notice the lack of comma, it says “1000″.

think I won’t remember to check this again in 3 hours, but it’ll soon be 999 days and 9 hours, 9 minutes, 9 seconds since last reboot.

roy@bubi:~$ uptime
 14:23:23 up 999 days,  5:35,  3 users,  load average: 7.27, 7.16, 7.24

Tomorrow a 4-digit uptime: 1,000.

Manchester’s week ahead is moderately OK

t starts as another rainy day today, but later today we’ll have some sun and we’ll probably start working on the fish. Today in the early morning I counted all the loaches, which is hard because they typically hide. Perhaps some time soon we’ll get more pets. That depends on several factors.

Tomorrow the Champions League starts for Manchester City and I plan to cover the EPO affairs (Munich, Germany).

This month won’t be particularly eventful, but there are two anniversaries on the way: ours and GNU’s.

It’s a good time to start planning.

Manchester sort of feels like “post-summer” though I still somehow managed to sunbathe a bit yesterday (maybe last time for this year). The prices of homes over here aren’t insane; that’s a relief.

London, on the other hand, is crazy.

Yesterday I had an interesting face-to-face discussion with a lady that I know in Manchester. She ranted about how awful London became and that during street events (like carnivals) the city does not provide portable toilets. Instead, people are expected to shell out 2 pounds for some private place, even just to urinate. Some people make a fortune out of this.

We’ve glad we live in Manchester.

Not that Mancunians run the country (in Westminster) we hope that gravity of power can be shifted to the north. We have a lot to offer.

A perk of living next to major facilities of non-military nature (datacentres [1, 2] are used for military)

think I neglected to mention a sort of “uptime privilege” this morning. I realised this only later. It’s a kind of an “RK” privilege one can forget about. You take this for granted when you’re next to international games or actions.

My computers have high uptime records owing to good electricity infrastructure (reliability/uptime/availability); we have a sort of fortune or the mere luck of having very reliable electric grid (near a very large and famous stadium) with persistent connections and decent hardware nearby, fallbacks included, with no natural disasters, not even floods (we’re in a slope).

In some parts of the world they have extreme weather this year, including prohibitive costs of living (UK minimum wage a lot higher than the average in Europe), war, conscription, and worse. Here, unlike Ukraine, no shelter time (or risk of being hit by missiles), is expected, so carrying on as usual is almost always possible. Until someone from another continent pays $130,000 to drag you down to London. But even then, your computers remain turned on at home.

3 years pass by just like that

y laptop is just one week away now from 1,000 days of uptime:

 uptime
 12:54:06 up 993 days,  4:06,  3 users,  load average: 8.19, 8.70, 7.92

Knock on wood, “1000 days” soon!

Meanwhile, we’ve taken advantage of the holidays to do a lot of exercise and at one point I went to a gym, seeing that I can still ‘fullstack’ all the equipment there. What makes it more special than before is my age.

How time flies.