Jun 22
Struggled the last few days. Tired. Ill. Out of breath. Spikes of pain. A few spears of chest pain.
At it's worst getting out of bed, walking downstairs then upstairs wipes me out.
Perhaps the CFS is biting. Doing too much on my "rest" month.
Perhaps.
I think this is just my wax and wane of feeling like shit edging towards death warmed up. I think it's slowly getting worse. Which figures.
Sometimes my thoughts spiral down dark paths. And if I reach for it. If I think of something I know is dark, like what the day after Athena going will be like. All I see is death. Which. I know. Is really super not good. But it is what it is. And the larger part of me is ok with it. Ok is a complicated word there. Accepting might be better. But even that. Is complicated. Resigned would be another good word.
Anywho.
Progress on getting shit ready for next week has slowed to a crawl. I've bought a bunch of bits and pieces that I suddenly realise they may need if I turn up and they literally have nothing. Every connector cable I can think of. Extra ethernet. This. And that. Expensive. I am beginning to be done with it.
Yesterday I spent a few frustrating hours chasing my tail trying to get a virtual machine to work on the server. One outright Microsoft bug and a faulty hardware virtualisation later and I gave up. The bug did not give me good feelings. A premium MS product. Shitty and debilitating bug right at the off.The previous version of Server OS didn't have the bug. And the more expensive version of the same Server OS didn't have the bug either. Just this one. Another example of the shoddy QA that MS currently has. This is typical now across their whole product line. Bugs and problems are of course part of any software. Even for companies as big as Microsoft. The problem is how often they crop up, how simple they are to discover and fix, and how debilitating they are at the final hurdle. Ever since MS cheaped out on its QA ( we don't need QA anymore, our windows insiders partners will do the testing for us ! ) the frequency of these bugs has gone up significantly, they are often glaringly obvious - ie, just hit start, oh, the keyboard doesn't work - and they can be an utter show stopper. It's extremely clear that in some of these circumstances no real world testing has been done at all.
I could have noodled with it. Effectively debugged Microsofts work, got to the bottom of the virtualisation error and sought a fix. ( I kinda know what was up with it, but hadn't got to the smoking gun - basically it was fucking up the virtualisation of a specific bit of hardware and throwing a super old school IRQ error ( wow ! blast from the 90's past ) - I suspect it was trying to double assign the same piece of hardware, ie a complete virtualisation failure ). But I didn't fancy spending all that time fucking around with something that should just work out of the box. This was also reinforced by me encountering a smattering of other rather alarming bugs whilst fucking about with it. Real basic stuff. Like processes locking stuff that it shouldn't. Slow to release handles. Yikes. It gave me the impression overall that I was dealing with something really fucking shoddy.
I find these days my time spent malarkey is very brutal - which is a good thing. I don't waste too much time trying to fix other peoples problems particularly if it's something that is supposed to be working but doesn't. Either it works like you say, or it doesn't. And if it doesn't I will tinker a little with it, then give it a fail mark. Do better.
For one thing this is a very realistic assessment of worth. Being efficient with your time rather than going down rabbit holes trying to get something - that ultimately may still end up broken - to work with one hand tied behind your back. Such things should be down to the devs of the product who can easily debug their systems, turn on traces and who have an intimate knowledge of what each step should or shouldn't be doing. Whilst my experience allows me to often play blind chess and do that stuff myself, it's a waste of my time and a harder task than it has a right to be.
For a second thing it holds the original authors accountable. No. I won't babysit your shit and let you get away with sub par software. Either it does what you say it does, or it doesn't. And if it doesn't I wont use it and I will tell others it doesn't work. Step up your QA. Which is basically what this comes down to. Do better testing.
In the end I am small potatoes. Just one dude with a small professional influence voicing their opinions and experience. But if everyone was to do the same. Or even some. Then it starts to hurt their bottom line. And they are forced to do something about it. Because shit reputation with software sticks. Trust is easy to lose and hard to gain.
Anywho. No virtualisation for this server. Which to be honest goals wise is no big deal. Really. A zero loss. Virtualisation here was borderline anyway, no super need for it. I just wanted it in to make rebuilding or replacing of the hardware easier in future. That now has become harder. But the upside is less hardware intensive. Simpler setup. More straight forward approach. Less things to go wrong in the stack. So. Swings and roundabouts. Bearing in mind our target client here is as small potatoes as you get. A half dozen users. With a very sleepy access schedule. Hardly someone that needs the most on fire virtualisation tech. Still. Would have been nice I think. In general hardware I do for other clients all tends to be sitting on VMs these days. It's just easier to shift hardware underneath it. In the past I have had to do complete server rebuilds, which takes upwards of a day, and in worst cases, multiple days. With a VM that goes down to nothing at best, a few hours at worst. And the skill level is different. Rebuilding requires high skill for what we do. Shifting the VM is low skill. Monkey grade. Herp a derp copy a file.
I am slightly anxious about next week. I feel like my health is currently not good and going in the wrong direction. Which makes next week ominous. I am hopeful that I can just bull my way through it. Slap myself about. Burn. And Just Do It. Consequences can come later.
At least that's my plan.
Other than that. I find a general darkness has settled over me as the week has gone on. Unhappy. Tired. Ill. The ill stuff really feeds my misery. It's hard to fight against depression et al when your body is fucked. I have no answers. I feel locked into a twilight of just existing at best. I wish there were a happy path for me. I can see none. I should be thankful that I have enough money to allow me freedom. And a roof over my head that is mine. Many don't even have that.
In other miserable news.
I have seen the mainstream media slowly catching up with the increasingly alarming climate science for this year and the next and the next. The record atlantic temperatures. The first alarm raised that oh, ecological collapse may actually be happening faster than we modelled and could in fact be very close indeed.
Uh huh.
No surprise.
I said this already. You only had to stand back and look at all the data. There is I think a bit of a runaway problem beginning to form. It starts this year. Kicks in hard next year. We shall see. But again, I say, I have a funny feeling this will be one of the last relatively normal years we get. Beyond this point it all gets a bit. Apocalyptic. Slowly. Like a slow moving car crash. Perhaps I am just being miserable. Or something will happen to alter it. Perhaps a few years later.
But still.
The data. El Nino. Solar Maximum. Record Atlantic temperatures. Record low Antarctic ice.
What does that imply on top of the excessive warming we already have ?
Bad. Juju.
Allegedly Solar Maximums and Minimums - have little effect on climate. The key word here being little. And also analysed as little to no effect over the long term. IE don't blame climate warming on the sun. That being said. It does have a small impact over the cycle. Little. But when everything else is already bad. Little. Isn't going to do you any favours either. Personally. I think they've undercooked the relevance somewhat. On it's own as a statistic, yeah, it's insignificant. Taken as a holisitic whole with all the other stuff in the same context. Not so good. But I'm not a climate scientist. What do I know.
This year a wave of heat deaths have already hit India. Heat is deadly with humidity. Wet bulb temperature they call it. But this is just the start. And places like India will be the canary in the cage for the rest of us.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/20/europe/marine-heatwave-north-atlantic-climate-scn-intl/index.html
Cheery.
You can see why all the US insurers withdrew from the California market can't you. Bad bet.
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