May The 4th Be With You

An R2-D2 mug in my hand, which is currently holding a collection of pens and pencils.

 

R2-D2 is probably my favourite #StarWars character. Before R2 showed up, robots & Androids in films and TV shows were typically subservient, low or no vocabulary enabled machines built to perform single tasks. Star Wars Droids had personalities & attitudes, and boy did R2 ever have a 'tude.

ASLinglish

I wanted to talk about how lately I've been signing more often while at home with my partner. I'm encouraging her to take her time and respond back to the best of her ability (which isn't terrible, I must say). Taught myself to verbalize English while signing (what is known as 'Contact signing') for the benefit of people who couldn't sign around me; now I mostly sign "voice-off". I'll break the rule at home, obviously.

A downside happens when I'm talking and a response is required: if it's an off-the-cuff thing, I tend to sign them without verbalizing. Additionally, while typing text, I'll use ASL shorthand for things that people who aren't part of a signing community wouldn't know anything about. Whoops?

Underwhelming

 

In the film "Stand By Me", there is a dramatic scene where the boys are crossing the bridge, when halfway through that, the train is coming & they're panicking, the train whistle is blowing, they're facing certain death! The caption simply reads:

[Choo]

It's not only underwhelming for the tension created by the scene, it's also fucking hilarious.
 

The Enchilada Song

♪ If you like Enchiladas
A little Pollo & some beans ♫

#MisheardLyrics 

Work From Home

"Those who would prefer to never commute to an office will not 'be considered for promotion, or be able to change roles'"

This should be stated in their hiring practices, then.

If companies insist that their investment in real estate is more valuable than investing in employees, that should set off a bunch of alarms.

What really galls me, is the fact that disabled people, who would be perfectly happy working from home, weren't a catalyst for this "sea change" to happen. It was a virus. A stupid virus.

We could possibly solve the homeless problem by converting all the useless empty offices into domiciles.

Have to fire the middle managers first. Oh, are they homeless now? Problem already solved.

Lineage Mint

 

The last couple of weeks have culminated in blowing away my Windows 10 partition on my PC; and also updating Lineage OS on my Pixel 5. 

I've used Linux off and on the last 30 years, most recently settling on Linux Mint. It was a pleasant experience compared to some hairy installs I've had in the past - however, most distros have come a long way since the late 90s to be fair, not just those based on Ubuntu or Debian.

The Pixel 5 situation was a bit of a chore, since the Updater still doesn't handle upgrades between Android versions yet. So I hunkered down with the documents and made sure I understood the steps, since I really needed this phone to JUST WORK. I'm happy to report it's now on Android 14 AOSP/Lineage OS 21, with the MINDTHEGapps package included.

It's been an interesting sort of long open source week-end. I don't think I'd enjoy doing this every week, but it's been rewarding.