I’m a project starter, crazy project starter…
I’ve got a real problem with finishing stuff. I’ll start a NEW THING! and then as time goes by it withers on the vine. Partly this is because I’m lazy, partly it’s just NEW THINGS! keep popping up, and partly it’s because I’m over-ambitious. Some things stick but they become frameworks for more dead ends and rabbit holes. For example…
Digital Divide
As part of my union rep activities over the lock-down, I’ve become increasingly worried about the “digital divide”. People who used to come to meetings have disappeared off the radar and others struggle with Zoom and Teams. And by people I mean Me!
I’d got a bit paranoid about tech, a bit of a refusenik, didn’t want a smartphone, avoided any sort of online registration, burnt effigies of Clippy the paper-clip, nothing weird…
This was not improving my life, (your mileage may vary, I still rather envy those with a truly off grid lifestyle. It may not be a good thing but willfully ignoring the way the world is changing was just leaving me and my dependents more and more isolated. Besides I’ve always liked tech right back to the ZX81 days.
So taking some very good advice I did the things that make me feel uncomfortable.
I got an Iphone, did it all online, then spent a week getting over a mix of buyer’s remorse and anxiety about being hacked.
It is nice though.
I got a password manager, and started to get back online, first up BBC Iplayer I’d stopped using this as you had to register, and I’d decided that this was a terrible thing, I thought that Dan walker would be reading my emails or something.
Anyway, I signed up and watched some time-shifted telly, and the world didn’t end. I used my new phone to get my parent’s shopping delivered. I’ve probably paid for Bezos’ knob shaped rocket, and I’ve ended up webmaster for our union branch website. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a newcomer to all this, it’s just that I let it all drop for a few years.
So what I hear you cry, what has this got to do with unfinished projects..?
Well…
Don’t bother looking for the point, it’s long gone…
After mucking about with Linux for a bit, I got it into my head to learn how to use VIM, as I could see that word processors were a bit overkill for what I was doing, and I thought all that old school bare-bones computing was cool as’…
VIM
So learn VIM… it’s much faster to use VIM and the keyboard than Word and a mouse…
Right…
1 I can’t remember any of the key bindings and,
2 I can’t type so when I do remember what hjkl does, I have to spend time looking for them…
In a fit of enthusiasm, I decided that what I needed to do was to learn to type… ( I have very little hand to eye coordination, and I don’t think my muscles have ever remembered anything.) I can now type variations of f and j at about 25 wpm, but it doesn’t translate to “real” typing at all (15 wpm hunt and peck). To be fair I can type about as fast as i can think so it’s not much of a bottleneck.
One of the problems I have is I can’t get my thumbs on the space bar. so I looked for an ergo keyboard, (VIM has been forgotten, typing is the thing now). Then the mechanical keyboard rabbit hole opened up in front of me. Now all my YouTube recommendations have titles like “MX brown switches scratchy nightmare or best switch ever?”.
Hopefully, I won’t succumb and buy another new keyboard as I’m pretty sure it won’t make any difference. I’m trying to keep up the typing, but I’m resigned to never being able to use my little fingers, and VIM? I’d still like to get back to it, but it’s now one of my projects on my increasingly overcrowded back burner.
Vigour
What’s that? EMACS ooh! shiny….
My back burner…
Learn python,Haskell, Basic even.
Learn Bash scripting.
Become a terminal ninja, Get a BMX and learn tricks,
Eat more healthy foods,
Learn VIM,
Learn Linux keybindings,
Get the garden looking ok,
Get my veg bed up and running again,
Get that Raspberry Pi working,
Learn to drive,
Get a new backburner…
Some of these are quite old…
Peeking Over The Parapet... 