Update; Video; Chain Letter; Hacking

[jbailey]

Hey'all! Another update of the moment:

Physio is going amazingly well. I feel like my neck / shoulder mobility is close to what it was pre-surgery. My strength is still lagging behind, and I'm doing hefty 3 pound bicep curls! Woohoo! Not so much for my arms, but for my back, which still has to support my arms doing this. I'm also doing 45 pound dips, and some exercises with a yellow theraband. Walking is really tiring me out at all anymore, no matter what distance I walk. As I'm reducing my pain meds, I am starting to get sore, though. Hopefully in the next week that will stabilise. Next Monday I get an ultrasound of some internal organs (I can't remember which, sorry) that will see if I have a non-drug related cause for the ongoing nausea. But so far a pill every day or two seems to be keeping it at bay.

I've posted two more videos of Leif up on YouTube. I have a bunch to sift through, but hopefully there's at least one more good one in the set. I haven't uploaded the pictures yet because I hate f-spot so much. (Ask my sometime why I think it was called f-spot)

I got a fun chain letter from someone asking everyone to boycott Esso and Shell for the rest of the year to force gas prices to come back down the sub dollar-per-litre. This was my reply:

I like high gas prices, though. I want the prices to go much higher.

Every time the prices go up, there are more cyclists on the road, and
the air gets a bit clearer.

If it were $10/litre, then almost noone would drive. We'd all be on
bicycles. Then it we be so much safer to be on a bike.

I can't wait for the day.

What do y'all think?

And on the hacking front, I actually dusted off CVS and fixed some autotools bits in GNU Sysutils so that David could fix a compile bug. I don't know if this round of activity will spur us into doing more. But it's possible. So maybe in another.. Oh, I dunno. decade or so we'll have a full GNU replacement for util-linux that's portable and everything. =)

I might get off my ass and hack on my reimplementation of Galactic Bloodshed through the month of May. I miss that game in a strange pathetic way.

Heading into my last month of off-work recovery time, I'm surprised at how good I feel. I haven't replied to alot of emails I've gotten from folks, even from before the surgery. I'm starting to make headway on the emails, though. Thanks for your patience!

Hugs all!

Comments

Re: wish it were that easy

[jbailey.livejournal.com]

Let's assume for the moment that a price rise to $10/litre is inevitable (as it likely is at some point in the future. The biggest question is when). What does it take to be ready for that? I know that Hydro Quebec used to have programs where they would do a winter thermal analysis on your home if you committed to spend some amount after (I don't remember the amount) on upgrades to insulation and whatnot. What programs can we consumers take advantage of now that will help mitigate the cost of the rising gas prices?

Probably the biggest reason I like to hope for a rise in the oil price is that it's a reminder to me to do *now* what I can. Be in shape to ride my bike; lower my hydro bill; prepare food simply, cheaply and lower on the food chain. Doing this satisfies not only the environmentalist in me, but it also makes me feel a bit more prepared for bumps along the way when it comes to oil supply and prices. I'm trying to take an honest look at what I like to do and figure out how I can do it and improve my environmental footprint.

Re: wish it were that easy

[hexmode.livejournal.com]

And I agree, it is a great reminder. Rising oil prices makes it that much easier to justify getting some work done on my house that'll make it more efficient.

Still, there are those people who are living at or below the poverty level now. Their wages aren't going to go up to match the price of oil and food.

While rising prices help you and I think about ways to be more environmentally conscious and consume less, rising prices for them means something completely different. Why would you wish them ill?

Take, for example, heating oil. Heating Oil companies have programs in place to help people who can't afford to heat their homes. Charities exist to help (the churches in my area have a Heating Oil fund), but, still, every year we hear about people dying because they turned off their heat or didn't pay their bill.

I don't wish that on anyone.

[masonmanukyan.livejournal.com]

Your arguments don't have anything to do with energy or oil; they're all simply based on "the kings won't need us, so they'll cast us aside".