100days - lesser daemon

08

Apr

Setting Up Port Forwarding on a VirtualBox RedHat VM With A NAT Network Adapter

OK, quickly discovered that I was less brilliant than I thought yesterday. It appears that for the functionality I wanted (both the ability to SSH into the VM and to port forward from my local machine to an application running on the VM) I need to use a NAT and not a bridge network.

I spent a while struggling with this and discovered that to assign your VM to the standard 10.0.2.* range and successfully connect to the internet, a NAT drive should be your first network adapter. I'd initially had a bridge network as Adapter 1 and

3 min read

08

Feb

Between Curiosity and Despair

A friend asked me recently what I'd do if with my time if money and the endless obligations of attempting to maintain a middle-class lifestyle weren't a problem anymore. I had had a few drinks surprised myself by saying that I'd just like to spend time learning things. This is one of those good conversation starters that actually cuts to the core of somebody, and while I think at a surface level of thought I'd say something like "make the world a better place" or "make great art" or whatever, on some instinctual level the thing I like most in

4 min read

07

Feb

2/7 Link Roundup

It's Friday, my dudes. It has been an extremely long week in the world and for me, so here's some links I enjoyed this week.

Despair-Driven Development - Makes the argument for despair as a driver for positive change, since action gives you respite from it. My personal experience of despair in the workplace has not been that it makes me more productive, but I guess I have occasionally been motivated to do things out of sheer spite. Worth considering.

Dither Me This - Fun little web dithering tool. This is probably going on the long list of "cool graphics

2 min read

06

Feb

#100DaysOfWriting

In googling for a stock image to put at the top of today's post, I discovered there's already a #100DaysofWriting movement. Apparently it's quite popular!

The whole thing is based on showing up to the page with curiosity and gentleness. 'Showing up' can look like whatever you want. Five minutes of note scribbling? That counts. Research reading? That counts too, just as much as writing 1000 words. The point is regular connection without judgement.

These people think it's okay to "set reasonable expectations for themselves" and "not make a demented commitment like write something public-facing on their blog for 100 days straight". Absolutely disgusting. I would like to courteously invite anyone in this "gentle" 100 days of writing to meet me in single combat. While you were freewriting I was studying the blade (blogging).

06

Feb

What To Do When You Have Writer's Block

I am committed to writing on this blog every day for another ~77 days, and often I don't really have any good ideas about what to write. I usually think of writer's block in the context of, like, a tortured genius struggling to write their novel, not a Brooklyn dipshit who can't think of anything to post on his blog, but I guess it happens to all kinds of writers. Writer's block is tough for everyone, but I think I've cracked it: I've been developing a ten-step process for dealing with it when it happens, and I'm happy to be

2 min read