10/15/24;
11:33 AM:
The ants have shown an interest in the paste, which has dried somewhat. But not the species of ant that was expected. Instead, there are at least 2 other species of ants besides the ones targeted--which are all over the paste. The ones targeted are bigger ants. The smaller ants are the ones interested in the paste. The liquid
part has also lost water, and is like a jello mixture. Still has no interest from the ants.
I'm going to think this is a hackberry tree of a local species to this area until proven otherwise. It's is clearly different from the hackberry trees featured on the YouTube, but these have too many features that check the boxes of hackberry to not be hackberry. So there.
8:18 AM
The ants are sluggish this morning. Temperature has cooled to the low 50's. A poke of the stick will usually get ants moving around pretty good, but that didn't happen. The cooler weather has them sluggish, I suspect. There's no ant activity around the paste, but there was a relatively larger beetle scarfing it down.
The liquid part has no activity at all. I was expecting the sugar type ants to be especially interested. This is a bit of a surprise.
So far, just the beetles. I'll check again later today.
I checked the YouTube for positive identification of the theorized hackberry trees. It checks out on the leaves and on the bark. The berries are a bit different, though. They are a greenish yellow. Or yellow green. They do appear to be somewhat larger than in the videos, but this is Texas. The videos were on the other side of the Missisippi. But they are not desert hackberries, either.
10/14/24:
So I bought a mortar and pestle. It is to grind the berries down like the natives did long ago. Once I got home, I went to work right away. I collected some berries, and placed them inside and attempted to grind them down. The pits are very, very hard. There wasn't much success at getting much of a paste.
After tiring of this, I placed a good number of them into the blender. After grinding them in the blender for a minute or so, I had a liquid paste. There still was a good number of chunks in it. I proceeded to filter out the water, and got a liquid part, and a thicker paste part.
There was never any intention to eat any of this. But it may be useful in attracting ants. So I took the paste and the liquid, and set them outside. If ants are attracted to this, I find out soon enough.
Discussion of the results will come later.
10/13/24:
Next step will be to buy something, of course. I think I'll buy a mortar and pestle from Walmart the next time I go by there. Not much to report, but it is what it is.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Friday, October 11, 2024
Let's take a good look in the mirror, shall we?
Not much discussion lately about the off-grid project.
The Zorin thing isn't technically off-grid. But it is definitely not in the mainstream. Screw the mainstream. The mainstream is effed up.
That's why the need for the off-grid solution...
But the grid keeps grinding us all down. Bummer.
This thought is about a bit of philosophy. Our system of doing things here in the USA is to make money. But you cannot eat money. You cannot wear money as your clothing. You cannot make a house out of money. Money is a medium of exchange. This isn't to knock it, but to make it the center of your existence is a mistake.
But it is at the center, and this won't last. It can't. It's part of what's making things so crazy.
So back to the topic at hand. There was one little thing I did yesterday. I went outside to the presumed hackberry tree and picked a berry off it. It seemed a rather thick berry. So I wonder what's normal for these berries. I've been meaning to do something about this, and here we are into October already.
That's it. Ten years of this, and that's all I've done.
Well, I've beat a drum but there's not much interest in hearing that. People will continue on and on until they can't go on anymore. Then there will be a change, because the way it's going cannot last.
The Zorin thing isn't technically off-grid. But it is definitely not in the mainstream. Screw the mainstream. The mainstream is effed up.
That's why the need for the off-grid solution...
But the grid keeps grinding us all down. Bummer.
This thought is about a bit of philosophy. Our system of doing things here in the USA is to make money. But you cannot eat money. You cannot wear money as your clothing. You cannot make a house out of money. Money is a medium of exchange. This isn't to knock it, but to make it the center of your existence is a mistake.
But it is at the center, and this won't last. It can't. It's part of what's making things so crazy.
So back to the topic at hand. There was one little thing I did yesterday. I went outside to the presumed hackberry tree and picked a berry off it. It seemed a rather thick berry. So I wonder what's normal for these berries. I've been meaning to do something about this, and here we are into October already.
That's it. Ten years of this, and that's all I've done.
Well, I've beat a drum but there's not much interest in hearing that. People will continue on and on until they can't go on anymore. Then there will be a change, because the way it's going cannot last.
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Zorin OS progress ( or lack of )
10/10/24:
I'm still in the "what will I do with it" phase. There's definite differences between the Windows environment and Zorin OS. By the way, Zorin is based upon Ubuntu, an OS that I once installed on a USB stick many years ago. This project to re-install this on another USB stick has been a long time coming. Finally, I'm here.
It's been too long to remember why Ubuntu fell into disuse. Maybe it was a hardware problem. But one fine day, I think I tried to plug it back in and it didn't work. What changed? I'm not sure. But the installation has definitely become more complex, or I'm getting stupid. Maybe a little of both.
Or it may have been something else. It's complicated. Or I'm getting stupid. Oh. I'm repeating myself. Uh,oh.
10/8/24:
Zorin OS seems to be working now. It may have been a matter of adjusting to the new system. My bad for that last discouraging sounding post.
Now for the next phase. What will I do with it????
10/7/24:
5:45 PM
It has been a busy day with this. But not really productive. I got the second installation done. It boots up, and then fails. Nothing appears to have been done wrong by yours truly. Yet...
It may turn out that the installation is going to be just like this, and no better. If there's a way around this, it may take a ton of effort, but is it worth it? I am only achieving a very limited objective, which is to sideline Windows as much as I can. As far as throwing Windows out the window, no. Not ready for that yet, but if I tippy toe on my toes, I just might be able to see that day.
In between time, in the meantime, ain't we got fun.đđđ
10:54 AM
Another interesting thing... I tried an experiment with this installation as it exists so far. That is to say, I haven't gone back and destroyed it by re-installing it on top of what I had there already. It still exists. So, what do I do with this? I think I will keep it for now. The experiment will show why... I got a second boot out of it just this morning. How? By putting it into a different device, and placing it in a different usb slot when I plugged in the usb.
It is being installed on micro disks, you see. These can be placed in dongles or whatever they call them these days. They work like the old floppy disk systems. You can remove the "floppy" and replace it with another "floppy". The "floppy" being the micro disks. These will hold gigabytes of data, as opposed to kilobytes of data, as in the old days with the floppies. Indeed, you may even get these in terabytes by now. In fact, I'm sure that you can if you have the money to spend.
But I'm recycling these, so obviously, I don't want to spend a dime more than I need to. Like I said, an interesting thing...
We live in interesting times. Something tells me that isn't going to go well for some of us out here. But who?????????????????????????????????????????????????
10/6/24,
4:58 PM
Not successful. However, something interesting happened. I got an error message when I tried to do those command line tasks that would have finalized it. I stopped before doing them all, and figured the USB was corrupted, and would not boot up. But an inadvertent attempt to boot up gave me a surprise when it DID boot up.
But it looks like it was a fake out. I managed to get this to boot up once before, and on the next attempt to boot up, it failed. Same thing happened again. I'm absolutely certain that it is now on the USB stick, and with the problems fixed, it will work. It's just proving to be a stubborn problem.
What's next? It may take a complete re-install. Since it won't boot up again, or inconsistently, it is still an unsatisfactory arrangement. Windows boots up okay. It didn't affect windows, but it may have affected the bootstrap part of the system when it is first turned on. I may be able to clear that, but not sure how for the time-being.
11:31 AM:
Back again for more of this, er, installation. Maybe it should be called torture. I'm sure it is so complicated so that any normal person wouldn't dream of putting themselves through all this. I guess that means I'm not a normie. This can be a feature, and not a bug. People may want to pay somebody for this thrill.
But I'm not greedy. I'd like to share my pain, you might say. This latest visit to the torture rack involves the last step, I hope. Then I will have Zorin OS on my Windows machine as a boot option. Yay! /bronx cheer=off
Anyway, this last step involves making more story boards, which I've spent the better part of the day working on. The previous story boards seem to have been validated, but there's still something I'm not so sure about. We'll have to get to that on the next visit to the torture rack. This visit's trip to the rack will have to suffice. Enough punishment for one day.
As of this writing, I've made the story boards, and I'm about to go to the rack. I'm in no big hurry. The story boards themselves were a chore enough. The real fun starts with the final visit to the rack, and hopefully the reward will be a new install of the Zorin OS. ( cross my fingers)
10/5/24,
2:50 PM:
I made progress, sort of. I ran the rest of the install program. But I did not get what I expected. The "live environment" as he called it on the video linked below ( and used as a guide) showed different screens than what I saw. So I don't know exactly what and how it went wrong, but it seems to have at this writing.
Zorin OS will boot up. It loaded some of it, ( maybe all) on the Main drive. I did not want this.
It does recognize the other USB drive. It does get to Zorin if I have it plugged in. It does go to windows (through the "grub" prompt). But it isn't what I thought I had set up. Drat it.
8:11 AM
The video I'm using will see me through to a successful conclusion, I do believe.
Not to be too critical, but there's a LOT of information being presented in a short amount of time. It has to sink in properly.
It is slowly sinking in, and it will be soon when I get it together. But not yet.
I haven't teed it up yet for another run or two. I did some ground prep first. This consisted of a lot of studying over the material so that I could understand what the hell I was doing.
To do that, I made story boards out of the video. Each move of the mouse and click is just too fast to let go by without studying over the entire page for all of its details. Hopefully, this will allow me to go back today with more confidence, and then I will be successful.
10/4/24; 9:17 PM
Not finished yet, drat it. It appears that I'm making progress, and the end may be in sight. I sure hope so.
Perhaps tomorrow I can finish. Not today.
3:12 PM
I spent some time on the web, and on the main blog. Then, back to this maddening exercise. Oh, joy!
In order to try to do this with the greatest chance of success, I am following the video as closely as possible.
Trouble is, the video is a year old, and there appears to be some changes.
Once you get the thing flashed, you have to get the installing disk to the installee disk. Ha, ha.
That appears to be a problem at the moment. You have to know something about partitions. Me no know partitions, senor. So now I have to learn about this little detail. What a pain in the neck, or lower perhaps.
He says you need about 500 MB for the system and the rest for data. But this thing has a bunch of stuff here, so what's what? Hmmm. I have to sort this all out, and get to it latersville.
That's cuz other sheet needs doing, and I haven't got all day to spend on this one thing.
Just one example of what could go wrong. If you click on the shortcut, it will try to install on your main drive for your computer, as opposed to installing on a USB stick. I caught that one in progress. So I had to backtrack and check for any damage done to my main drives.
These things can be like runaway trains that can wreak havoc on your system. That's the kind of thing that you want to avoid. Hence, the great caution that must be taken so that a detail like this doesn't ruin your day, and your computer. Know what I mean Vern?
11:47 AM
Here it is, nearly noon. I've spent the entire morning screwing around with this thing. Just shows to go ya how labor intensive some of this can be. By labor intensive, maybe I should say time consuming instead.
Whatever way it is expressed, I'm still not finished with this project. The reason ( or excuse? ) is that there's a learning curve for me to overcome.
Even though I have a degree in Computer Science, the last 30 years or so, I've let it all go. My computer skills need updating ( BIG TIME ), so I'm having to learn some stuff that may seem pretty basic to the computer nerds out there. I may be considered a computer nerd drop out.
So I'm re-establishing my nerdiness with respect to the computers. How enchanting.
Well, at least I have some knowledge base to work with, which isn't much admittedly.
Last time I mentioned this project, I got stuck. It seems that you cannot just reformat a drive anymore like the old days. You have to go to the command prompt in Windows. ( By the way, I REALLY REALLY want to dump WINDOWS NOW )
In Windows, there is a program called diskpart. I had to do that in order to fix a previously installed Linux disk.
Aha! Windows gotcha there. But Windows is still gracious enough to have this program that can help you fix a disk that is discombobulated as far as Windows is concerned. Windows may not speak Linux, or may need some serious tweaking to speak Linux.
I'd just as soon not tweak, but wipe it out. I'll start over from Tails, which I don't find particularly convenient. At some point, I can reinstall Tails, but right now, I want Zorin. I don't want to have to buy new disks, so Tails has got to go.
A big warning to anyone out there who may want to try this. You could wipe out something that you don't want to wipe out with this diskpart command. A computer nerd doesn't need to be reminded, but those who aren't certified computer nerds should take heed.
Formatting a disk will do that too, as you may already know. Diskpart is even more powerful, so beware.
Fortunately, I didn't wipe out anything that I didn't mind wiping out. ( So far as I know as of this writing.)
The video I'm using as a guide to install Zorin is here.
As of this writing, I'm up to the part where the disk is flashed successfully with Zorin, but we're not done yet.
That's all for now.
I'm still in the "what will I do with it" phase. There's definite differences between the Windows environment and Zorin OS. By the way, Zorin is based upon Ubuntu, an OS that I once installed on a USB stick many years ago. This project to re-install this on another USB stick has been a long time coming. Finally, I'm here.
It's been too long to remember why Ubuntu fell into disuse. Maybe it was a hardware problem. But one fine day, I think I tried to plug it back in and it didn't work. What changed? I'm not sure. But the installation has definitely become more complex, or I'm getting stupid. Maybe a little of both.
Or it may have been something else. It's complicated. Or I'm getting stupid. Oh. I'm repeating myself. Uh,oh.
10/8/24:
Zorin OS seems to be working now. It may have been a matter of adjusting to the new system. My bad for that last discouraging sounding post.
Now for the next phase. What will I do with it????
10/7/24:
5:45 PM
It has been a busy day with this. But not really productive. I got the second installation done. It boots up, and then fails. Nothing appears to have been done wrong by yours truly. Yet...
It may turn out that the installation is going to be just like this, and no better. If there's a way around this, it may take a ton of effort, but is it worth it? I am only achieving a very limited objective, which is to sideline Windows as much as I can. As far as throwing Windows out the window, no. Not ready for that yet, but if I tippy toe on my toes, I just might be able to see that day.
In between time, in the meantime, ain't we got fun.đđđ
10:54 AM
Another interesting thing... I tried an experiment with this installation as it exists so far. That is to say, I haven't gone back and destroyed it by re-installing it on top of what I had there already. It still exists. So, what do I do with this? I think I will keep it for now. The experiment will show why... I got a second boot out of it just this morning. How? By putting it into a different device, and placing it in a different usb slot when I plugged in the usb.
It is being installed on micro disks, you see. These can be placed in dongles or whatever they call them these days. They work like the old floppy disk systems. You can remove the "floppy" and replace it with another "floppy". The "floppy" being the micro disks. These will hold gigabytes of data, as opposed to kilobytes of data, as in the old days with the floppies. Indeed, you may even get these in terabytes by now. In fact, I'm sure that you can if you have the money to spend.
But I'm recycling these, so obviously, I don't want to spend a dime more than I need to. Like I said, an interesting thing...
We live in interesting times. Something tells me that isn't going to go well for some of us out here. But who?????????????????????????????????????????????????
10/6/24,
4:58 PM
Not successful. However, something interesting happened. I got an error message when I tried to do those command line tasks that would have finalized it. I stopped before doing them all, and figured the USB was corrupted, and would not boot up. But an inadvertent attempt to boot up gave me a surprise when it DID boot up.
But it looks like it was a fake out. I managed to get this to boot up once before, and on the next attempt to boot up, it failed. Same thing happened again. I'm absolutely certain that it is now on the USB stick, and with the problems fixed, it will work. It's just proving to be a stubborn problem.
What's next? It may take a complete re-install. Since it won't boot up again, or inconsistently, it is still an unsatisfactory arrangement. Windows boots up okay. It didn't affect windows, but it may have affected the bootstrap part of the system when it is first turned on. I may be able to clear that, but not sure how for the time-being.
11:31 AM:
Back again for more of this, er, installation. Maybe it should be called torture. I'm sure it is so complicated so that any normal person wouldn't dream of putting themselves through all this. I guess that means I'm not a normie. This can be a feature, and not a bug. People may want to pay somebody for this thrill.
But I'm not greedy. I'd like to share my pain, you might say. This latest visit to the torture rack involves the last step, I hope. Then I will have Zorin OS on my Windows machine as a boot option. Yay! /bronx cheer=off
Anyway, this last step involves making more story boards, which I've spent the better part of the day working on. The previous story boards seem to have been validated, but there's still something I'm not so sure about. We'll have to get to that on the next visit to the torture rack. This visit's trip to the rack will have to suffice. Enough punishment for one day.
As of this writing, I've made the story boards, and I'm about to go to the rack. I'm in no big hurry. The story boards themselves were a chore enough. The real fun starts with the final visit to the rack, and hopefully the reward will be a new install of the Zorin OS. ( cross my fingers)
10/5/24,
2:50 PM:
I made progress, sort of. I ran the rest of the install program. But I did not get what I expected. The "live environment" as he called it on the video linked below ( and used as a guide) showed different screens than what I saw. So I don't know exactly what and how it went wrong, but it seems to have at this writing.
Zorin OS will boot up. It loaded some of it, ( maybe all) on the Main drive. I did not want this.
It does recognize the other USB drive. It does get to Zorin if I have it plugged in. It does go to windows (through the "grub" prompt). But it isn't what I thought I had set up. Drat it.
8:11 AM
The video I'm using will see me through to a successful conclusion, I do believe.
Not to be too critical, but there's a LOT of information being presented in a short amount of time. It has to sink in properly.
It is slowly sinking in, and it will be soon when I get it together. But not yet.
I haven't teed it up yet for another run or two. I did some ground prep first. This consisted of a lot of studying over the material so that I could understand what the hell I was doing.
To do that, I made story boards out of the video. Each move of the mouse and click is just too fast to let go by without studying over the entire page for all of its details. Hopefully, this will allow me to go back today with more confidence, and then I will be successful.
10/4/24; 9:17 PM
Not finished yet, drat it. It appears that I'm making progress, and the end may be in sight. I sure hope so.
Perhaps tomorrow I can finish. Not today.
3:12 PM
I spent some time on the web, and on the main blog. Then, back to this maddening exercise. Oh, joy!
In order to try to do this with the greatest chance of success, I am following the video as closely as possible.
Trouble is, the video is a year old, and there appears to be some changes.
Once you get the thing flashed, you have to get the installing disk to the installee disk. Ha, ha.
That appears to be a problem at the moment. You have to know something about partitions. Me no know partitions, senor. So now I have to learn about this little detail. What a pain in the neck, or lower perhaps.
He says you need about 500 MB for the system and the rest for data. But this thing has a bunch of stuff here, so what's what? Hmmm. I have to sort this all out, and get to it latersville.
That's cuz other sheet needs doing, and I haven't got all day to spend on this one thing.
Just one example of what could go wrong. If you click on the shortcut, it will try to install on your main drive for your computer, as opposed to installing on a USB stick. I caught that one in progress. So I had to backtrack and check for any damage done to my main drives.
These things can be like runaway trains that can wreak havoc on your system. That's the kind of thing that you want to avoid. Hence, the great caution that must be taken so that a detail like this doesn't ruin your day, and your computer. Know what I mean Vern?
11:47 AM
Here it is, nearly noon. I've spent the entire morning screwing around with this thing. Just shows to go ya how labor intensive some of this can be. By labor intensive, maybe I should say time consuming instead.
Whatever way it is expressed, I'm still not finished with this project. The reason ( or excuse? ) is that there's a learning curve for me to overcome.
Even though I have a degree in Computer Science, the last 30 years or so, I've let it all go. My computer skills need updating ( BIG TIME ), so I'm having to learn some stuff that may seem pretty basic to the computer nerds out there. I may be considered a computer nerd drop out.
So I'm re-establishing my nerdiness with respect to the computers. How enchanting.
Well, at least I have some knowledge base to work with, which isn't much admittedly.
Last time I mentioned this project, I got stuck. It seems that you cannot just reformat a drive anymore like the old days. You have to go to the command prompt in Windows. ( By the way, I REALLY REALLY want to dump WINDOWS NOW )
In Windows, there is a program called diskpart. I had to do that in order to fix a previously installed Linux disk.
Aha! Windows gotcha there. But Windows is still gracious enough to have this program that can help you fix a disk that is discombobulated as far as Windows is concerned. Windows may not speak Linux, or may need some serious tweaking to speak Linux.
I'd just as soon not tweak, but wipe it out. I'll start over from Tails, which I don't find particularly convenient. At some point, I can reinstall Tails, but right now, I want Zorin. I don't want to have to buy new disks, so Tails has got to go.
A big warning to anyone out there who may want to try this. You could wipe out something that you don't want to wipe out with this diskpart command. A computer nerd doesn't need to be reminded, but those who aren't certified computer nerds should take heed.
Formatting a disk will do that too, as you may already know. Diskpart is even more powerful, so beware.
Fortunately, I didn't wipe out anything that I didn't mind wiping out. ( So far as I know as of this writing.)
The video I'm using as a guide to install Zorin is here.
As of this writing, I'm up to the part where the disk is flashed successfully with Zorin, but we're not done yet.
That's all for now.
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Tig Welding 101
This will go into the How-to category if I still have it. One of these days, I may need to know stuff like this. One of these days, the world will fall apart, and you'll have to know how to do things because the rest of the world will have gone to the dogs.
ėęŗ¤ėŠė tig welding #shorts https://t.co/sGsjGEAMjm via @YouTube Comment: Interesting mix with the music and the video which shows tig welding. You might need skills like this if the world falls apart. That just might happen you know.
— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) October 1, 2024
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