Looking for book tracking services with wider publications databases.
2023-January-03
I made a small recount of how many books I read last year. Total came at around 63. Problem is, I stopped tracking them in goodreads because of the same issue I had with booklikes: A lot of the things I read are not yet in their database.
I frequently read some light novels, not widely distributed technical publications or obscure older books that aren't present in goodreads when I search, so I either try to add it, with slightly incomplete data or I just track them in my personal literature.md file.
I'll be looking at some other services, but in the meantime, a text file in my repo will do.
2022
Champagne Accolade
2022-December-04
I won another recognition accolade.
Thankful as always.
Champagne Accolade.
The Old Ways
2022-August-25
There's no mindset. Only the zone.
There's no grind. Only the zone.
There's no devops. Only the flow.
There's no agile. Only the flow.
There's no scrum. Only the flow.
There's no cloud. Only servers.
There's no cloud. Only network.
There's no cloud. Only the clown.
There's no infosec. Only security.
There's no devsecops. Only security.
There's no qa. Only testing.
There's no sdet. Only testing.
The new is old. The way is the same.
The way we walk it, that's what changes.
From the ones that walked it before me, I learn.
For the ones that will walk it after me, I'll teach.
Silver Accolade
2022-June-30
Just found out I won this, it's a small award given by Managers at atos.
Feels good to be recognized.
The Accolade.
Missed opportunities in linux
naming
schemes, or geeking out to the periodic
table and getting frustrated when no one gets it.
2022-April-18
I'm a Linux enthusiast through and through. I frequently install and test distros for
fun, and I like
to learn
about their lore and community culture besides the technical specifications.
There's a company called System76
that makes
Linux-based personal computers. I've always wanted to try one. Years
ago they announced they would release their own linux distribution.
I'm such a damn nerd that my first thought was: "It's brilliant. They can use the
name and
nomenclature of
the 76th element of the periodic table for their distro!. It matches
perfectly— Osmium,
OS, element 76, a
transition metal, it even looks cool in crystal form."
They named it Pop!_OS.
And its colorscheme accent is cyan.
I'm a long time user of traditional Unix text editors. I also enjoy using new IDEs and
development setups. While we usually have extremely limited choices on
professional/enterprise/work setups the experience is completely different in your personal
projects and freelance work.
Back at my previous workplace we had to unify everything from scratch so we had a chance to
select whatever was more comfortable and least expensive to the team, so I have some knowledge
about usage at professional level.
So, there are 2 text editors that are usually considered the best and are also venerated history
of Unix, Linux and heavy development usage: emacs and vim.
I take a pragmatical approach and use both, but after long term usage I've come to realize I tend
to configure them in ways that make them slightly prone to break after version updates and
they're a bit harder to mantain since I have to transplant it to Windows servers or barebones
Linux jumphosts. Sometimes, due to security constraints, you are limited to just plain emacs and
vi. It's uncomfortable, but it beats not using them.
There are many configuration kits or starter packs that help you, after a lot of testing, I've
settled using the space* projects for both. I've also found that you can copy the configuration
and framework folders and transplant them to a different server or workstation and get the same
experience.
Here's the quick reference for installation and a useful layer list snippet for each. I'm also
including my cleaned up, basic configuration files.
Politics during our time period are a very bad mix of thinly veiled economical interests and
partisanship as an
unifiying tactic.
There's not a single political ideology, party, candidate or culture that uses logic and reason
as a fundamental
part of its makeup.
This is not my opinion, I am merely stating a fact. Feel free to find a single reasonable
political ideology that
is not filled to the brim with contradictions, historical mistakes or outright criminal, immoral
and unethical
behavior. All of them. Not flawed or incomplete. Broken by design.
It saddens me to see some of the brightest minds of mankind wasting time in discussing these
botched ideas. It
will solve nothing, it will improve nothing and it merely wastes time (even if they derive some
enjoyment, it
does not change the erosive nature of the practice).
They are polluting their own mnemonic space. Slowly damaging themselves. They won't stop.
Millions of cycles of
humanity's mindstream processing slowly accruing over time. Wave after wave, amplified by the
crude and vile
communication subset that is mass media, that is social media.
It is my hope that someday all of these damaged ideologies can be replaced with an objectively
solvable thought
model. A balanced logical scheme that can get mathematical certainty to ordering the complex
thermodynamic
system prone to entropy that is humanity. A mostly balanced equation space that addresses every
terrible
challenge of existence for all mankind.
I hope. But that is far off into the future. I will not live to see this.
Automotive technology is harmful.
2022-February-19
I've come to accept that there are several economic, technical and even ideological practices
that are
pernicious
and damage humanity as a whole way more than we can measure. This is evil. However, due to
their wide
acceptance in the general public and current cultural status they're considered an unavoidable
nuisance, or
even
worse, we simply overlook, normalize and accept everything they cause.
Perhaps one day we'll recognize them as great evils, and work actively to neutralize them, like
we have done
through history in every place of this world.
Automotive technology is harmful. Automotive companies are an amazing enemy of economy, human
life and
environment. Cars are terrible engineering failures that routinely cause irreparable damage,
waste of
resources
and loss of life.
I have avoided using cars as much as I can. I have minimized dependencies on them. I avoid car
related
publicity.
I refuse to invest resources in cars or related technologies. I have purposely circumvented any
work related
to
automotive companies.
For all who work there or invest any sort of resources in, please think about it. Before they
cause the
financial
or environmental ruin of the place you live in. Before they cause the death of someone you love.
Before they
cause your own downfall.
It's time.
Stop. Remove it from your life. Make money other way. I believe in you. You can do it.
Not a developer
2022-January-15
I'm not a developer. But I still try to contribute as much as I can.
gitlab activity
2021
A swaggy year
2021-December-15
This year I decided to take advantage of several of the industry related online events.
I've never had a chance to do junkets or swag events, not even at college. I guess you could call
these
online junkets, but they were amazingly informative. I gathered a lot of knowledge, saw some
extremely
impressive demos, completed a free accreditation course and made several contacts for networking
later on.
I also managed to win several points in each event's activities, enough to score some swag. I was
surprised
to get a microphone in the vmware empower challenge.
susecon 2021 digital swag box
Red Hat Summit 2021 swag
vmware empower 2021 swag
ansible fest 2021 swag
I'll try to go to more events in the future.
telnet considered harmful
2021-July-15
What's wrong with the large number of Windows sysadmins still using telnet?
I've been asked to try telnet commands to/from modern linux systems and environments more times
than I can count. It never ends up being useful, and its just a lazy way of keeping in use a
veeeery old tool in modern systems.
It's ok to use tools from the last couple of decades, my fellows. Go for it.
web.dev perfect score animation.
2021-April-05
So, I finally got a perfect score and boom, there's a fireworks animation.
On futility and cognitive poisons.
2021-March-20
There's no intrinsic value in several discussion topics.
There's no point to inane drivel or waste, regardless of how much we try to justify it.
What a year
2021-February-27
This is another extreme year. Covid recovery. Power blackouts, inclement weather. Injuries while
getting in shape. Looots of work and no play.
On the other hand, I got so much experience on corporate cybersec, gitlab, shell, RHEL, Nessus,
Active Directory, vmware and networking tweaks I feel my beard just grew longer.
On the 12th of January of 2021 Luis Garza passed away after a brief, terrible battle with
COVID-19.
He was a decent Linux sysadmin, obsessive about his family and leisure activities.
We disagreed on a lot of things, and I think he was tremendously mistaken about many ideas,
beliefs and
practices. Including those that ultimately turned out wrong.
Still, I learned a lot, even if it was what not to do, what path not to take.
Goodbye, Obi-Wan.
2020
A lesson from ansible/yaml
2020-May-3
Most important thing about working from ansible/yaml: You're not executing a change. You're
declaring the final state
of that change
Also, you definitely need a decent text editor. Default vi on jumphosts just doesn't cut it.
Pandemic preparedness
2020-May-3
Sure glad I started to work with healthcare providers (HCPs). Being in this position has been an
oppportunity to gain
experience on a very important infrastructure area during an extremely stringent period of time.
The work I do matters. Nowadays, even more than usual.
Yet another redesign and relaunch
2020-Apr-14
New redesign.
CSS based, w3css.
Light in Javascript.
PWA conformant
Optimized image formats.
Cruft removed.
New additional structured data + json based information.
That uneasy feeling
2019-May-17
Have you ever had an uneasy feeling from seeing someone you met before?.
Warning bells just ringed in my head when I saw some pictures of people I met while in my
previous job role and
city.
Seemingly happy family, but such evil hidden behind.
You know how some crooked people is described in documentaries?: "They seemed like a happy
normal
family".
"We didn't know what was happening."
Then they end up being massively evil people (thiefs, killers, sexual abusers and on and on).
Calling it right now, if something comes to light about them, this is me saying I suspected it.
Source Code Visualization
2019-May-8
Site Redesign mostly complete. I've generated a Gource video file to visualize development.
Website rebuilt
2019-May-7
Dark redesign using the latest Foundation Framework and advanced website speed optimization
techniques.
Red Hat Delivery Specialist - Cloud Automation
2018-October-29
I've completed the RedHat Cloud Automation coursework. Red Hat's training material is
excellent and even though
the lab environment was a bit wonky it was otherwise very nice. Took around 80 hours total
(no skipping and a
lot of note taking).
Using ansible in all of my servers
2018-October-1
And so, I setup ansible as a main tool to work on my personal servers. It's great, it doesn't
mind working on a
mixed set of distributions and server stacks.
New Website Design
2018-October-1
I've redesigned my site for a cleaner look and faster loading. I've also fixed some compatibility
issues and minor
viewport bugs on IE.
I took a long look at several new minimalistic CSS frameworks, and even though I like the idea,
most of them leave
out older browser compatibility due to taking advantage of new CSS properties. This tradeoff
makes them very clean,
but centered around mostly webkit based browsers. I also dislike deeply the idea of installing
them through the
nodejs toolchain, since its prone to breakage and overengineering.
Clean code for clean designs.
A workable Unix sysadmin setup
2018-June-1
Here's my current setup.
Hardware:
Lenovo Thinkpad t540p
Software:
KDE Neon
Firefox Nightly
Spacemacs / Kate
Yakuake
OpenVPN
Apache/NGINX
Arc/Solarized Color Scheme
Source Code Visualization
2018-May-20
Site Redesign mostly complete. I've generated a Gource video file to visualize development.