My desk is here!

For context: Rolling Adjustable Laptop Desk

For convenience if you look at the picture, we'll have the desk parts be long side and short side since it'll be different if you're left or right handed.

( About Assembly And Initial Use - A Breakdown )
( Deskness - The Good and the Less Than Good )
( A Charming Angle-Based Anecdote )
( Deskness - The Good and Less Than Good II )

Having said that: so far, have attached the clamps for the power strip and the portable monitor stand. When I have it properly configured, will post pics.

Portable Monitor Triumph

Update!

Back in Stock!

Lepow Upgraded 15.6 Inch IPS HDR 1920 x 1080 FHD Computer Display Game Screen is now back in stock! Price: $204.99

Note: camelcamelcamel shows its lowest price as $169.99 on January 3, 2020, well before Coronavirus was a thing in the US, and its highest at $209.98 on Mar 17, 2020, which corresponds with the near beginning of Coronavirus work at home becoming mainstream. In other words, it may go down to that again but probably not very soon.

I will enthusiastically repeat my rec: if you're looking for a second monitor for work that can also be useful for non-work stuff, this one is great, and Lepow is a brand I've never had a bad experience with. However:

ASUS MB169B+ 15.6" Full HD 1920x1080 IPS USB Portable Monitor - this is available like new from Amazon Warehouse for $180.49 and new for $199.99 with Prime Shipping.

The only reason I'm mentioning this one is that it was on my short list originally because greater than two review sites had it on their top ten list for portable monitors and it wasn't available for a while. And it's ASUS; they're extremely well known, and personally, my first tablet came from them and not a few motherboards I've owned or worked on. So if you're considering getting one, that's one you might also look at.

So far, the price range for portable monitors is running about $180 up for those that either appear in rec lists by reputable sites or have a high star + lots of reviews (I personally look for above 200 reviews for portable monitors no matter how high the stars and only go below that if it's a very dependable brand like Asus or Lepow, etc, it show on a rec list for a site I trust, and it's release date is fairly recent. Portable monitors have taken a major upswing due to Coronavirus, so I try to make sure it's one that has reviews pre-February/March.

Note: The only thing I almost regret is it isn't a touchscreen, but only as a matter of convenience for a very few functions. OTOH, portable touchscreen monitors are both more expensive and more fragile than a plain portable monitor of this size and most of what I need the monitor for I need a keyboard at minimum (in the GUI, also a mouse).

Device Compatibility Testing

I confirmed compatibility with both Ubuntu and Raspbian, so the official list plus my testing list are as follows:

Compatibility List
1.) Window PCs
2.) Mac PCs
3.) Android phones/tablets
4.) iPhones/iPads
5.) Nintendo Switch
6.) X-Box
7.) Playstation
8.) Ubuntu (tested in Lubuntu)
9.) Raspbian (Raspberry Pi OS)

This is especially for brownbetty since she also has a Raspberry Pi. I have no idea if you'd be into this or even need a monitor for anything, but boy is it convenient if you're running headless with RDP.

Ubuntu Connection Guide

This is pretty straightforward but I like to be thorough.

Required:
1.) HDMI port on the Ubuntu computer
2.) Mini HDMI to HDMI Cable (came with monitor)
3.) USB-C to USB-A Cable + Power Block (came with monitor)

Instructions:
Attach the Mini HDMI to HDMI Cable to the computer and the monitor, plug monitor into outlet for power.

Raspberry Pi running Raspbian

Required:
1a.) Micro HDMI to HDMI Cable Male to Female - $8.99 - I bought this one
1b.) Micro HMDI to Mini HDMI Cable - $7.99
1c.) HDMI Adapters Kit (7 Adapters) Mini Hdmi to Micro Hdim Male to Female - $9.99 - the only reason I didn't buy this is that it's not available until May. Then I shall get it, holy shit, there are seven adapters in there. This will use the same steps as 1a, however, as there is not a Mini HDMI to Micro HDMI from the list I read under Product Description. (It does have a T shaped Mini HDMI and Micro HDMI Male to HDMI Female, though. I have no idea how I'd use it but I know i could.)
2.) Mini HDMI to HDMI Cable (came with monitor)
3.) USB-C to USB-A Cable + Power Block (came with monitor)

Instructions:
For 1a - Attach 1a to the micro HDMI port on the Pi, then attach female HDMI side of 1a to the HDMI of the Mini HDMI to HDMI cable that came with the monitor. Then plug in monitor to outlet.
For 1b - Attach 1b to the micro HDMI port on the Pi and the mini HDMI port on the monitor. Then plug in monitor to outlet.
For 1c - see 1a

How To Get Them Working Together

For both Ubuntu and Pi, do the following:
1.) Hook them up to the Ubuntu/Pi system while they're running.
2.) Nothing happens, the monitor says no output, you're afraid.
3.) Breathe, I got you.
4.) Run Update/Upgrade from command line. If you don't know command line, open a terminal and type sudo apt update, let it run until done, then sudo apt upgrade.
5.) Reboot

Reason to Add Monitor While Live
So, it was stressful.

I tried adding live first, then adding at reboot and those didn't work. It did work, however, if I ran update/upgrade/reboot while the monitor was still attached, and I left it attached during reboot. After reboot, the monitor came up in the BIOS (for Ubuntu) and with the rainbow screen (pre-GUI on the Pi). Go figure.

My utterly no idea guess: it needs to be detected by the machine first to trigger the drivers or to tell Ubuntu/Raspbian to download them. Then you update/upgrade to download them. To be fair, I had downloads pending already for both so I can't really be sure; a couple looked vaguely like they might be for a display, but can't lie, I do not even pretend to recognize most of packages on site unless I manually downloaded the packages myself from the web and manually installed them from command line. It's possible if either one had ever been attached to an actual monitor instead of a TV, it would already have those drivers or packages, I have no idea, so YMMV.

If it doesn't work the first time; do not unplug the monitor, just update/upgrade/reboot again. I'm using a standard Lubuntu and standard Raspbian install with no unique configurations so pretty much any system running an Ubuntu flavor should get it done. I can't see how it'd be incompatible with any Linux distro or any Raspbian-based OS flavor, so don't borrow trouble if you're running a different Ubuntu, different Linux type, or a Raspbian-based derivative and it doesn't work the first or second time; it's most likely that whatever is needed to run the display is not in that distro's standard packages and you'd just need to google a bit.

Cables, Adapters, and Hubs

While we're talking about alternate ways to connect things with cables, a story.

When I got this laptop, it was apparenty one of the first USB-C only and I was excited as hell. Perhaps too excited. Despite my (usually) much better judgement, instead of calmly collecting USB-C to X adapters for ethernet, HDMI, and a couple more USB-C to USB-A (the computer came with two), I eagerly purchased one of those all in one USB-C Hub multiport adapters.

It was so pretty and so gloriously functional: it had three USB-A 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, a gigabyte Ethernet port, an SD card port, and even a USB-C power port so I could also power my laptop through it. With it, I would only need one thing attached to my laptop and it could do everything./

That...was a mistake. Or at least, a mistake of that being the only thing I purchased.

It was fine for about a year, right up until it tried to overload one of my USB-C ports and died messily. When I tossed it, though, I lost all my adapters, as I hadn't bought any other adapters. Which was a really incredibly stupid mistake just from the perspective of always have a goddamn backup.

I'm not saying those all in one hubs aren't useful: they are! They're great! But always have at least one backup adapter per type--HDMI, USB, ethernet, card reader, etc--that you use only at home and never, ever leaves your house. For the hub as well as that group of single cable adapters, don't short on price; get the one with the highest stars/most reviews combo with a name you at least recognize. For the hub this goes double and triple; if it's less than $35-$40 and not a sale, double check everything, because you need a hub that's extremely well configured for that USB-C port, which can carry enough power to run your laptop. A bad hub can indeed damage the USB-C port on your laptop or even your computer if it decides to die when you're using it, especially if you're using several of those hub ports at the same time. It can also make your laptop make a terrifying sound you will hear until the day you die.

Yes, get one of course, but be prudent in picking it, and pay attention if even one port on it starts acting sketchy.

Plain USB cables for when you leave the house or extras you keep on hand are a different story. One, they're ubiquitous, so yeah, get a lot, and those you should get cheap. Go for the $10 for ten USB-A 3.0 to whatever when you see them (I do, a lot), because lets face it, even if they were made to last forever you're going to lose them in like, three months or some shit (do you still have the cable that came with your phone? When's the last time you saw it?). As long as reviews don't say "WILL BLOW UP YOUR COMPUTER" a small performance hit is worth the trade off of not feeling guilty you don't remember where you left your phone cable last night/last week.

Now, An Amusing But Relevant Anecdote

Why am I digressing into adapter cable purchase theory? Well, at work, we just upgraded our test phones for the second time. And as of the first time we upgraded, I buy discount cable packs for work for my co-workers to use; I have a desk drawer with nothing but USBs and lightning cables and power blocks. How are these related, you're probably asking yourself if you're still reading in sheer fascination with why on earth I am so into cables? Let me explain.

Among the programs we test are two apps for mobile phones, and so we have several Android and iPhones to use to do that. I'm primary tester, but sometimes I get a team together, and we all use those phones. You can guess what happens, every time. I mean, to those test phones' cables.

1.) We all use either Samsung, a rare flavor of Android, or iPhones for our personal phones and all the test phone cords do indeed look exactly like our cords. So yeah, they vanish pretty fast. Not because anyone is slyly stealing them for a free USB cable here: they look exactly like the cables we are charging our phones with at our desks. Like most people, when it's time to leave, we pack up the phones quickly, take them to our manager's office (or my desk), grab our stuff, and go home...including our (we think) cables that due to rush, we probably forgot to put back in the box.

Me? I have brought home work phone Samsung cables thinking they were mine greater than two times, and during mobile testing, I check the phones every day before I leave. And yet, I still grabbed that white cable and tossed it in my purse before taking all the phones back to my manager's office. So yeah, everyone does it and it will happen.

2.) Everyone borrows them to charge their phones. They always mean to bring them back, always. But see 1 and the fact a USB/lightning cable's job is to get lost. It will happen. And saying "You can't" would be utterly ridiculous; there was no way to enforce it, no way to know who did it unless thy did it right in front of one of us, and literally no one--me, my manager, or the assistant manager--had any goddamn interest in even trying. I, for one, would fucking buy a replacement at full price and pretend it was under my desk first, and frankly, my manager and the assistant manager would probably pay for half because seriously? And that assumes it' a tester that does it; there are other groups that use our phone to for testing and oh hell no am I ever wandering through that building hunting down a goddamn cable.

(Everyone borrowed those cables. It's just fucking reflex.)

However, this does lead to having testing phones and no cables with which to charge them, so: I had an idea.

When we were getting ready for the very first phone upgrade from Galaxy 5's/iPhones some very low number to Galaxy 8s and iPhone 7s, we had two (2) USB cables and one (1) broken lightning cable left between ten phones. Obviously, I did not email frantically asking for cables or accuse people of stealing because I am neither an idiot nor someone who even knows how to fucking care about that (honestly, I can't be sure I wasn't an offender. Or possibly it was my manager, everyone borrows them). I did not talk earnestly to my manager or the other testers about USB Cords Mysteriously Missing Must Stop (though God I kind of wish I had, it would have been hilarious to see their faces until I burst into laughter); instead, I made a case for extra cables being purchased--they break, I told my boss seriously, who nodded back just as seriously and both of us did not look at our mobile phones, so fragile!--and with permission, wrote up a request for extra USB-A to microUSB, USB-A to USB-C, and lightning cables, and a few of the single piece microUSB to USB-C and USB-A to USB-C cable converter pieces. I was given the Official Work Catalog (Office Depot is one of our suppliers!) to price everything. I was reasonable--about three for each phone we'd get (4 Galaxy, 5-6 iPhones), and a few adapters to make a micro USB into a USB-C. Price: under $30 probably.

Whoever read my request was a realist of the first order and did the appropriate math. When the new phones came, so did a large separate box of mysterious purpose, and in there, I found boxes of cables. Boxes of one, boxes of three, fancy bags of three, boxes of those tiny one piece cable adapter. Roughly, we received thirty cables per phone when I stopped counting breathlessly as my manager looked on, starting to get worried.

Me: *star eyes as I unpack the box* AREN'T THEY BEAUTIFUL?
Boss: Are you...okay?
Me: YES

Would people borrow those cables? Oh yeah, of course, if they could, but I had a plan that unlike None May Borrow or Death, would actually work.

1.) All extra cables weren't hidden, but simply stored in the least likely part of my boss's office. His office has this nifty cabinet that includes a narrow coat closet to hang up his coat; I put the big box--containing all the little boxes--in there on top of a stack of binders. (His coat is very short.)

Now, it wasn't hidden, I didn't do it late at night under the cover of darkness, everyone could look in and see me doing it, and if you open that cabinet, the box is right there.

However, the steps required are:
a.) go to that cabinet where the phones are not located at all (so no excuse of just grabbing a phone to test with in case someone asked though nobody ever did or even care)
b.) pulling out that giant box and transferring it to the floor to open it (not a lot of room in that tiny closet)
c.) sifting through the many many many many small boxes to find a compatible cable. For after I finished swooning and checked and labeled them all, I fully closed each one and put it back in there. Some are one cable; some are three cables; some are connectors: no way to know unless you read the tiny print on the box, because I didn't label them with type and in fact used the label to cover the relevant information. (Me, I could identify the boxes by sight; I'd spent enough time opening them and checking them.)
d.) no way to get it back subtly into the little box inside the big box in its original coils.

All those extra steps did the job for me. The only missing cables are ones I used to replace the ones missing from the phones and vanished into the ether, but again, cables get lost.

2.) I bought cables myself. Lots and lots of cables.

Amazon's ten for fifteen, five for eight, whatever, I grabbed some of each kind my coworkers used for their phones, tossed them in that drawer, and sent out an email that if you need a cable for your phone, grab one here, no need to ask or wait until I'm there. I never checked or cared if they came back, just every so often did a count to see if I needed to buy more. And oddly, only two or three haven't come back (as opposed to the one I left outside, one I accidentally took home with me, and a couple died and were buried at trash). Possibly because they look nothing like the cables that come in the boxes; no whites or blacks, either bright colors or cloth textures or grey or something. Anything visibly or texturely different, basically. I also--for myself--purchased a USB charging cradle with four USB slots so I could charge my tablet and headphones; anyone was welcome to leave their phone or headphones or whatever there to charge, just don't take it off my desk.

And they did.

We still lost mot of the cables that came with the regular phones, but that was always going to happen. No one--especially me--was going to dole out cables like gruel to Oliver fucking Twist and company. It happened a lot slower, though, and for a surprise, three lightning cables and one USB survived this time.

(Literally the only reason I don't take home cables by accident anymore is that I bought a wireless charging cradle for work, since with my last phone, charging by usb (and jerking it out too many times by accident and sometimes on purpose) wore the port down badly, so I only usb charge at home when it's really, really necessary and wireless cradle it overnight. Even if I forgot to charge overnight (happens, but not often, since I have the wireless cradle right by the bed, too) and it's like at 5%, I put it in power saving and put it on the cradle; it's usually fully charged by lunch or very close.)

We just got the upgrade to new phones: one Galaxy S10, two Galaxy Note 10s (!!!!), and a split between the latest iPhones and iPhone Pros(!!!!!!). One Galaxy is on backorder, but a couple of weeks ago, I went to the office to take the delivery of the others and gloat.

I still need to go back and check, configure, and label them, but that must wait until a.) I'm not taking muscle relaxants, b.)I can walk half a mile over not always sidewalks and back without my back spasming, and c.) I can find somewhere that delivers face masks since Austin requires if you are over ten and in public you need to wear one.

(I do not disagree with this rule--I very much approve--but it is a little inconvenient. My sister cleverly already ordered some super cool ones from a coworker, so she's sending me one soon.)

Work From Home: I live in an apartment in which there is no room for an office and barely room for me and Child. My bedroom, for various reasons, isn't workable; part of this is the sheer lack of plugs in which to plug in everything, and less important but still a thing, my building is made of concrete and if anyone knocks, I literally cannot hear it. I bought a Ring doorbell to help with this, but people rarely use it. This has been an ongoing problem.\

So I set up camp in the living room, and at this point learned my couch will literally almost break my back, so temporarily I'm using an armless living room chair that while so not ideal is wonderful for my posture because it's just not slumpable and with a memory foam sitting pad on a memory foam pillow--yeah, all that--the seat is high enough that I can easily stand and sit without bending my back. My laptop now sits atop an ottoman on one of these and I have an end table with a lap and a dot as my only working non-computer surface. It is not comfortable exactly, but my back doesn't complain.

...which brought me to my problem. For work, I need a second monitor.

When I say need, I mean, when testing was assigned second monitors, our paper needs dropped by eighty to ninety percent. We no longer had to print out business and design documents--which for each individual SR could be from ten to five hundred pages--to write test scenarios. Each release had thirty to three hundred SRs. For context, for each release I'd need at least one five inch binder, one to three three inch binders, and one to three one inch binders to hold business documents, design documents, the original SR, and miscellaneous important emails we'd need to either write test or run tests as well as updates, modifications, deletions, and changes to said business document, design document, and SR.

(SR = Service Request AKA Thing To Be Done. You file an SR every time you want to add, update, change, or delete anything in the programs that administer SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, MEPD and various other entitlement programs. A single SR can be "Add five words of text to the Help Page" or "Create a brand new driver flow to file, maintain, search, work, and dispose of food stamp, TANF, and Medicaid appeals in the state of Texas". THat, by the way, was the first thing I worked on when I became a tester and I still have the five inch binder.)

So yeah that second monitor became handy and I no longer needed three days at the end of each release just to do clean up of my desk and files. Now, we just go to the folder we have everything for this SR stored in, open what we need, and put it on the second monitor while writing in the first. And saved about ten times the money in paper than our monitors were worth in one year, probably.

I hadn't planned on buying a regular monitor anyway; I'll never use it for anything but work at home, Child couldn't use it because he needs gaming-class monitors both because he's a gamer and because his classes in game design at school require it. My mother and sisters and nieces have tablets or laptops as their primary, and also, see 'my apartment is not that big'; there is no place to put it, even to store it. So my goal was to get a monitor I could use for work, but also one I could use at home.

Now, as a lot of us are working at home, I thought I'd throw this out, because my flist probably has people working from home who also a.) own a smart phone, b.) own a Nintendo Switch, c.) own a tablet, d.) own a raspberry pi, e.) run a home server, f.) own an Xbox, g.) own a Playstation...you see where this is going. If you are in one or more categories, you might find this one useful if you need a second monitor for work but like me, would like to buy something you'd have a use for after all this.

Lepow Upgraded 15.6 Inch IPS HDR 1920 x 1080 FHD Computer Display Game Screen - $204.99

Note: currently it's not available, but that happened twice before I bought it. For reference, I put about twelve portable monitors on my wish list when I was still comparing them and all of them go in and out of stock pretty much daily. However, if you scroll down to 'Compre to similar items', there are three more Lepow portable monitors, two $194.98 and one $229.99. I honestly have yet to find any difference between these four except the $194.98's do not have the word 'Upgrade' in their name and came out in July, the $229.99 one in August, and mine in September 2019.

( Lepow Portable Monitor, specifications )
( Lepow Portable Monitor, about )

Final Word

I have literally no complaints; this thing is amazing and I love it. When I bought it, it was $204.99 plus tax, which yeah, was way more than a basic monitor of probably $50 to $80. However, it'd be money paid for something I'd never use again and no one I know would ever want or even have a use for and that I honestly don't know where I'd put it when I'm working as my dining room table is still being borrowed by my mom.

This monitor, though? It's not just 'portable' if you're really determined; it's actually 'portable' like the makers understood the meaning of the word and decided it was time to define it for all.

This? It's light, and the using the case as a stand creates an incredibly stable base. All it requires is a mostly clear roughly fourteen to eighteenish inch squared space. A cushion or pillow are just fine, or a twelve inch by eight inch space on a small end table with about four inches hanging over the side but it doesn't care so neither do I. More importantly? It won't fall over for love or money; like, maybe if you jumped on the couch or bed beside it? IDK.

It's slightly larger than a 15.4 laptop, however, so while it will fit in most laptop bags, those very form fitting ones like the one work gave me for my laptop? Nope: those .2 inches are a dealbreaker, but whatever, I can just not zip that pocket all the way. The display can be either landscape or portrait, but I'm not seeing a working case-stand configuration for that so you'd have to get another stand for that or lean it against something.

According to documentation and the set up guide, it's also compatible with Android phones and iPhones (nice big display for games!), Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, X-Box, etc. I haven't tested it with the Pi or the server, but that's generally just a matter of finding the right drivers, so I plan to find out.

Now, as I said, I wanted to get something I would actually use for more than work from home, and that overlapped with something I've wanted for a while; a monitor or screen I could attach to my home server as well as the pi that's running my Plex server, since I run them headless. I haven't gotten around to it for the same reasons; I don't have room for a monitor in my living room and so I'd need to store it between the rare times I need it for the server or pi and this apartment has no fucking storage. I have created storage, okay, but we hit full a while back. I didn't need a monitor--I could run the super long HDMI to the TV when needed--so I couldn't justify buying even a cheap $50 monitor from Amazon Warehouse.

But...work at home needs a second monitor? And I am literally working from a chair or the floor (now that the couch is enemy #1 to my back) so a traditional second monitor is not practical? I should definitely just go with a portable monitor and look at that, my server and pi also benefit!

Logic. Can't beat it.


ETA: ran some tests

Tested with my home server running Lubuntu: SUCCESS
Tested with Raspberry Pi:
- USB 3.0 to USB-C: Failed
- USB 3.0 to miniHDMI: Failed
- micro HDMI to HDMI (female)-->HDMI to mini HDMI: Pending for delivery of micro HDMI to HDMI adapter

So I made a terrible mistake Monday during my work from home; I stood up and my back decided enough was enough with that kind of bullshit (standing, apparently?):.

Short version: Agony, called my doctor and made a telepointnment for Tuesday, got worse, got worse, called the triage nurse, who called an ambulance when I started sobbing, who came to check my vitals and recommended heavily I not go to the hospital unless there was no choice.

(They were awesome btw; they were really clear without saying outright 'COVID and you may be lying there for hours like this before someone sees you not kidding. Your doctor will see you today somehow so try that first.' And yeah, they were right.)

When I called my doctor's office back, the nurse listened to roughly thirty seconds of my probaly not entirely understandable babbling, then apparently spoke to someone, so they fit me in twenty minutes later. It was literally a ten minute video appointment since my doctor's office went digital and she'd read all through the drama with the nurses and ambulance and was ready with a muscle relaxant, an anti-inflammatory, and some kind of gel. Then mom and Child (somehow) packed me into the car to stay at mom's house for a couple of days because I literally could do nothing but not move to avoid agony and that times ten if I got tense. As you can imagine, not being tense was pretty much goddamn impossible.

Verdict: I strained my back and possibly a disc but very unlikely. By...standing up too fast from a cross-legged seated position on the couch with poor back support and poor posture, something I literally do every day for work so yeah, this was coming.

The muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory finally fully kicked in this morning, so I could move provided my back didn't. On the upside, I now understand entirely what people mean when they say 'lift with your legs and not your back' by dint of horrifying pain every time I used my back.

There are two comfortable positions: "hunchback of notre dame" and "broom nailed to back" and I can't do much in Quasimodo mode so I'm coming out of this with much better posture. So far I have mastered: standing up (mostly, with a convenient table or Child in place, sometimes on my own!), sitting down (can do on my own!) and walking, provided I keep my back straight (or alternate: Quasimodo, but nothing in between those two or screaming). The hardest part is remembering when I stand up to check my posture before taking a step (or agony), and checking my posture again before I sit down (see: agony). If I'm not straight, I feel it from my back straight down to both achilles tendons; talk about effective classical conditioning.

I honestly has no idea how many movements connect to a three inch area of my goddamn back and for that matter, how many alternatives you can learn so very fast to avoid that.

I am glad I have been sleeping in two-three hour intervals instead of full nights the last two weeks. Sleeping does stiffen everything, but I notice a big difference between a one hour nap and a three hour sleep and do not want to even guess what six hours would be like. I am going to set a couple of alarms tonight just in case.

One day, I'm going to have a fun adventure.

Okay, so I woke up this morning and didn't remember I'd written a review of The Queen's Bargain until I opened gmail during lunch. I did a quick re-read, as I read the book in five hours and wrote the review in three in a haze of wtf and sleep deprivation aided by coffee and Orange Vanilla Coke and for all I could clearly remember it might have been an entry of screaming and capslocks.

So, it was actually real words in full sentences--that was a genuine relief--and I stand by it, but on re-reading, here's some important information for those who commented in my review of Twilight's Dawn and hated Damon/Surreal like a lot.

I have good news: this book is yours and you should have it.

Amazon link: The Queen's Bargain by Anne Bishop

It will help to have feelings for Surreal that hover between 'vague neutral' to 'hatred like the heat death of the universe is an understatement' but not necessary.

Go forth and wallow. I can't guarantee it is everything you ever could have dreamed, but I can't think of anything she missed. Usually fanfic is the only place we can punch canon in the face like this and you have been given literally the first ever instance of canon punching itself in the face for you and I think I speak for everyone when I say that you are living the goddamn dream.

I can only hope all of us experience this one day.

On Purpose

I successfully made salted caramel sauce.

I did not successfully sauce anything with it yet, as it's easier to just spoon it directly into my mouth.

Accidents

I started playing Stardew Valley.

Along with moving back outside to write (cleaned porch, new cushion!), I'd been trying to find another equivalent to Farmville while waiting to get into alpha testing for the new Glitch that is apparently coming out. I like semi-casual stationary gaming to relax with some kind of plot and Pokemon Go is--not that, it's for walking and whatnot. So.

When I was sick in late Jan/early Feb, I decided to test drive my new tablet with it after trying to get into it last year. This time, it worked, and also, I rediscovered my love of farming games. There's something ungodly soothing about planning, harvesting, and selling crops and raising livestock; it always zens me out. Stardew has the added advantage of an actual plotline and people, which I ignored for the first two years until I had a comfortable savings, two barns and coops, and sufficient livestock to afford having friends, picking a house husband, and raising toddlers, cows, bunnies, pigs, goats, sheep, and ducks.

(The side effects of being a late Gen X kid; I remember the Reagan years and bankruptcies and the economic death spiral of 2008. Want to know why I am still ambivalent about buying a house or even a car (should I want to drive)? See above. This pretty much informs all my gaming. I'm in Year 7 with a million in Starview money and a regular monthly income (cheese, mayo and fruit trees) of 10,000, but I am still doing careful crop math every season for maximum profits and worry about grass invasions. I feel crazy buying chairs and tables. It's very weird.)

Anyone else playing? Anyone know how to get tea?

Recipe Apps

Due to Pepperplate going to a subscription model, I went looking for an alternative.

I don't object to paying--I'm a software tester and currently head up mobile app testing, hell yes I know what kind of work goes into even a simple app--but I do object to doing it every month. I like buying apps; all the games I buy now but Pokemon Go are pay upfront and no in-app purchasing. Non-Game apps, if there's an add-free premium paid version, I upgrade. Pokemon Go is literally the only exception to this.

So, I bought Paprika 3 off Google Play, which is pretty much Pepperplate but without a working web interface (I think?). It does have a Windows program you can sync with but it's $29.99. And while I might quail normally, I have to admit I am at least going to try the trial and see.

(I am seriously tired of inventing my own versions of anything I need using spreadsheets and what is becoming some terrifyingly complex VBA scripts (and oh God so many subfunctions) that are sometimes half comments to explain what I'm writing, what it's subfunctions are, and why. I love coding but would like to go back to doing it recreationally for Agincourt and Pokemon Go and work and not to get through my life without forgetting rent or buying nothing but brownie mix and cotton candy grapes and computer parts.)

When I say it's basically Pepperplate, it is; there are some quirks, but nothing to write home about so far. It let me import everything from Pepperplate and there were a few oddities, but Pepperplate's import system often had some oddities that with some, I forgot to ever correct.

My biggest objections with pretty much all recipe programs (the ones with features) still stand, however.

Meal planning

Recipe apps really really like the daily calendar thing to do meal planning, you have to add a meal or meals to a day, which no.

a.) That's not how I plan, like, at all. I plan by month; this is what we're eating this month at some point. I don't want to add for a day; I have no idea if I'll have time, if Child and I are both home, if Doordash will give me 15% off and free delivery, or if bread and cheese is the limit of my functionality that day, okay?

b.) you can't just see a flat list of 'meals added for month'. You have to go day by day. See above.

c.) You can't manually add a meal without an attached recipe.

It's a taco kit; I do not need a recipe, I need a box and ground meat. Other variations: spaghetti, frozen gnocchi alfredo, tamales, Frozen family size lasagna, Frozen Marie Callender Because I Had Coupons and I Love Her Chicken Fried Steak and Turkey Dinners, Subs n'More Has Tamales This Week Hell Yes, etc. I don't need the recipe; I need them for my meal count. I need to be able to see Thirteen to Sixteen Confirmed Meals Of Some Kind, Yes, Including the Three That Are Just 'Sandwiches or Something'.

d.) no option for special meal planning or one time things aka Family Reunion Things, etc

The entire meal planning alone is just really outdated; I don't know anyone not in much higher income bracket than me who does planning at that level (and wouldn't they pay people to do that for them?). Even my mom during her (very few) SAHM days in the eighties didn't microplan three meals a day; she had a husband and three kids and hell yes, she planned, but she did it like I do, dinners for the month, and the only hard dates in there were ones with complicated shit, like her three hour prep for lasagna. When she went back to work, the same thing applied. And breakfast was planned at 'oatmeal, waffles, or cereal'. Fancy breakfasts were vacation or big family party territory and this is Texas, it didn't meed to planned: it involved eggs, two or more pork products, several variations on the basic potato, biscuits and gravy. Aka Special Meal Planning.

I mean, leave the option for the calendar if it makes you happy! But have a month list option and without dates. Yes I can do it on my spreadsheet, but if I do that there, I might as well do most of it there instead of glancing from phone to spreadsheet to confirm.

Add to Grocery List

I actually like this functionality but it has issues.

a.) It will add the same thing multiple times if the wording is slightly different and so far, I can't work out how to manually edit the grocery list after the fact. I can remove something before adding if I do it from the meals calendar page, but not condense.

Chicken broth and chicken stock are the same damn thing. Chicken bouillon is a form of chicken stock. A can of cream of chicken is the same as a can (14 oz) of cream of chicken and a can of condensed cream of chicken. 'Salt and pepper to taste' is not an ingredient. 'Garnish' is not an ingredient. 'eggs' and 'Eggs' are literally the same. I get it's being thorough so it gets everything, but a merge function or something would be good here.

Or even--I would love this--a grocery entry of "Chicken, Total 4 lbs" and you can click to open a sublist that breaks down your specific chicken needs there by recipe. Like, this way does reduce my workload--and it does list the recipe(s) for each entry on the grocery list--but not by very much. I'm currently in the process of going through my recipes and standardizing, but one day, someone is making a recipe app for me.

b.) Buying location options: I'd kill for that. HEB, Amazon Prime, Amazon Pantry, Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Central Market, Trader Joe's, Instacart, Target, the list goes on. Yes, I know that would be a whole round of complicated, but seriously. I don't expect the local Latino/Mexican and Indian and Halal and Chinese and Asian markets, but when you have a major online presence that specializes in online grocery shopping, it shouldn't be this hard to comparison shop.

c.) Alternative: ability to manually edit grocery list entries with place/price. There are many local and many online options; when I see a good deal, I want to note it down if I cant' shop immediately. Sometimes it may be over by then, but the alternative is I'll forget it.

Food Shopping in General

Amazon Fresh finally came to Austin, and--it's not bad? Prices are reasonable and a pretty good variety. Mostly, though, the more Amazon encroaches, the more I hope HEB with level the fuck up already. They've had the time and funds; for decades, they had a practical monopoly over most of Texas, so it's not like they didn't have the money to get into this.

The smaller local grocery stories, especially the halal and Chinese and Indian and ones like M Mart--don't have a lot to worry about; they specialize in what you can't get anywhere else and if you can, it's not the same quality. The Mexican/Latino grocery stores are local to the community and also have really good prices; they chose for location to get their population perfectly, and again, you can't get most of it from online, and their only real competitor is HEB, who--to do them credit--do adapt their merchandise (and believe it or not, prices) to the community.

(In Austin, we have an HEB for four rough groups: Jewish people, Latino people/Mexican immigrants, upper middle class people who feel brand loyalty and/or want to save gas so don't want to go to Central Market or Whole Foods, and working to middle class (untyped). You know when you walk in: one has a massive Kosher section (in fresh foods, frozen foods, and meats); one sells nopales, tortillas made fresh in house, parts for tamales, fajita kits, and has special fresh cooked chicken caliente (hot chicken basically) you can buy with three sides (refried beans, rice, and corn or flour tortillas, optional jalapenos), and a three chickens for eighteen dollars deal (if you need the address, email me; you won't regret it, I too buy in bulk); one has stuff with French names and organics with Central Market labels and God's own produce section; and one has none of that and no one really wants to go there but that's what they have locally. When possible, we all go to one of the others. (We'd go to the upper middle class for steak, butter sales, boomerang frozen pies, and their produce section, then the local Latino HEB for actual groceries and dairy, ground beef, chicken, and pork, three to six fire chickens, tortillas and bread, and anything needed for barbecue or fajitas. The Kosher HEB had better beef than anywhere but was too far away for casual groceries unless we happened to be in the neighborhood.)

Part of my excitement that Amazon was piloting taking EBT (SNAP/food stamps) was that it might finally force the major food chains to play nice; they have dragged their feet with online delivery so damn much. Yeah, six years ago it was the province of those with money but how the hell they didn't look ahead and realize that was going to change fast blows my mind. Specifically--and Amazon is pretty much the only one who seems to get this--people using EBT with limited funds? Hell yes they'll comparison shop, note price gouging, and with free delivery--if amazon is willing to take the hit--they could get most people on Food Stamps who don't have a friendly local market that specializes to the community. (Wal-Mart is as close as I have to friendly local market; everything else is a minimum hour bus on weekdays and two hour on weekends. Yeah, no. I miss my local HEB and regular fire chickens like you have no idea.)

And I can't lie: the better it is for business (for Amazon, for major businesses) to get EBT money, the better protected the program is. If the free market can protect it, by God I will support it.

Creamy Tuscan Chicken

My new favorite dish; we make this twice a month now at Casa Jenn.

Ingredients

4 chicken thighs or 3 breasts
2 Tbs olive oil (can substitute regular oil, butter if you're experienced)
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, granted
1 cup spinach, frozen or 2 cups fresh
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
1 box angel hair pasta or favorite pasta

Directions
1. Cut up or slice chicken into double the size of bite size. Think half the size of a chicken tender
2.) Heat olive oil and cook chicken for three to five minutes. You can also skip this and use leftover or precooked chicken, it literally makes no difference in flavor
3.) Remove chicken and set aside
4.) Add heavy cream, broth, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and Parmesan cheese to skillet (add butter or olive oil first if you had pre-cooked chicken and skipped two and three). Whisk until thick
5.) Add spinach and sundried tomatoes. If using fresh spinach, continue until spinach is wilted; otherwise, five minutes or so.
6.) Add chicken, heat thoroughly, then pour over pasta.

Notes

For leftover chicken, this is a fast meal, maybe twenty minutes prep time. Now, some suggestions.

1.) Sometimes, it won't thicken because food. Either create a roux with cornstarch or a white sauce base with three tablespoons butter and three tablespoons of sugar, then pour in some of the liquid above to start the thickening process.

2.) Check your sundried tomatoes; are they super strong flavored? Cut them up into quarter. I love them but the first time I had this, I left them whole and they really overwhelmed my taste buds.

3.) You can use whole milk instead of cream, but in that case, definitely make the roux or cream sauce first. If you're using 2% or 1%, add more butter and flour to get the fat up. If fat free or skim milk, check the flavor and if doing the cream sauce, you may need a roux anyway to get the thickness and flavor or start with a four tablespoon butter/four flour white sauce.

4.) Sub in broth for cream and you will need to create a white sauce (with broth) or roux.

A decade ago, I did an entry on why I read advice columns and that it was for the crazytrain: the people in insane sitches who seem to be asking the entirely wrong question. I have been on that train, and I like to get updates from people still there.

Okay, so I still hold by the four types of people who write to advice columns (excluding most fake letters):
1.) ones that want confirmation of something they already plan to do (and will do even without confirmation) or already did (and want reassurance)
2.) people who just really want attention
3.) really dumb.
4.) WTF people. They aren't writing in due to being stupid, wanting attention, or just confirmation, though they can be all of that. They are literally stumped on how the fuck they got to this, because they feel this isn't normal, but they don't know at what point they boarded the crazy train, because they've just been on it that long.

I was in group four: no, I never wrote an advice column, but man, I probably should have. But not for the columnist.

Ask a Manager is more or less universally right, mostly because she's advising for sitches related to work and never deviates from using professional metrics and strict professional ethics. Which is an accomplishment, honestly; very few people can keep that kind of ethical standard to their advice that consistently; her only weak point is marijuana use (she's very pro, and honestly, so am I), where some of her advice felt--not wrong, it wasn't, but not my 100% sure reaction. Her, I trust absolutely. She also differentiates clearly between 'wrong', 'bad idea', 'prob not recommended', 'should be fine but be careful', and 'cool'. I literally can't think of a columnist who does that, but there may be a reason for that.

Dear Prudence, Captain Awkward, Dan Savage, et al: not so much. All have a moral standard and relative moral standard: none have a consistent ethical standard. When they talk about ethics, it's only when it matches their morals (as of, apparently, right this second). Which is actually my biggest problem; even in relationships--maybe especially--morality is in flux constantly, is a spectrum, and can be squiggly as hell, but ethics shouldn't be. Something can be immoral (by some standards), but it can still be ethical. And honestly, I'm not sure most of them know there's a difference or care.

(It's not that there aren't good reasons to be unethical--there are, many of them--but the first step is to admit that and then why the deviation is necessary compared to other actions. That's kind of the basis of being a thoughtful person that does more good than harm. It also helps to have an ethical framework, yeah.)

However, that's not about that: this is about the reason I dropped Captain Awkward to 'maybe read if I'm really bored and want to re-read favorites' from 'sometimes when I'm bored': her comment section. Now granted, she already heavily moderated against any dissent whatsoever (any kind, even the kind that agreed in the wrong way which is apparently dissent?) to the point I felt like I was reading what she said over and over and over and over (and over, dear God), so she wasn't on my regular list, but she started closing comments at random on most posts, and I don't read for the columnists, but the comments and discussion. Why?

Well, its like reading a hundred advice columnist who don't need to worry about ad revenue, but also, the discussions are where I see the ethical--again, not moral/immortal nonsense--hashed out in detail. What is ethical in general --> what is ethical to this situation --> what is ethical to this person. And that's where you see the best advice come out; sometimes, it agrees with the columnist, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes, I don't agree with columnist or commenters, but the arguments and even individual comments as a whole do a really good job of chasing down the bits and pieces that define right versus wrong. And as a normal human being who struggles like a lot with differentiating 'this is right', 'this feels right', 'this feels right to me right now', it does help solidify my own internal action check and often adds nuance.

Also, they're funny as shit.

Just as good: communities that comment on those columnists like agony_aunt.

In closing, my favorite Captain Awkward post of all time and an example of how the crazytrain gets you: My Partner Keeps Inviting His Ex Girlfriend to Stay With Us

I can work out how this happened and around that age? It could have easily happened to me. I, however, would be asking shit like "should she be paying like, rent for the time she's here?"; this woman is doing better on that front.

(Yes, I deliberately left out part of the title: I wanted it to be a surprise.)

Not much is going on, but I'm here, so why not?

Health
So actually surprising here: the Vitamin D thing is working.

It took about six weeks--probably because of those ten days sick--but this week, I notice the following:
1.) I can get up in the morning like, on time.
2.) I can get up earlier. This is very new.
3.) I no longer want to sleep at lunch.
4.) I am getting sleep decent sleep--at least, I think--and so don't need the same amount. I'll get back to that.
5.) The constant tiredness is receding; now I feel 'sleepy' when I want to sleep, not just general issue tired that ebbs and flows. It's great.

As of this last week, I take a capsule on Sunday night/Monday morning and it starts to wear off by Fridayish--the pee test is useful here--but like, the difference between even then and before is noticeable.

Sleep--mostly I would variate between six and nine hours. I'm not sure why. One sleep trick I really love is come home, nap for a couple of hours, get up and make dinner refreshed, do shit, then go to bed again for about four-five hours. It's just not feasible to do it often, but man....

Anyway, with the blessings of my doctor, I started back on a multivitamin with Vitamin D as well and started buying Tang, which unhealthy whatever, I love that shit and as it has Vitamin C, I have a good excuse to get a lot of it. Interestingly, I'm not the only person at work on a Vitamin D script; we share notes.

It's possible the Adavair inhaler is helping as well, and definitely helping is less cedar fever. So, well lived, life.

Plex

I updated my Plex guide with formatting changes for readability and some corrections; I'll continue to do so as needed.

I'm thinking about writing a basic Ubuntu command line primer--since Pi uses a version of Ubuntu--that I would have loved when I first started out in Ubuntu command line. Especially the obvious stuff and the stuff that makes command line fun and interesting. And a list of useful programs to start off with.

I originally went without a GUI to learn command line, but I honestly didn't realize how much easier a lot of things are to do that way, not to mention scripting. Some programs definitely benefit from a good GUI, so I make sure I always have one in my servers to login to, but some functionality is so much easier if you can just pop off a command or have a script that does exactly what you want. And faster, God.

It's actually spoiled me; I get super annoyed with Windows because I can't just open a terminal to do something with Windows' lockdown on functionality.

TV

While sick, I finally sat down and burned through all of Psyche.

My thoughts:
a.) It is much better than I thought.
b.) It didn't hit my embarrassment squick almost ever, which genuinely surprises me.
c.) Gus is a gift. I am still rooting for a West Wing 2 where the actor plays President Charlie please God.
d.) I do not think it was an accident that Shawn's marriage proposal to Juliet was on behalf of him and Gus. I think he corrected himself when he realized he actually hadn't married Gus yet and probably needed to propose to him separately to make that happen.
e.) It will totally happen, and Gus and Juliet are so going to cosplay at Comic-Con while Shawn marvels how he's married to two giant goddamn geeks. They'll make him dress up. It'll be hilarious.

I really need fic for Shawn/Gus. Must look.

Just passed checkpoint 2, which means I am half-done. This legit surprises me; for the last roughly ten days, I've been sick and literally only did the minimum daily on old lessons to keep it fresh. That apparently worked; I started today halfway Level 3 Adjectives and by mid Level 4, I had most of it down. Well, not all the fruit names, that's going to take repetition, but process of elimination helped, which is cheering since that means I know enough words to eliminate any.

The following lessons have been completed:

Letters 1, Letters 2, Letters 3, Letters 4, Basics 1, Checkpoint 1
Basics 2, Plurals, Intro, Family, Animals, Activity, Adjectives, Food, Checkpoint 2

I have also--finally--gotten my brain to identify Devangari script as letters.

A representation of the process, current:

New Word
Letter: आ
Brain: Letter!
Shape: आ
Brain: I know the sound for this letter!
Brain: *thinks sound*
Brain: *repeat for each letter through end of word*

Known Word
Word: आदमी
Brain: That is 'man'!
Me: Good. And....
Brain: Next word!
Brain: *repeat for each word for sentence*

Mentally, I can see the letters in each word so phonics is kicking in nicely. The bigger problem is one that didn't come up in Spanish because I hear it and have used it: I'm not making the mental connection between 'phonics' and 'verbal sound'.

This entry I talked about how in English, I have two vocabulary lists: written and spoken (or read/write and listen/speak), depending on phonics and if I read the word and phonics gave me the pronunciation before I heard the actual one, and those two things are different (in English, this happens a lot). Right now, my read/write is progressing fine; my listen is sketchy as hell; my spoken (when not reading it) is shit.

I have one confirmed sentence I can do on the fly: राज पानी पीता है।

Translation: Raj drinks water.
Phonetical: Raj panee piitah heh

The only reason is that it's super lyrical and got stuck in my head like a Taylor Swift chorus.

So Hindi seems to be following the English pattern, with a read/write and listen/speak as separate lists that aren't yet synched (and the latter badly underpopulated). But I have two more sections and some time, so surely it'll happen.

Work Friends

A few of my Indian coworkers are following my progress, likely from sheer morbid curiosity how I butcher their language spoken and written (my handwriting in any language is atrocious). Most in my area speak Telegu mother tongue, Hindi second, one woman in a different group that I work with on the mobile app, speaks Marathi mother tongue, Hindi second, and there are I think three other languages spoken, but for obvious reasons, unless I have a personal relationship with someone (or they tell me themselves), I don't quiz them on their first language, though God, I wish I could. From my unofficial count (people who have told me), Telegu speakers may be the most numerous, but I also only work regularly with maybe five percent of the total number of contractors, though I've met or worked with most.

Anyway, two of them, Tester From My Group and App Tester (they were among those who helped me with the Devangari alphabet and got me references) are now both taking Spanish on Duolingo (Spanish for English Speakers, there is no Spanish for Telegu or Marathi). Which made me think (and also realize they'd probably be fluent in Spanish before I am at this rate).

I'm curious: both of them are at minimum trilingual and completely fluent in English (I have heard them use y'all, even). When learning a language via your second or third language, is it harder, or--in this specific case--easier because Spanish is closer to English (relatively speaking) and in Texas, they're way more likely to hear English and Spanish fusions around them?

Now at Level 4 in Family, so while I would not say mastered, I am more comfortable. This is one of the very few times I wish there was lesson of nothing but conjugation for third person plurals, though. Usually I go to the next lesson once I hit four and use level 4 to 5 for review, but I'm still very shaky; knowing is not the same thing as internalizing. I may start the next lesson and see.

(I do wish I could individually erase progress on a Lesson--Family--and start over entirely. The review simply doesn't have the build up to quality which I'd like to do again from the start.)

Hindi conjugations are so far fairly straightforward, no tricks, so it's very much repetition of nailing the rules in for matching them by gender to subject into my brain. With possessives (my, yours, his, her, Julia's, Raj's) matching to noun (son, daughter, brother, sister, book) by gender already, my mind was ready and loves the consistency, it's just repetition. I think it's the female not automatically becoming male but staying its own thing in plurals when I'm used to defaulting male. It's nice, though, it just means if I don't stop short and think, I go to default male plural like an idiot.

Currently using 'my girls'/'our girls' to remind myself; could I sub in my girls/our girls and match for possessive and noun in subject? If so, verb goes female with feminine ending. If I sub in 'our boys', its male plural with the male plural ending. I'm also using the deer/deer principle for nouns that do not pluralize; check the possessive, if it's plural, the verb is plural, just like English.

I am genuinely surprised I haven't had more structural grammar (aka sentence structure) problems with switching the verb to the end and then arranging objects (direct and indirect) and prepositions inside between that and subject. The structure in simple sentences is perfectly logical (according to my brain, thank you!) and while I get this will get much more complicated in complex sentences, it's reassuring there is one part of this I am not utter shit at from the get-go. Basically, this is the literal one thing I do not make mistakes in.

Yes, this is a boring update, just a lot of 'wow, I am a-learning'. Can't lie, part of Not Failing Hindi may be put up to Welsh.

Okay, so when Duolingo adds new languages, I sometimes do a lesson or two in a couple just to see what's up because we live in the time of Online Babel, this shit is amazing. I ended up doing quite a bit in Welsh, mostly due to having read Here Be Dragons at a formative age and getting super into Wales, but also because of this. I discovered that I had found a language with perfect phonics, which for a phonics person is the goddamn holy grail. Once I learned the alternate sounds and specific variations, read = pronunciation, which all English speakers first second third fiftieth language know is not something English allows without serious penalties when it comes to verbal. If you're an English speaker who grew up on strict phonics first, you know read = pronounce is an automatic function you can't stop but resign yourself to knowing whatever is now stuck in your head is a.) wrong and b.) will always be what you translate from once you learn the correct pronunciation. because no matter how you tell it this is English it's okay, it's--to my brain at least--fundamentally wrong English from the get-go and always will be.

Raise your hand if Beau is still 'bewww' or something and it's still a sixteenth-beat for you to say 'bow' but no matter what, you still think 'bewwww' (or your alternative)? Yeah. I learned that word in third grade and the correct pronunciation at the same time, but doesn't matter; I read it on the board first. I have an entire portion of my language center devoted to mapping between "Read Pronunciation" and "Real Pronunciation". I'm fast, don't get me wrong, but there's always a translation. Hearing it and then seeing it doesn't always help, especially if there's a delay; ask me about solder/sauter and how now, I sometimes don't remember which is the verbal an which is the written because 'heard' before 'seen'? Brains, dude.

(Non native-tongue English speakers: yes, we do it, too. If you're wondering if it's some kind of reflection on your mastery, it is--your English is now on par with any native, congratulations. Those mental lists come standard with the language; you're doing it just like a native. The challenge for all of us is speed of translating 'how it sounds read' to 'how it sounds spoken' and that is for us all a work in progress. My personal goal is quarter beat delay at maximum. The more you use it spoken the easier it gets, but for me, its very rare I can get anything on the 'Read Pronunciation List' to the 'Read and Real Pronunciation List No Mapping Needed'.)

Welsh, though? Provided you learn Welsh pronunciation of those letters? This does not happen. It was so liberating and I learned that sometimes, it is possible to trust phonics. The grammar does get more complex, but it's a lot easier to internalize that when you aren't also mentally remapping words between 'read' and 'sound'.

So far, Hindi is pretty much the same way, and this time, I trust that how I read it is indeed how it sounds. One hundred percent of the time so far, when it sounds different than I read it, I made a mistake. And I don't have to do a remap, just sound it out again then read it correctly and it's fixed, no alternate list needed. My brain loves letters matching sounds, it'll happily erase without penalty when it's a bad sound to letter match. Frankly, it's beautiful. Read errors are much less a problem than read-speak mapping; you can fix read errors, but read-speak are fundamental to the language, at least in my brain.

Though I do wonder now if learning French might help, but mapping across languages after the fact might not be much faster.

So I finished Letters 1 through 4 and Basics 1, passed the checkpoint, finished Basics 2, and now am at Plurals, Level 3. This is going eerily well.

I cannot say enough how utterly weird it is that I have no active memory of Hindi before, but it seems about fifty times easier. It also helps that my letter recognition is much better, as I am Very Phonics and it's so much easier to remember and learn when I can sound it out. This is likely because schools were in Fun With Phonics learning and whole word didn't kick in until about third grade when we were grounded in sound-it-out. I mean, I actually have no idea how to Whole Word anything; my brain creates a working pronunciation during the reading process. Which is why there are vast tracks of vocabulary landscape I've never heard and never spoken whose associated pronunciation is guesswork and should someone use that word in my presence, I would probably not recognize.

The translating from audio is also working online.

(And--in retrospect--it probably helps that this time around, I'm not trying to use the keyboard early and navigate a Hindi language keyboard while learning the basics.)

Additionally: I found and downloaded a ton of kindergarten-level Hindi writing practice sheets, very flashback to childhood, downloaded, categorized, and started working on those. My brain is still working on transitioning 'cool shapes that represent sounds' to 'letters', which are two very different things even though technically, they're synonymous.

A representation of the process:
Shape: आ
Brain: Shape!
Brain: Familiar shape!
Brain: Represents a sound!
Brain: Shape + sound = letter!
Shape: आ
Brain: This is a letter!
Brain: I know the sound for this letter!
Brain: *thinks sound*
Brain: *repeat for each letter through end of word*

Word: आदमी
Brain: This is a word!
Word: आदमी
Brain: I know this word!
Me: ...do we really need to go through this every time?
Word: आदमी
Brain: That is 'man'!
Me: Yes. Yes it is, thanks.
Brain: Shape Sound Letter Word = Language!
Me: Yep.
Brain: This is a language!
Me: You don't say.
Word: आदमी
Me: I know.

Repeat from start to create a sentence when my brain makes the shocking discovery the concept of grammar exists here, too.

Yes, the process is now super fast--give it credit, my brain zips through with minimal '...what are we doing again? What is this? Why are shapes?'--but it's basically rediscovering the existence of the Hindi language via logic chain every time. And I just want to grab it, drag it to a diagram of the human brain and point 'HERE IS THE LANGUAGE CENTER. CREATE A HINDI SECTION RIGHT HERE. NO NOT IN THE BRAIN AREA FOR INTERESTING SOUND SHAPE THINGS AND WHY DO I HAVE ONE OF THESE WHAT DO YOU PUT IN HERE? NO, THIS GOES IN THE LANGUAGE CENTER. HERE. RIGHT HERE.'

(Look, I have an entire brain section devoted to memorizing and storing lyrics to songs that I cannot consciously access unless I'm listening to the song and start singing. 'Interesting Sound Shape Things' is not exactly a surprise, but seriously, what's in there?)

I'm not saying I know better than people who study this shit, but I'm wondering if it's really 'childhood elastic brain whatever' or more the brain going 'I just did this with a language so I know how its done bring it', whereas later, your brain has completely forgotten there was ever a pre-language time and doesn't really believe it. It has no memory of anything like that and it would know, so stop lying, we have always spoken English.

Worse, when it does realize that hey, maybe there was something like that, denial sets in. Yeah, part of it is 'I will not admit it because it's embarrassing' but I suspect quite a bit is 'I have no fucking clue how I did this, kinda assumed it was witchcraft. This is some fine work here, though: beautiful adjective section, and here, we see how all those spelling competitions paid off. The written language section is unreal, did you know half of it isn't even preloaded into the speech centers? Audio reports we have never heard these spoken, but pronunciations are in order over here, go me. How do I make another one of these, though? Is that even possible? Do other brains know about this? This can't be normal.'

Like that.

I feel my brain is in the denial stage and I keep wanting to find it like, some kind of brain youtube vid it can watch when I'm sleeping, where other brains demonstrate stuff like 'how to create naturalistic mappings in the language centers' or maybe a book of some kind, like 'How to Build Your Second Language Structure for Dummies' by a polygot brain, give it some confidence.

However, this is improvement. Last time, imagine the above processes, but like this.

Shape: आ
Brain: Shape!
Brain:
Brain:
Brain:
Me: Do you know it?
Brain: No...yes. Maybe.
Brain:
Brain:
Brain: Okay, it's familiar.
Me: Great! Sound?
Brain: Shapes have sound?

Imagine getting through a sentence like that.

Reddit's AITA (Am I The Asshole) sub is exactly the kind of place that combines 'infuriating' with 'irresistible trainwreck' with a healthy dose of contrariness in every post.

AITA for letting my 7 year old daughter call my husband "daddy", against the wishes of her biological father (my ex husband)?

Weirdly enough, though, that nightmare fuel isn't the point of this entry. Reading this on reddit and the comments, I remembered how many times this has come up in advice columns, about the massive divide of meaning between being called Grandmother and being called Grandma (huge difference, really) to the point of estrangement before the grandchild has even finished developing internal organs, much less vocal cords. And on one hand, I understand on the visceral level, because yes, words have meaning, but when it comes to names--mom, dad, mommy, granny, grandmother, grandfather--there's a sense that this is not just personal preference, a but something not unlike a cosmic transformation of self or a mystical coronation of a high king or god emperor by divine right.

'Hey, I want to use Nana as my grandmotherly name, but no big, how about Grans?' <-- myth or heresy or something????

'Upon my ascension to grandmotherhood, I take the name Nana, Highest of the Grandmothers, set above lesser grandmothers, and all grandchildren will acknowledge me at the best of their grandmothers as natural law. All usurpers who attempt to falsely claim 'Nana' I will meet with my blade and prove my claim on your dead body and knit your shroud myself' with the clear expectation that everyone will be 'Yes, she who takes the name Nana is the best and most loved Nana obviously, that's just how it is' and all the grandchildren have but to address her by that name to gain their adoration. <-- sounds legit

Does that sound insane? Yeah, but its the only vaguely comprehensible reason why two people would go to the mattresses, die on the hill, meet with pistols at dawn, declare war, and burn the world to settle the question of who gets the name 'grandmother' and who gets 'grandma'.

( here's what I know about names )

I do get part of my attitude about names now has been formed by having a top three name for the year of my birth and remains popular. When I was in Finland, the 'J' sound was a work in progress for a lot of the kids in my age group and younger, and for their parents and most adults, if they spoke English, they learned it later in life. While I'd like to say being like "no don't worry, Yennifer's great," was entirely motivated by wanting to avoid everyone feeling self-conscious and not be a gross American, and yes, that was there, but a very real part was hearing someone call me Yennifer and for the first time in my life having a name of my very own and not shared what felt like half the goddamn country and three to ten in any given space not including the many variations of goddamn Jenny. It was maybe one of the nicest gifts I've ever received from anyone; a name they made right there, just for me.

[Note: Pronunciation was Yen-ne-fer with the n's separated so one ends the first syllable and the other starts the second and the i slid into an e sometimes; I loved hearing it.]

Which is why when someone asks "Do you pronounce Seperis like [this] or like [this]?" my answer is invariably "Yes."

Things I am thankful for in the new year (though to be fair, became thankful for beginning summer of 2019 when I found out about the first two):

1.) Health Savings Account (HSA) covers Uber and Lyft and taxis used to go to appointments or pick up prescriptions. Oh God thank you yes. Yeah, it was still cheaper than buying a car and paying for gas not to be reimbursed, but this? Better.

2.) You can use Amazon receipts for HSA purchases, which is deeply awesome.

Note: if you have a Health Savings Account through work, double check on what it covers. I legit did not believe it covered Lyft and Uber until I tried it no matter what the site said and lo, it worked. Same with Amazon if it's marked as an HSA purchase.

3.) Whole foods had butter at $0.80/lb and for organic $1.25/lb after the new year. I bought 13 lbs. I am not ashamed. I took pictures of my butter mountain, even.

Things I am less thrilled with in the new year:

1.) Cedar fever is trying to destroy me and half my coworkers and i lost three days of work due to that this week.

Things that happened last year that I'm reconciled to now:

1.) I had to buy a new router.

( how this happened )
( my new router )
( so that happened )

So that did indeed happen. If you pay for 1G internet and you have a phone with Wifi 6 or computer you can install a wifi 6 card on (they're cheap, like under $40), yeah, get a Wifi 6 enabled router. I am really not over these speeds or the sheer lack of remedial attention my network needs.

Guys.

Guys.

Twinkie Keurig Coffee

Wait, there's more.

Snowball Keurig Coffee

Honey Bun

Ding Dong

The variety pack: Twinkies, Honey Bun, Snow Balls, and Ding Dong Coffee

Another variety pack of cappuccino and hot chocolate: Twinkies, Snow Balls, and Ding Dongs

Hostess cappuccino.

This is our world now.

Due to multi-family demands, Thanksgiving (aka At Mom's Thanksgiving) will be the Saturday after.

In a sane world--or with a sane me--I would have realized that meant Official Thanksgiving (11/28) could be celebrated with doritos, fake cheese, samosas, fresh cherries, ice cream, and vodka. Or at least, I would have realized it before I ordered Thanksgiving-related groceries in a pre-Thanksgiving panicc that include none of that but do include a 12 lb turkey, the ingredients for brine, the makings of three (3) to four (4) side dishes, and a can of cranberry sauce, and I really wish I could say that at least showed sense, but no, that was only because I couldn't find my recipe for cranberry sauce and panicked.

But. Let's talk about this turkey. A 12.04 lb turkey, rather, which I'm not actually sure will fit in my freezer no matter how I Tetris this shit, but that's a worry for one hour from now when it arrives. I just scanned my soon to arrive grocery list and I am pretty sure at least some portions were done in a fugue state. Apparently--for reasons unclear--I also purchased Turkey broth, which is twice the price of chicken with no discernible difference in flavor, and I cannot work out what happened.

But also, three (3) to four (4) side dishes; granted, not complicated ones, but this ties back to the turkey situation in which I ignore good sense and also forgot the only people involved in eating this are me and Child and worse, I ordered no doritos or fake cheese at all.

If anyone needs me, I am watching the shape of my fate descend upon me (with occasional digressions) via the delivery map.

Finished series 7 of The Great British Bake-Off, and fighting urge to make puff pastry pies and seven layer opera cakes made up of ingredients I can't pronounce but sometimes involve the word 'curd'. Send help or baking supplies.

Does anyone have an urge to have a fan meetup where we do nothing but bake in a kitchen that if we blow it up, is covered by someone else's insurance (though yeah, not getting that security deposit back)? There should be some kind of resort where all the rooms have magnificent fully equipped kitchens (and a full bar for obvious reasons) and you can get packages like 'Ten Breads and Pastries' and 'All the Cake' where they supply you with baking supplies, daily (hourly?) housekeeping, and a bottle of vodka (for...reasons).

...imagine the foods I could set on fire or failed breads I could sob over in a kitchen I don't have to clean afterward.

This is the fourth in the Handbrake and the Video Encoding Project.

( Handbrake Settings: H.264 - Encoding a 4K Bluray Rip to 1080p30 )
( Results: H.264 - Encoding a 4K Bluray Rip to 1080p30 )

Next up: V9 encoding - 4K rip to 2160p60
Previous: H.264 encoding - 4K rip to 2160p60

Handbrake and the Video Encoding Project

This is the second in the Handbrake and the Video Encoding Project.

Correction: all sizes are in GiB, not GB, so correcting in all entries.

( Handbrake Settings: H.265 - Encoding a 4K Bluray Rip to 1080p30 )
( Results: H.265 - Encoding a 4K Bluray Rip to 1080p30 )

Next up: H.264 encoding - 4K rip to 2160p60
Previous: H.265 encoding - 4K rip to 2160p60

Handbrake and the Video Encoding Project

ETA: my intensely green reblog is not my fault. Apparently I overwrote the one that isn't hideous with this one. I really need to organize my bookmarks and folders one day.

ETA2: Okay, found a better one--it turns out I have an experiment folder!--but--okay, I have ten and they are all named like Test1, Test2, Test3b7. What is wrong with me?

So that literally took ten days, but to be fair...I got nothing.

Before I post, a couple of updates: number of movies was reduced to four, as encoding the last one coincided with an Ubuntu update and I have no idea of how long it was delayed.

First: hardware

( basic computer info aka my hardware )
( Handbrake Settings: H.265 - Encoding a 4K Bluray Rip to 2160p60 )
( Results: H.265 - Encoding a 4K Bluray Rip to 2160p60 )

Feel free to ask any questions 4K to 1080p batch test starts in about five minutes.

At some point during or after this test run, I'm going to try and put together a basic MakeMKV tutorial on how to rip a movie and a basic Handbrake tutorial (or link to a really good one) as well as a list of resources for people just learning ripping and encoding. It can be ridic overwhelming--witness my near breakdown just with audio codecs!--but the basics honestly are pretty easy and it's basically a matter of googling or just experimenting after that. It's when you get weird like me and WANT TO KNOW WHY that everything goes to hell.

If anyone has written or wants to write a tutorial on how they use their favorite ripping and/or video encoding program, I'd love a link and put it on the resource list. And feel free to ask if you have questions. I love questions

Next up: H.265 encoding - 4K rip to 1080p30

Handbrake and the Video Encoding Project

Continuing from sad post about video confusion and Handbrake.

Note: as a QC Analyst/Program Tester, I would like to note this is the worst test planning I have ever done, mostly because a.) I didn't realize I was testing anything, b.) I didn't know what I was doing when I realized I was doing just that, and c.) everyone prioritizes speed and file size over everything to the point no one even bothered posting literal settings, much less actual results other than 'that took too long', which is part of teh reason why b was annoying me. I am seriously tempted--after this batch finishes processing--to start over with a set of custom presets as working constants, pick five 4K rips and three resolutions (4K, 1080p, 720p), queue them up, and spreadsheet my results (in about a month, which is even back to back my best guess on how long it would take to complete that queue) for H.264, H.265, and V9 respectively, just for my own curiosity. And now that I wrote that, there's a fair to good chance I'll do it; it's not like my server has anything else to do atm.

Continuing:

After many (many) hours of testing with Handbrake: V9 encoding of 4K rips has much better compression than H.264 with both same or better quality video and a smaller file size. However, it does take longer: about six to ten hours for a roughly two hour movie downgraded from a 4K rip to a 720p. Between Constant Quality 20, 19, and 18 there's almost no difference in file size, and I'm not sure I see any video difference either. H.265 is logarithmic when reducing the CQ number (which is inverse to quality: smaller number is better) but it's unclear if V9 is doing the same, which may be why CQ20, CQ19, and CQ18 are almost identical.

Or--very possible--there's a big change in video, but when one of your audio tracks is always lossless and is quite large in itself, it really won't matter much.

H.265 should be equal V9, which is the third in the queue. When that on is finished, I can finally do a clean comparison of the same movie encoded with the same number of audio tracks in H.264, H.265, and V9.

( notes on audio )

So I feel a little less dumb now.

Probably vidders can help?

For various reasons I won't pretend aren't primarily my own need for constant entertainment, I've been playing with Handbrake to make different versions of a given movie from my rips. Do I need a 720p and 480p version of every bluray I own? Do I even own anything that needs a 480p? Does anyone?

I have no intention of answering those questions honestly, so lets pretend they don't exist.

Starting this project has led me to realize how very much I did not understand in any way the very basics, like what resolution and bitrate are. I'm beginning to wonder if I understand what a TV really is or if I ever did in my entire life, but let's not dwell on this too long.

(Vidders: like, I appreciated you before, don't get me wrong, but the sheer amount of technical knowledge you need to make those effortlessly gorgeous vids? I had no idea.)

Now, this needs context and I like words, so.

( so this got long )

I feel like I should not feel personally betrayed by audio and video, but here we are.

Amazon Music Unlimited is now offering Amazon Music HD, which offers subscribers access to UHD and HD quality music for streaming and downloading.

ME: THIS IS SO AWESOME OMMG YES PLEASE HELL YES.
Me, when I get home: ...this is a manual process?

This gets more complicated than 'just find the UHD/HD version and download/add to cloud', by the way. Sometimes, there's a separate album for SD and HD/UHD, and boy, hope for that, because alternatively, it's all inexplicably on the same album. In the case of the latter, if you have the SD version of the song, you have to remove it from device and cloud, then re-add and re-download it to get the HD or UHD or it simply won't do it (or worse, redownloads the SD. Why??).

And so far, the only place I can do this is in the Amazon Music App, fuck my life. Is this what hell will be like for completionists? I'm at twenty five of oh my God how much music do I have in the cloud??? Would it have killed someone to get an autodetect? Do you want me to kill someone to get it?

That said, there's definitely a difference between SD and HD and SD and UHD and to me it's worth the upgrade. That said, YMMV depending on your speakers/headphones.

ETA: apparently, if you clck on the tiny little UHD/HD symbol on a song you already have, that will open the song in HD/UHD and you can add to cloud and save.

...it really didn't need to be that tiny, amazon.

Back in March, I talked about the drama of trying to get a small dog for my mom.

Update: Mom got her dog! It's a Havanese-something mix named Rosie that is small, precious, and spoiled to death.

(-something mix: yorkie is a possibility but still looking at similar dogs)

She also has increased the cat population of her home to five. We'll start with the dog drama.
( it was fate, probably )
Right, now the fifth cat. Which I visited to meet Rosie, it was like this:

Mom, surrounded by cats and single dog: This is Rosie!
Me: ...there are five cats.
Mom: Yes, I can explain that.
My sister, who lives with her: Wait for it.

From what I understand, it's the neighbor's cat from three houses down that walked in the door and just--doesn't leave. It apparently goes home like--never--and the neighbors do know but have done nothing. It was taken home at least once but that totally did not take, and if you're curious, keeping a cat out is about an order of magnitude harder than keeping one in.

Worse--much worse--it just sits on the front patio looking miserably patient with the vagaries of fate and cat ownership (if anyone can really say they own a cat) and will do this for a straight day without seeming to move and staring at anyone coming or going. My sister confirmed this actually happened and obviously, everyone's will broke after a day of that shit.

It's a good cat; does not jump on or destroy furniture or anything else, pretty chill, but it can't be denied, two cats you have 'a couple of', three cats is 'a few', four is 'some', but five, you're at 'clowder'. She has a clowder of cats.

Seriously.

So, dog achieved and a clowder of cats. What a time to be alive.