johnpowell

There are multiple DNS options. Or you can just use Unbound and be your own DNS.

https://i.imgur.com/3sVDwhQ.png

https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/unbound/

Ditto. I have had tons of dental work. Fire up the iPod, and yes I still use a old iPod Nano for walks and dental work so I can be distraction-free. Toss in some nitrous and it is almost a pleasurable experience. I certainly don't dread going to the dentist.

Good music and pretty colors.

Back in the day the internet for normal people was 3 bucks a hour over a 14,400 modem. I didn't consider myself a "creator" for posting my recipes for making mashed potatoes in a crock pot. I just wanted to make the world have better mashed potatoes. I did it for free. There was no "like" button or comments or monetization. Just this nerd and a crock pot and a gross amount of butter. That is not a joke. I had a crock pot cooking site. I didn't have a counter or anything. Maybe it was popular.. I will never know.

The internet was pretty great when it was just people sharing info without looking for a advertising partnership with Land 'O Lakes.

I never had to Bing how to quit nano.

Propagandhi did a song about this in 2005 called America’s Army (Die Jugend Marschiert).

They even have a hat-tip to Enders Game near the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjt1LUbw-Zo

While not nearly as bad as what is in the article. Predictive text in Messages on iOS now suggests "cancer" when I type "can" and "chemotheteropy" when I type "ch". And to really rub it in "ma" brings up "magnesium". The magnesium one being the worst because if I type it that means they are doing a magnesium infusion and that means I am going to feel like I have been hit by a truck for the next two days.

A lot of the times it is actually picking the right word but somethings you don't want to be constantly reminded of.

I was really into skateboarding from about 12 years old to 30. But back in the day I used to buy the Sony Sport Walkman's. The big yellow ugly ones.

When I would skate I had the Walkman in my left hand at all times. I used to fall a lot and learned to land on the Walkman. It became instinct to cover my glasses with my right forearm and land with my left hand so the Walkman took the hit. For anyone wondering my fingers didn't grip all the way around the Walkman so I didn't grind my fingernails off when I landed.

But those things were tanks. I bought the OG 5GB iPod when it came out and that completely changed the way I skated since I didn't have the trusty Walkman to fall on.

But that was also around the time I started to listen to more Hip Hop like Slick Rick so my entire style changed to a smoother more technical skate compared to when I was listening to Reagan Youth all day and just flinging myself off sets of stairs.

When I was getting my woodshop going I was hitting up estate sales/auctions. There was one I auction I scored a nearly brand new SawStop table saw, Dewault planer, and ShopFox joiner (kinda crap) for under 600 dollars. All the stuff was pretty much brand new.

I have hit the point where I have more tools than space.

And he also has a thing on getting a pretty good woodshop going for under a grand.

I haven't noticed that in Netflix. But 80% of my use of the Apple TV is plex and a little app I wrote that reads directories on my computer running Apache and shows everything in a directory structure. And a bash script that runs through everything calling HandBrakeCli (if needed), generates thumbnails with ffmpeg, and then creates the xml.js file the app reads.

It took around six hours to build and I had zero experience with any tvos or ios development. Just a fun covid-project.

My main beef with the roku is the sluggishness of the UI. And I have a few of them in the house (ultras or whatever the top of the line one was as of six months ago. Amazon had a sale and I bought a few). I also have a bunch of Apple TV 4Ks.

Say I am watching Plex and then want to switch to Netflix and then maybe go over to Channels to watch some News on MSNBC. The Apple TV can do this without reloading the app or losing my place in the video. It is nearly instant. The Roku has to reload the entire app taking a minute and losing my place.

But I do like the Roku remote. So there is that.

Weird.. I use rclone sync to move files between OS X in my room to Ubuntu in the garage and both of those to Google Drive. It has always just moved new files or changed files.

I bought this book at a place called "Hungry Head Books" in Eugene Oregon in 1997. I was working as a projectionist at the time and pretty much had to kill 30 hours a week in the booth. This was before wifi or cell phones so I would buy a few books each week and just sit on the carpet and read while the projectors did their thing.

I was not a fan of the hippies. I lived on 15th and High (that is not a joke) when Jerry Garcia died. The hippies were lost for a bit so they flooded 13th in Eugene until they found Phish and moved on. It was horrible. I'm more of a punk rock guy.

But this book really got me going about permaculture. To the point where it was all I would talk about when I got drunk at parties. And people hated me for it. I guess I know how the bitcoin guys feel.

But I found out my aunt and uncle owned about a hundred acres near Klamath Falls. And they were cool with me doing whatever out there. Tons of lumber and there was already a well. So over a summer we built a cabin with working plumbing and a septic tank. And by cabin I mean the unibomber would have considered it a downgrade. We had no clue about what we were doing.

But it was fun to camp out and build something, even if it was shit. That was about as far as we got. There is now a rotting log cabin out there.

So lets say that there are a couple hundred thousand dead and you are pretty sure that 50% of the people out there have it. Are you going to go out for dinner or a movie? Not me..

But ignore me if you aren't saying that the restrictions should be reversed so the economy goes back to normal. A guy on CNBC just said that even if it means 400K would die. The economy just will not go back to normal anytime soon.

This is the number of people that filed for unemployment in the last week. A staggering number. Just seven days of data.

I have a friend I talk to daily for 5+ hours a day that works for a major UC school in California.

They can totally work from home and everyone kept passing the buck when pressed about this.

The other day the staff got pissed enough they got a answer.. Basically the IT staff is not all that great and the VPN doesn't work so they are having people come into the office while they know they should be working from home.

Since everyone seems to be all negative I will share a story about the greatest day of my life. This happened around 10 months ago and it involves hash browns.

Due to mouth radiation I had to have all my teeth pulled and then two months of radiation and chemo just made my mouth a nightmare. I hit the point where trying to get down warm chicken broth was impossible. Everything I tried to eat just resulted in hours of pain to get down a swallow. So I didn't eat for around six months. I have a feeding tube for slurry to provide nutrients. It takes a bit to get used to getting full without using your mouth. There is a bit of a disconnect between your mouth and stomach.

I hit a point where my neck muscles were so unused they almost stopped working. I couldn't even swallow a tiny pill. So the doctors started talking about putting a balloon down my throat and inflating and deflating it a bunch of times to get the muscles working again. Fuck everything about that.

So I decided to just suffer and I started eating the blue box. (mac and cheese, kraft dinner for those up north). It was all I ate for months. I like noodles al dente but I had to overcook them to the point of mush so I could swallow them. Then I slowly worked my way to firm once I was able to normally swallow again.

But back to the greatest day of my life. I had only eaten mac and cheese for months and I decided to get adventurous. We had frozen hash browns in the freezer. So I cooked some in a ton of butter. My neck was still really raw so I barely browned them and covered them in ketchup to help them slide down since I can't chew anything.

It worked and was amazing. Then I had the bright idea to cover them in cheese so I ran up to Safeway and got a bag of shredded cheese. That was next level shit. I used to love the fried tater-tops covered in cheese and ketchup from Taco-Time.

But yeah. I was under 100 pounds and I put on about 15 pounds in a matter of weeks. That was 95% hash browns and Safeway cheese.

I think I need to put the internet down. Everything is so negative. Six months ago my good day would be your nightmare.

I use Mintmobile (US) for my cellphone. They are a cheap provider. I pay $180 a year for 2GB of a data a month. They emailed the other day saying data is free for the next month.

Not sure if this is bad form to respond to my own comment here. But my comments here have probably been massively depressing. I have a positive one.

There was a radiation tech, a older gentleman. He noticed that my belt slowly was failing. So one day he told me to give him my belt while I was in the machine. He kept a leather punch in the booth and put in more holes in my belt while I was getting radiated.

It is the small things.

That is the fucked thing about cancer. It is never over. Even if you come up clean in a PET it is always still there. Lingering. Forever..

The mental game after you recover is nearly as bad as the actual treatment. When I was between scans I did fuck-all because I could be dead in a month so I will just watch reruns of "Come Dine With Me".

I had inquired into why people refuse and the radiologist pretty much said that religion seems to be a major factor.

He also asked me about the "gun situation" where I live. We have a lot of guns but they are locked in a safe. They are for turning animals into jerky. We don't sleep with guns under pillows. We don't even lock our doors.

But he was concerned about my access to suicide machines. Five weeks later I would understand his question.

Absolutely. That was the goal. If I didn't like it we could pop it out in a minute and it won't hurt. So no harm in having it done.

I am glad they were aggressive. I would have died a painful death without it.

When the ENT guy said I would probably need a feeding tube I was thinking a thing that would go down my throat. And I was not thrilled about that. Right after the ENT guy I had to see the Radiologist and he was banging on more about the tube.

I still thought it was a down the throat tube. But my sister had google imaged searched g-tubes and showed me on the ride home. Tube in the stomach. No big deal. As long as it wasn't a tube down my throat. Horrible.. But significantly less bad than I had imagined.

I would be dead without the tube. So if anyone else has the same problem you should really get it.

I have to get the tube replaced every ~4 months. Last time I talked to a guy that used to work as a radiation tech at a different hospital. He said they just didn't do radiation on neck people unless they get the tube. Since they will die anyway and it is expensive.

For sure.

When I first saw the oncologist he made me meet with a lady that walked me through chemo. She laid out that explicitly that I am such a slender guy that I will die without the tube. And my kidneys will fail since I will probably not be able to get down water. I would later learn (PET scan) that I was born with one kidney.

I think they knew that letting me know that they could easily remove it would increase the odds that I would get it put in. To make it seem like a trivial thing. If you don't like it we can just pop it out and things go back to normal. Easy. Might as well have it put in, why not? Everyone had the same spiel.

And they were right. It is easy to remove. I accidentally removed it myself one morning. And I lost my shit. I shoved it back in and my stomach contents started pouring all over the carpet since the other end was open. I was panicked.

It took about five minutes to shove back in and it required a significant amount of force. The thing is the hole closes up fast. They said if it comes it you have a hour to get to the ER before we have to start from scratch. And I don't drive. And nobody that drives was home. And I live in the burbs`. So I had to just get it back in there.

Fun fact.. Is you toss some lube on the tube it goes right in. I now keep KY in the bathroom drawer. But that was terrifying.. That is how I eat. And getting the it put in was pretty fucking painful. I had to resolve to situation.

Wowsa.. You had it worse.

I had a "swallowing coach" who was a doppelganger for David Mitchell. The WILTY guy. The best posh comedian. And yes, a swallowing coach is a real thing. I was charged 600 a hour for him to watch me eat pudding and be taught how to gargle water. This was actually really important. The radiation killed my ability to swallow. Every muscle in my neck died.I knew I was fucked when I couldn't swallow a pill.

Funny thing is I had to use the blue box (Kraft Dinner, Mac and Cheese) to get my throat working again. I started with noodles that were cooked for 15 minutes and were mush. And I slowly worked my way to Al dente. To get my throat to open up again. I was threatened with them putting a balloon down my throat and inflating and deflating it over and over and over again to work out my neck muscles enough to swallow. I hate the endoscope so the balloon is my worst nightmare. My muse. But the blue box worked. A have to add a lot of milk since I don't really produce saliva anymore. Permanent dry-mouth has been the worst thing about my year of horror.

This is why I quit my computer job and started doing woodworking for a living. I make less but actually enjoy woodworking. When I was deep in radiation and chemo I got a bunch of credit cards and outfitted a nice workshop. I was pretty sure I wouldn't have to actually pay back the debt, because I would be dead. But I am still here. So fuck..

Whole milk. I tried the heavier dairy products but they slowed things to a crawl.

The feeding tube is actually very narrow. I tried blending spinach and other assorted vegetables and it clogged it.

You have to do a intro with a person before they install it. They showed me a example of what the tube would be. He showed me what was essentially a half inch vinyl tube with one of those locking clamps you have to squeeze down to close.

It was huge and I was terrified. I just didn't understand how I would be able to sleep with it in. I thought I could blitz a steak and put it in the tube.

But the tube is tiny. After a few weeks you barely notice it. The entire concept of it is terrifying. I couldn't look at mine for a week. That isn't a joke. The concept just flipped me out.

But I thought it was weird that every doctor through my path mentioned that they could take it out in seconds if I didn't like it. Not a big deal, we just pop it out and put on a band-aid. No big deal. ENT person, Nutritionist, Radiologist, Oncologist, Oral Surgeon. It was almost scripted. Everyone said the same thing.

Now I understand. I would have died without it. The Radiologist said as much the first time I met him. "25% of the people with what you have don't get the tube, most of those people are dead now"... I thought that was hyperbole. It wasn't.

I think I had the worst schedule ever. My first treatment of radiation was at 8am. Surgery to put in the feeding tube at 9:30. First chemo at 1PM. It is hard to top that Monday. But I went in for the feeding tube and was completely knocked out. When I woke up they said they couldn't do it. So plan B was needed. From what I gather my stomach rides high so they ended up needing to push my stomach down and then stitching my stomach lower to hold it in place. This was incredibly painful. I did learn that OXY is actually a fairly weak narcotic compared to what they can give you. This dude got high.

Well fuck, I typed a lot but answered your query in the first sentence. I think I am just trying to get my story out before I turn to dust.

Yeah, it is for cancer. From what I gather they need to go in through a vein in my leg and go up into my liver to inject some chemo and a oil to try and kill/starve the tumor. This all seems like witchcraft. I have been dealing with this sorcery for years. I google nothing. I just do what I am told. It is much easier that way. The radiologist and oncologist have agreed that this is the best option. I trust them.

And I will call Monday morning to see if they expect there to be a problem.

When I was towards the end of mouth/neck radiation I wasn't able to swallow anything, even water, for about a month.

So I was just using TwoCal® HN in my feeding tube. I was using six cans a day which is about 3K calories. I still lost 35 pounds. I ended up under 100 pounds. I am 6' tall. I was never a big guy. But I got bad.. I have a picture.

https://i.imgur.com/UQVgJIP.jpg

I don't get out in the sun much. That brown around my neck is burns from the radiation. It has been a year and that burn is still there. If anyone wants to know what it is like to have a sunburn inside your mouth feel free to ask.

But I hit a point where every joint in my legs and fingers ached and I didn't want to get out of bed because it hurt so much. I hate milk, I never put it in my mouth. But I started putting the fattiest milk as possible the feeding tube. In a week my aches went away.

Shit...

I have a thing scheduled for early next month. Not a full on surgery but it is pretty invasive and urgent and they require me to be in the hospital for a few days.

I'm not in New York but I am in hotbed for the current problem.

Interventional Radiology is somewhat specialized so hopefully there aren't any interruptions. But they do have about 20 beds in their unit of the hospital.

Because that would shine a light on just how creepy this all is. We know they do it but the normal person might be a bit concerned if Google and Apple just announced "We track you everywhere and who you interact with."

My sister finally came around to thinking Facebook was going to far so she switched to Instagram. We had a uncomfortable conversation last month when I broke the news to her.

There is a reason it is called the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers)..

If you try to UBER union electricians you are probably going to be in for a rude awakening.