Lý sự pclouds

Throughout history, we have always needed, in times of difficulty, to retreat to our caves. It so happens that in this modern age, our caves are fully plumbed. The toilet is, for us, the last bastion, the final refuge, the last few square feet of man-space left to us!

Somewhere to sit, something to read, something to do, and who gives a damn about the smell? Because that, for us, is happiness.

Because we are men. We are different.

We have only one word for soap. We do not own candles. We have never seen anything of any value in a craft shop. We do not own magazines fill of pictures of celebrities with all their clothes on. When we have conversations, we actually take it in turns to talk!

But we have not yet reached that level of earth-shattering boredom and inhuman despair that we would have a haircut recreationally. We don't know how to get excited about... really, really boring things, like ornaments, bath oil, the countryside, vases, small churches.

I mean, we do not even know what, what in the name of God's arse is the purpose of potpourri! Looks like breakfast, smells like your auntie! Why do we need that?

So please, in this strange and frightening world, allow us one last place to call our own. This toilet, this blessed pot, this... Fortress of Solitude.

You girls, you may go to the bathroom in groups of two or more. Yet we do not pass comment. We do not make judgement. That is your choice.

But we men will always walk the toilet mile... alone.

Probably the lowest balance ever. Paid rent, saw that there's too much in the account, so made a new saving account and left a bit buffer for a rainy day. Forgot that rent transaction was scheduled, but not happened yet. And the said buffer was barely enough to cover it. So now, less than 100 krona in account after rent was finally paid.

Three more weeks of winter until salary.

I thought Jakobs and I are a match in heaven. As long as I have a Jakobs sniper (or anything other weapon honestly), I'll be happy.

Then I found a megaton Torque pistol. Who needs to aim for weakpoints for crits, if you can just aim at a frog and the enemy 10 meters away dies anyway? Embrace the power of explosion!

Actually not embrace. Always make sure you have an exit to avoid your own boom boom mess that's about to kill everybody, including you.

Case in point. Woke up too early this morning. Forgot to get the meat out to defrost. Now I have some sort of stew instead of the usual pasta.

Feeling burned out near the end game of Baldur's Gate 3 after 118 hours. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth was also 119. So the limit is probably 110 or so. Kept on playing Yakuza: Like A Dragon even after finishing, and total time was just one hour short of 110.

I was going slow, and since Wind and Truth is the biggest, I expected it to last one if not two months. Then 10% into the book, the heat was turned up eleven. That's not supposed to happen until the end of the book! Brandon cheated.

It seems USB has been extended to support Ethernet as well. Or that has been forever, I just never cared. But either way, following gentoo wiki allows the creation of /etc/init.d/net.enp0s20f0u2. Then you can just start it to get Internet.

But starting manually is boring, especially when you have to disconnect phone to go somewhere for a bit, then go back and do everything over again. This thing has to do with udev, and udevadm monitor does show

UDEV  [119189.616972] move     /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-2/1-2:1.0/net/enp0s20f0u2 (net)

Good. We actually got a new network device detected. So we can set up scripts to act on it. Luckily it looks like /lib/udev/rules.d/90-network.rules already has

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add",    RUN+="net.sh $name start"

So it should work already? net.sh is /lib/udev/net.sh which belongs to netifrc package. So it looks like things are already set up, on the scripting side at least.

Trying plugging in again, I see in /var/log/syslog

May 10 09:13:20 tro netplugd[24625]: enp0s20f0u2: can't get flags: No such device
May 10 09:09:13 tro kernel: rndis_host 1-2:1.0 enp0s20f0u2: renamed from eth0                  
May 10 09:09:13 tro /etc/init.d/net.enp0s20f0u2[28533]: net.enp0s20f0u2: not allowed to be hotplugged

I'm still not sure where that message comes from (though the net.enp0s20f0u2 part implies it's either some shell function, or command indirectly used by this init script). Somehow I was led to /etc/rc.conf which does describe a bit more about rc_hotplug, and changing it to

rc_hotplug="net.enp0s20f0u2"

seems to do the job. Not even need to restart Linux or anything.

PS. the error message comes from openrc-run.c

The internet is full of tips recommending throwing enemies off the edge. Turns out, Lae'zel got that treatment from an enemy. Instant (and first) death. Lesson learned. Never be on high ground with enemies. At least not between them and the edge.

Fly tomorrow, transit through Bangkok, which has just experienced a 7.7 earthquake.

Flew home for two weeks to make new ID. First day, was told the new ID could come after 3 weeks. And I still need more time to fix other things with this new ID. The two-week plan was completely busted. Prepared for a 4-week stay, with a backup plan for 5.

Luckily the ID came after only two weeks. Went to withdraw and close some bank account. I had no idea I had so much saving in that bank. Best financial management skills.

Sending money requires face recognition now. Apparently 2FA is so yesterday. And it doesn't work all the time. Yay for technology. I wonder what will happen if I get a new scar or something.

Flew back. Seated at the emergency door and "responsible" for opening the door and helping people out. Big job! Very tempting to just pull the latch, which would put me in the no-fly list of probably all airlines.

Departed at night. Sai Gon lit up. Does it ever sleep?

Watched Dune on the flight. Too much details are lost. Even big chunks are cut out. Lost interest half way through the movie. Probably will read Dune again, and perhaps this time really finishes the series.

Hmm.. customs don't stamp passport at departures or arrivals anymore. Interesting.

"You still think I'm too optimistic, don't you?" Shallan said.

"It's not your fault", Kaladin said. "I'd rather be like you. I'd rather not have lived the life I have. I wish that the world was only full of people like you, Shallan Davar."

"People who don't understand pain."

"Oh, all people understand pain." Kaladin said. "That's not what I'm talking about. It's ..."

"The sorrow", Shallan said softly, "of watching a life crumble? Of struggling to grab it and hold on, but feeling hope become stringy sinew and blood beneath your fingers as everything collapse?"

"Yes."

"The sensation -- it's not the sorrow, but something deeper -- of being broken. Of being crushed so often, and so hatefully, that emotion becomes something you can only wish for. If only you could cry, because then you'd feel something. Instead, you feel nothing, Just... haze and smoke inside. Like you're already dead."

He stopped in the chasm.

She turned and looked to him. "The crushing guilt", she said, "of being powerless. Of wishing they'd hurt you instead of those around you. Of screaming and scrambling and hating as those you love are ruined, popped like a boil. And you have to watch their joy seeping away while you can't do anything. They break the ones you love, and not you. And you plead. Can't you just beat me instead?"

"Yes", he whispered.

Shallan nodded, holding his eyes. "Yes. It would be nice if nobody in the world knew of those things, Kaladin Stormblessed. I agree. With everything I have."

He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken.

Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway.