I recently noticed that I've been hating life. Like more so than normal for the past two years or so. I've never had more than a few acquaintances, but geography, covid and politics mostly ended the relationships that I had.
(I'm not very political or radical, I'm always willing to listen and I don't consider a difference of opinion to be relationship ending. Unfortunately one of the people I used to be friends with is very radicalized and will absolutely fly off the handle every time anyone says anything 'wrong'. - It's strange, like, I love GNU/Linux, but if someone refers to 'Linux' with out saying GNU/Linux I don't get angry, I don't mention it. We are all just trying to communicate, getting every single part of language exactly correct is never going to happen.... )
[sigh].. I miss having friends.
Anyway... Work is frustrating, I find myself with only my wife as company (which isn't fair to her), and my computers really haven't run the way I like them to for _Years_ ...
{Sorry for being a curmudgeon I don't like systemd, I just don't understand. Everything ran so well before systemd, and it was so easy to fix anything that broke. Now so many problems can not be solved in user space, I've lost tremendous control over my computers; and when they do run they aren't flexible. Gah!}
Ok, where was I.. Oh yeah, hating life. Work is frustrating, Minimal companionship, My favorite hobby is in disarray... And I think, maybe, ADHD is setting in, it happened to my dad anyway. He started getting medicated for it around 58 years old (??) . So I've got maybe 2 decades left before I either have to take meth, or I should retire. - The intensity of focus that I used to have isn't guaranteed any more, certainly not like it used to be. However I still think just as clearly, and I can focus and plan; it's just harder.
Compounding that is that I live in the PNW, we basically don't get sun for ~6-8 months a year, which completely messes most people up, for most of the year. Compounding that is the problem that I work 3rd shift. I barely get any sun in the summer! Finally my relationship with sleep has always been troubled, working through the night every night doesn't make that any easier. Day shift at my current job is maybe one retiree, or a few new hires away; fingers crossed.
So, yeah, I've been hating life. That can't continue, it just can't. So I've been trying to focus on things I enjoy. Well, specifically, I've been focusing on enjoying living. I started bringing my bike into the city and going riding once and a while, there are some really amazing bicycle groups in Portland. I powered up my server and I'm rearranging my network so hopefully I can use the server, and keep it off the internet so hopefully it doesn't get hacked. I may setup another internet accessible server with some VM's.
I'd love to find a reasonable motherboard that is compatible with an E7-8891v4. I fell in love with Broadwell when it came out but could never afford one; now they are super affordable! Besides loving them, I can re-use my significant amount of ECC DDR3 Ram; this it the last server processor to support that. Skylake and up are all DDR4. As I understand it, these super-cheap ones were made for a specific client, they are "off menu". The used market was flooded with them a while back. However they might need special motherboards... And finding a motherboard for any of the E7-88xx chips is... iffy? I don't want a Supermicro X10QBI, it's an absurd motherboard! (Although impressive when it's put together well.)- PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong. I'm considering throwing money at a bunch of LGA 2011-1 motherboards until I find one that works. Someone told me that an X99 motherboard from Aliexpress _might_ work. But they aren't what I'm looking for anyway. My old AbuDhabi AMD Opteron 6328 powered HP servers seriously need to go away! Building a server with lots of ECC memory and lots of PCI-express gets really expensive really fast, so I have to shop for old, old tech. Comparing the CPU Value score and CPU Mark scores really makes this CPU shine! Maybe 1/5 to 1/10 the speed of an EPYC system, but 1/500 to 1/1000 the cost.
{EDIT: Ok, I finally got clear information regarding the motherboard CPU sockets, still looking for more information on chipset support.
LGA 2011 - Socket R - Supports Ivy Bridge-E/EP and Sandy Bridge-E/EP processors with the corresponding X79 (E – enthusiast-class) and C600-series (EP – Xeon class) chipsets.
LGA 2011-1 - Socket R2 - Supports Ivy Bridge-EX (Xeon E7 v2), Haswell-EX (Xeon E7 v3) and Broadwell- EX (Xeon E7 v4) CPUs.
LGA 2011-3 or Socket R3 - Supports Haswell-E and Haswell-EP CPU, maybe other newer chips too?}
I bought two new cell phones. One of which I successfully got LineageOS installed on, the other I bricked. I'm sending the bricked phone off for repair, and then I'll try to root it again. If you don't have root on a computer you own, you don't control it, or own it; not really anyway. Also I'm tired of my identity being a product for companies to fight over.
YouTube censors all ideas that are not conducive to commerce, and then attempts to ransom my sanity by offering to remove ad's for, uh what 12$ / month. - It's an extra special dystopia! I want out! So I'm trying to de-google my phones. Thank god for the people that made CyanogenMod and the people who are making it's progeny, LineageOS.
So enjoying living... Part of enjoying living is not being scared to be flawed. I'm not perfect, I have some odd interests, privacy, opensource, cyberpunk, science fiction, walking my dog's, an obsession with really good electrical work. :-)
So yeah, I'm trying to enjoy living.
One thing I'm getting excited about again is that the large ball screws that I need, for the CNC machine I'm going to build, are purchasable again! I tried to buy them during the pandemic, and the order got canceled. I got a nice note from the supplier about how shipping was just nearly impossible (stupid, lazy, bribe-taking, canal drivers [captains?].... I don't blame the EverGiven, or the Affinity V, only the special canal crews, not sure if that's fair, but that's where I'm at.) . So... the CNC project can continue. Unfortunately I missed an opportunity to get some really cheap I-beams locally, oh well, I'll just have to keep looking... I still need to save up for a 3-phase converter. I tend to focus on the biggest challenge for any project. If I can't solve that, then the project needs to be modified, or I should shelve it for a while. So I guess I'm going to futz around with my servers, brick some phones, and save up for a Phase Perfect PTE215RQT.
I'm having trouble finding information about supporting a long ball screw. I suppose you could have multiple ball nuts and drive them simultaneously, but I swear there was a product you could get that would follow the screw passively to help support the ball screw itself... I'm still working out the design. I bought some small ball screws that were labeled 1200mm on-line, but when they arrived they were labeled 900mm. The screw is _overall_ 1200mm, but the available travel is only 900mm. So that was a fairly cheap lesson! I think I can still use them for a 3D printing project, it's just going to be a bit smaller, but that's fine.... I wonder if you can get a ball screw with ball nuts that move at different speeds. Like if the machine was driven by a normal ball nut, but there could be other ball nuts that travel at fraction of the speed. You could use the fractional nuts to help support the ball screw. Fun to think about, but I think it's probably a terrible idea. See fun! Enjoying Life. Ha! Victory!
I think I will buy a E7-8891v4 and my best guess at a compatible motherboard.. If it doesn't work I'll just get a CPU that does work in that motherboard and I'll only be out a few bucks...
