I was intending on building up my zsh(1) and mutt(1) configs before tackling the rebuild of my desktop –  the original catalyst of the idea.

But since I was rebuilding my account from across a nearby spare account, I thought I’d use it to take a peek at gnome3 and Unity, and so did “apt-get dist-upgrade” my Ubuntu 11.04 install.

…

A broken update later, I figured I’d install from scratch, and have gotten distracted these last few days with exploring XFCE, LXDE, Unity, Gnome3 and KDE. I’m testing them in a spare account, so as to not clutter up my main $HOME with cruft too quickly while I learn the ropes.

I gotto say, KDE has grown on me. I think its interface is a horrible hodgepodge when it comes to usability – especially out-of-the-box usability, but behind the stab-your-eyes-out bling, it’s really quite feature rich, and I’m all but thinking I’ll be moving to it. The real question for me is how many of my existing gnome-ish apps do I bring with me (eg: rhythmbox, pidgin), and how many will I adopt the KDE equivalents (konsole probably, dolphin…

Assuming I *do* go with KDE, mind you…

Like I said, KDE has grown on me, but I’m not quite sure yet if it’s a beauty spot, or merely a wart. (or indeed, a tumor. Itz not a toomaaaa!!

Interesting times indeed… full reviews will come later? =)

The first thing to do with a new clean (empty) $HOME, is to populate it with my actual files. Not the configuration cruft that is of concern, but my actual “stuff”.

For my own use, these consist of a variety of directories that are a mix of traditional unix system style directory names (eg: etc, lib, var, bin, public_html, Maildir, sin (for tempting tmp files) – with expected purposes, and more modern GUI styled names (eg: Photos, Videos, Public, Desktop), as well as a few of my own naming (verb, ketchup (for sauce src files )

Restoring these has largely been a matter of a paranoid comparison between my old recovered $HOME and the last nightly backup (I now have many ~/*/.md5sums files!)

In many cases both versions of a directory were the same, so restore was easy. In a few cases, they were different and a series of `diff -r` between the backup and recovered directories clarified that the changes were only new files, not the corruption of old ones.

Without too much difficulty, some 218 of the 221gig of my original $HOME was restored.

Regarding dotfiles… I moved a few over quickly – .ssh .cliverc and .tmux.conf for example (the latter two moving into ~/etc with symlinks), and a few others were created in opening usages (.selected_editor, .lesshst, .cache

Once I start using a GUI again, the dotfile population will explode. I hope I have a greater measure of sanity before then.

Coming soon: shell and email configurations…

• I’m a bit of a hoarder …arguably more than a “bit”, actually.

Combine these two points, and I can point to dotfiles in my $HOME directory that date back over a decade. In fact, the oldest four date to 2001…

How has this come about? Well, as I’ve upgraded machines over the years, I’ve carried my $HOME with me. After all, it has my stuff in it!  Including my customisations. The .bash_profile (2001) for instance, contains the last iteration of my bash prompt before I moved to zsh. (my current zsh prompt can trace it’s derivation through bash in 2001, all the way back to a 4DOS prompt configuration that I set up around 1994. For the record, I’ve searched for my old 4DOS configurations, but failed to find them.)

I have dotfiles from obscure chat programs that I no longer use (.goofeypw – 2002), from apps I’ve forgotten I ever used (.coldsyncrc – 2003), apps I’ve long avoided using (.lynxrc – 2005), and so on. In some cases they’re newer files from a utility I still use, but which has changed where it keeps it’s dotfile data:

-rw-r--r-- 23 nemo 24576 Oct  6  2009 .clivecache
-rw-r--r-- 23 nemo    43 Oct  6  2009 .clivelast

-rw-r--r-- 2 nemo 364544 Dec 19 22:16 .cache/clive/cache
-rw-r--r-- 2 nemo     26 Dec 19 22:17 .cache/clive/last

Worst though, is that some of this dotfile cruft causes issues with current apps, since they sometimes attempt to maintain backwards compatibility with older configurations. Notably, I once had competing flash plugins in firefox – which had the effect that one flash-video based website would refuse to play videos and tell me I had to upgrade to flash 9, whilst about:plugins would happily announce that I HAD flash9. From memory, it was fixed when I found and removed an old flash8 .so that I found sitting in ~/.netscape. Ouch! Other similar oddities have crept into my Gnome2 configuration also, but have as yet resisted resolution.

All of this has driven me to ask…

Am considering a complete $HOME dotfile cruft purge. Reconfigure from scratch all but vitals (eg: .ssh) Anyone else done this? !lazyweb
— @nemo / identi.ca – July 2011

…and in doing so, to also clear my dotfile cruft – only importing what I need, and taking the effort to clean up the configuration of apps which have spaghetti conf files. (mutt, I’m looking at you especially!)

This is my $HOME. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

…and I’m rebuilding it.

This is my story.

The wikipedia article on Geek Pride day lists a “manifesto” of sorts, or a “geek code”(see below) for Geek Pride Day…

…here it is:

Rights:

1. The right to be even geekier.
2. The right to not leave your house.
3. The right to not like football or any other sport.
4. The right to associate with other nerds.
5. The right to have few friends (or none at all).
6. The right to have as many geeky friends as you want.
7. The right to be out of style.
8. The right to be overweight and near-sighted.
9. The right to show off your geekiness.
10. The right to take over the world.

Responsibilities:

1. Be a geek, no matter what.
2. Try to be nerdier than anyone else.
3. If there is a discussion about something geeky, you must give your opinion.
4. To save and protect all geeky material.
5. Do everything you can to show off geeky stuff as a “museum of geekiness.”
6. Don’t be a generalized geek. You must specialize in something.
7. Attend every nerdy movie on opening night and buy every geeky book before anyone else.
8. Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related T-shirt, all the better.
9. Don’t waste your time on anything not related to geekdom.
10. Try to take over the world!

So, I have a problem with this. Not all of it, and mostly the ‘responsibilities’ section…

But I get ahead of myself. Here is where I disagree with the rights…

Right #5. The right to have few friends (or none at all).

So, in response to this, some images.

[Thanks to http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/nerd-venn-diagram for what seems to be the original Geek Venn diagram, and http://www.surelyyourenotserious.com/blog/?p=920 for the spectrum diagram]

So back to it.

Whilst Right #5 states that a geek may have no friends – which is fine as a choice, but it also implies that geeks may have no friends due to a lack of social grace. …and that, imho, doesn’t sync with the very definition of a geek. (don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against nerds by the definitions given here. I have nerdy friends and geeky friends, and I have nerdy moments and geeky moments. But it’s to be a geek that I aspire, and take pride in)

Nonetheless, it’s a relatively minor issue and harder to defend (but lets me include pretty pictures

Moving on to the responsibilities. Overall, they mix ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ in annoying and inconsistent ways…

2. Try to be nerdier than anyone else.

Surely being a geek is largely about individuality. I don’t mind competitive behaviour, but I object to it being a responsibility. You cannot mandate competitiveness.

3. If there is a discussion about something geeky, you must give your opinion.

MUST?! No. Really not. To be allowed to care passionately and state your case, sure. But I object to “must” here.

4. To save and protect all geeky material.

Even though I myself am a hoarder and packrat, I think to call it a *responsibility* is too wide reaching. Also, “all”?? See point #6

5. Do everything you can to show off geeky stuff as a “museum of geekiness.”

Again, why is SHOWING OFF now a responsibility? Be passionate, sure. But sometimes collecting is a private endeavour. This links back to #3.

6. Don’t be a generalized geek. You must specialize in something.

This… I kind of agree with. Kind of. But still think it’s a bit strong for a RESPONSIBILITY…

Also, this contradicts several other responsibilities listed herein. According to this I have to specialise, but according to #4 and #7, #8, I have to care about ALL and EVERY geeky thing…

7. Attend every nerdy movie on opening night and buy every geeky book before anyone else.

Is this a competition again? sheesh. See point #6

For the record, it’s possible to be a geek without caring about movies or books!

8. Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related T-shirt, all the better.

EVERY? See points #6 and #7. *sigh*

9. Don’t waste your time on anything not related to geekdom.

Limitations is not the geek way. Defining some things as being not geek and therefore a waste of time – is a limitation!

Damn the man. Do what you want.

And another thing…

In accordance with responsibility #6 (and yes, I recognise the irony of citing responsibility #6 which I myself object to), isn’t “Geek Pride” kind of, well, GENERIC?

So on May 25 I celebrate TOWEL DAY. A day for Hitchhiker and Douglas Adams fans to celebrate this specific fandom. A geek fandom. In fact, a specialised geek fandom…

So don’t celebrate Geek Pride Day. Celebrate your geek pride by celebrating your passion when, how, and with whom you choose in a manner appropriate for your geekiness. Here are some ideas:

• March 14: Pi day (3.14) – for Math geeks
• May 4: Star Wars “May the forth be with you” day.
• May 25: Towel Day (2 weeks after the death of Bop Ad), and also Star Wars day (the day the original Star Wars was released. Apparently also it’s a Discworld (of Terry Pratchett) day: The Glorious 25 May
• July 22: Pi day (22/7 = a closer approximation to π  than 3.14)
• September 19: Talk Like a Pirate Day

And… Don’t Panic if you disagree. I’m open to discussion, clarification, and reinspecting my opinions

PS: “Geek Code”? I think that is more correctly this old gem http://www.geekcode.com – for which I have a collection of old codes somewhere, and in fact I’d support it’s re-emergance as a part of the Geek Pride Day, since that would help expand awareness of different elements of geek nature

http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera.html

If you haven’t seen it, then do so now.

If you have, proceed…

So if I can be allowed to blow my own horn for a moment, I’d like to boast that I occasionally seem to have quite marvelous ideas independently or others. Admittedly, others who were lucky enough to think of it earlier enough and/or had resources enough to make something of it. But my claim is that I sometimes think of these things _independently_.

And it has has been said of inventing – the best inventions are obvious, which is why it’s so humbling to remember that one didn’t think of these ‘obvious’ things themselves.

But in my case, can I finally “prove” that I did…?

Back to the video – I’d like to draw your attention to a point approximately 3:45 in: “…time travel. I’m not going to show you some of the wonderful historic imagery in here – there’s some in here with horses and carriages as well [...] it also is the foundation for augmented reality“.

Now compare with an email of mine to a friend, where I wrote this:

What would be kind of cool: augmented reality goggles (this is one of those ideas I had years before I knew there was a word for it) that show recreated historical versions of the world… but, instead of just showing a certain era, you see the ‘prettiest’ building at any given location. Making a best-of-all-possible-eras virtual world

So as far as I can tell (can anyone confirm?), this talk was made on Feb 11 or 12 (based on dated video comments afterwards). My email has a date stamp of: 10 Feb 2010 15:17:07 +1000). And, frankly, even if the video was recorded first, I sure didn’t see it till today

As an aside, my email was prompted by a rather ugly house I see regularly in town, and my own wonderings if it used to be pretty…

• • Contemporary Google maps street view
  • Sometime pre 1994, it was ugly then too
  • Circa 1930s – it was gorgeous.

I especially love how you get basically the same angle on all three – which was, of course, the key to my own inspiration

So clearly, the next thing for me to work out is real time travel – at which point I can begin to start sending these ideas of mine back to people in the past with the resources to make them a reality asap! =)

Regardless..

New years resolutions? Out.
New years goals? In.

So, in three brief categories, here are my goals for 2010

• Location: This year – to live by myself.
• Body: Cut milk from my diet (as a drink, I’m not cutting all diary as food just now), and ensure I exercise enough to maintain current fitness levels or improve.
• Mind: Stay on target with pet projects and complete them

Note: these resolutions earlier appeared as a StatusNet dent here: http://identi.ca/notice/18121538 and were mirrored via twitter here: http://twitter.com/nemothorx/status/7346796530 (they were furthermore mirrored on facebook!)

one – the “wafer thin mint” rule

When creating space to move something into the room, don’t create it by putting stuff in the doorway. As then you can’t get the something into the room

two – the “corner? what corner?” rule

when moving stuff around inside the room (in accordance with rule #1), make sure you can get around from behind the things you just moved in front of you

three – the “everything I ever needed to know I learnt from playing Tetris” rule

Thinking up rules is an entertaining way to keep active the bits of the brain not involved with playing mass tetris in slow-motion

four – the “you do not talk about furniture club” rule

Blogging about the rules, however, is not productive

I’m going to restart it with a small note… an invite to Novemberfest.

NovemberFest is the end-of-spring gettogether/picnic/bbq I organise each year…

Where? Behind the boat hire on Lake Burley Griffin

When? Lunch on Saturday November 29

Who? You, friends, etc.

Anything erlse? Bring games too! And a spirit of socialness.

PS. Pass this invite on!

I haven’t blogged. I haven’t LJ’d. I have barely even wiki’d.

It’s not that anything is seriously amiss, just a combination of a few points. One being the time and energy to refit myself into Canberra work and timetable. Once the rhythm of day-to-day is gone, it’s harder to pickup than I realised. Not that I am one to encourage a mindless repetitive life, but rather recognising that currently, I tend to have about a month planned ahead, and it’s taking me a little time to get that buffer back up to speed. Re-establishing social contacts, getting back to speed with an eating schedule (and maybe a cooking one next week when I hit the markets!). All that kind of thing.

Another thing occupying my time here is the building of a new fileserver. Why? Because amongst other needs, I have more photos on memory cards from Europe than will fit onto $HOME as it stands.

However, people have asked about the trip, and over the coming months I’ll be blogging several city reviews and general travel observations,  so start by being reminded of the itinerary.

• Copenhagen
• Amsterdam
• Berlin
• Frankfurt
• Brussels
• Paris
• Cardiff
• London

I have emphased those which were the visited ‘nemo’ places of the Ego trip. Other cities were visited,  and other nemos were not visited, but other unplanned nemos were found (not all by me either), but I’ll get to those with the rest in good time. I’m also going to keep the ‘what was your favourite city?’ answer off the radar for a little while longer too, since I want to present my reasonings as clear as possible.

Finally, as noted, I did take a tremendous amount of photos, so there is alot of editing ahead (especially all the panorama shots) before they really become public. All will become clear in good time!

It was a fun journey, and I’m looking forward to getting some elements of that across to here…

But I am realigning my time. it’s early in the AM where I am, but later in the PM where I am going…

Copenhagen, here I come, ready or not.