The Zone

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  • What software freedom means today

    A computer is the equivalent of a bicycle for the mind. (Steve Jobs, 1990) The computer, used as a creative tool, is a wonderful thing, and the bicycle is an apt metaphor: It lets you go further, under your own power, than you otherwise could, and takes you places that you couldn’t have reached without…

  • Family camping

    We spend all our family vacations camping, out of both necessity and preference. Necessity, because we have four kids, and there’s no way we can afford three weeks in high season in a hotel. Preference, because both my wife and I grew up this way. We’ve come to view camping as a skill, and that’s…

  • Daily practice (kayaking edition)

    I’ve discovered the benefits of daily practice. Quite possibly as the lasthuman being on Earth, I’ve found out that doing something every day makes youget better at it. A few weeks ago, I took a course to learn some basics of freestyle kayaking. Atthe moment, I’m not really interested in learning how to run more…

  • Configuring Debian post-update

    Debian Stable has been my go-to distro for several years now. If I dislike anything about it, it’s the frequent updates 😉 Jokes aside, it’s a distro that matches my needs, and — more importantly — that I’ve gotten used to. Besides a couple of laptops for myself, I’m also administering a few additional machines…

  • Read: Captains of the Sands

    Last night I finished re-reading one of my favorite books from my youth: Captains of the Sands (Capitães da Areia), by Jorge Amado. Published in 1937 in Brazil, the story follows a gang of street children in Salvador de Bahia. The boys sleep in an abandoned storehouse, and live by stealing and begging. I found…

  • Upgrade your reading list with this one weird trick

    A couple of years back on the Fedi, I came across a few people discussing how white men were hogging all the attention in literature. Though the point was expressed a little more subtly than that, someone came up with an interesting challenge: For a while, try to read only books that aren’t written by…

  • You’re more relaxed

    “You’re more relaxed”, says my wife. And she’s right. I am! I like my work, and I work hard. It’s just a corporate job, but I enjoy it. I also try to be a good partner, and a good dad. That means co-running the household together with my wife, doing whatever needs to get done.…

  • Sea kayaking in Croatia

    Our summer vacations in Croatia typically consist of camping on one of the country’s beautiful islands, while doing as little as possible. But I got a sea kayak last year, and this is a great area for it. Clear turquoise water, mostly calm seas, lots of little beaches everywhere. Just perfect. So, once I felt…

  • Installing Debian 11 from scratch

    Pre-scriptum I wrote this post a while back. Debian has progressed, and so has my understanding. Debian 13 “Trixie” has just been released. Still, there’s some info in this post on setting up non-free audio/video stuff. It’s useful to me, so I’m reposting it. Intro So my ThinkPad just borked itself. It was running Ubuntu…

  • If corporations can have rights, so can nature

    Good books entertain and inform. Great books bust open your worldview and leave you with a different, much broader way of seeing things. “Is a river alive?” by Robert Mcfarlane is one such great book. From the cloud forests of Ecuador through the violated rivers of India to a wild stream in Quebec, the author…