My Linux Life – Privacy and Gaming

Failure to Inspire

Denny March 22, 2023 No Comments

Ever since my last post, I’ve been pondering this. I don’t think I’ve ever made a profound difference on anyone’s life. I don’t know if even I did, I would feel fulfilled in any way.

I’m proud of my own achievements. But I’d like to at least help one person achieve their goals.

I have spent hours upon hours telling others how I managed to succeed in achieving my goals. Only to watch people either grab their mental teddy bear in fear of upsetting their comfort zones, or try and give up almost as quickly as they started.

Even after they have pummeled me with questions to tweak or better understand the steps I used in my journey.

I have to wonder if I just don’t have what it takes to inspire others. But I want to. Though perhaps it’s not me. It’s those I try to help, failing to have the willpower to follow through with their own desires.

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Willpower

Denny March 4, 2023 No Comments

This is the biggest reason for failure in peoples lives. Lack of willpower. I know I’m going to sound like a motivational speaker. I wish I was able to motivate people to do what I have done. Sadly I’ve been unable to help one single person yet. Simply because these people, despite all my trying to inspire them, don’t have the willpower and they have fallen short.

Why? They simply can not deal with any kind of inconvenience to their lives to do the things I have done. I’ve done all my achievements due to one reason. Willpower! I wanted it to happen. I made it happen! End of story for me.

What have I done?

I quit smoking (no patches or medications – I just quit cold turkey)
I ended a horrible relationship
I fixed my finances
I fixed my credit score
I built up a savings
I found a good job that I enjoy
I got a better car
I fulfilled my dreams of having musical instruments to learn and enjoy
I lost a serious amount of weight
I found God

I’m sure everyone around me is sick of me touting my successes. I can’t help but be proud of myself! I’m not special by any means.

Call it:

Determination
Willpower
Resolve
Motivation

Call it whatever you like. You have to have it in order to achieve your goals. Plain and simple. There is no magic. No quick fix. It is you who has to make it happen. You can have help, but help doesn’t matter if you don’t get off your ass and actually do it. Your partner, friend or family member won’t always be there to be your cheerleader. You have to take whatever inconvenience life throws at you and work through it.

Sadly, I wish I could inspire others. I try. I really do, but I see them all fall short so quickly.

They want to lose weight? But can’t give up the comfort foods that are bad for them.

They want to fix their finances? They can’t stop giving money to others or buying things they don’t really need. Or be bothered to make cutbacks.

They want to quit smoking? But can’t deal with the stresses in life or give up that feeling it gives them.

The list goes on, but in short it’s because they can’t be inconvenienced. They can’t be uncomfortable in their lifestyles to make the necessary changes. They have NO WILLPOWER.

I get it. It’s hard. Life gets that way. I pretty much lost everything in my life 3 different times. I have been through 3 shit marriages. I have filled bankruptcy every time for each marriage. I had nothing for years because I let it happen. I didn’t want to be inconvenienced. The last straw came and I had enough. I dug in, I got my willpower and I got things done! You reach these kind of goals and it’s like a whole new drug. The drug to succeed. I’m not rich. Never will be. But I’m happier than ever. I wish I could go back and fix everything years ago. I can’t, but I won’t let anything or anyone stand in my way of having my control over my life again! I’ll never stop trying to motivate others to do the same. Even if it’s not through my examples. Want to fix your finances? Try The Ramsey Show. While I didn’t know about him when I fixed mine, I pretty much did his process. Want to lose weight? Try Dr. Eric Berg. Again, I did it on my own, but he’s teaching the same things.

You can do it! IF… You really want it!

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Games I’ve Played on Linux Thus Far

Denny February 27, 2023 No Comments

Appologies for not posting much. Work is unrelenting because… well because I actually work. As with so many businesses, we can’t get help. Well at least help that’s worth a shit. Hence I fill in and get loads of hours. Anyway, on with the wibble proper 😉

I started using Linux full time 6 months ago. I’ve been nothing short of excited to have finally left Microsoft behind. Their anti-competitive and antitrust behaviors that have resurfaced in the past two operating systems of Windows 10 and 11 were my breaking point. They joined the ranks of Google and Facebook as my least trusted technology companies. I use none of them now.

The fact that I can game the same or better than on Windows is just icing on the “MS-can-kiss-my-ass” cake! Yes, just to keep myself less frustrated, I limited my frames to 60 and life is good! Here are the games I’ve played or am playing so far:

This was my first derby game. I got so hooked on it I had made a fan made music video (that got removed from YouTube for copyright claim). But it just fit so well with Ludacris – Act a Fool. This game ran flawlessly from the start. Chances are I will be playing this again in the future. Wreckfest is OK, but this had much bigger tracks.

I loved GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas and played them from open to close. When GTA IV came along, I lost it plot and just loaded 100% save files. Same goes for GTA V. Then the online came. Just a PVP nightmare really. I always hated playing it with modders and cheaters running rampant. With Rockstar doing fuck-all to prevent it, I played in solo mode collecting vehicles. On Linux it ran perfectly fine. Zero issues for me.

I realize that Minetest has native support for Linux. And while I never took to Minecraft, I had to try it when I found you can do infinetly more with Minetest. And no need to fork over money to Microshaft. Micropenis… no… Microsoft! Yeah those evil twats!

Still, I didn’t play it for long. But it ran great!

Plus mods, loads and loads of mods to make the game bigger better or completely different! I may revisit this again in time.

After my complete boredom of Grand Theft Auto Online, I finally decided to give Red Dead Redemption 2 a shot. For the second time. Visually stunning. Just doesn’t move at a pace that keeps me interested. But…. Played like it was made for Linux. At least for the brief time I played it. A whole 2.1 hours according to my Steam profile.

OK, again I know The Dark Mod is native to Linux. I really really want to play it and have it loaded. I have played it into the intro area. It feels just like Thief – Deadly Shadows! And I know there are the purists who will shun me for that game. Screw you I thought it was the best. The Orphanage level still scares the living shit out of me! But… What little I played of it, I loved it!

This is my go to game! I love ESO. I really can’t get enough of it. I have hundreds of more hours played than what my Steam profile shows. As I played this same account prior to My Linux Life. And I’m still only getting started, 3 years later…

I see me playing this for years go come. I have a total of 5 characters. I’m not sure if when they release the Arcanist that I’ll make a new one. Though I wonder if an Orc will make a good one. I regret not making an Orc. Plus currently I am only 1 house away from having every house in the game as of this post! I’m a nut. I know it. On performance in Linux? This one does give me some lost frames but only when I am in a heavy populated town or in my Grand Psijic Villa. Perhaps a heavily populated instance? Other than that, it’s perfection and I’m so happy I can play it in Linux!

UT is the game I always come back to when I don’t feel like playing anything else. From 1999 and of course it plays like a dream in Linux. Just so many memories of the whole house fragging one another over our in home network. That and Carmageddon 2. But I haven’t tried that yet in Linux.

Plays great on Linux. What little I have played it. It looked amazing, but the tracks were so small. It’s still installed. I may play it again. I don’t know.

As I try more games, I’ll give you my thoughts. Problem is I am so picky about the games I play. But everything else is amazing on Linux! I’m so happy I switched and that I Game on Linux!

ProtonDB.com

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Tama Imperialstar vs Sonor AQ1

Denny February 10, 2023 Comments Off

So many times in my life I have proven that, “You get what you pay for.”. On occasion yeah, I have found a super great deal for quality and price. But most of the times, no.

My very first set of drums was a Slingerland set from a pawn shop somewhere in Detroit and given to me by a friend of my mom. Sparkle blue and that was my experience in drums. Never replaced a drum head or learned anything about the drums themselves as I didn’t play them as much as I should have.

Marriage, life and military career came and went and I didn’t own drums but I still played when the opportunity arose. Which wasn’t often. Shocked my last wife by playing an MTV Drumscape (no that’s not me in the video) at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Until then, she thought my skills were made up.

So it was many, many years since I owned a drum set of my own. It wasn’t until I decided to take back control of my insanely screwed up life, that I decided to get back into playing drums.

My first purchase of my own kit was a set of Roland TD-11KV with an extra tri-zone cymbal trigger pad. I did this as I was in an upstairs apartment. I played the hell out of it when time allowed.

In 2020 I finally bought an acoustic drum kit again. My Tama Imperialstar. Sadly because of apartment living, they stayed in their boxes for 18 months. Until I moved into a house where I finally had my son come over and teach me how to actually setup drums for real. Fifty-two years old and I finally learn this stuff 😑 But something was off. Way off. The snare drum would vibrate like crazy. Nothing we did would stifle the noise. The snare and most of the toms would lose tune quickly, which was insanely frustrating.

After a year plus, I realized that the introduction line of Tama drums are, in my opinion, garbage. Which is sad since my son plays Tama. Tama has a lot of great artists. But having a kit that is so poor has put the bad taste in my mouth for their products. So I researched other drums. I was going to go with SJC drums. But their decor for their kits is just not my thing and the cost was more than I could part with for just wanting to be a garage/studio/youtube musician.

Giving it much consideration, I decided to go with Sonor Drums. German made and when my new AQ1 Stage kit arrived, I was more than blown away with the quality of not only the build of the drums but with the quality of the hardware. This kit is super solid and heavy duty for being the more affordable line. It sounds and plays amazingly!

I’m still tweaking them but so far all the problems I’ve had with my Tama are gone with my Sonor. Problem I still have is time. I work a lot and share living with someone who sleeps days for working nights. Combine that and I get maybe 4-5 hours time to practice in a two week period.

Hoping to show off my new kit this summer.

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Just 15 Pounds to Go!

Denny January 28, 2023 Comments Off

In the past 31 months I have lost 155-156 pounds. My worst was 360, my lowest was 202. I’m currently at 204 as of this writing. My weight loss program is working like a champ and I am in the home stretch! It’s still a long road ahead as I have lost the fat. I’m now working at losing the excess skin. I’ll always be technically overweight even at my goal of 190. Experts say I should be 175-ish. Doubt that will ever happen.

To give you an example. When I lost 100 pounds, to celebrate I bought myself a leather jacket (the one pictured). It was still 3x in size. A few months later it was huge on me as I had lost 130 pounds. So I bought a 2x jacket. Today I received just an XL size jacket. This is the size that will likely be the end for my upper body. I went from a 6x shirt to an XL. My waist went from 52 inches to a mere 34 as of last week. I’m so proud of myself and I feel amazing!

My Keto Journey

The end is in site, but still seems very far away. And I know I can see it, I just had cataract surgery and my far vision is excellent now! So now I’m average size with no glasses!!😁

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