John BS @johnabs@social.cleverlibre.org

"I am silent, save the soft clack of my keyboard. I ponder deeply over the current quandary; progress has been slow of late, and late it is indeed.

Drip, rumble: the sounds of rain outside my window softly caress the ragged corners of my mind with the temptation of a dark, warm shower to cut off the assault on my senses. I know even in my damp solitude I cannot escape my yoke, for my mind continues to pull it.

Piano notes flit gently like moths drawn to my ears. They hit their targets with unexpected force, each chord jolting my fraying psyche into focus anew, if only for a brief moment. I continue working as I have done all day: beyond my limit.

Thoughts of sleep haunt me, the desire for true repose I don't believe will come; only a poor facsimile which provides barely enough to complete another day.

'Why?'

The question echoes in my mind. After hours of staring at a blinking cursor, and countless error messages, I fail to steel myself into action. I am finally still.

After what seems like both an instant and eternity, I decide rest may prove more fruitful, and head to sleep. Before my drift into that all too temporary bliss, I pray I will finally awaken with renewed vitality."

--My life right now 😩 😭

I just realized, this May will mark the 10 year anniversary of me starting my career as a researcher, and will be 10 years since my trip to Taiwan to work on my first research project.

I've learned a lot since then, but I still love what I do.

Y'all ever heard of Zulip? I just saw it on hackernews and I think I'm going to recommend it to my advisor that we use for our research group, especially since it's free for researchers! Sometimes it pays to get paid way less than what you could generate in the free market 😂

https://zulip.com/case-studies/lean/

As someone with a moderate fear of heights, Elden Ring is seriously making me anxious XD

@Pat @zpartacoos @namark

Thanks for your advice everyone! My wife and I finally got a bit of a break to regroup and think out a new strategy we'll be trying once our puppy gets back from our in-laws this weekend. She's having a blast with their 5 kids, and we think something that really excites her and tires her out is meeting new people, which we'll try to incorporate into her routine!

She already learned fetch which helps with her activity needs, and after spending some time with their boys she was just tuckered out. Worst case scenario, she seems like a great fit for their family, since they have so many hands on deck to keep her occupied, but we're going to do our best to provide an awesome home for this dog and play it by ear with my in-laws too!

So I won a teaching award from my university, and I'm really happy about it. I always tried really hard in my previous program to teach well, but rarely got recognition aside from my students. I'm so glad my efforts were noticed and even awarded this time. It's a huge boost, and I'm super grateful 😁

I am in the unfortunate position of needing to consider rehoming my puppy if nothing else works, and I'm hoping something will, because I'll be heartbroken if I have to give her up.

She is eating up every moment of my time with severe (what seems to be) separation anxiety which means I've barely gotten any work done at all. I'm exhausted, and so is my wife, who already has attentional issues, and the lack of sleep has just made functioning at all with such a demanding pup so much harder.

We're at the end of our rope here, and as much as I absolutely adore this dog, I'm not sure my wife and I can provide what she needs, whatever it is. If anyone else here has struggled with something similar and has advice, please let me know. We're desperate.

So my puppy loves Debussy and other classical music and saxophone jazz. She calms right down and just falls asleep in my lap with it on! You know what they say: "like daddy like daughter" XD

Oh! One more thing, for those of you with insomnia, sensory issues to noise while sleeping (or a tired puppy who can't ignore sounds yet) I HEAVILY recommend brownian noise + human heartbeat noises. I'm not sure whatever coma I arose from this morning, but I haven't slept better in bloody ages.

There's a free app on FDroid that provides this, called Noice.

So I spoke a bit too early yesterday, as she peed on herself while she was asleep somewhere between 8-11pm lmao. Fortunately, she really likes being bathed for some reason, and she slept for a full 8 hours last night, so I'll take it 😂

Puppy is getting better at not pooping/peeing all over herself and requiring a 30-50 minute bath, blow-dry, brush session due to a strict diet of pureed pumpkin today. Solid poops, and only ~3-4 instead of 8+ liquid ones yesterday. #winning

Also DAP hormone is a God-send, as it seriously helps her calm down completely in her crate and stay asleep, rather than screaming for 20 minutes then not sleeping for an hour until she starts screaming again. I just need to find a diffuser that doesn't need to be replaced every 6 months and I'll buy it immediately in the hopes it finally breaks the bad screaming habit for good. (we hotboxed her with this lotion and it worked decently lol)

Pro tip: if you get a small puppy, get some sort of smart camera strictly dedicated to monitoring them during crate training. It helps ease your mind if they're crying, and considering she's had 2 poo explosions so far due to an upset belly, helps you check to make sure if they are crying "legitimately" to go outside or just because they dont like being by themselves for any number of femtoseconds.

Also, a floor steamer/general purpose steam cleaner is an absolute must for sanitizing after blowouts. (Honestly, just get the latter with a floor attachment, steam cleaning is incredibly bloody efficient).

Floofer tax:

Oh my goodness, I have an adorable new puppy, but crate training is breaking my heart as she's crying right now because she is so desparate for human attention CONSTANTLY. Thank God my wife is good at this part

Professor wants us to solve 57 difficult homework questions in a week that he's not even going to grade, but we'll get a 0 if we don't do them...consider this course dropped lmao

I've had chronic pain issues for a while, but now they're in my temples.

Here's hoping that eating healthier, fasting, and exercise will help with both issues; I'm sick of feeling ill with no available explanation. 🤞

If you've got 12 minutes, please check this out. This is shocking and horrible that Tech giants don't only monopolize data, but are starting to monopolize water as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo7V4PPHijs

I was wrong about the mic q.q It's great as an audio sink, but not so much as a source on linux. Looks like I need to return yet another one 😖

I heavily recommend the Elgato Wave 3 microphone; just grabbed one and it way outclasses my old Yeti (and a Yeti replacement I tried recently). Great quality, no hissing, and it's pretty smart.

I'm honestly blown away by how fast computers can do their thing. I computed 2009! on my crappy old Thinkpad in Julia and it just cranked it out like it was nothing, less than a second. Absolutely incredible, considering the result is on the order of 10^5776.

Graham's number though? That may take a while 😂