MX-21.3 “Wildflower” and LMDE 5 High Level Overview

 I have been a Debian fan for about three decades now. Needless to say I really enjoy using Debian. Debian has a problem though. Debian is a great source but  a poor Distribution. Debian distribution is sparsely populated and every time I wanted to do something more, I had to install, tinker and tweak. You do not get spoiled using straight Debian.

Debian Linux does produce some awesome children. MX Linux and Linux Mint Debian Edition are two of the finest. Both distributions are similar with a few minor differences.

Linux Mint Debian Edition does an excellent job at being a Debian version of the original Linux Mint. Everything you find in Linux Mint, you find in LMDE. MX Linux on the other hand is built for users with user input on where the distribution goes and how it gets there.

I have used both until recently when my eight year old desktop decided it was not going to work any more. My new computer is about as new gets and some Linux Distributions do not work well with new computers. Others do not suit my preferences. LMDE and MX Linux however do both.

I first installed LMDE 5 and was happy except for the fact it is a back-up of sorts to Linux Mint. I installed MX Linux a month later and have also been very happy with it, with a few exceptions.

My issues with MX Linux are probably due to my hardware being so new. In the past, when I purchased a new computer, I was limited to the one distribution it would happily run for the near future. Being a Debian fan, this time I have at least these two distributions to use.

LMDE performs flawlessly, while MX Linux suffers from maintaining a few of my important configuration settings. Generally this would not be an issue, except it is for my online meetings. Printing is not so pressing.

My camera is not found when plugged into the USB Port. Neither is my USB microphone. Google Chrome - Meet - finds and turns on my webcam, but sound is not found. I also experience an after upgrade issue of no network printer. Not sure why this is either.

After a system upgrade I have to go into the Audio Mixer and reset my settings. Not sure why this is happening, and it probably will not happen six months from now. Other than these issues, I prefer MX Linux.

Both distributions have most of the software an everyday user will want. MX Linux feels like it offers more tweaks and setting adjustments, but without counting out settings and adjustments on each distro, that is a perspective matter. Kudos to MX Linux for the tool assortment contained in MX Tools.

I use a mix of software, including some KDE software and never had an issue with either distribution. I install applications not in the software store and they work as advertised, never skipping a beat.

MX Linux and Linux Mint Debian Edition are built from Debian which means they are rock solid and tested ad nauseam. Between them they differ on what type of packages used in their respective distribution.

I recommend taking either or both for a test drive on a USB stick. They are both not resource hogs and are quite fast. You will not be disappointed, and you may be pleasantly surprised.

As for me, I am using a modified Xubuntu in the moment. Xubuntu seems to work well for me when I have a new computer. More to follow in another post on Xubuntu. 

Life Dreams to Life Reality

We are "Captains" of our own ship. When we are children we start to visualize leaving the safety of the harbor and moving out to sea to unknown destinations. As we grow, our dream of moving out into the world becomes more defined. We start to define our life.

We learn the basic skills we need to learn to get through our early years and teen years. We want to be a Fireman, Policeman, Doctor, Lawyer, Mom or Dad. We want to go to college, be in a band, and live on Mars. We are going to get married, adventure, live in the woods alone. We contemplate many future lives.

Our world does not immediately start to change every time we change our mind. When we are young and in school, this is okay. Being young and in school is the time of life when we are supposed to be trying new things and exploring new dreams. When we hit our late teens to twenties, things become more serious. We start to distill our dreams into our life.

Current life choices and decisions sometimes get in the way of what we think we want. What your parents have done with their life may be the first big obstacle to overcome. We start to align our dreams to our future life goals.

Being part of a circus and being an Internet star at the same time are extreme contrasts. These both may be achievable, but each takes its own energy and planning to be successful. One of these dreams may need to defer to the other. Dream and life disparity creates muddled results.

We often modify our expectations as we grow. Our dreams start converging with our life path. Going to and graduating from college to found our own business is an goal of converging dreams. Changing what we want sometimes leads to confusion and frustration. We are focusing on and clarifying our future life.

You decide to go to college. When you enter college, you are required to take almost two years of basic classes whether you have an interest in those subjects or not. The reason for this is two fold. First, you are exposed to different areas of areas of life. Psychology, Biology, Math, English and Foreign Language are all part of life. You gain a broader view of your future possibilities.

One day you wake up to an epiphany. You want to become the owner of a non-profit. The world of capitalism, you decide is not for you. You have found a more important direction for your life. But college is all about capitalism. That is how college is built. You are now in a dream/life conflict.

You are going to find some speed bumps in your road, and you may be detoured from your dreams for a time. Your world starts making the changes you want to help make your dreams happen. Your classes are now a two edged sword. How do you take what you are learning, apply it to what you want, and make it work? Do all parts of your dream future fit together cohesively?

When it comes to your dreams, there are a couple of key truths. The longer you hold onto your biggest dream, and apply yourself to it, the more your world changes to make it happen. You cannot expect your world to stop and change course every time you change your mind. What has been done to create your present life will run its course. Be ready for bumps in the road while you focus on making your newest dreams align with your life.

Depending on how focused you are and how you apply yourself, change may be quick. Immediate drastic change will force you to make hard decisions. Align your dreams, follow your goals and you will get there. You can make your dreams reality, if you stay focused and help to make them happen.

Striped Bed Sheets Save You Time

Colorful flower patterned sheets can really brighten up a bedroom. Flower patterns and solid colors reign when it comes to sheet patterns. For me, I prefer to spend as little time changing sheets and making the bed as possible. I use sheets having a striped pattern.

A striped pattern makes putting fresh sheets on the bed really simple. Stripes either go vertical or horizontal, so either way it is easy to align the fitted sheet and top sheet to the mattress. No thinking, no putting, pulling up and turning ninety degrees because you were not paying attention to the little tag, if you are lucky enough to have one to tell the long side from the short side.

Putting sheets on a bed is not a time consuming project. Putting striped on takes little or no thought about which way they fit the bed, and saves a minute to two each time the bed is made and the sheets are changed. In this day and age when many of us are going without sleep to squeeze in a few more minutes, saving a few minutes a day is saving a lot. 

Add all those saved minutes up over a year, add in the lack of frustration over having to pull up, rotate, and pull the sheet [again] down over the box spring, striped sheets make changing sheets a painless task.

During non sleep hours, no one I know goes into their bedroom to admire their sheets. When the lights are out, your sheets could be the most garish colors you can imagine, and it doesn't matter, you do not see them. Consider for the most part, you and perhaps one other person see your sheets, and then for only a few minutes, so why not stripes?

For those few minutes in between, considering the time and frustration of patterned sheets, stripes make sense. Broad stripes, pin stripes, multicolored stripes. The idea is to make one little task a little faster and simpler. Save those beautiful sheets for when company is coming. Too bad all tasks can not be so easily simplified.

For the curious, the sheets in the picture are, "breathable microfiber". The most comfortable sheets I have found to date, and the price is reasonable too.

Norwegian Wood, Truth and Fiction

When I was a young adult and still immortal, I worked in a resort town in California as a Dinner Cook. This small town had one radio station and it played the current week's top forty songs in a loop, sixteen hours a day starting Monday Morning, ending Sunday evening. It was piped through the restaurant. A new top forty loop started 08:00 on Monday morning when the radio station came back on the air to start its week.

One week, the radio station included an instrumental that I really enjoyed. I had no idea why there were no lyrics, and I didn't think it was top 40,  but it was a very pleasant song. The song I found out was by the Beatles, and its name was Norwegian Wood. Once I learned the title, I thought the song had been released some years earlier, but not being a Beatles fan, I was not really sure.

One of my co-workers, Hans, and I were talking about nothing important one afternoon when the acoustic version of the song Norwegian Wood came on over the radio.  I mentioned to Hans, I thought the song was a well done instrumental, and I wondered what the words to the song were. I asked Hans if he new the words to the song.

Hans started singing, "I'm just sitting here, here on this log, drinking my beer...."

I spent a number of years knowing only the first stanza - of an alternate version of the song, Norwegian Wood.

I learned a valuable lesson from that moment. When someone tells you something, it is not always true.

Late Morning Funeral

I attended the funeral of a forty-two year old man. I met him first when he was about ten, on a camping trip. I saw him a few times since then, mostly in random encounters. He died a senseless meaningless death. Someone took his life from him, though it is possible he encouraged his death via his life style.

The eulogy, if eulogy is the correct word, started with pictures of a happy-go-lucky kid. It ended with a series of posed pictures that would not be shared too far away from immediate family. It was mentioned he remained happy-go-lucky throughout his life.

With the funeral in progress I gazed at what represented him now. He was inside a small pearl white box with two rosaries draped over it. On top was a black baseball cap. I do not remember the patch on it, but knew from his last pictures it was his current favorite hat. In the first rows sat immediate family members who now have him in only in their hearts. Others sat behind, relatives, friends, friends of the family.

What a senseless death it was. Preceded by what to me was a mostly invisible adult life. There was not much said in the eulogy that seemed unexpected, nor mention of what type of person he was. There was a brief mention of his having children, but little about any family life. Listening to the words of the eulogy, he seemed to have lived in a semi-vacuum. It added to my sense of loss, this man gone in the middle of his life, with so little said at the end about what he had done with his life.

I had a brief few moments speaking with one of his siblings later in the day. I wanted to express my anger and frustration over his meaningless death. I said how badly I felt for his family, now left behind, his brothers and sisters. The Sibling's response was one of the most profound comments I have ever heard.

"He lived the life he wanted to live". I immediately understood the volumes of unsaid life details and feelings which were wrapped into those few words that were not included in the eulogy. It was not important that I knew little about his adult life. It did not matter there was nothing said of what he had done with his life up to that moment.

He lived his life as wanted to. His end was apparently no surprise, possibly not even to him. It seems the happy, fun loving ten year old boy, grew up, took what life offered, and went on from there. In eight little words, I understood it did not matter what I did not know more about his life. We were not there to listen to or pass judgement on how he lived his life. We attended his funeral to validate him, nothing more, nothing less.

Life is mostly about luck. You are lucky at the right moments or you are not. Maybe he was lucky to have lived so long? Maybe he made his own version of lemonade with the lemons life gave him. I will never know. I don't need to know. I do know, no matter what he did or what people who knew him, thought about him, "he lived the life he wanted to live". I find it difficult to say there is a better way to live.

What peace there is now, to know that no matter how much I wish someone would change this or that in their life to better suit how I think they should live their life, they are indeed living the live they wish to live. I will keep this thought with me for the rest of my days. The most profound and liberating comment on life, I have heard yet.

"He lived the life he wanted to live."

Games and American Politics

In his 1964 book, "Games People Play", , Psychiatrist Eric Berne identified several life scripts people "play" as, "Games". This book is a fascinating read once you start reading about the actual "Games", recognizing yourself and others as playing in select games. You can read about some of them here: Games People Play 

The reason Berne called what we do, "Games", is because we play games our whole life. We learn our first games in infancy from our parents, and learn other games as we grow older. Some games are played by only one person, others need a group of like players to be successful. Think of party games (discussions) people play when they group up, each in their own part of the room.

One interesting 'Game', Berne identified is named, "If it weren't for Him". If it weren't for Him, is a Game which until [relatively] recently was played mostly by women. An encapsulated version goes like this:

Young Women who are unconsciously scared of participating in the adult world find mates who are controlling and possessive. This way people can blame everything the Woman  does not do on her Husband. The Husband will not let them do those things most Women do every day. Think work, window shopping, and coffee clutches.

From an outsiders point of view, it appears the Husband is a jealous control freak who refuses to let the oppressed Wife do anything that, "takes her away from home". In the unconscious "Oppressed" Woman's mind, the Husband, "relieves" the woman from doing anything she feels uncomfortable doing. For example working, having a social life, and so on.

Politicians have adopted, "If it weren't for Him",  as their most favorite game. No matter which party is the Dominant Party after an election, nothing changes. For example, during the eight year Republican control of the Presidency, Senate and House, nothing really changed during that eight year reign. Vis a Vis when Democrats are in almost total control, nothing much changed.

Both Political Parties claim, "If not for the Democrats/Republicans blocking our legislation, we could do great things for America. The political form of the game, "If not for him", is always in full operation. Think about this for a minute and see if you agree.

Senators and House Members each play their part to ensure the 'Other Party' does not pass any meaningful legislation - unless public opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of it. Then the Political Machine is forced to act together or risk losing their jobs.

Most of the time however, Political Party Leaders and charismatic party members stand up and basically state and restate, 'We want to pass this legislation, but the other party opposes our legislation, stonewalling us', or something to to that effect.

This favorite game mostly played by Women for thousands of years is cemented in place as a favorite  political game, "If not for the, "Other Party"". Politicians also play other variations of this game. Other variations such as, "If there was only enough money", "only enough time in the legislative session", are also political favorites across the board.

Time Change Improved

 It's day something of the Day Light Savings time change. Does the time change make you feel good? Will you feel good by the end of the day or does it feel like you are working late? Do you feel off already, and you know it is only going to get worse until the time changes back again?

Twice a year we have dead horse discussions about daylight savings time. We talk around the idea of should we have daylight savings time or not. Some people are all for changing to the spring time setting. Others for the fall back time. A smaller third group is happy with the way things are.

It is obvious the way we manage the time swings right now is not working well for most people. When we fall back in the fall, I for one spend weeks adjusting. Then waking up at four in the morning in the Spring when we spring back.

As I was listened to yet another podcast about time change issues, I had a flash of insight! Why do we need to pick either one hour this way or one hour that way? What is wrong with making a change we will most benefit from? We simply fall back one-half hour in the fall, and spring forward one-half hour in the spring.

Changing one-half hour every six months, or changing the time one-half hour and leaving time change alone for the foreseeable future is reasonable. This time flipping is too hard on too many people.

There is of course the problem with the rest of the world, trying to figure out the time in the United States is on, but in the digital age, when business runs twenty-four hours a day, it really does not matter if our time is 30 or 60 minutes different because of the time zone differences. The world already adjusts to our twice a year time flops.

Of course, it is possible that the seventy countries who do observe daylight savings time, could follow our lead, and change their time by thirty minutes also. The countries who do not follow any time change pattern may also decide changing their national time by thirty minutes is a good idea for them too.

Time change is archaic and doesn't make sense in the 2000's. It was signed into law in 1966, when it felt right. In the 56 years hence, it doesn't feel all that good to most of America, and probably a large portion of the world. Let us make a time compromise by applying the Nash equilibrium to cure a nation wide time problem.