Keep software simple

In the early 2000s when I began to use Linux, a lot of things seemed a bit experimental and iffy. I would install and reinstall distros and software. Nowadays I feel that it is generally more stable, and there are long periods when everything works just as it should.

But occasionally things still go wrong. After installing a new version of Darktable photo editing software in a flatpak, the application started to crash. The problem was with the database – I hate databases; they so often seem to be a source of problems. I’ve now gone back to an earlier version of Darktable and hope that it will be quiet.

In between, I learned a bit about another photo editing program, Lightzone, which seems to be simpler and doesn’t have a database – a plus, from my point of view. But still something wasn’t right – there’s always a learning curve.

I think a better solution to these matters could be not to require elaborate photo editing software at all – my new old Fujifilm X10 is capable of producing good results that do not need editing – other than cropping and rescaling – which I can do adequately and easily in XnView.

I have been having other software issues as well, with both the fediverse servers I use. Epicyon didn’t work for a couple of days, and now the site won’t open again. Hubzilla has suddenly stopped allowing me to add photos to albums that I create – probably a file authorization problem that has come since upgrading to a new version.

I think the solutions to these problems are probably not too difficult – but they will take time to identify, and I ask myself whether this is something I want to continue dealing with. My blogging software is so much more simple and trouble-free. “Simple and trouble-free” is irresistably attractive. Social media software is better for repeating or linking to posts and images that have already been published in my blog, while following others who have interesting posts. I’m not sure that I really need to run a server at all for that.

product features vs user needs (cartoon showing complicated structure on one side, and a cat in an empty box on the other. — Figure 1: Seen on the internet

My current blogging software is a simple Lisp program created in and employing emacs. The photo gallery software is another small php program that doesn’t depend on a database. I didn’t create either of these programs, but the possibilities for something to go wrong are slight, and the system is fairly secure, since anyway the whole caboodle is uploaded from local files. Still something went wrong the other day, after a Chromium update. The blog began to use a wrong font. I solved the error by changing the font’s file-name from a *.woff to a *.woff2, if I remember rightly. That wasn’t too painful.

Back from America

Back from the US to the turmoil of this Jewish-Israeli intifada, which is only getting worse. With this people and government it’s like the cliché about when an irresistable force meets an immovable object. So far neither are giving way though the government is showing more signs of stress than the people on the streets are showing signs of despair.

I’m jetlagged – should be asleep now. Besides the change in time zones, there have been two daylight saving time switches: first in the US and now here.

I went for a walk with my new old camera on Thursday to learn more about it. I’ve posted a few photos. Spring is about at its peak here now and the greenery is lush, with more rain predicted for the weekend.

Diary

I am in the US for the last ten days. I came over because my brother was in hospital. He drove himself there just in time, in the middle of a heart attack; collapsing on the hospital floor. They gave him CPR and snapped him back, and, in the following days performed catheterization and angioplasty. However, he suffered another three cardiac arrests afterwards at the hospital, where he also needed CPR. I arrived just before they installed a device called an Implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), which is considered necessary in order resolve a problem known as arrhthmia, where the heart is not able to maintain its normal rhythms.

After this last operation, he has been all right. He was released a few days later with mainly bruises to show following the various procedures they administered. They sent him home with about 16 medicines, some of which he is supposed to take temporarily for a few days afterwards. He must change lifestyle habits that contributed to his medical emergency. The question, as always, is whether he will succeed.

In the early few days of my stay I stayed at a motel, then at an Air B&B within walking distance of the hospital. Afterwards I came to stay with my brother at his one bedroom basement apartment. We’ve been having long conversations. I think that a person that came so close to death but survived must have a reason to go on living. To place this in a spiritual frame, if someone almost died but has returned, there must be further karma that they need to work out in this life. My suggestion to him is that he will try to discover what more he needs, or desires, to further accomplish.

His life-long interest has been photography, and he has given me an old camera, which I have been trying to study, with the help of YouTube and other sources. It’s a Fujifilm X10.

Anyway, he assures me that this is the kind of camera that I have been looking for. Despite being released several years ago, it still gets excellent reviews. People recommend it for the type of photos I like to take: nature, travel, streets, self-documentation. It’s small and tough enough to take anywhere, which is basically what I want – so I’m hopeful and eager to get out with it. The camera I’ve been using, a Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS45, developed a problem of dust within the lens or sensor, which leaves artifacts on the photos. Fixing it will be expensive, so there is a question of whether it’s worthwhile. But I never really liked the results that that camera gave me. I like mainly its size and tiltable screen. Anyway, I’m glad I’m not buying another new camera, fresh from some factory in China.

Early experiments

A few others from today are in the photoblog.

Saving our sources of inspiration

Spirituality is an important human impetus. It provides meaning to our lives and helps us to see beyond the horizon of our known world. Without it, existence would be flat and two-dimensional. With spirituality, we regain a sense of wonder at a universe that seems to transcend our finite understanding and diminished view.

Unfortunately, everywhere we look, religion, which often serves as the vehicle for spirituality, appears to be polluted. Churches with dangerous, predatory bishops. Corrupt or violent ayatollas. Murderous hindutwa extremists. Rabbis with hands soaked in blood. Buddhist monks urging genocide; avaricious gurus, vile gun-toting adherents of every creed. Whereever you look, among established faiths and new ones, our sources of inspiration are sullied by these associations. Even putting aside all the extremists, most of our religions are infected with a patriarchal world-view, homophobia and archaic values that need to be left in the trash can of history.

The urge is to shrug off all religion, to throw the baby out with the bath water. If we wish to take the time and the energy, we can do so. We can work through the core material with which religion and spirituality deal and chalk out a way for ourselves. We can ask the right questions, and maybe find solutions that we can live by – perhaps drawing these from an eclectic mix of the world’s spiritual teachings or divining new ones.

However, if we don’t have the time, the wisdom, the capacity or the inclination to follow that lonely route, we may need to adopt a religion or a spiritual guide, and not allow the the obvious and super-abundant pollution to touch the sources of our inspiration: to protect the weak candle of our belief from the foul wind; to let the beauty of a faintly heard bhajan wash our soul; or let the adhan wake us, for “prayer is better than sleep”.