Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

Final ant update (I hope): the ant is gone! It must have found a way out of the monitor over the weekend.

I got a free floor loom today! This is a four harness loom made by the Towle company in the 1950s or `60s. Used floor looms are like upright pianos in that they are either very expensive or very cheap/free. This one came with a bench, warping board, and a box full of accessories!

If you have a tech career, retooling is especially important. I've made 4 major career pivots so far (dev->sysadmin->security->executive) and while each was a planned and smooth transition, each required a combination of mentoring/on-the-job training and self-study.

I'm encouraged to see the growth of trade schools, not just for young adults who wouldn't be served well by a 4-year degree, but also for older adults who must retool because fewer modern career paths last someone their whole life. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/12/31/skilled-trade-education-comeback/

I wrote about our unique set of high security features for the Librem 14 such as anti-interdiction, Qubes, hardware kill switches, and PureBoot. What other security features would you like to see us add to this in the future? #infosec #hardening https://puri.sm/posts/my-recommendations-for-the-most-secure-librem-14-configuration/

Ant Update 2: Some time overnight, the ant moved again and is facing up toward 12 o'clock. It must still be alive.

Making slow but steady progress on the rug. I'm about a quarter of the way through. #weaving

Update: the ant (somehow?!) seems to have moved a bit...

Bug report: I went to brush this ant off of my monitor and discovered it was *inside* the screen. It is now permanently in my field of view unless I take my monitor apart.

The badge pairs well with this adorable vintage Comptometer oil can.

For Christmas I received a Comptometer badge. These achievement badges were originally awarded to Comptometer operators who performed exceptionally well during their Comptometer adding machine training (Comptometer-specific vocational schools like software boot camps today).

I find carrying a pen and notebook incredibly handy and I've had Field Notes-style graph notebooks in my back pocket for years. For 2022 I'm trying out a Moleskine Weekly journal instead, to see if I like making short (1 sentence) semi-daily entries in addition to regular notes.

The first wave of EVs are old enough their batteries are starting to fail. People tend to repair old ICE cars, but at a $22k price tag to replace batteries that will inevitably fail, it seems like older EVs will be thrown away instead of repaired. https://gizmodo.com/finnish-man-passes-on-paying-22-600-to-replace-his-tes-1848268874

This kind of weaving is pretty slow going. A complete 1 1/8" colored row (like that light brown section near the top) takes me about 1.5 hours to weave.

I'm making progress on my krokbragd rug. Last night I completed a single run of the color pattern, so from here on it's just a matter of repeating it until I get a 36 inch rug. #weaving

Avoiding this damage was a big reason I replaced my smart watch with an analog one and it took me many weeks to retrain my brain to stop looking at my analog watch for notifications that weren't there.

Years of on call duty meant I was hyper-attentive for phone notifications for so long, it messed w/ my brain (phantom alerts, hearing ringtone still increases heart rate). Much of society is now on call, subject to phone notifications and I worry about the damage it's doing.