Moments lost in time... like tears in the rain

I started this blog on my Protoss Pylon server from a simple thought.
Everyone only has a finite amount of time they are given.
Watching a simple movie about the Day of the dead, I see a majestic and magnificent digital representation of a people's vision of the after-life.
One where we can see our living loved ones after death, until no one is left to remember us from which we move on to the next phase of our existence.
I believe the continual doubt of what comes after death gives us purpose in life.
Personally, I would love to live forever, see where humanity goes. That's one sad thing about passing on… There is a chance one may never find out what happens.
See the wonders we come up with next as a species. See if each new generation can strive to do better and find new ways to keep our planet healthy.
A way to live forever is obviously not possible, so from a matter of perspective…. my perspective…. here is the next best thing.

There is a website called called The Wayback Machine that has been archiving websites since 1996.
Sites that you can no longer view, you can simply search for and walk down memory lane.
Prime example, is that site archived from 1996.
Note the 1996 presidential election archive from all the way back then still referenced on the site.

I owned a business called Tobias Computer Services that was operating around 2008.
The business went away when I got a job that required me to be full time. That started my true career in the Software Industry.
My company site died shortly after that happened… but The Wayback machine archived the site so you can see it today.

Here's to this blog being archived and seen hopefully 2000 years from now… People looking at this site within that era, that came from technology that might as well be from cave men in comparison.
This one's for you space man… whenever and wherever you are. Hope you get a good chuckle from a guy that's been dead a long time now.

I received AT&T fiber a few months ago. As someone who started out trying to download .mp3 files at 2.30 Kbps on a 56K modem over a phone line… this was like accomplishing the impossible.
I remember playing the original Counter-Strike, learning to type in the dark, getting that dreaded phone call that would drop the modem just at the end of a match.
Tech has come a long way since those days.

So why not build a wiki server where I can post my thoughts?
Keep myself sane as I commit some of my daily events to the digital landscape that is the internet.
Of course, this is just one blog of many, others of which are more accessible due to not being on a dynamic dns domain.

Yesterday, 4/14/2023, I spent at least 3 or 4 hours attempting to adapt a template I built at my job.
Due to it being out of date, I could not get it to work properly on this server. Uses .Less files instead of .css files which is difficult to get working on a Windows server.
The server that hosts what I built at work, is Linux.
I am of course a Windows guy… might have dabbled in MacOS a bit, but just have Windows too ingrained in my mind to switch to something else.
Out of curiosity, I decided to consult the fabled new ChatGPT to see what it thought about the situation.
For being the first time using it, I was very excited about it's response as it was pretty close to diagnosing my issue the way I did.
I really do believe ChatGPT is going to be very special in the future and was fortunate that the CEO of the company I work for spotted it before it ever became big.

Amazing technology! Also here is an apt picture:

So after seeing the benefits of going to the latest version of Dokuwiki, I decided to start from scratch and use the bootstrap3 template rather then the mikio template. Picked a theme, might customize it later, but the colors are decent and easy to read and perfect for a blog / aggregation site.
After setting up all the usual plugins I have accumulated over the years, I moved on to working on my gravatar signature icon.
Surprisingly… this works differently than on the older wiki I built, required an email rather than a username.
Was an unfortunate amount of time spent trying to figure that out, but it is working now.

Decided to pick up this book based on a suggestion from my audible account (if you are reading this Juana, my love, thank you for my books) since I loved The Hail Mary Project and The Bobiverse series.
Also, I have been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and am on Season 5. Love the series, glad I get to watch it for the first time.

The book is about these crew members on a star ship called The Intrepid. The main protagonist of the book becomes it's newest crew member and things are not what they appear. The regular crew acts very strangely when ever a member of the bridge crew comes anywhere near them. Very bad and unexplainable things happen to people around them. There is even a secret statistic floating around the ship showing the chances of someone being maimed or killed if they go on an away mission with any of them.

For example, one of the bridge crew always has stuff blowing up around them, meaning they are a veritable death trap.
Someone is always guaranteed to die on an away mission when he is commanding, so all the regular crew do their best not to be picked when he is on the roster.

The interesting thing is, even though the regular crew die, the bridge crew always survive.
Depending on which ship bridge leader is on the mission, when one crew member dies, all the rest have to do is stick with him and they will live. Even becomes a funny useful tactic later in the book as they use a bridge crew member to their advantage since the laws of physics seem to change postively around them.

Finished this book, definitely recommend it as a fun read.
There is even some added irony in that Will Wheaton narrates (he plays Wesley Crusher who wears a Redshirt on Star Trek: The Next Generation).

When I finished Redshirts, I decided to ask ChatGPT bot what books it would recommend based on the audiobook.
The bot did not disappoint, it recommended Old Man's War.

I have not finished this one but I have found it hard to stop listening to.
It is about a future society where when you turn age 75 you are given the choice to join the space military.
They offer you the ability to see the stars and even somehow manage to make you young by enhancing you.
Haven't gotten far enough to know what this is, but it sounds interesting.

When you decide to join, you are officially dead on earth and can never come back.
They give you 3 days to make sure it is what you want to do and even help you distribute your assets among your family.
I can only imagine some shenanigans will ensue as no one who signs up knows exactly how they are enhanced or what is in store for them.

Sounds lucrative, I think if I turned 75 and was alone, I would take the deal.

After all, we are made of star stuff.

Jonathan Corona
Technology Enthusiast