Off
Posted on April 1, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 221 words
| Robert McLaughlin
I took yesterday off from my paid job. PTO - Paid Time Off. It’s an odd phrase, paid time off, as if off is not the normal state, or that off can even have a state, and needs to be qualified as paid. Not off is the real qualified state. Who is directing my attention right now? Me = default state = off. Not me = not off. I could make a valid point that all time is default state and not off is by choice, which is true, but because the consequences of not choosing not off are dire it is not realistic.
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Book Note - Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Posted on March 29, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 348 words
| Robert McLaughlin
For a while I though this book would beat me. Big page counts don’t intimidate me, although as I get older smaller fonts do. I started Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton in late 2020 or early 2021, with the goal of finishing it by the end of 2021. My intent was that it would be the non-fiction book that I would read around my fiction books and I’d finish it a bit at a time.
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Book Note - Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Posted on March 28, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 298 words
| Robert McLaughlin
I heard enough chatter about Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin that I added it to my to-be-read list and then dodged it for awhile. All I knew is that it was popular and I’ve been more hit than miss over the years with popular books. Little Fires Everywhere, Where the Crawdads Sing and Big Little Lies were all pretty good books. Others, like Caste, which probably deserves its own post, were misses.
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Enough
Posted on March 22, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 453 words
| Robert McLaughlin
Two quotes come to mind as I ponder the result of my website change:
Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.
Bruce Lee
Pivot!
Ross Geller
I wanted to add an interactive comment section to the site and I have been pushing a rock up a hill for a month trying to make it work.
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Book Note - Stoner by John Williams
Posted on March 14, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 309 words
| Robert McLaughlin
As far as I can remember this is the first time I started a reading year with 2 books rated 9 so early. There is balance in the Force and unfortunately for me, my book 15 this year was a dud and rated a 4. There was a glimmer of hope that the story would turn, and alas it did not. This book was so worthless that I’m not going to mention the title, with the hope it will fade from human memory.
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Pihole
Posted on March 8, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 244 words
| Robert McLaughlin
I installed Pihole on my home network with a mixed result. Pihole’s job is to stop ads, trackers and all kinds of other internet network nonsense. It works. I was able to see it stop THOUSANDS of things that I never even knew were there.
After testing it for a few days I turned Pihole off because there were two negatives. First, Pihole blocks all ads including the ones you may want to see.
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Update
Posted on February 25, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 264 words
| Robert McLaughlin
Behind the scenes there’s a lot going on with the site. I got it in my head to add the ability to allow you dear readers to comment and I’m working on that.
I also have (what I think is) a pretty cool side project that I have been working on with my home network. My network arose from the decline of the dvd player and that The Office left Netflix, and for a while Harry Potter left HBO.
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Issue Resolved
Posted on February 4, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 434 words
| Robert McLaughlin
My mastery of language is fading.
I had some ongoing frustrations with hosting on GoDaddy last year, and AWS the year before. Even though mclaughlin.one is a very fancy and influential site on the interwebs, the horsepower required to support and deliver this site is modest. Because it’s mostly text, the whole site totals only 11 mb and can be delivered easily.
Due to the low computing and storage requirements, I built this on OCI on the ‘Always Free’ tier.
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Peer Pressure
Posted on January 31, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 284 words
| Robert McLaughlin
I suffer from a bit of fear of missing out on occasion with things that are culturally popular. It irritates me tremendously when people are talking about a book I have not read. As a result every once in a while I read something that I otherwise would not have.
In 2019 I read Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow, mostly because there was so much chatter about it. Sometimes you have to decide if what you are reading really is true and I finished that book believing every word.
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Lily's Blanket
Posted on January 25, 2023
| 1 minutes
| 87 words
| Robert McLaughlin
It snowed here today. With the exception of some necessary driving a good time was had by most, especially Lily. We walked over lunch and her inner puppy came out. It was slippery, or slippy depending on where you are from, and I was more worried about falling that frolicking.
Lily had some ups and downs - she did not like walking into the wind and considers the plow a mortal enemy.
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