Tag: System76

Considering a new laptop, again

This morning started off a little bit slower than it should have. Somebody turned off their alarm and slept in for an hour. It was me. I claimed that extra hour of sleep. I started looking at System76 laptops again this morning. Right now I’m torn between the Lemur Pro and the Darter Pro. I like the idea of 14 hours of battery on the Lemur Pro. However, the Pixelbook Go chromebook I’m using is showing no signs of failing any time soon. We will see how that one plays out. My big plan for this morning is to work on two blocks of content related to weeks 135 and 136.    

Half of that writing objective is now complete and the content for week 135 is out of draft and will need to sit this week before being edited again after some time passes. That is one of those things about having content in review for a number of weeks that improves it. As a writer I need a bit of time to pass before I’m ready to really provide solid editing, review, and remediation to my own words. The research and digging part of week 136 is up and running. I’m out on Google Scholar and digging around into content. This is one of those use cases for buying a tablet I think where it would be easier to sit around and read PDF documents of academic articles while holding a tablet. Reading articles on my phone is a recipe for problematic experiences. The form factor just does not work for me and I don’t enjoy it. You can imagine that it destroys the experience for me and that is enough to stop the progress. 

Generally, I read things sitting at my computer which is currently setup to support a 4 screen view where my Chromebook only gives a single screen view when that is preferable. My desktop setup is totally immersive with two 38 inch monitors vertically stacked on an ATDEC stand. This is going to end up being a productive weekend where 4 blocks of content were for the most part created, reviewed, or completed. I even found the tripod and an extra battery for my Sony ZV-1 camera in a backpack that is rarely used. Things are moving along. 

My side quest backlog is also working well enough during the weekdays. I am far enough ahead of that and my regular writing plan efforts that this afternoon I might be able to whiteboard for a couple of hours and really refine the side quest backlog. Friday evening I wrote out 3 good things I needed to accomplish this weekend to really strap rocket boosters to the side quest and I’m 1 of 3 complete on that target list. We will see what happens within my efforts to close out the other 2 outstanding items.

A slow start to an otherwise normal Tuesday

All sorts of posting happened this weekend on the old weblog/blog. I was super productive on the writing front as well. It was just one of those weekends where a lot of words happened. Then we ran into Monday where things just fell off the applecart and no words were written for the blog. It’s entirely possible that it was due to the need for a visit to the chiropractor. One of the things that just disrupts all my writing momentum is a bit of back pain. As a disrupter that cause is undefeated for sure. Today I got back up at 0500 without my alarm and sat down to write in front of my Dark Base Pro 900 computer case by Be Quiet! a company from Germany. They make a very quiet computer case. I’m actually curious when they will release a successor to the highly successful 900 series. 

Most of you who read this blog know that building a custom computer is a fun adventure, but not an adventure that happens every year. Right now my current parts configuration is working out well enough. I’m not really in the market for a full computer rebuild at this point. Most of the time that happens it is a part by part ordering process. I would probably start with whatever Be Quiet! produced as a new computer case and then slowly add new parts until it was time to swap the new computer in to replace the old one. Generally speaking, my computer needs involve one desktop as my primary daily driver and a laptop of some sort to allow me to go mobile. 

I’m probably not buying any major computer hardware at the moment. At some point, my Pixelbook Go is going to have a hardware failure and be replaced with a new laptop from System76. That could happen at any moment or a year from now. Nothing really resides on the Pixelbook Go in terms of files as it happens to be a nearly completely cloud based device. Opening code notebooks or word processing documents is really about saving things to the cloud and moving along. That type of scenario is nice as you can switch seamlessly between the laptop and desktop without any friction.