It's that time again, let's play 1999's It's All About the Pentiums!

It started out simple enough with my production machine: I wanted to optimize its battery usage. In Windows, my laptop has all sorts of stamina, but in Linux, it tends to gas out early. So, I thought I'd see if someone has written a package to rein in the horses a bit.

I didn't find anything immediately in the official repository, so I went Googling on Startpage. A few forums later, someone made a reference to a tool. Against my better judgment of adding outside PPA's, I added one that was mainly in Spanish. This immediately gave me second thoughts, but I so wanted battery optimization! As English is the lingua franca of the world, it's especially relevant in the Linux world, though Czechs make a surprisingly strong showing. Still, there's an expecation if it's a collaborative work, it's gonna be in English.

Well, you guessed it: I hosed my installation. If it wasn't for a Timeshift save, I wouldn't have been able to recover access to my files. Not that it was critical, as I had a Home backup that was a day or so old, but I'd hate to lose everything I did for the day. And I also got a chance to see how easy it to recover a COMPLETELY flummoxed Linux Mint system! Kernel panic on boot every time!

Momentarily, I flirted with the notion to returning to Big Tech's embrace. I mean, c'mon, don't cloud backups pull Robert Palmer onto the stage for a chorus of Simply Irresistible?

I came to my senses especially after the restoration of my box, but not after giving considerable thought on how delightful it would be to bring my two Chromebooks back online, prospects that seems to plummet immediately without a Google account.

That said, even if I kept my Google account, I could no longer use those Chromebooks because Google just arbitrarily decides to end their support, that is, I now have two unpatched boxes roaming the Internet whose sole purpose is be online. Great.

So, I decided to change that. Insert the video montage.

Along the way, I ran across this helpful tool: mrchromebox.tech/#fwscript.

...and it's use reminded of how friggin' controlling Google can be! Just layer after layer of software hassles, in a weird bid to push me in the mud so that I wouldn't alter my own system! With the last bit, it's just...well, it just further informs me of their proselytizing doodles! The last barrier for me to blast through like the Kool-Aid Man for both Chromebooks was to remove the case (something I've always found unsettling with a laptop—must be these paws of mine) and pull a screw off the motherboard whose purpose was just to stop software changes! Control much? This ain't Apple! This is an entity that espouses the virtues of open source software, whose Android and browser are both based on open source projects!

So, I yanked 'em off and was able to replace ChromeOS "developer" mode with a REAL bios! This was pivotal for a couple of reasons: 1) I can boot any USB drive; and 2) if I didn't remove it, there was this weird mode that if upon startup, I followed its default directions, it must wipe the MBR 'cause faster than a falling floppy diskette, there's this big ball of fire of wanton destruction as my ability to access MY operating system and MY files is GONE! Oh, Google and your dark magic transforming my Elven friend into an Orcish fiend!

Once the dust settled, what was once two, mothballed machines on the shelf are now two, fully-updated laptops that are full-fledged computers, not just armorless browsers. And the funny thing: I can actually run the most current Chrome browser if I want! They're not jacked—that's for sure, with one having 2 GB RAM and the other with 4 GB, but I'm trying out some lightweight distros. Unfortunately, I keep ramming into the lack of volume across Debian-based distributions—when I get a chance, this will hopefully resolve it:

bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-ucm-conf/+bug/1833116

Most importantly, for today and all of 2022, I am DeGoogled.

After 25 Expeditions spanning for a total of 1,446 days, I will be retiring the Expeditionary construct on December 16. From its early missteps as a fasting vehicle through the weeds of a low-calorie, vegan approach (intrinsically doomed to failure) and then making the turn toward winning as it launched with an indomitable spirit fueled by keto that finalized to carnivore, I have achieved a place some 149+ lbs lighter with less than 10 lbs remaining before I hit what BMI folks say is normal weight.

As 2022 is upon us, it is the moment for an end-of-month schema, chiefly as it relates to run times supplanting my focus on the scale. Though I'm throwing it in gear to do it, I don't think I'll hit my target weight of 163 lbs before New Year's Eve—I'll be close! For 2022 will not be about weight loss; it will be about composition and performance, something I've LONGED to reach for YEARS.

Even now, it's a remarkable place I now find myself. Years ago around Christmas 2011, I received a pair of Levi's from my Mom. As it turned out, it would be the last clothes she would ever buy for me. In its time frame, I thought those jeans would serve as motivation to drive down my weight. In fact, these gray jeans are at the same waist size as the single pair of black jeans I wore back in high school for line dancing, the same season as I was a wrestler. Now ten years later, I can just squeeze into those gray jeans, the only time I've EVER worn anything low rise. I'm close to where I once was! Less than 19 lbs away.

And CLEARLY, when I reach where I was, I'm going to blow that guy's fitness out of the water. Tear Down, Build Up: my vision for YEARS.

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I toyed with making 2022 a year about less tech. By less tech, I mean by adopting Big Tech, it'll be less I have to think about tech. The intent is that by doing so, I can focus in other areas, right? How great would it be to just integrate calendaring, task management, doc creation and files all into one happy place! I even went so far as to seriously consider readopting a WordPress install for this site, despite how much of a hassle it would be for me to convert these text files.

However, it doesn't work that way. I find that if I don't think about the processes, that is, I don't think about why I am doing what I am doing, I just don't tend to do them, or at least not to the level that I ought with all of this "free" processing power at my fingertips. Things just get done with a backdrop of scarcity.

And there's something about doing things the hard way that makes other things easier. Becoming more adept at one thing tends to provide the added boost of pulling together other skills as well.

I don't want a one-stop shop for everything I do online. I want my own email provider with my domain; I want to choose my calendar to be in whatever medium I desire; I want my task management system to be either a virtual sticky note on my screen or an actual sticky note; I want to manage my own backups while I understand EXACTLY where in the world they are located...I want privacy; I want security. And that's EXACTLY what Big Tech DOES NOT want me to have.

Oh, sure, they could provide it—they are far more knowledgeable on it than I ever will be, but they choose actively to run in the opposite direction, which is rather telling. So be it: folks can use those services if they wish. But as the ol' Damn Yankees song goes, Don't Tread On Me:

We walked the ground of ancient ones
Lit the fire with the rising sun
You and me, we got a full-on rage
Won't get fooled, no, I won't be caged

So, OF COURSE, I remain on my platforms for 2022! You can go ahead and fold that note to shove into the Resolutions' box! I did make a shift from DuckDuckGo since its g! option that forwarded queries to Google was in my regular rotation. So, I'm running with Startpage, the search engine that uses what I want from Google, specifically its superior ability to index sites. Startpage just packages it with privacy (which should have been there from the start). Although, I'm pretty sure I'd run with SP just to evade all that doodle proselyting nonsense.