Older blog entries for AilleCat (starting at number 9)

23 Mar 2001 (updated 23 Mar 2001 at 12:44 UTC) »

Thoughts on burnout:

So anyway, I've been doing computer stuff for like 8 years, and honestly, I did it for several reasons. I was good at it, 'nuff said. But there was alot more to it. Its where the money was, I was interested in exploring my geek side. I needed money to transition (from male to female)

So the last few months, I no longer feel the drive I have towards computers, Open Source, and anything else having to do with coding/sysadmin/network architecture, all three of which I have done, and enjoyed alot. I'm starting to get this drive to enjoy life outside the office, the home office, and away from the computer. Before I was locked in a relationship with someone who would not let me explore other parts of myself, she reveled in my geekness, as much, or more than I did.

So, its definitely burnout, I mean I have so much to do, I have information on trademarks and copyright that I got from Larry Rosen, to pass onto Listar core, I have the OSTF stuff to think about, I'm still working for OSDN, I'm writing for /. and Open, and I'm feeling so overextended. This is all besides the transgender activism I do, my relationships with several people, and all the kink stuff I do. Trish is a busy girl, and just a little burnt out.

Happier Stuff (and a bit of a bummer):

So Angela and Robin left yesterday evening, it was nice having cuddle partners a few days, and maybe a little more than that...

I *think* the relationship is being slightly redefined, but I'm not sure, so some processing must be done with both of them. But I'm trying to figure out how to breach the subject. Ahhh! I have an idea! How about ,simply, "Where is the new boundary?", the annoying thing about it was, evidently it was redefined for Robin and Angela, and they kept it a secret, like it was supposed to surprise me (which it did, and I'm honored that they love me as much as I love them), and honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about changing the relationship dynamic, kissing fine, outside of that, I'd like to know where this is going, and honestly, I'm happy with whatever, I love them both alot, and want this to be comfortable for all three of us. I mean, it does make it easier to express myself in the ways traditionally I express certain feelings. Ahhh... poly-boundaries are wonderful.

22 Mar 2001 (updated 22 Mar 2001 at 06:06 UTC) »

So anyway, its been a while since I posted a Diary entry, I'm on another vacation and this time I'm having great fun.

So it started with Angela and Robin coming up to visit, we went toy shopping and all kinds of stuff, and had some great fun.

I won't go into what kinds of fun I'm sure if you know me you can figure it out (or as Robin says, "floggers, and nightsticks, and canes, oh my!")

I totally love these two people, I mean, like, *love*, in that top, Momma Bear way... its pretty cool, I cooked for them and all kinds of neat stuff.

Tomorrow they go home, and I'll be sad, and I'll miss them, but I'm sure I will visit them soon, and I want to get Robin to The USENIX Technical Conference along with Angela (who goes into abandonment mode around computers, you know, one of those geek widows we all know, and love so much for their patience and support, even through the heartache of having a geek as a partner)

Well on Monday I'll be back to work.

I may also mention my roommates, Sal and Zane, who are the most incredible roomies, couldn't have a better situation, honestly, and they'll love it, now that I got the cable modem in and I can network the apartment. Cable, and Computers, and Geeks, oh my!

So, I've been back, my first day back at work, finding out what VA and OSDN have been up to. I believe some right decisions were made this past week, though it may have lasting effects on how people perceive us, but I hope some ideas I have and other people have may change that.

The Open Source community is, and has been very important to me, if I didn't believe in what OSDN and VA are doing, I wouldn't stay, even people like Mandrake (Enlightenment) seem to think that what was done is needed, and support us in what was done. Its sad so many people had to go, but ce'st la vie.

That being said, I believe that this is only the beginning, and companies involved in marketing Open Source products are starting to learn a very valuable lesson. Its like me when I spend too much in a pay period, and find myself scrounging for cash (and I make an ungodly amount of money), the honeymoon is over, while we all may not have seen what was coming, it did, and we weren't completely prepared. Ahhhh the growing pains of a "start-up"

History has taught us a valuable lesson, several actually, but in the history of the industrial revolution, and me and a coworker were talking about this today..., that railroads, and steel companies, power companies, etc. all started out the same way as the "dot coms", small independent shops that had very much the same philosophy, some survived, some didn't, and a lot consolidated. This is what we are seeing now, the Industrial Revolution ain't over yet.

So its time to stop the focus while that industry settles into behaviour we are going to see for maybe the next 20 years, maybe more, and focus on the steady sources of revenue, Financial, Education, and Government. Right now, I think we as a company are making large inroads into the Financial market. I think VA and OSDN will be around for a long time to come.

well thats my musing for the day, this does not reflect the opinions neccesarily of my employer, VA Linux/OSDN

So anyway, its been a few days, I'm out in Northampton right now, still somewhat on vacation, which is nice. I'm heading back to Acton, MA, and the real world sometime tomorrow, it will be nice to see my cats and such, and then I can get back to things at hand.

My tasks for the next week, besides work, will be:

Listar stuff, CVS, etc. have to get it all set up and moved for the new release.

Listmistress.org, a listserver for BDSM/Leather communities online, I already have several lists and people that need lists. I also somewhat still want to serve the GLBT space as well

getting back into figuring out where things are with -CURRENT on FreeBSD, its been difficult to keep up with changes while I've been traveling so much.

anyway, thats enough, I'm getting really hungry, time to go eat and stuff, and plan for next week.

So, I'm back at my vacation/weekend apartment for some downtime, relaxation, time with my roomates, etc. It was an intense week, met alot of people I really like, some of which I will possibly have long term relationships or more with.

So anyway, to geek stuff, I'm a geek no matter what, and sometimes it amazes me how different the language we speak as people that eat, drink, eat, sleep, and live computers, programming, networking, is from those who do not. Even at a totally unrelated conference I still ended up hanging out with computer people, getting comments about my FreeBSD shirt, people finding out I was "that AilleCat", and alot of other stuff.

truly interesting, does being a geek actually change your brain function that much? That we speak on such a different (not higher) level that we become unintelligible to normal people?

18 Feb 2001 (updated 21 Feb 2001 at 17:16 UTC) »

Well I'm down in good'ol Washington DC, at a conference,meeting beautiful people.. Its nice to feel nice and comfortable in a space.

Things are going well....I'm offline mostly, trying to stay away from work, but I figured the other day, that the geek still needs a diary, and I'm going to try and post every few days. I'm hoping to have a few good pictures of myself when this is all over.

peace, out.

Vacation Day! Yay! I leave at 6:30 pm for Washington DC, where I get to see people I haven't seen in a year or more at the True Spirit Conference, a conference for FTM(Female-to-Male) transsexuals, and SOFFAs (I'm in the second category, which means "Signifigant Others, Family, Friends, and Allies")

I'll be gone for a week, even though the conference is not that long, this is to spend a few leisure days to myself, maybe stop in Annapolis, MD for a few days to visit old friends. Maybe actually play a bit of music with old acts and stuff.

Otherwise, I'll enjoy the time away, but I'll still be online sometimes, like the obsessive I am :p

'til Tomorrow....

Ok, I've been up for over 36 hours. Slashdot got DoS'd last night and I was too tired to actually see what was happening totally.

Anyway, it was essentially syn packet flooding in at over 11000 packets per second. The arrowpoint didn't like this too much. Rate limiting them doesn't help much either, because then you lose "good" syns.

The more technical explanation is that the SYN's all had a window size of 8192, and no mss option. Makes it pretty easy to filter....right? I didn't notice this until later on, after staring at a screen for a while, fixing other issues that came up as a result.

Anyway, so with the help of a friend I saw this.

all fixed, I think, now, I sleep.

This diary entry brought to you by Tired Network Engineers on Caffeine, Inc, (TM)

OK, we just had an hour long IRC meeting about Listar, and a few ideas came up. I'm toying with the idea of starting a non-profit org to hold trademarks for open source software projects (doesn't matter what license, honestly)

The issue here is that certain smaller projects do not have the people/time/resources/money to do this themselves, and in the case of Listar in particular, we got bit by the trademark problem (a new "Ask Slashdot" will probably be posted about this). We personally don't want to get bitten again, but I'd like to have a larger scale non-profit to help other projects. If I'm going to do this, might as well make it community-wide.

Apache, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and even the FSF have foundations to do this, I assume the FSF requires the project to use the GPL, which some people are opposed to.

I'm personally interested in doing this out of need for us, but for other projects as well. So I'll look into it, I guess this has gone beyond the "toying with the idea" stage.

pretty cool,anyway, been pretty busy lately, getting ready for some big happenings in the Listar world, MySQL support should be almost ready soon, my coworker, Dave is working on the design we both discussed, and hopefully the rest of the Listar core will be happy with it. There also some unannounced news in the works, you'll have to stay tuned to find out, its under wraps currently.

Otherwise, I've been generally dealing with OSDN (the former Andover.net) network stuff, some BSD news, and trying to relax after the busy year I've had working for OSDN. Vacation is a good thing, and I'm leaving Thursday, and taking myself off-call :)

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