The Monastery of the White Tiger - Journal of The Displine

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The Discipline: So I've been making a point of not consuming media before noon. Or at the very least halal media. (media I've created is fine) But I think I need to make an exception for educational media. There's a lot of stuff I'm going to have to read in order to accomplish what I want and I often don't want to because its boring. Really, the point of this prohibition was to avoid entertainment media beacuse I was just awash in it.

papermaking: So today, I dipped the paper and left out as soon as I woke up. It was relatively cold where I'm at, like, 70 degrees Farenheit. I thought 15k would be enough time for it to dry adequately but it wasn't. I thought about just leaving it til tomorrow but I thought let's try another 5k. when I came back, it was dry enough. I feel like I'm really getting the hang of it. Maybe it's because I'm not drying it in the sun anymore. I know the lower temepratures (it used to be in the hundreds) are a contributing factor but I think not drying it directly in the sun is another factor.

The Discpline: I haven't been able to consistently name the periods where I remove myself from The Discipline. I've been distinguishing between times when I do it out of necessity (like when I go to work) and when I do so out of exhaustion. In my mind though, for the latter part, I've been just referring to it as panic. I think a good way to refer it, generally speaking, is a lapse.

papermaking: Put out another two deckles. The pulp is definitely running out. One thing that was interesting was, and I think I mentioned this before, that one deckle was just made out of random scraps of wood that are not congruous with each other. This newest one has the most consistent shape and was made out of scrap 2x4s I had. Anyways, the more consistent one is able to scrape off the last bits of pulp from the vat. Normally, when I dip, it's a straight dip into the vat with the deckle being horizontal. When it's like this (hardly any pulp) or I do need to fix up spots that are bare, I do a diagnol dip where I drag it diagnolly across the vat on whatever side needs more pulp. Well, I did that instead of a horizontal dip and I was able to do a pretty smooth dip across the surface. The next deckle got a bunch of lumps from this process.

I think I'm going to eventually start running out of scrap paper as I increase the amount of deckles and the amount of dips I do per day. I do have a file cabinet of a bunch of archived documents so I might go through those and start scanning them to get rid of them. I think I also have a bunch of notebooks still that I've already scanned, so I might cut the paper out of those and throw those away. Gotta make sure I still have the scans first.

I did these dips around 12k, but I rpobably won't be home until 50k or so. But it's down to 70 which is crazy for where I live so the deckle might still be wet enough by the time I get home.

The Discipline: Today, is the first day I'm trying to enact the whole - not consuming media until noon and woo, is this hard. Maybe it's because I'm eating and I'm literally just sitting here, eating while staring at a blank screen.

papermaking: New batch of paper dipped. It was 77F but let's put it at 80F. And I'll check back in 15k.

I checked it before I went to work. I didn't have time to update before I left and I forgot when I got home. So, of the two deckles, one was completely dry and one was just wet enough to press. That was kinda odd. I wonder if it's a propery of the deckles being so different. Or if it's a property of how much pulp was on it. Maybe where on the porch it was?

The Paper / The Discipline: I'm just going through all my data and I finally got it all coordinated on one hard drive and one computer. Originally, I was saving all The Papers on my usb drive but I finally got them on to one spot. Anyways, I can't believe I've been doing this four months. I thought it was only at max two. I know, recently, I've adopted it on a relatively full-time basis, but I guess with how little I've updated this lately, it just doesn't feel like I'm as active as I actually am.

While I'm on the subject, I talked recently about limiting my consumption of video to only a certain time. Right now, that's until after dusk. (I was just watching way too much video.) Well, there was a thought yesterday about how media, in general, represents a sort of escape (from an experience-based reality). And I thought about adding a new thing, that from dawn to noon, there is no media consumption. In our media driven world, that's almost everything but the idea is to be grounded in an experience-based reality instead of a media-driven reality, at least for a short time period. I may actually extend this even further and try to go out of my way to avoid interactions with things that I have not directly created. Like, I'm already doing that, but in this way, I'd be even more extreme, at least for a short period of time. Like, maybe put that down in a different color pen. The only problem with this is that I tend to work pretty late so I'm not going to be awake at dawn, so unfortunately and fortunately, this will be the easy mode of this.

There's The Paper to keep track of my interactions but I think I might start journalling too. Just to start logging my feelings as a human being and how it relates to this and things that might be related. I don't want this to become that.

halal media: A distinction in terms: I've been referring, generally speaking, to media that is okay for consumption, but I had a realization that halal media refers to all media not created by The Organization but is within the appropriate time frame (older than 10 cycles)or subject matter (non-fiction and non-editorial). Media that's created by The Organization is separate from that category.

paper: I've noticed then when I write on the paper, the paper separates at the point where the pen tip touches the paper. Like it's pulling the pulp back. I thought this was kind odd but not worthy of commentary. Most recently, my paper has gotten to the desired thickness. To where, if you hold it at the end and shake it lightly, it does the appropriate wiggle you would expect from a piece of paper. Today, though, I noticed there's a bunch of ink marks on my desk. Now I understand why people used to have those big calendars on their desk.

I just retrieved the second batch of two deckle paper dips. I was excited to try my new paper cutter so I'm not manually cutting each sheet with scissors. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXX3N5S8?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_product_details) It did not work well at all, but I realized I was trying to cut with the back edge, not the blade. It still didn't work right. It just tears the paper. It got me to thinking about the general texture and quality of the paper. Maybe I need to set it to press even if its already relatively dry. I'm also going to start more actively monitoring (or trying to) my dips to try to get it out when it's dry enough to take off whne it's still a lil wet.

I just put it at out around 38k, so I'll check back at 48k.

I forgot to log the temperature. At 85F, 10k later, it was 80F, but it was not dry. Increase 20k for the next dip at this temperature. (I wonder if I need to start a spreadsheet.)

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papermaking: So still working on the deckle. IT's taking a lot of glue to get it right. I'm off from Sunday to Thursday and I was hopoing to get three additional ones done during that time period. But I'll be lucky if I get two done.

Ever since I did this new batch of paper, I've thought that the paper was unnecessarily thick and today just confirmed it while I was scanning The Paper. There were a few from the last batch and they were so thin, they were like regular paper. (They might have been pressed too.) Then the first peices from this batch are SUPER thick, like a non-corrugated piece of cardboard. And as I've made more and added more water, the paper has gotten thinner and thinner. Weirdly, this batch also has a lot of wrinkles in it and today while I was placing a dip down it made me wonder if maybe the screen has started to get loose.

The Discipline: Yesterday, I was off and I thought I would do a lot of productive work. Other than starting work on that deckle, I didn't really do anything and then I gave up. When I give up or 'panic' as I call it, I give up The Discipline entirely and just do whatever I want during that time period.

The thing that bothers me about this is that if I were in a monastic setting, how would that work? What does that mean? And, recently, I had a bit of insight. Yesterday, when I gave up, I went to go play video games and watch TV like I would normally do but I continued wearing my robe and homemade underwear despite not being obligated to. It was so natural to me I just continued.

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papermaking: I'm making a new deckle for paper. It came about so quickly, I'm wondering if maybe I should try to make a proper mold. I want to make multiple deckles so I can start really churning out paper. My goal is to reach ten in stock then a hundred then a thousand and so on and so on. Though, I might start focusing on quality, sourcing and automation before then.

paper: Yesterday, even though I was engaging in The Discipline, I started making paper again and diluted the vat a little bit with more water. This morning's dip is still a little too thick and it's the worst texture of paper (on the other side) I've ever had. IT's got these dimples in it and there's this weird curve that happened. Not sure how.

underwear: I bought some muslin the other day and some fabric to make regular pants. Today, I cut a 25 inch cut from it. The fabric must be 40+ inches long. (I don't have a metric yard stick in the house.) And afterwards, I realized I messed up. I thought it was a 25" x 30" fabric from my last underwear but I think it was a 30 x 60. In hindsight, that seems crazy big. (30 x 60) But 25 x 45 isn't big enough in the hips for me. It's big enough to go around my groin though so it's salveageble.

The other thing I realized is that this is pretty expensive. I can buy underwear for about $3 a pair online. This is already $3 (at least) and I haven't added the draw string and that'll add almost another dollar to it. Hopefully, this is just a bad fabric for underwear. But I don't think so. I think this is just the economics as it stands.

metric clock: I found another possible bug. So, right now, I'm running a timer for 8.5 so I can check my blood sugar 2 hours after I eat. It feels like it's taking too long. It's at 2k left, but it feels like it should almost be done. So I know when I finished eating and set a timer 8.5@[whatever the time was I ate]. Completely different times. This is completing almost a k later. So either I set this a lot later or I'm way way off. Even this @ timer seems a little off to be honest. Yeah, something is making my python script run a little slower than usual, because I ran a new @ and it's already 100 off after only 500 metric seconds.

The Discipline: I've been messing up in regards to The Paper. I've been logging my BG monitor and that's not necessary given the exemption I have for medical stuff.

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paper: Today, I got the dip from yesterday. It was barely wet but I don't think it was wet enough for me to be able to compress it properly. Or, it wasn't hot enough for it to dry enough. My dip from last night was still wet.

But it's definitely too thick. I wish the water had been ready so I could have diluted the pulp earlier. Also, ~220 g might be too much pulp for the vat. I don't know if I can dilute it enough to get it to the proper thickness.

The Discipline / The Paper: So just wanted to chime in regarding a small thing, I log different services (like social media) that I use during my day. But I decided to make an exception when that social media is being used to look something up. Like, if I'm googling someone and their profile comes up, that's fine. This might change in the future.

paper: So I ran out of viable pulp in the vat a few days ago. I thought I had logged that but I guess not. Basically, the last two dips I did were so thin they tore immediately when they came off. I was able to salvage them but they're not great. So I poured the water out from the vat into a bucket with a screen on it. The last time I did this I used zip ties. I had to use a bunch and I had to throw them away after so I thought I would try a rope instead to keep the screen on. That worked just fine. There was a lot more pulp this time compared to before. Last time, I drained it there was a lot of pulp on the bottom so I tried to use some pieces of cloth on a second pour into another bucket but I don't know how helpful that was. The water was still really murky.

So I knew that I wanted to drop the colored pulp down to 10% but I messed up. All in all, it was 195g of white shredded paper (I ran out before I reached 200g.) and ~22g of shredded, colored paper. (the kind that Amazon is putting in their packages) I messed up because someone threw in some red tissue paper for a gift. I counted that as part of the white paper. Big mistake. It completely threw the color off and I think it's almost as colored as it was last time. Maybe even a little more so except now it has a pinkish hue. Also, this -might- be too much pulp. I'm not sure if my vat just needed more water. (I didn't want to put anymore in until I tried to filter it with the cloth but the cloth was off to the side, drying.) But this first dip had a LOT of pulp on it. Like, maybe even three times much as a normal dip.

A mildly funny story. So I talked about how I pour the water from the bucket into another bucket but with the screen and cloth on top, right? So I brought the over to where I was making paper. It was down on the ground. And I was getting tired of stooping down to get water out of it to put in the blender, so I picked up the bucket to put it on my workbench. There was a puddle underneath so I just assumed the bucket itself was wet from the pour I had just done. But it was a -lot- of water and it was dripping. I put it back down on the ground. Then I realized: I used the same bucket that I had previously used for a water clock.

I guess I never logged this but, a while back, I poked a hole in the bottom of a bucket and filled it up to a certain point and kept track of how long it would take to empty it in metric time. It wasn't very useful because the shape of the bottom, the water stopped draining out as quickly and it felt like it just kept going and going. And outside of visually inspecting it over and over, I'm not sure how useful that would be. The one water clock I'd like to make is, I think, an Iranian one where you put a bowl with a hole in the bottom in a bucket and every time you hear the bowl hit the bottom of the bucket, a certain amount of time has passed. That's pretty simple and still useful. Though, I would eventually like to build the fucking Euclydiasian? or however you spell it. That fancy ass water clock, that chimes and runs by itself.

computer: I was having difficulty finding a monitor with HDMI in my collection. (I had been running the Raspberry PI Zero off the TV but it's at the wrong height.) I found one yesterday and set it up today. I immediately ran into an issue trying to use it as my main computer. Raspberry Pi Zero doesn't support Chromium which is a pretty big issue. And thne, another issue happened where the wifi just turned off. I brought up a terminal so I could run lynx and then an error came up saying that wpasupplicant was already running and then the wifi turned off.

There was always one thing that kind of bothered me about this. Once I did switch over to a Raspberry PI Zero, what did that really mean? The next step was to build a computer from its components but how is the RPZ relaly helping? I'm creating a barebones, minimalist setup - which I like, but it's also an overly specialized setup. If I have to choose between spending $15 on an RPZ or just getting garbage computers that no one would want, I would rather choose the latter. The only real advantage for an RPZ is that it presumably has a lower electrical usage than a regular computer.

The main issue with using the RPZ is just using its wifi, so I'll use it for something else. I've thought about using it as a metric clock but that seems like not enough given its capabilities.

I had planned to create an Altair-like computer but maybe a little more advanced so I could create a really basic (basic by contemporary standards) computer to use as my day to day. But, yesterday, I was reading homebrew projects about this and I realized that this would probably take decades to get to just an Altair/Apple level of computing.

The Discipline: Recently, I was reading Anathem and they were talking about, I think, The Convox that happens in that story. The specifics of what that means isn't so important but they talk about coordinating before Provener (noon), and after Provener. And that made me think of coordinating my efforts from now on in that same kind of vein. I spend a LOT of time watching media and that's problematic because its distracting for any kind of deep work, but what if I limited all video media to after Provener (noon) or maybe eventually dusk?

Metric Clock: I've been working on this concept of Metric Time for quite a while and only today, when I was reading a book called Hands of Time, I learned about Decimal Time which is apparently also an extensive Wikipedia article. I typed in 'metric time' in Google when I began this project and nothing significant came up but now this is a whole different avenue.

computer: I've been attempting to get the wifi working on the raspberry pi zero all morning. I'd been googling random things, typing in random commands to mitigate the issue but every single command except for 'ifconfig wlan0 up' returned an error. I basically gave up, figuring I'd have to get a Raspberry Pi Zero W, but I before I turned it off I noticed: the wifi was on! Something I had done had turned the wifi on and I was able to log in to the wifi network. I had no idea what command worked though.

So after rebooting and going through each command one by one, I figured out which one was bringing the wifi network up. The next problem was having it automatically run at start up. This created its own problems. rc.local did nothing. I added a special script to rc.init. Nothing. I tried adding the command to /etc/network/interfaces. nothing. Then I thought that maybe the issue was that since it's a USB wifi plug, maybe that network is only being initialized AFTER I log in. So I ran the command that's been working as part of .bashrc Works perfectly now. Now it's just about getting it connected to a proper monitor and waiting for the new hard drive for my file server and I think I'll be all set.

The Discipline: I gave up. On Saturday, I had a horrible, stressful day at work and then when I came home, my external hard drive with decades of data had some kind of issue because of a power outage. I was so incredibly frustrated. I just gave up entirely. I was pretty broken. I was able to save the data and I ordered a new hard drive. But I'm just now getting back into the swing of things.

halal media: I have another exception to add to the list. Though, technically, it's kind of more of the same. The novel that the White Tiger was written from. I might not like it though. I haven't read it but we'll see.

metric clock: I've found my first bug. I pulled up the web metric clock and it was almost a hundred metric seconds off from the python script running in the terminal. Normally, I would just assume the web version is off but I figured the terminal version was off because it's relatively accurate when you first load the web version.

I -think- I figured out what the issue was. Normally, it calibrates every 100 metric seconds by calculating the time. Otherwise, it just increments the time without calculating. Well, I changed it recently to a 1000 metric seconds. I think that's what accounting for the drift.

computer: for the goal of run my computing setup off of a raspberry pi that I currently have in the tech tree, I was finally able to get a desktop image on my raspberry pi zero. (nothing in particular stopping me just laziness and inertia) I think it'd be viable for everything except for playing videos. There was quite a bit of stutter. Maybe I'd need a full gigabyte of memory instead of just the 512mb. And from what I remember of that time, I don't recall getting heavily into videos until around a gigabyte of memory. (I could be wrong though. But I'm remembering 512mb as around 2002 or so.) The bigger problem is that I couldn't get the wifi chip to work on the USB hub. Not sure if it was because I didn't have it when it did the initial config or if it just isn't detecting it. (weirdly, ifconfig notes the interface but the gui desktop doesn't show anything.) So I'll probably be able to move my setup over to the pi as soon as I can get wifi. (BRO, that's crazy that these computers are only $15. The future of today is so awesome.)

My tenative plan is to try to get the wifi card working. I'll give it til the end of saturday and then sunday I'll just order the Zero W. I have a theory that -maybe- the video latency was because I was doing it through USB. If the video was directly on the SD card, it might not be nearly as bad. If that's the case then I should just be able to use this. If not, the next project is to get a really simple media player. Though, I probably can just use my file server as that. Because the plan is to hopefully just host all my files on there and use the zero as a kind of a thin client of sorts. Though, in terms of maintaining The Discipline, I don't think that's as viable. The better way of looking at it would be that the file server would be long term storage that I turn on to transfer files on and off and the zero would be day to day computer.

One thing that kinda sucks about this computing platform is that it runs off of mini hdmi. I understand why. But it doesn't appear you can double up on adapters, so I can't run a micro hdmi adapter to a regular hdmi cord to a vga input for a monitor. And I have a huge amount of VGA monitors that I'm very very satisfied with. VGA monitors are a plurality and you can get them at a lot of thrift stores for $5-10. But if I can only use it on hdmi ports, that's very limiting. Maybe just mini hdmi -> vga cables. THat's such a fucking specific use case though. It's not very versatile. I'd basically only be able to use them for raspberry pi zeroes. But I guess a raspberry pi zero being only $15 kinda makes it worth it in that regard.

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Paper: Yesterday, I put a new dip out to dry when I got home. I left it face down on a cloth and expected more of the same. Well, this morning it had been raining. That, plus the lower temperature, I think contributed to the paper still being a little damp when I took it out 16 hours later. (Unless maybe some water got on it even though it was on the porch) Because of this, I was able to put it in my press to make it a little flatter and it worked out pretty well. I'm excited for these new temperatures because it means that I might be able to get the paper off the deckle before it dries completely.

The Discipline: Due to the vagaries of having to live a 'real life', when I leave the house, I've been just been marking the entire time period off as sin. Sometimes, though, the infrastructure I use bleeds into the next. Like, if I start the washer during a period of general sin, but empty it while engaging in The Discipline, should I still have to count my usage of the washer as The Discipline?

Clock: So I've mainly been working on the earth based metric clock. It's messing up the rest of the portions of the clock. But now I have the ability to calculate dawn and dusk on top of solar noon. All of this is based off of zip code, so pretty american-centric, but I figured that's the easiest way of doing ti without having someone manually type in lat and long. I mainly just want it to be able to tell me when dawn, noon and dusk are, but I'm running into a bit of trouble. More work tomorrow on that.

Paper: So I've never been able to figure out the appropriate time to grab the deckle before it dries completely but where it's still wet enough to where I can put it in the press. It's either completely dry or so wet that it's starts tearing off of the deckle. This has been a bit of a disappointment because lately, the paper I've been using has been the best it's ever been but I started using both sides and while one side isn't horrible, it's a bit rough, making it a weird texture to write on.

Well, I gave up on trying to dry it for pressing but today, I laid it face down on a piece of fabric. It was just something to do. Normally, I dry it face up over a bucket but I figured I'd try something new. (Or maybe I just wasn't thinking.) Well, I made a discovery. Because I'm laying it face down on the fabric instead of face up, both sides are relatively smooth. The side facing the screeen becomes a little rougher but now they're a little bit closer to each other.

halal media: I was thinking about Nirvana and thinking about how there were like 5 or 6 releases after Cobain died. Would those be inelligible? I think there should be an exception in that situation. If the -main- person died of the media, before whatever date of halal/haram, I think that's okay as long as you aren't buying it within a cycle of it being released. Lemme explain.

If that particular person died before it would become haram then clearly, that's how old that media as an art form is. Now, there does have to be some scrutiny. It has to be the -main- person that died before it was released. So, an example that would not work, is The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger. In a hypothetical world where Heath died before it would be haram, but it was released afterwards, it would still not be eligible, because Heath Ledger is not the -main- person. He's the main villain. But he's not the main character and he's not the director. Even if it wasn't Cobain and it was Nosolovic or Grohl, that would still be fine, because while htey're not the leader singer, they are still an integral part. Though, it was like that Pat guy, it would only be for recordings with them.

Another caveat to discourage consumerism: the release has to be longer than a cycle. So adherents don't have to wait 10 cycles but they do have to at least wait one and that's from present day. Maybe if we're being charitable, as long as it was from the last cycle, that's fine too. (even if the last cycle was 10 days or 100 days ago.)

Clock: Programmed metric clock. I thought that it would be a good challenge to convert the algorithms from the spreadsheet presented here. I had originally used that site to calculate when solar noon was, but I had this hope to try to be able to do it, myself. When I first opened the spreadsheet linked, I became disheartened because there's 20+ relevant cells there with overlapping formulas. It was just a little overwhelming. But when I sat down and gave it a shot, I just figured I'd start copying out each cell and work my way through the requisites. It was actually easier than I thought. Just a little tedious and I was surprised that it mostly worked the first time once I figured out certain vagaries of the spreadsheet system versus python's system. The Discipline: Today, before I left for work, I made sure to do a dip of paper and leave it out, so that I at least did one thing productive in that category. (As per what I talked about yesterday) Later, when I was at work, I was thinking about how trivial that was. Trivial to the point of being almost irrelevant. I don't -need- more paper. It'll be nice to have it, but it's not necessary. So that made me realize that while it's nice to do that kind of work in a category. It is really the bare minimum. The kind of work where you are -technically- doing something but not pushing the envelope forward or making. The real work is new territory or new progress. Maybe the simplest criteria is working on something that's on The Paper of that day or, to a lesser extent, yesterday.

The Discipline: I had a realization today. I was filling out The Paper and as I've doing this, the category of Food has just been looking back at me, bothering me. There's not really much I can do until I buy my land. The kind of production I want anyways. But I realized, I can start actively working on food production now. I have access to a backyard. I have access to a garage. There's nothing really stopping me.

And as I was thinking about this, I realized that each category of sin as it relates to The Divinity of Infrastructure, has a corresponding action relating to negating that sin. This means that each day, there should be action in these categories to mitigate this inherent sin.

Clock: So I reprogrammed the metric clock. You can now create alarms and timers on the fly. I also reorganized the code. Alarms and timers were on one mechanism. They're now two separate mechanisms.

Mattress: So one of my more recent projects has been making a pair of sheets so that I can start sleeping on the floor. I don't think that's viable. I did not sleep well at all and certain positions that I would adopt while sleeping literally hurt me. I might still do it on days that I vaccuum and don't have to work the next day but for the most part, I'm back to using a mattress.

halal media: This is about porn and sex addiction, so if you're not interested in reading about that, move on. I always had hopes of finding suitable porn on Internet Archive but today, I've abandoned that. When looking for porn on Internet Archive, I've always tried indirect routes to find it. Today, I tried typing in 'porn' and porn came up, but the style of porn back then just isn't my tastes. I think it says a lot about how American consumption of porn has changed and what that means for the average male psyche. This makes me kind of sad. I might try to do some porn abstinence just to see how that plays out.

Paper: So I emptied the vat either yesterday or the day before into a bucket that I put a window screen over the top. I guess that still isn't adequate for the smaller bits of paper pulp because when I emptied the bucket back into the vat, there was still pulp in the bucket. I'm trying a new mix. Amazon, or whoever, has been using these long bits of paper for packaging so I figured I'd start shredding that and incorporating that into my mixes. So now I have shredded white and shredded colored. This particular mix is going to be 100g white and 50g colored. That's 33% colored mix. I need to bring that percentage down, possibly to 10% because the whole batch is brown now.

I need to stop putting more than 25g of paper at a time in the blender. It was having a lot of trouble on the first blend (50g) but wasn't nearly bad for the next two (25g) for white. But the colored paper is obviously thicker. (It's almost like paper grocery bags.) Because it takes forever for it to blend. I might need to go even lower for that type of paper. Like 10g.

I originally intended on checking my dip dry 6k after my initial dip but I'm not sure how close it was to that point. Either way, it was still very wet. So I put it in the sun. I checked it 4k later (right now) and it was still a little wet, but dry enough for me to get it off the deckle. Definitely need to make a mold. I hope it's not going to be too brown to make the black ink illegible.

Metric Clock: I got really tired of having to switch projects from this to the metricc lock so I could edit the alarms.txt file so I figured there had to be some kind of way to do input in the program. Now by typing "a [time for alarm]" or "d [time]", you can create or delete an alarm dynamically in the program. It's actually a lot smoother than doing it through a text file. I never considered this as an option and I had to familiarize myself with curses to do it but it works pretty well.

Divinity of Infrastructure: For truly complex items, like a computer, how do you create one? My original idea for 'creating a computer' was in the style of Wozniak inventing the first Apple, building it from constituent electronic parts, but with other more complex things, it suffices, at least for the first step, to build it from its most basic parts. Like a bicycle: the frame, chain, wheels, handlebars, seat, etc. That will suffice, at least for the first step. Each subsequent step is merely a continuation of that.

If the previous thing is about establishing its constituent parts, the next step (if continuing along the part of creating constuent parts is not viable) is to simplify the thing and create it again. So, maybe instead of a bicylce made from parts I've bought, I make a bicycle with parts I salvaged. On and on and so on.

Paper: I took the paper out from being dried/pressed. There was no real change because it had already dried. I only have one piece of paper for tomorrow but I'm going to try using both sides, because it's kind of a pain to switch between the two pages.

Sheets/Mattress: I've written previously that a mattress doesn't count as furniture in regards to The Discipline because I can hypothetically still lay on the ground. I don't want to lay on bare carpet though, so I've been working on sewing some sheets from some old t-shirts I had. I was actually able to sew together two. One for me to lay on and then one to go over me. I'm planning on sewing a quilt from a bunch of socks I have as well. It's really surprising how quickly I can operate now that I have a sewing machine. Thtough, I understand the limitations of my machine now. It's a cheap, portable machine so when I sew stuff together, I can't really overlap. I have to just crudely stitch end to end because there's not enough room in the sewing machine for a bunch of fabric.

The Discipline: One thing I thought would be helpful to explain about The Discipline is that, at least at this stage, I don't have to log infrastructure that I use to make other things. I think once that becomes solved though, then I can take up that problem.

Paper: I wasn't planning on making any paper today but I abandoned this list dip for 3 days and it's just been sitting where I leave deckles to dry outside since then. It's a horrible dip, completely inconsistent and too thick but the other side is good and it didn't tear. And since that was a successful dip, I figured I'd try one more. Interestingly, I finally figured out a new technique in dipping. Normally, when you dip the deckle straight in (level), all of the freshly agitated pulp goes on cleanly. It's the subsequent dips that ruin that dip because as you dip again, all of the pulp that's already settled on the deckle moves so it's a game of trying to get more pulp on the empty areas while not disrupting the areas that already have. I figured out if you bring it in at an angle, you can kinda scrape the pulp up on the edge without disturbing too much pulp. I think this one might actually turn out okay. I'm not going to time this dry. But I think what I will do is press it anyways even after it's dried. Because I've always operated with the assumption that when you're pressing it, you're doing it so it will dry more evenly and flatly. I just wanna see if it does anything.

Oh, and today I had a thought regarding drying. So I'm trying to dry it facedown on a towel and I assume it'll be the same problem as before: it keeps sticking. It won't come off cleanly onto the towel. I never mentioned this previously, but I'm not using a mold. It's just a deckle. And now I'm wondering if when you flip it over to dry, the mold actually helps keep it separated from the drying surface so that gravity can pull it off the deckle. Food for thought for me.

So I got the earlier dip for today off of the deckle. It was pretty late. It was like 14k after I set it out. It had dried pretty consistently and didn't rip in a way that compromised it. I'm pressing it now with my wood clamps and I'll get it tomorrow after my doctor's appointment. I don't think it'll noticeably change anything though. I noticed one of the sides was noticeably disfigured before I put it in, so I'm hoping that will at least mitigate that.

The Discipline: I've been mulling this idea around about quantifying The Discipline down to the numbers corresponding to each category that I keep track of: infrastructure, media, food, programs and websites.

Paper: Just retrieved my first batch. I was surprised how easy it was to dip in the vat considering how difficult a time I had last time, but there was a light coating as soon as I brought it out. I might have gotten the amount of time wrong and waited more than 6k because it was completely dry, but I'm assuming it was because it was such a light coat. These next two dips, I'll be checking back in 3k.

I just got the next batch and I initially, understood the role skilled labor plays in the vatman (dipping the deckle in the vat) but I didn't really understand the skill in the next step, which is laying it out and pressing it. So, this time, it wasn't completely dry but it made things a little more difficult because one of the dips tore completely when I took it off but the other one was mostly okay. I tried a technique that I've tred previously. I immediately took the freshly dipped deckle and flipped it over to where it would dry. I was concerned that it would tear off in clumps but it's not coming off at all now. I raised it up off the surface so there's empty space underneath so it'll hopefully just peel off as it dries with gravity pulling it down. I'm down to one deckle now though. The other one that I glued, just came apart where I glued it. I'm going to try gluing it to a support underneath.

I came back and started tapping the deckle to set it free and the entire middle part just clumped off. I did a new dip where I didn't care how thick the dip was or how consistent it was across it. Then I'm going to leave it face down on the towel for 5k to see how that goes.

The Discipline: I've noticed a pattern in my behavior. I will, sometimes, not do a thing specifically to avoid having to log the thing down associated with it. Like, for example, my floor is a little dirty. Not filthy but dirty enough. And I just don't want to have to log down that I used the vacuum. This behavior repeats over and over and I understand the reasoning behind it, but I'm not sure what to make of it. If anything, I hope that it will motivate me more to create more things so that my list won't have so many things on it.

halal media: I was thinking about the exception that I made for halal media. That everything before 10 cycles is okay. Why media? And not technology in general? I did a thought experiment and if there were already people already doing the thing that I am doing, I wouldn't need the exception. There would be an existing culture in which I could consume. I guess, in my mind, as long as I know the exceptions I'm allowing for, I'm okay with a blanket restriction on all outside infrastructure, but the idea that I wouldn't be able to listen to music, read fiction or watch videos just feels overwhelming to me. Even if I suddenly started making my own media, I don't think it's really all that gratifying to consume your own media.

towel: I had made a towel a while back from socks and I had posted on here how much of a failure it was. Because I was getting tired of having to put 'towel' down on my list, I figured I'd start it using more. Weirdly, today, when I took a shower, it worked just fine. I'm wondering if the difference was I didn't wash my hair. It's a relatively small towel. Also, I definitely build some more smaller ones to be able to dry my hands in different parts of the house and to be able to clean up messes.

Robe: I've made two robes previously. The first one was a completely haphazard creation. I literally took a sheet, draped it over my shoulders, used safety pins where I wanted it to be, sewed it by hand then cut the excess parts. It looks horrible. And the sleeves I sewed on have continually come off over and over. Not sure what the issue is with that.

The next one I did wasn't really supposed to be a robe. It was a shirt to go with broadcloth that I wear. Something a little less involved than a robe, but it's about as long as a short robe. My first robe goes to my ankles, but this goes to my knees. I have issues when I lay down, the shoulders aren't right and there's a lot of space in the neck. But I used a machine on this so it came together way more quickly than the robe did. The robe literally took at least the whole day if not two, because I was sewing it by hand.

I mainly wanted a back up robe to wear to bed. I haven't made a blanket yet so I've been wearing the long robe to bed and the shorter robe on a day to day basis. And I've been wearing all of this stuff for four days straight so I figured it's overdue. My own issue with the previous builds was I didn't really jot down any of the details. So because the proportions were all messed up for the first robe, I drew a design on a piece of cardboard for the shoulders for the second one. I've strayed away from that and made it just be a straight line at the top. I did make the neck a bit shorter. My measurement is a 26 inch neck, but I did 32 inches for the second and I'm doing 28 inches for this one. (It was perfect.) I'm also going to fold the fabric back and sew it because I'm getting tired of the thread coming down on the edges that I've cut. I'm also going to double stitch the parts that will face the most amount of tension like the shoulders. Unfortunately though, the thread tore from the bobbin side and it's a major pain to rethread it there so I'm done for the day.

Paper: It gets inordinately hot outside so I made sure to do the necessary work on the frames today early in the morning. Instead of making a whole new one (which was my original plan) I figured, I'd just repair the two that I already have. One of them, the laquer for the MDF started coming off so I think just by gluing it, it'll hopefully stay put this time. The other one the frame broke in half on one side so I start gluing that part. I glued it together and then I'm going ot glue a piece of scrap wood behind it for more support.

I took the last few batches of paper inside. I don't think I mentioned this but on the last batch, instead of just putting the two large pavers on top, I also used a couple of clamps I use in woodworking to press it down even harder. This made it the thinnest paper I've ever gotten. Actually, in the last batch, the paper had torn and usually, it won't dry into place but its fine now because I put it under so much pressure. I'm not sure why, if it's because its smoother than the previous ones, but I can write using a regular pen on this one, I don't need to use a sharpie anymore.

This entire batch of paper was made with 10% dryer lint and I don't think I'm going to use that anymore. There's a lot of hair in it and that makes it a little bit gross. I have been thinking about making toilet paper though and now that I can get this thin enough. IT's just about whether it's sanitary enough and the proper type to be able to flush.

halal media/The Discipline: I've talked about having to reign in my media consumption previously. So one thing that I've done is now when I'm loading up JDownloader, I wait until there's less than 100gb of pending downloads. But even then, I realized recently I'm doing a lot of browsing. I spent atleast 7k yesterday browsing media on Internet Archive and at the end of the day, it doesn't seem all the meaningful. So I think I'm also going to stop that type of browsing. So there is one type that I do that I think is okay and that's time period browsing where I sort media according to release date and go month by month through a particular type. That's reasonable. It's not crazy. But yesterday, I was just searching through comics and magazines in general and that wasn't as productive. All that being said, my main focus will be on stuff I actually want to watch first.

When I would read the Tripitaka (I think that's the name, it's the book of rules for Buddhist monks and any set of books of rules in general for monks), I always thought it was weird there were so many rules. Now as I see all of the various exceptions and special instances for halal media, I totally get it now. A rule is a communication on expected behavior and the more rules, the more explicit you are about the expectations of that behavior.

Now that I've been living like this, in The Discipline, mostly uninterrupted, I've been thinkign about the role of going to work plays in all this. They play music at work and, presumably, that music will be haram. But if I'm not the one picking it: is that haram? Really, it's the seeking out of it that's haram. Not the actual process of listening to it. So if I go to ask someone, 'what song is this?' or I go to play more contemporary music then, that is haram.

The Discipline / Halal Media: I can't believe this will be the third day I've maintained The Discipline. (mostly - There was that period I was working on my car and didn't want to write down -everything- I was putting on as safety gear.) One thing I noticed from yesterday though is that productivity (or an aspect of that) needs to be a part of it, because I spent most of yesterday just consuming old media. With that, I'm becoming less and less comfortable with the idea of it being 10 cycles ago. I don't want to be actively counting the clock every day, being like, "oh, what historical media can I consume today?" I'm wondering if it's better to just to go to the nearest 0 and -then- go back ten cycles. So I'd go back to the beginning of 4390 and then go back to 4380. Maybe that's too far actually. Waiting every 30 years to consume media is the opposite end of that spectrum but 3, that's not bad and that will give even more emotional significance to a new cycle.

One thing I was thinking about is that once I've reached the bottom of downloading video from YouTube and Internet Archive, and I have to start buying it, isn't that just as bad as being a regular consumer? Aren't I just the equivalent of an antique collector except for media? I've been thinking about time management a lot in this regard and I think I need to set a limit, maybe just personally, for how much time I'm browsing for new media.

I had an idea about encouraging productivity today. On my papers, the one I use to keep track of interactions, what if I marked off in a different color, the things that I -could- do. Smething productive that I know that I could do.

Like any system that relies on self reporting, I understand the shortcomings but it's more the mindfulness of it than anything. Last night, before I went to bed, I just gave up entirely on time reporting, but that's more just being conscious of how I spend my time than anything. And, also, I've started to realize the things that I'm not keeping track of but should. It's important to not beat myself up about it while also remaining vigilant.

Metric Clock: So I fixed the clock web page. It hasn't said the correct day since I made the original python code. I also added timers to the python app and both implementations I was hoping for. I wanted to add a straight timer that just starts from whenever you start the script (3.2 would be a timer for 3,200 metric seconds) and a timer that can start from a specified time (3.2@39 is a timer that presumes you start it at 39 and would do 3,200 metric seconds) I also changed how it calculates the time. It only calculates it every 1,000 metric seconds. Outside of that, it just increments the variables.

The Discipline / Holy Day: From now on, I'll just refer to the act of keeping track of my interactions as The Discipline instead of Holy Days. It makes it slightly less grandiose.

So I went outside to work on my car and I had originally planned to just put some rubber gloves on and include that as The Discipline for what I was doing. But I'm using some epoxy adhesive to secure my bumper back on and it recommended to clean whatever clothes you dirt with it 'professionally' so I figured I would put my overalls on and just log it as a lapse of Discipline while I did that.

Paper: Dropped the first batch of paper and I think I'm all out of paper pulp. I could not for the life of me get a good dip. It was only after I blended the past few bad batches and poured it in that I was able to finish.

I checked the batch after 6k. Probably could have went up to 7k or 8k. It was mostly dry but it tore a bit getting it off. Also, when I was adding the screen to this one last night, I just grabbed the first bit of screen I saw which wasn't enough to cover the entire frame so the two pieces overlap each other. I figured it would have some kind of effect but didn't know what.

I knew it would get in between the two layers but the real danger is the top layer of paper drying with that middle layer attached to it and having to tear it apart, so I'm going to put a new screen. I'm also going to make a new deckle entirely.

Now that I understand the role that the thickness plays, I've been wondering what to do with re-recycled paper. All of my batches of paper have been paper that I've shredded and blended, but what about that paper? I could maybe do one or two additional batches but I'm assuming there's a bottom and I think toilet paper would be a good avenue. THough, I'm not sure how I would make it sanitary for those purposes.

Holy Day Log: I'm going to make the dates and time metric oriented now. I'm pretty comfortable with it and I've already done it in my personal notes and my interaction log, so why not?

Holy Day: The name "Holy Day" seems unnecessarily ostentation and pretentious. I really gotta come up with something better to denote these time periods. The Discipline? idk. So, today, I'm going to try to do a full day of this. I have a bunch of days off in a row and I've been wanting to spend more and more time engaged like this so we'll see how this goes. And, I think, specifically, because of how special this day is, I'll also be posting the other documents for today.

I think I've explained this previously but I have two pieces of paper where on the first one, I jot down notes for the day and recently started keeping track of how I'm spending my time. The second paper, I keep track of my 'Interactions' which are with things I have not personally produced (there are some exceptions), food, programs, and media. (Look up Halal Media regarding that.)

Metric Clock: I spent most of my early day setting up an alarm. I'm still having some formatting issues on the console that I'm not sure how to resolve but it works pretty well for what I intended. I might create timers later or save that for another day.

Paper: Last time, I made paper I believe I waited 2.5 hours for the paper to dry and it was still a little wet. It's more than 38 degree celsius outside right now and when I left it out for 3 hours this time to firm it up so it wouldn't tear, it went completely dry. I won't be using the little frame anymore because it tore, but I did make some progress in regards to the proper thickness of paper. I've always had this issue where the paper is just too thick. When I moved to a bigger frame, the paper got a little bit thinner but I just didn't understand how to control it as a skill when dipping the deckle-frame in the vat. Today was the first day I kinda figured out how to do it. I think now I need to start making deckles where the frame isn't a part of it.

In the interest of centering myself towards a more metric-time based way of thinking, instead of doin X hours, I'll be checking the next paper after 10k instead of 12k.

So I checked it 10k after the last batch, it was still super dry and I think I didn't use enough this time because the margins were thin enough, the paper started to tear when I took it off the deckle-mold. The next batch I'll check in 6k instead.

6k after the last batch. It wouldn't come off the deckle-mold. I kept tapping it over and over again and it started separating from the center but eventually it started to tear because the sides had already dried to the deckle-mold. So I took the mold off and the part I was hoping to keep is actually completely broke in half. So I attached the other half even though it's not an even surface and the pulp is pooling in the center, there's no mold in it at all. I'll check it in 3k and hopefully, it will have dried just enough to be together but not enough to tear apart.

Checked in 3k after last batch and it had either started to dry too much to the deckle or not enough. I'm going to go with the former and check back at 1k. It had dried to certain sections but there's a big enough section to maybe be useful. We'll see how that one turns out. I had a lot of trouble getting a good dip, so either the vagaries of the deckle are just letting it go square or I'm almost out of pulp. But it seems pretty cloudy so I think it's the former. Also, I really messed up. Some of my scrap wood is MDF and when I made this deckle, I used some MDF. (I think that's what it's called.) And MDF is HORRIBLE when it gets wet.

Yeah, so it wasn't dry enough. 1k, it tore completely apart. So next time I'll have to do 6k and hopefully get a better batch. If this doesn't work out, I might try attaching the screen to the upper and lower part of a frame and have it come out so that I can kinda fold the paper out instead of trying to tap it free.

Holy Day Interactions: I make a dispensation for furniture, but something about a mattress bothered me. It didn't seem to fit the criteria of furniture while also seeming to fit the criteria. But I figured out a good metric. I don't include furniture like my desk and my computer chair because in order to use my computer, I need to be able to place the monitor somewhere and I need to be able to sit somewhere. Now I could stand to use my computer but I'd have to set my desk up to do that. I could set my stuff up on the ground but just seems so anti-ergonomic as to defeat its purpose. A mattress though? I can lay on the ground to sleep. I've done it before. It's not impossible or ergonomically impractical. So that's why it applies.

Halal Media: So I was having a bit of trouble because I wanted a more accurate time period for media than 'before 1994'. When I did calculation, it was 10,000 days divided 365.25, which is 27.3 years ago. Way sooner than 1994, my original estimate, which I didn't understand. Then I looked at the original entry, and it talked about 10 cycles ago 'and the current year', which I thought was a weird thing to throw in, but I meant the current cycle. And if I minus the current days of this cycle -and then- minus ten cycles, that gives me the number which is closer to 29. But how do I get a more specific date? For now, I just typed in the current number of days in the cycle plus 10,000 as a google search of "what date was it 10,638 days ago" and it gave me: July 18, 1995, which is perfect for my purposes.

So I'm watching a show from 1990 but it's clearly from a VHS recording from 1998. Is that considered acceptable? It comes with the commercials from that year so I'm not entirely sure.

Notes: Every time I do this, I have two sheets of paper. (more if the sheets are smaller) But one covers all of my interactions, food, programs, and media I use that day. The other is notes where I make sure to put the beginning and end times and any notes I might have during that period. Usually, that's questions, but last time it was just the beginning and end times, so I thought maybe it'd be better if I start documenting what I'm doing as well in terms of the time spent on things. Also, I've been wondering if there's any utility in posting those pages on here, because I do scan them but I just haven't bothered partly for privacy reasons and I figure no one cares any way.

Metric Clock: I was really worried how much drift there would be after a few days of letting the program run. (I made a github for it if you're interested.) I was a little disappointed to find out it was initially off by 100, but there was something odd about how it was incrementing. Instead of incrementing by 1, it was incrementing by 10. There was a 9 at the end that just wasn't going up at all. Then I realized, I had probably just inputted a character accidentally and there was only a second drift between it and the web app, which is right on mark for me.

I was thinking about how I made a mistake with original calculation for the cycle-day and I realized I messed up again. To adjust for the Holocene Calendar, I multipled 11969 by 365.25 ( I know the actual number is 365.24 but I just did a little rounding up) and I just rounded down, ignoring whatever the decimals were afterwards. In hindsight, I should have just added those to the day tally.

Paper: Turns out the larger piece of paper was pretty good in terms of overally thickness, better than the small piece was. And that was always the issue with the small pieces, they were just too thick, they had no give like a regular piece of paper. If I folded it, I'm pretty sure it would just tear. I made another sheet of larger paper after work a few days ago and it came out mostly pretty good, except I guess I didn't wait long enough for it dry because it tore a little but when I took it out but still usable.

Towel: So I had made a towel out of socks previously. I took a shower earlier and...it was not great. I thought the moisture wicking properties that are used for socks would translate well but they do not. It still got the job done at the end of the day but it just wasn't good.

Paper: After what feels like a long time without being productive, I finally start making paper again. I'm using whatever remanants from the previous batch are still in the vat and adding 100 grams of recycled paper, shredded and blended and 11 grams of dryer lint blended.

The first issue I ran into was just taking too long for it to dry before pulling it off the deckle mold. It's been at least an hour. The main reason why I want to take off before it dries is so I can press it better. This is creating a lot of problems for me. It felt like I was able to do this just fine with half of the last batch but I keep messing up lately. The paper just starts tearing off of the mold as I tap it to get it off. I'm going to wait just until it stops actively dripping then try taking it off.

I fell asleep. The paper isn't too horrible when it dries. It's just not the right thickness and texture. I thought both of them would be mostly dry. The small one was mostly dry but the large one I just created was still wet and I might be able to get something good out of it. I think the next step is to build a new deckle that's just frame, because my past two have been two frames with the screen sandwiched between it. I'll try stapling it onto there, see how that works.

August 21, 2024 [4391-871] (14:48 [u30.5k] - 23:33 [u69.9k]) - 39.4k / 9.45h

August 20, 2024 [c:4,391 d:870] (18:25 [u46k] - 22:20 [u62k])

August 8, 2024 (13:20 [1.76EK] - 21:16 [34.6EK])

August 7, 2024 (12:20 - 16:02 [12.8k])

July 27, 2024 (12:47 - 15:57)