Hello.

/begin
My hand-lettered thumbnail for this post was inspired by recent reading of flat text blogs, docs, and geeking around in a Linux shell.

The siren's call of minimalism is resonating with me recently.

{- -}
o-[]-o
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As you can see above I'm certainly not opposed to the use of images in my posts, I just don't want them to get in the way too much.

What I'm learning:

After I installed Linux Mint on a laptop, to give it a test drive. It occurred to me it might be fun to work through the rudiments of some the C programming language. It seems to have a relatively simple syntax, and underpin many things we use without giving a second thought. I read a bit each day from "The C Programming Language" 2nd Edition by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. I supplement that with readings from some other texts. I grasp some simple loops, think I've got the concept of pointers at least partially mapped out.

I'm also refreshing my basic knowledge of Python.

I'm not rushing or optimizing, I don't even have a particular project or goal in mind, yet, other than just enjoying the process of learning and tinkering. I write some simple code in a text editor, compile it, sort out any errors, and iterate through new concepts.

What I'm Doing (1):
I'm recording the "Digital Community Manifesto" written by @theycallmedan and @starkerz
If you haven't yet start reading, whether you were here at the beginning when Hive forked from the legacy chain, the Digital Community Manifesto will enhance your understanding and consideration of Hive.

Starkerz and Dan put a remarkable amount of effort and passion into the book, and it's worth the read:

You can read it at: https://ecency.com/@networkstate

The image below is from Audacity, the software I used to record and edit the audio files. I'm far from even a pale imitation of an audio engineer, and editing is slow for me. Reading and recording it has forced me to spend more time with the material, and produced some subsequent skepticism of blockchains that have premines or ICOs, and that lack discrete and well considered governance mechanisms.

Note: Trying to produce ASCII art image of a recording panel, seemed like it would be an exercise in frustration.

What I'm Doing (2)
I quit smoking about nine (9) months ago and took up hiking and walking every morning. North Carolina summers are a humid hellscape and by the end of June I was regularly soaked in sweat after walking for an hour. I had the bright idea of joining a gym that is close to the house and that fortunately had an almost trivial monthly cost. I've built a new habit of waking up having a coffee, and then heading to the gym in the morning. I spend about an hour doing cardio, suck down an electrolyte beverage and then do and hour or more of strength training. I do this six (6) mornings a week and take off Sundays.

My cardio is getting fairly good, my resting heart rate has dropped 15 beat per minute since I began walking regularly in the spring. Strength training is fun. A decade ago I won a deadlifting competition, and I've been enjoying throwing some weights around. I'm keeping a bit of a governor on my top ends sets staying below 80% of my guesstimated one rep max lift. I've adopted the maxim of "can doesn't mean should". I work hard enough to make enough to make progress, but I always try to walk out of the gym feeling great.

/end