Thank you for the suggested reading. I’ll give them a look.

I had my German B1.2 course exam. I haven’t been a student for 15 years, and I’d forgotten how nervous an exam can make me.

Did I pass? I don’t know yet. Maybe? Being in B1.2 was a stretch to begin with, as I tested to B1.1, but it wasn’t offered by my program this term. I either went with A2.2 (boring) or B1.2 (stretching). I went big and it helped a ton, but I don’t think I really reached a proficiency level that I’d consider B1.2 ready.

My general speaking and listening to German is quickly improving. If people don’t speak at a million kph I can usually get most of it.

My reading and more complex grammatical structures are improving quickly.

I need to finish reading some B1/B2 books and keep speaking in public. I can feel my skills building, so that’s a nice arc to be on.

My daily epiphany: the commenter here who showed me:

^z fg; command

I didn’t know you could append a command to fg and essentially chain to an already built process! Awesome.

I did not know about the fg; (next command)

That’s amazing! So cool.

From the old world of UNIX: Using UNIX is always a series of small epiphanies. You will keep finding new options, tools, ideas, and shell snippets that will continually expand your skills.

I’ve been using UNIX and then Linux since 1996. I find new little bits any time I go look. It’s a lifetime of curiosity awaiting for you.

I forget about the flatpack stuff. That’s a great point.

Nice. Sudo once, then run the shell until done. Much more elegant.

If you can run sudo without a password, you could do something like:

sudo apt update && sudo shutdown -h 5

The && operator will only execute the next instruction if the first returns a zero (no error) code upon completion.

Then just run that command about every 5 minutes and it’ll shut down once the install dishes, which releases the lock so apt upgrade can go (presuming apt upgrade needs the lock - I don’t remember if it does.)

Alternatively, you could ps auxw | grep for the pid of the upgrade. Then keep running a ps for that pid, and once you don’t see it, shutdown.

I definitely agree. I have the luxury of coming from an Electrical Engineering / Computer Engineering background. I did microcontroller programming, designed ALUs, and transistor level work before moving into CS.

Nothing helps you understand a computer better then working with a small microcontroller and building up from there.

Not well. Had some family hurdles crop up so the focus has been elsewhere. The scale of work is also reaching a fever pitch so I mostly just push that through instead of learning German.

I have noticed my ear is getting better. I’m more able to pick out words when people are talking and if they slow down a bit I’m usually able to track many pieces of conversations.

My tracking on train announcements is getting downright routine. Unless the speaker is really busted I can usually get it now. Too much time in train stations, I guess.

Having taught a computer science course on Operating Systems it’s even tough to teach a room full of CS undergrads what one is.

“Accidentally” my ass. In his life, few photos will be better remembered than this one.

Many of these same issues of creativity vs crafting vs the meaning of how things are made were covered in Diamond Age. It’s a wild, classic Stephenson novel, but it’s themes are being explored in the real world today.

The question is really: How do I check if a specific printer is compatible with CUPS (Common Unix Printing System).

Mint (and most other distros) use CUPS to manage printers and printing. I’d check there.

That said, Brother printers are often supported. The company is proactive on Linux drivers and tools, but I don’t know about your specific device.

Once my HP LJ4 died many years ago, I moved to Brother laserjets and have never looked back. They’re great.

If it’s got a scanner also make sure to check out the GUI scanner tool in Mint/Cinnamon: Document Scanner It has been phenomenal for initiating network-based scanning using our printers, even handling multiplexing and simple page re-ordering issues.

The rates of smoking in Europe vary widely. Sweden is down under 5%, which is better then the US rate that’s about 10% these days.

Overall, it’s trending in a good direction. I’ve seen much lower rates in Germany even in the last five years, though too much of those quitting tobacco end up vaping instead.

Even the German government has finally started pushing back on tobacco. More education, higher taxes, and removing it from more public spaces. It feels today relatively like the US did in the late 90’s in regards to smoking in public. It’ll take generations to stamp it out.

It’s been a serious few weeks. I haven’t posted for a bit on the weekly updates, so there could be a lot to cover.

My German class (B1.2) is going well. I’m really starting to understand more of the German language structure and patterns. I’m finally starting to get Nominative/Accusative/Dative and how adjective endings become what they based on article changes.

Past tense is still very rough, especially in sentences with multiple clauses. There was also a whirlwind of logical operators that I need to practice for a few solid weeks.

I’m still churning through Angelika Bohn’s German language books. I’m on a B1/B2 that’s just pushing my vocabulary a touch more than I wanted.

My ability to listen to spoken language is getting better, but I still get hung up translating in my head and miss the rest of the sentence. Holding it all in there while the person is still speaking is rough.

I’ve been doing much better in shops and stores with both conversation speaking & listening, as well as vocab on items & checkout systems.

I can do this. I have to. In 11 months I need my B1 test certificate in hand for my early residency application. That’ll be an awesome day!

Do it! Best choice you can make once you’re done having children. It doesn’t change anything of impact and the lack of stress wondering about possible pregnancies is very awesome.

The entire industry does. It’s a chronic shortage of UI/UX people who are backed by engineers actually taking the designs under advisement and executing on them.

I have not once done this. Many many times, yes. Not only once, though.

Quick! Burn more greenhouse gasses! That’ll totally fix it.

Yup, we’re in a real Catch 22. The way out includes living with the pain we caused by burning so many carbon fuel sources while we finish building green power sources.