13th December 2021 - Irritating Issues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have been having an issue on one particular computer for some 4 
months or so. It is a mint box 2 running Manjaro XFCE on latest stable 
kernel. The issue is the mouse becoming rather stuttery. I have been 
trying alsorts of things to try and resolve it. The stutttering starts 
at random and appears to have no fixed reason. Recently for some 
reason, the keyboard started doing this too. I have been reading lots 
of forum posts covering a whole variety of different causes. I 
eventually found what seems to actually works. My mouse and keyboard 
started being screwy while playing Jazz Jackrabbit 2. The keyboard was 
sticking lots and so I decided to go fix again. I eventually found a 
post in the arch forums suggesting that USBs could be being suspended. 
The solution is simple, run powertop and check the tunables. Since 
turning any tunable involving the suspension of any USB or vaguely USB 
related device from good to bad, I have a working mouse and keyboard. 
Why did I not consider it being a power thing? Well mostly as I tend 
to expect power issues to be constant even if I debug partial power 
ups in electronic designs fairly often. I just don't expect it in 
consumer electronics or computers I guess. Anyhow, hopefully the issue 
has resolved. I am sort of curious of the root cause. It seems to have 
started with a kernal change but resorting back to previous kernals 
did not help. Perhaps something triggered a change to Powertop 
tuneables? Buggered if I know. It just feels nice having a solution! 
Well... a maybe solution. Shall have to see if this persists.

On another note, I managed to get my covid booster today. The process 
was pretty smooth other than when the 'escort' disappeared for what 
felt like hours but was only 15 minutes. As this vaccination centre 
was in a college, members of the public had to be escorted in groups 
up and down stairs. To keep things smooth, the escorting chap had to 
shift up and down every 5 to 10 minutes really. This would enable the 
15 minute watch time seats to empty at a suitable rate. Ah well. What 
amazed me was making an appointment and actually being jabbed at the 
time of the appointment. Not something I have been used to while 
getting jabbed at Millenium Point. 

I am also on holiday. Until 4th January! The joys of having had some 
forced unpaid leave in August and having to use all remaining holiday 
and time in lieu before end of the calendar year. I often try to make 
sure I have a week and a half over Christmas. A forced site shut down 
between Christmas and New Year helps make it easy. I also hate driving 
on Christmas Eve. Far better to have a few days to choose from. This 
week is mostly trying to finish off my Christmas shopping and helping 
Grandparents. My Grandparents are having to leave the house (rather 
rare for them) to get their booster jabs so I am acting as taxi and 
reassuring pressence.