My  "Vim-Fu"  is getting rusty. I'm getting more and more inefficient.
  Hence, I'll try to use vi a little more often, so I'll have  to  focus
  on  the  really  efficient  commands. Especially, Vim's VISUAL mode is
  "dangerous" -- it makes it really easy for you to do things the  wrong
  way.


                           ____________________


  Been  trying  to  get  WPA  Enterprise  to  work  without  any network
  managers, just by using wpa_supplicant. This is a  real  pain  in  the
  ass.    I  don't  think  it's  wpa_supplicants  fault,  though.  These
  "standards" are simply messed up. They're sooooo complex and  hard  to
  understand...


                           ____________________


  I've  been writing these lines with plain vi on my netbook, sitting on
  the couch. Very calming.

  I'll have to use my netbook more often anyway. Although I use the same
  software  as on my (huge and extremely powerful) desktop machine, it's
  much more minimalistic. The display is smaller, the CPU is  slower,  I
  "only" have 1GB of RAM -- which is more than enough, I rarely use more
  than 500MB. I don't even use any swap space. It's a small  and  "weak"
  machine compared to today's computers. By using it, I realize, though,
  how powerful it actually is. I grew  up  with  Intel  8086  being  the
  standard. Compared to that, my tiny netbook is just WHOAAAAAAAAA.

  Deep  inside  my head (and heart), I still think that an Intel 8086 is
  "the status quo". Do I need more than that? I don't know.  I was  able
  to  write  text,  letters, programs, play games, chat, ...  back then.
  That's actually quite a lot. What I could not do was  browse  YouTube,
  watch  movies, do (complex) audio editing or do 3D graphics. Do I need
  to do all that? It's fun, that's for sure.

  I want to reduce complexity. Yes, I sacrifice  comfort  by  doing  so.
  What do I gain? Control, knowledge, it's easier to solve problems.  Is
  that worth it? I don't know. There's something more to it. By  seeking
  simplicity,  I  feel  "better", I feel "less clumsy".  I'm not exactly
  sure what's the point.

  Hmmm. Why do I do this? Why don't I just use GNOME? First  thing  that
  comes  to  my  mind:  If  there's a problem with GNOME, I don't have a
  chance to solve it. I'm lost. Same goes  for  Mac  OS  or  Windows  or
  anything  else. Secondly, with simple systems, I can explain my system
  to another person (although this might take a lot of time, but  I  can
  do it). I can explain all the details. I feel like I'm in charge.

  Hmmm... All of that is not very rational. It's a lot about how I feel.
  I have a hard time stating objective reasons. Is it because there  are
  no objective reasons or because I haven't figured them out yet?

  By  the  way,  none  of my colleagues uses a system as minimalistic as
  mine. I don't know what that means. I have to add, they're older  than
  me,  so  maybe they just got tired of all the thinking you have to put
  in a minimalistic setup. One of them once was a Gentoo user and even a
  Gentoo  developer/packager,  so  he  sure must have his reasons why he
  switched to Mac OS. He  says,  he  got  tired  of  it  and  he  wanted
  something  that "just works". I don't understand that way of thinking.
  Seriously, I don't get it. This is not enough for me. I need  to  know
  *how*  it  works.  I  don't  want  to sit in front of a black box. I'm
  passionate about computing, these machines are not just  another  tool
  like a hammer.


                           ____________________


  Okay,  I've  been  spending  the  whole evening on the couch, using my
  netbook, looking out of the window. It's  getting  dark  outside,  but
  more  and more lights are coming up. This is awesome. It's been a long
  time since I've done that...