Ian Dennis Miller, PhD Blog

Thief stole a FreeBSD laptop

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 19:15:00 -0400

We had just moved to the nicer part of Berkeley. Our previous spot - on Ashby, near San Pablo - had bars on the doors and windows. They say good fences make good neighbors. Maybe so.

This laptop, at the new apartment, was pretty rough … a refurb HP, if I recall. The year had to have been 2005 and I think the body of this laptop was sortof translucent, downstream from the Apple aesthetic at the millennium. I was yet to migrate my daily driver to a MacBook Pro. But I was experimenting. Linux: 99% pure; however I needed UNIX.

This refurb was rough indeed. The display cable - a ribbon stuck together with metallic duct tape - was probably part of the repair. I think it had some thermal problems, too. If you weren’t careful, the LCD would glitch. And if you made it think too hard, it would lock up; no kernel oops or anything.

Windows just wasn’t workable on that one. To their credit, that could do wonders on some very sketchy hardware. I think we tried Windows 2000, which was solid. It had shipped with Windows ME when it was fresh in 2002; these were grim times.

I think my reasoning was: if we get closer to the metal, we can mitigate the heat. And maybe so. I don’t know why BSD; it was probably that we lived in Berkeley. But I would only run a few processes; and pick and choose carefully.

And indeed, this thing was running FreeBSD. If I ran it heavily, it would hard lock; the thermal problems were real. I was able to run Audacity on it to record live music, which was cool. I could control the fans and the clock speed. This could work.

So one day, I went to work on campus, then came home during my lunch break. The place was a bit of a mess when I went inside - but I thought nothing of it. Later on, I realized someone had entered the apartment and stole the laptop. And I felt very little because that sore beast could not be tamed by software alone.

I think about someone opening up that laptop - in 2005 - and this smiling devil greets them at boot time. Beasty, the BSD daemon. And the deeper they dig, the more cursed the laptop is.

They would have tried to sell it in San Francisco, the police said. It would have to be formatted, then some workable OS imaged … I can’t imagine what that would be.

I think there’s a decent chance, however, that the person who actually booted that device might have known: this one was weird and unlike the other hot laptops. When they went to format the hard drive - a platter, 2.5 inches, IDE - their experience would be shaped by the typical distribution of consumer choice; at the time, mostly Windows. If a Mac, then it would be obvious from the outside. A Linux laptop would have been rare; certainly under 1% at the time.

But a FreeBSD laptop? In 2005? What were you thinking? No self-preservation instinct? Fearless; and yet, a coward.

Windows ME is the best you would have managed on that hardware. You’ve been judged. But all these years later, I’m not even mad; I’m just disappointed; dumbfounded by the choice. And a little sad, like, for people and humanity generally.

Maybe you went on without a second thought. For the most part, I did too. But understand that a specific, twisted logic had been poured into that laptop - and it was completely cursed. For me, on that day, a curse was actually lifted.

Toronto hides its secrets in our front-yard bushes

Sat, 31 May 2025 08:37:00 -0400

Toronto - the people of the city, that is - hides its secrets in the tall bushes in front of our home, where two city streets intersect. These bushes are taller than I am; not by that much - but still. From spring to fall, these hedges are pretty dense with tiny leaves and such. I know people think of the space behind these leaves as a place for hiding in plain sight. I’ve found the wildest stuff in there; all of it a secret to someone else - but known to me. These are the secrets Toronto has revealed to me.

Beer bottles

I often find empty beer cans and bottles in the bushes. In fact, a beer bottle may be pushed half-way into the bush to create an impromptu cup holder. But to solve an immediate need to dispose of the empty vessel, one must push the bottle entirely into the bush. Then, it will be gone forever (we assume.) Until I find it, of course. In this case, there are market forces that ought to induce passers-by to extract and recycle these items; the beer recycling centre is just a few blocks away. But even the market, with its own omniscient and invisible powers, cannot recycle that which is unknown to its all-seeing hand.

Dog poop

I am not surprised anymore when someone throws their dog’s poop bag into the bushes. I know there exist grown people operating at the maturity level of children. In the way children must eventually master object permanence, the poop bag can be made to disappear from worry by simply hiding it in the bush. The secret, in this case, is the concealable nature of selfishness; of which the dog poop was merely a signifier.

Medical waste

I am a little concerned by the medical supplies I’ve found. Usually, these items are used, with patches of blood and other fluids on them. These are clear plastic bags of first-aid dressings for wounds, blue and black nitrile gloves, gauze patches, bandages, and so on. It is grim to consider these bushes sustain some portion of public health - a responsibility no shrubbery should have to meet. For my part, this medical waste is hazardous; my public service is that of disposal. I have a tool now that looks like enormous tongs/chopsticks, enabling me to move this refuse into a garbage can, which sits close by.

Pipe wrench

I found a massive pipe wrench in the bushes. It is heavy, rusted, and is still a useful tool. That wrench has secrets, no doubt. The wielder had secrets. One way or another, this wrench was made to be forgotten by someone. It is impossible to know how long but some days later, I manifested and elevated this secret wrench from the bushes. Now I am one wrench richer, having made memorable the forgettable.

Empty deliveries

I find empty delivery boxes, addressed to neighbours from a 5-block radius. In these cases, I imagine the box was intercepted in the last mile. Anything could be in the box; imagining the moment of unboxing with maximum novelty; something that may have only the narrowest, niche use to someone. Extracting the item from its cardboard envelope collapses the probability distribution upon observation. The box now has a known state, its contents having settled by means of some quantum calculus. Then into our bushes goes the box, itself now evidence of a deed that was certainly done.

Rotting food

I find food: rotting produce; the dumped contents of a take-out container; scattered compost that was dropped during municipal waste-pickup. Food is rarely something I must deal with when it has been hidden in our bushes. A tomato I found was eaten within a week; likely a raccoon helped to dispatch it. There are also pidgeons, squirrels, and coyotes in the mix. In the Anthropocene, we exist in symbiosis with the waste scavengers, feeding them our highly-processed emulsifications.

Plastic pre-roll tubes

I find empty plastic tubes that once contained pre-rolls. These containers surely must be the cutting-edge of container design; each one is different, often in fundamental ways. There are apparently countlessly-many mechanisms for solving the kid-proofing challenge: make a tube that an adult may open but a child cannot. Once it has been opened, the tube has fulfilled its purpose and it dies like salmon after spawning. From conception in the mind of its designer, through computer-assisted incubation, into the adolescence of manufacture, to ultimately mature as a fully-formed weed tube. Its swan song is the moment an adult puzzles over the novel latch or squeezable bits that were deemed un-openable by children - but eventually solvable by grownups. The circle of life.

Garbage

I find garbage. This was recently someone else’s garbage but now it is uselessly sitting in the bushes. It has become my garbage by default. Sometimes, it is placed directly into the bushes. Other times, it blows down the streets on “garbage pickup day” and our bushes filter-feed the trash, sifting it from the air and enveloping it. Wrappers and leaves of thin plastic scraps torn from bags of potato chips or shrink-wrapping for individual apples, now rattling and crinkling in the wind along with the actually-living bushes.

You doing okay, Toronto?

You’ve told me some pretty scarce tales. Are you fed? Are you cared for? We hide whatever we can’t stand to look at. Upon revealing these secrets, we find that it’s all garbage to society; from the bushes to the landfill, where it will be superficially forgotten again. A secret feels so important and personal; but I’ve found some of these secrets and the prevailing attitude is indifference. Is it better when society doesn’t care about our secrets? Is it better to witness it all? Must society be capable of forgetting so that we may heal from the harms of our own choices? We choose secrecy, from time to time, and the bushes are willing to hear it.

Diamond Patterns

Sat, 14 Apr 2018 05:39:56 -0400

Overview

Diamond-Patterns are scaffolds for knowledge work. Use patterns to go faster.

Features

quickly scaffold projects of specific forms
easily installs using python package management with pip

Diamond Accounting

Wed, 13 Dec 2017 19:00:00 -0500

Overview

Diamond-Accounting helps you manage your finances using accounting books.

Diamond-Accounting is built using ledger-cli, which is open source software. Everything is managed using plain text files that are simple to chronicle using version control.

Features

double-entry bookkeeping system
extremely powerful accounting engine using ledger-cli
works on UNIX systems
open source software
produce statements: balance sheet, income/expenses, and cashflow

Routine

Thu, 07 Dec 2017 12:35:23 -0500

Get the book on Amazon

Routine is a blueprint for living. This book is for anybody looking to be a well-rounded person who eats well, saves money, is a good citizen, and is professionally successful.

An activity is routine when it is performed daily. More or less. Taken together, all this book’s activities are known as: Routine. Routine should become nameless by its invisibility as it dissolves into the structure of life.

This book covers a wide range of topics including personal development, estate, home, and professional development.

Gthnk

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 19:00:00 -0500

Overview

Gthnk is a personal knowledge management system. Use Gthnk to capture your ideas using plain old text files. Gthnk is a cross-platform desktop application written in Python.

Features

a personal Journal
supports long-term Archival
technically, it’s a Database
a Chronology of your notes
including Handwritten Notes and Mobile Notes
image Attachments

Flask Diamond

Wed, 01 Nov 2017 20:00:00 -0400

Overview

Flask-Diamond is a batteries-included Flask framework. A Flask-Diamond application consists of facets, which are common facilities that many applications eventually need to provide.

Features

The facets provided by Flask-Diamond include:

account management
administrative access
databases
Model object CRUD
email
testing
documentation
deployment
and more

Routine

Mon, 07 Aug 2017 20:00:00 -0400

Overview

Routine is a blueprint for living. This book is for anybody looking to be a well-rounded person who eats well, saves money, is a good citizen, and is professionally successful.

This book covers a wide range of topics including personal development, estate, home, and professional development.

Cover Image

Project System

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 20:00:00 -0400

Overview

Create workspaces for projects and manage them. Project-system is software for UNIX that creates a Python virtual environment, a git version-controlled directory, and sets up a tmux session.

Features

quickly create a workspace for each project you work on
use Python 2 or Python 3
store any python dependencies within a virtual environment
work “inside” a project workspace using tmux

Spring

Thu, 11 May 2017 09:53:25 -0400

spring’s verdant sunrain

gallop, galumph on all fours

climb seeing farther

Ian Dennis Miller, PhD Blog

Thief stole a FreeBSD laptop

Toronto hides its secrets in our front-yard bushes

Beer bottles

Dog poop

Medical waste

Pipe wrench

Empty deliveries

Rotting food

Plastic pre-roll tubes

Garbage

You doing okay, Toronto?

Diamond Patterns

Overview

Links

Features

Diamond Accounting

Overview

Links

Features

Routine

Gthnk

Overview

Links

Features

Flask Diamond

Overview

Links

Features

Routine

Overview

Links

Cover Image

Project System

Overview

Links

Features

Spring