It's the Ides of August!

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Roman general Julius Caesar is given an ominous message by the Soothsayer.  The message is a simple warning:

"Beware the ides of March!"  The ides means the first fifteen days of the month and, come the third month, Julius Caesar is stabbed to death in those first fifteen days.

However, it seems that the ominous month for electronics is not March, but August.  In 2015, I had shared the story of how Nixie Pixel's cellphone, laptop, and desktop broke as soon as August started and how some people believed that this eighth month seemed to bring the death of beloved electronics. I even had to replace my laptop screen that month!

Well, today I woke up to the battery indicator of my ZaReason Strata 7140 sending out an intermittent red flash.

It was the laptop's way of saying to me "Aye, the ides of August have come!"

I turned on the machine and discovered that the battery is at 20% health and needs replacement.

This is pretty expected since the Strata has been working since the first half of 2014. 

Getting a replacement battery for this machine is not going to be easy, though... much less now that the government has shut down many commercial activities due to the Covid-19 emergency.

So, I took out the battery and connected the laptop to the backup power supply for the time being.

While I was doing that, I can swear I almost heard the voice of the Soothsayer delivering the ominous reminder: "Aye, the ides of August have come, but not gone!"

Brace yourself!

COVID-19, Telework, and Linux! Happy Anniversary, Mandriva Chronicles!

With the present sanitary emergency created by COVID-19, I've been away from this blog for two months already.

It's not that I have not had the motivation to post, no.  Actually, my work load blew up to three times its normal size because of the mandatory teleworking policies of the university where I work.

In the course of three weeks, I saw everyone move to cyberspace (willingly or reluctantly).  Anxiety, contradictory policies, and uncertainty became the new educational environment for many.  And, with this, I forgot that last Friday was the 10th Anniversary of this humble blog.

 What can I report?

1.  Well, the idea of the younger generations being "digital natives" shattered into a million pieces; as I had always suspected, it was nothing but a myth.  This crisis forced students to use the Web to study and, in great numbers, they are admitting defeat.  It turns out that their online skills seem nothing else that proficiency for using social networks: they cannot read and concentrate, have problems understanding how to post in forums, and become confused when submitting their assignments in an online mailbox.

2.  Linux has been up to the challenge: even though I have been forced to install programs such as Zoom and (yuck!) MS Teams on my laptop and my daughter's desktop, PCLinux OS and Mageia have been reliable, helping me attend meetings and helping my daughter continue with her elementary school classes.

Megatotoro and I decided to ditch Zoom and favored a more flexible online approach.  This idea implied producing lots of audiovisual material --something that we have no training on.  Thus, we had to learn how to produce videos in Linux for our courses.  In a week, I taught myself Kdenlive and Openshot, became more proficient with Audacity, and relied more in the image-editing of the always trustable GIMP.

In the meantime, other professors have been struggling trying to adapt their lessons to something they can deliver through Zoom meetings.  How successful that attempt is I cannot say.  Students claim that Zoom sessions generate anxiety and make them very tired, which has been confirmed in this article.  

So, yes, it has been a busy time.  But, all, in all...

Linux truly saved me from this technological virus that seems to be eroding the mental health of my colleagues...

HAPPY BELATED ANNIVERSARY, MANDRIVA CHRONICLES!!