“Forget this world and all its troubles and if possible its multitudinous Charlatans–everything in short but the Enchantress of Numbers.”
― Charles Babbage

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
— Charles Bukowski (Factotum)

The new todo list is as follows:

• Install new dishwasher Done
• new Guibo bush on the 128
• new center bearing support on the 128
• implement new home-theater amp to eliminate double stereo
• Trip to IKEA
• Deport virtulized XP machine from my world. First test tomorrow
• Implement UnRAID and Plex all the things.

Good news, the Xterra runs great. Bad news, I continue to never ever get a water pump to seal on the 1st try. Every time, I follow other people’s advice, and use ‘recommended’ sealants, applied in a neat (thin) way. It always leaks. This always results in purchase of a new gasket, followed by gooping the living shit out of it. Bet it works this time. New timing belt is re-installed, hasn’t been tensioned, need to roll the crank a couple times and put my 22lb on it.

“The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves. So I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or “incentives” for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable