The most passionate of all the cats here, who like to be petted. I've named her "Praline".
All 5 monastery cats have succumbed to my irresistible cat charms, even the black cat in the kitchen with the Z-shaped tail. No cat can resist! 🤭
[#]Malaysia #caturday
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Today I noticed that #Gajim has Audio and Video call functionality (this is on the #linux desktop, as installed from #flatpak)! :bd200:
That's new to me. Kudos to whomever added that. Gajim was missing that for the loooongest time. :bd242:
[#]XMPP
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Awesome article: "The Alpha Myth: How Captive Wolves Led Us Astray":
https://anthonydavidadams.substack.com/p/the-alpha-myth-how-captive-wolves
'The irony is that in attempting to model human behavior on what we thought was "natural" wolf psychology, we instead normalized the very behaviors that emerge from unnatural confinement. Just as captive wolves exhibit exaggerated aggression and dominance, humans operating within rigid hierarchies and crushing social expectations often adopt similarly distorted patterns – what we might call "captive male syndrome."'
PS: I dislike substack - you can't save the article with LibreWolf's "Save page as..." feature - and would encourage the lazy to get a real blog.
[#]psychology #biology #leadership
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The "good lizards" here in #Malaysia. They don't come indoors. #wildlife
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These download folders were what I needed to find, to get quickly off the ground with #Kiwix:
https://download.kiwix.org/release/kiwix-desktop/
https://download.kiwix.org/release/kiwix-tools/
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I have a spare Raspberry Pi laying around, and I think it would be fun to try a #Kiwix install on it.
I don't want to use their all-in-one wifi hotspot distro ("kiwix-hotspot-linux"), as the Raspberry Pi's onboard wifi is really weak - it's not a worthy wifi AP. It's wired ethernet only, IMHO. I also want to serve other things on that same Raspberry Pi, not just Kiwix.
I'd like to first try the desktop app for linux. The most recent version of Kiwix desktop supports QT6, so I'd prefer that. Kudos to the developers, to try to keep Kiwix up to date with new library dependencies, etc. 👍
After downloading some ZIMs, I'd like to serve out the zims using the web server in the kiwix-tools package.
There's talk of a #Debian PPA in Github, but I can't find the PPA sources to use (for Debian 12, as is in #RaspberryPi OS).
[#]linux #SelfHosting #Library #librarian
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I've started a PixelFed account: https://pixelfed.social/sbb
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I can't attach a .png in #WhatsApp Web! It works in #Signal, BTW. And PNGs used to work a few weeks ago. My Web Browser is #LibreWolf in #Linux.
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I might log into #Facebook about once every 2 or 3 months - to discover I missed nothing to speak of. And I only log into Facebook on a device with no webcam, microphone, or personal data. It's a Raspberry Pi.
I strongly avoided ever creating an account there, until I was trying to find people to sign up for a weekend #meditation retreat I was offering back in 2024 - and other people suggested promoting the event on Facebook. Alas, this complete waste of my time attracted no additional signups. It was word of mouth within the #Buddhist community (non-Facebook communication) which brought me every signup; it wasn't Facebook.
[#]Meta #RaspberryPi
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After a few months of posting no new #Dhamma Talks, I just posted 3 new ones:
"Mindfulness in Relationships":
https://bhikkhu.ca/buddhism/audio/2025/01/21/Dhamma_Talk_audio_050.html
"Market Practice":
https://bhikkhu.ca/buddhism/audio/2025/01/21/Dhamma_Talk_audio_051.html
"Ending a Retreat Skillfully":
https://bhikkhu.ca/buddhism/audio/2025/01/21/Dhamma_Talk_audio_052.html
My RSD feed, BTW:
https://bhikkhu.ca/feed.xml
[#]Buddhism #audio #Dharma
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I received a generous donation of a newer laptop. Anumodana ("I rejoice in your merit"), to the donor!
I installed Linux Mint on it, and it works OK - 10 days of use now. The graphics chip is still pretty new, so there are some "papercuts":
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2577154#p2577154
[#]Buddhism #Dana #Linux #LinuxMint #Wayland
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Several monastics I know recently went to an Asubha event (viewing dead corpses), called "Silent Mentor" in Kuala Lumpur. Contemplating death is believed to be a good spiritual motivator, when you are a #Buddhist monk or nun.
I didn't attend, but on this topic of Asubha, I have a true story to share.
The night before I left for this current monastery, I went downstairs to get water. This involves briefly going outside. When I pulled the door shut behind me, entering a kitchen area, something was stuck in the door. I was about to pull on the door hard, to close it, but then thought - no, don't force it. I looked behind me and the largest House Gecko I've ever seen in my life, by far, was lodged between the door and the door frame. It was trying to get outside, which is very strange. Usually they only go in one direction - inside the building. Anyway, its rib-cage was squashed totally flat - reduced to about 2 millimeters. Half of his body was inside, and half outside the door. I opened the door, and the house gecko scurried about two steps down the door-frame with its front legs, to withdraw itself from harm's way. But it could scurry no further, because its spinal cord was severed, and its back legs wouldn't listen any longer. It looked straight at me with its 100% cold emotion-less lizard look, then wiggled like crazy from side to side, and I could see exactly how much spinal cord would still listen - about half total. Its front legs flailed in the air, side-to-side madly, but its hind legs clutched to the door frame in a death grip. Then it just gave up, clinging to the door frame, facing downward, unable to run any further downward. It wasn't bleeding, but I could see faint red stripes exactly where the scissor pinch had occurred across its chest. After about 30 seconds, it let go with its front legs, wanting only to fall to the floor. But its hind legs wouldn't give up on that death grip on the door frame. It just hung there, about 1.7 meters off the floor. I came back about 30 minutes later, and it had fallen to the floor, dead on the spot. Ants were starting to swarm onto the body (it was about 25cm long), so I swept it up and threw it over the fence into a sort of back alley. Had I given that door a firm closing pull at the start, I would have badly severed its body in half, with guts all over the place for sure. I'll never forget how it struggled and flapped the front of its body about desperately - with zero emotion on its face - in total shock, with its freshly-severed spinal nerves. This was super creepy, and right in my face, only about 30 cm away, with my flashlight shining right on it.
[#]Malaysia #wildlife #Buddhism
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This monastery I'm at has two #Windows 11 computers for the monks. I tried one of them, and it was brutally slow. I heard about the Chris Titus debloating tool, and gave it a go with the standard tweaks. It improved the speed a lot.
https://christitus.com/windows-utility-improved/
The whole exercise wasted a good hour, to finally get the quick and easy (Windows-only) original task I was needing done.
I feel grateful to everyone in the #Linux world, which I returned to with newfound appreciation.
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I have a #RaspberryPi 5 Argon Neo 5 case, with the "Expansion Board". It allows a (longer) "2280" NVMe stick to be attached. I'm doing a big file copy to test it out, and it works great. :dy62:
I can't find the "chefkiss" emoji, but wish I could, because it's one of those moments.
[#]OpenSource #linux
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After spending a few weeks comparing #Nextcloud bookmarks, and #Shiori (I have them running side by side on a #RaspberryPi 5), I would say Shiori is the winner, as it has a far better #Android client. Nextcloud bookmarks on the desktop is better than Shiori on the desktop, as Nextcloud's browser applet works better for saving bookmarks quickly. But since I save more bookmarks in Android, I tilted to Shiori's favor. Shiori is more of a "mobile first" solution.
They both have their own problems, neither is a bug-free solution.
[#]OpenSource #linux
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I'm reading "The User Illusion", by Tor Norretranders. #Buddhist monks are highly interested in the nature of #consciousness, and the #Buddha has teachings such as the 5 aggregates, and Dependant Origination, as its doctrine on the matter.
I'm only on the preface and my mind is blown. I think I'm going to enjoy this book.
[#]books #reading
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Today the 10-day meditation retreat ended at Wisdom Park, #Malaysia. The yogis meditated 7.5 hours a day for 10 days, plus there was morning and evening canting. It was taught by Bhante Alokavamsa of Indonesia, plus there were two Indonesian Sayalays (nuns). There were about 13 of us total, not including a few facility staff and voluteers.
There was a sharing circle at the end. I was the only Westerner there. Virtually everyone shared inspiring words. One woman broke down crying, saying her life was changed forever. It was powerful. One Sayalay was so introverted she didn't want to speak, and had to be encouraged 4 times before saying something briefly. A second woman would say nothing even after 5 encouragements.
It was really inspiring; everyone was so sincere!
Nobody but nobody "bogued" the mic (monopolized the mic, talking too long). This highly impressed me. Had these been Westerners, there's always one or two who bogue away shamelessly.
[#]meditation #theravada #buddhism
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Some of the nice flowers here at Wisdom Park retreat center, near KL:
[#]Malaysia #meditation #Buddhism
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The Internet is a very high tech place when you think of all the underlying protocols, built on a geek's culture valuing open communication, open protocols, etc. which would have made the founding fathers of the Age of Enlightenment proud.
But then with the advent of #SocialMedia, the #internet #culture underwent a massive retrogression back to medieval thinking - eschewing open protocols with the advent of mobile "apps", building proprietary castles with "walled gardens", and it turned into a big high-school popularity contest for likes and followers.
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What if there was one day a year which was "boost extra-generously Day", on #Mastodon? Like you should intend to boost at least 50 things that day, just to ensure everyone who needs it can break out of a "Boosting-Scrooge" mentality?
Just like #Thailand has Songkran - and everyone goes wild soaking each other with water - I think Mastodon needs a similar predictable day where everyone goes wild with the boosts.
[#]generosity #dana
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