| Toothache and major money problems |
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Friday, May 17th, 2013 04:44:17 GMT |
| Journal |
Donations, or purchases of goods or services, are welcome.
Some bad stuff has been happening lately. Can't go into detail about all of it, but, something that I can mention is that I got a bad toothache on Saturday, May 11, 2013.
In the week or so before that, I had been noticing some slight pain, but it was quite minor in the beginning and I was hoping it was nothing serious. But, unfortunately, it got bad on Saturday.
Interestingly, this was almost the same day a major bad astrological transit became exact in my chart, transiting Saturn square my natal moon. And a variety of other bad things happened around then too that also seemed to fit in with the meanings of that transit. I've seldom been unhappier at astrology seeming coincidentally accurate.
It had been a slight problem for years, ever since a filling was put in that tooth in November 2006. Anytime I sprayed it with an oral irrigator, I got a sharp pain. I saw the dentist about it in either 2007 or 2008, but, supposedly nothing needed to be done. But, I probably should have gotten a second opinion, because the sharp pain when irrigating that tooth seems like a blatantly obvious indication that something was seriously wrong with that filling.
But, at that point, since I was actually even more depressed and poor back then than I am now, I just gave up in futility, accepted what the dentist said despite still believing there was probably something seriously wrong with the filling or tooth, and just stopped irrigating the tooth to avoid the pain. And, it seemed mostly OK until last weekend.
A pity that the whole problem wasn't prevented years ago. It probably would have been, if I hadn't been poor.
At least one good result of this is that I finally moved on to a much better dentist.
I took 1 Vicodin before the numbness wore off, even though I wasn't sure I was going to need it, and have needed no painkillers since. Hopefully it will just heal up nicely and I won't somehow end up with "dry socket".
I have various other dental problems, such as some broken-open root canaled teeth (my original dentist said fixing one of them would be $277), but, they haven't been giving me trouble, so, I'm probably not going to do anything about them unless it becomes financially comfortable to do so, or, if they become unignorably painful.
Basically, I have to choose between either buying an air conditioner, or having the funds to deal with any possible complications of my tooth extraction, or whatever other stuff that comes up that there's just not enough money to handle all of it at the same time.
Except I'm not really in much condition now to do difficult services, and the idea of selling my possessions frightens me because I'm afraid of having no stuff to sell in an emergency in the future.
I'm so afraid I'll never be able to figure out how to make adequate amounts of money no matter what I do. :-(
But at least I'm better able to get things done than I was when I still had a toothache. The empty socket isn't perfectly painless but it still feels a lot better than the toothache did.
So, Wednesday around maybe 10:45 AM, I finally got that tooth extracted.
I saw my original dentist about it Monday, and again he somehow didn't think it was as serious as it actually was, and he just gave me penicillin and was planning on taking out the filling and redoing it. But, the pain continued to worsen, and I was having tremendously even worse trouble sleeping than I normally do, so on Wednesday, I saw another dentist, who said it was infected and needed either a root canal or extraction. A root canal was out of the question for financial reasons, so, I got an extraction.
Anyhow, all these dental problems are just more gruesome consequences of poverty. Fortunately, I wasn't so poor that I might have ended up with a possibly lethal brain abscess from an untreated infected tooth.
Another problem is - yesterday (Thursday), my air conditioner (which had been having problems for a few weeks) finally stopped working. I covered my larger window with taped up paper and aluminum foil to try to minimize the greenhouse effect from all the sunlight my room gets, and opened my windows and keep my fan running constantly, but, it's still not quite good enough. But an air conditioner is yet another thing that's not comfortably within reach for me because of poverty.
So, I just wanted to point this stuff out in case anyone would like to help me out with money, whether donations, or purchases of goods or services.
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| Updated About page and Donations page |
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Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 08:47:21 GMT |
| Site Update |
I finally updated the About page (neglected since Dec. 15, 2008) and the Donations page (neglected since Sept. 3, 2011).
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| First Release of Eryss Astrology Software and Swiss Ephemeris Extension Package for Astroblahhh GLMP-GTK or Astroblahhh PH-GTK |
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Monday, April 29th, 2013 13:45:46 GMT |
| Site Update Software Release |
At last - projects 4 and 5 from late January 2013.
for Astroblahhh GLMP-GTK and Astroblahhh PH-GTK
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| First Releases of Astroblahhh GLMP-GTK and Astroblahhh PH-GTK |
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Sunday, April 28th, 2013 09:35:49 GMT |
| Site Update Software Releases |
Here are projects 2 and 3 from late January 2013. They're for Ubuntu-based Puppy Linuxes and Slacko Puppy:
I sure underestimated how long it would take to finish all this stuff.
But, in a way, I'm sort of glad it took this long, because April 28th and 29th, 2012 were some quite lousy days for me, and releasing these nice, useful projects today and tomorrow will give me some good, happy things to look back on on future April 28ths and 29ths. :-)
I'm going to release projects 4 and 5 on April 29th. Yes, 4 and 5 - I miscounted before.
Originally, the 5th thing was going to just be some simplistic demo software, which I didn't mean to take at all long to write. But, after adding so many nice little features to it, I decided it deserved a cool name and to be treated as a full-fledged project after all.
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| New Page: Some Puppy Linux Basics |
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Friday, April 19th, 2013 20:10:37 GMT |
| Site Update |
Well, my project from late January is still not 100% done. Actually, though, it's inaccurate to call all that just one project, because it grew so much it ended up being about 4 different, related projects.
I wanted to release all 4 at the same time, but, I recently got a cold, so, I haven't been able to finish them all.
But, 1 of the 4 is done - or done enough for now. (It's the kind of thing that's a perpetual work in progress, so I probably will add more to it eventually.) Here it is:
Even if you don't use Puppy Linux, the section titled What is free, libre, open source software? might be entertaining reading for anyone.
And, added two currently boring and mostly empty pages: Goods and Services.
And, changed the some of the link colors on this website to be more readable.
Minor updates: I renamed the Request Software or Ask Programming Questions page to Request Free/Libre/Open Source Software, Documentation, or Ask Programming Questions, and updated it.
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| Perl Script: Simple Folder Opener v1.1 |
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Friday, March 29th, 2013 11:18:33 GMT |
| Site Update |
Just a tiny update.
Had to add some quotes - otherwise this script wouldn't work right for folder paths with any spaces in them.
The project from late January will, I hope, be done very soon.
No, this isn't the project I've been working on since late January. :-) The above update took even longer than that - it took me almost two years to notice and fix the above problem. *facepalm*
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| My 3rd Livemocha Summer Challenge Video |
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Thursday, August 30th, 2012 04:10:50 GMT |
| Languages |
Here it is:
Info about the Livemocha Summer Challenge: For Language-Learners: Livemocha Summer Challenge - Ends August 31, 2012
I talked a bit about French text adventure games (also known as interactive fiction) and how to get started playing them.
The interpreter Windows Frotz is useful to language learners since it has copy and paste, but I also like Gargoyle when I don't need copy and paste. Gargoyle plays many different types of IF games, while Frotz plays only Z-code games.
Other useful IF links:
A page in French about French IF: http://ifiction.free.fr/index.php?id=jeux
My narration is again not particularly entertaining, but, I think this video's topic is the most interesting of all 3 videos.
Basically, you just need some text adventure game files (you can get some in French here or in English here, among other places), and some interpreter software to open the game files with.
If you're new to interactive fiction (IF) games, or have little idea what commands can be used in French IF, you can download English and French versions of an intro to IF at emshort.wordpress.com/how-to-play
The awesome public domain music from Musopen.org I used this time was Polonaise in A major, Op. 40, No. 1, composed by Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849) and performed by Felipe Sarro.
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| My 2nd Livemocha Summer Challenge Video |
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Friday, August 17th, 2012 20:09:44 GMT |
| Languages |
Here it is:
This time, I used Etude No. 1 in A Flat Major, Op. 25, composed by Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849), and played by Donald Betts.
Etude No. 1 in A Flat Major, Op. 25 is nicknamed "The Shepherd Boy" and "Aeolian Harp" for reasons explained in this Wikipedia article.
Info about the Livemocha Summer Challenge: For Language-Learners: Livemocha Summer Challenge - Ends August 31, 2012
In my video, I mentioned:
Like my other video, my narration is pretty boring. But, again like my other video, at least this video has awesome public domain music from Musopen.org. :-)
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| Link: "5 Reasons You Should Treat Your Partner Like Your Dog" |
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Thursday, August 16th, 2012 19:25:57 GMT |
| Self-Help Link |
I liked this article from PaidToExist.com:
Don't worry, it's much nicer than the title sounds. :-)
| A link to a Rolling Stone article: "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math" |
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Sunday, August 12th, 2012 03:53:14 GMT |
| Environment Link |
Here's a scary article from Rolling Stone about global warming: