It's been a minute. I've been busy, mainly with packaging for PCLinuxOS. In fact a lot has happened in that regard. We've ported DNF5 which has been quite a big improvement from APT-RPM in my view, mainly because it brings with it a lot of QoL improvements. I liked and will miss APT-RPM, but at a certain point you have to come to terms that something hasn't been updated in years and you have to move on. DNF5 is a fine successor for PCLinuxOS. Besides that, I've also ported things like the Nitro init system, which is pretty exciting itself.
In that time span I was also getting prepared for college. In January I left my job to pursue a degree, something I was very close to getting but piddled around for too long. If you've seen any of my older stuff, you may know how I feel about education. It never treated me well, and that's not to play the victim card or play the world's smallest violin but for years I was bullied, both by teachers and by students. If you're from the south or other conservative regions and autistic/savant you probably know what it feels like. I grew up mostly online where I could meet others who actually seemed to share the same interests as me and that was trouble in itself if you're a young teen on the internet. There are truly evil people out there who will take advantage of you; that happened to me on ROBLOX for instance and it ruined me for years to come. Funnily enough only now does it seem ROBLOX is getting any justice for what they've allowed to go on for so long (for reference, it's been so long ago that I used ROBLOX that I didn't even know what Linux was).
It's for those reasons and others that I've become rather distrusting of people I've met in the past. I can get along fine with people I met for work or other things, but when you have people come back into your life that you knew treated you like crap before and suddenly want to be your friends, what do you do? This has happened to me, and because I don't really have many friends I get to actually see, I took the bait hook, line, and sinker. I call it bait because for years now they've manipulated me and I just tried to be nice and do what they wanted. They want me to have Discord, knowing good and well it goes against what I consider fundamentally immoral, yet I get Discord. They want to put on this "No F's given" attitude acting bombastic in public and being rude to people for no reason, and going to places that only they want to go. When it comes to games, every game that I've played or known of for years they ruin for me kind of like somebody insulting your favorite movie or book. Meanwhile, 90% of the time it's playing their unoptimized modern triple A slop. And saddest of all, they take up more for people they only know in the video game than who they're bring along with them as a friend. So much so I finally had enough and cut ties, only for them to come see me and apologize. I really can't get away from this, can I?
To add insult to injury recently they wanted to go to a far off city. If they knew me at all, they would know how I feel about being in big cities. It's not that I dislike the 'city life', but I grew up where my city population was the number of people on the road at any given time in that city. It's very scary and overwhelming for me and growing up around here as an autistic individual it's all that I know how to handle. Maybe if it was with the right people it wouldn't be so bad, but I've already made it pretty clear why they aren't the right people.
So I told him (the one who asked me), "Why don't we go to X instead?" to which he replies "That's fine me and X will just go ourselves." Ha. Sounds good to me! Does that make me antisocial? No, because I've met plenty of people I get along with, just not many I get to see. This is part of what inspired me to write the vampires analogy years ago; I believe certain people to be vampires who suck the life force out of you. Maybe it's because they're not autistic to see what they're doing, so perhaps it's wrong for me to blame them. It's just hard to find the living when you live in a sea of the dead. One of my true friends, Varad, made it clear to me that whatever I'm doing now is the right thing because even if GNU/Linux or free software doesn't mean anything to a vampire, it does or will mean something to somebody because I've made history in this world which God has placed me in. There will be no other you or I. In a way, even me bumping Bibletime or introducing DNF to PCLinuxOS is lasting change that at least gives me enough joy and fulfillment to continue onward.
I am certain that one day God will gift me in a way I so desperately yearn today but for which it is too early, and the same goes for any readers who have made it this far. God bless.