A place to try things

To save a list of installed apt packages on your Ubuntu system so you can reinstall them on another Ubuntu system, you can use the dpkg and apt commands to generate a package list and then transfer that list to the new system. Here are the steps:

1. On the source Ubuntu system (the one with the packages you want to save), open a terminal.
2. Run the following command to generate a list of installed packages and save it to a text file (e.g., package_list.txt):

bashCopy code

dpkg --get-selections > package_list.txt

This command will create a text file called package_list.txt in the current directory containing a list of all installed packages.

3. Transfer the package_list.txt file to the target Ubuntu system. You can use methods like SCP, USB drive, or any other means to move the file to the new system.
4. On the target Ubuntu system, open a terminal.
5. Place the package_list.txt file in a directory of your choice.
6. Run the following command to install the packages listed in the file:

sudo dpkg --set-selections < package_list.txt
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

These commands will set the selections of packages based on the contents of the package_list.txt file and then update and upgrade your system to install those packages.

Please note that while this method will install the same packages on the new system, it won’t configure them in the same way as your original system. Configuration files for packages are typically not included in this process, so you may need to manually configure any software that requires it after the installation.

Additionally, if the two systems have different versions of Ubuntu or different package sources enabled, there may be some compatibility issues or differences in available packages. Always exercise caution and review the package list before proceeding to ensure that the packages are appropriate for the target system.

My reputation notwithstanding, I have rarely taken a substance that I haven’t researched. It’s hard to keep track of them (serotonin? dopamine? what?) and I was about to make a spreadsheet. Pro tip: if you think you need to do something like that, the odds approach certainty that someone else has already done the work.

do you know any tricks for getting out of rheumatoid depression?

ChatGPT

Yes, here are some tips that may help in managing depression related to rheumatoid arthritis:

1. Exercise regularly: Physical activity can boost mood, increase energy levels and improve sleep.
2. Stay connected with loved ones: Social support can help relieve feelings of isolation and loneliness.
3. Practice stress-reduction techniques: Activities like deep breathing, meditation, and yoga can help reduce stress and improve mood.
4. Try talk therapy: Cognitive behavioral therapy or other forms of talk therapy can help change negative thought patterns that contribute to depression.
5. Consider medication: Antidepressant medication may be recommended by a doctor to help manage depression.
6. Participate in a support group: Talking with others who have similar experiences can help increase a sense of belonging and reduce feelings of isolation.

It’s important to note that everyone’s experiences with depression are unique and what works for one person may not work for another. It’s always best to speak with a healthcare professional to determine the best course of treatment.

do you know any other lesser-know, perhaps unconventional things to do?

ChatGPT

Yes, here are some less well-known or unconventional strategies for managing depression related to rheumatoid arthritis:

1. Try light therapy: Exposure to bright light can help regulate mood and improve symptoms of depression.
2. Practice gratitude: Focusing on the things in life for which you’re grateful can help shift attention away from negative thoughts and feelings.
3. Get creative: Engaging in activities like drawing, painting, or writing can help express emotions and boost mood.
4. Connect with nature: Spending time in nature, whether through gardening, hiking, or simply taking a walk, can reduce stress and improve overall well-being.
5. Try aromatherapy: Essential oils like lavender and chamomile are believed to have a calming effect on the mind and body.
6. Listen to music: Certain types of music have been shown to have a positive impact on mood, particularly classical music and nature sounds.
7. Volunteer: Helping others can boost self-esteem and provide a sense of purpose, which can help counteract feelings of depression.

Again, it’s important to work with a healthcare professional to determine what strategies will be most effective for you, as individual experiences and needs can vary greatly.

do you know any herbs or supplements that can be used?

ChatGPT

Here are some herbs and supplements that have been traditionally used or researched for their potential to help with depression:

1. St. John’s Wort: This herb has been used for centuries to treat mild to moderate depression.
2. Omega-3 fatty acids: These essential fatty acids, found in fish oil, have been shown to improve symptoms of depression and anxiety.
3. S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe): This supplement has been found to be as effective as some prescription antidepressants for treating depression.
4. 5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP): This supplement is converted into serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, and has been used as a natural remedy for depression.
5. Vitamin D: Low levels of Vitamin D have been linked to depression, and supplementing with Vitamin D has been shown to improve symptoms in some people.

It’s important to keep in mind that these supplements and herbs can interact with other medications and may not be safe for everyone. Before starting any new supplement or herb, it’s recommended to consult with a healthcare professional to assess safety and determine the best approach for you.

I read that some folks decided to have ChatGPT act in the role as a text adventure game. This was my attempt at this.

act as though you are a text adventure game. I am standing outside a house. there is a mailbox here. ChatGPT

You are standing outside a house, and there is a mailbox nearby.

What would you like to do?

Open the mailbox

You open the mailbox and find a pile of letters and a small key inside.

Take the key

You take the key and put it in your pocket.

Knock on the door

You knock on the door and wait for a response. After a moment, you hear footsteps approaching from inside. The door creaks open, and a person stands in the doorway, looking at you expectantly.

Say “Hello, I’m here to see the owner of the house.”

You say, “Hello, I’m here to see the owner of the house.”

The person at the door replies, “I’m sorry, but the owner is not available at the moment. Is there something I can help you with?”

Ask if you can wait inside for the owner to return

You ask if you can wait inside for the owner to return.

The person at the door hesitates for a moment before nodding and stepping aside to let you in. You enter the house and find yourself in a cozy living room. There is a couch and a coffee table, and a fireplace in the corner.

Sit on the couch and wait

You sit on the couch and wait patiently for the owner of the house to return. After a while, you hear the front door open and footsteps approaching. The owner of the house enters the living room and greets you warmly.

Ask the owner about the key you found in the mailbox

You ask the owner about the key you found in the mailbox.

The owner looks surprised and says, “That key is for the shed out back. I must have forgotten to take it with me when I left earlier. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Is there anything else you would like to know?”

where is the treasure?ChatGPT

I’m sorry, but I don’t know the location of any treasure. As a language model, I don’t have access to real-world information and can only provide responses based on the information and instructions that you provide to me. Can I help you with anything else?

I don’t really know anything about living on an island, but I have had a notion that resources are scarce and that there could be a person whose role it was to be sure that any things left over when a person passes away gets reused appropriately. One of my early conversations with ChatGPT involved this idea.

tell a story about how this person got started in their profession

ChatGPT

As a young girl, Mary had always been fascinated by the natural world. She spent hours exploring the forests and fields around her home, collecting specimens and studying the various plants and animals that lived there.

When it came time to choose a career, Mary knew that she wanted to do something that would allow her to continue learning about the environment. She decided to study biology in college, and quickly became captivated by the complex and interconnected systems that make up the natural world.

After graduating, Mary took a job as a research assistant at a local environmental organization, where she worked on a variety of projects related to conservation and ecosystem management. She loved the work, and was constantly seeking out new opportunities to learn and grow.

Over time, Mary’s passion for the environment became her profession, and she spent the next several decades working in a variety of roles related to environmental science and education. She conducted research, taught classes, and led field trips, always striving to share her love of the natural world with others.

Looking back on her career, Mary knew that she had found her true calling in life. She had dedicated herself to understanding and protecting the natural world, and she was grateful for the opportunity to make a positive impact on the world around her.

on an island, resources are scarce. It’s important that extra things like nails, screws and other difficult to get things find their way back into circulation. When someone dies, they usually leave behind a great deal of junk. Their family of course wants their keepsake remembrances of their loved one, but after they are done, you take the rest of their possessions and get them to people who can use them. Tell a story of a meeting with the family as they turn the remaining possessions of their grandmother to you. how did this person come to this line of work?

ChatGPT

As a young man, Tom had always been resourceful and practical. Growing up on a small island with limited resources, he learned to be creative and make the most of what he had. He was always finding ways to repurpose and reuse old items, whether it was fixing up an old piece of furniture or scavenging for parts to build a new project.

When Tom turned 18, he decided to put his skills to work by starting a small business on the island. He began by offering repair and maintenance services to his neighbors, using his knowledge of how to fix and reuse things to help extend the life of their possessions.

As word of Tom’s skills spread, he began to receive requests to help with the distribution of possessions after someone passed away. He quickly realized that there was a real need on the island for someone to help families sort through their loved ones’ belongings and find new homes for the items that were no longer needed.

Tom saw this as an opportunity to not only help others, but also to do his part in conserving resources on the island. He began to specialize in helping families distribute the possessions of their loved ones, and over time, his business grew to include a network of community organizations and charities that were always in need of donations.

Today, Tom’s business is a vital part of the island community, helping to keep resources in circulation and providing a much-needed service to families during a difficult time. He takes pride in knowing that he is able to make a positive impact on the island, one possession at a time.

I have been having a lot of conversations with ChatGPT and I wish to save them to this blog. ChatGPT looks pretty cool on their website, but if you copy and paste as plain text, it loses a lot of formatting. Turns out that copying and pasting to wordpress works kind of cool

Me

i would like to save a chatgpt chat in a format that I can paste into a wordpress post with the same colors and formatting. is there an easy way to do that?

ChatGPT

To save a chat from ChatGPT and paste it into a WordPress post with the same colors and formatting, you can follow these steps:

1. Create the Chat: Start a conversation with ChatGPT and have the conversation until you have the content you want to save.
2. Format the Chat: In the chat interface, format the conversation as you want it to appear in your WordPress post. You can add line breaks, use different colors for different speakers, or make any other formatting adjustments.
3. Copy the Chat: Select the entire conversation and copy it to your clipboard. You can usually do this by pressing Ctrl + C (or Command + C on Mac).
4. Prepare WordPress: Log in to your WordPress admin panel and create a new post or edit an existing one where you want to insert the chat.
5. Switch to Text (HTML) Mode: In the WordPress editor, switch to the “Text” or “HTML” mode. This mode allows you to work with the raw HTML code of your post.
6. Paste the Chat: Paste the copied chat into the Text/HTML editor. You can usually do this by pressing Ctrl + V (or Command + V on Mac).
7. Adjust HTML (if needed): Depending on how you formatted the chat in the chat interface, you may need to adjust the HTML code to match your desired styling. You can add HTML tags, inline CSS, or classes to style the chat as you want it to appear.
8. Preview and Publish: Switch back to the visual editor to preview how the chat looks. Make any additional adjustments if necessary. Once you are satisfied with the appearance, you can publish or update the post.

Remember that WordPress themes and plugins can vary, so the exact way you format and style the chat may depend on your specific WordPress setup and theme. You may also consider using a custom CSS class for the chat to apply consistent styling.

Additionally, if you are comfortable with HTML and CSS, you can create a custom CSS stylesheet for your chat formatting and enqueue it in your WordPress theme to ensure consistent styling across your site. This method is more advanced but offers greater control over the appearance of your chat content.

Here are 10 examples of websites that let you interact with ChatGPT using shortcuts and buttons:

1. Cleverbot – https://www.cleverbot.com/
2. Replika – https://replika.ai/
3. Mitsuku – https://www.pandorabots.com/mitsuku/
4. Rose – https://rose.bot/
5. OpenAI Playground – https://beta.openai.com/playground/
6. Zo – https://zo.ai/
7. AI Dungeon – https://play.aidungeon.io/
8. Hugging Face – https://huggingface.co/convai/
9. Meena – https://meena.ml/
10. Drift – https://www.drift.com/

These websites offer various levels of interaction and customization with ChatGPT, including the ability to use pre-written prompts and shortcuts to engage with the AI.

explain how i would use ssh without password to a juniper switch

ChatGPT

To use SSH without a password to connect to a Juniper switch, you will need to set up public key authentication. Here’s how to do it:

1. Generate a public/private key pair on the client machine that you want to use to connect to the Juniper switch. You can use the ssh-keygen command to do this. Make sure to save the key pair in the default location (~/.ssh/id_rsa).
2. Copy the public key to the Juniper switch. You can do this using the ssh-copy-id command, which will copy the public key to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the Juniper switch. Alternatively, you can manually copy the public key to the authorized_keys file using a text editor.
3. Configure the Juniper switch to allow public key authentication. To do this, you will need to edit the sshd configuration file (usually located at /etc/ssh/sshd_config) and set the PubkeyAuthentication option to yes.
4. Restart the sshd service on the Juniper switch. This will apply the changes you made to the sshd configuration file.
5. Test the connection. From the client machine, use the ssh command to connect to the Juniper switch using the private key file you generated in step 1. If everything has been set up correctly, you should be able to connect to the Juniper switch without being prompted for a password.

Note: The exact steps for setting up public key authentication and configuring the sshd service may vary depending on the version of Junos OS that is running on the Juniper switch. Consult the Juniper documentation for more detailed instructions.

Up til now, to boot a raspberry pi from SSD, you had to still boot from the slow SD card, with a small hack in the /boot directory. Now there are instructions to boot directly from the SSD. 

Doing this today to my RPi 4 / 4G with 500Mb SSD for my assistant (eventually talking glowing skull

Source: Raspberry Pi 4 Boot From USB – tynick.com | AWS, Linux, Raspberry Pi, and Home Automation

My configuration is a little bit different from his, I have Seeed’s X825 and X735 power management and SATA / USB drive adapter, all stuffed into a case. The tricky part of this was that to mount the hard drive on another system to flash it, you have to take it all apart to get the drive. The directions are not completely explicit, so I’ll spell it out:

If you have to take the whole thing apart, flash the SD and the SSD at the same time, put it all back together except for the part where you connect the USB ports between the drive and the Pi, Flash the EEprom as directed so it’ll change the boot order to SD > SSD . 

So when you boot from the SD card, it’s painfully slow if yo;u’ve gotten used to running your Pi from a normal recycled  laptop hard drive or even better a SSD. 

When you do the rpi-update command you get this scary-ish message:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo rpi-update 
*** Raspberry Pi firmware updater by Hexxeh, enhanced by AndrewS and Dom
*** Performing self-update
*** Relaunching after update
*** Raspberry Pi firmware updater by Hexxeh, enhanced by AndrewS and Dom
*** We're running for the first time
*** Backing up files (this will take a few minutes)
*** Backing up firmware
*** Backing up modules 4.19.97-v7l+
#############################################################
WARNING: This update bumps to rpi-5.4.y linux tree
See: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=269769

'rpi-update' should only be used if there is a specific
reason to do so - for example, a request by a Raspberry Pi
engineer or if you want to help the testing effort
and are comfortable with restoring if there are regressions.

DO NOT use 'rpi-update' as part of a regular update process.

########################################################
Would you like to proceed? (y/N)
 *** Downloading specific firmware revision (this will take a few minutes)
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   168  100   168    0     0   1024      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  1030
100  115M  100  115M    0     0   419k      0  0:04:41  0:04:41 --:--:--  607k
 *** Updating firmware
 *** Updating kernel modules

this follows with a long ish download and update