Watching University Challenge. Questions on 90s video games. I get all of them instantly. Mum, surprised. “Hey, the 90s was only 10 years ago, I remember them well!”
Tell me there has been roadwork for ages, without telling me there has been roadwork for ages.
Imagine presiding over this and think what was needed was some cash in a few years, and not substantial structural change to the whole fucking thing.
How many bootable USB drives with GParted on them is normal to have at hand?
Asking for a friend …
Birdie and a butterfly in the front yard.
It upsets me just a tiny bit how much I’m looking forward to this. I am very much a USB-C enthusiast
Ohh the nerdy of this is wonderful.
I brought my Flair with me from home, and I’ll leave it here this trip.
This is my third attempt at using it.
1 - forgot the dispersion screen - ordered a replacement 2 - grind was way too coarse, water ran through, mess made. 3 - grind way too fine, immense pressure, no coffee.
Months. Months of troubleshooting (to be fair, a lot of those I was just at home, and doing nothing).
Zoom on my dad’s laptop has been terrible. Like 180p 4fps terrible. 30-60% packet loss terrible (Zooms Statistics item in the config is fantastic for checking network performance).
Ages ago I thought I fixed it by killing off all the Intel Killer Network bloat that is supposed to “improve network performance” - total BS. It is some client side QoS and it is shit, truely shit.
But, the issues has started coming back. If I connect his laptop to a VPN back to my house, issue goes away, video conferencing is fine again. But this test has never isolated the original issue. Was enabling a VPN on his laptop changing some network config and stopping whatever was breaking Zoom?
What was really odd this time is if I connect his laptop to my iPad as a wi-fi hotspot the issue goes away. So it really does seem like a combination of his home internet, plus his laptop. Only his laptop. All other devices at home are fine.
Today I managed to route all traffic from his laptop over a WireGuard VPN to my house, but from the home router - not changing anything on his laptop at all.
Route the traffic back to my place, Zoom is happy, 640p 30fps. Route the traffic back out their home Internet, Zoom is not happy 320p, 240p, 180p 7fps.
Reconfigure the firewall on the router on the fly, traffic back out to my place, 640p 30fps.
Trying to start the call off the VPN and move on the VPN - same result.
So … why is there a combination of just his laptop, plus the home internet that ruins video conferencing apps.
I still don’t know - but now I think Optus is legit messing with some packets.
I have found a few references online to Optus HFC NBN and corporate Zoom accounts being bad, and I think there might be something to that.
On the plus side, several days with an EdgeRouter X and I am wondering if I should buy a bigger one for home to replace the OpnSense box I am using … but that would be a bad idea.
(But after getting my head around the EdgeRouter, I really like it - now setting up some other stuff on it for easier remote support from my place…)
Trying to buy coffee and TUESDAYS ARE THE WORST DAY.
Tuesday
Sitrep
Why do they keep adding sugar to my coffee 🫨
Well I feel like shit.
Was supposed to go try and get some photos of the stars tonight with dad. I was exited to do some photography (as in, taking photos with a purpose as opposed to “ohh, that’s neat snaps photo).
We drove up through the Dandenongs to a lookout we had been too before a couple of years back. Got to the carpark and disturbed some people in a couple of cars at one end. I fiddled trying to turn off my headlights in my car that I’m not familiar with and immediately wondered if I had inadvertently signal an intention to the other vehicles 😳
But just after we got to the carpark and waited for the sun to go down a bit more and the clouds to clear I had a massive headache from nowhere. I looked for my car painkillers, but I hadn’t had the car long enough to have amassed a collection of half used packets of pills in the centre console. Even the ones I usually have in my camera bag had been cleaned up by myself at someone point 😫
We did manage to setup our tripods and start taking some photos, but I couldn’t focus on what I was doing and help dad at the same time. Then two cars of yooths arrived in some absolute POS Holdens. The parked up away from us and started revving their engines as much as they could, before they literally cut out and they’d have to start their cars again. They soon seemed to tire of this game and left in a cloud of dust.
My headache was getting worse. I checked the location of the closest open service station and we packed up and left, stopping on the way for ibuprofen and paracetamol.
There are now open boxes of each in my centre console.
To troubleshoot the Zoom call we need to isolate the traffic off the ISP. To isolate the traffic we need a better router, then we can create a tunnel to my home, set up a route for a single device. The routing isn’t working, so I need a machine to quickly test changes on. We can use a VM for that, but I need it to be on the same network. To get bridge networking working I need a different program to run the VMs.
Been here a week and I haven’t had the time to look at the daisies out the bedroom window.
Sister and BIL have only charged their car at home for the lastt year. They tried a “fast charger” once, but it was not very fast at all and figured that was it. It was only 24kW charger at an RSL. While moving they haven’t been able to charge their car at home. I’m sitting at a BP with sister and the car plugged into a 150kW charger and she’s amazed at how fast it is. Getting the car back up to 80% for the next few days. She’s no longer worried about charging while they can’t get the car into the garage.
Went for a walk and got morning coffee. Someone is clearly upset with their neighbour - there are now three days of dog 💩 left at someone’s front gate. No sugar in the coffee today.
#EveningConstitutional - bit cooler in the evenings, still humid.
My plans for afternoon coffee have been foiled!!
TIL - when my mum moved to Lancaster in the late 1970s (while my dad continued his studies at Lancaster Uni) her work included analysing images of craters on Mars (!!) and monitoring the radioactivity in soil around the Sellafield / Windscale nuclear facility.
I think it’s time I cancelled my Xbox Game Pass. Haven’t played anything in ages.
I have Stray on Steam, but wanted to play it on my Mac, and show support for developers releasing games on the Mac - hoping there will be more in the future.
This is not the definition of a “small update” 😠
After I got my new car I wanted to surprise my parents when I drove down. I was careful where I posted on about it on social media, but my sister still managed to see it. Which lead to a wonderful conversation with my 3 year old nephew about ‘Uncle Bim’s BLUE CAR!’ because he has two blue cars. Somehow, neither of my nibblings told my parents.
When I drive down I’ll share my route in Google Maps when I am about an hour away and they can see when I am about to get there. When you share your location on Google Maps it helpfully includes the battery status of your phone. Mum saw this (surely not for the first time) she thought it was the battery charge of a car.
She was still somewhat surprised to see the new car, but also had ruined the surprise herself as well.
Big fireworks show in outer eastern Melbourne??
Ignore this. I just want to see what happens to the cross-platform posting when you exceed the 300 character limit. 300 characters is quite a lot but if I had something that was like 360 characters long, splitting into replies doesn’t work great. I thought I read that micro dot blog would truncate the post with a link to the full thing. I wonder if I need to added a title too now …
I’m currently wearing my oodie. I didn’t bother to bring slippers. It wasn’t supposed to be this cold.
I made it to Melbourne and the hardest part was probably backing the car into my parent’s garage.
It wasn’t until I was too far from home to go back that I remembered what I had forgot. My Android tablet with offline media. I can live without it. Just hope that’s all I forgot.
Empty boxes I should have thrown out years ago.
Cold calling me in Teams while I’m still wearing a towel. Just rude.
Should have answered … they’d probably not do it again.
Welcome to Wednesday. Hope your week is going well.
I can’t (I totally can) believe how completely stuffed the new roads in Sydney have been, how much news coverage it’s getting. MORE ROADS CREATE MORE TRAFFIC. They don’t reduce traffic.
Can’t believe it’s only Tuesday. Had a long #EveningConstitutional even though it was still kinda hot.
Kitchen window
That was some more good Doctor Who. More shades of Event Horizon than I was expecting 😬
I regret to inform you that my attempts to get a photos of two kitties having a conversation on my walk was unsuccessful. Too dark, too noisy, too blurry.
Is it too early for bed?
Slightly wet #EveningConstitutional today. Glad I took the umbrella again. Couple of cats lying on the porch, a wattlebird, and a kitty sitting on a fence.
Very short walk today between the heavier of the showers. Glad I took my umbrella. Did manage to find a roof kitty :-D
It’s stopped raining at the moment, but there is a LOT of thunder still. So much it almost doesn’t seem real.
My #AfternoonConstitutional between the rain. There were snails, kangaroos, and some birds.
Fuck, I needed that.
I hope your Monday goes easy on you.
Whenever I get to talk to the niblings on the phone it makes me want to live a lot closer so I can see them more often. Whenever I’m down near them I miss home.
Fresh beans 😊
Look at his little face 🥰
Teenage Engineering make some absolutely gorgeous hardware. I want all of the things just to look at and hold, but have zero need for any of it. It seems to have the same aspirational qualities of an action camera. If I buy it, will I start doing things that warrant it?
No. No I won’t.
Short #EveningConstitutional after the rain. It felt like the world’s white balance was wrong.
Things I threw out yesterday. An AGP graphics card with 32MB of memory and FireWire expansion card, because USB was just not fast enough.
Good night, Thursday.
Lovely colours in Canberra tonight.
Good morning, Thursday? Thursday!
We are at that point where it is equally ‘already’ Thursday and also ‘only’ Thursday.
Two walks in one day. WHAT IS GOING ON! I am sleepy now.
I’ve heard rumours of a meal consumed with morning coffee. Had to try it after waking up before 5 (again 😒)
This morning’s coffee was excellent (and desperately needed). Every few weeks when I get fresh beans I am always a little surprised at how much of a difference it makes to the grind and extraction.
The ultra rare weekday #MorningConstitutional - decided I wasn’t getting back to sleep around 6 something so went for a walk. Squawky bois were out and the other black and white cat was hiding in the garden bed at the garage-hairdressers.
#EveningConstitutional - the garage-hairdresser cat was sleeping on a car, and a wattlebird in a tree.
Buzz buzz 🐝
Fresh beans!
The recent episode of Make Some Noise with Josh, Katia, and Cameron is absolutely magnificent.
The starting impressions were brilliant. Josh’s Robbin Williams, Katia’s Olivia Coleman, and Cameron’s Will Smtih were incredible.
#EveningConstitutional
Thinking it might try putting together a little presentation for the Zoom Slide Show thingy. Which means making notes. Which means being annoyed at my note software. Which means looking at Obsidian again. Which means looking at self-hosted sync again.
Dad just pronounced “vlogging” as “vee-logging”
I had many issues with season 1 of Invasion, but I finished it. Time to see if the second season is watching.
#EveningConstitutional - nice sunset over the Brindabellas, a black and white car hiding in a garden bed.
Backyard bushes buzzing with bees
Starting to see the front of the house get more and more sun in the afternoon and evening. It’s only ~28 outside, but the bricks at the front door are over 35.
This morning’s coffee I made and then got so busy I completely forgot I had taken photos. Well done everyone on making it to Friday.
I am being served “ASMR” style videos of people doing oil changes and other maintenance on cars. Part of me misses working on my car. Part of me enjoys a car that runs well and I don’t need to work on.
How long before I get a 30 year mild car to “do up”?
Wasn’t sure I was going to get one in today, but I did manage an #EveningConstitutional
This is some user hostile bullshit. I already have enough tech support calls from family unintentionally “filling up OneDrive” not aware they’ve been tricked into using it.
#EveningConstitutional
Threatening clouds, I hope it rains tonight, but not sure it will.
#AfternoonConstitutional - not cats today, just birds, and Dora the Explorer sunbathing on a roof.
A few shots from the Canberra Nara Candle Festival last night.
I’ve been staring at the blown out branches of this tree in the corner of a photo since last night. Every time I try to make it better (to reduce how much it draw your attention in the image) I make it worse and I hate everything about it.
Anyone know what kind of wasp(?) this is?
The bushes in the backyard were rather noisy today.
No pressure coffee, but my mental wellbeing is riding on how good you are.
Backyard bees, some outside the kitchen window.
#AfternoonConstitutional
There were ibis, bees, and the bestest dog Trinket.
In the fortnightly Zoom Slideshow thing with the boomers.
Theme for the last few has been sharing bookshelves. Everyone has been so excited to share books they love.
I wish I had the attention to read still.
I used to read long (sci-fi) novels, just can’t now.
To quote everyone at the pub after an incredibly heavy song: “PLAY SOMETHING HEAVY!”
#AfternoonConstitutional
Just a short one, but I wanted to go see the mob who were all out in the freshly cut grass.
This was the best coffee I’ve made all week and I’ll be riding that high till afternoon coffee time.
What the fuck. What the actual fuck. This is just terrible 😢
In what fucking universe would anyone prefer to NOT have comments in a document displayed IN CONTEXT OF THE DOCUMENT.
If we are going to get through today, we are going to need some help.
Is it bedtime yet?
Alright. This might be the thing I want. Time to start hooking up all the services, custom domains, the lot.