Silicon Valley Redneck

"You're not well. Get back in your crib."

So Southmoon is gradually healing; she claims to be much better now, and thinks she'll go for a walk, but she's supposed to be confined to the anti-pacing-around cage for another couple of weeks.

When I headed off to bed last night, guess who was on the bed already?

Yup.  I'd noticed, on several occasions, that the cage door had gotten unlocked (this is a 3-story cat cage laid flat on its back so the doors are on top; the locking pins are thus in a horizontal orientation, and not held in place by gravity, so a cat playing with the dangling shiny chain can easily dislodge the pin).  This time, apparently, she'd pushed the door all the way open, or at least past the halfway point so that it flopped the rest of the way over.

... Oh.  That must have been the mysterious intermittent banging sound we were hearing during dinner.

 

And, speaking of "not well" and "get back in your crib":  here we are, up on our hilltop, far from travel hubs* and largely isolated from the contagions of the world at large (except in a financial sense; the overnight world-markets report is not looking so great).  We should even have a few respirators and spare filters... somewhere... probably packed in some cryptically-marked moving box out in the barn.  All about as safe from the Dos Equis Virus (or whatever) as is practical for a somewhat-normal family, right?

Except that Joy is supposed to be flying to LA in a couple of weeks to visit some descendants.  Two planes, changing planes in Atlanta, passing through LAX... then, having been exposed to Whatever's Going Around, visiting her infant granddaughter.  Then coming home and exposing my aging father.

There may be a change of plans here.  A case of Tecate Virus, we don't need.

Hm.  Maybe it's just as well I'm missing DesignCon (what with it being inconveniently far away this time).  And I wonder if anyone brought any bioweapons to the SHOT show.  And... oog.  What about CES?  Lot of people there, from all over, and they've all gone home by now.

Maybe ubiquitous long-range travel has its downside?

* Yeah, we're near a fairly big tourist destination, but it's not really tourist season.

Oh, the title?  People Of A Certain Age will recognize it.  The Internet, not so much.

Um.

So here I am, looking at a product listing on Amazon, and I see the warning:

WARNING:
CHOKING HAZARD -- Small parts. Not for children under 3 yrs.

The product?

Earthquake Rear Tine Tiller, 4-Cycle 196cc Powerful Kohler Engine, Large Non-Pneumatic Wheels, 16” Tilling Width with Reverse

Which, being as how it weighs 173 smegging pounds, seems generally unsuitable for children under 3 yrs. in any case.  Unless they've been at the growth hormones.

(Yeah, we're gonna need a rototiller here.  Not sure I want to rassle with one that's quite that heavy.  Though, given the amount of tillery that seems to be called for around here, maybe something that size is in order.  Then I gotta figure out how to move it uphill.)

Doublethink

Argument A: An impeachment trial is just like a regular court trial; therefore, the Senators must act as impartial jurors.

Argument B: The Senate is responsible for summoning witnesses, and searching for evidence for the prosecution, that the House prosecutors themselves didn't bother with before bringing the case.

It is mandatory that one believe both simultaneously.

A real keyboard!

A big clicky one that annoys everyone else in the household!  And a decent-sized monitor!

Yes, my workstation is back on the air.

It... took a little more doing than I'd figured on.

The workstation is configured to depend on the baby server for things like, oh, most of my user data.  So the baby server had to be set up, too.  I hadn't quite decided how to deal with that.  Look back a year and more....

When I set up the server, I assumed that the gigabit Ethernet port on the motherboard would be for the LAN, and WAN and WiFi-access-point connections would be via 100 Mbit USB-to-Ethernet dongles.  This was more or less consistent with the way things had been back in Sunnyvale.

But, in the Interim Digs in Palo Alto, there wasn't a wired WAN connection, and the version of Linux that I'd installed on the server didn't play nice with USB WiFI dongles.  Something to do with the network device naming scheme, and a critical utility not having caught up with the obscene lengths of some device names.  Not wanting to put in too much effort on this, I simply plugged the WiFi dongle into the workstation instead (older version of Linux), and hacked up the network configuration accordingly.

Then it turned out we were going to have a 200 Mbit/s Internet connection in the new location (tested: a hair under 200 Mbit/s down, and a bit over 11 Mbit/s up, via the 5 GHz WiFi, using the new laptop as the client).  So, the WAN and AP ports need to be of the gigabit persuasion.  Accordingly, I installed a 4-port gigabit Ethernet card, which goofed up the LAN port names (doesn't help that the card I picked uses the same device driver as the port on the motherboard).

In among all that, and with the passage of time, I completely forgot how I'd mangled the net configuration on both machines... and what I'd left undone (like, never having set up IP forwarding nor NAT).

And, there remained the problem of connecting the server to the WAN.  I thought of putting it in the living room, plugged into the router, but there's no good place to put the keyboard and monitor.  Under my desk seems better.  Hm.  Maybe a WiFi-to-Ethernet bridge?  Search Amazon.  Find something that looks promising (apart from the Ethernet port only being 100 Mbit, but this is for a temporary arrangement).  Amazon sez: you bought one of these in 2015.  Oh: that must be the new, improved access point I was using the last couple of years in Sunnyvale.  Go dig in the boxes: yup, there it is.  Configured as an AP, and I've long since forgotten the password.  Oh, well: do a hard reset and reconfigure it.  Try to use the same admin password as the AP here: no soap; it doesn't like weird punctuation in passwords.  Oh, well.  Configure it as a WiFi client, and see what happens: success!

So, under my desk I now have a sort of microcosm of what the house network should eventually be, once we have power and Ethernet cables and cable-Internet cable all run down to the basement.

There'll be a couple more iterations of temporary connectivity as wiring happens, then I should be moving the infrastructure down to the basement (and putting a better grade of AP up in the attic) and setting up all the fancy features.  For now, I've got my old computer back.

... And the whole mess is drawing 142 Watts.  Have to work out what the run time on the UPS will be.  (The server is really meant to be on its own UPS, but for now they have to share.)  Looks like at least 15 minutes, which should be enough time to shut things down cleanly (and it's plenty for operating through flickers).

Oh.  Speakers.  Still have to hook up speakers.  Details.

 

In among all that, we replaced the old beat-up mailbox with a brand-new one with a custom-printed label, and, while we were at it, finally got around to installing the newspaper box on the mailbox post.

Still missing a really big important point

Now, it seems, the latest innovation in E-Z-Vote technology is voting by smartphone!  Yay!

This here article at Vice covers all the usual (and entirely proper) objections on grounds of security and auditability, and the blatant lack thereof.

But...

Lawmakers like Oregon Senator Ron Wyden have pushed legislation that would bring mail in ballots to the entire country, though the efforts have yet to gain traction. In states like Washington and Oregon voting via the mail works well, helps improve voter turnout, and creates an easy to navigate paper trail.

See, vote-by-mail may be a little less bad than voting by Internet (though opportunities for fraud abound).  But the thing everybody in these discussions seems to ignore is that absentee voting in any form is not private.

Yes, there may be anonymization tech in place to ensure that Big Brother supposedly doesn't know how you voted.  Big whoop.  Thing is, if you mark your ballot anywhere but a private voting booth, your vote is not a secret from your spouse, your boss, the shop steward, and that guy who promised you twenty bucks if you'd vote for his pal Frank.

Non-private ballots, whatever the form, offer opportunities for voter intimidation and vote-selling.  Privacy is essential.

So: a paper ballot, marked by hand in a voting booth and immediately transferred to the ballot box without opportunity for anyone but the voter to see how it's marked.  It's the only way.  Exceptions only for those who have bona fide reasons for them (unavoidably absent on election day, physically unable to mark a ballot without assistance, that sort of thing).

Back in Santa Clara County, the past several years, it's been done mostly right: mark-sense ballots, booths, privacy sleeves.  Not right: absentee voting is common, and there's no voter ID.  I haven't yet seen how it's done here, but apparently voter ID is a thing.

Oh, the humidity!

Broadview Acres is reporting 99% humidity at the moment (as the first daylight creeps across our front lawn).

Of course... that's 99% humidity at 15°F.  Which seems consistent wit the grass looking frosty this morning.  And with the indoor humidity hovering around 20% — oh, my dehydrated nasal passages!

Update:  Indoor humidity?  Well... my new printer stand arrived.  The packaging involved styrofoam.  Crumbly styrofoam.  The crumbles don't want to let go.  Of anything.  Especially my skin.  Needs either a humidifier or a source of ionizing radiation.

New idea!  Incorporate traces of high-level radioactive waste into styrofoam, turning it into cling-free styrofoam!

Another thing that works

I mentioned ordering a Milwaukee M18 hedge trimmer?

It showed up today.  Since I'd ordered the bare tool, and the bundle comes with (I think) a 9 Amp-hour battery, I was a little concerned that the biggest packs on hand, being of the 5 AH persuasion, might be inadequate.

Well, no need for fear on that front.  It cuts quite nicely, though I think the nominal ¾" maximum branch size may be a little on the optimistic side.  And by the time I got tired, there was plenty of charge left in the battery.

One downside: it doesn't transform into a scythe.  Using it to clear weeds, small saplings, and whatnot involves a bunch of stooping.  Another: the cuts tend to be on the ragged side, which may be suboptimal if people are going to be looking closely at your hedge.

So far, it seems quite a useful tool.  And I think it might get more work done on a charge than a gas model would on a tank of gas.

And, in the late-afternoon chill, I did get some more weed-clearing done.

A yesterday-evening post

As I sit here, with several battlefields of the Late Unpleasantness within a convenient 20-mile radius, I'm relieved that no idiot (I'm looking at you, Governor Coonman) decided to start the next one, over in the next state.

Rather, several thousand gun nuts (of various identity groups) showed up and behaved themselves.  Which... in itself is altogether unsurprising, if you've spent any time around shooting ranges, gun shows, NRA meetings and so on.

It was the prospect of some provocateur starting trouble that could get completely out of hand that was worrisome.  Apparently the local cops weren't especially concerned; seems they were out in small numbers, mingling with the crowd.  (And in some cases participating while in uniform: this I find bothersome, much as it was bothersome when Banana Joe McNamara used to engage in overtly political activities, on the opposing side, while in uniform.)

But... Nothing Happened.

No boog?

No boog.

No boog today.  Boog tomorrow.  There's always a boog tomorrow.

When there's a prominent political faction proclaiming its readiness to call out the troops to enforce compliance with its edicts, and seemingly two moves short of calling for the liquidation of the kulaks?  Boog tomorrow is a very real, and very terrifying, prospect.

I'm dreaming of a white MLK Jr. Day

But I don't think we'll get that much snow.  The pre-dawn trudge to fetch the newspaper called for long pants, socks, jacket, ushanka, and gloves, yes, and I'm watching scattered clumps of snowflakes drift past my office window, but so far it's not enough to be visible on the lawn, never mind cover the landscape.

Oh, well.  Shoulda flushed some ice cubes, I guess.

Meanwhile... looking at vehicle-related stuff that needs doing, soonishly.  Pretty high on the list is updating my info with AAA, which I tried doing on line last week but didn't seem to have the right login credentials.

Well, this morning I tried creating a new on-line account with AAA, since it doesn't seem to think the old one exists.  I provided my membership number, last name, and last known ZIP code... and the computer didn't know me.

I think this calls for visiting the nearest office in person.  (Probably need to take the whole family, as we need to update my father's info too... and switch his car to my insurance, and cancel his insurance, which he doesn't need any more, what with no longer being a driver.)  Can't do that today, 'cause it's a snow day holiday.

And maybe on the same trip we can look at a used Tundra or two.  (Having my father along for that seems like a good idea, so we can make sure he can actually get in and out of the thing before we buy it.)

Update:  There's ice on the pond, but I don't think we'll be doing any skating today.  Apart from anything else, the surface is rough.

... Wanders off to invent the Pondba, which is sort of a cross between a Roomba and a Zamboni.  Zamba?

Update 2:  Wondering if the AAA screwup might be the result of my membership/insurance being CSAA (that's California State, not Confederate States), I tried signing in using the saved URL for CSAA membership... and was redirected, again, to AAA Auto Club South.  Which may be a triumph of IP-based location tailoring, but decidedly unhelpful if my credentials are only valid for my (former) home region.  Guess I'll have to inquire about that when we go to the local (-ish) office.

And, weather update: never did get into the 30s Monday.  This early-morning, Broadview Acres (nearby) is reporting 23°F; forecast calls for mid-30s in mid-afternoon, but we shall see.

And the Blog Malfunction of the Day Award goes to...

Cat Rotator's Quarterly, for this post:

Yeah: click the link to get the rest of the post, and get a 404.

Blog post with serial number 11791 is missing.  Refreshing the main page doesn't get a working link, nor yet make the teaser go away.

Somehow, I think this has got to be tied in with the subject of the post itself, could I but read it.

Update:  While I was composing this, Something Changed.  Before, I was getting a broken link that used the serial number of the post; now, I get a working link that uses the title of the post.

And, yes, the anecdote related in the post is a very appropriate fit to what I just saw.

Update 2:  If the picture (cropped from a screenshot) shows as broken, try hitting refresh.  It's been coming and going... sometimes in the edit box, and sometimes in the public page.  I'd blame this on the presence of an apo'strophe in the file name, except that Typepad stores the files under names it assigns in its own format, so any funny punctuation in the original name disappears once the file is uploaded.

Perchance Alma has gone Shoshana Langtree on us, and Things are creeping through Portals in her studio...?

Oh, yes: The actual post (now that there's a working link) is here.

Bright, sunny, and cold

Supposed to be getting colder, too.  Currently 40°F and breezy; supposed to get down to 30 by the time it gets dark, and around 20 by dawn.

Ran some errands this morning.  Now, time to try to accomplish things.  Let's see....

The little chainsaw project is postponed for two reasons.  Firstly, I need to buy a bottle of chainsaw oil (the fallen branch looks a bit ambitious for the reciprocating saw).  Secondly, the branch fell from a tree on the other side of the fence, and is still propped against said tree, hanging over the fence.  I think incautious cutting could precipitate the branch onto the fence, letting the neighbor's cows out.  So, a project for another time, and possibly involving a winch or something.

Let's see if I can figure out which breaker turns off the motion-sensor lights.

Update:  Found the breaker, and it doesn't seem to disrupt anything else important.  But, I'm not exactly feeling confident up that ladder just now.  (The uneven gravel surface upon which the ladder rests doesn't help.)

I guess this must have been a Saturday.

Morning activity: off to Lowe's (SE Knoxville) in search of a rafter square, for marking my new office floor protector for some cut-out corners so's it'll fit nicely among my new L-shaped desk.

While I'm there, also look at motion-sensing security lights, and buy a pair to replace the ones outside the garage, both of which are malfunctioning.  Also look at LED fixtures to replace the fluorescents in the garage.  I wanted to look at lawnmowers too, but those seem to be out of season.  While there, chat with a guy in the lighting department who came here from Michigan not so long ago and is loving it.  Then a stop at Food City for sundry provisions, and home... by which time the drizzle has started.

The afternoon was filled with rain, so I didn't install the new lights, nor cut up a fallen chunk of tree I'd noticed out by the swamp.  Instead, I took a bit of a nap, and cut the floor protector to shape.

The quest for just the right yard equipment continues.  I realized that, for various problematic places, a good hedge trimmer would be just the ticket (a brush hog being excessive).  Gas powered ones come in two categories: expensive, and not-so-good reviews.  The categories overlap significantly.  Corded electric is Right Out.  Battery-powered... hm.  Hey, Milwaukee makes one that takes the same M18 batteries as the cordless tool accumulation I've already started on, and it gets good reviews.  Order one of them from Home Depot, for Tuesday delivery (leaving enough dry time in the week to put it to some use).

On the lawnmower front, well... I'd heard good things about the Ariens Ikon X and XL, and was leaning toward an XL 60.  But, the guy who mowed the lawns here last summer points out several things that give me second thoughts, besides which it seems that Ariens has celebrated 2020 by discontinuing the XL and replacing the X with something called an XD, with the same nominal specs and price and no obvious explanation of how it's different.

So I guess the plan morphs back to an approximation of what I'd been thinking some time back: find the tractor (with loader), add a pull-behind finish mower of some unreasonable width, use that for straight lines and large areas, and look for some modest-sized riding/ZTR mower for detail work.

And then, sometime before we get into growing season, I'll be needing a rototiller.  Once I have the pickup truck, and maybe a trailer, looking for a used tiller on Craigslist may be reasonable.  Got to prep a garden spot or two, and also chew up the weed-filled areas between the rows of black raspberry plants before covering them with weed barrier and mulch or whatever.  (Before the rototiller, that last calls for application of the hedge trimmer and the long-handled pruning loppers.  Maybe also the reciprocating saw, for the really big weeds.)

Tomorrow must be Sunday, and most of the local businesses (as opposed to big-box stores, grocery chains, and so on) are closed.  Have to spend the day on stuff around here, like light installation and setting up office and computer things.

Monday is a junior holiday, so I guess a couple of important phone calls and whatnot happen Tuesday, along with maybe getting the cars re-registered.

Addendum:  The rafter square isn't just for the one task, of course; that's merely why I wanted one today.

This was Friday, wasn't it?

Winter came back; the morning started out at 33°F (at some local airport) and the afternoon eventually got into the 40s.  And, according to the latest forecast, Sunday through Tuesday are definite long-pants-and-socks days, with lows in the lower 20s.

On my way down the driveway to fetch the morning paper, I looked to my left and saw this:

Well, that's not something I'm accustomed to seeing from my own driveway!

The cargo pods got picked up this morning, so the driveway is back to normal... until such time as the driveway repair and expansion project gets underway.  Which, who knows, could be next week.

When the back-yard frogs started up, they sounded like they were shivering while croaking.  (I'd assumed that'd just go back into hibernation, but apparently not.)

Southmoon is calming down, and maybe getting some healing done.  We shall see.

After lunch, we made a post-office run to pick up the stuff that had been undeliverable Wednesday and Thursday.  Then a shopping run, out the other way.

And, I'm gradually getting my office organized.  Still need to order something to serve as a printer stand, and also a several-port USB hub with a decent-length cable (or one that takes a standard-type detachable cable to connect to the host).  There's a space opposite my desk that I could maybe use for some sort of work table, but I think I'll leave it empty for now.

Ah, well.  Winding down.  Got to figure out what I'm up to this weekend.  And early next week seems like time to make the rounds of the local second-hand wainmongers in search of a Tundra of suitable vintage, configuration, and price.

Southmoon update

X-ray results are in.  It's a sports injury!  She has a torn ligament in her left knee.  Options are surgery or keeping her penned up in a cage for about three weeks while she heals, and then carefully reintroducing her to the active life.

She's not gonna like either of those, but I guess we'll try the penned-up-while-healing approach first.  So, off in search of a modest-sized dog cage (enough for one large cat, food and water dishes, and a litter box), plus some sort of kitty bed.

Three weeks in a cage, not allowed to go on patrol?  No, she's not gonna be a happy kitty.  But apparently just walking around, never mind jumping up on beds and such, makes the problem worse.

And I'm guessing that both the original injury and the subsequent worsening resulted from trying to jump from my desk to the top of a bookcase, missing, and falling a considerable distance onto her hind legs.

Update to the update:  Yup, she damaged her access control list.  If she has the operation, will she be able to play the violin*?  If she doesn't have the operation, it's a month, minimum, cooped up and prevented even from walking around, never mind jumping on furniture.  And she's not happy about being in a cage (within which she's been pacing around like some sort of cagèd feline).  Joy has ordered a knee brace for her.  We'll give her a few days in the cage; if she won't calm down and heal, I guess it's surgery (followed by a lesser period of being cooped up to heal).

* Origin of this meme is unclear, but it's been around at least since the 1950s and therefore is unknown to the Internet.

Another busy day

So... up early (I woke up around 0200, for no adequately explored reason, but everybody had to be up and about by 0630).

Off to the senior center for the exercise session (mainly for my father), then to have a look at their woodworking equipment.  They've got an old-timey radial-arm saw!  (Also a modern sliding compound miter saw, a few scroll saws, many woodworking lathes, and so on).

Then, down to the place where driver's licenses are handled.  Hand in our California licenses, show various documentation; get temporary Tennessee licenses while we await arrival of the real ones.  It was... very un-Californian.  When we got there a couple of hours after opening time, there was no line - though one kinda accumulated behind us as the nice lady at the information desk helped us with our rather complicated situation.  Then wait for our numbers to be called (several minutes), and then there were three clerks passing our documents around, since we were sharing evidence of residency.

A quick grocery stop, then home, and...

... And Southmoon was limping again.  Worse than on Friday.  Get a vet appointment for after lunch.  Have a hasty lunch.  Pack kitty in carrier.  Off to the vet.  This time, after some discussion, minimal poking, and only a little growling, the vet concludes that X-rays are in order, which means she needs to be sedated, which means the kibble she ate just before getting in the carrier was probably not a good idea.  So, back home with instructions not to feed her after midnight (though water is OK) and to bring her back in not too long after opening time tomorrow.

Then off to the Big City to visit Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and finally back home.

In among all this, UPS delivered a pair of UPSes (I need to unpack those and set them charging), and USPS attempted to deliver my new office floor mat, but there was no one home at the time and no safe place to leave a parcel, so we got a note in the mailbox.

I think I'd better declare an early bedtime.

Oh, and apparently car registration isn't handled by the same agency that issues driver's licences; it's done at the county courthouse.  Have to find out how that works.  Got to get the two Prii re-registered soon.  Also soon, gotta go truck-shopping; we've been feeling the lack of heavy transport (heavier than a Prius, anyway) since a couple of days after we arrived.

Addendum:  Our swamp now seems to have a plague of frogs.  Maybe sometime tomorrow I'll find time to go out there with a camera and investigate.