It took a full day of pressure washing, but I think it looks nice now

My parents brought me a bag of coffee from their trip, and I've been enjoying it each morning when I get to work

1. The networking related box on my wall was indeed an ONT. The repair person showed me the fiberoptic cables. Absolutely amazing. Think of how much good we could do if we channeled all our hatred into innovation. Man...
2. ISPs have crazy levels of granular control of and insight on the settings of the ONT. The other person, whom I overheard on the phone, was talking about "hard coded speeds" and shit.
3. ONTs have a failsafe against overheating. I guess it's "simply" their CPU throttling? When I asked what the actual diagnosis was without dumbing it down, they said that the problem was both a hardware and a software one. The ONT is so old that it is failing: when run at 1 Gbps for prolonged periods of time, it throttles and hard locks its speeds to 100/100 (Mbps) to protect its hardware.

All in all, I got a new one. Now, where were we with the Linux ISOs. :3

Edit: using a 25W iron whose tip wasn't heating up properly. Had to use its sides to get the solder to melt, which affected precision.

It's ugly af but it works

I'm a solder soldier

And I'm so sorry for that last part

Now I need to by something that holds everything in place, because what took most time was, well, that.

Now there's no noticeable delay between when they update.

Here's the process I used https://alexsci.com/blog/preparing-to-change-the-clocks/

They ran out at the grocery store for a long time. When they finally got more in, I cleaned them out (to the tune of a dozen). But now I've eaten all those and the grocery store still doesn't have any more. I bought an 18 pack of the ones I like on Amazon, but now a couple of days after I made the purchase, they're saying they're delayed and they can't even give me an estimated delivery date.

Doing some research, I found that apparently warming oceans are reducing sardine yields causing a shortage.

I eat sardines practically daily... when I can get them.

I might have to switch to the ones packed in water rather than the ones packed in olive oil.

Join my team!

https://thebutton.social/?ref=ZKMGZQ

Or Join the community! https://lemmy.zip/c/thebutton

Used to seeing Cityname, State. But today I saw Countryname, State with Jamaica, Vermont. Huh. Looked it up and confirmed that really is a town in the United States of America. Thought that was funny.

California and San Francisco ballots are interminably long, but I ploughed through them and put them in the mail last night.

Not quite as powerful hardware as that of @jomiran@lemmy.ml , but it works: I feel ever so slightly less depressed during the darker seasons. Mind you, winter is coming. I know the difference in white balance looks terrible, but somehow my body doesn't mind.

The lights are so light - pun astronomically intended - that I was able to use tape to slap them onto the wall. No drilling.

We're hanging out, prepping dinner and chatting when she fires up the Spotify and as part of an inside joke fires up the DJ function, opening with The Cure, one of her favourite bands and she always sings along. This led into Pete & Bas, which we both find hilarious but also Gangster Shit is kind of a banger. Of course, what next but Skin Milk by 200 Stab Wounds, followed up with some Charlie XCX, Black Dahlia Murder and now some Smashing Pumpkins.

Thought this was a pretty funny, but just a wonderful, somewhat dull aspect of my day-to-day life. She's pretty great.

It's so bright in here now! Also, bonus Grogu from a trip to Disney World.

Almost panicked thinking it was a busted water pipe (but confused because to my knowledge there is no pipe in those walls), but it turns out I hadn’t fully sealed a crushed water bottle and that was what was making the noise.

So almost not a dull start to today. But dull after all. 😅

Do you think I'll ever be able to get another one?

I didn't get a picture but it was more or less the model pictured here. The radio was showing a bunch of stuff they didn't want to see, turns out it was stuck on "demo mode" and listing a bunch of features. The interface was unintuitive but luckily he kept a manual, so I navigated through the settings menu and turned off the demo. Sorted.

On the phone with a government department/service/what-have-you. Got put on hold. I expect some kind of sober classical music, if any music at all. Or maybe some generic hold music written for that purpose. Instead I got energetic country music, all instruments, no singing. I do like it, but I found it unexpected and funny.

I seem to have a pattern of noticing unconventional (or just fun) hold music...

I can't believe it took a whole month of trial and error just to find the right hardware... There's also an audio cassette player and a VCR incoming. Meanwhile:

The piece that actually does the analog to digital conversion: a composite video to HDMI adapter and converter. The SCART head in the back can take RCA or S-video contacts. The weakest link in the whole setup, because a professional person would probably use an expensive expansion card inside their computer or the likes..

The capture card. It takes digital video and/or audio signals through an HDMI connection and sends it to the computers via USB-C. Perhaps the second weakest link, since - again - a pro would probably do the conversion with a fancy PCIe card.

My beloved TASCAM. The only piece that I already had in my possession. Instead of letting the above capture card capture the analog audio, I let this do that. Do read up on TASCAM! They have a pretty long and reputable history within audio.

This little handheld video camera will playback Mini DV cassettes. I have already captured two of them successfully. Oh boi, do I love the second hand market.

It's that time of year to clear out all the beds and get them ready to overwinter garlic and onions.

My pumpkins that i spent days prepping a plot for, tilled, fertilized, automatic irrigation system, didn't do well at all. The potatoes that i yanked from the pantry, let my son cut into pieces and basically tossed too close together in soil that i barely loosened up still full of grass, did amazing.

A 6x18 bed behind a barn that i forgot to water half the time filled this box about 3 times, which weighed around 30lbs each + we've just been pulling them to throw in with dinner for the past few nights.

A couple pest, a couple bad ones, but overall I'm super happy.

I gave a box to each of the neighbors on either side and kept one for myself

It was a fun read and easily digestible to me. I'd started a bit while half-asleep a few nights ago, and resolved to restart from the beginning another day when I had more of my wits about me. I did today, and I am glad I did! Especially since I've mostly been reading online articles and have not read a real book cover to cover in two years.

the title

I suppose I might someday spackle the toggle bolt holes from the old fluorescent fixture, but jeez this blade bulb is plenty of light.

The original cotton string was starting to wear down. It broke once already, but it was just the very end that snapped off, so I could just tie a new knot and call that the new end. But now it was starting to do it again. I bought some paracord from the hardware store and replaced it with that.

Right after I pulled the original string out of the waistband, I remembered that someone once told me that you can tie the new string to the old string, and then pull the old string out and thereby pull the new string into the hole, instead of trying to push the new string through the hole. That would have been a good thing to have remembered about 30 seconds earlier.

I got super lucky at a U-pull-it and found a 100% complete exact match for my car, it was at the lot cause it got front-end totaled. But everything I needed was interior and convertible related. (unfortunately it wasn't leather so the seats were worthless to me) My current regulators were super busted and I had 2 windows held up by zip-ties

Borrowed a friend and ripped the thing apart, and when it got cooler last night I swapped all the new regulators in. This car is special and a new regulator is like $350, so getting all 4 w/ a new cloth top for only $200 was a steal, it just needs some repairs but the cloth is in WAY better shape than the one that's on there atm.

The hardest part was getting the windows lined up correctly, first issue was fitting the glass to the sleds, I kept my original glass cause the tinting is different, they have to be installed out of the car, but need to be aligned while installed. After doing that there's a whole process with setting 3 different standoffs in a Stewart platform like arrangement. until it puts slight pressure on the seals both in front of and behind the glass.

And then there was the front left window, which didn't need the whole regulator, but the track it mounts too... at least I thought.

After installing the new track I noticed the entire mechanism flexes about 1/4" side-to-side when moving. And upon closer inspection, the nylon bushings that ride on the tracks are completely wore out on the new-to-me and old ones. At least the window works now though.

But it paid off and now I don't look stupid driving down the road with 2 rear windows jutting out when converted.

Next is replacing the hydraulic lifts with linear actuators and a brain. Those cursed Chrysler cylinders fail so often it was a miracle this one worked for the 2 months before a seal exploded and filled the back seats with stinky goo

Today I'm feeling a little sore and headache-y but that's okay.

The pharmacist said they have been busy all week since the new shots came in.

I'm in California, so my insurance covered them.

My friend came over. I downloaded a game on Steam for us to play together on my Linux machine that ended up hitting the storage limit of my Linux computer. I had 8GB left, the game said it would take 7GB. I guess maybe downloading a Proton version killed it? I deleted a bunch of other files and restarted the computer to make it take. Instead I got the distro's emergency mode. I searched online for others with the problem and the answer was basically just to reflash it. So my friend and I found other activities to do, and we enjoyed our visit together.

Now that my friend went home, I decided to fix the computer issue and reinstall. It was pretty easy.

1. Downloaded the ISO from the website
2. Used https://github.com/Kruszoneq/macUSB to get it on a flash drive (my computer that was still working is a Mac)
3. When it finished going on the flashdrive, stick the flashdrive in the broken Linux machine
4. Start the broken Linux machine up again and select to boot from USB
5. Follow install instructions on screen
6. Success!

I can see how Linux might be intimidating for people given that I had that issue at all (but then again I've never filled up storage on any other computer, so maybe Mac and Windows also flip out when that happens), but the reinstall was pretty easy. It Just Works... at least well enough for me to find it easy enough to have ditched Windows.