I had a great day at Sasquatch Mountain in BC on Jan 1st. Crowds were very reasonable. Snow was packed powder, low wind and overcast. Temps were warm.

It was my first day skiing in over 6 years. I previously skiied 10 days a season for 10 years. My skills came back quickly, but a lot more to go to regain physical fitness.

There seems to be hundreds of ships available, from all the big factions, and even ones that only exist in STO.

Do niche ships like the Tarellian ship from TNG: "Haven" exist ingame? I checked the wiki and did not find evidence, suggesting it is not ingame. It is my favourite Trek ship and I am hoping for a miracle. Maybe its missing from the wiki, maybe there is a custom ship designer that could be used to make something like it, etc.

Verdict: the MikroTik CRS310-1G-5S-4S+IN is a suitable L3 gateway for internet connections up to 500Mbit/s!

Story

I saw this device and knew instantly its port configuration was perfect for my needs: mix of 1G/10G, SFP for labbing optical connections, and an RJ45 for WAN uplink.

Its routing capabilities are well-advertised as inferior to its switching capabilities. The CRS (Cloud Router Switch) name and its capability to run RouterOS mean it can operate at L3, but MikroTik advertises it as primarily a switch appliance. Its sister product, the netFiber 9 which runs the same hardware, is advertised as capable of "light routing". Finally, the test results published by MikroTik show sub-1G L3 performance for all but the most optimal case. It is clear that I cannot expect line speed routing from the CRS310.

But, my home internet connection is 500Mbit/s. If the CRS310 can route at or above this speed, then it will be the perfect gateway device. Lets test it!!

Tests

I configured these parameters:

• One bridge interface
• No VLANs
• IPv4 source-NAT for the local network
• Eight IPv4 filter rules

I confirmed that the bridge is using the switch chip. Fast Path is OFF but Fasttrack is working.

Test 1: https://fast.com/ speed test
No fasttrack
Result: 260Mbit/s average with 3 samples

Test 2: https://fast.com/ speed test
Fasttrack for established,related packets on all interfaces
Result: 510Mbit/s average with 3 samples

Conclusions

MikroTik's published test results for the CRS310 are realistic. It can route at L3 with a basic set of firewall rules and IPv4 source-NAT at least at ~500Mbit/s. I will be happy with this as my gateway :)

I did not inspect the packet sizes for the tests, so I cannot compare my results directly. My numbers fall between the 1518 byte and 512 byte reference numbers for fasttrack and 25 filter rules. I'm also using source-NAT which is not advertised to be a part of any of the reference results. Differences aside, it still felt like the published results gave a good-enough indicator of sub-1G but capable routing.

Bonus

Mikro-pic!

I went on a long road trip all in one day across southwestern BC. It was just to see the landscape and to travel. I didn't have any specific destinations of interest.

It was amazing to see! There were three times that I started tearing up at just how beautiful the land was.

The route was Vancouver -> Lytton -> Whistler -> Vancouver

I am still using a Razer Phone 2 (2018) in 2025. It's 7 years young. One battery replacement, ripped-off speaker grilles, and a dead USB port but it still chugs along. Its position as a gaming phone has meant its performance has kept up with the latest software demands quite well.

I'm using wireless charging to keep it powered. I lost the ability to run LineageOS major version updates due to the dead port. Any advice?

I am hoping to run this phone until it catastrophically dies or I lose it.

You don't need to stick with bash! There are many alternatives out there.

Not in the linked article are more popular alternatives like zsh, or the technicality of sh which exists everywhere yet is rarely used interactively.

I took my drone along with me on a road trip and got some great shots IMO. Check them out! First is at Mill Pond Park north of Mission, second is over the Fraser River north of Hope.