74F and 99%RH this morning. Jeez it was sweaty and hot yesterday, with full sun most of the day. I did my yard work while the yard was in shade, and there was some overcast later in the day, but jeez, did I mention it was hot?
I continued chipping away at a couple of jobs. I actually had one chainsaw running for almost a minute after cleaning the carb and replacing rotten gas hose. Missing gas hose is a common issue for older saws. I must have sucked up some debris though, because it wouldn’t restart. I ran out of carb cleaner and replacement fuel line before getting the big saw open and running. More work on those later.
I did get my new rain water barrel situated on blocks and leveled.
Garden is still growing.
I did some other small cleanup and maintenance jobs around the house too. I’m alternating between inside and outside, so I have a chance to cool down.
Today the kids are at the rock gym climbing all day, so I have a chance to get some stuff done at my customer site. I have to install some networking and get some outdoor speakers running. All hot work, so I’m trying to get there in the morning. Plans. Huh. We’ll see.
Time to wake the krakens…
n
78f and humid as I begin the morning commute. Forecast is highs in the 90s and very humid for the next week. I HATE the Mississippi summers. I truly hope this is the last one I have to endure.
We bought a combo gas & charcoal grill for the retirement home. That could be considered a prepping expense. Next we will replace the kitchen counter-top stove with a gas unit. We much prefer gas to electric for cooking.
Saturday didn’t go well. The wife woke us up at 6am saying I had to take her to the ER. She was having trouble breathing again. In the ER they determined she had fluid around her lungs that was making it hard for her to expand them. They did an emergency dialysis and pulled 3 liters of water off her. All in all, she spent 12 hours in Hospital but at least she got to come home. Not what we had planned for our weekend.
@harold, sorry to hear that, that really sucks. I hope she is feeling better now that she’s home.
n
Ah, Chicago, crossroads of the nation, windy city, city of broad shoulders, hog butcher to the world….
At least they’re calling it what it is, GANG violence, not GUN violence. That’s a change and an improvement.
Looks like the new mayor is gonna blame the police, that should help them do their jobs and encourage them to go the extra mile….
“Mayor Lightfoot said: ‘I’m bringing in the superintendent, the deputy chief of patrol and any other commander whose district saw an uptick in violence over the weekend and we’re gonna have what I’m gonna call Accountability Mondays.'”
I don’t think she’s gonna be holding the shooters and OGs accountable with that guest list….
n
Looks like the new mayor is gonna blame the police, that should help them do their jobs and encourage them to go the extra mile….
We were there for the election in March. The media was giddy about an all Socialist city government.
Michigan Ave. north of the river still works for the most part, but things quickly go downhill away from that area. The train stop in Obama’s neighborhood at Hyde Park/UofC did not have a ticket agent present and the automated kiosks were broken. If we hadn’t installed the ticketing app on our phones in advance, we would have been in trouble.
Our rule of thumb about Chicago after that week is that any neighborhood which looks like the one in the credits for “Good Times” should be avoided.
Sadly, most of the neighborhoods away from the Loop look like that.
Where is BLM when really needed? No demonstrations and street blockages?
On our drive from Des Moines to Coralville yesterday, I counted 13 squashed deer and 3 raccoons. Most were just crumpled but one looked like a giant pile of hamburger with hooves sticking out and one was just a head. Another standard day in Iowa.
Decided to get all the ubiquiti stuff config’d here where I have air conditioning and easy access to fast internet. Good thing too. Had to make an account, D/L software, update access points, change all the default IPs….
What a pita.
n
BTW, if you don’t do install or remote support you might not consider your IP addressing scheme…
But if you have customers with a bunch of devices, your IPs shouldn’t overlap with theirs or you can’t VPN or bring gear home to config. Not a problem for most people, but very annoying for me.
n
Yeah that’s tripped me up a couple of time. Now I usually use 192.168.xx.x where xx is 20+. I never use xx=0 or 1
Never really need class B as most of my clients are small. Less than 50 peeps.
But if you have customers with a bunch of devices, your IPs shouldn’t overlap with theirs or you can’t VPN or bring gear home to config. Not a problem for most people, but very annoying for me.
We have several WRT54GL routers around, reflashed with DD-WRT.
I wouldn’t put a customer machine on my subnet. I’m more worried about my security than theirs. Most companies and organizations have a pr0n problem, even churches.
I don’t put their computers on my net, but I have tons of networking and home control stuff on the net. It’s a whole lot easier for me to do config here in my office than onsite.
This ubiquiti update for my main client is –
-swap existing NanoStation M2 for an AC lite access point
-add AC lite access point to cover courtyard and guest house
-add nanoswitch to power NS M2 pair cable replacement to front gate, new AP, and repurposed existing NS M2 to cover pond and dock (hopefully deleting the Hawking wifi repeater at the dock). I can’t easily get more cable to that side of the house for the new devices, so the nanoswitch solves the issue of expanding the current single cable to 3, and passes along the POE. I think it is meant to add a camera or two to an existing AP without pulling more cable. Works well on my kitchen table.
So add a switch and 2 APs and add or reuse 4 M2 locos.
It’s a big house and grounds and most of these changes are to get coverage for two new Ring doorbells, and clean up stuff from before…. the doorbells are the driver though.
They added the guest house without a cable path from the main house, so I’m hoping an AC Lite nearby will provide enough coverage. I guess it will depend on whether there is foil or wire screen in the walls. If needed, I’ll add another M2 pair feeding a local wifi AP inside the guesthouse.
There are some minor audio changes happening too. Lightning storms and bad power are hell on outdoor gear…
n
Wow, that was fast…
” Mall of America attacker who threw a five-year-old boy off the third-story balcony after he entered the shopping center ‘looking for someone to kill’ is sentenced to 19 years in prison
FILE – This undated photo provided by the Bloomington, Minn., Police Department, shows Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, pleaded guilty in May 2019 to attempted premeditated first-degree murder for throwing a 5-year-old boy from a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America on Friday, April 12, 2019. Aranda who is scheduled to be sentenced Monday, June 3, 2019, before Hennepin County District Judge Jeannice Reding faces 19 years in prison.(Bloomington Police Department via AP, File)
Emmanuel Aranda, 24, was sentenced to 19 years in prison on Monday for throwing a five-year-old boy off of a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America in April.
”
Woke Los Angeles is the New Typhus Hotbed: Homeless Catastrophe Makes City of Angels Unlivable
Sgt. Joe Friday is spinning in his grave.
I have a problem with such considerations. One of the owners travels a LOT, and wants to connect via the VPN for whatever it is he wants to do. Given that Outlook, Act!, and the other assorted apps we use works fine with external routing, it must be our ERP system he wants.
Anyway, our network is 10.0.0.0/16, which is USUALLY fine because many hotels and smaller companies default to 192.168.n.0/24. However, he sometimes encounters a 10x network. When this happened, I instructed him to use his phone hotspot, which would give him a 192.168 network, and allow all the routing.
Since then, I have found that I can restrict the VPN s.t. it won’t see the local network at all (except to route traffic to the gateway). I haven’t seen it work yet, but I’m hopeful. I’ve also reconfigured our VPN to hand out addresses in the 10.0.242.x range, which seems to be a lot less common than 10.0.0.x addresses.
There are some minor audio changes happening too. Lightning storms and bad power are hell on outdoor gear…
It isn’t great for indoor gear either. Until I put my cable modem, router, and MOCA adapter on a small UPS, I used to have regular problems with losing the Spectrum/Time Warner connection due to small power problems which generally aren’t noticed.
I have a 15 dB gain unidirectional WiFi antenna which needs a new home. It was part of a forgotten project to help the Chinese relations outside Seattle hook up to the Federal Way WiFi. I’ll toss in the mounting hardware and cable to connect to a Ubiquiti Bullet … if I can find it.
The Bullet didn’t survive a few hours of burn in and went back RMA. The Ubiquiti stuff isn’t great to begin with.
My employer started our move to the Met Center behind the Waffle House near ABI this week. If I’m not working nights, I’ll be in the office during business hours most days starting Monday.
“That major Google outage meant some Nest users couldn’t unlock doors or use the AC”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90358396/that-major-google-outage-meant-some-nest-users-couldnt-unlock-doors-or-use-the-ac
“If you’re a Google user, you probably noticed some trouble last night when trying to access Google-owned services. Last night, Google reported several issues with its Cloud Platform, which made several Google sites slow or inoperable. Because of this, many of Google’s sites and services–including Gmail, G Suite, and YouTube–were slow or completely down for users in the U.S. and Europe.”
“However, the Google Cloud outage also affected third-party apps and services that use Google Cloud space for hosting. Affected third-party apps and services include Discord, Snapchat, and even Apple’s iCloud services.”
“But an especially annoying side effect of Google Cloud’s downtime was that Nest-branded smart home products for some users just failed to work. According to reports from Twitter, many people were unable to use their Nest thermostats, Nest smart locks, and Nest cameras during the downtime. This essentially meant that because of a cloud storage outage, people were prevented from getting inside their homes, using their AC, and monitoring their babies.”
Not at my house. We still use low tech keys and plain old thermostats.
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
Over The Hedge: scientific experiment on bladder control
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2019/06/03
Well, duh !
Not at my house. We still use low tech keys and plain old thermostats.
Downgrading my thermostat is on the “to do” list this Summer.
The business manager (owner’s daughter) at the AC contractor who installed the new system bypasses me and calls my wife’s cell phone, leaving messages to the effect that I’ve neglected the maintenance of the unit. We’re out of the labor warranty and the parts warranty is through the manufacturer so I’m not sure what the message is other than “Your husband is an idiot. Girls stick together.”
The next annual maintenance isn’t due until September. I’ll ask the next company for a quote on the thermostat.
The Swan Eaters: Grandma gets her grandchildren
https://www.gocomics.com/swan-eaters/2019/06/03
Yup, the train wreck is almost here. There is a wise choice and a foolish choice. But, we know where this is going.
Alley Oop: the Time-O-Scope
https://www.gocomics.com/alley-oop/2019/06/03
Uh oh, there is a Time-O-Scope ?
Uh oh, there is a Time-O_Scope ?
I hope not. I watched a *lot* of “Finding Bigfoot”. I even have the final episode stashed on one of my servers, downloaded after the TiVo failed to catch it.
There are days my wife wishes I had a pr0n problem. The first thing we did in Chicago in March was venture out to sit on the “Waynes World” couch at the SNL exhibit.
To be fair to the character in the comic, “The Golden Girls” have become a cult interest thing. I believe that a themed cruise is in the works. Most of the Witt/Thomas/Harris shows from the 70s and 80s would never make air today so the vibe is very unique to anyone under 40.
74F and 99%RH this morning. Jeez it was sweaty and hot yesterday, with full sun most of the day. I did my yard work while the yard was in shade, and there was some overcast later in the day, but jeez, did I mention it was hot?
I just spent a couple of hours watching two guys roam around my 16 year old roof. The hail and 17 inch monsoon on May 7 apparently finished it off. I am hoping that my insurance company, Amica, will help me to buy a new roof. The preliminary estimate from my longtime roofing guy is $15K, 55 squares for a 3,450 ft2 single story home with a two car detached garage with a 15 ft extension.
It is warm out there.
What is common now is the insurance company will pay for the installation, but will prorate the cost of the shingles. So for 20 year shingles at 16 years old, the insurance company will only pay 20% of the cost of the shingles. And you have your deductible.
Some of the nastier companies will also prorate the installation based on the life of the shingles. The theory being that the homeowner would have to have had a new roof installed. In your case after another four years.
I hope yours is one of the better companies that will cover the entire cost minus the deductible.
TP-Link is cheaper and works better.
Put three of these in recently and it works great.
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-EAP225-V3-Wireless-Supports/dp/B0781YXFBT/ref=sr_1_20?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5IXHyo7O4gIVU57ACh2AmA_iEAAYASAAEgIfu_D_BwE&hvadid=214002781820&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9031711&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=12244750526413839160&hvtargid=kwd-355540211494&hydadcr=18002_9429203&keywords=tp-link%2Bmesh&qid=1559592450&s=gateway&sr=8-20&th=1
The preliminary estimate from my longtime roofing guy is $15K, 55 squares for a 3,450 ft2 single story home with a two car detached garage with a 15 ft extension.
That isn’t bad. I paid $9k in Tampa 17 years ago for 2700 sq ft, and that didn’t include the $2k bill for materials the contractor tried to make ABC Supply collect from me.
Unlike much of the nonsense shown on HGTV, a new roof actually does add to the resale value of the house.
If you think Bird scooters on the streets of your city are obnoxious, just wait.
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/05/31/swedish-startup-to-bring-pogo-sticks-to-s-f-as-e-scooter-alternative/
The end of the bubble is nigh. In other ‘net news, Musk is talking about the pickup truck plans in order to deflect attention from TSLA breaking below the 200 day MA.
On our drive from Des Moines to Coralville yesterday, I counted 13 squashed deer and 3 raccoons. Most were just crumpled but one looked like a giant pile of hamburger with hooves sticking out and one was just a head. Another standard day in Iowa.
Just wait until there are more feral pigs than deer across the fruited plains. That should be crazy on the roads. The pigs are shorter so that does help.
Hunh? The TSLA 200 day moving average was broken a while ago. I wonder what chart my stock-obsessed friend has been reading.
TSLA has, however, burned all the support going back t0 the beginning of the stock run in 2017. High volume. And Musk is talking pickup truck.
https://www.ibtimes.com/elon-musk-reveals-tesla-pickup-trucks-price-well-under-50000-2797070
Better than an F150? Toyota has been trying to do that in San Antonio for nearly 20 years, and Chevy sales have fallen below Ram at #2.
Uh oh, there is a Time-O_Scope ?
I hope not. I watched a *lot* of “Finding Bigfoot”. I even have the final episode stashed on one of my servers, downloaded after the TiVo failed to catch it.
What ? 100 episodes of guys running around the woods ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Bigfoot
Ok, no judging. I’ve been binging “Daredevil” on Netflix and the wife has been binging “24”. I tried “The Punisher” also but it was too violent for me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daredevil_(TV_series)
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_(TV_series)
“Charmin creates 3-month toilet paper roll for millennials”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/charmin-creates-3-month-toilet-paper-roll-for-millennials/ar-AACkuVq
It is getting weird out there.
I have a couple of Ubiquiti UniFi for wi-fi. One is wired and the other connects with wireless. They just work.
I have a SSID called house. No password, just connect. Seems like a good place for Kindles and the Roku. The other SSID has a password and that’s where a PC and the various Squeezebox players go. Hopefully secure enough.
I also have a pair of NanoBeams replacing the failed Ethernet tween the house and the EDC. They also, just work.
158 days uptime isn’t bad considering that was when I updated the firmware. Before that, it was about 250 days up.
And sure, maybe having the power turned down to 4 dBm helps. But, one is transmitting through a wall, the other through a window, there are a few scrubby trees in the middle, and they chatter to each other at about 170 Mbs. Faster in the winter at 400 Mbps … the scrubby trees need heavy pruning.. But my internet connection is 25 Mbps and 170 or so between the building is plenty. Especially allowing that my switches are 10/100.
I plan to turn the power down to 3 dBm. Just to see what happens.
I have a dead EdgeRouter Lite. I was trying, I’m a drooler at Linux commands, to have it load EasyList (or whatever) as a HOSTS file to block all the crap at the router. Almost there and BOOM! big thunder storm. Heh, the lights turn on but no one is home. And while I could have returned it to Amazon, that isn’t honest. This was pre-NanoBeam.
I need to look around and try again.
Questionable Content: respecting privacy for AIs ?
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4016
First, this subject is NSFW (not safe for work !).
Second, despite the moral and ethical issues of “hooking up” or “one night stands”, here we go into the probable future. The previous intense look at AIs (artificial intelligences) was not kind to the human race. For example, the Terminator movies, each one bringing a new level of death and destruction to the human race as Skynet achieved self awareness.
But, the QC web comic treats AIs as common, self aware, and self mobile in their android bodies. And willing to try new experiences with humans. This reminds me a lot of Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel series where the humans living off the Earth (Spacers) fall in love with self aware robots.
https://www.amazon.com/Caves-Steel-Daneel-Olivaw-Book/dp/0553293400/
So what is it going to be if AIs become self aware ? Are they going to come after us or are they going to become just another variation on humans ?
“Charmin creates 3-month toilet paper roll for millennials”
Sheesh, when I lived alone a roll of Scott would last almost two months. Methinks the millennials need to change their diet a bit.
Ok, no judging. I’ve been binging “Daredevil” on Netflix and the wife has been binging “24”. I tried “The Punisher” also but it was too violent for me.
We’re almost done with “Good Omens”. David Tennant is the reason to watch along with some very cool cameos that will make you freeze frame the credits.
“Doctor Who” is going to be in deep trouble when the series hits the BBC later this year.
Watched the Apple event. New Mac Pro. Starts at $5,000.00 and goes up. The top end monitor is $5,000.00 (or $6K with different glass) and the stand is $1K. I would wager a fully configured machine, with a 1.7 KW power supply, will push close to $50K.
I think Apple is too late to get artists back with new Pro.
Watched the Apple event. New Mac Pro. Starts at $5,000.00 and goes up. The top end monitor is $5,000.00 (or $6K with different glass) and the stand is $1K. I would wager a fully configured machine, with a 1.7 KW power supply, will push close to $50K.
They also brought back a rack mount version of their server hardware.
More interesting is what wasn’t said. The corresponding high end laptop is late so they’re going to make Catalina support the last MacBook Pro models with upgradable memory from 2012.
Binary unification was expected. That’s the point of flushing all the hardware without 64 bit integers over the last few years.
“Doctor Who” is going to be in deep trouble when the series hits the BBC later this year.
Why ? I haven’t watched it in years when it went stupid a couple of years ago but the popularity did not seem to wane then.
I am excited about the new iPadOS. Being able to connect external storage changes things. I haven’t looked into what formats this will support, but I already have some thumb drives with USB C on one end and A on the other. That could be real useful. If I can successfully run MS Office files off a drive, I may get MrsAtoz an iPad instead of another Mac Book. She doesn’t do much more than Office, email and presentations. All can already be done with Office on an iPad.
Why ? I haven’t watched it in years when it went stupid a couple of years ago but the popularity did not seem to wane then.
Ratings peaked in 2010 and have been steadily declining.
“Good Omens” is a reminder of better days on “Doctor Who”. Lots of familiar names in the credits, and the script doesn’t lack for references.
Sir Terry himself called this scene “wonderful nonsense”, conceding that even if “Doctor Who” didn’t make sense, he still watched.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E33vAhs4bNs
At our house, we’re betting on a lead change at a minimum.
Apple news today.
I was surprised to see my mid-2012 MacBook Pro avoid the new OSX cull. One more year I’m guessing.
But my iPhone 6 is toast, no surprise for a five year old smartphone. Still, Bah.
Xr or Xs? I don’t *need* an Xs, but it’s prettier.
Finally home and with a full belly.
Install went well, although I botched my preinstall configs. I got the capitalization on the SSIDs wrong, and I picked bad IP addresses.
With everything running correctly we now have much better coverage throughout the house and out on the grounds. Still stuck with a 720/512 DSL line for internet though.
Got the audio gear in and running too although it is underwhelming.
Courtyard AC lite covers MOST of the guest house, so that’s a plus.
Attic was 116F so I got in and out as quickly as possible. I have the NS M2 cable replacement pair still to install at a later date, but the Ring doorbell for the front gate wasn’t here yet anyway.
WRT ubiquiti products, I love them at the price. They seem to either die soon or work forever. They’ve been more than fair and even generous replacing failed units under warranty. They have a broad range of tools to do the jobs too. At $50 I keep a pair of spare NanoStations in my truck just in case I need them.
It was a hassle getting the management tool set up, and they don’t have good security certs so FFox pukes every time you access the NanoStations even with the latest firmware. At least with FFox you can accept the cert and make an exception. I never did figure out how to do that with Edge.
Did I mention that it was 116F in the attic, with no breeze? I drank more than 6 quarts of gatoraid just getting in and out of the attic a couple times.
Anyway, the updates are done to the point I can invoice, so a big push today paid off.
Kids enjoyed the rock climbing gym, and wife picked up them and dinner.
A productive day for me. hooray.
n
I was surprised to see my mid-2012 MacBook Pro avoid the new OSX cull. One more year I’m guessing.
The “101” 13 inch 2012 MacBook Pro is a significant machine to a lot of IT departments since it is the last non-disposable laptop Apple made, and the company continued to sell it up until a couple of years ago. Used, in nice shape, a “101” is still a $500 machine.
Unless Apple has an adequate replacement, they’ll completely lose IT to ThinkPad the moment OS X support ends. I already see more T-series laptops in airports where I used to see the Apple logo.
At least with FFox you can accept the cert and make an exception. I never did figure out how to do that with Edge.
Microsoft browsers have tighter integration with the OS so you use the MMC plugin.
They don’t make it easy to examine/modify the certificate store because a lot of corporate IT shops install Blue Coat transparent proxy to monitor employees web traffic on their internal networks, and the key to avoid legal hassles when monitoring your users’ traffic is to not let them know you’re monitoring their traffic.
Thank the “SSL Everywhere” push.
” I drank more than 6 quarts of gatoraid”
I dilute gatoraid with an equal amount of water. Just from my own personal experience it seems to keep me hydrated better. Plus I find straight gatoraid too sweet for my taste.
I last received a nastygram from our Blue Coat proxy when I went to look at a skirt for my wife’s birthday at Pinup Girl while the corporate VPN was still active on my company laptop.
I got proactive and sent management an email that if it was an issue, I would wear the skirt in to work for the discussion with HR about appropriate use of company resources at 1 AM during my 70 hour work week.
Haven’t heard a peep.