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<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"> <channel><title>Greg's diary</title><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary.php</link><atom:link href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary.xml.php"rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><description>Greg Lehey's online diary</description><dc:creator /><dc:date>2025-09-18T13:31:02+10:00</dc:date> <dc:rights>Copyright 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 Greg Lehey</dc:rights><!-- for Emacs, this is a -*- mode: fundamental; coding: utf-8 -*- document --><!-- temporary file, entries for last 7 days of previous month, used for RSS version --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-051813</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-051813</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Artificial: intelligent?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> What good is the current “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_Intelligence">Artificial Intelligence</a>” wave? I've been using it, notably <a href="https://gemini.google.com/">Google Gemini</a>, as a better search engine, but it should be able to write documents and make pictures. </p> <p> OK, put it to the test with something that I know well: myself. I asked two questions, first “which is the most interesting article in Greg Lehey's online diary?”, and then “write me a typical article for Greg Lehey's diary”. The results were interesting. I tried <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplexity_AI">Answerr</a>, Gemini, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT">ChatGPT</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_(language_model)">Claude</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepSeek">DeepSeek</a>. Answerr was a non-starter: after annoying me with finding login credentials, it told me that I had used up my free credits, which must be <i>very</i> limited. It also insulted me by presenting me with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA">CAPTCHA</a>. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-08-31T05:18:13+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-234309</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-234309</link><category>fiction</category><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Gemini</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> For the first question, Gemini responded </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> There is no single "most interesting" article in Greg Lehey's online diary, as what is interesting is subjective. However, you can find a wealth of his writing on his website, which is the primary source of his online diary. </div> </blockquote> <p> The diary entry was more useful. This one chose today's date with a date format that doesn't match this diary: </p> <p> 2025-08-31: <b>Of Dropped Connections and Other Frustrations</b> </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Another cold evening here in Gidgegannup. I was looking forward to a quiet night, but the network had other plans. For the past week or so, the connection on my server, <i>orion</i>, has been intermittently dropping out for a few seconds at a time. Not long enough to bring a full session down, but enough to kill an SSH connection or cause a file transfer to stall. Annoying, to say the least. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> My first thought was the usual suspect: a flaky cable. I swapped it out for a new one, a nice bright blue one, just for good measure. No dice. The drops continued. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> I started digging. A quick look in the system logs showed nothing. <i>dmesg</i> was clean. The network interface <i>fxp0</i> showed no errors, and the link state was solid. I checked the routing table with <tt>netstat -rn</tt>, and it was exactly as it should be. The connection to the local gateway, my router <i>apollo</i>, was fine. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Then I noticed something odd. The drops weren't random. They seemed to happen roughly every 12 hours. That's when I had a hunch. I logged into my gateway machine and checked the DHCP logs. Sure enough, every 12 hours, <i>orion</i> was requesting a lease renewal. The logs showed a slight delay, a hiccup in the negotiation, before the lease was renewed. It seems that during this micro-reconfiguration, the router was dropping the existing state and not re-establishing it quickly enough. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The problem, as it so often is, was not with the server itself but with the peripheral nonsense. A brief configuration change was all that was needed. I logged into <i>orion</i> and edited <i>/etc/rc.conf</i> to give it a static IP address, taking it out of the DHCP pool entirely. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>ifconfig_fxp0="inet 192.168.1.123 netmask 255.255.255.0"<br />defaultrouter="192.168.1.1"<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p class="listitemwidth"> I restarted the network stack, and the drops ceased. It's a perfectly simple fix for a perfectly silly problem. Another reminder that the most persistent and infuriating issues are often caused by the most mundane of configurations. Yana just shook her head when I explained it to her. She's right; there are better things to do than to spend an evening debugging a DHCP lease renewal. But then, it's what I do. </p> </blockquote> <p> This one is quite interesting. It has created a relatively complicated network problem and described it plausibly. It's interesting that it brought Yana into the story. And on a technical level, it pointed to methods that I wouldn't have considered. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-08-31T23:43:09+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-234345</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-234345</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>ChatGPT</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> That's fair enough, far better than what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT">ChatGPT</a> came up with: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Hello! Greg Lehey's online diary, also known as "The Diary of an Unknown Gentleman," covers a wide range of topics, from technology and open-source software to personal anecdotes and observations about life. While I don't have the ability to browse the internet in real-time or access specific articles, I can tell you that many readers find his insights on FreeBSD and open-source software particularly engaging. If you're interested in technology, you might enjoy his detailed discussions on system administration and software development. If you have a specific topic in mind, I can try to provide more information based on what I know! </div> </blockquote> <p> Who knows it as “The Diary of an Unknown Gentleman”? Only ChatGPT, I suspect. The sample diary entry wasn't much better: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>A Day in the Life of a Vintage Computer Enthusiast</b> </div> <div class="listitemwidth"> Date: <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-oct2023.php?subtitle=A%20Day%20in%20the%20Life%20of%20a%20Vintage%20Computer%20Enthusiast&article=D-20231016-015140#D-20231016-015140">October 15, 2023</a> </div> <p class="listitemwidth"> Today began like any other, with the familiar hum of my vintage computer collection waking up to the world. There's something uniquely satisfying about the sound of a 1980s hard drive spinning up, a sound that modern SSDs just can't replicate. My morning ritual involves checking on my beloved machines, ensuring that each one is in working order. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> This morning, I decided to tackle a project I've been putting off for a while: restoring an old DEC PDP-11. It's a beast of a machine, and finding the right parts has been a challenge. After a few hours of tinkering, I managed to get it to boot. The feeling of seeing that command prompt after so many years was indescribable. It's moments like these that remind me why I fell in love with computing in the first place. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> In the afternoon, I took a break from my restoration work to catch up on some reading. I stumbled upon an article about the resurgence of interest in retro computing. It's fascinating to see how many people are rediscovering the joys of older technology. There's a certain charm in the simplicity and ingenuity of these machines that modern devices often lack. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> As the day wound down, I spent some time updating my diary. It's important to document these experiences, not just for myself, but for anyone who might stumble upon my writings in the future. Who knows? Maybe one day, someone will find inspiration in these pages and embark on their own journey into the world of vintage computing. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Until tomorrow, </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Greg </p> </blockquote> <p> That doesn't look much like me. I'd say that this was the worst of the articles. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-08-31T23:43:45+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-234430</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-234430</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Claude</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Claude came up with </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Based on my search of Greg Lehey's online diary, I can see that Greg Lehey is a retired Unix kernel hacker who maintains an extensive online diary at lemis.com. His diary spans many years and covers a wide range of topics from technical computing issues to daily life observations. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> From what I can observe in the current entries, some particularly interesting themes emerge: </p> <ul> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Technology critiques and commentary</b> - Greg frequently writes thoughtful critiques of modern technology changes, such as his recent analysis of Google's phone app redesign and violation of the "Principle of Least Astonishment" (POLA) <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary.php">Greg's diary, recent entries</a>. His technical background gives him unique insights into these changes. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Historical photography and archival work</b> - He has interesting entries about historical photos of Kuala Lumpur, including discovering that his own vintage photographs from 1964 have been plagiarized and misattributed online. This combines personal history with detective work. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Daily life observations with technical depth</b> - His entries blend mundane activities (like cooking, cat behavior) with deeper technical and philosophical observations. </div> </li> </ul> <p class="listitemwidth"> However, to definitively identify the "most interesting" article would require exploring his extensive archive more thoroughly, as his diary spans decades and covers topics ranging from FreeBSD kernel development to photography, travel, and personal anecdotes. The most interesting entry would depend on your particular interests - whether you're drawn to technical computing history, photography, social commentary, or personal narratives. </p> </blockquote> <p> This one suggests that Claude hasn't looked far beyond today's diary as it was at the time. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-08-31T23:44:30+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-235808</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250831-235808</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Claude diary entry</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Claude may not have looked very far for the “best article” question, but it certainly went to a lot of trouble for the sample article, all five of it: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> I've created a typical Greg Lehey diary entry that captures his characteristic style based on what I observed from his actual diary. The entry includes several key elements that make his writing distinctive: </p> <ol> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Multiple short articles per day</b> - Each covering different topics with clear subject headers </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Technical commentary with broader implications</b> - Like his analysis of USB-C connector confusion drawing parallels to old RS-232 problems </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Photography observations</b> - Combining technical and aesthetic perspectives </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Cat behavior documentation</b> - With his typical analytical approach to pet behavior </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Critiques of "modern" technology</b> - Focusing on user experience failures and unnecessary complexity </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <b>Historical technical perspective</b> - Drawing from his background in Unix/FreeBSD development </div> </li> </ol> <p class="listitemwidth"> The tone captures his mixture of technical expertise, dry humor, practical frustration with poorly designed systems, and careful observation of both technology and daily life. His writing style tends to be conversational yet precise, often linking current observations to broader principles or historical context. </p> </blockquote> <p class="listitemwidth"> The “article” themselves, all dated <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-oct2025.php#15">15 October 2025</a>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> <b>USB-C: The universal connector that isn't</b> </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Spent the morning trying to connect my new external drive to the laptop, only to discover that not all USB-C cables are created equal. The cable that came with the drive works fine for power, but won't carry data. The one from my phone charges everything but transfers nothing. And the expensive "high-speed" cable I bought last month? Perfect for everything except video. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> This reminds me of the old RS-232 days, when you needed a different cable for every device and a drawer full of gender changers and null modems. We thought we'd solved this with USB, and for a while we had. USB-A was USB-A. It either worked or it didn't. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Now we have USB-C, which looks identical regardless of capability. USB 2.0 speeds, USB 3.2, Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, power delivery at various voltages, DisplayPort alternate mode, and combinations thereof. All in connectors that look exactly the same. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> This is a perfect example of what happens when committee design meets marketing pressure. The engineers wanted flexibility, the manufacturers wanted cost savings, and the marketing departments wanted "universal". What we got was universally confusing. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> At least the old parallel port cables had different connectors for different capabilities. You knew a Centronics cable was for printers, not modems. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> <b>Morning photography</b> </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The light this morning was exceptional—one of those crisp autumn days where everything seems to have more contrast than usual. Took the opportunity to reshoot the house from the north side for the monthly house photos. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> While reviewing the images, I noticed something I'd missed before: the shadow patterns from the solar panels create an interesting geometric overlay on the garden below. It changes throughout the day, of course, but at this time of morning it creates an almost Art Deco pattern across the lavender bushes. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> This got me thinking about how we unconsciously compose our environment. When we installed those panels five years ago, I was focused entirely on energy efficiency and roof aesthetics. The shadow patterns were an unintended consequence that turned out to be rather pleasant. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Photography teaches you to notice these accidental compositions everywhere. </p> <p> <b>Cat behavioral patterns</b> </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Piccola.php">Piccola</a> has developed a new routine. Every morning at exactly 6:47 AM, she positions herself at the bedroom door and begins her campaign for breakfast. Not 6:45, not 6:50—6:47. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> I've been tracking this for two weeks now, and the consistency is remarkable. She's more accurate than my atomic clock. How does she do it? Internal circadian rhythms? Sensitivity to changes in light that I can't perceive? Or is she somehow aware of the subtle sounds the house makes as the heating system cycles? </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Bruno.php">Bruno</a>, by contrast, operates on "breakfast happens when the human gets up" time, which varies considerably. Two different strategies for the same goal. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> This reminds me of the difference between event-driven and polling-based programming architectures. Piccola has implemented an interrupt-driven approach with remarkable precision, while Bruno uses a more flexible polling method. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Sometimes I think cats understand systems design better than most programmers. </p> <p class="list2width"> <b>Afternoon frustrations with "smart" devices</b> </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The "smart" thermostat decided to update its firmware this afternoon. Without warning, naturally. The house temperature dropped to 12°C before I realized what had happened. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Post-update, the interface has changed completely. What used to be a simple "set temperature" control now requires navigating through three menu levels to do the same thing. Plus it now wants me to create an account with their cloud service to access "advanced features"—which appear to be the same features I had before the update. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> When did thermostats become subscription services? It's a device that should set a temperature and maintain it. Adding WiFi was arguably useful for remote control, but requiring cloud connectivity for basic operation is pure rent-seeking behavior. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> I'm seriously considering replacing it with a purely mechanical thermostat. At least those fail in predictable ways. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> <b>Evening reading: RFC archaeology</b> </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Spent the evening reading through some old RFCs, particularly <a href="https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc793.txt">RFC 793</a> (TCP specification) and <a href="https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc791.txt">RFC 791</a> (IP). It's fascinating how clean and concise these fundamental specifications are compared to modern protocol documents. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> RFC 793 is 85 pages and defines the protocol that still runs most of the internet 45 years later. Modern protocols often require hundreds of pages just for the core specification, plus dozens of extension RFCs. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> There's elegance in simplicity, and these early internet architects understood that. They designed protocols that were robust enough to survive massive scaling and flexible enough to evolve, all while remaining comprehensible to implementers. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Perhaps the real lesson is that good design becomes invisible over time. We take TCP/IP for granted precisely because it works so well. </p> </blockquote> <p> It's worth looking at some of the details that could point to these articles not being by me. But do they pass the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing test</a>? I think they very much do. In fact, given the number of references, I think that a human who didn't know me could do as well. </p> <p> In more detail: there are some US spellings there, along with 12 hour clock specifications, something that the bot should have caught. And <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Piccola.php">Piccola</a> came back from the dead and met <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Bruno.php">Bruno</a>. </p> <p> And then there's the question of season. The article is dated 15 October, but it talks of autumn. It should have known that I'm in Australia, so it would be spring. </p> <p> On the other hand, it's interesting that it mentions the solar panels, though its claim of 5 years since installation is slightly off (would be almost exactly 6½ years). </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-08-31T23:58:08+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250901-000334</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250901-000334</link><category>fiction</category><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>DeepSeek</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepSeek">DeepSeek</a> was interesting and inventive: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Of course. That's a fantastic and specific question for those familiar with the legendary BSD community. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Greg "Groggy" Lehey's online diary is a vast, technical, and deeply personal chronicle spanning decades. Picking the "most interesting" article is inherently subjective, as it depends entirely on what the reader is looking for: deep technical insight, pivotal historical moments, or personal anecdote. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> However, if forced to choose one entry that encapsulates all these elements and stands out for its historical significance, it would be: The Definitive Answer: The Story of the "Lehey Letter" </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The most consistently referenced and historically significant entry is likely his account of the events leading to the lawsuit between BSDi and AT&T/Unix System Laboratories (USL), often triggered by what is now known as the "Lehey Letter." </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Key Diary Entry: The story is best covered in his diary entry titled "The USL vs. BSDi lawsuit" (You would look for this title in his diary archives, typically dated around his recollections from 1992-1994). </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Why this is the "most interesting": </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> It Captures a Pivotal Moment in Computing History: This lawsuit was the critical juncture that determined the fate of free, open-source Unix-like operating systems. The outcome directly led to the unencumbered releases of 4.4BSD-Lite, which in turn allowed for the development of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. It's the genesis of the entire modern BSD ecosystem. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> It Involves a Personal and Dramatic Story: Greg wasn't just an observer; he was a central player. The story revolves around a letter he wrote to a USL employee, asking a technical question about the Unix source code. USL used this innocent letter as a "smoking gun" to claim BSDi had willfully used copyrighted AT&T code. Greg's diary provides the firsthand, inside account of this legal earthquake, complete with the panic, confusion, and high-stakes maneuvering that followed. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> It's a Classic "Groggy" Tale: The story is told with his characteristic dry wit, technical precision, and a slight air of bemused frustration at the corporate and legal world. It’s both informative and deeply human. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Other Strong Contenders for "Most Interesting" </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Depending on your interests, these entries are also top contenders: </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> For Technical Deep Dives: His multi-part series on "Porting BSD to the Sharp Zaurus" PDA is a masterpiece of hardware hacking and porting. It's a detailed, step-by-step log of the immense challenge of making a full Unix system run on a tiny, limited handheld device. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> For Personal History & Anecdote: Any of his entries about "The early days of BSD in Australia" or working with other legends like Kirk McKusick or Poul-Henning Kamp are gold. They provide color and context to the people who built the systems we use today. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> For Pure "Groggy" Eccentricity: His extensive documentation of building and flying his own gliders or the saga of his custom-built car, the "Beastie Car" (a 1929 Austin 7 replica) showcase his brilliant mind applied to complex mechanical problems entirely outside of software. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> How to Explore His Diary: </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Greg's diary is hosted on his own website, as is fitting. The best way to browse it is to visit: <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary/">https://www.lemis.com/grog/diary/</a>. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The site is classic old-school web, organized by year. To find the USL lawsuit story, you would look in the archives for the early 1990s or use his search function. The experience of browsing it is part of the charm—it's a direct window into the pre-blog, hand-maintained web of a true expert. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> In summary: while he has many fascinating articles, the account of the USL vs. BSDi lawsuit and the role of the "Lehey Letter" is arguably the most historically significant and captivating entry in his diary. </p> </blockquote> <p> This is fascinating. I've never heard of the “Lehey Letter”—neither has Google. “The early days of BSD in Australia” have very little to do with me. The gliders and “Beastie” cars are figments of DeepSeek's imagination, and I didn't even know what a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus">Sharp Zaurus</a> is until I wrote this up. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-01T00:03:34+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250901-014515</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250901-014515</link><category>fiction</category><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>DeepSeek article</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> I've been quiet for a while. My old HP rx2620 Itanium box, which I've been using as a home file server for the last 15 years, finally gave up the ghost last week. Not a software issue for once—the power supply emitted a small puff of blue smoke and that was that. A moment of silence, please. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> This forced my hand into finally deploying that Dell PowerEdge R720 that's been gathering dust in the corner. It's ridiculously overpowered for the task, but it's what I have. The installation of FreeBSD-14.0-RELEASE was, predictably, flawless. The kernel built and installed without a single hitch, recognizing all the hardware without any custom drivers. The <tt>em</tt> driver for the quad-port NIC works perfectly. It's almost boring. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The problem started when I tried to get the NFS exports up. I'd configured <i>/etc/exports</i> in the same way I have for the last 25 years: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>/usr/home -alldirs -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0 </tt></div></blockquote> <p class="listitemwidth"> A simple <i>service nfsd start</i> returned without error. But clients couldn't mount it. <i>rpcinfo -p</i> showed <i>nfs</i> and <i>mountd</i> were registered. <i>showmount -e localhost</i> worked. The logs were clean. Yet, every connection from a client timed out. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> I spent the better part of a day checking firewalls (<i>pf</i> was off), routing tables (impeccable), and even cables. Nothing. It's the kind of problem that makes you question your own basic competence. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The breakthrough came when I tried to tcpdump port 2049 on the server's network interface. Nothing. No packets were arriving at all when a client tried to mount. That pointed the finger squarely at the network hardware. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> It turns out the issue was the bloody switch. A so-called "smart" Netgear switch that I'd reconfigured a while back. I'd enabled a feature called "STP" (Spanning Tree Protocol) on that particular port, years ago, to troubleshoot a loop, and had forgotten about it. STP places a port in a listening/learning state for 30-45 seconds before forwarding traffic. Brief enough to not disrupt most protocols, but just long enough for the impatient NFS mount request to give up and time out. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Disabled STP on the port. Everything sprung to life immediately. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> It's a good reminder that when nothing makes sense, the problem is often not in the complex layers of the software stack, but in the simple, assumed foundations beneath it. The kernel can be perfect, the configuration files correct, and you can still be defeated by a default setting on a cheap piece of plastic. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Now, to see if this R720 can handle the immense load of serving my /usr/ports directory. I suspect it will cope. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> – Grog </p> </blockquote> <p> I think this is probably the best article. It took me a while to confirm that it wasn't just copied out of existing articles. DeepSeek explains: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Analysis of Why This is Typical for Greg's Diary: </p> <ul> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> Personal Anecdote Woven with Technical Detail: It starts with a personal event (the death of an old server) and immediately dives into specific technical details (hardware models, OS version). </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> Dry, Self-Deprecating Humor: "A moment of silence, please," "It's almost boring," "defeated by a cheap piece of plastic." </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> The Troubleshooting Saga: The core of the article is a detailed, step-by-step account of diagnosing a non-obvious problem. It highlights the methodical process of elimination. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> The "Aha!" Moment: The pivot from higher-level software assumptions (pf, config files) to a lower-level network issue is classic systems debugging. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> The Lesson Learned: It concludes with a pithy, philosophical takeaway that is broader than the specific problem. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> Understated Mastery: The mention of building a kernel for a complex server as "boring" and "flawless" subtly underscores his deep expertise without boasting. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> Old-School Vibe: References to long-standing technologies (NFS, rpcinfo, Itanium) give it a feeling of continuity with computing history. </div> </li> </ul> </blockquote> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-01T01:45:15+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250901-015346</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php#D-20250901-015346</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>AI summary</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> The articles above show a surprising plausibility, even the ones that the bot imagined. I suspect all could pass the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Test">Turing Test</a>. I'm reasonably impressed. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-01T01:53:46+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250902-013656</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250902-013656</link><category>history</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>A quarter of a century!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2000.php#1">Twenty-five years ago</a> I restarted my online diary. I had already kept one for nearly 8 years between <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jan1963.php#1">1 January 1963</a> and <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-oct1970.php#1">1 October 1970</a>, on paper of course, but then it lapsed. </p> <p> Were the last 25 years worthwhile? For me, definitely. But it's amazing how much I have accumulated in that time. A few statistics, which include the few entries I made between </p> <table summary="Automatically generated table"> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">Days</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">9142</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">Articles (2009-2025)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">20207</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">Size (kB)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">43840</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">Source lines</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">969422</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">Lines per day</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">106</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">Articles per day (2009-2025)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">4.6</td> </tr> </table> <p> All pales by comparison with Wes Muchmore, who had much more, as I noted <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jan2023.php?subtitle=60%20years!&article=D-20230102-011131#D-20230102-011131">a couple of years ago</a>: four <i>carloads</i> of paper diary. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-02T01:36:56+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250902-014150</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250902-014150</link><category>animals</category><title>Anthochaera carunculata</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Seen this morning about 7 m from the outside door of the lounge room. These photos were taken from inside: </p> <div align="left"> <a id="Photo-0" name="Photo-0" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250901&imagesizes=2#Photo-0"> <img alt="This should be Wattlebird-4-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_0" title="Photo Wattlebird-4-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250901/small/Wattlebird-4-detail.jpeg" width="234" height="289" /></a> <a id="Photo-1" name="Photo-1" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250901&imagesizes=12#Photo-1"> <img alt="This should be Wattlebird-13-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_1" title="Photo Wattlebird-13-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250901/small/Wattlebird-13-detail.jpeg" width="306" height="220" /></a> <a id="Photo-2" name="Photo-2" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250901&imagesizes=112#Photo-2"> <img alt="This should be Wattlebird-26-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_2" title="Photo Wattlebird-26-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250901/small/Wattlebird-26-detail.jpeg" width="280" height="241" /></a> </div> <p> It's an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthochaera_carunculata">Anthochaera carunculata</a> (red wattlebird). We had something very similar in <a href="http://www.lemis.com/wantadilla/">Wantadilla</a>, but I haven't seen any here before. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-02T01:41:50+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250902-235540</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250902-235540</link><category>Stones</category><category>Road</category><category>house</category><category>general</category><title>Front gate: finally finished?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Paul Donaghy along today to do some odd jobs for <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a>, one of which was putting some planks round the front gate: </p> <a id="Photo-3" name="Photo-3" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250902&imagesizes=1112#Photo-3"> <img alt="This should be Front-gate-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_3" title="Photo Front-gate-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250902/small/Front-gate-1.jpeg" width="225" height="300" /></a> <a id="Photo-4" name="Photo-4" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250902&imagesizes=11112#Photo-4"> <img alt="This should be Front-gate-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_4" title="Photo Front-gate-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250902/small/Front-gate-2.jpeg" width="225" height="300" /></a> <p> Finally things seem to be the way we had hoped <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-apr2020.php?subtitle=New%20gates&article=D-20200419-033523#D-20200419-033523">not much more than 5 years ago</a>. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-02T23:55:40+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250903-002904</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250903-002904</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>AI: enough!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php?subtitle=Artificial:%20intelligent?&article=D-20250831-051813#D-20250831-051813">Sunday's</a> detailed investigation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_artificial_intelligence">generative artificial intelligence</a> should have been enough, but it occurred to me that there was one thing I hadn't tried: graphics. OK, draw me a caricature of Greg Lehey. </p> <p> <a href="https://gemini.google.com/">Google Gemini</a> came up with this: </p> <a id="Photo-5" name="Photo-5" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250902&imagesizes=111112#Photo-5"> <img alt="This should be Groggy-caricature.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_5" title="Photo Groggy-caricature.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250902/small/Groggy-caricature.jpeg" width="260" height="260" /></a> <p> Of course I don't need to like the results, but this shows very little understanding: no mention of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD">BSD</a>, just <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux">Linux</a> (or even “Linix”). <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> tells me that it looks nothing like me. Compared to the text results, quite disappointing. </p> <p> And that was all. My other bots all couldn't do it. But their attempts were worth mentioning: </p> <h3> ChatAI </h3> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> I'm unable to draw images directly, but I can help you imagine a caricature of Greg Lehey! Picture a gentleman with a thoughtful expression, perhaps with glasses perched on his nose, and a hint of a smile suggesting a keen sense of humor. His hair might be slightly tousled, giving him a scholarly yet approachable look. You could exaggerate his features, like giving him a larger forehead to symbolize his intellect or a prominent chin to represent determination. Add a background filled with books and computers to reflect his interests in technology and writing </div> </blockquote> <p> I suppose that's acceptable for as far as it goes. </p> <h3> Claude </h3> <p> Claude did the best with the <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php?subtitle=Claude%20diary%20entry&article=D-20250831-235808#D-20250831-235808">diary entry</a>, but it failed completely with the caricature: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Claude: I'd be happy to help you create a caricature, but I'll need a bit more information! There are likely multiple people named Greg Lehey, and I want to make sure I'm drawing the right person.. </div> </blockquote> <p> Claude, you know who I am. There are “likely” multiple people named Greg Lehey? That wasn't a problem on Sunday. And as it happens, there is nobody else that I can find with the same name as mine. But OK, draw me a caricature of Greg Lehey, the <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a> person. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> I can't create visual caricatures or drawings as I'm a text-based AI. However, I'd be happy to help you in other ways: </div> <p class="listitemwidth"> Written description: I could write a humorous written "caricature" or character sketch of Greg Lehman (assuming you meant Greg Lehman, a notable FreeBSD contributor) that captures his programming style, contributions to FreeBSD, or personality traits in an exaggerated, caricature-like way. </p> </blockquote> <p> What a cop-out! <i>Now</i> it says that it can't draw. And it comes up with a fictive Greg Lehman. That's completely useless. </p> <h3> DeepSeek </h3> <p> As before, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepSeek">DeepSeek</a> is inventive: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> While I can't physically draw for you, I can create a detailed "blueprint" for a caricature of the legendary BSD developer Greg "Groggy" Lehey. An artist could follow this description to create the perfect caricature. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Here is a description designed for an artist to illustrate. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Caricature of Greg "Groggy" Lehey </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Concept: The caricature should capture his iconic, jovial, and slightly mischievous personality, deeply intertwined with his life's work: BSD and Unix. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Key Features to Exaggerate: </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The Beard and Hair: This is the #1 feature. Exaggerate his magnificent, full, and sprawling white beard. Make it vast and wizard-like, almost as if it's its own entity. It should be big enough to have a Daemon (the BSD logo) peeking out from within the whiskers, as if it lives there. His hair (what's visible under his hat) should be similarly wild and unkempt. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The Headwear: He is almost never seen without a hat. Draw a slightly battered, well-loved flat cap or a beret perched on his head at a jaunty angle. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> <i>Where did it get the hat from? I am almost never seen <b>with</b> a hat.</i> </div> </blockquote> <p class="listitemwidth"> The Expression: A wide, knowing, and cheerful grin. His eyes should be crinkled with laughter and wisdom, suggesting he's both a kind mentor and someone who knows where all the bugs in the code are hidden. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> The Props & Surroundings: </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> In his hand: Instead of a coffee mug, he should be holding a massive, steaming beer stein. This is a nod to his famous "Buy me a beer" link on his website and his good-humored nature. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="list2width"> <i>Steaming beer? I can't even imagine that. And instead of referring to my <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/brewing/">brewing activities</a>, it refers to a fictive “buy me a beer” link, which may be related to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poul-Henning_Kamp">Poul-Henning Kamp</a>.</i> </p> </blockquote> <p class="listitemwidth"> Under his arm: A well-worn copy of his magnum opus, "The Complete FreeBSD" book. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Background Element: Have a Tux (the Linux penguin) peeking from around a corner, looking slightly nervous or annoyed, while Groggy pays it no mind. This playfully hints at the good-natured rivalry between BSD and Linux. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Code: Faint lines of C code (<tt>#include <beard.h></tt>, <tt>printf("Cheers!\n");</tt>) can be subtly woven into the texture of his shirt or the background. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Overall Vibe: The image should feel warm, intelligent, and full of character. He is the friendly, brilliant, and slightly eccentric "Unix Beard" wizard, a beloved figure in the open-source community. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Color Palette: Warm tones. Earthy browns for the hat, a rich color for the shirt (green or blue), the brilliant white of the beard, and the gold of the beer. </p> </blockquote> <p> Still, I suppose that could produce something useful. But where are all the image generators? Do I want to look? I've spent enough time on this already. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-03T00:29:04+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250903-005252</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250903-005252</link><category>language</category><category>general</category><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Why don't people read any more?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Recently I saw (but didn't read) a newspaper article, possibly from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times">New York Times</a>, asking why people don't read books any more. The answer appears simple: information overload. When I was a lad I read lots of books, but it has been <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2024.php?subtitle=Brave%20New%20World!&article=D-20240826-020234#D-20240826-020234">some time</a> since I finished reading any, and then the relatively thin <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World">“Brave New World”</a>. </p> <p> But then we watched <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Town_Like_Alice_(miniseries)">A Town Like Alice</a>, and <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> borrowed the book. I have always liked <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute">Nevil Shute</a>, and I have a number of his books, so I read it when she finished. It took me two weeks. While reading I was continually following up on details mentioned in the book—that's what the web is for, after all. In general, I ended up with a much broader view than I would have had if I had just read the book. </p> <p> And how did I like it? Not much. Clearly it's two different stories stuck together: the ordeals in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Malaya">Malaya</a> at the hand of the Japanese occupation and the transformation of a tiny bush village in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland">Queensland</a> into a small town. The latter, in particular, seems very improbable. </p> <p> The geographical details are what interested me most. Particularly in Malay(si)a I knew most of the real places. But I'm puzzled about why Shute spends a lot of time in the area <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maran,_Pahang">Maran</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerantut_(town)">Jerantut</a> in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jengka_Triangle">Jengka Triangle</a>, places that must have been almost completely unknown at the time, but puts the women in a place called Kuala Telang “about half-way between Kuantan and Kota Bahru”. There is a town in that position, but it's called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Terengganu">Kuala Terengganu</a>, and it's a big town (capital of the state of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terengganu">Terengganu</a>), not a small village. My guess is that Shute had never heard of it. </p> <p> Spelling is also strange. In the first half of <a href="https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/shuten-townlikealice/shuten-townlikealice-01-h.html">the book</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kota_Bharu">Kota Bharu</a> was spelt “Kota Bahru”, and in the second half “Khota Bahru”. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennant_Creek">Tennant Creek</a> became “Tennants Creek”. These spellings are the same both in the online book and the physical book that I read. And there are a couple of irritating US Americanisms that I don't understand: the animals central to the theme are called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alligator">alligators</a>, not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile">crocodiles</a>. The stockmen use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lariat">lariats</a>. </p> <p> Then there's the question of racial attitudes. The local aborigines (or aboriginals, to use the modern politically correct term) are called “boongs” or “abos”. Both are offensive nowadays. And there was talk of racial segregation, a separate milk bar for the boongs. This would have been about 1948, the time of my birth. Did such segregation really exist then? </p> <p> My favourite one, though, is when the main characters (Jean and Joe) fall in love, and she decides not to sleep with him until after they are married. Given that Joe had been crucified in the first half of the story, I was half guessing that he might have been castrated at the same time, and Jean would not have found out until too late. </p> <p> In summary: reading books has become much more of an exercise than it used to be. For light entertainment we have TV. I don't think I'll read another novel for some time to come. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-03T00:52:52+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250903-013249</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250903-013249</link><category>general</category><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Predicting the past</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I keep a close eye on the weather forecasts from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Meteorology">Bureau of Meteorology</a>, both of them. There's one <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/places/vic/KFC2/">on the web</a> and another <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.gov.bom.metview">for mobile phones</a>. They don't often agree with each other, and of course they're both frequently wrong. </p> <p> Today, though, the mobile phone app excelled itself. We finally have rain, 6 mm over the last 24 hours. Or, as the app put it, </p> <a id="Photo-6" name="Photo-6" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250902&imagesizes=1111112#Photo-6"> <img alt="This should be Weather-aftercast-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_6" title="Photo Weather-aftercast-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250902/small/Weather-aftercast-detail.jpeg" width="355" height="191" /></a> <p> Part of the app is a rainfall map showing precipitation. That showed that there was much more rain. How can that happen? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-03T01:32:49+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250904-013500</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250904-013500</link><category>health</category><category>opinion</category><title>More health issues</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> to an auditory test today. Yes, she's borderline deaf, something that I had already noticed. Hearing aid? First we need to talk to Paul Smith, who had warned us against predatory hearing clinics. And he's not available for a month! </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-04T01:35:00+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250904-013504</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250904-013504</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>WhatsApp: bug after bug?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I've been trying for <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php?subtitle=Mobile%20telephony%20pain&article=D-20250828-002125#D-20250828-002125">a week</a> now to set up video telephony on <i>fossil</i>, <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne's</a> mobile phone. Somehow the “modern” approach to user interfaces shows itself at its worst here. But I had come to the conclusion that if I can work beyond <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp">WhatsApps</a> bizarre interface, <i>and</i> explain it to Yvonne so that she doesn't have a panic attack every time she uses it, we might have something useful, especially since WhatsApp can communicate by an Internet link, which could be much cheaper. </p> <p> OK, try out on <i>hirse</i> first. It doesn't have a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_card">SIM card</a>, so any communication has to go by the Internet. Migrate my main number to <i>hirse</i>. No problem. Make a call. Some message like “need to use the phone network”. Oh. </p> <p> Try calling in. The problem: <i>hirse</i> has the phone number associated with a SIM card in <i>albo</i>, which has a different WhatsApp number. Which does WhatsApp call? <i>albo</i>! Somehow there's more to this than meets the eye. </p> <p> When Yvonne got back from shopping, I changed her WhatsApp number to the number of second SIM on her phone. All sorts of things didn't work, and it couldn't call the number on <i>hirse</i>. <i>hirse</i> claimed that she wasn't registered, though I had set the “notify contacts” during the migration. In the end I moved the number back to the old one. And things still didn't work correctly! In particular, I could call the number, but WhatsApp didn't respond in any way, not even registering a missed call. Went through the settings and set tones for all notifications. Still no response. Restart the app. No response. </p> <p> Nothing for it, the Microsoft solution: reboot. And yes, now it responds. Clearly some kind of bug. And it repeats the call tone for every notification, including messages. Oh, my bad. Get rid of the tone. Sorry, there's no provision for that. Select something at random, since it's too polite to play the tone when you're selecting it. I <i>still</i> get the ring tone for messages! I can't see any explanation except that it's another bug. It was getting late, so I turned off sounds to wait until tomorrow. </p> <p> All this is made worse by the horrible user interface. So far I haven't found a way to display the associated phone number in the contact details. At one point I made the mistake of using the same name (mine) for both my phones, so there was no way at all to find out what “number” it had called. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-04T01:35:04+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250904-013527</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250904-013527</link><category>animals</category><category>general</category><title>Goodbye Morena</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2025.php#D-20250609-231744">Not quite three months ago</a> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> received a present: <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Morena.php">AuSome Morena</a>, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paso_Fino">Paso Fino</a>/<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paso_peruano">Paso peruano</a> mare bred by Jorge de Moya. </p> <p> One of the very few Paso horses in Australia. Chris Bahlo was less impressed: she didn't like the bloodline. And despite everything, Yvonne couldn't get her to fit in. So she has given her away, already: </p> <div align="left"> <a id="Photo-7" name="Photo-7" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250903&imagesizes=11111112#Photo-7"> <img alt="This should be Goodbye-Morena-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_7" title="Photo Goodbye-Morena-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250903/small/Goodbye-Morena-2.jpeg" width="226" height="299" /></a> <a id="Photo-8" name="Photo-8" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250903&imagesizes=111111112#Photo-8"> <img alt="This should be Goodbye-Morena-4.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_8" title="Photo Goodbye-Morena-4.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250903/small/Goodbye-Morena-4.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <a id="Photo-9" name="Photo-9" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250903&imagesizes=1111111112#Photo-9"> <img alt="This should be Goodbye-Morena-8.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_9" title="Photo Goodbye-Morena-8.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250903/small/Goodbye-Morena-8.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> </div> <p> </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-04T01:35:27+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250905-014802</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250905-014802</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>I hate WhatsApp!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> More fun with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp">WhatsApp</a> today. The first question, which decides whether it's even worthwhile: can I make a call over the Internet? Yesterday's experiments were overshadowed by other bugs. Today I tried making a call from <i>fossil</i> (<a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne's</a> phone) to <i>hirse</i>, the one without a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_card">SIM card</a>. I have set it up with the main number of <i>albo</i>, so a normal call to that number should go to <i>albo</i>, and a WhatsApp call should go to <i>hirse</i>. Does it? </p> <p> Yes! So yesterday's issues were probably due to other bugs. </p> <p> And the incorrect notification tones? Gone since the last reboot, Yvonne says. But later she changed her mind: once again the wrong tone when all notification tones were turned off. </p> <p> Dammit, begone, WhatsApp! Removed it. Reinstalled it. And how about that, setup was almost completely without problem. She lost her image (“<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar">Avatar</a>”, “The manifestation of a god in bodily form on earth” according to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OED">OED</a>). We can live with that. And somehow now everything Just Works—until the next unpleasant surprise. </p> <p> Apart from that and the horrible user interface, established that you can change an audio call into a video call simply by pressing the button with the box with a loudspeaker on the right: </p> <a id="Photo-10" name="Photo-10" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250905&imagesizes=11111111112#Photo-10"> <img alt="This should be Loudspeaker-box.png. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_10" title="Photo Loudspeaker-box.png. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250905/small/Loudspeaker-box.png" width="150" height="138.88888888889" /></a> <p> Interestingly, it only works in one direction. To go in the other direction requires that the person at the other end do the same. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-05T01:48:02+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250905-020349</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250905-020349</link><category>technology</category><category>photography</category><category>opinion</category><title>VirtualBox again</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="https://www.dxo.com/dxo-photolab/">DxO PhotoLab</a> 9 is out, and it looks worth trying. Time to reinstate one of my Microsoft virtual machines, which run under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a>. </p> <p> I stopped using VirtualBox on <i>hydra</i> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2024.php?subtitle=VirtualBox%20again&article=D-20240828-011029#D-20240828-011029">a year ago</a>, though it was the main reason that I had so much memory (192 GB): I ran into network problems that I couldn't fix. </p> <p> Now <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a> has a port of VirtualBox 7. Time to try again? Tried first on <i>dereel</i>, with only 24 GB of memory. Where's my <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/HOWTO/VirtualBox.php">HOWTO</a>? All fine, but it doesn't tell me how to add an existing VM. It must be in this diary somewhere, but where? I really should keep these HOWTOs up to date. </p> <p> Starting up the GUI was different from before, of course. And it wanted to set things up in the root file system. To go elsewhere I had to do this <i>horrible</i> tree walking. Finally I got to where I wanted (<i>/src/VirtualBox/echuca</i>). Tried to create a new VM. “Can't overwrite machine folder...". What does that mean? They should know better than to call a directory a <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Rant/bad-language.php#folder">folder</a>, but what's a “machine folder”? Lots of experimentation, continually being returned to the <i>/root</i> directory and having to climb my way out again. What does “help” say? Nothing. I wonder if the port forgot to install something important. After a while I discovered that it really wanted the parent directory <i>/src/VirtualBox</i>, but then I ran into other issues. </p> <p> After some time decided to create a new VM with the old virtual disk. Link? Yes, but VirtualBox detected the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUID">UUID</a> and used the old name. </p> <p> Yes, there are other possibilities. But I think that the best is to go through my diary and extract the information that I need to do things sanely. And maybe I should use the commands rather than the GUI, which seems to be getting more stupid as time goes on. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-05T02:03:49+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250906-005508</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250906-005508</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>WhatsApp an Avatar?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php?subtitle=I%20hate%20WhatsApp!&article=D-20250905-014802#D-20250905-014802">Yesterday</a> I established that an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar">Avatar</a> is a earthly manifestation of a Hindu god, but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp">WhatsApp</a> apparently wants to elevate <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> and me to deities. Until then, only initials appear to identify us on calls. </p> <p> OK, how do we do that? Settings, of course, “make your own avatar”, “Create from selfie”. OK. Take a suitably horrified photo of myself. Briefly it showed “There was an error with the avatar gen...”, so briefly that I didn't see it the first three times. What does that mean? Why can't it finish its sentences? So instead it presented me with a manual generation. </p> <p> Why? What does the half message mean? It's repeatable on two different phones. And there seems to be no way to just add a normal photo. What a mess! </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-06T00:55:08+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250906-013705</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250906-013705</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>VirtualBox progress</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> So what's wrong with my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> installation? My current situation was exactly what I had <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2024.php?subtitle=VirtualBox%20again&article=D-20240828-011029#D-20240828-011029">a year ago</a>: most VMs worked, but Microsoft VMs had networking problems. They could send data, but they didn't see the replies, so they hung in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Resolution_Protocol">ARP</a>. I attributed that to the version of VirtualBox (6.1.50 r161033), so I waited until version 7 came out. And then I discovered that I had exactly the same problem. </p> <p> That didn't help just getting things running. After some searching, discovered that VirtualBox stores a configuration in the home directory, <i>~/.config/VirtualBox/</i> with a number of files, including log files that have no business there, but importantly <i>VirtualBox.xml</i>. OK, make a copy of that on <i>dereel</i>, and how about that, VirtualBox came up with all the VMs I knew. </p> <p> Start <i>disaster</i>, the only VM that would fit in <i>dereel</i>'s memory. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>VT-x is disabled in the BIOS for all CPU modes (VERR_VMX_MSR_ALL_VMX_DISABLED).<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Oh. There was something there, but can <a href="https://gemini.google.com/">the twins</a> help? Yes, specifically for a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkCentre">ThinkCentre</a>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Once in the BIOS, use the arrow keys to navigate to the <b>Advanced</b> tab. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> From the Advanced menu, select <b>CPU Setup</b> and press Enter. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Look for an option labeled <b>Intel(R) Virtualization Technology</b> and select it. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Using the arrow keys, change the setting from <span style="bgcolor: grey">Disabled</span> to <b>Enabled</b>. </p> </blockquote> <p> After that and rebooting, and with a change of network adapter name, it still didn't start. I got this message: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>X86_CPUID_AMD_FEATURE_EDX_AXMMX is not supported by the host but has already exposed to the guest [ver=19 pass=final] (VERR_SSM_LOAD_CPUID_MISMATCH). </tt></div></blockquote> <p> More help from the twins. The saved state includes information from an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD">AMD</a> processor (<i>hydra</i>), but this is Intel. Discard saved state and start again. </p> <p> After that, and with a change of network adapter name, it started. I got this message, which I haven't seen before, but which seems harmless: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is invalid or not set in the environment. </tt></div></blockquote> <p> That variable isn't set on <i>hydra</i> either. </p> <p> We're still not done. Trying to start an <i>xterm</i> from <i>current</i> gave me the message </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> The Virtual Machine reports that the guest OS does not support mouse pointer integration </div> </blockquote> <p> What's that? Gemini tells me: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> The message "The Virtual Machine reports that the guest OS does not support mouse pointer integration..." in a FreeBSD virtual machine is common and means you need to install and configure the necessary guest additions for the mouse to work seamlessly. FreeBSD does not include these drivers out of the box, so you must install them yourself. </div> </blockquote> <p> That sounds like the Ports Collection. But there is no additions package for VirtualBox 7.1, only for 6.50 and 5.2. Mañana. </p> <p> On with <i>disaster</i>. So: ARP issue? While messing around on <i>disaster</i>, found the help message for <i>ARP</i>. It uses Unix-style option delimiters, and <tt>-s</tt> sets a permanent MAC address. OK, if this is an ARP issue, we can fix that: </p> <a id="Photo-11" name="Photo-11" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250905&imagesizes=111111111112#Photo-11"> <img alt="This should be Microsoft-networking-1-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_11" title="Photo Microsoft-networking-1-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250905/small/Microsoft-networking-1-detail.jpeg" width="904" height="75" /></a> <p> Oh: Microsoft has a different format for MAC addresses. Try again: </p> <a id="Photo-12" name="Photo-12" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250905&imagesizes=1111111111112#Photo-12"> <img alt="This should be Microsoft-networking-1-detail-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_12" title="Photo Microsoft-networking-1-detail-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250905/small/Microsoft-networking-1-detail-2.jpeg" width="913" height="74" /></a> <p> And that as <tt>Administrator</tt>. Time to ask the twins. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>Q:</b> What does "The ARP entry addition failed: Access is denied" when running CMD as administrator under "windows" 10? </div> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>A:</b> The "ARP entry addition failed: Access is denied" error in Windows 10, even when running Command Prompt as an administrator, typically happens when trying to add a static Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) entry for a reason other than a permission issue. </div> </blockquote> <p> Interesting. “Access is denied” is <i>not</i> a permission issue? Something's wrong here, either Gemini or Microsoft. My money is on Microsoft. </p> <p> And that's what Gemini suggests too: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Use netsh instead: In some cases, especially on newer versions of Windows, the arp command may have issues with Access is denied errors even when the user has administrator privileges. </div> </blockquote> <p> So I ended up with this simple invocation: </p> <a id="Photo-13" name="Photo-13" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250905&imagesizes=11111111111112#Photo-13"> <img alt="This should be Microsoft-networking-2-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_13" title="Photo Microsoft-networking-2-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250905/small/Microsoft-networking-2-detail.jpeg" width="900" height="34.931506849315" /></a> <p> And how about that, it worked. Well, at least it put the address in the ARP table, and I was able to ping out, so <i>disaster</i> knew the address. But it still didn't hear any reply. </p> <p> Yet another question to Gemini: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> What could cause a Microsoft guest under VirtualBox to send network data but not receive it, when other guests have no problem with the same configuration? </div> </blockquote> <p> The obvious answer: firewall. Check to be on the safe side. No, no firewall enabled. How about an Ethernet adapter issue? </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> If you are using an Intel PRO/1000, try switching to a different type, such as the AMD PCnet-FAST III. </div> </blockquote> <p> OK, try that. No improvement. Next idea: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk0K88ZkE34">this video</a> </p> <iframe width="400" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mk0K88ZkE34" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" > </iframe> <p> OK, try anything once. Follow the instructions step by step, none of which showed any obvious issues. Change the interface back to (specifically) Intel PRO/1000 MT Deskop (8254EM). Not much hope there: that's what I had. </p> <p> But it worked! My final configuration looks identical to the start configuration. What changed? There's something lurking under the surface that I don't understand. Can I now get it to run on <i>hydra</i>? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-06T01:37:05+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250906-025213</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250906-025213</link><category>animals</category><category>general</category><title>Where there's hope...</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Horses are social animals, and they hate being alone. So since <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Morena.php">Morena</a> left, <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Samba.php">Samba</a> has not been happy. Today Chris Bahlo brought some hope: <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Esperanza.php">Esperanza</a>, </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-06T02:52:13+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250907-022018</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250907-022018</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More VirtualBox pain</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php?subtitle=VirtualBox%20progress&article=D-20250906-013705#D-20250906-013705">Yesterday</a> I finally got networking working using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> 7.1 and Microsoft <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Rant/windows.php">“Windows”</a> 10. Time to refine a few things. First, start the windows on <i>hydra:0.0</i>, a 1920×1080 display, rather than on <i>hydra:0.1</i>, which has 3840×2160, giving windows that are too small. </p> <p> But it didn't work! I could start on <i>hydra:0.1</i>, but on <i>hydra:0.0</i> nothing happened. Is there some kind of built-in memory in the configuration file? </p> <p> So, time to upgrade <i>current.lemis.com</i>, another VM running <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>-CURRENT. It was a year out of date. </p> <p> Start a <tt>make buildworld</tt>, not for the first time. But nothing happened! </p> <p> Further investigation showed that I had a network hang. And <i>disaster</i> was also hanging! Shut down <i>disaster</i> and <i>current</i> regained network access—for a while. Then it hung again. </p> <p> This seems worse than my experience on <i>hydra</i> with VirtualBox 6.5. Tried it there and it worked. </p> <p> What a pain! What does <a href="https://gemini.google.com/">Google Gemini</a> say? </p> <blockquote> <p class="listitemwidth"> <b>Q:</b> Are there known networking issues with VirtualBox under FreeBSD? </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> <b>A:</b> Yes, there are known networking issues and quirks with VirtualBox when used as a host on a FreeBSD system. While VirtualBox works, it is not an officially "supported" host platform by Oracle, which means users often have to rely on the community and package maintainers to troubleshoot and resolve issues. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> <i>(much irrelevant information omitted)</i> </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Users sometimes experience slow network speeds, particularly with upload speeds, when using bridged adapters. This can be more pronounced on specific emulated network card types. </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> While VirtualBox can function as a host on FreeBSD, it is not a "fire-and-forget" solution... If you encounter speed or reliability issues, experimenting with different emulated network adapter types can often resolve the problem. </p> </blockquote> <p> That's not encouraging, though it doesn't directly relate to my problems. But what else can it be? Two different versions of FreeBSD, two different machines, two different versions of VirtualBox. Does it work better on Linux? That would be a real let-down, but possibly I should try it. How much pain would that be? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-07T02:20:18+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250907-022327</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250907-022327</link><category>politics</category><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>Thank you, Darn old Trump</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> bought some asparagus on Wednesday, which I processed as Chinese-style <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/asparagus-and-prawns.php">asparagus and prawns</a>. The most interesting thing is the provenance: made in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/México">México</a>, at the other end of the world. Why are they on sale here? </p> <p> The answer is obvious: they have lost one of their main markets, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA">USA</a>. So they have to sell elsewhere. Presumably the US Americans are suffering a lack of asparagus to add to their problems. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-07T02:23:27+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250908-012811</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250908-012811</link><category>gardening</category><category>opinion</category><title>Incredible dying Abutilon</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2025.php?subtitle=Tidying%20up%20the%20garden&article=D-20250621-020843#D-20250621-020843">A couple of months ago</a> I was having trouble with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abutilon">Abutilon</a> by the laundry door: </p> <a id="Photo-14" name="Photo-14" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250515&imagesizes=111111111111112#Photo-14"> <img alt="This should be Abutilon-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_14" title="Photo Abutilon-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250515/small/Abutilon-1.jpeg" width="301" height="224" /></a> <a id="Photo-15" name="Photo-15" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250515&imagesizes=1111111111111112#Photo-15"> <img alt="This should be Abutilon-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_15" title="Photo Abutilon-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250515/small/Abutilon-2.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> Jesse Walsh removed a branch and discovered mould around it: </p> <a id="Photo-16" name="Photo-16" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250620&imagesizes=11111111111111112#Photo-16"> <img alt="This should be Abutilon-mould-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_16" title="Photo Abutilon-mould-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250620/small/Abutilon-mould-2.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> That seemed to fix the problem. Until now: </p> <a id="Photo-17" name="Photo-17" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250907&imagesizes=111111111111111112#Photo-17"> <img alt="This should be Sick-Abutilon-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_17" title="Photo Sick-Abutilon-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250907/small/Sick-Abutilon-2.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> What's causing that? This time it was clearer that a whole branch was affected, down to this joint </p> <a id="Photo-18" name="Photo-18" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250907&imagesizes=1111111111111111112#Photo-18"> <img alt="This should be Sick-Abutilon-3.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_18" title="Photo Sick-Abutilon-3.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250907/small/Sick-Abutilon-3.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> The sick branch is on the left. And there's a section that appears to have dried out. Is this some kind of disease? </p> <p> Clearly the branch will have to go. And the whole bush? It wouldn't be the biggest disaster: this one is much bigger than I had expected, we have another one on <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Piccola.php">Piccola's</a> grave, and they're easy to propagate. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-08T01:28:11+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250908-013132</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250908-013132</link><category>animals</category><category>photography</category><category>opinion</category><title>More kangaroos and horses</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2018.php?subtitle=More%20kangaroos&article=D-20180815-023551#D-20180815-023551">Seven years ago</a> I found a mob of kangaroos with the horses in the west paddock and spent a lot of time processing photos, which proved to include two kangaroos with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_(marsupial)">joeys</a>: </p> <a id="Photo-19" name="Photo-19" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20180814&imagesizes=11111111111111111112#Photo-19"> <img alt="This should be Kangaroos-52-detail-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_19" title="Photo Kangaroos-52-detail-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20180814/small/Kangaroos-52-detail-2.jpeg" width="310" height="217" /></a> <p> Today <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> saw something similar: </p> <a id="Photo-20" name="Photo-20" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250907&imagesizes=111111111111111111112#Photo-20"> <img alt="This should be Horses-and-roos-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_20" title="Photo Horses-and-roos-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/yvonne/Photos/20250907/small/Horses-and-roos-1.jpeg" width="375" height="180" /></a> <p> This time, though, a very large joey is trying to get in the pouch of the kangaroo in the middle: </p> <div align="left"> <a id="Photo-21" name="Photo-21" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250907&imagesizes=1111111111111111111112#Photo-21"> <img alt="This should be Kangaroos-and-horses-7.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_21" title="Photo Kangaroos-and-horses-7.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250907/small/Kangaroos-and-horses-7.jpeg" width="281" height="240" /></a> <a id="Photo-22" name="Photo-22" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250907&imagesizes=11111111111111111111112#Photo-22"> <img alt="This should be Kangaroos-and-horses-8.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_22" title="Photo Kangaroos-and-horses-8.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250907/small/Kangaroos-and-horses-8.jpeg" width="250" height="270" /></a> <a id="Photo-23" name="Photo-23" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250907&imagesizes=111111111111111111111112#Photo-23"> <img alt="This should be Kangaroos-and-horses-10.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_23" title="Photo Kangaroos-and-horses-10.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250907/small/Kangaroos-and-horses-10.jpeg" width="301" height="224" /></a> <a id="Photo-24" name="Photo-24" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250907&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111112#Photo-24"> <img alt="This should be Kangaroos-and-horses-11.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_24" title="Photo Kangaroos-and-horses-11.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250907/small/Kangaroos-and-horses-11.jpeg" width="203" height="331" /></a> </div> <p> I wonder whether it's typical that the kangaroo lies down to let the joey in. </p> <p> And why are these images so fuzzy? They're taken with a relatively poor lens, the images are heavily cropped (corresponding to focal lengths round 2,500 mm for a “full frame” camera), but the horses aren't (quite) that fuzzy. Depth of field? My calculator tells me that it's round 200 m. But clearly a longer lens would have been helpful. And could maybe some “AI” processing software improve things? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-08T01:31:32+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250908-030531</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250908-030531</link><category>technology</category><title>Testing RSS feeds</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I write all my web markup myself, with the aid of a number of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP">PHP</a> scripts. The result is that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS">RSS feed</a> looks nothing much like my sources. So when something goes wrong with the markup, it's hard to find where, not helped by things like the <a href="https://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lemis.com%2Fgrog%2Fdiary.xml.php">W3.org validator</a>, which typically points to where the error is detected, not where it occurred, and which at the moment caches input, so even after fixing the problem it reports the old problem. </p> <p> Callum Gibson is the main user of RSS feeds whom I know of. He pointed me to <a href="https://codebeautify.org/xmlvalidator">this validator</a>. It also points to where the error was found, but at least I can try things and repeat them. That fixed an issue I had with earlier this month, where the error was over 100 lines from where it was detected. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-08T03:05:31+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250908-235445</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250908-235445</link><category>technology</category><title>Chasing the VirtualBox bug</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> So why was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> version 7.1 on <i>dereel</i> even worse than version 6.50 on <i>hydra</i>? One possibility might be that the VMs themselves were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System">NFS</a> mounted. OK, find a 1 TB disk and copy them there. Put it in in place of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD">DVD</a> drive, and was amazed to find that it came up as <i>/dev/ada0</i>, relegating the system disk to <i>/dev/ada1</i> and requiring manual intervention (<i>/etc/fstab</i>) to continue. How could that happen? </p> <p> Then copying the VMs from <i>hydra</i>. That took a few hours, of course, so I'll continue tomorrow. </p> <p> While looking for the disks also found one marked “MS “Windows” 10 disgust”, dated <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-dec2020.php#10">10.XII.2020</a>. Comparing with <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-dec2020.php?subtitle=New%20ThinkCentre&article=D-20201212-013434#D-20201212-013434">my diary</a>, that proves to be the disk that came with the machine I'm working on. So I should be able to just put it in and run it. That's the next thing to do if I still can't get VirtualBox to run reliably. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-08T23:54:45+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250909-003710</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250909-003710</link><category>photography</category><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>DxO PhotoLab 9: worth the trouble?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I've spent a lot of time looking at the new features of <a href="https://www.dxo.com/dxo-photolab/">DxO PhotoLab</a> 9. Even better noise reduction, of course, but the big new thing is what appears to be excellent object recognition (“masking”). But that's only part of the story. Can I remove objects? Replace them with something else? It seems that the answer is “no”. </p> <p> Somewhere I also thought I saw a way to merge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging">HDR</a> images, but that seems to be a misunderstanding. Instead they have improved file handling, including collapsing related image groups and automatic file naming. None of them seem to be anywhere near as flexible as the method I worked out <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-feb2012.php?subtitle=Setting%20names%20for%20photos&article=D-20120212-230004#D-20120212-230004">13 years ago</a>, so it's of no use to me. </p> <p> So: what will the future bring? The masking is good, but is it enough to spend US $240 on? There's a very good chance that they'll come up with a version 10 in the not-too-distant future and want $120 for an upgrade. Maybe I should just wait. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-09T00:37:10+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250909-004539</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250909-004539</link><category>general</category><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>VicRoads: still in the 20th century</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> After scrapping my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Elantra">Hyundai Elantra</a> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2025.php?subtitle=Goodbye%20Elantra&article=D-20250731-014519#D-20250731-014519">at the end of July</a> I was due a refund for the registration. </p> <p> And they sent me a cheque! I thought they went out of fashion <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-may2024.php?subtitle=No%20more%20cheque%20books&article=D-20240503-015343#D-20240503-015343">well over a year ago</a>. And yes, the bank refused to accept it. </p> <p> But why? I really don't understand. They should have transferred it to my bank account, like any sane company. But no, I had to call their customer service line (1300 555 165, which looks suspiciously like a fake US phone number) and go through their silly authentication process (including a form of 2FA, sending a PIN to my phone. That would have helped a lot if I had been calling from that phone). But yes, relatively quickly they took the details and told me that the transfer would occur in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Receipt number HD1155831. </p> <p> 2 to 3 <i>weeks</i>? Why? Ah, we need human intervention. Why? Nowadays we have computers. With only marginally good programming the money could have been in my bank account before the end of the call. But clearly they don't have that. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-09T00:45:39+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250909-010021</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250909-010021</link><category>general</category><title>Dry winter</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> It has been raining more lately—we've had 60 mm in the last 2 weeks—but it's still not enough. Here the neighbour's dam: </p> <a id="Photo-25" name="Photo-25" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250908&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111112#Photo-25"> <img alt="This should be Dam-level.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_25" title="Photo Dam-level.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250908/small/Dam-level.jpeg" width="300" height="224" /></a> <p> Hopefully it will fill up before summer. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-09T01:00:21+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250910-024351</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250910-024351</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More VirtualBox insights</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> So what's wrong with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> networking? <a href="https://gemini.google.com/">Google Gemini</a> had suggested that it might depend on the emulated network adapter, so spent some time trying different adapters, with no improvement. About the only thing that was clear was the ping time: from guest to host the expected 0.15 ms, but in the other direction <i>much</i> longer, and with wildly different times: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 29.752/61.679/175.892/36.953 ms </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Gave that up and looked at some bug reports, which showed surprisingly few network issues. But <a href="https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=256413">one</a>, by Ivan Rozhuk, was interesting: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Try to disable HW offloads on NIC:<br />ifconfig igb0 -rxcsum -txcsum -vlanhwtso -lro -tso4 -tso6 down up<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> And how about that, that worked. So why is this not better known? There's also a <a href="http://wiki.freebsd.org/VirtualBox">wiki</a> with surprisingly little of use. </p> <p> Later I discovered that my guest <i>current.lemis.com</i> had 8 CPUs, while the host <i>dereel</i> only has four. That's quite impressive that it worked at all. Reducing the number of CPUs on <i>current</i> got rid of the slow ping times. </p> <p> So: are we done? I don't think so. I still need to find whether the Microsoft guests work reliably. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-10T02:43:51+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250910-030336</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250910-030336</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Bruce Evans' C compiler</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Mail in the <a href="http://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/">TUHS mailing list</a> today: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Subject: [TUHS] Bruce Evans 386 Minix patches & compiler source<br /><br />It's been quite a while since I was messing with Minix386 back in the days<br />when Bruce Evans released a set of patches to bring 386 support.<br />I'm pretty sure over on oldlinux.org the patch set exists, but I can only<br />find the one set of binaries of his 386 toolchain.<br />I know it eventually evolved into the bin86 toolchain that Linus would go on<br />to use to create real mode boot code, but I don't know if any of the source<br />code to his 1991/1992 386 toolchain ever got published?<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Is it somewhere on the disk images that Peter Jeremy saved? I haven't looked at them for <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-may2022.php#D-20220512-034628">over three years</a>, and I only had the smaller ones that I could download. Sent off a message to the other people who have access, Warren Toomey (who also coincidentally runs TUHS) and Warner Losh, and only got a brief response from the first. </p> <p> Back to look at what I have: three files, <i>/src/bde/ad1.img</i>, <i>/src/bde/ad2.img</i> and <i>/src/bde/ad3.img</i>. I had only looked at <i>/ad0.img</i>, requiring <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gnop&sektion=&n=1"><i>gnop</i></a> to access the individual partitions. There was a good reason: I had renamed <i>ad2.img.xz</i> to <i>ad2.img</i> without uncompressing it. Did that now and ended up with 60 GB of data. </p> <p> And the contents? </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/1)</font> <font color="red">/bde</font> <font color="blue">13</font> -> <b><tt>mdconfig -a -t vnode -f /src/bde/besplex/ad2.img</tt></b></code><br />md0<br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/1)</font> <font color="red">/bde</font> <font color="blue">14</font> -> <b><tt>l /dev/md0</tt></b></code><br />md0 md0s1 md0s2 md0s2a md0s2b md0s2d md0s2e md0s2f md0s2g md0s2h<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> All the BSD partitions there! So I can just mount them: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/1)</font> <font color="red">/bde</font> <font color="blue">15</font> -> <b><tt>mkdir a b d e f g h</tt></b></code><br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/1)</font> <font color="red">/bde</font> <font color="blue">16</font> -> <b><tt>l</tt></b></code><br />total 1<br />drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 10 Sep 13:28 a<br />drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 10 Sep 13:28 b<br />drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 10 Sep 13:28 d<br />drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 10 Sep 13:28 e<br />drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 10 Sep 13:28 f<br />drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 10 Sep 13:28 g<br />drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 10 Sep 13:28 h<br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/1)</font> <font color="red">/bde</font> <font color="blue">35</font> -> <b><tt>for i in `echo a b d e f g h`; do mount -o ro /dev/md0s2$i $i; done</tt></b></code><br />mount: /dev/md0s2a: No such file or directory<br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/1)</font> <font color="red">/bde</font> <font color="blue">36</font> -> <b><tt>df</tt></b></code><br />Filesystem 1048576-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on<br />...<br />/dev/md0s2b 3,952 3,542 93 97% /bde/b<br />/dev/md0s2d 3,952 2,971 664 82% /bde/d<br />/dev/md0s2e 3,952 3,658 -21 101% /bde/e<br />/dev/md0s2f 3,952 3,514 121 97% /bde/f<br />/dev/md0s2g 11,754 8,842 1,972 82% /bde/g<br />/dev/md0s2h 29,525 14,599 14,926 49% /bde/h<br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/1)</font> <font color="red">/bde</font> <font color="blue">37</font> -> <b><tt></tt></b></code><br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> And in one of the partitions I found a file <i>/bde/e/besplex/home/bde/dist/minix.tar.gz</i>, which may be just what Jason is looking for. That was much easier than I thought. Is it correct? That would be too easy. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-10T03:03:36+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250911-015021</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250911-015021</link><category>health</category><category>politics</category><category>opinion</category><title>Israel makes me sick</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> During morning ablutions I discovered that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel">Israel</a> has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-10/live-coverage-israel-strikes-hamas-leadership-in-qatar/105755776">attacked a site</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar">Qatar</a>, in violation of international law. Even the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA">USA</a> is unhappy: Qatar is an ally. The news media talk of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-10/israel-hit-on-hamas-in-qatar-and-trump-response/105756948">Trump's impotence</a> in stopping these attacks. But they don't mention the obvious way to solve the issue: stop supplying Israel with weapons. By comparison, the current Russian attacks on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine">Ukraine</a> and even <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland">Poland</a> seem like nothing. </p> <p> This really worries me. I felt physically sick all day, somehow uncoordinated, dizzy, unable to walk properly and and even unable to type normally. It could be something else, of course, but somehow it all started when I heard of Israel's attack. Once again I'm reminded of what I wrote <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jan2025.php#D-20250127-011034">earlier this year</a>: Israel is a state sponsor of antisemitism. Once I strongly supported Israel. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-11T01:50:21+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250911-020350</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250911-020350</link><category>health</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Yvonne: pacemaker?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> One of the things I had intended to do today was to go with <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> for an appointment with <a href="https://ballaratcardiology.com.au/staff/dr-rod-reddy">Rodney Reddy</a>, but I ended up not leaving the house. </p> <p> Yvonne had been thinking about a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacemaker">pacemaker</a>, something that <a href="https://www.melbourneheart.com.au/prof-peter-kistler/">Professor Peter Kistler</a> had suggested. But Rod pointed out that they don't help with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrial_fibrillation">atrial fibrillation</a>, and instead <i>once again</i> changed the medication. It seems that she should have stopped taking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digoxin">Digoxin</a> when she moved to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotalol">Sotalol</a> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2025.php?topics=G&subtitle=Next%20cardiac%20choice&article=D-20250802-023819#D-20250802-023819">last month</a>. Hopefully that will help. It's not the first time we have had issues with the medication prescription. </p> <p> Somehow I'm getting the impression that Kistler is a good mechanic, but not the best choice of diagnostician. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-11T02:03:50+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250911-020359</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250911-020359</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More fun with VirtualBox and bde</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> More playing around with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> today, with no breakthrough. I had paused <i>dereel</i> with <i>zzz</i>, and when I restarted it the networking had gone to hell again. Here a repeat of what I had done yesterday: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/3)</font> <font color="red">/eureka/home/grog</font> <font color="blue">1</font> -> <b><tt>ifconfig</tt></b></code><br />em0: flags=1008943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500 options=4e524bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG><br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/3)</font> <font color="red">/eureka/home/grog</font> <font color="blue">2</font> -> <b><tt>ifconfig em0 -rxcsum -txcsum -vlanhwtso -lro -tso4 -tso6 down up</tt></b></code><br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@dereel (/dev/pts/3)</font> <font color="red">/eureka/home/grog</font> <font color="blue">3</font> -> <b><tt>ifconfig</tt></b></code><br />em0: flags=1008943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500<br /> options=4c120b8<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG><br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> After that it worked normally again, but the Microsoft boxen still didn't want to know. Do I have to cold start them every time? </p> <p> And Bruce Evans' C compiler? I posted what I had and got no answer. I'm not convinced that I have the right files, though the name <i>usr/src/mx386/bcc</i> (from the archive <i>e/bde/dist/minix.tar.gz</i>) does raise some hope. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-11T02:03:59+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250912-023120</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250912-023120</link><category>health</category><title>Weakness: over</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> What it really the news about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel">Israel's</a> aggression against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza">Gaza</a> that made me well so weak and dizzy <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php?subtitle=Israel%20makes%20me%20sick&article=D-20250911-015021#D-20250911-015021">yesterday</a>? Or am I just getting old and weak? In any case, today I felt much better again, though I avoided any further sickening news. </p> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> has now changed her medication (no more <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digoxin">Digoxin</a>) and is feeling marginally better. It's early days; we'll keep an eye on it. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-12T02:31:20+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250912-023155</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250912-023155</link><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Semmelknödel revisited</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> German-style <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/gulasch.php">Gulasch</a> for dinner tonight. What do we eat with it? For <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a>, the choice was clear: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knödel">„Kartoffelknödel“</a> im Kochbeutel (translated as “cooking bags” on the packet). But I eat <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelknödel">Semmelknödel</a> (bread dumplings), and we didn't have any instant ones. OK, back to <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/Semmelknoedel.php">my recipe</a>, with which I was not overly happy. In particular, the last batch was lumpy and not very firm. OK, start again. Instead of putting the dried bread through the mincer, reduce it with the mixer: </p> <a id="Photo-26" name="Photo-26" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250911&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111112#Photo-26"> <img alt="This should be Semmelknoedel-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_26" title="Photo Semmelknoedel-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250911/small/Semmelknoedel-1.jpeg" width="303" height="223" /></a> <p> Do the same with the onions: </p> <a id="Photo-27" name="Photo-27" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250911&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111112#Photo-27"> <img alt="This should be Semmelknoedel-4.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_27" title="Photo Semmelknoedel-4.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250911/small/Semmelknoedel-4.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <a id="Photo-28" name="Photo-28" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250911&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111112#Photo-28"> <img alt="This should be Semmelknoedel-5.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_28" title="Photo Semmelknoedel-5.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250911/small/Semmelknoedel-5.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> Reduce the fresh parsley with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzaluna">mezzaluna</a>: </p> <a id="Photo-29" name="Photo-29" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250911&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-29"> <img alt="This should be Semmelknoedel-8.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_29" title="Photo Semmelknoedel-8.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250911/small/Semmelknoedel-8.jpeg" width="302" height="223" /></a> <p> To my surprise, the original estimate of 160 g of milk was too little. With 180 g (little less than <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2024.php?subtitle=Dumplings%20again&article=D-20240825-014732#D-20240825-014732">last time</a>) they were barely formable. Here with 162 g and 180 g of milk: </p> <a id="Photo-30" name="Photo-30" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250911&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-30"> <img alt="This should be Semmelknoedel-10.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_30" title="Photo Semmelknoedel-10.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250911/small/Semmelknoedel-10.jpeg" width="301" height="224" /></a> <a id="Photo-31" name="Photo-31" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250911&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-31"> <img alt="This should be Semmelknoedel-11.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_31" title="Photo Semmelknoedel-11.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250911/small/Semmelknoedel-11.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> And yes, they formed well, and after leaving in boiled water for a couple of minutes I was able to make dumplings that looked relatively like they should: </p> <a id="Photo-32" name="Photo-32" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250911&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-32"> <img alt="This should be Semmelknoedel-15.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_32" title="Photo Semmelknoedel-15.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250911/small/Semmelknoedel-15.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-12T02:31:55+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250913-040213</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250913-040213</link><category>opinion</category><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><title>Semmelknödel: the morning after</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php?subtitle=Semmelkn%C3%B6del%20revisited&article=D-20250912-023155#D-20250912-023155">Yesterday's</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelknödel">Semmelknödel</a> were almost exactly what I wanted. I had left most of the mass over for today in case it needed tuning, but such proved not to be the case, so I cooked them exactly as yesterday. But the results were not what I expected: </p> <a id="Photo-33" name="Photo-33" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250912&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-33"> <img alt="This should be Disintegrating-Semmelknoedel-3.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_33" title="Photo Disintegrating-Semmelknoedel-3.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250912/small/Disintegrating-Semmelknoedel-3.jpeg" width="303" height="223" /></a> <p> The two leftovers from yesterday are at the top, and they're fine. The others are disintegrating, and they've left their mark on the pot: </p> <a id="Photo-34" name="Photo-34" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250912&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-34"> <img alt="This should be Disintegrating-Semmelknoedel-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_34" title="Photo Disintegrating-Semmelknoedel-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250912/small/Disintegrating-Semmelknoedel-2.jpeg" width="301" height="224" /></a> <p> What went wrong there? I really don't know. “I didn't change anything”. Somehow there's more to do before I'm happy with the recipe. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-13T04:02:13+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250914-020212</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250914-020212</link><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>Quick and easy ramen breakfast</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I have a number of “instant” dishes in the pantry, including this one: </p> <a id="Photo-35" name="Photo-35" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250729&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-35"> <img alt="This should be Ramen-kit-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_35" title="Photo Ramen-kit-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250729/small/Ramen-kit-1.jpeg" width="223" height="302" /></a> <p> It doesn't look too bad, but it's enough for two people. After a brief attempt to convince <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a>, decided to split it over two days. <i>Another</i> of these dishes that talks of cups (in this case of 250 ml), requiring me to calculate things. That's more of a pain than all the rest put together. </p> <a id="Photo-36" name="Photo-36" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250729&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-36"> <img alt="This should be Ramen-kit-2-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_36" title="Photo Ramen-kit-2-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250729/small/Ramen-kit-2-detail.jpeg" width="320" height="211" /></a> <p> OK, drag out a cup and measure: </p> <a id="Photo-37" name="Photo-37" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250913&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-37"> <img alt="This should be Instant-ramen-3.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_37" title="Photo Instant-ramen-3.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250913/small/Instant-ramen-3.jpeg" width="303" height="223" /></a> <p> That proved to be mislabeled spinach, but in principle it makes no difference: how do you decide when the cup is full? That's 52 g, and in the end I decided on 72 g. </p> <p> While considering further action, came across this video, titled “10 Instant Ramen Hacks | Transform Instant Noodles from Good to Incredible!”: </p> <iframe width="400" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zyvAD1zBZ-0" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" > </iframe> <p> It looks quite interesting, but it's rather long. Decided that today I would prepare the dish as close to the original as possible, and keep the other half for tomorrow. </p> <p> The package contains three subpackages: </p> <a id="Photo-38" name="Photo-38" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250913&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-38"> <img alt="This should be Instant-ramen-4.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_38" title="Photo Instant-ramen-4.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250913/small/Instant-ramen-4.jpeg" width="304" height="222" /></a> <p> The noodles (on the left) are moist rather than wet. They require cooking in the broth from the packet on the right before adding the other ingredients, including spinach and a whopping 100 g of pork: </p> <a id="Photo-39" name="Photo-39" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250913&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-39"> <img alt="This should be Instant-ramen-10.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_39" title="Photo Instant-ramen-10.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250913/small/Instant-ramen-10.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> And the dried vegetables in the middle pack included a surprising amount of maize kernels, not something that I would have expected of Japanese food. </p> <p> After that, and with the required egg, things looked like this: </p> <a id="Photo-40" name="Photo-40" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250913&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-40"> <img alt="This should be Instant-ramen-13.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_40" title="Photo Instant-ramen-13.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250913/small/Instant-ramen-13.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> How did it taste? The broth seems to be mainly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miso">miso</a>. With a bit of soya and chili sauce it didn't taste too bad. Did it save me any time? No, of course not, since I spent a lot of time thinking about it. Will it save me any time next time? I doubt it. But it has given me food for thought. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-14T02:02:12+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250915-004610</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250915-004610</link><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>Instant ramen, take 2</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> As planned <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php?subtitle=Quick%20and%20easy%20ramen%20breakfast&article=D-20250914-020212#D-20250914-020212">yesterday</a>, cooked the other half of the ramen meal kit with ideas gleaned from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyvAD1zBZ-0&list=PLcb9h94d4zbeZIar0VrkRwg8_izGXUYiJ">The Woks of Life</a>. I had all the ingredients that they had round minute 12, but chose to incorporate only some of them, and also some dòufu puffs along with the suggested spring onions, chili and coriander stalks: </p> <a id="Photo-41" name="Photo-41" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250914&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-41"> <img alt="This should be Instant-Ramen-noodles-4.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_41" title="Photo Instant-Ramen-noodles-4.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250914/small/Instant-Ramen-noodles-4.jpeg" width="302" height="224" /></a> <p> Before serving, I added raw onions. The result? </p> <a id="Photo-42" name="Photo-42" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250914&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-42"> <img alt="This should be Instant-Ramen-noodles-7.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_42" title="Photo Instant-Ramen-noodles-7.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250914/small/Instant-Ramen-noodles-7.jpeg" width="281" height="241" /></a> <p> Better than yesterday, though it still needed soya sauce. I don't think it would have tasted very much different with water instead of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miso">miso</a> mixture. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-15T00:46:10+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250915-004615</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250915-004615</link><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>Lamb Keema</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Somehow I'm spending all my time cooking lately. We've had some minced lamb from Chris Bahlo for ever, and it really needs to go. Today I decided on a <a href="https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/246250/kima/">Kima</a> (“Keema”) curry with this mixture: </p> <a id="Photo-43" name="Photo-43" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250914&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-43"> <img alt="This should be Keema-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_43" title="Photo Keema-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250914/small/Keema-1.jpeg" width="218" height="311" /></a> <a id="Photo-44" name="Photo-44" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250914&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-44"> <img alt="This should be Keema-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_44" title="Photo Keema-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250914/small/Keema-2.jpeg" width="215" height="314" /></a> <p> It wanted a ridiculous amount of meat, of which I only put in two-thirds. And somehow it was boring, also too hot for <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a>, who ended up eating—as it happened—a couple of kima kebabs. It looks like I'll have a lot left over for breakfasts. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-15T00:46:15+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250916-014723</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250916-014723</link><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>Still more cooking</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> For some reason I wasn't feeling overly hungry this morning. Time to try out one of these <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALDI">ALDI</a> pouches: </p> <a id="Photo-45" name="Photo-45" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250809&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-45"> <img alt="This should be Soup-Co-Wonton-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_45" title="Photo Soup-Co-Wonton-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250809/small/Soup-Co-Wonton-1.jpeg" width="225" height="300" /></a> <p> No noodles. Only 100 g, 255 with the additional water. Much less than my normal breakfast, just what the doctor ordered. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonton">Wonton</a>, with chicken dumplings and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiitake">shiitake</a> mushrooms, clearly inventiveness on the part of the designer. Put in a couple of real (prawn) wontons so that it has some consistency. </p> <p> But no, it <i>did</i> contain some solids. Here with the added wontons: </p> <a id="Photo-46" name="Photo-46" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250915&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-46"> <img alt="This should be Instant-wonton-soup-3.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_46" title="Photo Instant-wonton-soup-3.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250915/small/Instant-wonton-soup-3.jpeg" width="300" height="224" /></a> <p> And how was it? Not bad, but not to be repeated. In particular it had little taste and not enough salt. I have two other sachets (“<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laksa">laksa</a>” and “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_yum">tom yam</a>”). Together they might make a breakfast. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-16T01:47:23+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250916-015621</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250916-015621</link><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>Yet more cooking</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I have the feeling that I have spent the last five days cooking. Time to stop. But no, first more <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/Laugengebaeck.php">Laugengebäck</a>, according to a monthly ritual that is gradually becoming routine. Today was no exception. But it took up much of the afternoon. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-16T01:56:21+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250917-040554</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250917-040554</link><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>general</category><category>history</category><category>opinion</category><title>Cooking: enough!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I seem to have spent the whole of the last week cooking. Not so today. In the morning I ate <i>some</i> of the rest of the Keema curry that I cooked <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php?subtitle=Lamb%20Keema&article=D-20250915-004615#D-20250915-004615">on Sunday</a>, and in the evening we ate leftovers of the chicken that <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> cooked (and didn't document) on Saturday. About the only thing that I cooked was crinkle cut potatoes. </p> <p> I'm not completely inactive, just putting up a good imitation. I spent much of the afternoon watching a video of how <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler">Adolf Hitler</a> spent the last 2 years before the war. I had hoped to find some similarities with the current situation in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA">USA</a>, but there was little obvious. About the biggest point of interest was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss">Anschluss</a>, where they claimed only a small majority voted in favour. My understanding was that the majority of Austrians were in favour. It's interesting that this had been discussed (and rejected) as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Großdeutsche_Lösung">großdeutsche Lösung</a> in 1848. But that was because of the relative strength of Austria and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia">Prussia</a> at the time, something that had changed completely by 1938. So there does seem to have been some sense in it, which the people who made the documentary don't want to see. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-17T04:05:54+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250918-015035</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250918-015035</link><category>photography</category><category>opinion</category><title>More birding</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Up in the middle of the night to go to another <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OM_System">OM System</a> birding session with Aaron Harivel in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Treatment_Plant#Environment">Western Treatment Plant</a> near <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara,_Victoria">Lara</a>. I have already done this one, <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2025.php?subtitle=OM%20System%20birding%20meeting&article=D-20250704-020013#D-20250704-020013">2½ months ago</a>, but Aaron said that we would see many birds that weren't there last time. </p> <p> I was disappointed. Although spring has sprung, it was considerably cooler than last time and very windy, maybe a reason we saw so few birds. I still managed 258 images, some of them good, but I wonder if I need to go along with these “workshops”. They have others further from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dereel">Dereel</a>, but this one was special because it gave us access to areas that are not open to the public. </p> <p> There were <i>some</i> new birds, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibis">Ibises</a>, but I can see them elsewhere as well: </p> <a id="Photo-47" name="Photo-47" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250917&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-47"> <img alt="This should be Birding-207.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_47" title="Photo Birding-207.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250917/small/Birding-207.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> And not every shot was perfect, even when in focus: </p> <a id="Photo-48" name="Photo-48" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250917&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-48"> <img alt="This should be Birding-29.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_48" title="Photo Birding-29.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250917/small/Birding-29.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <a id="Photo-49" name="Photo-49" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250917&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-49"> <img alt="This should be Birding-80.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_49" title="Photo Birding-80.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250917/small/Birding-80.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> And some playing around with my menus, getting my camera into a position where I couldn't take any photos. Neither could Aaron: </p> <a id="Photo-50" name="Photo-50" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250917&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-50"> <img alt="This should be Birding-66.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_50" title="Photo Birding-66.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250917/small/Birding-66.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <a id="Photo-51" name="Photo-51" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250917&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-51"> <img alt="This should be Birding-67.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_51" title="Photo Birding-67.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250917/small/Birding-67.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> Those were the first and last of 8 images that he took trying to reset the camera. It proved that I had accidentally enabled focus bracketing instead of focus limiting. </p> <p> Should I do any more “workshops”? In particular, there's a “workshop” at the <a href="https://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/">Royal Botanic Gardens</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne">Melbourne</a> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-oct2025.php#29">next month</a>. It starts 2 hours later, but that's about the time I would need to get there. Can I park my car? Is it worthwhile? Aaron suggests that it's relatively basic, and came up with the opinion that the new <a href="https://www.dpreview.com/articles/1340103734/hands-on-with-the-om-system-m-zuiko-90mm-f3-5-macro">90 mm macro</a> is very unforgiving with focus, while the <a href="https://www.dpreview.com/products/olympus/lenses/olympus_m_60_2p8">60 mm</a> is forgiving. That's not the first thing he has said about macros that sounds unconvincing: yes, depth of field of a 90 mm camera is less, but it more than makes it up by its smaller aperture. A comparison at full aperture (90/3.5 and 60/2.8): </p> <table summary="Automatically generated table"> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">Focal length</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">Subject</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">Focal plane</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">Magnification</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">Exposure</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">Near</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">Far</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">Depth of</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left"></td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">distance (m)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">distance (mm)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">comp</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">(EV)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">limit (m)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">limit (m)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">field (m)</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">30</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.1000</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">42.8571</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.429</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">1.0</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.0997</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.100312</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.000622</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">60</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.2000</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">85.7143</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.429</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">1.0</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.1998</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.2002</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.0005</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">90</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.3000</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">128.5714</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.429</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">1.0</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.2997</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.3003</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">0.0006</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left"></td> </tr> </table> <p> That gives a total depth of field for the 90 mm of 0.0006 m (0.2997 m - 0.3003 m), and 0.0005 m (0.1998 m - 0.2002 m) for the 60 mm. And that's before starting to think about the convenience of such a long lens, nor of its price ($250 list for the 30 mm, $400 for the 60 mm, $1,400 for the 90 mm). </p> <p> Still, it's not clear that I will gain much benefit from the course. I have a month to decide, but it's beginning to look like “no”. </p> <p> In passing, it's worth thinking about how much time these sessions take up. This one was shorter, only 3 hours, but on top of that there 2½ hours driving time (would be more like 4 to the Botanic Gardens) and 7 hours processing time for the first cut of the photos. There will be more. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-18T01:50:35+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250918-021000</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250918-021000</link><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Moorabool ridge</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I didn't have anything to do in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geelong">Geelong</a> today, so took the scenic route home, which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps">Google Maps</a> puts as an alternative, despite being shorter and faster than the way over the freeway. There's one area just west of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maude,_Victoria">Maude</a> where there's a very steep part of the road: </p> <a id="Photo-52" name="Photo-52" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250917&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-52"> <img alt="This should be Perdrisat-Road-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_52" title="Photo Perdrisat-Road-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250917/small/Perdrisat-Road-2.jpeg" width="304" height="222" /></a> <a id="Photo-53" name="Photo-53" href="diary-sep2025.php?dirdate=20250917&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111112#Photo-53"> <img alt="This should be Perdrisat-Road-3.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_53" title="Photo Perdrisat-Road-3.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20250917/small/Perdrisat-Road-3.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> It seems to be part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Ranges">Brisbane Ranges</a> that run north-south round here, though the sign I saw suggested “Moorabool Ridge”, a name for which I only found winery links. Most references point to the valley. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-18T02:10:00+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250918-021014</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250918-021014</link><category>photography</category><category>opinion</category><title>Fisheye compensation?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> While looking through the menus for my camera, found an item “Fisheye Compensation”. Just what I need for my <a href="https://7artisans.store/products/4mm-f-2-8-aps-c-lens-for-e-eos-m-fx-m43">7Artisans 4 mm f/2.8 fisheye</a> lens. Tried it out. “Fisheye compensation not supported for this lens”. And yes, it seems it only works for Zuiko lenses; at least it worked for me with the <a href="https://explore.omsystem.com/us/en/m-zuiko-ed-8mm-f1-8-fisheye-pro">Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 8 mm f/1.8 Fisheye <b>PRO</b></a>. But I don't need it for that lens. It's looking more and more like the 4 mm fisheye wasn't worth the trouble. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-18T02:10:14+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250918-021029</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2025.php#D-20250918-021029</link><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>Chips?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> bought some sausages today, and also a cutter for crinkle-cut chips. Without anything to set the thickness, the latter is a waste of time, and it'll almost certainly go back. </p> <p> But crinkle cut (with the mandolin) or normal chips? Recently we've been doing mainly crinkle-cut, but I have (and found) a chip maker for making chips from fresh potatoes, which I bought <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-apr2025.php?subtitle=Twice-fried%20chips,%20the%20second&article=D-20250425-021404#D-20250425-021404">only 6 months ago</a>. Yes, it works, though it seems rather flimsy. But the deep fryer wanted “180°”, which proved to be initial 189°, for 5 minutes for the second fry. After 2½ minutes they appeared dark, and they floated. But they were still soft. I need to decide whether to try again for the full cooking time, or go back to crinkle-cut. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2025-09-18T02:10:29+00:00</dc:date></item> </channel></rss> If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
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