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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>2024-07-26T13:06:59+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 --> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/huevos-a-la-tigre.php">Huevos a la tigre</a> for breakfast today. It's really a kind of omelette. Or is it? Not after my once-non-stick frying pan had its way: </p> <p> </p> End deselected topic ko (Huevos a la tigre: omelette?) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240625-000815</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240625-000815</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Mobile phone power consumption</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I've been playing more than usual with <i>albo.lemis.com</i>, my new <a href="https://m.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_note_13-12776.php">Xiaomi Redmi Note 13</a> mobile phone. And the power consumption differs markedly from <i>hirse.lemis.com</i>, my old <a href="https://m.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_9t-10670.php">Redmi 9T</a>. And it shows in the power consumption. Here first <i>albo</i>, then <i>hirse</i>: </p> <a id="Photo-0" name="Photo-0" href="diary-jun2024.php?dirdate=20240624&imagesizes=2&topics=c#Photo-0"> <img alt="This should be albo-power-consumption-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_0" title="Photo albo-power-consumption-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240624/small/albo-power-consumption-detail.jpeg" width="252" height="268" /></a> <a id="Photo-1" name="Photo-1" href="diary-jun2024.php?dirdate=20240624&imagesizes=12&topics=c#Photo-1"> <img alt="This should be hirse-power-consumption-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_1" title="Photo hirse-power-consumption-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240624/small/hirse-power-consumption-detail.jpeg" width="255" height="265" /></a> <p> Is the Note 13 really that much hungrier than the 9T? Or is it just that I have been using it more? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-25T00:08:15+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240625-002518</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240625-002518</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Understanding Microsoft issues with VirtualBox</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?subtitle=Ubuntu%20again&article=D-20240623-021811#D-20240623-021811">Saturday's installation</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu">Ubuntu</a> confirmed that there wasn't much wrong with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> network configuration on <i>hydra</i>. OK, what's the issue with Microsoft? Spent some time investigating. </p> <p> First, can it be that the VMs didn't like the host configuration changing under their running image? Rebooted <i>despise</i>. No improvement. OK, for the fun of it, try the “troubleshooter”, which has never shot any trouble for me. But this time it came up and said “done!”, specifically “restored default gateway”. That's nonsense, of course: I was trying (and failing) to <i>ping</i> the default gateway. But of course I tried again anyway. And it worked! Fixed, but with the wrong explanation. </p> <p> OK, on to <i>disaster</i>, the other clone, almost exactly the same configuration bar the memory size. This time I didn't reboot. And though it claimed to have fixed the problem, this time it didn't. OK, reboot. And yes, it tried to fix it again, but set up <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHCP">DHCP</a>. Maybe that's what it did before, and I didn't find it because I was looking for <i>disaster</i>, not <i>dhcp-242</i>. But after configuring the interface on the Microsoft side to the correct IP address, I wasn't able to ping <i>eureka</i>. Run the troubleshooter again. “Ethernet 2” (there is no “Ethernet 1”) didn't have a valid IP configuration, whatever that means. It fixed it. At some asynchronous point I had connectivity again. </p> <a id="Photo-2" name="Photo-2" href="diary-jun2024.php?dirdate=20240624&imagesizes=112&topics=c#Photo-2"> <img alt="This should be Microsoft-diagnostics.png. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_2" title="Photo Microsoft-diagnostics.png. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240624/small/Microsoft-diagnostics.png" width="532" height="371.20257234727" /></a> <p> While pondering that, discovered that I could no longer contact <i>despise</i>. Another fix, then ran a <i>ping</i> from <i>eureka</i> for both VMs. That was instructive. After about 3 minutes, I got: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=177 ttl=128 time=0.313 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=178 ttl=128 time=0.302 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=179 ttl=128 time=0.258 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=196 ttl=128 time=13397.802 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=197 ttl=128 time=12396.873 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=198 ttl=128 time=11393.059 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=199 ttl=128 time=10389.815 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=200 ttl=128 time=9388.793 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=201 ttl=128 time=8387.910 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=202 ttl=128 time=7386.827 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=203 ttl=128 time=6385.940 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=204 ttl=128 time=5384.064 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=205 ttl=128 time=4382.936 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=206 ttl=128 time=3380.054 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=207 ttl=128 time=2377.515 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=208 ttl=128 time=1375.960 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.168: icmp_seq=209 ttl=128 time=373.828 ms<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> And then nothing. The ping times are interesting: they're at one second intervals, so basically the response to ICMP sequences 196 to 209 all happened at the same time (24 ms between all of them). And it was preceded by 17 dropped packets. </p> <p> Does this happen with <i>despise</i> too? At first I thought that it didn't, but after a good 2 hours I had: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8018 ttl=128 time=0.603 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8031 ttl=128 time=18192.978 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8032 ttl=128 time=17193.275 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8033 ttl=128 time=16193.338 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8034 ttl=128 time=15186.715 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8035 ttl=128 time=14128.738 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8036 ttl=128 time=13121.802 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8037 ttl=128 time=12120.614 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8038 ttl=128 time=11118.807 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8039 ttl=128 time=10117.802 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8040 ttl=128 time=9113.875 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8041 ttl=128 time=8050.493 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8042 ttl=128 time=7047.142 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8043 ttl=128 time=6046.126 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8044 ttl=128 time=5044.124 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8045 ttl=128 time=4030.953 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8046 ttl=128 time=3029.581 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8047 ttl=128 time=2023.347 ms<br />64 bytes from 192.109.197.170: icmp_seq=8048 ttl=128 time=1014.190 ms<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Here the response times are not quite as close, but clearly it's the same syndrome. </p> <p> So: my best bet now is that there's really something wrong with Microsoft on VirtualBox, and it's probably related to the hangs that I had with the old network card, which never had any issues except with this combination. Whose fault is it? Microsoft? VirtualBox? <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a> (the interface with VirtualBox)? Time to try other alternatives. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-25T00:25:18+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic k not selected <p> We occasionally eat Moroccan <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preserved_lemon">preserved lemons</a>, but they've been out of fashion for a number of years, and we're running out. </p> <p> But why buy them? It can't be that difficult to make them ourselves. Spent some time reading recipes, noting that all US-based recipes want sugar, and no other ones do. And some want various spices. <a href="https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/preserved-lemons-2/48d75c21-16ce-411e-a289-4817a688e317">This one</a> suggests freezing the lemons after preparation, and then thawing them again, to speed up the maturation process. But <a href="https://tasteofmaroc.com/how-to-make-preserved-lemons/">How to Make Moroccan Preserved Lemons</a> looked most authentic. No sugar, of course. No spices. Just lemons and salt: </p> <div align="left"> </div> <p> Now to wait a month or so. </p> End deselected topic k (Preserved lemons) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240626-012332</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240626-012332</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More Microsoft on VirtualBox investigation</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> What's wrong with the networking on <i>disaster.lemis.com</i> and <i>despise.lemis.com</i>, my Microsoft 10 virtual machines running under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a>. Is it the hardware? Is it <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>? Is it VirtualBox? Is it Microsoft? </p> <p> For the fun of it, asked <a href="https://bard.google.com/">Bard</a>, which came up with <a href="https://gemini.google.com/app/b6b55e4813befcc0">this answer</a>, referring to <a href="https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=104409">a forum post</a> that didn't quite address my issues, but it gave me some ideas to follow on. <a href="https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=101111">This post</a> is interesting because it refers to the same network hardware that I have. <a href="https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=492732&sid=90045a90fc729eeb128ec27e20632059#p492732">This incomplete post</a> seems to indicate that a different network adapter might solve the problem. But if so, I have two problems. Certainly we have different symptoms now. Previously the entire system would hang, and only under load, while now it seems to be only the Microsoft guest, and it does it at random. <a href="https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=491062#p491062">This post</a>, in the same thread, suggests setting “Paravirtualization Interface” to “Hyper-V”. Tried that, with the convenient result that it hung very quickly, saving me time. </p> <p> What is it doing in this time? Tried a <i>tcpdump</i>, which showed me continuous </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>12:15:37.799085 ARP, Request who-has eureka.lemis.com tell despise.lemis.com, length 46<br />12:15:37.799087 ARP, Request who-has eureka.lemis.com tell despise.lemis.com, length 28<br />12:15:37.799213 ARP, Reply eureka.lemis.com is-at bc:5f:f4:c9:9b:bf (oui Unknown), length 46<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> For some reason there are always two <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Resolution_Protocol">ARP</a> requests, a pair per second. So it seems that the response was not getting through. </p> <p> And then there's a number of these in the <i>/var/log/messages</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Jun 25 12:40:47 hydra kernel: vboxdrv: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX VMMR0.r0<br />Jun 25 12:40:47 hydra syslogd: sendto: Network is down<br />Jun 25 12:40:47 hydra kernel: vboxdrv: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX VBoxDDR0.r0<br />Jun 25 12:40:47 hydra syslogd: sendto: Network is down<br />Jun 25 12:40:47 hydra kernel: VMMR0InitVM: eflags=40246 fKernelFeatures=0x2 (SUPKERNELFEATURES_SMAP=1)<br />Jun 25 12:40:47 hydra syslogd: sendto: Network is down<br />Jun 25 12:40:47 hydra syslogd: last message repeated 2 times<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Somehow messages with <tt>XXX</tt> in them (for FreeBSD, 3 <tt>X</tt>s are enough) suggests debug output. And the “network is down” messages from <i>syslogd</i> suggest that there's something wrong. Are the XXXs related? The interspersed promiscuous mode messages suggest that it's happening while I'm looking at the network. I'll keep an eye on <i>/var/log/messages</i> from now on. </p> <p> And then there's another issue that may or may not be related: noise in the audio output, another thing that I should investigate. It seems to be related to the virtual machines, though it may just be related to the load on the host machine. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-26T01:23:32+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240626-015402</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240626-015402</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>fvwm3: progress</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Somehow I still can't make much sense of the required syntax for the <a href="https://www.fvwm.org/"><i>fvwm3</i></a> configuration file. There seems to be a disconnect between the (relatively copious) documentation and my understanding. So time for some experimentation. Made these changes (inter alia) in the configuration file: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>+Colorset 21 fg black, bg yellow<br /><br />-Style "xterm-r" Icon xterm.xpm,Color yellow/black,IconBox -40 300 -1 -140<br />+Style "xterm-r" Icon xterm.xpm,Colorset 21,IconBox -40 300 -1 -140<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Success! Well, sort of. Now these windows have <i>icons</i> that have a yellow background and a black foreground, which proves to be the opposite of what I wanted. That's easy enough to fix, but I still need to find out how to highlight the windows themselves. Still, the first step of progress. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-26T01:54:02+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> Another attempt at <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/Beijing-fried-sauce-noodles.php">Beijing “Fried Sauce” Noodles</a> today. Somehow I'm still not happy with the results. Today I tried, basing on the recipe of <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?subtitle=Beijing%20sauce%20noodles%20again&article=D-20240611-004415#D-20240611-004415">10 June 2024</a>: </p> <ul> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Double the quantities of the spices. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Add more bean paste. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Omit the wine. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Fry the noodles in the sauce. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Add crushed garlic. </div> </li> </ul> <p> The result? Probably too much star anise. The noodles were much better after being fried. And for some reason, the quantity was too much. Somehow I still have issues. </p> End deselected topic ko (Beijing “fried sauce” noodles again) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240627-023122</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240627-023122</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More disaster</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> So why are my Microsoft virtual machines getting network hangs? An obvious thing to try would be to upgrade <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a>. That went smoothly, but it caused problems with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt">Qt</a> that were more difficult to resolve. </p> <p> On restarting (this time <i>disaster.lemis.com</i>) I had to recover the net configuration again, after which things ran smoothly. How long? Set up a <i>ping</i> to record the time and stop when there was a failure. It was still running when I went to bed. Solved? I don't trust it. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-27T02:31:22+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> Yesterday <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> cooked a variation on <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/linsensuppe.php">Linsensuppe</a>, enough to freeze multiple servings. But how big should they be? I thought 500 to 600 g, Yvonne thought 600 to 700. So I prepared 700 g portions for freezing and kept one for tonight. </p> <p> Surprise: 700 g isn't enough. 800 g next time? </p> End deselected topic ko (Linsensuppe: quantities?) --> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> Somehow I have ended up with a second packet of Chilliz mi udang paste. I tried it <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-nov2023.php?subtitle=New%20mi%20udang&article=D-20231103-005739#D-20231103-005739">last year</a> and found it boring. But it's there, so I made it up. Yes, boring. Not bad, but not to be repeated </p> End deselected topic ko (More Chilliz mi udang) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240628-015739</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240628-015739</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More VirtualBox fun</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> When I went to bed last night, <i>disaster.lemis.com</i> was still running fine. Fixed? </p> <p> No. When I got up this morning, I discovered that it had stopped responding at 23:32:20, with the same symptoms as I have been having before. </p> <p> What next? Look at the log files. Nothing, neither in <i>/var/log/messages</i> nor in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> logs. Where do I go from here? Changing hypervisors doesn't seem to be an option: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhyve">Bhyve</a> seems to have issues with Microsoft, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware">VMware</a> doesn't run on <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>, and what I've seen of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen">Xen</a> suggests that it needs to run on the bare hardware. </p> <p> Change machines? That currently looks like the best option. Use one of my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkCentre">ThinkCentres</a>. But that will require preparation. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-28T01:57:39+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240628-021657</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240628-021657</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>fvwm3: success?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> So I moved on to my other issue, <a href="https://www.fvwm.org/"><i>fvwm3</i></a> configuration. The obvious thing was to change all of the specifications that <i>fvwm3</i> complained about. That wasn't as simple as it looked. For example, it complained about this line: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>HilightColor black palegreen </tt></div></blockquote> <p> What does the man page say? What man page? I have <i>fvwm3(1)</i>, but it doesn't mention anything like that. On the web I found <a href="https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/kinetic/man1/fvwm3.1.html">this page</a>, but though the content is different and more complete, it also didn't help. But somewhere that I forgot to write down told me: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>HilightColor textcolor backgroundcolor<br /> This command is obsoleted by the Style options HilightFore and HilightBack. Please use<br /><br /> Style * HilightFore textcolor, HilightBack backgroundcolor<br /><br /> instead.<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Only much later did I discover that there are multiple man pages, though <i>fvwm3(1)</i> doesn't have a <b>SEE ALSO</b> section: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>/usr/local/share/man/man1/fvwm3.1.gz<br />/usr/local/share/man/man1/fvwm3all.1.gz<br />/usr/local/share/man/man1/fvwm3commands.1.gz<br />/usr/local/share/man/man1/fvwm3menus.1.gz<br />/usr/local/share/man/man1/fvwm3styles.1.gz<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> I don't know how much it would have helped. <i>fvwm3</i> still didn't want to know: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>[1719458711.919614] parse_and_set_window_style: Bad style option: HilightFore black<br />[1719458711.919618] parse_and_set_window_style: Bad style option: HilightBack palegreen<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> But it seems that I don't really need that. After setting all my Colorsets, it still didn't want to do what I want. Clearly I'm missing something important, but it seems that this part is most important: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt># 3: Colorsets<br />#<br /># 0 - Default<br /># 1 - Inactive Windows<br /># 2 - Active Window<br /># 3 - Inactive Windows Borders<br /># 4 - Active Windows Borders<br /># 5 - Menu - Inactive Item<br /># 6 - Menu - Active Item<br /># 7 - Menu - Grayed Item<br /># 8 - Menu - Title<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Played around with that, and gradually I got to the point where some of the colours were correct. I could even live with that—the colours I use were chosen more at random than out of any logic. But I wish I understood this stuff. </p> <p> Next step: the <i>xterms</i> files. A lot of what's there would fit better into an <i>.Xdefaults</i> file. How much work should I do? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-28T02:16:57+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240629-005229</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240629-005229</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More VirtualBox fun</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> As planned, set up one of my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkCentre">ThinkCentres</a> for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> testing. I was going to call it <i>monorchid</i> in memory of my old test box for <a href="https://papers.freebsd.org/2001/grog-smpng/">SMPng</a>, but then it occurred to me that even the oldest machines now have multiple processors. This one has four, so I called it <i>quartet.lemis.com</i>. </p> <p> Things didn't go easily. I ran into the old issue with that I had <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-mar2024.php?subtitle=Putting%20ryoms%20to%20the%20test&article=D-20240317-013629#D-20240317-013629">in March</a>. But even after setting that, things weren't smooth. Did I have the kernel modules? </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt> <br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@quartet (/dev/pts/0)</font> <font color="red">/src/VirtualBox</font> <font color="blue">30</font> -> <b><tt>kldstat|grep vbox</tt></b></code><br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@quartet (/dev/pts/0)</font> <font color="red">/src/VirtualBox</font> <font color="blue">40</font> -> <b><tt>kldload vboxnetadp</tt></b></code><br />kldload: can't load vboxnetadp: module already loaded or in kernel<br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@quartet (/dev/pts/0)</font> <font color="red">/src/VirtualBox</font> <font color="blue">41</font> -> <b><tt>kldload vboxdrv</tt></b></code><br />kldload: can't load vboxdrv: module already loaded or in kernel<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Huh? This is a <tt>GENERIC</tt> kernel, which doens't have VirtualBox modules. Another <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat">Schrödinger's cat</a>? Do we have some mismatch somewhere? To be on the safe side, started bringing the system up to date. That's slow. Another day gone by. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-29T00:52:29+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240629-005402</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240629-005402</link><category>history</category><category>technology</category><title>Why quartet?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Why did I call the new machine <i>quartet.lemis.com</i>? That goes back decades. At <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_Computers">Tandem</a> our first Unix machine was an LXN, a rebadged <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altos_Computer_Systems">Altos</a> machine. Our first real Tandem Unix box was the <a href="https://techmonitor.ai/technology/tandem_promises_unix_system_v4_on_new_integrity_s2_machine_as_soon_as_it_is_stable">Integrity S2</a>. So when it came to naming the machines, the LXN was called <i>solo.euts.tandem.com</i>, and the S2 was called <i>trio.euts.tandem.com</i>. </p> <p> After I left Tandem, they had a new machine, which they called <i>quattro.euts.tandem.com</i>—that would never have happened if I had stayed. In English, we have solo, duo, trio, quartet and more. Since my “new” machine has 4 CPUs, <i>quartet</i> is the obvious choice. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-29T00:54:02+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240629-015651</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240629-015651</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>SSD strangenesses</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> The first step in installing <i>quartet</i> was copying a system image. That's simple: I have a number of identical 128 GB <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSD">SSDs</a>, one of which has the system for <i>teevee</i>. So all I need is <i>dd</i>. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== root@teevee (/dev/pts/0)</font> <font color="red">/home/grog</font> <font color="blue">3</font> -> <b><tt>time dd if=/dev/ada0 of=/dev/ada1 bs=1m</tt></b></code><br />122104+1 records in<br />122104+1 records out<br />128035676160 bytes transferred in 1944.455866 secs (65846532 bytes/sec)<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> 65 MB/s? That's not exactly blindingly fast for an SSD. I had been watching “progress” from another <i>xterm</i>, which showed me: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== grog@teevee (/dev/pts/1)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">3</font> -> <b><tt>iostat 1</tt></b></code><br /> tty ada0 ada1 pass0 cpu<br /> tin tout KB/t tps MB/s KB/t tps MB/s KB/t tps MB/s us ni sy in id<br />...<br /> 0 84 1024 19 18.85 1024 19 18.85 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 80 1024 18 17.96 1024 19 18.96 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 80 1024 195 194.80 1024 195 194.80 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 80 1024 50 50.04 1024 49 49.06 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 81 1024 18 18.15 1024 18 18.15 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 77 1024 19 19.27 1024 19 19.27 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 84 1024 19 18.80 1024 19 18.80 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 77 1024 19 19.17 1024 19 19.17 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 80 1024 19 18.99 1024 19 18.99 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 81 1024 50 49.53 1024 51 50.54 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> 0 79 1024 192 191.85 1024 191 190.86 0.0 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> What happened there? It reminds me of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingled_Magnetic_Recording">Shingled Magnetic Recording</a> disks, but these are both SSDs. It seemed to be related either to copying or to writing: I could read at round 600 MB/s. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-29T01:56:51+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic gho not selected <p> Finally got my act together to remove the cobwebs that I found in the power box for the bore pump <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=ghJ&subtitle=Pump%20problems&article=D-20240621-012748#D-20240621-012748">last week</a>. Adrian from <a href="https://www.ultimategroup.com.au/">UPI</a> had suggested using compressed air to blow away the cobwebs. </p> <p> That was easier said than done. After an attempt, it looked like this: </p> <p> Is that any better? Tried with a brush from the kitchen and then compressed air, and things looked better: </p> <p> But it still wouldn't start. With a multimeter I confirmed that there was power on the first of these boxes (lower on the first image), but nothing on the second. </p> <p> But the cable in between looks like this: </p> <p> That's probably the real cause of the problem. My days of electrical wiring are over, so Adrian can come and fix it. </p> End deselected topic gho (Fixing the bore pump) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240630-002403</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240630-002403</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Still more VirtualBox fun</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Finally my world build was done. Rebooted <i>quartet</i> and ran <i>make installworld</i>. It failed! </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>install -o root -g wheel -m 444 ftime.3.gz /usr/share/man/man3/<br />install: ftime.3.gz: No such file or directory<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> How did that happen? My best bet is that the culprit was the nightly <i>cron</i> job that updates the source trees. Installed as best I could, and then on. </p> <p> OK, update the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> packages to be on the safe side. But no, I was up to date. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== root@quartet (/dev/pts/0)</font> <font color="red">/src/VirtualBox</font> <font color="blue">40</font> -> <b><tt>kldload vboxnetadp</tt></b></code><br />kldload: can't load vboxnetadp: module already loaded or in kernel </tt></div></blockquote> <p> We've seen that before. OK, what does <i>ktrace</i> tell me? </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt> 72203 kldload CALL kldload(0x36febbf8778)<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/kernel/linker.hints"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/kernel/vboxnetadp"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/kernel/vboxnetadp.ko"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/modules/linker.hints"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/modules/vboxnetadp.ko"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/modules/vboxnetadp.ko"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/kernel/linker.hints"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/kernel/vboxdrv"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/kernel/vboxdrv.ko"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/modules/linker.hints"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/modules/vboxdrv.ko"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/modules/vboxdrv.ko"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/kernel/linker.hints"<br /> 72203 kldload NAMI "/boot/kernel/kernel"<br /> 72203 kldload RET kldload -1 errno 17 File exists<br /> 72203 kldload CALL write(0x2,0x36febbf7560,0x9)<br /> 72203 kldload GIO fd 2 wrote 9 bytes<br /> "kldload: "<br /> 72203 kldload RET write 9<br /> 72203 kldload CALL write(0x2,0x36febbf7650,0x39)<br /> 72203 kldload GIO fd 2 wrote 57 bytes<br /> "can't load vboxnetadp: module already loaded or in kernel"<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> What's it looking at there? Clearly it's finding dependencies. To be sure, I'd have to have a look at the source code. But while I was scratching my head about that, I saw this on the console: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Jun 29 10:01:52 quartet kernel: KLD vboxdrv.ko: depends on kernel - not available or version mismatch<br />Jun 29 10:01:52 quartet kernel: KLD vboxnetadp.ko: depends on vboxdrv - not available or version mismatch<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> That's a <i>completely</i> different message. I really need to fix that. </p> <p> OK, it looks like the packages are too stupid to understand kernel dependencies. Rebuild the ports <i>virtualbox-ose</i> and <i>virtualbox-ose-kmod</i>. <i>virtualbox-ose</i> was an absolute pain. First it decided to build <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Compiler_Collection"><i>gcc</i></a> 13, and then it tripped over irrelevant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)">python</a> dependencies, which I worked around by removing the old version and trying again. But then this one came up: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>===> py311-setuptools-rust-1.9.0 depends on executable: cargo - not found<br />*** Error code 1<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> What's that? But thinking about it, do I really need <i>virtualbox-ose</i>? <i>virtualbox-ose-kmod</i> is the kernel module. Built that, which was relatively fast and painless, and <i>finally</i>, after something like 24 hours, I was able to load the modules. </p> <p> Next, start <i>disaster</i>. Can't do that: “VT-x is disabled in the BIOS for all CPU modes (VERR_VMX_MSR_ALL_VMX_DISABLED)”. </p> <p> OK, check the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS">BIOS</a>. How do I enter? I thought it was either <b>F2</b> or <b>DEL</b> for all BIOSes, but that didn't work. Finally a web search told me: for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkCentre">ThinkCentres</a>, <b>F1</b> is your friend. And there, under Advanced/CPU setup, I found that I had to enable Intel (R) Virtualization Technology, which then enabled me to enable VT-d, hopefully the same thing as VT-x, and TxT. </p> <p> And that worked. <i>Finally</i> I was able to start <i>disaster</i>. Got an <i>rdesktop</i> session running. And then disaster struck: I got the same network hang that I had had under <i>hydra</i>. Only this time <i>quartet</i> had grabbed the mouse and maybe the keyboard, so I couldn't respond. There's a solution to that, the <b>Host</b> key, normally bound to <b>Control_R</b>. But my key map doesn't have a <b>Control_R</b>! </p> <p> Shot down the VirtualBox instance, which unstuck things, and of course updated my key map to add a <b>Control-R</b> key. I chose the crescent moon symbol at top right of the <a href="https://deskthority.net/wiki/Sun_Type_7">Sun Type 7</a> keyboard, which, as the old keymap told me, is normally bound to <b>XF86PowerOff</b>—talk about <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Rant/bad-language.php#intuitive">intuitive</a>! </p> <p> But somehow I'm stuck, again. The good news seems to be that it's not related to <i>hydra</i>. But what can I do? Try <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhyve">bhyve</a> again? All the instructions relate to installing <i>new</i> copies of Microsoft on <i>bhyve</i>. Off looking again, and for the fun of it, asked <a href="https://gemini.google.com/">Gemini</a>, which indeed came up with <a href="https://gemini.google.com/app/926c37cf97ff2289">instructions</a> that don't look overly encouraging. In particular, they require additional drivers on the guest side, something that seems to contradict the idea of a virtual machine. But maybe I'll take a look. In the meantime, I have real machines that can do the job. </p> <p> So: for the moment, back to my other issue, <a href="https://www.fvwm.org/"><i>fvwm3</i></a>. That shows some promise of becoming useful, even if I still don't understand it. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-06-30T00:24:03+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> Baked <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/bread.php">bread</a> again today. As everything was ready for proofing, I found a little more dough in the pot. Should I mix it in again? That's a lot of work. What happens if I just push it on top of the dough? </p> <p> Yes, the splodges are ugly, but will they stay that way? No, it seems. Here before putting into the oven and afterwards: </p> <p> So I don't need to be overly careful with the surface. </p> End deselected topic ko (Moulding bread dough) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240701-021318</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240701-021318</link><category>health</category><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Donate somebody else's organs!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I've been planning to apply for an organ donor pass for years now, and today I found I can do it <a href="https://www.donatelife.gov.au/">on the web</a>. Only one minute! Well, 3. First I need to find my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(Australia)">Medicare</a> card and enter the details, and then enter my name in a form that the form likes (to match what's on the card). </p> <p> And that's it! I'm a certified organ donor! All I needed was my name, address and Medicare card number. I could do that for lots of people without them knowing. In an age where people are paranoid about security, it's amazing that I can get a spare kidney or two without the donor knowing (even before his death). I didn't even get a confirmation email message. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-01T02:13:18+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240701-021653</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?topics=c#D-20240701-021653</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Understanding Xdefaults</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Now I have an almost functional <a href="https://www.fvwm.org/"><i>fvwm3</i></a> configuration. How do I polish it? An obvious thing would be to move much of the specifications to the <i>.Xdefaults</i> file. I already have some stuff in there. For example, for <i>xterm</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>xterm*Geometry: 100x50<br />xterm*faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono<br />xterm*faceSize: 9<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> So I don't need to put those details in the <i>fvwm3</i> config. But what about the others? Currently I have: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>+ "hydra" Exec LC_ALL=en_AU.UTF-8 /usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm" -s -sl 2048 -sb -ls -j -rw -display :0.3 -geometry 90x50+53+0 -e /usr/local/bin/bash &<br />+ "hydra" Exec LC_ALL=en_AU.UTF-8 /usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm-r" -s -sl 2048 -sb -ls -j -rw -display :0.3 -geometry 90x50-53+0 -e /usr/local/bin/bash & </tt></div></blockquote> <p> That defines the <i>xterm</i> parameters for left and right <i>xterms</i>. The big difference is the geometry (one 53 pixels from the left margin, one 53 pixels from the right margin). For that, the <tt>-name</tt> parameter is different. But how do I tell <i>.Xdefaults</i> how to set the geometry? Off looking in the application defaults (in this case, <i>/usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm</i>), and to my surprise only found one of the parameters that I have in <i>.Xdefaults</i>, <tt>faceSize</tt>. And also nothing that started with <tt>xterm*</tt>. </p> <p> So where's the list? And do the names correspond to the names on the <i>xterm</i> invocation? Where are they defined? A web search just told me that <i>.Xdefaults</i> is an old, worn-out magic word, and that <i>.Xresources</i> is better, but also no longer needed. </p> <p> It's been over a third of a century since I started using <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a>. It seems that I have forgotten more than I have learnt. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-01T02:16:53+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic h not selected <p> We're going through an unusually cool period of weather at the moment: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>mysql> <b>select year(date), min(outside_temp), avg(outside_temp), max(outside_temp)<br /> from observations<br /> where month(date) = 6<br /> group by year(date);</b><br />+------------+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+<br />| year(date) | min(outside_temp) | avg(outside_temp) | max(outside_temp) |<br />+------------+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+<br />| 2017 | 0.1 | 8.583251664357402 | 17.2 |<br />| 2018 | -0.2 | 8.587153978918375 | 18.9 |<br />| 2019 | -0.9 | 9.446074306448931 | 17.6 |<br />| 2020 | -0.7 | 8.782459793250906 | 16.6 |<br />| 2021 | 0.8 | 9.77173985397815 | 18.2 |<br />| 2022 | 0.6 | 8.86966862322499 | 19.6 |<br />| 2023 | -0.4 | 10.222608372489137 | 20.5 |<br />| 2024 | -2.4 | 8.394851808112373 | 16.5 |<br />+------------+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> And of course we had to discover that our new <a href="https://www.mitsubishielectric.com.au/product/msz-ap25-80vgd-split-system-air-conditioner/">Mitsubishi Electric MSZ-AP60VG(D)</a> air conditioner isn't really up to the task. It takes hours in the morning to bring the lounge room up to temperature: </p> <a href="Day/20240630/temperatures-2024-06-30-raw-big.png"> <img alt="Click to see larger image" title="Click to see larger image" src="Day/20240630/temperatures-2024-06-30-raw-small.png" height="250" width="375"/> </a> <p> I turned it on shortly after 5:00, and it took until 10:00 to come up to temperature (top line). I'm going to have to leave it running overnight. </p> End deselected topic h (Cold weather) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240702-015105</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240702-015105</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Lies, damn lies and statistics</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Last month was cold? How about this month? </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>mysql> <b>select year(date), min(outside_temp), avg(outside_temp), max(outside_temp)<br /> from observations<br /> where month(date) = 7<br /> group by year(date);</b><br /><br />+------------+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+<br />| year(date) | min(outside_temp) | avg(outside_temp) | max(outside_temp) |<br />+------------+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+<br />| 2017 | -1.8 | 8.386610996751084 | 17.2 |<br />| 2018 | -0.5 | 8.84761882739429 | 19.7 |<br />| 2019 | 1 | 9.319298495442224 | 18.5 |<br />| 2020 | -0.8 | 8.394708139534231 | 16.7 |<br />| 2021 | -0.6 | 8.415084340357575 | 17.2 |<br />| 2022 | -2.6 | 8.445030549610115 | 20.4 |<br />| 2023 | -0.5 | 9.574544398292241 | 17.9 |<br />| 2024 | 0.9 | 2.9052224463604865 | 6.8 |<br />+------------+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> The maximum temperature is much lower than the average of any previous year! Of course, that's what you get with 10 hours of overnight data. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-02T01:51:05+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240702-015414</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240702-015414</link><category>language</category><category>technology</category><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>Constructive translations</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Translate">Google Translate</a> is quite useful for reading labels on East Asian food, but it has its limits. Here's a particularly amusing one: </p> <a id="Photo-3" name="Photo-3" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240701&imagesizes=1112&topics=c#Photo-3"> <img alt="This should be Google-translate-fail-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_3" title="Photo Google-translate-fail-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240701/small/Google-translate-fail-1.jpeg" width="174" height="387" /></a> <a id="Photo-4" name="Photo-4" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240701&imagesizes=11112&topics=c#Photo-4"> <img alt="This should be Google-translate-fail-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_4" title="Photo Google-translate-fail-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240701/small/Google-translate-fail-2.jpeg" width="174" height="387" /></a> <p> </p> <a id="Photo-5" name="Photo-5" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240701&imagesizes=111112&topics=c#Photo-5"> <img alt="This should be Google-translate-fail-1-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_5" title="Photo Google-translate-fail-1-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240701/small/Google-translate-fail-1-detail.jpeg" width="305" height="221" /></a> <a id="Photo-6" name="Photo-6" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240701&imagesizes=1111112&topics=c#Photo-6"> <img alt="This should be Google-translate-fail-2-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_6" title="Photo Google-translate-fail-2-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240701/small/Google-translate-fail-2-detail.jpeg" width="292" height="231" /></a> <p> Somehow Google Translate is just too eager to please. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-02T01:54:14+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ga not selected <p> Jesse Walsh along to do some more garden work today, notably the “island” in the driveway: </p> <p> The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucospermum">Leucospermum</a> had been so covered in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpobrotus">Carpobrotus</a> that there's a big bald patch: </p> <p> At the other end also planted some small <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpobrotus">Carpobrotus</a> and some nameless plants that <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> got from Kelly-ann Nyari: </p> <p> And while tidying up, he found a particularly bloated frog: </p> <p> Also planted a long-suffering <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja_×_weyeriana">Buddleja_×_weyeriana</a> in front of the “shade area”: </p> <p> </p> End deselected topic ga (More garden work) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240702-023308</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240702-023308</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>X configuration: RTFM!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> More searching for answers to the <i>.Xdefaults</i> issue today. What does the <i>xterm(1)</i> man page say? <i>Much</i> more than it did 30 years ago. Now there are 7,758 lines, about 130 pages. When I learnt <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a> it was 253 lines, less than 5 pages. And much of this new version describes exactly what I'm looking for: a line like <tt>xterm-r*faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono</tt> refers to a name <tt>xterm-r</tt>, which is described in <i>X(1)</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>-name</b> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="list2width"> This option specifies the name under which resources for the application should be found. This option is useful in shell aliases to distinguish between invocations of an application, without resorting to creating links to alter the executable file name. </div> </blockquote> </div> </blockquote> <p> And it's used like this: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>/usr/local/bin/uxterm <b>-name "xterm-r"</b> -s -sl 2048 -sb -ls -j -rw -display :0.3 -geometry 90x50-53+0 -e /usr/local/bin/bash </tt></div></blockquote> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> And <tt>faceName</tt> is a resource described in the man page. </p> <p> So now I have the background to actually <i>do</i> something. Looking through the configuration file, I find that most of these names simply refer to colours. They're relatively arbitrary, but they also describe the location of the icons. Here a “before” and “after” converting to Color </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Style "xterm-r" Icon xterm.xpm,Color yellow/black,IconBox -40 300 -1 -140<br />Style "xterm-r" Icon xterm.xpm,Colorset 21,IconBox -40 300 -1 -140 </tt></div></blockquote> <p> So now I need to create entries for each of these names. Currently I have <tt>xterm-lx</tt> <tt>xterm-rx</tt>, <tt>xterm-r</tt>, <tt>xterm-rsxa</tt> and <tt>xterm-rsxd</tt>. Do I need all of them? Probably not. </p> <p> And then there are the options passed to the <i>xterm</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>/usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm-r" -s -sl 2048 -sb -ls -j -rw -display :0.3 -geometry 90x50-53+0 -e /usr/local/bin/bash </tt></div></blockquote> <ul> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>-s</b>: async scroll. Replace with <b>multiScroll</b> resource. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>-sl 2048</b>: Save lines at top. Replace with <b>saveLines</b> resource. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>-sb</b>: Add scroll bar. Replace with <b>scrollBar</b> resource. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>-ls</b>: This is a login shell. The parameter is ignored when <tt>-e</tt> is specified, so no replacement. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>-j</b>: Jump scroll. Replace with <b>jumpScroll</b> resource, except that it's the default. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>-rw</b> Reverse wraparound. Replace with <b>reverseWrap</b> resource. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>-geometry</b>: Specify the geometry. Replace with <b>Geometry</b> resource. </div> </li> </ul> <p> So after all that, my invocation reduces to: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>/usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm-r" -display :0.3 -e /usr/local/bin/bash </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Do I need to specify the display? Probably not. But there's no resource to specify the shell; the best choice there is the <tt>SHELL</tt> environment variable. If that works, I can reduce things to </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>/usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm-r" </tt></div></blockquote> <p> So do I need to generate individual files? Yes, unfortunately. I still have different invocations for local and remote machines, which could potentially reduce to something like this on <i>hydra</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>+ "eureka" Exec ssh -A eureka /usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm-r" &<br />+ "hydra" Exec /usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm-r" &<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> And on <i>eureka</i> it would be the other way round. Still, things look a lot simpler like that. The next step is to decide what names to use, and how to allocate them. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-02T02:33:08+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240702-032649</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240702-032649</link><category>history</category><category>technology</category><title>20 years of wrong directions</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2004.php#1">Twenty years ago today</a> I started this idea of saving all my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System">RCS</a> files in a separate hierarchy. <b>Bad</b> idea, and it's still biting me. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-02T03:26:49+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240702-032758</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240702-032758</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>bhyve: out</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I've already had my concerns about using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhyve"><i>bhyve</i></a> instead of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a>, but another thing that concerned me was how to save a running instance. Once again <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Gemini">Google Gemini</a> to <a href="https://gemini.google.com/app/fe86600d6842bec4">my aid</a>. You don't: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Unfortunately, as of July 1, 2024, bhyve itself doesn't offer a built-in feature to save the state of a running virtual machine. This functionality is under development, but there's no official release yet. </div> </blockquote> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-02T03:27:58+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic HPo not selected <p> The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_USA">Supreme Court of the USA</a> has made an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/01/trump-presidential-immunity-supreme-court/">amazing decision</a>: the President is above the law. </p> <p> I needed to catch my breath. This special treatment of the ruler was one of the differences between the USA and Great Britain. It seems that the concept of equality under the law is not stated as clearly in US law as it is elsewhere, but the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution</a> implies it, and it also states: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>Section 3</b>. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. </div> </blockquote> <p> And, it seems, this decision reverses exactly the issue of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack">attack on the US Capitol</a> on 6 January 2021. How can that happen? My understanding is that the only way to reverse this decision is for the Supreme Court to change its mind. </p> <p> The consequences are staggering. <a href="https://www.theshovel.com.au/">The Shovel</a> put it into perspective. <a href="https://theshovel.com.au/2024/07/02/biden-responds-to-supreme-court-ruling-by-assassinating-donald-trump/">Biden Responds to Supreme Court Ruling by Immediately Assassinating Donald Trump</a>. Part of the article is worth reading: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> The Biden team used an unconventional method to carry out the assassination – an actor posing as Vladimir Putin was hired to tell Trump that he doesn’t like him. Trump immediately died of sadness. </div> </blockquote> <p> But somehow that's the death knell of US democracy. The 2020s have not been a good decade so far. I see even worse times ahead. </p> End deselected topic HPo (The end of US democracy?) --> <!-- topic g not selected <p> Our front gate does not shut very accurately, and lately it has been overshooting the “closed” position. A minor adjustment, maybe? </p> <div align="left"> </div> <p> It doesn't look like much, but I think it should be enough. I didn't want to overdo it and risk breaking off the hook. </p> End deselected topic g (Fixing the gate) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240703-011908</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240703-011908</link><category>general</category><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>ANZ: You typed the wrong password</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Time for my monthly check on my bank accounts today. But no, my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANZ_Bank">ANZ</a> web page told me that my password was wrong. </p> <p> What? It's stored in the web browser. I also have it written down, so I tried that. No, wrong. Please reset. </p> <p> How did that happen? It's definitely not my doing. Called up and finally, after nearly a minute of announcements, I was asked the reason for my call. “I think my password has been breached”. </p> <p> <b><i>WRONG</i></b>. Another two minutes explaining to me how to use the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anz.android.gomoney">ANZ App</a> to reset my password. And then I was disconnected. Nearly 3 minutes for nothing. </p> <p> Tried again, this time telling the non-recognition that I had a security breach. OK, 5 to 10 minute wait, which proved to be closer to 15. Connected to Gracia, who told me that no special characters were allowed in the password, and then helped me reset it after a third time also failed and locked me out of my account. </p> <p> When was my password last changed? 2 May, she said. OK, I've logged in since then, so if their site didn't let me log in, there must be something seriously wrong. Please inform your security team. ”I am the security team”. No escalation needed: I typed my password with an special character or some other error. </p> <p> Please take a complaint. After three attempts and a threat to involve the regulatory bodies, she agreed to do so. Give me the complaint number, please. Can't do that yet, will send a “text message”, presumably an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS">SMS</a>. No, I'd like to have an email, please. Sorry, we can't send email. Wait on the line. </p> <p> Finally she came back with the number. And where do we go from here? She seemed to think that that was the last I would hear of it, and maybe she's right. And after all, she said, I just typed my password in wrong. </p> <p> I exploded, being rather rude and calling her an idiot. I regret that, but I've seldom had such a frustrating and stupid interaction. </p> <p> And after it was all over and done, I got an email with the complaint number. </p> <p> Somehow this is <i>so</i> like the interaction with <a href="https://aussiebroadband.com.au/">Aussie Broadband</a> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-apr2024.php#D-20240407-003200">a few months ago</a>. We're being held to ransom by the “help desk” people. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-03T01:19:08+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic Jgh not selected <p> Steven from <a href="https://www.ultimategroup.com.au/">UPI</a> along today with an apprentice (Riley?) to look at the wiring of the bore pump. Irritatingly, it worked for him, sort of. At least the pump ran. But it seems that these junction boxes are really pressure switches, one for the pump, one for the pressure cell. And both of them were badly corroded by the bore water: </p> <p> So he had to replace both of them, along with the pressure gauge: </p> <p> Why are they not made of a material that doesn't corrode? They're very expensive—the parts alone came to a total of $450. </p> End deselected topic Jgh (Repairing the bore pump) --> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> It's been <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?subtitle=Preserved%20lemons&article=D-20240626-011901#D-20240626-011901">a little over a week</a> since I started on my preserved lemons: </p> <p> Now they look like this: </p> <p> One of the big differences between the recipes was whether to add lemon juice or not. The rationale is that the lemons will go mouldy if they're not covered. No recipe specifically wants them uncovered, so my guess is that the ones that don't add juice expect there to be enough juice in the lemons themselves. Clearly that's not the case here, so today I added what proved to be 100 ml of lemon juice: </p> <p> So far there's not much evidence of softening. </p> End deselected topic ko (Preserved lemons, status) --> <!-- topic hkG not selected <p> Somehow a number of things have cropped up that required me to go shopping: <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Mona.php">Mona</a> has learnt how to open doors, so we need knobs instead of levers. As often, I needed a visit to the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fruitshackwendouree/">Fruit Shack</a>, and my glasses still needed adjustment. In addition, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALDI">ALDI</a> had an air compressor on offer, and it was too heavy for <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> to pick up yesterday, so did that too. </p> <p> And somehow the day was done. The good news is that everything went smoothly, not a foregone conclusion. </p> End deselected topic hkG (Shopping again) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240705-023636</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240705-023636</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>ANZ password: Groggy's fault</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Checking my local web pages, discovered this: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt> -r--r--r-- 1 grog lemis 6462 2 May 14:32 bank.php </tt></div></blockquote> <p> That's the page I use to access financial web sites. And it had a new password, one that I hadn't transferred to my password list. So the issues that I had <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240703-011908">on Tuesday</a> <i>were</i> my fault after all. </p> <p> Did Gracia do the right thing then? No. she couldn't have known that, and her utter conviction that I had typed a special character in the password shows a lack of will to investigate the real issues. But I <i>do</i> feel silly. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-05T02:36:36+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240705-024130</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240705-024130</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Problems with NBN scheduled outages</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> It seems that I'm <a href="https://jokesfunnystories.quora.com/Do-you-know-any-original-and-new-jokes-8">not the only person</a> to get annoyed by <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/">National Broadband Network</a> scheduled outages. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-05T02:41:30+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> The (Korean) title 두부부침양념장 transliterates as <a href="https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/dububuchim-yangnyeomjang"> dububuchim-yangnyeomjang</a>, a tongue-twister that even reflects in the Korean spelling. It translates as “Pan fried tofu with spicy sauce”, but it seems easier to distinguish it by calling it <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/Korean-fried-dofu.php">Korean fried dofu</a>. </p> <p> The photo looked good: </p> <a href="https://www.maangchi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/panfriedtofu-sprinkle-sesameseeds-620x400.jpg"> <img alt="" title=". Click to see in original size." src="https://www.maangchi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/panfriedtofu-sprinkle-sesameseeds-620x400.jpg" width="300" /></a> <p> So yesterday I bought some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dofu">dofu</a>, not quite the same as used in the recipe: </p> <p> In particular, the pieces are smaller. </p> <p> After a bit of recipe translation, came up with this: </p> <p> The rice is mentioned in the original recipe, but not illustrated. </p> <h2>Ingredients</h2> <p> Per serving </p> <table summary="Ingredients"> <tr> <td align="right"><b>quantity</b></td> <td> </td> <td><b>ingredient</b> </td> <td> </td> <td><b>step</b> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="right">150 g</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">firm dofu</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">1</td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="right">12 g</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">soya sauce</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="right">5 g</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">gochugaru (Korean chili flakes, 고춧가루)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="right">15 g</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">garlic</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="right">30 g</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">onion, chopped finely</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="right">12 ml</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">sesame oil</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="right"></td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">sesame seeds</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="right">15 g (1)</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">spring onion</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="right">3</td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> </tr> </table> <h2> Preparation </h2> <ol> <li class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Cut the dofu into slices about 6-7 mm thick: </p> <p class="listitemwidth"> Fry until crispy: </p> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Mix the ingredients together: </p> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Cut spring onion and add to the sauce: </p> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <p class="listitemwidth"> Serve with rice: </p> </li> </ol> End deselected topic ko (두부부침양념장) --> <!-- topic Po not selected <p> A number of national elections are creating interest at the moment: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA">USA</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran">Iran</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France">France</a> and now the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom">United Kingdom</a>. The USA elections have been number one topic for months, and there are another 4 months to go (until <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Cup">Melbourne Cup</a> day). France started its election campaign at the beginning of last month and had elections on Sunday, only the results were a tie, so they need a second round come Sunday. In Iran it was similar: they called elections at the beginning of last month, they were held last Friday, and they, too, need a run-off that will take place today. </p> <p> Meanwhile, in the UK, they <i>also</i> called elections at the beginning of last month. They took place yesterday. No run-off: polling ended at 22:00 BST (7:00 this morning here), and by the evening the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Charles_III">King</a> had invited <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Keir_Starmer">Sir Keir Starmer</a> to form a government. No messing around like in the USA, where the incumbent has 2½ months to subvert the election before the president-elect actually takes office. </p> End deselected topic Po (Britain votes and gets on with it) --> <!-- topic Jaho not selected <p> I really don't like the idea of round doorknobs: they're significantly more difficult to handle than the lever type. But <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Mona.php">Mona</a> agrees, so I have to do something. </p> <p> Then <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> came up with the obvious answer: reposition the levers so that they're pointing down. Now why didn't I come up with that idea? But it turned out that the maker of the levers had found an asnwer: you can't. So I had to mount the knobs after all: </p> <p> Mona was not amused. In the evening we heard her trying to get into my office and failing. She didn't exactly growl, but her tail was twice the normal thickness. Somehow I feel that I have let her down: here she had the great success of finding a new way through doors, and already it stops working. </p> End deselected topic Jaho (New doorknobs) --> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> I have a surprising amount of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dofu">dofu</a> and almost no recipes for it. How about using some in my <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/pad-thai-breakfast.php">Pad Thai</a> recipe? Fried the slices a little hotter (7 on the induction cooker), which resulted in much faster browning, but despite all attempts they still stuck a little. </p> <p> And while I was at it, I used a different <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALDI">ALDI</a> paste (first image) instead of their “Pad Thai” paste: </p> <p> The result? </p> <p> Boring! And the “stirfry” sauce tasted of almost nothing. </p> End deselected topic ko (Breakfast experiment fail) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240707-014443</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240707-014443</link><category>technology</category><category>history</category><category>opinion</category><title>A mouse!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I'm still planning to put in the new <i>teevee.lemis.com</i> in the lounge room Real Soon Now. The intention is to run it in parallel with <i>tiwi</i> until I'm happy. Until then, all the videos will be on <i>tiwi</i>. Things that are missing are: keyboard, mouse, display card (maybe). </p> <p> Surely I have lots of keyboards and mice? Yes, I do, but for some reason they “don't work”, at least partially because all the dongles are unmarked, and <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jan2024.php?subtitle=Configuring%20mouse%20in%20the%20new%20scheme%20of%20things&article=D-20240105-003925#D-20240105-003925">none of my experiments in pairing them</a> have worked. So when I was in town <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?subtitle=Shopping%20again&article=D-20240705-023305#D-20240705-023305">on Thursday</a>, I picked up an el-cheapo wireless keyboard and mouse from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officeworks">Officeworks</a>, total price $33. </p> <p> They had others on offer, including things aimed at Apple for round 10 times the price, so I wasn't expecting very much. But what I found was much better than I dared to hope. </p> <p> Backspace 35 years to my first graphics environments. Mice had three buttons and nothing else, and of course they were wired. Since then a number of things have happened: wireless mice appeared (<i><b>very</b></i> good; I had to use cable mice again recently, and they're a real pain), scroll wheels appeared (also useful), and the second button went away (<b><i>bad</i></b>). To make up for it, some high-end mice ended up with additional buttons for the (right) thumb, and I was able to remap them to button 2. But the cheap mice didn't. </p> <p> But this one does! In fact, the button layout is the same as my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech">Logitech</a> M705: two main buttons, scroll wheel in between, which can also be pressed for a button press, and two buttons for the thumb. <i>xev</i> tells me: </p> <table summary="Automatically generated table"> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">left</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">right</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">scroll</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">scroll</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">scroll</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">thumb</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">thumb</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left"></td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left"></td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">forward</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">back</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">press</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">forward</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">back</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left">1</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">3</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">4</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">5</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">2</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">9</td> <td> </td> <td valign="top" align="left">8</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left"></td> </tr> </table> <p> That's the same for the Logitech mouse, except that the thumb buttons have been remapped. </p> <p> The probe messages are: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>ugen0.3: <Telink 2.4G Mouse> at usbus0<br />ums1 on uhub4<br />ums1: <Telink 2.4G Mouse, class 0/0, rev 1.10/1.00, addr 34> on usbus0<br />ums1: 5 buttons and [XYZ] coordinates ID=1<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> That's much more than I had hoped for. And to make things even better, the mouse has a storage place for the dongle, so if I do take it out of service, at least I won't have to look for the dongle. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-07T01:44:43+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic p not selected <p> I've been using my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_E-30">Olympus E-30</a> for photos of a still-planned <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma">Analemma</a> series for <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2019.php?subtitle=Analemma%20experiments&article=D-20190811-031250#D-20190811-031250">almost 5 years</a>. I use a 10 stop (99.9%) neutral density filter and take two images, one at 1/4000 s and f/5.6 for the sun, and the other at 2 s and f/5.6 for the surroundings: </p> <p> The intention is to align the surrounding images, and then use the same alignment to join the sun images. I must now really have images for every day of the year, and at some point I should really get round to doing it. </p> <p> But today it occurred to me that I have almost never taken photos with the camera and auto-exposure. Tried that today. Big fail: </p> <p> It must have been 6 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value">EV</a> underexposed. Even attempts to correct it didn't help much. </p> <p> What went wrong there? Yes, I still had the ND filter on, but auto-exposure should have compensated for that. </p> End deselected topic p (Olympus E-30 auto-exposure) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240708-014220</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240708-014220</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Understanding mice</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> More playing around with my new mouse today, on <i>tiwi</i>. Yes, it works, but how do I remap the side buttons? <i>moused</i> is started with </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>root 36620 0,0 0,0 13112 1720 - Is 22:13 0:00,00 /usr/sbin/moused -3 -p /dev/ums1 -t auto -I /var/run/moused.ums1.pid<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> That doesn't even match the entries in <i>/etc/rc.conf.d</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>moused:moused_enable="YES"<br />moused:moused_flags="-m 2=4" # Remap rear side button to 2.<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> And if it did, it wouldn't help: the side buttons are 8 and 9, not 4. Is there something in the <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a> configuration file? No: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Section "InputDevice"<br /> # generated from default<br /> Identifier "Mouse0"<br /> Driver "mouse"<br /> Option "Protocol" "auto"<br /> Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"<br /> Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"<br /> Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"<br />EndSection<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> OK, shoot down the <i>moused</i> instance and start it again with the correct option <tt>-m 2=8</tt>. But when I shot it down, the mouse carried on working! <i>/dev/sysmouse</i> must bypass the driver daemon. </p> <p> I've been playing with X configuration for <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-mar1992.php?subtitle=Beta%20test%20report,%20BSDI/386,%2020%20March%201992&article=D20-10#D20-10">over 30 years</a>, but they keep changing the goalposts. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-08T01:42:20+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> made dinner tonight, a fish gratin: </p> <div align="left"> </div> <p> </p> End deselected topic ko (Fish gratin) --> <!-- topic Po not selected <p> There were three important elections in the last few days: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom">United Kingdom</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election">general election</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_French_legislative_election">French legislative election</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iranian_presidential_election">Iranian presidential election</a>. All of them were interesting: arguably the results in the UK and Iran show positive tendencies, and in France they were able to limit the power of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rassemblement_National">Rassemblement National</a>. </p> <p> But the details are interesting: in France and Iran the elections were second rounds. In Iran only 27.2% of registered voters voted for the winner <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoud_Pezeshkian">Masoud Pezeshkian</a>. The other candidate, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeed_Jalili">Saeed Jalili</a>, received 22.5%. And over 50% of registered voters didn't vote at all. What would have happened if they <i>had</i> voted? </p> <p> But what if there are more than two candidates? Take the situation of the first French election round, where most constituencies had multiple candidates. And that was to the advantage of the RN. So in the second round the other two main parties, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouveau_Front_populaire">Nouveau Front populaire</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensemble_pour_la_République">Ensemble pour la République</a> (the party of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Macron">Emmanuel Macron</a>), decided to only field one candidate for many of the constituencies. The result: RN got 37.06% of the votes, NFP got 25.8%, and Ensemble got only 24.53%. So the RN won, right? Wrong. They ended up with only 142 seats, while the NFP got 180 and Ensemble got 159. That only makes sense (and then only just) because of the way the votes were distributed. </p> <p> And then there's the UK, where the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)">Labour Party</a> defeated the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_(UK)">Conservative Party</a> by a “landslide”. Labour got 211 more seats, the Conservatives lost 251 seats for their worst-ever result. But looking at the vote count, Labour got 33.69% of all votes cast, only 1.6% more than in 2019. And that, along with a more significant loss by the Conservatives (19.9%) made the difference between 200 and 411 seats out of 650. </p> <p> What's wrong with this picture? In Iran, low voter turnout means that the results are only marginally representative of what people want. In France, and arguably in the UK, the number of candidates determine who wins. And in Australia? I'm coming to the conclusion that the Australian system is better: it requires compulsory voting, which must result in a more accurate representation of what the voters want, and if your candidate doesn't win, you specify who should get the vote instead. I wonder how that would have affected the results in the three countries. </p> <p> But once again I'm reminded of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru">Jawaharlal Nehru's</a> comment “Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse”. </p> End deselected topic Po (The people have spoken—some of them) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240709-005843</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240709-005843</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Understanding mice</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c&subtitle=Understanding%20mice&article=D-20240708-014220#D-20240708-014220">Yesterday's</a> confusion with mice puzzled me. Wasn't there a way to set a button map? </p> <p> Yes, and I found it <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jan2024.php?subtitle=Configuring%20mouse%20in%20the%20new%20scheme%20of%20things&article=D-20240105-003925#D-20240105-003925">not so long ago</a>: there's a button map that <i>xinput</i> is too polite to display with <tt>xinput list-props</tt>. Instead I need <tt>xinput get-button-map</tt> </p> <p> With that information, I've added this to <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/HOWTO/X-configuration.php">my HOWTO page</a>: </p> <p> Current (2024) versions of <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a> don't seem to use <i>moused</i> any more. Use <i>/dev/sysmouse</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Section "InputDevice"<br /> # generated from default<br /> Identifier "Mouse0"<br /> Driver "mouse"<br /> Option "Protocol" "auto"<br /> Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"<br /> Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"<br />EndSection<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> It's not clear if <tt>ZAxisMapping</tt> is of any use. </p> <p> I used to include this: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt> Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> But there's a better way to do this. First find the mouse or mice: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== grog@hydra (/dev/pts/23)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">369</font> -> <b><tt>xinput</tt></b></code><br />⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]<br />⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]<br />⎜ ↳ System mouse id=6 [slave pointer (2)]<br />⎜ ↳ <b>Logitech USB Receiver</b> id=11 [slave pointer (2)]<br />⎜ ↳ <b>Telink 2.4G Mouse</b> id=12 [slave pointer (2)]<br />⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]<br /> ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]<br /> ↳ System keyboard multiplexer id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]<br /> ↳ Power Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]<br /> ↳ Logitech USB Receiver id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]<br /> ↳ vendor 0x0430 Sun USB Keyboard id=10 [slave keyboard (3)]<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Yes, those are two mice. Next, </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== grog@hydra (/dev/pts/26)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">9</font> -> <b><tt>xinput list-props 11</tt></b></code><br />Device 'Logitech USB Receiver':<br /> Device Enabled (155): 1<br />...<br /> libinput Middle Emulation Enabled (287): 0<br /> libinput Middle Emulation Enabled Default (288): 0 </tt></div></blockquote> <p> The important thing here is the number 287 in that output. Next, note the name in the initial output and enter: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt># Logitech mouse: find the ID<br />MOUSEID=$(xinput | grep -m 1 "<b>Logitech USB</b>" | sed 's/^.*id=\([0-9]*\)[ \t].*$/\1/')<br />xinput set-prop $MOUSEID 287 1 # Logitech </tt></div></blockquote> <p> If the mouse has other buttons that can be remapped, do something like: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt># Logitech mouse: find the ID<br />MOUSEID=$(xinput | grep -m 1 "<b>Logitech USB</b>" | sed 's/^.*id=\([0-9]*\)[ \t].*$/\1/')<br /># And set middle button to 8 and 9<br />xinput set-button-map $MOUSEID 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 <b>2 2</b> 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 </tt></div></blockquote> <p> That's the same assignment to <tt>MOUSEID</tt>. This sets buttons 8 and 9 to return button 2. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-09T00:58:43+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240710-020702</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240710-020702</link><category>general</category><category>technology</category><category>multimedia</category><category>opinion</category><title>Quiet day</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Today was one of those days where I didn't do anything worth mentioning, quite a difference from the last few weeks. When am I going to continue with upgrading <i>tiwi</i> (or <i>teevee</i>)? Somehow the issue with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> has thrown a spanner in the works. An obvious attempt to localize the problem would be to try the same scenario running <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux">Linux</a>. And for that I need a machine for the installation—the same one that I need for <i>teevee</i>. </p> <p> What do I do? So far, nothing. If I can speed up the migration from <i>tiwi</i> to <i>teevee</i>, I will have a machine for the VirtualBox testing. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-10T02:07:02+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240711-024029</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240711-024029</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Scam from Google Play</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> While looking for that most elusive of things, a good <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)">Android</a> app, got this unsolicited popup: </p> <a id="Photo-7" name="Photo-7" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240710&imagesizes=11111112&topics=c#Photo-7"> <img alt="This should be Scam-from-Google-Play-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_7" title="Photo Scam-from-Google-Play-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240710/small/Scam-from-Google-Play-detail.jpeg" width="263" height="256" /></a> <p> <tt>221.236.211.162</tt>? That's not an IP that I use. A bit of checking showed: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== grog@eureka (/dev/pts/6)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">204</font> -> <b><tt>host 221.236.211.162</tt></b></code><br />162.211.236.221.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer 162.211.236.221.broad.cd.sc.dynamic.163data.com.cn.<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> A <i>traceroute</i> failed after 13 hops, so it's clearly not nearby. </p> <p> What does that mean? Possibly the advertisement can't determine the IP addresses in use on my phone, but why use a fake address? Is this some kind of scam? And in passing, it suggests that the IP addresses can be hidden by encrypting the content. Whoever wrote that doesn't understand the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol">Internet Protocol</a>, or thinks that the user is stupid enough not to know it: encryption doesn't change the IP addresses. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-11T02:40:29+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240711-024429</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240711-024429</link><category>multimedia</category><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More work on teevee</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Finally got round to doing some more “work” on <i>teevee</i>. Somehow this cable mess really gets me down. Spent a lot of time trying to get the correct cables in the right place, in principle only monitor and audio. And apart from minor frobs to get the mouse right and to mount the correct file systems, all worked pretty much out of the box. But the next step is more cabling in the lounge room, which is another horror. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-11T02:44:29+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic Hho not selected <p> Unexpected mail from Benoît Nogues today: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Following the death of Mr Louis Binos de Pombarat , the notary in charge of the estate wants to contact Yvonne , please contact the notary office :<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> What's that? It was too late for us today, but it's intriguing. It's unlikely that Louis left anything to Yvonne: they clarified their relationship with the divorce in 1980. What else might be the reason? </p> End deselected topic Hho (Executing wills) --> <!-- topic aho not selected <p> In the last millennium an interesting combination of advertising and information arose: fridge magnets, small magnetic cards that stuck to the side of a refrigerator and contained address information for companies. Our most exposed fridge contained a whole lot of them. </p> <p> But clearly the cats think that that's a bad idea: </p> <p> And do we really use them? I think not. </p> End deselected topic aho (What use fridge magnets?) --> <!-- topic kGo not selected <p> From time to time, like <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php#D-20240626-011901">here</a>, I comment on the impression that almost every US American recipe includes sugar, and I've taken to ignoring it. But today I came across <a href="https://brilliantmaps.com/daily-sugar-intake/">this map</a> of daily sugar intake by state in the USA: </p> <a href="https://brilliantmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/daily-sugar-intake-1536x1075.png"> <img alt="" title=". Click to see in original size." src="https://brilliantmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/daily-sugar-intake-1536x1075.png" width="500" /></a> <img alt="Image" title="Image" src="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Day/20240711/daily-sugar-intake-1536x1075-detail.png" /> <p> The measurements are in <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/measures.php#spoon">teaspoons</a> per day. Interestingly, though, it seems that the weight of a teaspoon of sugar has been standardized in the USA: 4.2 g (or 4 g between friends). That's particularly interesting because of the unit: 4.2 g, not 0.148 ounces. </p> <p> So that means that the average US American eats between 56 and 85 g of added sugar every day! That's quite amazing. What does “added” mean? Beyond what is naturally present in foodstuffs, it seems. Clearly there are borderline situations. Does it include the sugar in orange juice? In honey? I would guess no and yes, respectively. </p> <p> The other thing is in the fine print: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Heart_Association">American Heart Association</a> recommends between 6 to 9 tsp/day (25 to 38 g). While it's considerably less than actual consumption, it still seems to be amazingly high. I've compared my consumption: 0, assuming the single glass of orange juice for breakfast doesn't count. That's not a reaction to my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus">diabetes</a>: I just don't want any more. </p> End deselected topic kGo (How much sugar?) --> <!-- topic h not selected <p> Estíbaliz Harrison (a name I hadn't heard before) along today to do some cleaning. She's the first cleaner we have had who does it on a professional basis, and she did a good job. The most interesting thing is her name, which I had never heard before. But she calls herself Steph, a lot easier to pronounce and remember. </p> End deselected topic h (¡Hola Estíbaliz!) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240713-034810</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240713-034810</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>VirtualBox on Ubuntu</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> My continuing pain with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> had established that the problem was not (only?) related to the hardware on which it ran: it also happened on <i>quartet</i>, a test <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkCentre">ThinkCentre</a>. So if it's a single point of failure, it's probably either <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a> or the specific VirtualBox port. </p> <p> OK, before I move <i>quartet</i> (as <i>teevee</i>) to the lounge room, how about installing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu">Ubuntu</a> on it and trying like that? </p> <p> I've been through the installation <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jun2024.php?subtitle=Ubuntu%20again&article=D-20240623-021811#D-20240623-021811">a couple of weeks ago</a>, and I still have the install media. How hard can it be? Excruciating! It started with a broken copy to the USB card, but after I had done the install, I still needed to integrate it into the home LAN. For <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System">NFS</a> I need a user <tt>grog</tt> and a UID that matches the other systems. How do you do that? The “Settings” menus don't seem to cater for it. And when I entered my password, it decided that it didn't like it. Not “please choose another password”, just blanked-out buttons and input fields (“I implied that I didn't like the password. Don't try to enter it again!”). </p> <p> OK, at least I can change my IP address. Yes, it allows me. But I can't specify a domain name. OK, fix it in <i>/etc/resolv.conf</i>. But no, you can't do that! </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt># This is /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf managed by man:systemd-resolved(8).<br /># Do not edit.<br />#<br /># ...<br />nameserver 127.0.0.53<br />options edns0 trust-ad<br />search .<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>root@echuca:/etc# <b>ls -l resolv.conf</b><br />lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Apr 24 20:47 <span style="color: cyan"></span>resolv.conf -> ../run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> But that's all wrong! And the “Settings” don't give me the option of changing it, though they know that the name server address is <tt>192.109.197.137</tt>. There's this horrible <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd"><i>systemd</i></a> thing. What can I do? Rename it and create a new <i>resolv.conf</i> like God intended. Who knows how long it will stay there. </p> <p> Ultimately installed a number of <del></del> apts, many of which I would have expected to be present in the base system: <i>rwho</i>, <i>openssh-server</i>, <i>xterm</i>, <i>ifconfig</i>, <i>emacs</i>. In passing, one of the dependencies was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postfix_(software)">Postfix</a>, which was also configured for me. I should take a look at what it has done. </p> <p> And with that I was able to fix up <i>/etc/passwd</i> and friends. </p> <p> Next, mount <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System">NFS</a> file systems. No, no, you can't do that! First you need a <i>mount.<something></i> (the same message applies to other file systems). OK, Ubuntu, where do I get it? 389 lines of output that all looked like this: </p> <a id="Photo-8" name="Photo-8" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240712&imagesizes=111111112&topics=c#Photo-8"> <img alt="This should be Ubuntu-filth-1.png. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_8" title="Photo Ubuntu-filth-1.png. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240712/small/Ubuntu-filth-1.png" width="590" height="115" /></a> <p> This <b><i>HORRIBLE</i></b> half-coloured text! In this case I found that putting the output through <i>less</i> sanitized it, showing that the vast majority of the entries have nothing obvious to do with NFS. But <b><i>WHY</i></b> is it so difficult to get Linux to shut up? Off on a tangent to find ways, but there seem to be none. <a href="https://gemini.google.com/app/055914f5479c1ef5">This answer</a> suggests two ways, both of which look like they should work, but don't: </p> <ol> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Set <tt>TERM=xterm-mono</tt>. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Create a file <i>/etc/terminal-colors.d/disable</i>. </div> </li> </ol> <p> Even the second solution has a caveat: “The presence of this file disables color output for compatible utilities”. Clearly everything I use is incompatible. </p> <p> People, this is <b><i>STUPID</i></b>. If you really, <i>really</i> want to splash colour over a screen, you should at least set the background as well. </p> <p> Back to the case in hand: I found the package for <i>mount.nfs</i>, but forgot to write it down, possibly <i>nfs-common</i>. It wasn't immediately obvious. Next time will be the same pain all over again. But after that, with a marginal environment set up, I was able to install <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a>. It looks—again—completely different. It's version 7.0.16, while on FreeBSD it's 6.1.18. That's not as out-of-date as it might seem: both seem to be maintained in parallel, and both date from this year, though VirtualBox 7.0.0 was released on 10 October 2022. But it would be interesting to see whether my network problems would occur under 7.0. Can I face the prospect of updating the port? </p> <p> Lots of messing round, copying hundreds of gigabytes of files, but kept running into problems starting the VM. I really need to read up on this and find the correct way to start it. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-13T03:48:10+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic g not selected <p> Jesse Walsh along today to do some more work in the garden. </p> End deselected topic g (More garden work) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240714-003431</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240714-003431</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More VirtualBox fun</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Spent a large part of the day setting up <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu">Ubuntu</a>. I have resolved at least one thing: to move a VM from one instance of VirtualBox to another, I need to press the “Add” button, not the “New” button. And that uses the configuration file (like <i>despise.vbox</i>), and it works up to a point. Clearly a saved image isn't going to work well, especially as in this case I had to reduce the memory from 24 to 16 GB and the number of CPUs from 8 to 4. </p> <p> But it's so <i>slow</i>! Well, at least the disks were. There was a difference: this setup uses normal magnetic disks, while my other instances have used <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSD">SSDs</a>. But I used magnetic disks on <i>eureka</i>, and they were nothing like as slow as on <i>echuca</i>, the Ubuntu “machine”. After a cold boot it took two hours for disk activity to die down. </p> <p> Why is it so slow? Is this Ubuntu, or is it VirtualBox 7? While I was pondering that, took my weekly <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/stones-road/exterior.php">house photos</a>, which I had wanted to process on this instance of <i>despise</i>. That was clearly not the optimum way, so I did them on <i>distress</i>, a real machine, instead. </p> <p> Later, though, things had calmed down, so I tried again. Surprisingly, there was little difference. <i>distress</i> and <i>echuca</i> (the Ubuntu host) are both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkCentre">ThinkCentre</a> M93ps, so the results should be comparable. Based on events, I had expected the VirtualBox instance to be an order of magnitude slower, but in fact there wasn't much difference: the hardware version converted 129 images in 17:37 minutes, while the VM took 18:55, about 93% of the throughput of the naked machine. That's quite acceptable. The real question is just why there's so much disk activity. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-14T00:34:31+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240714-023023</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240714-023023</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>food</category><category>and</category><category>drink</category><category>opinion</category><title>The pain of cables</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/ossobuco.php"><i>Osso buco</i></a> for dinner tonight. For that, we need <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/risotto-alla-milanese.php"><i>risotto alla milanese</i></a>. And how about that, according to our freezer database, we have some in basket 9. </p> <p> Do I believe that? Not overly. But it's a good chance to bring the database up to date with reality. Print out the contents of 9 and compare. </p> <p> Oh. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== grog@eureka (/dev/pts/7)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">109</font> -> <b><tt>echo 'select * from freezer where basket="9" order by description ;' | mysql household | a2ps</tt></b></code><br />ERROR 1064 (42000) at line 1: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '0~select * from freezer where basket="9" order by description' at line 1<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Huh? That's exactly the query I submitted directly. Why doesn't it like it? It took me a while to realize that the mouse was adding invisible information. Pasted directly into <i>mysql</i>, it looked like: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== grog@eureka (/dev/pts/7)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">110</font> -> <b><tt>mysql household</tt></b></code><br />mysql> <b>0~select * from freezer where basket="9" order by description ;1~</b><br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Why? A sick mouse? Yet Another thing to investigate. Prepared the query in <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/"><i>Emacs</i></a> and it worked. Well, no error messages. But no output on the printer either. </p> <p> What does <i>lpr</i> say? “Can't communicate with lp”. Took a look: no network cable! I must have “borrowed” it for something else. Off looking for a relatively long cable, and finally found a particularly nasty-looking one that must once have done duty in <a href="http://www.lemis.com/wantadilla/">Wantadilla</a>, where it had been stuck to the floor with masking tape. One end had the fixing tab broken off, but that shouldn't be a problem. But the office switch (16 ports) didn't have a spare port! Surely I don't have that many devices connected. </p> <p> No, at least one cable had nothing on the other end. OK, connected it up. On the second attempt I was able to talk to it. But still no output! </p> <p> Is that something with <i>a2ps</i>? I had some distant memory of having it set up to automatically send to <i>lpr</i>. But I can do that directly: pipe to <i>lpr</i> instead of <i>a2ps</i>. And that worked, sort of, merrily going off the right margin: no <b>^M</b> characters. </p> <p> Finally chased down where I use <i>a2ps</i>. It wants to be invoked a <i>a2ps -M A4</i>. And then—finally—I got my single page of output. </p> <p> And the risotto? No, none there, but a couple of other things that I had forgotten to enter. Databases are fine for this sort of thing, <i>if</i> you keep them up to date. But that's such a pain. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-14T02:30:23+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> So I had to make a new <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/risotto-alla-milanese.php">risotto alla milanese</a>. I never cease to marvel at the amount of broth it needs: 4 times the weight of the rice, where I normally use about 1.8 times as much water to cook normal rice. </p> <p> And it wants <i>beef broth</i>, not water. Do we have that? Looked in the pantry and found a particularly dusty container with something claiming to be beef broth, suitable for vegetarians. That sounds wrong, probably the reason that the container is almost full, although it past its “best by” date in April 2002. Found another one that was only 9 years out of date, mixed it up and... it was <i>far</i> too dark. So in the end I used chicken broth powder. </p> <p> First insight: yes, I knew that the risotto takes a long time. I had given it 30 minutes, but it was not really enough. 45 minutes would be better. Second insight: it really needs to be done slowly. After 30 minutes and ridiculous quantities of liquid, it <i>still</i> wasn't cooked through. I really hadn't expected that. </p> End deselected topic ko (Thoughts on risotto alla milanese) --> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> Started a new pack of <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/noodle-cooking-times.php#Chef-Lo">“Chef Lo” noodles</a> today to go with <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/mi-udang-tean.php"><i>mi udang</i></a>. I had assumed without checking that they would need 2 minutes, like nearly all noodles of this nature. But no, after 2 minutes the basket had barely opened. In the end I gave them 3, though they were still relatively firm. After being in the soup for a while they softened, so maybe 3 to 4 minutes is correct. </p> <p> But then I checked the <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/noodle-cooking-times.php#Chef-Lo">cooking times</a> page. 2 minutes! No, not this time round. On the other hand, they didn't stick together like they used to. Have they changed the composition? </p> End deselected topic ko (More noodle cooking times) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240715-000256</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240715-000256</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>More VirtualBox pain</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> More messing around with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> today. Why can't I save the state of a virtual machine? More experimentation showed that I couldn't do <i>anything</i> to stop it. No suspend. No ACPI shutdown request (was just ignored). No power off. All I could do was to shut down the VM from within (with the <i>SHUTDOWN</i> command). </p> <p> Clearly something's wrong there. Searching the web, found a reference to the user belonging to the <tt>vboxusers</tt> group. I knew that, of course, but I had expected a clean install to set it, and it didn't. But it didn't help. Tried starting as <tt>root</tt>, and that didn't help either. </p> <p> Clearly the package for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu">Ubuntu</a> isn't all that it's cut out to be. OK, I never really intended to use it. Try a different tack: port version 7(.0.18) to <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>. Off to do that, tripping over a strangeness in the <i>Makefile</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>MASTER_SITES= https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/${PORTVERSION}/:src \<br /> LOCAL/bofh/emulators/virtualbox-ose:docs<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> What's this <tt>LOCAL</tt>? I couldn't find the docs on the <a href="https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/">web site</a>, and what I see suggests that they have been created locally. OK, I can fake that: just link the docs for version 6.1.50. </p> <p> But things still weren't done. The patch files failed. That's not surprising, but I was unprepared for the number of patches: 95 of them! Why are they all needed? But that kills it for now. I should check with others what efforts have been made before going to what could be much more trouble. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-15T00:02:56+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240715-001537</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240715-001537</link><category>technology</category><category>health</category><category>opinion</category><title>A new monitor</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> It's been <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-oct2023.php?subtitle=Looking%20at%20hydra&article=D-20231018-231622#D-20231018-231622">nearly 9 months</a> since I got <i>hydra.lemis.com</i>, my new machine. And I still haven't completed the migration. </p> <p> One of the issues was the <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a> configuration, of course, and I had run into trouble with my old Matrix monitor, which is probably on its last legs. I had kept it because of the lower resolution, only 2560×1440, while the new LG <a href="https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27up850-w-uhd-monitor">27UP850</a> monitor is 3840×2160. But since my <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-mar2024.php?topics=Gc&subtitle=Eye%20rebuild&article=D-20240322-003739#D-20240322-003739">cataract operation</a>, it seems that 3840×2160 is perfectly readable. </p> <p> So: another 27UP850. I know my way round the thing, it works well, and now it's over 25% cheaper, since it's last year's model. </p> <p> Will I ever complete this changeover? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-15T00:15:37+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240715-234840</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240715-234840</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>VirtualBox: enough!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> So where do I go from here with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a>? Discuss the matter on the <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a> mailing list. But I'm not a member, and something seems to have gone wrong with the signup. </p> <p> Enough! This is really very frustrating. I'll leave it for a while; after all, I <i>do</i> have Microsoft boxen that will do the job. Instead I'll turn my attention back to the new <i>teevee</i>. And for that I need a better display card than the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_700_series">GeForce 710</a> that I have been using. Apart from potential performance issues, the fan is noisy, and blowing it out with compressed air doesn't help. So I've ordered a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_10_series">GeForce 1030</a> to replace it. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-15T23:48:40+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240715-235624</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240715-235624</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Aussie does it again!</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Mail from <a href="https://aussiebroadband.com.au/">Aussie Broadband</a> today with their inimitable asterisks: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Subject: It's time to review your emergency contact details<br /><br />We’re just checking in to make sure all of your **emergency** details are correct.<br />...<br />Address: **29 STONES RD DEREEL VIC 3352**<br />Contact number: **0353184210**<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Well, no. They include the numbers of the four <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VoIP">VoIP</a> lines that they have half provisioned, but not the mobile phone that they also have on file. And two of those VoIP lines are not connected. Time to change things. </p> <p> Log in. “Invalid user or password”. On three different browsers with saved passwords. Clearly they've changed things at their end. Finally got it changed, after this <i>horrible</i> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2FA">2FA</a>, requiring the “security” of a mobile phone. No obvious way to supply the contact information. </p> <p> OK, try the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/search?q=myaussie%2bapp&c=apps">MyAussie</a> app on my phone. Wrong password! OK, change that too. <i>Another</i> 2FA, this time sent to the same phone! What kind of security is that? </p> <p> And then I found that the fingerprint access that I had admired <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-may2024.php?subtitle=NBN%20outage!&article=D-20240501-230326#D-20240501-230326">a couple of months ago</a> was no longer available. OK, I have the documentation online. How do I set it up? </p> <p> Back to the web site. <a href="https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/help-centre/">“Self-help articles on Internet, mobile, our app and more”</a>. OK. No mention of the app <i>at all</i>, just an offer of a “chat now”. Tried that, but they lied: </p> <p><font color="red">Can't open /home/grog/www.lemis.com/grog/Photos/20240715/photolist.php: fopen(/home/grog/www.lemis.com/grog/Photos/20240715/photolist.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory</font></p> <a id="Photo-9" name="Photo-9" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240715&imagesizes=1111111112&topics=c#Photo-9"> <img alt="This should be Aussie-chat.png. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_9" title="Photo Aussie-chat.png. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240715/small/Aussie-chat.png" width="590" height="115" /></a> <p> Four minutes wait! I've never seen that. When I finally got a response, it seemed like he was multitasking. “Where's the docco?” First he wanted my name, address and date of birth. Just for supplying a pointer to the docco. No, “Can you try reinstalling the app?” No, that's not an answer to my question. In the end I asked him to find out and send me email. I didn't get any, of course. But while we were talking, I got a prompt on my phone: enter fingerprint. And that worked. I wonder if they even have documentation for the app. </p> <p> How Aussie have deteriorated! </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-15T23:56:24+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic pPo not selected <p> It seems that news has stood still since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump">Donald Trump</a> was hit in the ear by a bullet at a rally yesterday. As one person said, “Never since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormy_Daniels">Stormy Daniels</a> has anybody been so disappointed by two inches”. </p> <p> But then this photo surfaced: </p> <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/08/13/us/politics/13election-live-photo-assess/13election-live-photo-assess-jumbo-v2.jpg"> <img alt="" title=". Click to see in original size." src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/08/13/us/politics/13election-live-photo-assess/13election-live-photo-assess-jumbo-v2.jpg" width="512" /></a> <p> That's from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/us/politics/photo-path-trump-assassination.html">this article</a> in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times">New York Times</a>. Could it really be a bullet? Yes, I think so. I'm sure <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Mills_(photographer)">Doug Mills</a>, the photographer, is over the moon. </p> <p> Is it fake? The article doesn't think so. Neither do I. I could have taken it too. I would just have needed to be there, point my camera in the right direction and take continuous photos at 60 fps. And that's effectively what the article says. But some of the details are interesting: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Mr. Mills was using a Sony digital camera capable of capturing images at up to 30 frames per second. He took these photos with a shutter speed of 1/8,000th of a second — extremely fast by industry standards. </div> </blockquote> <p> 1/8000 s is no longer “extremely fast”. My <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_E-30">Olympus E-30</a>, now 15 years old, has that speed. So do our three OM-D cameras. But in fact it's not even overly fast for modern cameras. If he was taking 30 fps, he was probably using an electronic shutter. On my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_OM-D_E-M1_Mark_II">Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II</a> and <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne's</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_OM-D_E-M5_Mark_III">E-M5 Mark III</a> that's 1/32000 s. And of course the 30 fps isn't overly fast either: my E-M1 Mark II, now 7 years old, can do double that, and the latest <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OM_System">OM System</a> cameras can do 120 fps. Much more important is how long they can keep it up. </p> <p> And then there's the question of accuracy. They go on to say: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> “If the gunman was firing an AR-15-style rifle, the .223-caliber or 5.56-millimeter bullets they use travel at roughly 3,200 feet per second when they leave the weapon’s muzzle,’’ Mr. Harrigan said. “And with a 1/8,000th of a second shutter speed, this would allow the bullet to travel approximately four-tenths of a foot while the shutter is open.” </div> </blockquote> <p> OK, is that <i>really</i> 0.223"? I recall from my schooldays playing around with “.22” rifles. But <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15%E2%80%93style_rifle#Calibers">yes</a>, that seems to be the calibre. Only: 0.223" is 5.66[42] mm. Where do they get 5.56 mm? Wikipedia agrees with 5.56 mm. Is it a different way of measuring them? </p> <p> And then the longitudinal measurements. It's interesting that they divide feet by 10: “four-tenths” of a foot is 4.8". Assuming that the speed is correct, that converts to 975 m/s. In 1/8000 s that would be 12.2 cm, pretty much 5", a little more the width of a hand. What the photo shows is <i>much</i> longer than that. Maybe the shutter speed was wrong: looking at that photo, I'd assume 1/2000 s. </p> <p> And then there's the question whether it's even genuine. If it was taken with a 30 fps mode, there would have been more images showing the path of the bullet. But they say “capable” of taking up to 30 fps. What's the reality? Later they show three images taken, at a guess, about 0.5 s apart. And normal logic suggests that Mills wouldn't have taken that many photos of what was essentially a static subject. </p> <p> Surely I'm not the only person to be puzzled by these details. Yes, it's close to my own interests, but this is a photo that is going to go down in the annals. Millions of people have looked at it. Has nobody thought about these details? </p> End deselected topic pPo (Catching the Trump bullet) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240717-023746</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240717-023746</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Back to X configuration</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Lately I've been doing very little, and the wait for getting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox">VirtualBox</a> running correctly—if at all—means that I have time to look at other painful things. </p> <p> So, today <a href="https://www.fvwm.org/"><i>fvwm3</i></a>. The more I look at it, the more it's a can of worms. There are two major problems: </p> <ul> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> The documentation is oriented towards the developer, not the end user. It seems that the syntax for <tt>MenuStyle</tt> has changed. I used to have: </div> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>MenuStyle black gold brown -*-*-medium-r-*-sans-12-*-*-*-p-*-*-* mwm </tt></div></blockquote> <p class="listitemwidth"> But now it complains about the keyword <tt>gold</tt>. The documentation starts with </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> <b>MenuStyle <i>stylename [options]</i></b> </div> <p class="list2width"> Sets a new menu style or changes a previously defined style. The stylename is the style name... </p> <p class="list2width"> <i>options</i> is a comma separated list containing some of the keywords Fvwm / Mwm / Win, BorderWidth, HilightBack / !HilightBack, HilightTitleBack, ActiveFore / !ActiveFore, MenuColorset, ActiveColorset, GreyedColorset, TitleColorset, Hilight3DThick / Hilight3DThin / Hilight3DOff, Hilight3DThickness, Animation / !Animation, Font, TitleFont, PopupDelay, PopupOffset, TitleWarp ... </p> </blockquote> <p class="listitemwidth"> It goes on for pages, with a few examples that don't really point at what I'm doing. About the best thing that I can glean is that the <tt>black</tt> in the original entry has become the name of an unused <tt>MenuStyle</tt>. </p> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> My previous configuration file Just Growed over decades, and I didn't keep any records of what I did, neither in my diary (which I wasn't keeping at the time) nor in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System">RCS</a>. What few comments I put in didn't really help. </div> </li> </ul> <p> But one thing is becoming clearer: I can move a lot of this stuff into the <i>.Xdefaults</i> file, and I spent a fair amount of time playing with that, not without some success. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-17T02:37:46+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic k not selected <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-dec2023.php?subtitle=Whetstones&article=D-20231221-015357#D-20231221-015357">A few months back</a> I went to some trouble to sharpen my kitchen knives. Yes, they got sharper, but it was much more work than I had expected. </p> <p> Today I read <a href="https://www.quora.com/How-expensive-does-a-knife-have-to-be-before-you-will-consider-getting-it-professionally-sharpened/answer/Jesse-Cooks-and-Reads">this article</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quora">Quora</a>, which still isn't dead. The article explains that cheap knives are much harder to sharpen than more expensive ones, but the expensive ones need sharpening more frequently. Specifically, he mentions molybdenum alloy or carbon steel for the expensive knives and 440 stainless steel for the cheap ones. Should I try something a bit more up-market? </p> End deselected topic k (How to sharpen knives) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240718-003303</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240718-003303</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>fvwm3: enough?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> More playing around with <a href="https://www.fvwm.org/"><i>fvwm3</i></a> today, and at least partially cracked the <tt>MenuStyle</tt> entry. Instead of this, </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>MenuStyle black gold brown -*-*-medium-r-*-sans-12-*-*-*-p-*-*-* mwm </tt></div></blockquote> <p> I tried this: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>MenuStyle * mwm </tt></div></blockquote> <p> It didn't complain, but the colours were wrong. OK, we know that: <tt>Colorset</tt>. But no, it didn't want to know. It wants <tt><b>Menu</b>Colorset</tt>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>MenuStyle * MenuColorset 5, mwm </tt></div></blockquote> <p> But with that, I finally have my configuration the way I want it. And moving the specifications from the window manager to <i>.Xdefaults</i> has changed a number of things. Here an example of “before” and “after”: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>+ "eureka" Exec ssh -A eureka LC_ALL=en_AU.UTF-8 /usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm" -bg BlanchedAlmond -s -sl 2048 -sb -ls -j -rw -display hydra:0.3 -geometry 90x50+53+0 -e /usr/local/bin/bash &<br />+ "eureka" Exec ssh -A eureka LC_ALL=en_AU.UTF-8 /usr/local/bin/uxterm -name "xterm-r" -s -sl 2048 -sb -ls -j -rw -display hydra:0.3 -e /usr/local/bin/bash &<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> The down side is in the <i>.Xdefaults</i> file, of course. I have 13 “names” for my <i>xterms</i>, all differing only in geometry and font size. But for that I need 26 entries for each screen. There should be a way to inherit things from a parent. Maybe there is, but I haven't found it. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-18T00:33:03+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ho not selected <p> A while back we got a registration renewal notice for <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne's</a> car from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VicRoads">VicRoads</a>. And almost immediately another letter telling us that the sum was wrong. OK, pay the new sum. No, can't do that, the sum is encoded in this silly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPAY">BPAY</a> system. Pay the sum indicated and we'll contact you about the rest. </p> <p> That happened today, with a letter that suggested that it was all our fault that we hadn't payed the final $12.65. Never mind, you can call 13 11 71 and pay by credit card (<b>card payment fee applies</b>) or go personally to VicRoads in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballarat">Ballarat</a> (and wait in line). </p> <p> Both are seriously inconvenient and costly. But there's no mention of a way to transfer the money. That's really offensive. </p> End deselected topic ho (VicRoads insult to injury) --> <!-- topic Jho not selected <p> A couple of days ago I had another greeting from Jim Lannen, my least favourite sparky, whom by chance I first met <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2014.php?subtitle=A%20new%20electrician?&article=D-20140719-011101#D-20140719-011101">ten years ago today</a>. It has been raining a lot lately, and the power connection to the septic tank pump got wet, causing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device">RCD</a> to trip. It was late at night, so I just disconnected it. </p> <p> But clearly the tank needs to be emptied, and this evening the warning light went on. The problem is that the power point is in the middle of nowhere, so even though it's an outdoor power point, it's not adequately protected: </p> <p> This has happened in the past, and drying the connections has worked round the problem. But try as I might, I couldn't get the damn thing to work today. Another thing to be looked at tomorrow, this time more urgently. Is it even the same problem, or has the pump given up? It ran for about 20 seconds before tripping the RCD. Whom do I call? A sparky? <a href="https://www.ultimategroup.com.au/">UPI</a>? Mari Hendriks, the plumber? This has the potential to—once again—become expensive. </p> End deselected topic Jho (Septic tank pump fail) --> <!-- topic Jh not selected <p> Outside first thing this morning and connected the septic tank pump to a different circuit with an extension lead. Success! So at least the pump itself is still working. </p> <p> What causes are left? The most obvious would be the presence of moisture in the power point. But there's also the possibility that there are a number of connections with slight current leaks, like to the bore pump, which is on the same circuit. Finding that could take time. But at least we now have time. </p> End deselected topic Jh (Septic tank pump success) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240718-232530</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240718-232530</link><category>technology</category><title>More fvwm3 conversions</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Continued with my <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a> reconfiguration today, and discovered that I had forgot the details that I had investigated <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?subtitle=X%20configuration:%20RTFM!&article=D-20240702-023308#D-20240702-023308">at the beginning of the month</a>. Put them in, and they worked. But now I have even more multiple entries. Spent some time looking for ways to inherit resources, but there doesn't seem to be one. Now I have 163 mainly duplicate resources in my <i>.Xdefaults</i> file, and it looks like it might increase. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-18T23:25:30+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ao not selected <p> While walking the dogs today, came across this sight: </p> <p> What's that? Looks like blood. And sure enough, </p> <p> What happened there? Yes, kangaroos get hit by cars and die. But this one didn't seem to have anything like that. Instead, its stomach was torn open, and internal organs (lungs?) had been removed: </p> <p> How did that happen? </p> End deselected topic ao (Bad day for kangaroos) --> <!-- topic a not selected <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> found this picture today: </p> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Mona.php">Mona</a> is still not really happy with the dogs, but she's coming to terms with them, even when they come closer: </p> <p> Not before time. The red eyes are a reflection of the blanket she's sitting on, not her mood. </p> <p> </p> End deselected topic a (Mona acclimatization) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240720-024534</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240720-024534</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Emacs resources</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> So gradually my <i>xterm</i> configuration is close to where I want it, though the effect on the <i>.Xdefaults</i> file is clear: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== grog@hydra (/dev/pts/23)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">762</font> -> <b><tt>l /eureka/home/grog/.Xdefaults .Xdefaults-hydra</tt></b></code><br />-rw-r--r-- 1 grog lemis 2,477 30 Jun 14:38 /eureka/home/grog/.Xdefaults<br />-r--r--r-- 1 grog lemis 7,644 19 Jul 13:30 .Xdefaults-hydra<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Next, <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/"><i>Emacs</i></a>. And somehow things started all over again. Somehow the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Resources.html">specified resources</a> don't seem to have any effect. They do, however, have a couple of strangenesses. For example, I have: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>emacs*Geometry: 110x75 </tt></div></blockquote> <p> That's the <i>xrdb</i> syntax that I know. But an example in the Emacs manual uses a dot instead of an asterisk: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>emacs.Foreground: dark green </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Does that work? Does it make a difference? It seems that <tt>emacs</tt> and <tt>Emacs</tt> do make a difference: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> The program name is the name of the executable file to which the resource applies. For Emacs, this is normally ‘emacs’. To specify a definition that applies to all instances of Emacs, regardless of the name of the Emacs executable, use ‘Emacs’. </div> </blockquote> <p> I need to understand that. Could it be a hint at some kind of hierarchy? Courtesy of <i>emacs</i> or of X? </p> <p> One thing did become increasingly irritating, though: this popup telling me that “pure-GTK” doesn't work with <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a>. Somehow, over 6 months later, it still grates that a port should be configured to work with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland">Wayland</a> but not with X. OK, time to fix it. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><span style="background-color: BlanchedAlmond"><br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@hydra (/dev/pts/32)</font> <font color="red">/usr/ports/graphics/hugin</font> <font color="blue">81</font> -> <b><tt>git diff /usr/ports/editors/emacs-devel/Makefile diff</tt></b></code><br />diff --git a/editors/emacs-devel/Makefile b/editors/emacs-devel/Makefile<br />--- a/editors/emacs-devel/Makefile<br />+++ b/editors/emacs-devel/Makefile<br /><span style="color:blue">@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@</span> OPTIONS_DEFINE= ACL DBUS GNUTLS GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JSON LCMS2 \<br /> XFT XIM XML XWIDGETS<br /> OPTIONS_DEFAULT= ACL CAIRO DBUS GIF GNUTLS GSETTINGS GTK3 \<br /> HARFBUZZ JPEG JSON KQUEUE LCMS2 MAILUTILS \<br /><span style="color: red">- MODULES NATIVECOMP OSS PGTK PNG SCROLLBARS \</span><br /><span style="color: white">+ MODULES NATIVECOMP OSS PNG SCROLLBARS \</span><br /> SOURCES SQLITE3 SVG THREADS TIFF TREESITTER \<br /> WEBP XML<br /> OPTIONS_GROUP= GRAPHICS<br /><span style="color:blue">@@ -118,7 +118,7 @@</span> MAILUTILS_DESC= Mail framework via GNU Mailutils<br /> MODULES_DESC= Dynamic modules support<br /> NATIVECOMP_DESC= Emacs Lisp native compiler support<br /> OTF_DESC= Opentype fonts<br /><span style="color: red">-PGTK_DESC= Pure GTK GUI [implies CAIRO, GTK3]</span><br /><span style="color: white">+PGTK_DESC= Pure GTK GUI [implies CAIRO, GTK3, wayland only]</span><br /> SCROLLBARS_DESC= Toolkit scroll-bars<br /> SOURCES_DESC= Install sources<br /> SVG_DESC= Scalable vector graphics support [implies PNG]<br /></span> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> How I love Linux half-coloured output! How I wish I could turn it off globally! At least my choice of a not-quite-white background at least gives a clue that there's something there, and I can “highlight” the white on pale output on a web browser. Even that doesn't work in an <i>xterm</i>. And where does this <tt>diff --git</tt> come from? It's not in <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a> <i>diff</i>. </p> <p> But somehow that didn't work. When I ran config, I still had <tt>PGTK</tt> set. Saved configuration? Couldn't find it. I had to run <i>ktrace</i> to find where it was hidden: <i>/var/db/ports/editors_emacs-devel/options</i>. Now why did they do that? </p> <p> Things still weren't done, of course. It wanted to build <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCC">gcc 13</a>, and for some reason it failed. OK, install the package. And then some random dependency took exception to my <i>autoconf</i>. Another package, and then the thing went off on its merry way. </p> <p> People, we've had the Ports Collection for over 30 years. When is it going to grow up? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-20T02:45:34+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240720-033449</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240720-033449</link><category>technology</category><title>xterm clipboard access</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> A while back I found suggestions that <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a>, and in particular <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xterm"><i>xterm</i></a>, can access the clipboard directly. I made a note of it in my diary, but not clearly enough: it took me 20 minutes to chase down <a href="https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/225062/how-can-i-copy-text-from-xterm-awesome-debian-virtualbox">this reference</a>, to which I referred <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-may2024.php?subtitle=X%20configuration%20continued&article=D-20240531-023146#D-20240531-023146">less than 2 months ago</a>. It wasn't without issues, which I should chase up. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-20T03:34:49+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240721-002744</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240721-002744</link><category>technology</category><title>New Emacs</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> My <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/"><i>Emacs</i></a> build finished yesterday without complications, and this morning I installed it, also almost without complications. Only this message: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Emacs is now built with native compilation enabled by default, which requires GCC version 11 or later. However, it is known that some elisp applications don't work correctly when compiled. You can work around any such issues by disabling native compilation using the following steps... </div> </blockquote> <p> That's in <i>/usr/ports/editors/emacs-devel/pkg-message</i>. Is it something to worry about? Only, I suppose, if I get an “application” that doesn't work when being compiled. Apart from that, it started, worked correctly, and <i>respected my <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a> resources</i>. Can it be that the “Pure <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTK">GTK</a> disables X resources? Since it's intended for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland">Wayland</a>, that could be the case. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-21T00:27:44+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240721-003257</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240721-003257</link><category>technology</category><category>photography</category><category>opinion</category><title>More ports pain</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/stones-road/exterior.php">House photo</a> day today, made more difficult by wind and threatening rain. But I got the photos done. The fun started with the processing: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>/usr/local/share/hugin/data/plugins/top_five.py<br /> CAT:Control Points<br /> NAM:keep 5 CPs per image pair<br /> fails @api-max<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> What does that mean? <a href="http://hugin.sourceforge.net"><i>Hugin</i></a> complains about things all the time, but this one was fatal. My best bet is that it was a knotted <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)">python</a>. OK, reinstall <i>Hugin</i>. </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>===> Registering installation for hugin-2023.0.0_4<br />pkg-static: Unable to access file /home/src/FreeBSD/git/ports/graphics/hugin/work/stage/usr/local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/_hsi.so:No such file or directory<br />pkg-static: Unable to access file /home/src/FreeBSD/git/ports/graphics/hugin/work/stage/usr/local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/hpi.py:No such file or directory<br />pkg-static: Unable to access file /home/src/FreeBSD/git/ports/graphics/hugin/work/stage/usr/local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/hsi.py:No such file or directory<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> More ports agony! But I should be able to install the package: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== root@hydra (/dev/pts/32)</font> <font color="red">/usr/ports/graphics/hugin</font> <font color="blue">74</font> -> <b><tt>pkg install hugin</tt></b></code><br />The following 32 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):<br /><br />Installed packages to be REMOVED:<br /> ImageMagick7: 7.1.0.62_8<br /> imlib2: 1.12.2_3,2<br /> ja-tex-ptex: 3.6_4<br /> poppler: 23.05.0_2<br /> tex-dvipdfmx: 20230313<br /> ... many more tex<br /> xteddy: 2.2_3<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> What's that? Once again it wants to completely update my system. What a pain! And why the choice of what to remove? <i>/usr/ports/games/xteddy</i> is a game that I found from Thomas Adam of <a href="https://www.fvwm.org/"><i>fvwm</i></a> fame. It's not my thing, and I was just too lazy to remove it, but how can it possibly conflict with <i>Hugin</i>? </p> <p> So what do I do? Could it be that the package list is not up to date? Still more work to do for something that shouldn't have changed. But since I still have the issues with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enblend"><i>enblend</i></a>, it was simpler to do everything on <i>eureka</i>. Somehow this migration will never end. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-21T00:32:57+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240721-004407</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240721-004407</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>Here's a basket for all your eggs</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> I continue to get popups like this on random web sites: </p> <a id="Photo-10" name="Photo-10" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240720&imagesizes=11111111112&topics=c#Photo-10"> <img alt="This should be Eggs-baskets.png.png. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_10" title="Photo Eggs-baskets.png.png. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240720/small/Eggs-baskets.png.png" width="304" height="222" /></a> <p> What a good idea! It makes it so much easier to compromise multiple sites if somebody gets your Google password. </p> <p> The real issue is, of course, that creating and maintaining passwords is too complicated, especially if you're using a mobile phone. I keep a non-standard list of passwords <i>and associated email addresses</i>, of which I have several hundred. Crack one of those and you have access to one site only. Spam me on it and I can remove it. Begone foul spammer! </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-21T00:44:07+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240721-004813</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240721-004813</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>World network crash</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Email from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Courier_(Ballarat)">Ballarat Courier</a> today: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2024 00:47:00 -0600<br />Subject: Breaking: Major IT outage impacting banks, media, airlines and supermarkets </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Why should the Ballarat Courier report that? Nobody else did. </p> <p> Well, for about 1¼ hours. Then the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times">New York Times</a> came up with this: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>date: Fri, 19 Jul 2024 04:01:28 -0400<br />Subject: Breaking news: Global tech outage grounds flights and hits businesses </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Reading headers is frequently interesting. The Ballarat Courier seems to think that it's in the US Mountain time zone—maybe its server is. And the Times uses lower case for its <tt>Date</tt> header. </p> <p> How did the Ballarat Courier get there first? Part was because at the time it seemed to be limited to Australia—not the first time that our geographical position has caused us to find a global problem first. But somehow the Courier often seems to be the first to report something global. </p> <p> So, what was it? <i>Lots</i> of news about it, of course, but it took forever to find out what had happened. A botched update from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrowdStrike">CrowdStrike</a> caused a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSOD">BSOD</a> on Microsoft machines. And after rebooting it got loaded before anything could be done, so the machines went into a reboot loop. The <a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/how-to-fix-crowdstrike-bsods-in-three-minutes-fix-requires-manual-changes-but-they-are-simple">solution</a> required physical access to the machines in question. </p> <p> Could this happen to <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>? A good operating system can't be shot down by an application program. But yes! It seems that the module in question corresponds to a kernel module, so protection from application programs isn't enough. Only the FreeBSD solution is simpler: boot single user, remove the module, continue with boot. Does it still require physical access? </p> <p> The real issue seems to be inadequate testing and too-fast rollout. Kernel modules can cause crashes. Don't spread the same module around the world all at once. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-21T00:48:13+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic ao not selected <p> We've had <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Mona.php">Mona</a> for three months now. Things haven't developed quite as we expected. In particular, she still doesn't sleep with <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Bruno.php">Bruno</a>, though there was a time when I thought that they would get there. My guess is that they never will. </p> <p> On the other hand, she's getting closer and closer to <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> and myself. Her only issue is with the dogs, and though that's getting better—see <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?subtitle=Mona%20acclimatization&article=D-20240720-024114#D-20240720-024114">yesterday</a>—there's still a way to go. </p> End deselected topic ao (Mona at three months) --> <!-- topic ko not selected <p> I've received a bottle of „Schwarzwälder Kirschwasser“ (“Black Forest cherry water”) from Andrea <b>&</b> Daniel Schöpf in <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steinach_(Ortenaukreis)">Steinach</a>, apparently a very small producer. What does it taste like? This evening we had <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/recipes/fondue.php">fondue</a> for dinner, time for a comparison with the other two that I have: </p> <p> And how was it? I don't know. I seem to have lost my sense of taste. They all tasted pretty much the same. At least it's not like this <i>horrible</i> <a href="https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_29820/baitz-kirsch-500ml">Baitz</a> Kirsch. </p> End deselected topic ko (New Kirsch) --> <!-- topic a not selected <p> Seen this afternoon. </p> <p> The dogs were outside, of course. </p> End deselected topic a (Mona in bedroom) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240722-015501</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240722-015501</link><category>technology</category><title>More X configuration fun</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> What's next with my <a href="https://www.x.org/">X</a> configuration? Where should I start? A good one would be to interface with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipboard_(computing)">clipboard</a>. I've <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-may2024.php?subtitle=X%20configuration%20continued&article=D-20240531-023146#D-20240531-023146">tried this before</a>, but it didn't work as I expected. Time to look again. </p> <p> Another answer in the <a href="https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/225062/how-can-i-copy-text-from-xterm-awesome-debian-virtualbox?newreg=be86b9f1139248988c2f5f5980a0ebfb">page that described the <i>xterm</i> feature</a> recommends adding this to <i>.Xdefaults</i>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>xterm*VT100.Translations: #override \<br /> Ctrl Shift <Key>V: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD) \n\<br /> Ctrl Shift <Key>C: copy-selection(CLIPBOARD)<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> But that's strange. I don't see anything like that elsewhere, and I'd prefer to do it with the mouse. Other pages suggest that you can set mouse bindings there too, but they don't make it very clear what to do. How about dumping the current <i>xterm</i> bindings? A quick search pointed me at <i>editres</i>. Tried that, didn't get a response. A web search showed that <a href="https://github.com/XQuartz/XQuartz/discussions/183">I'm not alone</a>, though there weren't many hits, and one of them was <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-dec2023.php#D-20231202-011442">this one</a>, which I wrote 7 months ago. </p> <p> There I found a way to dump the current resource database entries with <i>xrdb -query</i>, but that only shows, well, the resource database, not the compiled-in defaults that I was looking for. Once again a dead end. About all I found was: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>*VT100*utf8: 1<br />*VT100.translations: #override <Key>Next: scroll-forw(1,page) \n\<br /> <Key>Prior: scroll-back(1,page)<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> I also found <a href="https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/312360/start-xterm-instance-with-different-configurations">this page</a>, which I haven't digested yet. It points to documentation of the resource entries in <i>X(7)</i>, and mentions that the name at the beginning of a resource specification can be either an <i>instance</i> or a <i>class</i>, though it's not (yet) clear how they differ. In the example, instances start with a lower case letter and classes with an upper case letter, but it's not clear that that's significant. </p> <p> While searching for answers, came across <a href="https://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html#h4-Functions-using-CSI-_-ordered-by-the-final-character-lparen-s-rparen:CSI-?-Pm-h:Ps-=-1-0-3-6.1F81">this page</a>, which purports to be a complete list of <i>xterm</i> control sequences. Can it help with this <b><i>horrible</i></b> page resizing during ports builds that I complained about in <i><mumble></i>? Well, I thought I did. When building ports, <i>something</i> changes the number of lines on the page: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>===== Fri 19 Jul 2024 15:05:41 AEST on hydra.lemis.com: Make config<br />[1;24r^M<br />===> Options unchanged<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> The result is that text at the bottom of the page stays there, and it seems that the build has hung, when in fact the real output is only ⅓ of the way from the top. Why do they do that? And how do I find it? The page proved to be singularly useless, since I can't find that control sequence there. But it brought back to me that there's One More Thing to look for. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-22T01:55:01+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240723-004029</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240723-004029</link><category>technology</category><category>language</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>Understanding the CrowdStrike failure</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?subtitle=World%20network%20crash&article=D-20240721-004813#D-20240721-004813">A couple of days ago</a> I engaged in guesswork about how the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrowdStrike">CrowdStrike</a> bug caused the global system crash. Today Ginger Wolnik posted a reference to this video on the Tandem Alumnni mailing list: </p> <iframe width="400" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wAzEJxOo1ts" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" > </iframe> <p> It pretty much supports my guesswork: a kernel module had an unrecoverable error. But the details are interesting. Microsoft has a bad reputation for security, but in this case it seems that it's not to blame. As I guessed, the CrowdStrike software includes kernel modules. But Microsoft tests all third-party kernel modules before giving them its seal of approval. </p> <p> So: did they slip up? Well, sort of. They left a loophole: modules can load data files that aren't certified. And these data files can contain pseudocode, and that's where the problem occurred. </p> <p> Why did CrowdStrike resort to this method? They need to react quickly to threats, and to be responsive they can't put every change through the certification process. So Microsoft is blameless. </p> <p> Well, almost. They have allowed this loophole to occur. But potentially the same problem could happen on just about any other platform. And clearly CrowdStrike is to blame by rolling out the change to everybody all at once. </p> <p> The video is interesting for another reason: it has automatically generated subtitles, and they come up with a number of amusing misinterpretations. The problem occurs in curdle mode because of inadequate air checking. And anti-stress (NT stress) didn't find them </p> <p> Don't like curdle? How about colel? </p> <p> And then, at 9:37 into the clip, I find entries for blackboxbsd, blackboxntfs and blackboxpnp. OK, NTFS I know. Black Box I know to: it was our ill-fated police interview project <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-aug2006.php?topics=c#11">18 years ago</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS">NTFS</a> I also know. And of course I know <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD">BSD</a>. But <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debuggercmds/-blackboxbsd">blackboxbsd</a> has a completely different meaning: “Boot Status Data”. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-23T00:40:29+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic a not selected <p> <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/Animals/Mona.php">Mona</a> came into my office today and promptly vomited: </p> <p> A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairball">hairball</a>. I've heard of them, but in all my time with cats this is the first that I have seen. At 2.5 cm it looked quite big, but it seems that they can get much bigger. </p> End deselected topic a (A hairball) --> <!-- topic go not selected <p> It's a month after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice">solstice</a>, time for the monthly <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/Albums/garden/Flowers-20240722.php">garden photos</a>. </p> <p> It's the middle of winter, and a month ago we had a relatively heavy frost. That was particularly evident on my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus_rosa-sinensis">Hibiscus rosa-sinensis</a> “Uncle Max”, which had fortunately been protected by some dead <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canna_(plant)">cannas</a>. </p> <p> But then somebody removed them, and now it looks like this: </p> <p> Will it survive? It has done so before. </p> <p> The frost also means that there are even fewer flowers than normal for this time of year. In particular, there are almost no roses: </p> <p> The spring flowers are on their way: </p> <div align="left"> </div> <p> The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strelitzia_nicolai">Strelitzia nicolai</a> is already showing a bud: </p> <p> But the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strelitzia_reginae">Strelitziae reginae</a> that were replanted are not looking any happier: </p> <p> The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_fern">tree fern</a> is also looking unhappier than for a while, perhaps because it's being throttled by some creeper: </p> <p> And despite all my exhortations, the weeds are winning against the gardener: </p> <div align="left"> </div> <p> Not for the first time, I wonder why I bother. </p> End deselected topic go (Garden flowers in mid-winter) --> <!-- topic p not selected <p> I've been keeping <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/photography/battery-charge.php">records</a> of my camera battery life for the best part of 15 years. Every time a battery needs recharging, I note the file number of the last image it took, and compare it with the one before. </p> <p> But that relies on the file numbers incrementing uniformly. What happens if the file number changes for some reason? That happened recently with my “new” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_OM-D_E-M1">Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark I</a>, which was set to reset the file number to 1 every time all files were erased. There's another option, which I should have set, to just keep counting. That way I can also tell how many photos the camera has taken. </p> <p> So how do I recover? First, find what the number should be, the last 4 digits of the shutter count. And I can find that in the <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/photography/Olympus-secret-menus.php">secret menus</a>: 9916 total. Then, using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mtools"><i>mtools</i></a>: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== root@hydra (/dev/pts/32)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">101</font> -> <b><tt>mcd c:dcim/100olymp</tt></b></code><br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@hydra (/dev/pts/32)</font> <font color="red">~</font> <font color="blue">101</font> -> <b><tt>mcopy c:97220057.ORF c:97229916.ORF</tt></b></code><br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> The <b>9</b> at the beginning of the file name is a setting I applied: this is our 9th Olympus camera that supports renaming files, so it helps me keep the images apart. </p> <p> In passing, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_OM-D_E-M1_Mark_II">Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II</a> now has taken 63310 photos with the shutter. </p> End deselected topic p (Resetting photo numbers) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240724-015747</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240724-015747</link><category>technology</category><category>language</category><category>opinion</category><title>Network failure out of sympathy?</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> What does “riven” mean? It's clearly the past participle of a strong verb, but which? Does it conjugate like “strive”? Off to check the found of all wisdom, the <a href="https://www.oed.com/">OED</a>. </p> <p> Are you human? Oh, <i>no</i>. They've added a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA">CAPTCHA</a> to insult their users. But after correctly answering the CAPTCHA, I got another one. And another one. The thing was stuck in a loop. Called up the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Library_of_Victoria">State Library of Victoria</a>, where Tom confirmed that OED had changed something, and that they (SLV) had been having trouble, as had all other libraries, and that it wouldn't be solved today. </p> <p> In the meantime I had tried logging in to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Library_of_Australia">National Library of Australia</a>. Timeout. I could access the site, but not log in. No hope of even getting as far as the OED. </p> <p> Back to the SLV and tried to access the <a href="https://www-macquariedictionary-com-au.ezproxy.slv.vic.gov.au/amember/signup/">Macquarie Dictionary</a>. No, login timeout, reported as “error code: 502”, clearly an end-user report. All this goes far beyond whatever OED has done. </p> <p> And then the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Meteorology">Bureau of Meteorology</a> got in on the act: </p> <a id="Photo-11" name="Photo-11" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240723&imagesizes=111111111112&topics=c#Photo-11"> <img alt="This should be BOM-fail-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_11" title="Photo BOM-fail-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240723/small/BOM-fail-detail.jpeg" width="203" height="334" /></a> <p> No “Internet”? Has my link gone down? No, clearly something at the BOM. It seems to have lasted all day, but it was gone by the evening. </p> <p> Clearly none of this can have anything to do with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_CrowdStrike_incident">CrowdStrike incident</a>. Sympathy, maybe? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-24T01:57:47+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240725-021946</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240725-021946</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>New display card</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> The display card that I ordered <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c&subtitle=VirtualBox:%20enough!&article=D-20240715-234840#D-20240715-234840">last week</a> is there. For once it's not the fault of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Post">Australia Post</a>: it arrived in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleons,_Victoria">Napoleons</a> (sorry, NAPOLEON) a week ago, just after <a href="http://www.lemis.com/yvonne/">Yvonne</a> did her shopping, and since it wasn't urgent, I waited until today. </p> <p> It's <i>enormous</i>! The package measured 31×43x6.5 cm, or 8.66 l! </p> <a id="Photo-12" name="Photo-12" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240724&imagesizes=1111111111112&topics=c#Photo-12"> <img alt="This should be Display-card-1.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_12" title="Photo Display-card-1.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240724/small/Display-card-1.jpeg" width="302" height="223" /></a> <p> But most of it was air: the real package measured 29.5×21×5.3 cm, only 3.28 l: </p> <a id="Photo-13" name="Photo-13" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240724&imagesizes=11111111111112&topics=c#Photo-13"> <img alt="This should be Display-card-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_13" title="Photo Display-card-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240724/small/Display-card-2.jpeg" width="302" height="223" /></a> <p> That's still ridiculous. The card itself measures 16×7×1.7 cm, or 0.19 l, only 2.2% of the volume of the package: </p> <a id="Photo-14" name="Photo-14" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240724&imagesizes=111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-14"> <img alt="This should be Display-card-4.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_14" title="Photo Display-card-4.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240724/small/Display-card-4.jpeg" width="302" height="223" /></a> <a id="Photo-15" name="Photo-15" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240724&imagesizes=1111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-15"> <img alt="This should be Display-card-6.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_15" title="Photo Display-card-6.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240724/small/Display-card-6.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <p> Why do people do this? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte_Technology">Gigabyte</a> really doesn't need to make such an enormous, wasteful package. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-25T02:19:46+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240725-023717</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240725-023717</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>A new monitor</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Finally the monitor that I ordered <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c&subtitle=A%20new%20monitor&article=D-20240715-001537#D-20240715-001537">last week</a>—a day before the display card—has arrived. I paid for it on Sunday, 14 July, but it wasn't sent until the afternoon of Monday, 22 July. And to make up for that, it arrived today, less than 2 days after being sent, and it was delivered to my door. Not bad for free postage. </p> <p> Now the real work starts: tidying up the monitor arrangement that once displayed <i>eureka</i>, which has been there for over 9 years: </p> <a id="Photo-16" name="Photo-16" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240724&imagesizes=11111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-16"> <img alt="This should be Office-2.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_16" title="Photo Office-2.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240724/small/Office-2.jpeg" width="302" height="223" /></a> <a id="Photo-17" name="Photo-17" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240724&imagesizes=111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-17"> <img alt="This should be Behind-monitors.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_17" title="Photo Behind-monitors.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240724/small/Behind-monitors.jpeg" width="223" height="301" /></a> <p> </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-25T02:37:17+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240725-043350</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240725-043350</link><category>technology</category><title>Can't save Emacs buffer</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Writing an email today, I tried to save the buffer. No go: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>select-safe-coding-system: Loading charset map: No such file or directory, MULE-uviscii </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Huh? What's that? It seems to be related to the fact that the message contained non-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII">ASCII</a> characters. A bit of a web search brought <a href="https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/71259/loading-charset-map-no-such-file-or-directory-jisx0208">this page</a> to light, which helped me work through to discover the directory <i>/usr/local/share/emacs/30.0.50/etc/charsets/</i>. Previously it contained <i>MULE-uviscii.map</i>, but now it doesn't. Clearly it relates to my recent rebuild of <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/"><i>Emacs</i></a>, but how? I found an older version, and it doesn't look like something that changes frequently, so putting it in place worked around the problem. But what other issues are lurking in the shadows? </p> <p> Ports Collection: well over a quarter of a century of pain. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-25T04:33:50+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240725-233904</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240725-233904</link><category>technology</category><title>Office restructure, next step</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Spent much of the day moving monitors around. It shouldn't have been difficult, but there were constraints: </p> <ul> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Remove junk accumulated round the old monitors. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> No computer to be powered down. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Remove mess from behind the monitors. </div> </li> <li class="fullwidth"> <div class="listitemwidth"> Find cables of appropriate length and type to connect to the monitors. </div> </li> </ul> <p> In the process, I found a lot of old documentation, including appointment cards dating back as far as June 2017. And I managed not to disconnect any cables. Sadly, the power connector to <i>eureka</i> was loose, so I did have to reboot it—exactly at a time where it had no monitor connected. But I got things done faster than expected, by midday. Here before and after: </p> <a id="Photo-18" name="Photo-18" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240724&imagesizes=1111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-18"> <img alt="This should be Office-2-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_18" title="Photo Office-2-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240724/small/Office-2-detail.jpeg" width="400" height="169" /></a> <a id="Photo-19" name="Photo-19" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240725&imagesizes=11111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-19"> <img alt="This should be Office-4-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_19" title="Photo Office-4-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240725/small/Office-4-detail.jpeg" width="396" height="170" /></a> <p> Now to get used to being in my normal position again, after 9 months of being displaced. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-25T23:39:04+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240726-014530</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240726-014530</link><category>technology</category><category>history</category><category>opinion</category><title>The end of the SPARCstations</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> What's constant about these photos? </p> <div align="left"> <a id="Photo-20" name="Photo-20" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=19961101&imagesizes=111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-20"> <img alt="This should be Closeup.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_20" title="Photo Closeup.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19961101/small/Closeup.jpeg" width="315" height="214" /></a> <a id="Photo-21" name="Photo-21" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=19980701&imagesizes=1111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-21"> <img alt="This should be Greg-in-office.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_21" title="Photo Greg-in-office.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19980701/small/Greg-in-office.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <a id="Photo-22" name="Photo-22" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=19991012&imagesizes=11111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-22"> <img alt="This should be Greg-in-office.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_22" title="Photo Greg-in-office.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19991012/small/Greg-in-office.jpeg" width="322" height="209" /></a> <a id="Photo-23" name="Photo-23" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20060707&imagesizes=111111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-23"> <img alt="This should be desktop-middle.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_23" title="Photo desktop-middle.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20060707/small/desktop-middle.jpeg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <a id="Photo-24" name="Photo-24" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20180425&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-24"> <img alt="This should be Greg-in-office-9.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_24" title="Photo Greg-in-office-9.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20180425/small/Greg-in-office-9.jpeg" width="388" height="174" /></a> </div> <p> Clearly not the image quality. Clearly not the aging person between keyboard and chair. Also not the location, nor the displays. Not even the keyboards, which I had to change before the last photo. But there is one constant: the monitors are mounted on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation">SPARCstation</a> pizzaboxes. I had long since stopped using them as computers, but they did very well at propping up the monitors, and they have been doing it for round 30 years. </p> <p> No more: </p> <a id="Photo-25" name="Photo-25" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240725&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-25"> <img alt="This should be Office-4-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_25" title="Photo Office-4-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240725/small/Office-4-detail.jpeg" width="396" height="170" /></a> <p> The new monitors have their own stands, no SPARCstation needed. And while changing over, it became clear how much space they had taken up. I now have more space for appointment cards and things under the monitors. And things look tider from behind too. Here before and after: </p> <a id="Photo-26" name="Photo-26" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240724&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-26"> <img alt="This should be Behind-monitors.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_26" title="Photo Behind-monitors.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240724/small/Behind-monitors.jpeg" width="223" height="301" /></a> <a id="Photo-27" name="Photo-27" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240725&imagesizes=1111111111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-27"> <img alt="This should be Behind-monitors.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_27" title="Photo Behind-monitors.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240725/small/Behind-monitors.jpeg" width="223" height="302" /></a> <p> Yes,still a lot of cables, but far fewer things for the cats to throw onto the floor. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-26T01:45:30+00:00</dc:date></item> <!-- topic h not selected <p> Into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastopol,_Victoria">Sebastopol</a> today for a haircut. Originally I had planned a whole lot of things, but somehow they either sorted themselves out, or became unimportant. So a long drive just for that. </p> End deselected topic h (A haircut) --> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240726-020544</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240726-020544</link><category>technology</category><category>opinion</category><title>X configuration, part 4723</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> The good news about connecting up my new monitor was that it worked out of the box. Of course, it was connected to a running output (<i>hydra:0.2</i>) configured for 1920x1080, but it picked that up and ran with it. </p> <p> That was the good news. I wasn't expecting the reconfiguration to be easy, and my expectations were met. Although I had an output on the rightmost monitor (to become <i>hydra:0.3</i>, but currently <i>hydra:0.0</i>), the server and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia">Nvidia</a> software didn't want to know about it, thus the blue screen on that monitor: </p> <a id="Photo-28" name="Photo-28" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20240725&imagesizes=11111111111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-28"> <img alt="This should be Office-4-detail.jpeg. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_28" title="Photo Office-4-detail.jpeg. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20240725/small/Office-4-detail.jpeg" width="396" height="170" /></a> <p> OK, run <i>nvidia-settings</i>. I've been there before, and it wasn't quite as painful. But once again I couldn't get it to position the screens correctly, and it also wouldn't save the configuration file where I wanted it to. Finally I saved it, but it was broken. Despite “finding” the new monitor (“LG Electronics LG ULTRAFINE”), it included the old name in the configuration file. It knew about the refresh rates, though. Here an excerpt from the <tt>Monitor</tt> sections: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Section "Monitor"<br /> Identifier "Monitor0"<br /> ModelName "Ancor Communications Inc VS248"<br /> HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0<br /> VertRefresh 50.0 - 76.0<br />EndSection<br /><br />Section "Monitor"<br /> Identifier "Monitor1"<br /> ModelName "LG Electronics LG ULTRAFINE"<br /> HorizSync 30.0 - 135.0<br /> VertRefresh 40.0 - 60.0<br />EndSection<br /><br />Section "Monitor"<br /> Identifier "Monitor2"<br /> ModelName "Ancor Communications Inc VS248"<br /> HorizSync 30.0 - 135.0<br /> VertRefresh 40.0 - 60.0<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> In addition, it wouldn't let me position the monitors correctly. More playing around, and after a while found the answer (maybe) in <a href="http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-dec2023.php?topics=c&subtitle=More%20fun%20with%20X&article=D-20231214-020412#D-20231214-020412">my December diary</a>: </p> <a id="Photo-29" name="Photo-29" href="diary-jul2024.php?dirdate=20231213&imagesizes=111111111111111111111111111112&topics=c#Photo-29"> <img alt="This should be nvidia-settings-2.png. Is it missing?" border="0" id="Photo_29" title="Photo nvidia-settings-2.png. Click to redisplay larger version of image." src="https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20231213/small/nvidia-settings-2.png" width="332" height="203" /></a> <p> Does that work? No, but for a different reason: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt><code><font color="blue">=== root@hydra (/dev/pts/32)</font> <font color="red">/usr/ports/editors/emacs-devel</font> <font color="blue">120</font> -> <b><tt>nvidia-settings</tt></b></code><br /><code><font color="blue">=== root@hydra (/dev/pts/32)</font> <font color="red">/usr/ports/editors/emacs-devel</font> <font color="blue">121</font> -> <b><tt>nvidia-settings</tt></b></code><br />nvidia-settings: Fatal IO error 22 (Invalid argument) on X server hydra.lemis.com:0.0.<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> The first invocation worked, but when I did it the second time, some time later, it had apparently changed something in the server, and I could no longer start the program. It also apparently reset the mouse bindings and the keyboard map. It wasn't the server itself, which has been running for well over a month: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND<br />root 2307 0.0 0.1 25948804 226184 v0 S 15Jun24 4710:04.67 /usr/local/libexec/Xorg :0 -config xorg-0.conf -logverbose 6 -listen tcp -auth /home/grog<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> So: frob the configuration file manually and check as server 4. </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-26T02:05:44+00:00</dc:date></item> <item><guid isPermaLink='true'>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php#D-20240726-023449</guid><link>http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-jul2024.php?topics=c#D-20240726-023449</link><category>technology</category><category>general</category><category>opinion</category><title>An offer you can't refuse</title> <description> <![CDATA[ <div align="justify"> <p> Seen on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Courier_(Ballarat)">Ballarat Courier</a> today: </p> <blockquote class="fullwidth"><div style="text-align:left"> <tt>Login or signup to continue reading $0/<br />$<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaN">NaN</a>/year<br />All articles from our website & app<br /> </tt></div></blockquote> <p> Who can refuse that? </p> </div> ]]> </description> <dc:creator>Greg Lehey</dc:creator> <dc:date>2024-07-26T02:34:49+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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