Everything Broke

Wednesday, 27 May 2026

Everything Broke

#SelfHosting #Failure

The M600 died. It was working fine until…it wasn’t.

I tried everything I or Claude could think of but just couldn’t recover the thing. No POST, no graphics, no nothing. Quite a bummer. That was my ‘always on’ docker host for a pihole, this website, the 1kb site, Tailscale gateway, SyncThing introducer and a family minecraft server. Probably some other things. Anyway, quite the bummer.

Fortunately, the SSD in it was just fine. I copied /home to another machine and am slowly migrating things over as necessary.

This website and 1kb are currently Cloudflare pages. It was just easier. And now there are zero ports open on my firewall. Previously 80 and 443 were open for the 1kb site. Maybe that was the problem.

Anyway, many learnings have occurred since the last post here! Maybe I’ll actually blog some more to talk about it. Mostly I wanted to regain the capability to build / publish this.

OpenWebRX Improvements

If you haven’t checked out my OpenWebRX+ in a while, please do! I added a new VHF/UHF antenna, a preamp, splitter, and third SDR. It hears much better now, though I hope to make some more improvements.

Rdio

I’ve also (usually) got an rdio server running, if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s currently receiving the Jacksonville AWIN site. The machine feeding it runs SDRTrunk and should be upgraded soon.

New Laptop

The StarLite kinda died. Really more degraded. I packed it in a backpack with way too many other things and it must have had too much pressure on the lid. Now there’s a dark spot in the bottom / middle of the screen. Totally usable but irritating. Bummer.

I did try chasing down a new screen from Star Labs. Their support was (as always) super cool, but I was going to have to replace both the screen and motherboard, which would become a bit expensive for an old, slow lappy.

I was fortunate to find a gently used ThinkPad X13 gen2 on eBay. It deserves its own ‘last review’ post. I’m very happy with this laptop and hope it hangs in as long as the x230 (which is currently hosting SDRTrunk) has.

SatDump

I’m enjoying learning SatDump. That’ll need its own post once I have something useful to say about it. I was actually trying the 2.0 alpha build just now and hoped to add a photo from the decode to this post but…it didn’t go well. More learnings needed.

That’s about it

There’s been other nerd stuff. Maybe I’ll post about those soon. Greywolf (and APRS in general), Meshtastic stuff, balloons. OH and I’m rebuilding a bicycle. And now to try the make / post pipeline and see if this still works!

73

Testing pblog - GP

Wednesday 4-19-23

I’m attempting to make this work. Dont’ really know what I’m doing

This line has four pound signs in front of it

A new variable was added to the main pblog.sh configuration file called INC_HEAD_FOOT. By default this is set to true and simply pulls in two HTML files:

• _header.html: all content within is placed directly after the opening body tag
• _footer.html: all content within is placed directly before the closing body tag

These includes are added to every outputted file from inside both the posts and pages directories on build.

They look like little waffles

Although it adds another dependency to the project, I believe utilizing rsync for the generated files is far better then nuking the directory from orbit each time. This also provides a cleaner experience for users syncing their _output directory with their web server of choice.

OH or they could be hashtags

My plan was to also tackle the issue of “auto rebuilds” when running pblog locally. This became more of a headache than I initially estimated - so it was dropped from this patch. My hope is to get something up-and-running in the near future, while avoiding the inclusion of yet another major dependency. Anyone more experienced than myself in the ways of “auto rebuilds” is free to open a patch if they so desire!

Thanks for your interest in these minor updates!

P.S. Don’t forget - if your website runs on pblog be sure to reach out and get it featured on the homepage!

Geoff’s Test Post

Mon, 20 Feb 2023

Geoff’s First Markdown Page

• a list
• of things
• yup
• sure is

OK I’m typing some more things in here to test.

MORE MARKDOWN

Ode to the HP 1350

Thurs, 10 Aug 2023

How does this thing still work?

Buy a Brother laser. That’s basically the meme printer at this point.
And that’s been the plan here for years.

Enter the HP 1350v Inkjet Printer

Once or twice a year, I actually need to convert pixels to print. Each time I think “Ugh…this will be the one time it doesn’t work and I’ll have to next day a laser” and bemoan the effort involved in digging this thing out of the closet and hunting for its power cord in the drawer.
We all know about the drawer. Full of wall warts saved from the discarded fate of their many matched electronic devices, yet anonymous enough to prevent identification and, thus, confident disposal.

Anyway

I purchased this printer in 2003? I believe it was my sophmore year of college, and the Epson printer which had come free with a laptop purchase died before the first ink cartridges ran dry.
A rushed trip to Wal-Mart (it was still hyphenated in these days) netted this 16.7 x 10.2 inch, 11.8 pound masterpiece.

FELLOW DORM DWELLERS I can now copy sheets of paper in my own room. In color. Observe my magnificence at 12 pages per minute!

Metrics

One cannot count the number of last minute ‘please please work’ print sessions where, yanking the paper from the feed tray, I’d sprint to class just in time to turn in whatever paper I’d procrastinated in producing. Nor could one count the number of smeary-appendage scans captured on its glass. I can count the number of dwellings (8) this printer has followed me to. I can also estimate 12 different computers which have printed to it, including everything from PowerPC Macs, Windows XP+, and *nixes.

It’s a rare piece of technology that functions for 20ish years without complaint.

So this past week I needed to print five pages. I’ve been so lazy lately that I usually ask a friend to print things for me. The desk space which used to be occupied by this printer has long ago been repurposed. The last time it came out, its pale-blue plastic was illuminated not by LEDs, but incandescent bulbs.

Update - a month later

I started this post over a month ago and here we are. This week, I needed to print five more pages! I plugged a fresh-built KDE Neon (Ubuntu) machine into the 1350, mentally prepared for it to catch fire or something.
Nope.
Neon detected the printer, the documents printed, and all was right in the world.

I had a bunch of other stuff I was going to write in here, but have honestly forgotten. So here’s me clicking publish (haha, in nano/zsh) just to actually produce something.
tldr; the 20 year old HP 1350v is an amazing technical achievement that HP should strive to replicate.

73

Self Hosting

Wed, 26 Apr 2023

Self Hosting

OK so this is a pretty dumb simple setup.

The ‘server’ is a Lenovo M600 I purchased from ShopGoodwill. It came with a 128gb SSD and a full license of Windows 10 Pro and 4GB of RAM, which I’ve upgraded to 8GB.

Before that, my always-on home machine was a RasPi 2. I’d become frustrated with the slowness afer (some number of) years with it and wanted more power.

GUESS WHAT
You can’t buy a RasPi 4 right now. Not for a reasonable amount of money. Bummer! So much power and RAM in a tiny little USB powered thing! I’d used that Pi for sooo many things. I went through the entire LearnPythonTheHardWay tutorial on that thing. It (and the previous Pi OG) was really my introduction to full-time linux machines.

It made for a not-so-great minecraft server and a convenient way to remote home and check if that port I’d messed with at work was visible from elsewhere. It’s really convenient to have a machine at home (or anywhere outside of the network you’re on) to test things. It was also an OpenVPN server and once even hosted a weird redirect script used temporarily by a previous employer. Honestly, I’d never even used the GPIO pins on the Pi2.

SO, inspired by CheapSkatesGuide and desiring to try purchasing something from ShopGoodwill, I set out with the goal to purchase something more powerful even than the Pi4 for less money than the scalpers were charging.

The M600 cost around $50 shipped from ShopGoodwill but didn’t come with a PSU. Another $20 for one of those, then $15ish for an 8GB SODIMM and I was into a machine with much more power than the (unobtanium) Pi4, and for $85ish total, storage included!

Mine has the mighty Pentium J3710, a WiFi card, an unpopulated expansion port with a convenient Serial header, which might help with a future Ham project. If you’re interested/bored, here’s Lenovo’s PSREF on this machine.

Interesting things about the M600

• Four cores at 1.6Ghz, burstable to 2.6.
  
• Unfortunately, 8gb is the max ram (chipset limited). Only one slot.
  
• Mine came with a 2.5” 128GB SanDisk SSD.
  
• There’s an open M.2 for storage expansion. There’s a plastic thing which I believe holds the M.2 down in place of a regular screw.
  
• There’s an extra DP3 header allowing for three monitors without daisy-chaining. Probably for digital signage insallations? Who would connect three monitors to this thing?
  
• The aforementioned COM header
  
• A jumper labeled “Stuff” in the bottom left of my image. As well as some other headers I don’t understand.
  
• No CPU fan?! Just the one case fan and an aluminum heat sink on the CPU.

I don’t actually know what the power draw is, but this is only a 6.5w CPU. It shipped with a 65 watt PSU which is clearly overkill. There are settings in the BIOS to configure thermal control ranging from basically off to full-tilt. Initially, it was completely silent, with the fan only spinning up occasionally under load. I prefer a constant hum over occasional, so currently it’s set to always spin the fan at a lower speed. I can only hear it with my ear next to the machine.

Speed

The M600 arrived with Win 10 Pro installed, so I messed with it a little. It was a clean install with zero bloatware and was surprisingly useable for surfing. Youtube played fine in HD, and ~6 tabs seemed OK. Certainly not snappy, but for a light workload it’d be fine. Unfortunately, I failed to benchmark the thing before loading it up. Too bad, because I don’t think the J3710 is represented otherwise on UserBenchmark.

For kicks, I loaded DOTA 2 and that didn’t go well. Don’t buy this for gaming, obviously.

Linux

Performance running Linux subjectively feels much better. Pages load faster, apps open immediately. DOTA is even borderline playable. Don’t do that.

I’m usually moshed into the thing but occasionally connect to a console session. As a relatively ignorant Linux user I found it to be quite good. It’s running Debian 11. I started with Gnome but quickly moved to https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/ which I’m much happier with.

Even during relatively heavy use I rarely use over 4GB of RAM.

Running on the machine is Tailscale, Cloudflare, a few Docker containers for experiments, this website and my 1kb site, RunZero, and the desktop environment. The desktop environment is handy for days when I’m jumping between several machines but want them all remoted to the same session for messaging / email and such.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a much better machine for my uses than another Pi would have been, particularly at the inflated prices of early 2022. It’s a wonderful always-on computer with plenty of power for experimentation without the consumption, noise, and heat of a full size machine. If you’re looking for something similar, most any of the ThinkCentre or ThinkStation Tiny machines would do. The ThinkCentre Nano is another good option, even smaller and lower consumption, but prices on those are still too high for a toy computer (according to my budget, anyway). The M600 is probably the least powerful of the Tiny series.

Most of them include significantly more powerful CPUs and more RAM expansion. These are usually installed in bulk by offices where they’re ‘recycled’ at the end of a 3-5 year lease term, and thus plentiful and cheap on the used market.

The end.

Ads in the OS

Wed, 31 May 2023

Why is my OS an ad platform?

After updating to 22H2, the formerly-skippable ‘set up your computer’ screen options became ‘continue’ or ‘remind me in 3 days’. Ugh.

• No, I don’t want to change my default browser.
  • why do we have to keep talking about this?
    
• No, I don’t want to sign up for 365.
  • we’ve already had this conversation.
    
• I also do not want to pin the link to the free 365 web apps to my anything
  • can I please just use my computer now?
    
• I do not want additional OneDrive storage.
  • you’re just embarassing yourself at this point.

In fairness..

I guess they consider it a free OS, though this is an OEM copy installed by the manufacturer.
My other machine at home runs 10 as an upgrade from a retail 8 purchase…not sure that counts as free either.

Tragically, I know that 11 is even worse. I’ve got three machines running that and it feels like a constant battle to keep ads and the stupid news feed hidden. Not disabled, since that’s impossible(? If you know better, please educate me). This is a huge bummer because, honestly, 10 and 11 are both pretty solid OSes. I think $MS is innovating in some areas that, if nothing changes, Apple will ape to great fanfare in a few years.

Were we talking about a free OS, I’d semi-understand needing to generate some revenue.
But even that is a little silly. GNU/Linux exists and is a fine OS, mostly free from ads (looking at you, Landscape Pro).

That’s about it

I haven’t posted in a bit and want to convince myself this blog isn’t another tiny project that I half-finished and will leave rotting forever.
If it’s 2024 and this is the newest post on here, I guess I gave up.

I (may) have too many computers

Not really admitting a problem here

Because it’s physically next to the 10 tabletcomputerthing, I’m also running Ventura on a 2010 MBP. Core2Duo FTW. I think the first gen 64bit intels are about the oldest thing a person can reasonably use in any practical capacity. Beneath this TMUX pane is another connected to a Thinkpad X60 with a Duo L2400. There’s not an enormous difference in raw computing power between the last CD and the first C2D, but the RAM limitations are difficult to live with AND 32bit software is becoming difficult to scare up.

Open Core is how you run new OSes on old Macs.

Check out that uptime though.

If I can ever find an X61 for cheap I’d like to see how daily-able it feels. I’ve got an x230 running Neon which feels perfectly fine, no compromises necessary.

Wow this went longer than expected.

Cool!

I use old computers

Wed, 10 May 2023

And You Can Too!

It’s almost like using Arch.

If you don’t bring it up unsolicited, are you doing it right?

I’ve read about the phenomenon of using older, off-lease hardware on several of my favorite nerd blogs. So here’s my take on it. Now is a great time to buy an old, used computer

New Computers are so freaking expensive.

Good ones, anyway. So people often buy the $500 machine from the big box store or Amazon. Those often have reasonable guts, but they’re built sooo poorly. Horrible screens, trampoline keyboards, brittle plastic cases and hinges that seem designed to fail after two years.

Gaming laptops are no better. I’ve purchased some fairly expensive gaming machines (ostensibly for people to edit video on) before and was horrified at the poor build quality and maintainability. Firmware support evaporates as soon as the machine is first marketed. Also, good luck finding parts second hand.

I’ve recently been tempted by the gaming laptop’s siren song. A recent-ish i7 with a 512SSD and 16GB of ram can be had around that magic $600 mark and, wow, that’s a lot of horsepower for the money. I needed something to play https://www.zwift.com because my then newest laptop was a potato, with HD4000 graphics and soon to be unsupported. Once upon a time a group of us would get together for DOTA/StarCraft or some such every evening, and it’d be nice to have something recent-ish to play that on in the event it happens again.

Laptops

Thinkpads

This is really the way to go. And I don’t just say that because of the nub. The T and X series are really solid machines. But! There are a few things to note:

• Don’t risk it with the E, L, or any other series. Or if you do, LMK how it goes. I haven’t messed with those but they appear to be lower quality.
• Try to buy from an eBay seller who has a bunch of them. They’re likely purchased off lease. If something is wrong, you’ll have a better chance to exchange it. I made a possible mistake on this once and will share about that someday.
• Make sure you’re getting the good screen. Since these are purchased in bulk by businesses, and since businesses are often trying to pinch pennies, and since these are often used docked most of the time, many of them have low-res and gasp sometimes even TN screens. In the later generations of T and X series this is less of an issue. Even the cheapest screen is plenty good, sometimes even preferable depending on your use case (I didn’t want 4K or touch).
• These almost always have a valid Windows, often Pro, license. Since the keys are embedded in the BIOS, all you have to do is install 10/11 and it’ll already be licensed. AND if it’s a Pro license, you don’t have to sign in with a Microsoft account to use the machine. Novel concept, I know.
• Parts are plentiful. Many of these are built to just a few common configurations. If you’ve done desktop support, you understand the percentage which get dropped / coffee’d turned into parts machine. These get sold too, so finding replacement / upgrade bits for when you coffee a machine is no biggie.
• Sometimes they’re still under warranty! Worried about having being completely responsible for your hardware breaking? Check the service tag from the eBay listing against Lenovo’s online warranty checker. There’s a good chance a recent machine will still be in warranty or within the renewal grace period.
• They’re generally easy to work on. Bottom covers with exposed, captive(!) screws, meant to be removed quickly for SSD and/or battery replacements (because that’s about all you can replace, even on a modern Thinkpad). Many businesses require drives to be destroyed before a laptop can be recycled, so it’s unlikely we’ll see glued-together T series any time soon.
• Another Bullet Point

There’s more reasons which don’t deserve a whole bullet point. The keebs really are better than anything else I’ve used. Lenovo pushes firmware updates for years…I suspect they have to for any machine which might possibly still be under warranty, and warranty periods for these things can be > 5 years.

Note that Lenovo does not do very well with firmware updates for the non-think machines. I’ve got a Lenovo Yoga Book, which deserves its own fanboy post, that hasn’t had a manufacturer update in years. Gross.

Dell / HP

I’ve used XPS, Spectre and Latitude machines before and they’re…fine. The XPS and Spectres are really nice, meant to ape the Apple cool factor so suits don’t feel so uncool in meetings with the marketing team. Occasionally one of those pops up with a genuinely unique design and is fun to use. I find that most of these are little better than the big-box drivel. Latitudes are generally servicable, and I’m sure HP’s equivelant are too, but I don’t think parts are as easy to find. You generally get a more recent machine for the same money on these, but I think there’s a good reason their resale value flatlines after 3 years.

Framework

I’ve not touched a https://frame.work/ yet, but those seem like a really good idea. Maybe someday when I can find one used on eBay for $300. Does anyone know how good the keyboard is on one of those?

Speed

Somewhere around the 2 series Intel CPUs, in my opinion, computers became ‘fast enough’. My desktop at work, until a few weeks ago, was an i7-2600. Yep, I’m employed in I.T. and was comfortably running a 10+ year old CPU as my daily. And ya know what? It was fine. The only time it felt sluggish was when running a couple of VMs alongside the rest of the normal workload. SO, to my mind, anything newer than a 2 series is probably OK for most people.

If you’re looking for a computer and willing to live with Win10 or Linux, now is truly the golden era of buying computers. So. Many. People. are dumping perfectly fine machines to meet the Win11 requirements. Good for us!

Desktops

Businesses throw out some really nice stuff. It’s not difficult to buy a 3-5 year old Precision or ThinkCentre i7 under $500, usually with plenty of RAM. These are machines that, while not pretty, are meant to be serviced by helpdesk staff. One odd thing with those: power supplies. They often use oddly sized PSUs that 1. won’t run a #060 GPU 2. are difficult to find a same-sized replacement for. If you’re a general nerd, this probably doesn’t matter. And let me assure you, Linux on an 8+ series CPU is going to fly.

Brands

Whatever, a desktop is a desktop. Just figure out what specifications you’re looking for and go with whatever has cheaper shipping. Just make sure it’s a Precision, Z, Think#, that’ll get firmware updates until every self-respecting accounting firm has updated. For general use, I don’t see why a desktop shouldn’t happily see its 10th+ birthday still churning away doing whatever a normal person wants it to do.

Caveats

If gaming is your hobby (RGB peripherals > 2, customized mouse, you know who you are), keep doing your thing. Just please let your non-gamer nerdy friend know when you’re upgrading and they’ll save you from the cesspool of Facebook Marketplace negotiations.

If you really really need to run Windows. I kindof get it. Honestly, I’ll have to deal with this at some point in the next year or two as 10 finally goes away. Unless I can find a worthy Lighroom competitor on Linux…

Conclusion

I’m writing all of this partially to self-validate decisions I’ve made and maybe to convince you to make similar decisions. It’s also partially because I think there’s something weird about them (computer industry, big companies, idk pick a handy conspiracy theory) implanting this need to perpetually spend more money, often unnecessarily, on shiny new things. Ultimately, someone has to buy the new things, otherwise who would put them up on eBay for me to eventually find? Still, it’s disheartening to see people throw away money on consumer junk.

OK I started this post days ago and need to get it off my back. I don’t think anyone is actually reading this, but I want to be better at processing ideas. This post would be better with pictures or something. Oh well.

GPT Pecan Pie

Wed, 22 Nov 2023

Write an essay about pecan pie without using the word “the”

GPT actually failed in its first attempt at this. After being properly scolded, here’s the output.

Pecan pie, a delectable dessert enjoyed across diverse cultures, embodies rich history and a blend of flavors that dance on palates. Originating in Southern United States, pecan pie emerged as culinary masterpiece, showcasing natural sweetness of pecans and harmonious marriage of ingredients.

Rooted in Native American cuisine, pecans were integral part of indigenous diets long before arrival of European settlers. Incorporation of pecans into pie recipes marked fusion of traditions, as European settlers brought with them art of pie-making. This amalgamation of cultural influences resulted in creation of pecan pie, symbol of culinary diversity.

Key player in symphony of flavors within pecan pie is corn syrup, sticky-sweet substance that binds pecans together in luscious filling. Brown sugar, with its molasses undertones, complements pecans, adding depth and complexity to dessert. Butter, another essential ingredient, contributes velvety richness, elevating overall indulgence of pie.

Pecan pie, with its golden-brown crust, serves as canvas for nutty mosaic that lies within. Pecans, arranged like mosaic, create visually appealing pattern that hints at delightful crunch awaiting those who partake in sweet treat. Artistry involved in crafting pecan pie reflects dedication to not only taste but also presentation.

Celebrated during holidays and family gatherings, pecan pie has become synonymous with warmth and togetherness. Act of sharing slice of pecan pie transcends mere consumption; it becomes shared experience that binds people together, creating lasting memories and traditions.

In conclusion, pecan pie stands as testament to power of culinary fusion and cultural exchange. This beloved dessert, with its origins in Native American and European traditions, has evolved into symbol of unity and indulgence. From nutty crunch of pecans to sweet embrace of brown sugar and corn syrup, every element plays crucial role in symphony of flavors that defines pecan pie. As families come together to savor this delightful creation, they not only enjoy delicious dessert but also partake in shared experience that transcends time and cultural boundaries.

Help - Small Antennas

Thurs, 28 Mar 2024

Help, I have an antenna problem

And I want to post something on my blog

OK, I’ve recently fallen down the QRP HF hole and it’s a fabulous place to be. Don’t rescue me from that.

Where I need help is the unending desire for a tiny, packable, non-wire antenna.
Something like the old Miracle Whip, the modern incarnation from Moonraker, or one of the Chinese versions from eBay.

Reading reviews on DXEngineering is a rollercoaster of emotions. Those little antennas could either be the greatest packable vertical radiators in history or scrap-bin fodder.

Further surfing makes me wonder about a small Magnetic Loop, also available from Moonraker and any number of eBay knock-offs.

I see the size of these and know they’re compromised. And I know QRP and compromised antennas aren’t a great combination.
But I have this desire for a packable POTA kit which doesn’t rely on tree branches. What is one to do?

I have a potential work trip to a state park soon where I’ll absolutely do a POTA activation. But what if that activation could be done from a picnic table instead of near a tree? What if a suspended antenna draws the ire of a park ranger? What if the laws of physics suddnly no longer apply to my 5w of output?

Has anyone actually used any of these antennas for POTA?

If you have, I’d love to hear about it. Are they a waste of money or actually useful?
Look, there’s a blog post. And about radio, no less!
NG5P QRT

The Small Web

Mon, 02 July 2023

Brief article about the state of the web

This guy is correct

But the small web is hard

Everyone has noticed this by now, right?

Over on YouTwitFace I just find someone I like/dislike and upvote/downvote/heart/retweet/like/subscrib/hitthatbellicon. Done! Opinion ingested. Emotion shared and look, I’ve interacted!

Hello, friend I haven’t spoken to in years. I see your family posted lovely photos from a vacation. likebutton

Greetings, nerd who has shared their wizard’s knowledge of the deep things. upvote

Yes I probably could search for someone on there and send them a message, but I probably won’t. I’ll probably just scroooolllll on down and tape that thumbs up to let people know I care.

I’m kindof conditioned to do that by now. Facebook came into my life in the .edu days. Before that, the minimal-effort social interaction was meals in the cafe, where the subject and participants were decided by selecting a table.

Ghosting people you didn’t like involved changing your lunch schedule or sitting wayyyy over there and just accepting the awkaward glances.

That level of social interaction used to just happen. I feel like now it requires intentional planning and effort. I only have a few friends who are willing to go to that effort. I miss the richness of those lunchtime conversations. Honestly, considering the usual subjects and rediculousness of those conversations, I can’t believe I’m saying that. Over time, we developed ‘our table’ which became ‘our region’ of the cafeteria, and one could float from vitriolic argument to gossip to nerdy conversations just by focusing on a different set of voices.

What about the web?

The web has had moments, and certainly still does in some places. You have to know where to look, but they’re out there.

Remember Xanga and Blogger? Angelfire? Maybe those weren’t good examples.

The reason I’m writing this is because of Reddit and Twitter. As of this writing you probably are not accessing Reddit using a non-official app.

Plenty of people are bemoaning the change, for very good reason. Plenty others proclaim that we have passed ‘peak reddit’ and it’s all downhill from here.

While reddit isn’t going anywhere, something has changed. I notice it on the front page, on the quality of the comments. It’s just not the same anymore. Still good, still a critical resource for many, but that wonderful feeling of “the weird web” is gone.

Suddenly, Reddit is all grown up. Its pants are ironed, it has expectations of respectability. Like the former-frat-boy selling insurance and having golf course meetings, we wonder ‘how long can this thing we assumed was always out of control stay on the rails’?

Reddit is an odd example - a behemoth, without which Google is less useful. But, on those lonely nights of isolation, someone in a niche-enough subreddit was still ready to connect with you in a way that wasn’t happening otherwise.

That was the magic of Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Xanga, and countless others before something tangibly changed.

Something something market forces…stock prices…interest rates…

What now?

I expect lots of people wonder that right now. Following the loss-of-innocence at Twitter and Reddit, where do we now find community online?

This screen in my pocket used to connect me to people using these icons, but I don’t like those icons anymore. Where is the new icon?!?

That feels like a dumb way to say it. But I remember the first lonely lunches after college, crunching sesame seeds and staring out the window at McDonalds, wondering what my friends were up to now.

This is where the hard work comes in

Something new will pop up. You’ll have a conversation where your cool in-the-know friend says ‘wait, you’re not on yet?’ and suddenly fall down a rabbit hole of possibilities.

It’s really cool to see personal blogrolls on HackerNews. It’s wonderful to see yet another surge of people on Mastodon, and out of nowhere Lemmy is now a thing. I wish one of those could be the answer. And maybe fore certain groups of people, it will be.

The problem with each of those is that they they take effort. Collecting a bunch of RSS feeds takes curation. I so badly wish the fediverse was the answer, and there’s already some wonderful community happening on there. But, if you’re using those, you know the barrier of explaining them to non-techy people is a few notches higher than ‘register, start clicking upvote’.

Maybe the future is threads (gah I hope not), or BlueSky…I kindof doubt it. Right now, I’m inclined against yet another startup / future corporate heartbreak. Does that sound crazy?

For now, I’m collecting new people blogs, cleaning up my RSS feeds, and adding new people on Mastodon. It feels similar to getting on Reddit the first time and discovering new subs. The new and unknown is exciting, but soon I’ll get tired and lazy. At that point, my thumb will find whatever app bring the easiest ‘fix’ of mind-numbing scrolling. You’ll do it too, and if critical mass happens somewhere, there’s our new app.

I guess the best thing possible would be that we all spend less time on all manner of social medias and actually talk to other humans. That’d be amazing.

Telegram / Discord do not count

I get it, there’s a bunchapeople on those, but without the user-generated content curation I can’t imagine those really filling the gap. Jump into a busy Discord after a few days away and it feels like you’re drowning.

Confession

I don’t feel like I have anything unique or important to add to the conversation on this. BUT, I like the funky, small web. I wish that was the future. And it can’t be unless people actually create content and put it out there.

Processing through feelings and sharing them online, long form, is hard work. I hope more people are willing to do it, because reading that stuff is the best part of the funky web. It’s that cool connection that we all crave, even if it’s from the crazy fringe person sharing conspiracy theories over the cafeteria table just to start a fight.

Be weird! Share it online where we can find it!

OK, that’s enough. I dunno if any of this makes sense, but I felt like typing it.

The Last Starlite MK II Review

Sat, 14 Oct 2023

I needed a new computer*

So I’ve been doing much more ham radio lately.

Almost all of it is FT8 POTA activations at lunch using the X230 and about 20lbs of radio gear including an 857D, Hamstick Dipole, SLAs and waytoomuchcable.

I had a work trip approaching and wanted to slim down that kit significantly. More posts will be written* about this process in the future.

I started with a smaller antenna, then a much smaller radio & power supply. The kit dropped from 20ish pounds to ‘fits in my jeans pockets’. Still the (fabulous) Thinkpad seemed a bit…girthy? Is that a word?

The YogaBook* is really 90% perfect for the job. It’s plenty fast for FT8, has a high-res screen, is tiny, and charges nicely on USB-C. The keyboard is the only real downer. It’s such a cool, futuristic-looking device, but the keeb/trackpad are just no good for dealing with a pileup.

The shopping list

1. Linux Friendly - I’ve been daily-driving KDE Neon on the x230 for a while now and it is amazing. No joke, it’s a no-excuses-needed distro you could sit your grandparents in front of and they’d be ok.
2. 1920x1080 screen - This is a minimum, and a point of frustration with the x230, which is limited to 1366x768. 20m FT8 gets busy and there just isn’t enough room for calls in the window below HD resolution.
3. USB-C charging - another place where the x230 shows its age. The new radio powers by USB-C and it’d be great to only carry one power supply system for everything. That’s the USB-C dongle-free dream, right?
4. Tiny, packable - really nothing could beat the YogaBook at this
5. Repairable - This laptop will be abused more than most, so the likelyhood of replacing bits is high. Also, I intended to find something used and there’s no telling what someone else already did to it.
6. Fanless - because, that’s why.
7. 8GB RAM - 4GB on the YogaBook is the worst thing they did to that computer. At least the option to upgrade would be nice.
8. Cheap, bordering on disposable - Sub $200 ideally.

The Hunt

I seem to be opposed to buying new computers, so this was going to come from ShopGoodwill.com or eBay in a pinch. If you’re not aware already, ShopGoodwill is cool and funky like eBay used to be. It’s amazing what all shows up in there, and usually for a pretty decent sales price. The obvious candidate to fulfill many/all of the items above would be a recent high-end Chromebook or a premium-ish ultrabook from 5ish years ago. Chromebooks with 1080 screens seem as rare as epathetic vice principals, for some reason.
A few Lenovo Yoga 720s popped up that were really close. Even with those it can be difficult to figure out which screen resolution it shipped with.
Then, clicking through the copius laptop listings, I stumbled upon a true diamond in the rough. The Star Labs Star Lite MK II.

The StarLite

I like it better with no space.

I just couldn’t believe this thing popped up on ShopGoodWill. I’d read about Star Labs and found this model interesting for some time, but they’re UK-based and don’t seem to jump the pond often. The StarLite is an 11”, HD Screened, 8GB, Pentium N, aluminum (alumininium, in its native King’s English) bodied ultra?book. Calling anything with a Pentium an ultrabook is a stretch.
My particular model is the MK II. The MK1 was a re-badged clevo from what I can find and a little dumpy-looking. The MKII - IV StarLites honestly look like BlackBook Airs.
Remember how cool the Black Macbook was back in the (Core 2 Duo) days? Awww yiss.

The Keeb

It’s got a backlit keyboard, which I didn’t expect to find. The lighting on mine is very uneven, but whoever had it before may have baptised it with coffee so who knows.
Also, the keyboard is really not bad! On a scale from Latitude 5480 to Thinkpad x60, I’d give it about a 6. The Aluminum chassis is really sturdy and there is zero flex even if you try pushing the G-key through the bottom of the case. It feels solid.
The chicklet keys do float a bit. It feels very pre-butterfly Mac-y in that way. Maybe less travel, and the membranes feel crisper than my last Macbook (a 2011 MBA 11”) did.
Any keeb crammed into an 11” case will be a compromise, and this one has some dang tiny arrow keys. Worse, it’s missing End and Home! Ohhh the agony!
We do get bonus Shift and Fn keys stuffed in among the arrow block. Maybe I’ll learn how to re-map those. I’m not an ambi-shifter, so no loss for me there.
My particular (used) model has zero key shine, but a slightly bent spacebar. This probably belonged to some programmer who took their fury over the lack of an end key out on the helpless space bar during a late-night C++ session. I imagine this person git-committing, facing dread at the unusable purchase and then cramming it in a desk drawer for a few years before donating it.

The Trackpad

One of the true highlights of the computer. This is the second best non-mac trackpad I’ve used. I typically buy Thinkpads for a number of reasons, primarily that the trackpoint nub is the pinnacle of computer/human interaction. I. Do. Not. understand why the rest of the world has to remove their cheeto-stained fingers from the home row, just to smear orange grease across little slabs of glass and make funny faces at the red nub.
Mac people, I kindof get it. Apple nailed the trackpad game a long time before anyone else did.
Enough digression - this is a really good trackpad for a non-mac. Better than every windows laptop I’ve tried except the latest generations of Thinkpad X’s. The only issue with the StarLite’s pad is the physical click…fulcrum? Mid Point? Dunno what to call it. It’s way too far south on the pad. If you want to physically click the thing, you’re pushing the very bottom edge. Nowhere else will do.
That said, whatever KDE Neon is using for trackpad drivers works a beaut on here. It’s fast and accurate with decent palm rejection. Scrolling is great. Any windows convert will be delighted with this.

The specs

This is a fanless, Pentium laptop with 8GB RAM and a proper full-sized M.2 SSD. No EMMC foolishness. The RAM is soldered, which is a bummer, but if you’re maxing 8GB on a Pentium N you need to rethink things.
Like most people, I once turned up my nose at Pentiums. I’ve done zero research on this, but I feel like the modern Pentium/Celeron N/J’s are just Atoms with a different sticker. And that’s OK!
If the M600 taught me anything it’s that 4 dumpy Pentium cores with enough RAM and fast storage is really usable under Linux. It’s never going to be a gaming machine, but that’s 100% not what it’s here for.
My model came with a 256GB SSD, which is delightfully overkill. I can’t fathom filling that up in my use case. But it’s pretty sweet to have.

The Screen

It’s a 1080p glass-covered IPS panel with excellent viewing angles and unmeasured but probably fine color reproduction. It’s not very bright, and the glass is very glare-y. I beleive the MK III and IV had a brighter matte screen. That’s a very tempting upgrade from the Star Labs website. I’m using this in daylight at parks, so the glare / brightness is pretty irritating.
Inside it’s fine unless you have something else sitting next to it and notice how dim it is. Perfectly useable, but you know how a 400 nit screen just pops.

The Battery

Mine came toasted. The pre-covid battery would last less than an hour. No good at all. Fortunately, replacements were available on the Star Labs website! Woohoo!
One thing to be aware of, shipping the $60 battery was $40ish. If I’d thought that through (and if I’d known how much I’d like the computer otherwise), I would have ordered the upgraded screen at the same time.
It is a pretty small battery, and I’m doing very little (TLP defaults) tweaking. Actual runtime for me is 4-6 hours in normal use. I recently took it to an all-day conference where I was taking notes. With the screen dimmed and nothing else running, I got 8+ hours of screen-on time and still had 15%ish in the tank.
Runtime is very brightness dependent. During a normal lunchtime POTA activation it’ll drop 25% in an hour running WSJT-X, a couple of browser tabs and the screen at 100% (which is absolutely necessary in the daylight).
However, during two late-shift activations with the screen at 5%, it went 4+ hours with over 50% remaining. It seems like battery life is much more dependant on screen brightness than workload. Maybe that’s always the case, I just haven’t had a laptop be that sensitive to the nits before.

Ports

One USB-C (used for charging), two USB-A, one headphone, one MicroSD and a mini? HDMI. It detected an Anker USB-C swiss-army dock just fine, so I’ve used that for external display duties.
OK, real talk. Apple, HP, Lenovo, Dell…anyone else sticking us with USB-C only machines claiming it’s for thinness. Your arguement is invalid. If the brits who designed this can get everything but ethernet into a laptop this tiny, you just have no excuse.

Parts

Star Labs sells everything on their website to build one of these from bits, if you wanted. The battery for mine was out of stock for a couple of weeks, but they did get one to me. And their $40 shipping was shockingly fast from across the Atlantic.
With a Thinkpad you can always find parts on eBay, and that’s absolutely not the case here. BUT I feel like the odds of getting replacements for the StarLite are probably better than for some random Chromebook. At the very least, it’s much easier to discern waht the correct part for this model is since Star Labs only has a few models.

OK This is way too long

This is about the perfect laptop for my particular use case. The only other minor complaints are the bottom case doesn’t fit exactly right and Star Labs products are just vanishingly rare in the US.
They’re really like a different take on the Framework model. As I understand, the mainboard / any other parts from the MK IV would work just fine in my MK II. That’s such a refreshing change from every other non-Framework.
Conceptually, Star Labs is right there with Framework. Maybe a bit less polished - the inside of this thing doesn’t look as clean as Framework machines - but they’re also at a bit lower price point.
One minor dissappointment related to the above: Star Labs released a new StarLite MK V as a tablet / convertible thing. The concept / idea is super cool and I want to try it. BUT, I’m sad that the 11” Linux-native market is once again starved of a decent machine. Hopefully they’ll address that, and hopefully their cool designs make it overseas more in the future. These really are killer machines! BIOS / Firmware updates are a thing too. Instructions are available on the Star Labs support page, but they are a bit sparse. I think I’m updated, but I’ve tried moving from AMI to Corebook and haven’t figured it out yet. That’s supposed to be easier on the newer models.
Also I realize this was way too long of a post, but I’ve struggled to find info on the MK II online, so it seemed like the world needed some more info. OK, I’m posting this tonight no matter what. Josh, this is for you.

• Need is a very strong word here
• A friend recently bugged me about not updaing this blog. While nobody else is reading/surprised by this, it was adequate motivation to start typing. When the next time that happens is, who knows.
• Deserves its own post. Maybe will happen someday

Home Network gear

Fri, 28 Apr 2023

Home Network Gear

You will probably laugh at this

Prelude

This post is something of a confession. Not looking for absolution, just telling a story.

The newest bit of home networking gear I owned (prior to this week) was built in 2011. It was an Apple Airport Extreme, 5th gen. That’s right, 802.11n.

Purchased near the sunset of my 2nd Apple phase, this stalwart device (and another just like it, as a second AP) spread internet-bearing non-ionizing radiation throughout our home for a decade. Honestly, even in a mostly Windows household, it was a great Router/AP. Every previous home network of mine was composed of scrounged Linksys WRT devices running DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT or whatever else sounded fun at the time.

If you’ve been there, you know the dance. Power it on, tickle the magic button with a ballpoint pen in juuust the right manner, unplug it, say an encantation, plug it back in and voila - magic internet powers.

Those setups were never particularly reliable, but they did allow for experimentation and learning. VPNs and port forwarding and DDNS. Spying on the unsuspecting, flipping images upside down…all manner of WiFi hijinks. All of which was obviously unrelated to the reliability issues.

The Airport

The Airport was exactly what a newly married IT professional needed at home: WiFi which didn’t break. Ever. Until this week. Seriously, we went years without ever powercycling the Airport. Cisco Catalyst 3650-type uptime.

The Airport was one place where Apple didn’t treat Windows users as second-class in any way. On the contrary, Windows users of the Airport Utility (software required for managing the thing) had more configuration options than Mac users. Once I received a 1st gen(!) Airport Express to play with and was unable to configure it using the Mac version of the software. Not so on the Windows side! Yes, our network included two identical Airport Extreme 5th gens and a 1st gen Airport Express, used as a printer host. Couldn’t even do that with updated Mac software. The 5th Gen Airport was also the last to support Syslogging to an external server. Cool!

One unique thing about the Airport which endeared it to me, it didn’t run any flavor of *nix. A common issue with consumer (or really all) network gear is going on for years with unpatched OSes, exposing low-hanging-fruit vulnerabilites to the port-scanning masses of h4x0r$. But not the Airport. It ran Vxworks. Just like the Mars rover! Woohoo!

The Crisis

Or it did. Until this week, when the trustworthy green LED became an ever-blinking yellow. At which point Bluey stopped streaming. Facebook would not load. From the Chromecasts, silence. My phone pinged incessantly with downtime notifications and my lovely wife gazed unapprovingly as I, the employed I.T. professional, tried and failed to revive the Airport using the age-old method of unplugging, then plugging it back it.

There, in the basement, surrounded by a tangle of where-does-this-go ethernet cables and broken promises of ‘one more Bluey before bed’, two roads diverged in a wood. The nerd side of me called out: buy a MikroTik. Run some cables. You’ve wanted to for yearsssss. What is good hardware for OpenWRT these days? OR it could be a used ASA. The options are endless! Think of all the configuration…

But the answer was clear. This is not the network for experimentation. Those days are gone, distant memories like my 20s and boot-cut jeans. And woe to thee if thy Disney+ stream is interrupted.

I ordered a set of TP-Link S4 mesh access point/routers. Yep. That’s where I’m at.

The Mesh

I used to rail against those things. No freaking way would an AP dangle from electricity alone in my house.

And to be fair, old ‘wifi extenders’ in relatives homes were the bane of many a holiday visit for years. But this is 2023. Tom Brady just retired. This is a new era.

So the set arrived next day and, as hoped, the setup was fairly simple. It’s all app based (blegh whyyyy) but all the important bits are there. You’re viewing this site through it (until I get cloudflare tunnels figured out). DHCP reservations, port forwarding…the stuff I need to be happy is mostly present and useable, though again only through the app. There is a local webpage to view the configuration, but no changes can be made there.

Hopefully TP-Link continues supporting this model in their app for a long time. One of my great fears with these is that in a few years we’ll be forced to purchase new ones due to obsolescence in their app. I may try to pull an APK down of the current app, just in case.

The Setup

Setting these things up was as easy as I’d hoped consumer gear would be in 2023. Really, if you’re OK with the defaults it’s very nearly plug-and-play. I wanted a particular number in the third octet and particular DNS settings (currently using CloudFlare zero trust routing). It’s mildly irritating that the thing sets up with a bunch of defaults at first and then you have to change settings such as that later.

Upside If you want plug and play decent WiFi, this will do it. Downside, if you want to tweak a little, you have to go through all of the config steps, then go undo the defaults and set things the way you want.

BUT after all of that, I’ve got my subnet, reserved IP addresses, a couple of port forwards, basic QOS and some other odds-and-ends all set up. AND it went quickly. The biggest irritation at this point was having to do it all on a phone app, but the app is snappy and mostly gets out of the way.

Bonus Points

TP-Link provides access to a DynamicDNS service. I’ve paid for one elsewhere for years, but having it included for libre is pretty handy. Setup was as simple as everything else in the app. Just tap the button, pick a subdomain and you’re done. This wound up being handy becase, in the process of many modem reboots troubleshooting the Airport we received our first new IP from our ISP in years. No biggie, I’ve got DDNS in a cron job to take care of that. BUT, my DDNS provider was having an issue with updates at that moment. So I did have a brief panic, during which is was nice to have TP link’s DDNS service as a backup. And it was a good opportunity to check in with the other DDNS provider and see how they’re doing :-)

Wrap up

OK this is more words and taking much longer than I’d intended so I’m just going to publish. I have no idea why anyone would read this far. I guess a useful takeaway is, if you’re a nerd and want to play with your home network a little bit BUT must have uninterrupted Bluey streams AND don’t want to pay a high price or odd subscription for your home wifi to justwork, the TP-Link Deco system is a good solution. I think we’ll even add one more unit in the garage for a less-frustrating youtube experience when working on vehicles.

OK I’m really going to post this, becase it’s not a blog with only one legit post.

UPDATE

Today I learned that if you use TP-Link’s mysterious ‘Optimize’ button, the main unit will be OK, but the satellites may disconnect and not automatically reconnect. I think it swapped the bands used for backhaul and the remote units missed the memo. Anyway, I did that remotely and Bluey stopped streaming. Ugh.

Wizz Whip

Fri, 5 Jul 2024

Whizz Whip Experiences

As per my last email…

My wife lovingly allowe me to pick out a gift recently, which wound up being a Whizz Whip.
I’d contemplated getting one of those in this post.

I had low expectations going into this, but given the dearth of applicable reviews I wanted to share my own. Everyone who has tried one of these seems to do one of three things: 1. Try QRP SSB. On a compromised whip antenna. Indoors.
* These people, obviously, hate the antenna (though never seem to sell them used on eBay). 2. Operate CW from some exotic location. * These people think it’s fantastic 3. Live in the United Kingom. * I don’t really understand this one, but it might explain production shifting from the previous US-based Miracle brand to the current Whizz version. * As best I can tell, they’re identical other than the Whizz having a slightly beefier tuning knob.

By way of background

My goal is a portable, vertical antenna which can be easily packed witht the 817. I always carry an EFHW and / or a dipole, but sometimes there’s just not a convenient branch to toss it over.
Yes, almost any other vertical (or wire antenna) would out perform this thing. That’s not the point. The point is you can forget this is in the bag with an 817 until you’re SOTA or in a park where rope in trees is frowned upon.

Do not use this for SSB

Seriously.

I do enjoy voice, but most of my POTA contacts are FT4/FT8. I know it’s not as efficient as CW, but hopefully ‘any anntenna will do’ when you’re calling CQ POTA, as the stations with power and beams are looking for you.

First Light

The whip conveniently arrived in time for a family weekend away. I had the perfect opportunity to test it after everyone went to sleep.
Results that night were meh. CQ on 20 went nowhere, thought I was seeing spots on pskreporter. They were all in the low -teens. That’s fine for my purposes, but not great for hunting or general operating.
I did get a contact on 17 and another on 15 when I answered a CQ.
Of note: I was able to get the SWR low enough to not worry about the 817’s finals, but noticed on 20 in particualr that moving my hands around the radio impacted SWR quite a lot. That made tuning a chore.

Side Notes

• The tuning knob is very stiff and clicky. Somehow I expected it to be smooth like the variable capacitors on a ZM-2, but it’s exactly not that.
  • You’re not turning the knob one-handed. You’ve got to support the matching unit with one hand while tuning.
• The matching unit’s housing partially blocks the CAT port on the 817.
  • Why would you build an antenna for the 817 and not allow access to all of the ports on that radio?
  • If you plug in the CAT cable first and attach the whip tilted a bit you can use both, but it puts a bit of pressure on the CAT cable.
    • That should be fine. Band hopping with this isn’t a fast process anyway.

POTA Activation

This is why I wanted this antenna.
I activated using this antenna at US-9161 on 20m FT4/8. Sitting across the table was Luke, AE5AU, who was using a QDX with an EFHW. This was a great setup not only to see if the antenna would work for its intended purpose, but for hastily comparing signal reports between the whip and the EFHW.
I did add a 17’ counterpoise to the ground lug of the 817 for this activation. Doing so made for even lower SWR and zero changes in SWR as I moved around the radio.
Luke did, as expected, make contacts faster than I did. The stations who worked both of us invariably gave him better signal reports and he absolutely was decoding more stations on the band. None of that was unexpected, but I was pleaed to bag an acivation with no real trouble.
We wound up with a similar (maybe the same?) number of contacts because I was able to keep transmitting while he was winding up his EFHW.
I’ve done POTA QRP with ham sticks on top of the truck a few times. This felt pretty similar to that.

TL;DR

No, this antenna is not a Miracle in any way. Physics matter, and there’s just no way a 55” whip can compete with a wire.
BUT, if you can’t put up a wire for whatever reason and are doing digital modes, this will work just fine.

I think it’s actually rated for 20ish watts, so really this is a great companion for an 857 or 891 too.
The price is a bit steep, particularly knowing that the older Miracle version used to go for a good bit less.
I still want to try one of the $50 no-name ebay versions, just to see if there’s a difference. I don’t think there’d be much between them, but it’s also frustrating to spend money on junk.

So there’s my take on the Whizz Whip.