I am loving the upgraded feature sets of Standard Notes. Moving some of the extensions into the core experience certainly has helped make the experience smoother and just generally better. I am using it more and more often has daily note taker especially at work where there are privacy concerns with using third party note taking applications. Still a long term subscriber and I think I will continue to be. Stay curious, B ...

Reacher has dropped on Amazon Prime (in Australia at least). I am enjoying the show, some brutal fight scenes definitely meets its R18+ rating. Acting is….. all right. Alan Ritchinson has a particular style and I think he matches well with the Jack Reacher character. Certainly has the physique for it, he is a specimen. Only a couple of eps in but am enjoying it. Which for me is the point. The show can be good or bad but if I’m Enjoying it than it’s worth the investment. Till next time, ...

So saw Moonfall... and I wouldn't call it a good film in any stretch of the imagination. The topbilled cast definitely feel like they are phoning it in, and really that's the main thing that lets me down. For me if you have a good concept (or even a trashy one - think 5th Element) and writing that can sell it you can muddle through. Unfortunately, while for me the concept works really well, it is a crazy idea and at times the writing is a bit stodgy. We saw it in Hoyts Lux and for free ...

Booked in to watch Moonfall on Sunday. Should be good, trailer certainly looks crazy. —- Started a tracker for my stretching, hopefully I’ll be able to keep on track. —- Just watched Bastille Day, definitely an enjoyable if not an actual good movie. Idris Elba and Richard madden definitely aren’t giving it their all but seem to be having fun of some kind. Till next time, B ...

Hi, I’m back after nearly a year off. I was reading #163 Musings about how my shoulder came good. Unfortunately, 2 weeks after that I broke my thumb and my season was over. —- What’s taken my interest in movies and tv shows lately? Well that would In from the Cold on Netflix. Not the greatest acting but the premise is very sci-fi and pretty cool. The main story is around an ex-russian spy who can shapeshift into any person as long as she's touched them to read their DNA. As I said cool. E...

Shoulder is nearly back to normal, thankfully. Won't have an issue playing on sunday which is a massive bonus. Was really dreading saying I couldn't play. Watched a movie with Nicholas Cage called Next. It is quite a terrible movie, though the premise is something that really sings. A Phillip K Dick adaptation and man it is something. Acting is meh, narratively it's all over the place but again that hook just is something. The main protaganist is a man who can see 2 minutes into the fu...

Created my first electron app. It is quite a simple process though of course it is a very simple one. Currently trying to hit an API endpoint, and display that data on the page. Can authenticate, print it to console, display it in an ugly stringified json format but am having trouble actually making it look good. Obviously, doing something wrong somewhere in the point. I think I just need to translate that JSON data into something that is displayed normally. Eh, i'll work it out. P...

Have to say Disney is killing it with their tv shows on Disney+. The Mandalorian was awesome, Wandavision, and now Winter Soldier and Falcon. All just top notch shows. All very differnet in terms of style and aesthetics but very enjoyable in their own ways. Shoulder still sore. Booked in for the physio to see what is going on. Fingers crossed nothing serious and it won't impact the start of my season. Would be really disappointing if yes. Till next time, B ...

Debating whether I should stick with the daily listed writing. Eh we shall, this is going to be a short one just to keep it ticking over and I shall see in the next couple of days. Till next time, B ...

Made some pulled pork for my partner's family party. Forgot how easy and foolproof sous vide pork really is. So so tasty as well. Looking forward to pulled pork rolls with tangy slaw on Martins potato rolls. Going to be delicious. Think I slept wrong on my shoulder because my AC joint is causing me heaps of grief. Hurting all down my collarbone. Wonder if it is just inflammation or if I actually injured myself. I'll give it till tuesday to see how it is going before I go to the physio. ...

Saw Nobody at the movies today and it was good. Funny in parts, action was quite well shot and choreograped. Bob Odenkirk carries the film. Really does a fantastic job keeping everything ticking along. You can definitely tell that people involved in John Wick were involved in this film. The action sequences have a very similar vibe, good but similar. I would definitely say that if you like the John Wick franchise then you should give this a watch. Got a basic flashcard version up and run...

Started my final GA project. Stayed with my Star Wars generator color set though I'm not sold on the idea. Maybe I should do some research on best colours for learning. The framework is up and it should look good once I've got it all set up. I'll just need to explore the best flashcard JS code to use. There seems to be so many different ways to do it. Watched a movie with Nic Cage called Willy's wonderland. It's a crazy film really. Recommended watch though if you like horror, comedies....

Leg doesn't seem to have gotten worse, still a bit achey though. All I can do at this stage is continue to watch it. GA went well, everyone seemed to struggle. Definitely helps that I have played around with @media queries, breakpoints and responsive design before. Definitely feeling a bit off. Think I am pre-sick. We shall see. Till next time, B ...

Dam, think my leg wound is infected. Got a couple of white spots which generally isn't a good thing. I'll keep an eye out on it, to see out it progresses. Fingers crossed it takes care of itself without medical intervention. Had quite a lazy day. Not feeling the greatest. Think I am pre-sick. Till next time, B ...

Made the unfortunate mistake of leaving on my jelonet dressing overnight. Essentially bonded with my open wound. Spent essentially two and bit hours just trying to remove it with the least amount of maceration possible. Was pretty much successful. My leg is hurting now and I do believe it is infected. Very very red. Though that could be from me pulling and pushing at for over two hours. We shall see how it goes over the next couple of days. If it gets worse might need to go to the doctor....

Going to be a short one today. Read a book yesterday called The Subjuguate by Amanda Bridgeman. Have to say it was a very fun read. Not perfect but still a boat load of fun. If you like high-concept sci-fi plus cop-drama I'd suggest you give it a go. Till next time, B ...

Have a pain on top of my hand just in front of the wrist. Not sure what i've done but it feels maybe muscular or tendon-ish. Weird. Tomorrow playing in goal will be a test. I have taken a voltaren to see if that helps and if it is muscular etc it should. I do thoroughly love solving isuses with css/html/js. Definitely enjoyable. Fingers crossed I can translate that into paid work. Till next time, B ...

So my idea for a GA project is a go. Learning German flashcard style. Will use both js, as well as of course HTML and CSS. Should be an interesting challange. I think considering that I will need to do a code-walkthrough as well as a general explainer will require the most work. I know I can create a website considering I've already built a similar one Star Wars Planets. Eh explaining it is the single best way of learning in my experience. I am worried about my partner though, wor...

So I think I found the reason why Pop-OS doesn't feel as sharp as windows 10. I think it has something to do with rounded corners. All the apps have rounded corners and I think that softens the overall look. I think I have solved by editing the theme css but not sure how persistent or or successful it was. Still seems fairly rounded. I shall have to explore that aspect of customising the theme. Till next time, B ...

GA class today was good. Learnt something new, CSS grids. Pretty cool and it really helps with setting up a page to exact standards. Will be interesting to use it across my passion projects. I run apache guacamole on my home network and it makes remoting into computers on the network an absolute breeze. I use it to remote into my windows vm running on my unraid server. Bonus is that I have installed it to an electron wrapper so that it seamlessly fits into my desktop flow. Here is a ph...

Finally got my Windows 10 VM back up and running and by that I mean I just finally got around to actually installing it. I think I do miss the slickness of Windows. I am really torn about what I should use as my daily driver. I do love linux and Pop-OS especially. The privacy, the ability to tinker. Windows does look really nice though. Hmmmm. Things to ponder. Their Windows 10 Todoist app is finally using the same design aesthetic as the rest of their platform. Looks good. Till next time,...

Just watched a movie called Skylin3s. It is the third movie in a trilogy about an alien invasion on earth. It's b-grade sci-fi but they've done a commendable job around cg and general visual effects. The acting is a bit rough but just detract for the most part though it is more cringeworthy in some parts than others. If you love sci-fi, then I'd say give it a go, especially if you have a Netflix account. Leaks seem to have subsided a little bit though there was less rain today than o...

Just watched a movie called 2067 and I have to say I quite liked it. It's an Australian film and high-concept sci-fi set in a post-apocalyptic future (2067 if you had to guess haha). The visuals and soundtrack are quite good, if the acting is a bit stodgy at times. For me the story, and visuals are more important than specific acting issues. If you like high-concept sci-fi and have a netflix sub, I'd give it a watch. Certainly, in Sydney you shouldn't be doing anything else over the next f...

Paradise PD on Netflix is a crazy show. I am unsure whether I like it. It definitely rides that line between ridiculous for a reason and ridiculous just to be controversial. It's season 3 so I've watched a few and this season seems to stretch the point further. So the leaking in the bedroom is worse but seems to be manageable at this stage. The elevator has completely borked itself. Seemed to be a massive water leak due to the torrential rain. Was pooling in the lift well. Seriously dang...

I have been playing around with AWS. It is not user-friendly, definitely not designed for the average person. Even just setting up a billing notification takes changing settings on 3 different sections of the dashboard. I have created a static website built from a github repo. It's up and running but still having issues with a custom domain. I'll have to do some exploring to see what the exact problem is. The GA course was good. Definitely getting to find good content. Till next time,...

Had a good day, relaxing and a much needed return to my normal sleeping routine. Feel much better for it. Had some good ideas about my final project for GA with my brother. Came out of this guys youtube video around learning a new language Youtube. Should be able to create a flash card style system to help my brother and I with out Germnan. Should be a good challenge and has potential. Till next time, B ...

Today's GA class was good. Some handy tips, and industry best practice. Looking forward to some of the more advanced stuff. Tried some Carolina Reaper BBQ sauce and it was hot. Like seriously hot. It definitely comes in waves. It has such a fruity initial taste that makes way for searingly hot and numbing sensations. Unsure whether it is enjoyable, but I think it was. Could get used to it for sure. Just a short one today. Till next time, B ...

So I use quite a few productivity, note-taking apps. Todoist Notion Evernote Standard Notes Primarily, I use Todoist as my task manager. It has a very large feature set, essentially on every known platform and looks very slick while doing it. It does cost us$50/year but for me, well worth the outlay. Notion, is my task admin center. I use it to organise my life. The database capabilities are just awesome. It does have a few annoyances that detract from the overall experience. Such as bett...

Started some good "spring" cleaning. Already feels much more organised, even with the small change of moving the display shelves to hide the underside of the desks. Does help that I've removed a few boxes of shit from the floor as well. Still debating about what the best configuration is but so far looks (and more importantly feels right). My partner and I have been watching Bloodlands and so far we are loving it. Some massive twists and turns. I think it's technically a mini-series so...

Really short one today. Really sore from football yesterday, my entire body hurts. Definitely used some muscles I haven't used in a while. Felt good though. Didn't do any coding on the weekend but it was a relaxing one. Till next time, B ...

Man I'm sore after that trial game. Was absolutely stinking hot, on a synthetic pitch which just adds to the heat. Playing against a much better team in an AL4s while we are an AL9s team. We ended up with zero subs while they had 4. While we were at full strength only copped one silly goal. We ended up losing 3 nil. 2 of those goals were just down to pure fatigue. I had a very good game. Some excellent saves. Even the referee congratulated me. Well worth the soreness. Till next time, ...

Was a good lesson today with GA, didn't learn heaps but some really good small tips. Some major microphone issues, looks to be related to a pop-os update. Following this guide seemed to fix it. Lets hope that it doesn't happen during class again. I will just change to my phone and be done with it next time. This is the guide from system76. Reset PulseAudio If the system is not playing audio, first try restarting the PulseAudio daemon: systemctl --user restart pulseaudio After restarting th...

Not feeling quite right today. I think I am getting to a stage I like to term pre-sick. Pre-sick for me is that stage right before you get full blown sick. So no real symptoms but you are tired and obviously fighting off something. If you don't take care of yourself and rest within this period, your body is going to have a hard time of it. We shall see how it goes. Nothing major planned in the next few days so I'll take it easy and see what eventuates. Another GA lesson tomorrow (friday)...

First lessong for GA, honestly a bit disppointed at the level. No where does it state that is an intro course but of course that is what it has to be. I did learn something neat (that doesn't apply to vscode) I'll have to explore to see if it can be enabled. Should get better as the weeks go on and we get into the nitty-gritty of html, css and js. Apparently won't make job ready, which for 4000 is a bit of a fuck you. We shall see. A sydney fc win was good tonight. We played well and...

Doing some proverbial spring cleaning on my 1password account. Have some unused and dead accounts that really should be deleted. Considering i've got around 1000 items, It's taking awhile. Starting my GA course today. Should be interesting, I am looking forward to the learning experience. Wonder if my linux OS will be a problem? Should be able to spin up a windows VM fairly quickly if required. It would be annoying though. Eh we shall deal with whatever comes up :-) Prodigal Son is...

Finally installed espanso and notion again after my Pop-OS auth fuckup. espanso is such as cool little program, and it works surprisingly well especially compared with textexpander. notion installed via nativefier. I do wish that notion would make a linux app but can understand why they don't. Their app ecosystem is surprisingly weak comapred with how good their platform is. Compared with evernote, and onenote, notion really struggles with their apps. Hopefully their api integration will c...

Played my first trial of the new football season, with my new team. Seem like a normal bunch of guys. Kept a clean sheet, with some saves in between. Nothing spectacular but still a solid hit out for the first one. Another trial against the 4s on saturday. That game should be substantially harder. I know I am going to be sore tomorrow, but it's good being back. I still need to do my pre-course prep work for GA. Hopefully I can get it done tomorrow and then concentrate on the freelance job ...

My partner and I did not go to see Russel Howard, disappointing but ultimately the right decision. I personally did not feel comfortable, and neither did she especially with the way that it was being run. We were expecting a july date, and the move took us by surprise. Considering everything that happened with my partner, as well as my family member it felt good just to go out and have a few drinks. feeling a bit nervous (like I always do) before a new season, doubly so that it is new te...

Using Windows on my surface pro definitely reminds how sharp windows can be on a nice screen. Eh i'll probably switch back and play around with Windows for a while to see how it is going. My partner certainly would prefer that I use windows. She does not like Linux at all (nor the wherewithal to learn). Not surprising considering her work requires windows. She deals with sensitive data and so all her external data storage hardware is encrypted (via bitlocker for ease of use). Opening bitlock...

Forgot I hadn't re-installed ProtonVPN on my linux box. Thankfully it is such an easy process. Just had the protonvpn repositories, then install it. It automatically pulls updates when required and really is such an easier way of runnning your pc. Still have to figure out our 1password shared vaults. I am getting a lot of family member logins in my search that I just don't want. Not sure how to solve it. Maybe go through with dad and take away his ability to add to the vault. Maybe that's ...

Another tough day with my family member remaining in hospital till at least tomorrow. Fingers crossed the medical staff are right when they say tomorrow should be good. Going to be an extended recovery run I feel. Starting GA next week. The hospital issue has curtailed my prep-work though I should be able to manage early next week to finish it off. I can't imagine it will take me too long to complete the otehr couple of projects. My partner and I are discussing when we should book Me...

Had another early start today at Macquarie Uni, it's enjoyable work if boring as hell. The day was interrupted by a visit to emergency because a family member was taken there via ambulance. Not in immediate danger I don't think but still a scary experience. Fingers crossed they get released tomorrow but that will depend on the tests and the subsequent results. Going back tomorrow to keep them company, but hopefully that turns into a drive home. Pop-OS back up and normal I think though as...

Completely fucked my pop-os install today. Got another yubikey and wanted to change it out. Somehow during the process I managed to make sure I could log in but that it would also not recognise the key for sudo access. Ridiculous. Thankfully, It's quite an easy process to re-install and go again. Certainly quicker than windows I think. Eh I did boot into my windows machine and It does look sharper. Not sure what it is about Pop-OS and Linux in general but definitely looks sharper with window...

My Incharge X's arrived as well as my yubikeys. The [RollingSquare]https://rollingsqua.re() cables are quite good though they have missed one key feature for me, speed. Their cables unfortunately did not deliver high speed charging. That has been solved by the Incharge X model (Lava Black). Same price or at least similar with some small tweaks to design and voila you get an awesome small cable in a really convenient package. I'd highly recommmend these cables to anyone. My nano yubikey ...

Caught up with some of the football boys for a pre-season drink. Was good to catch up with them. They are good bunch of guys. Glad my brother could tag along. He hasn't seen them in ages. The personal site that I built with some html, css and js looks good but the buttons don't work. I thought I definitely checked them before pushing to production but obviously something going wrong in the pipeline. I shall have to investigate. Cannot be bothered right now so it shall have to wait until tomo...

Payed for GA all 4250 of it. Lots of money but hopefully a solid investment in my future. So far have been impressed with their ethos, technical platform and communication. Fingers crossed they continue to impress. Completing their prep-work for the course, and it is on the easy side but that's to be expected. It is after all supposed to give newcomers a taste of what front-end web design is about. Fun nonetheless. Todoist having major issues with sync on android, lets hope they get ...

Yep it's always good to get confirmation of my sleeping disorder after so long without a "normal" time job. Just takes it out of me, more so than it should for amount of sleep I am getting. Waking up at 7am is just hard for me, and even when I am up it just doesn't feel right. I feel lethargic, and slow. Very much like jet lag. The "body" wants to be asleep but it's actually awake time. I think I need to go and get myself officially diagnosed, so that any prospective jobs I may be able to ge...

Signed with Gymea rather than Loko. The draw of the previous players was too strong add in to that the fact that I know the competition and can be useful in it was also a strong motivator. Just have to tell Dim that, and break the news to the Loko team. It is unfortunate but alas it is what is best for me. I am not going to compromise on that for anyone (except for my partner of course; if she had a problem with it then we would have discussion etc). I am excited for GA. I do love a chall...

God I am sore from my exercise session. Apparently concentrated on legs and I can feel it. Definitely muscles that I don't usually use and they are letting me know about it. I am not doing any sessions today or tomorrow. Hopefully, friday works out. Started a new casual job today and it was all right. Nothing too strenous though after my session yesterday definitely felt worse than it was. Not sure about longevity, especially travelling out to Macquerie Uni for 9am. Brutal for my sl...

Registered for General Assembly Front End development course starting March 10th. Should be good to get a bit of structure. The networking will be good also. Starting my casual job tomorrow. Should be interesting. Maybe I should've started on Wednesday but figured the sooner the better. We shall see if it's worth the effort. Boss Level for a surprisingly good moving. Quite impressed with a lot of the aspects. Fun, irreverent and bloody. My kind of movie. Till next time, B ...

So I am signing up for a General Assembly course for front-end development. One major reason is the networking aspect of it, and the reputational gain from doing the course as opposed to pure self learning. It is on the expensive side but at least I have anecdotal evidence from alumni that suggest job hunting is easier with the certificate as opposed to not having one. Add to that the networking side of things well it's a no brainer at least at this stage. Still debating about football s...

Love a good haircut. Have been going to my hairdresser for a good few years now and dam can he cut hair. It's The Prep Room in Sydney city. Nice and sharp. Went to watch Sydney FC play and while it was a draw we definitely deserved to win. Very unlucky to miss out on the 3 points. Oh week onto Tuesday against city. Finishing the day watching southampton v chelsea on Optus Sport. Fingers crossed danny ings can score. Till next time, B ...

I love Notion. I use it for many aspects of my life. Essentially life admin. The only problem really is that they have some really ugly URLs with no way to make them pretty. I just came across this site that shows a process whereby you can make notion have nice links. This is done via cloudflare. It took 10 minutes all up. Check if out here. You can check out my site here. Considering its free, it works surprisingly well. Still debating the best way to make my wiki public. I do like Hu...

So really broke my pop-os installation. Somehow deleted my ~/Desktop folder which meant my desktop actually became /home/username. Populating The desktop with all the files. I actually like to keep my desktop clean and minimal and so absent mindedly deleted all the files. As you can imagine that did not go down well. Managed to fix it be recovering the home files from a backup but there still remained some issues. Apparently nothing to do with my fuck up but rather some extensions that I...

Wiki is going well. https://wiki.transcendingdigital.space I am enjoying Hugo. I love markdown and this allows for writing in markdown to add new content. Set up is... fairly easy. Some minor issues though mostly my own fault. Using git is straightforward, authenticating via ssh keys. Now just to create some content. Feeling much more like myself, a bit more productive. Getting things done. Still need to deal with the office situation. Just not tenable for it to be like that for t...

I have decided to create a personal wiki hosted at app.digitialocean.com via github and hugo. The address is https://wiki.transcendingdigital.space. It's a massive work in progress but I thought having a public facing repository of the solutions i've found would be very useful for me. Keeping me in honest in actually getting it down but also making sure that I understand what I am writing as opposed to just copy-pasting it. It's free and looks quite good, uses markdown which I love. I am te...

One of the bonuses of moving to linux is the way that ssh and server auth works. Makes my life super easy with administering the servers I run. I am starting up a wiki of sorts. To chronicle some of solutions I have found to the problems I encountered. This will work as both a cv of sorts as I am planning to use the free github pages and git to run it. I like it because it uses jekyll which amongst other things uses markdown (like StandardNotes). Having a few issues surrounding the aesthetic a...

So have moved to linux permanently (for the time being :-) Now, I am currently using Pop-OS because well it has treated me the best upon initial install. I have 4 screens and some distros just have trouble with that. Pop-OS on the other hand just kill it. Havind said that I am intruiged by the lightweight desktop movement with something like AwesomeWM. This is essentially controlled by the keyboard primarily. It's always been a bit of a hassle but Chris Titus from ChrisTitusTech has an eas...

Had a seriously lazy day. Just lounged around and caught up with some tv. Currently (re)watching The Mentalist. It is a pulpy tv show. A crime procedural with a solution every episode paired with a greater mystery arc lasting multiple seasons. In this case I think it actually lasts the entire series but haven't watched it in years so I'm not sure. Securing my machine with the yubikey has been a great success. I'm super happy with the outcome. One of the side effects is that I can't change ...

Soooo I have moved to Flameshot for my screenshotting needs. It seems to be the most stable and reliable. I hardly ever have to screenshot a full window as opposed to a small area. I can always use the gnome screenshot tool for full windows or the like. Shutter seems to have revived by another team or person and could possibly be useful as well. We shall see how it goes. I have an Ergodox-EZ keyboard and I love it. The split design is super helpful to prevent RSI and other issues with the ...

Just found out that Adobe Color is a thing to help with picking colours that work well together either as an accent or to compliment each other. Interesting. I've always had a good feel for what colours go together, both from a readabilty perspective but also a general aesthetic point of view. I'll definitely use it in future projects. I know I've been complaingin about ShareX and Linux missing anything remotely close it. Maybe I can use a script to enable me to upload to Nextcloud and ...

As I have probably talked about on here before I quite like tracking my personal data. Whether that be steps, sleeping, work productivity etc. Not quite the quantified self but I think data is always important. I was using Rescuetime to automatically track my pc usage. To see when I was actually being productive and when I was distracted or becoming distracted. Over time, I have found out that on boring tasks I can do about 20 minutes before I'm distracted. With this information I can now jus...

Pop-OS 20.10 is going well though still I am massively surprised at how bad the screenshotting situation is on Linux. I am currently using Screencloud and it's all right. Have a few issues with uploading but that's par for the course on any Linux distro even Pop-OS. I think the screenshotting issues probably have something do with the way that the displays are rendered. Maybe I have to learn it and do it myself. Certainly seems to be a market for a nice screenshotting tool. I'll do some re...

Productive day. Got up at the unusual time of 04:30 with my partner. Drove her to work and then stayed up. Cleaned, tidied and washed clothes so that she has them ready for work. Went to the football match Sydney FC v Wellington Phoenix. We won 2-1 so that was a bonus. One of Sydney's strikers who just came back from a ACL knee injury seemed to do it again on the other knee and had to be stretchered off. Never a good sign. Wish him a speedy recovery and hope that it isn't as serious as first...

A real lazy day. Just relaxed with my partner and ate junk food. Watched some football and caught up on some tv shows. Death in Paradise and the A-League. My partner also baked a cake, and some cookies for her work friends birthday. All in just a nice relaxing day. My partner definitely needed after the stress of her work getting to ridiculous levels due to work colleague incompotence. Fingers crossed it goes down or at least plateaus a little bit. She definitely needs a break, holiday...

Have moved due to me fucking up the boot partition, to Pop-OS 20.10. It looks like all the windows files are there. Just have to fix the grub bootloader. Usually the application boot repair would manage it but there seems to be other issues. So far has been a seamless experience. I think maybe there has been some improvement on the graphics drivers. Certainly feels (in most instances) a bit sharper than before. Still playing around with it but I love terminal. For example ProtonVPN is run ...

After my fuckup with the boot drives on my main machine, I have been setting up Pop-OS again. I do thoroughly enjoy the tinkering and playing around required. It's less of a, sterile, experience than windows. I've talked about nativefier before but it really is an awesome piece of kit. Moves you out of the browser especially for those web platforms that don't have native linux applications. There are still some things that don't quite work for me and those are different wallpapers on eac...

Made it to 100 days. 21,154 words + todays total. I am quite proud of the achievement. It has felt good writing over the last 3 a bit months. Especially ensuring that I wrote at least 100 words per day. That's not to say the writing was any good of course. I did use this as a place to output writing, anything. Sometimes longer pieces sometimes really short "let's get this done" pieces. Overall, I'd recommend the challange. Made a mistake with my main PC. I dual boot windows 10 an...

Going to try and make some pork and shallot gyoza. Apparently work well from frozen as well. Fingers crossed they work out. Man just found out that Vivaldi has a built in Mail, Calendar and Feed clients. That is just awesome. Email Is located in the sidebar though I believe you can also view it as a tab. I currently only have one email address attached to it (borganstein@vivaldi.net). This is what it looks like in a full tab format. I quite like it. It's minimal, efficient and j...

Blood & Treasure is quite a good show. It's fun, easygoing. Has some action, laughs. Doesn't take itself too seriously. Certainly a fun watch to take your mind off of the day. I flip between browsers. I was using Brave browser but have transitioned back to Vivaldi that I was using before Brave. Both built on top of the chromium engine (the same as Google Chrome). Vivaldi is super customisable. Developed for and by hardcore users. If you love making something exactly your own I would hi...

My sleeping pattern definitely has shifted massively. Bedtime around 7 waking up around 3pm. Going to have to reset, especially if I get that 9-5 job. Going to be brutal. Was going to try tonight, but I am tired so not sure if pre-sick or just under the weather. We shall see how it pans out over the next couple of days. Felt all right all day until about an hour ago then tired. Which if you know me is extremely unusual. Started watching a new show with my partner. Resident Alien with Alan ...

Had a flare up just have dinner. Man never feels good. It's been fairly quiet over the last 3 or 4 days. Some stomach issues here or there but overall all right. Tonight not so much. Might've been the spicy food for dinner, though the pizza last night didn't cause a flare up like tonight. Having said that I did take some medication to help mitigate any issues considering we were entertaining guests. Hmm interesting, though not suprising. I ordered a few things from DollarShaveClub AU in...

Again, going to be a terribel FPL week for me. Not much I can do unfortunately. Lots of injuries and rotation. Just killing my chances of average scoring games. I'm not even hoping for high ones, just average ones. Fingers crossed some of the team can pull some magic out of the hat. Sheffield United away at Man City. Going to be a tough game. The fact they've kept it at 1:0 at half time is a credit to their grit and determination. Can't ask for more really. Super impressed with espanso ...

Man the latest episode of WandaVision was very good. It answers some real questions that you would've had. Introduces a whole lot more. Getting excited to see where Marvel and Disney take this story. Whatever Nextcloud has done in the more recent 20 releases has made updating a much better experience. Before it was really a toss up whether it would actually work or not. Now it seems to go through quickly and easily. We shall see how it does in future iterations. Having said that 20.06 do...

Was served an app called NervaIBS which is a hypnotherapy program to help with IBS symptoms. There is a 7 day trial but it does cost aud$99 for 3 months. It's approximately 15 minutes per day, with the program lasting for 6 weeks. The rest of the time is a so called maintenance mode to help embed the teachings/learnings. Read the inital paper (the author also runs the app), the outcome unsurprisingly showed that hypnotherapy had better results than a low FODMAP diet, the current gold standard....

Of course I don't pick Gundogan in my Fantasy Premier League team and he goes on to score 2 goals. Lets hope Ferndandes does something similar as he is my captain. Got my lights back up and running, most of them anyway. Fingers crossed they stay connected with a bit more consistency. I am getting into The Hardy Boys, it does feel very much like the novels so on that front well done. Still confused about the casting of that actor for Frank Hardy. It's even stranger considering the actress...

Had a terrible Double Gameweek 19 with my Fantasy Premier League team. Only made 56 points over the massive amount of games. A bit disappointing but hopefully my changes for gameweek 20 can get me some more points to keep me on top of the table. Was some ridiculously stupid temperatures over the last 3 or 4 days. Hitting 40 c at my place. Ridiculous All round. It's looking likely that I either won't be playing and possibly refereeing and/or playing with a friend's team. Not sure what I...

Tidied up my server area. Cables, tagging etc. Looks much neater now. Still trying to figure out what the best way for me to create a 4G failover system would be. I do wish my Synology had've worked because that solution was quite easy. I would obviously have to slow down on consuming content if my main connection was down for any length of time. Maybe I'll just work on that, bonus that is free and could set it up quickly depending on the situation. Just re-watched the Escape from.. ...

My ISP (Internet Service Provider) had a major outage today for about 4.5 hours, between 4 and 9pm. My ISP has been rock solid for the last 12 months essentially and coudln't complain. It was just unforunate timing because my partner and I had planned to sit on the couch and watch Netflix all day. Eh made do with locally stored content. The only thing that was a bit meh about today was really the lack of communication. I do get it's a sunday here in Australia which presumably meant they were r...

Finally watche WandaVision and I have to say that it is awesome. Some of the little easter eggs or breadcrumbs throughout are just on point. Only three episodes have dropped but dam they definitely pulled off 40/50s and 70s callbacks in them. The set design and what I can only assume are effects, are extremely well done. The only thing that I am "upset" about is that it drops weekly. At only 30 odd minutes they are quite short. Looking forward to seeing where they go with the story especiall...

Found out that a show called The Hardy Boys came out last year on Hulu. Now I loved the books when I was younger and so hey why not. I like the Nancy Drew so stands to reason a similar show would work the same. The pilot episode isn't bad though feels a bit slow for me. The major issue that I am having is that the "older" Hardy brother is supposed to be 16 and in school. Unfortunately he is played by Rohan Campbell who is 23 and bit years old. He certainly looks like a mid-twenties adult. So e...

Man I am sore from my first summer soccer game of the year. Who know that not doing any physical activity for 4 months then playing would be a bad idea /s. Finally finished Hotel Artemis and while the film was enjoyable. The ending felt rushed and a little bit awkward. Nothing major but it's a bit of shame they didn't explore some of the bigger ideas brought up. I just love Dave Bautista. All in all a fun film. Recommended for those action movie/dystopian world movie buffs. Woohoo P...

Changed from Full-stack path to the front-end path. Definitely more enjoyable. That's not to say that I won't go back to complete the back-end stuff but certainly more efficient this way. Finally Biden and Harris will be sworn in, will be nice to go back to a "normal" president. Fingers crossed it's boring as hell. Started watching Hotel Artemis and I am loving it. Brown is awesome, Quinto and Foster are sublime. Bautista is just his usual awesome self. We shall see how to fares as the m...

Watched the end of the last test of the Australia-India Test series. Congratulations to India, they played phenonmenally. Especially considering the amount of injuries that they have. Australia just could not break them down. While Australia was ostensibly at full strength they certainly didn't look it at times. Aside from Pat Cummins who seemed to carry the team again in the final sessions of both the Sydney test as well as Brisbane tests. Australia just seemed to have an inability to break p...

Sum of All Fears (2002) is a spy action thriller starring Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman. It's based off of the Tom Clancy novel of the same name. It's a fun watch even if predictable. I think you are seeing a trend with some of the movies I've talked about in that I set quite a low bar. If it can hold my attention for a couple of hours and allow me to also be on twitter, FB or insta then I'm happy. There are of course, movies that require more attention or at least demand more attention. If t...

Had a very relaxing sunday. Sat on the couch and watched the cricket (Australia v India in Brisbane). Then watched the A-League (Newcastle Jets v Macarthur Bulls in Newcastle). All in all just a very lazy sunday. My partner is prepping for a trial and so she went into the office to get some prep work done. Came home around 2 and we had some takeaway burgers for lunch. She went and worked while I continued to watch the cricket. At some stage she got sick of that and came and sat on the couch (wit...

The first couple of episodes of WandaVision dropped. Have yet to see them but from all accounts its a weird show. Fingers crossed they pull it off, it is Disney and the MCU so I have high expectations. I have put a couple of movies on the rotation. Murder at 1600, The Sum of All Fears, Lost in Space and Daybreakers. All movies that I enjoyed at the time but we shall how they have stood up to the test of time. Daybreakers was a fantastic movie from 2009 starring Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill and W...

Outside the Wire 2021 finally dropped today in Australia on Netflix. Have been looking forward to it. I love Anthony Mackie and would really watch anything he's in, add to that of course that this is a movie about an android officer working with a drone pilot in a eastern european combat zone. Very science fiction. So right up my alley. The story is fine, I think they really didn't go far enough into the story. Really just scratched the surface of the story that was possible. Some of the e...

Just about to start watching The Watch (2021). The blurb from wiki states that it is a fantasy police procedural. I quite enjoy the police procedural as tv, contained. Stories finished after an episode. That's not to say some of the best police procedurals don't have deep overarching stories but rather they are the exception rather than the norm. Add to that fantasy and really I am in for all money. I have never read Terry Pratchett's Discworld series to my chagrin but apparently that will ...

Watched The Dry again today and have to say it's still good on a rewatch. You do see some of the subtle signposting throughout that leads you to the end of the story. Have to say if you feel safe enough to go to a theatre, a highly recommended watch. If you don't (and fair enough right now) then definitely give it a rent once it's on VoD. The Watch (2021) looks like an interesting tv show. Have got it and put it on the rotation so we shall see how it goes. Have heard stuff both positive a...

Watching Bushwick (2017) and I'm not sure whether it's the rough edit but the scene transitions/cuts are super obvious. Maybe it's just the fact that they seem to be using handhelds the majority of the time. Makes the smooth transition stand out. The main reason why I am watching it is because I do love Dave Bautista, the story seems fairly pedestrian though maybe a bit prescient considering what happened at the US Capitol on the 6th (06.01.2021). The acting so far hasn't blown me away but i...

Just watched a russian movie called Coma 2020. It's a Russian fantasy horror film that does quite a good job of telling a compelling story although it is very rough in patches. The story revolves around the lead character (architect/Viktor) who wakes up in what only can be described as a dream state. We later find out that he is in a coma and that all people who live in a coma exist in a shared reality. They can interact, build and some even have special powers. There are also creatures who ...

Just caught another show on Netflix that I enjoyed. Lupin (Netflix - subscription requried) a French limited series. It is labelled as a French fantasy adventure comedy series on Wikipedia and I think that's quite accurate. It is dubbed in English though personally always prefer to listen in its original language with english subtitles. I watch mouse movements quite closely and the mismatch between english dubbed and french talking always takes me out of the action. Omar Sy (Wiki) playing ...

Watched The Dry with Eric Bana. It is an excellent film. Incredibly shot againdy a backdrop of a drought ridden Victorian small town (Australia). Eric Bana holds the show with some very good acting. Haunting with ghosts from a collective past, streaked wirh desperation. Well worth thay watch. Recommended. In contrast to the Movie Hunter (Milla Jovovich) which is all bang no substance. Some terrible writing. The actors do what they can but dam some horrible shit. Wait for VOD for sure...

Went to 6Head for lunch and have to say its the best steak i've had for ages. The wine was excellent as well. A Malbec from Argentina. Was a bit expensive but well worth it. The service and view aren't too shabby. A highly recommended visit for a special occasion. It's pricey but not overly expensive. Bought a Chromecast with Google TV for the home and for travel (within Aus I would think). Works extremely well in the room. I was using my surface go through a wireless display adapter b...

The QT Hotel in Sydney is just awesome. Modern, excellent service and while some changes due to COVID still a fantastic experience. By changes I mean the room service menu, generally very good though recently due to COVID they have a major reduced menu. Presumably due to less people staying etc. Regardless still a major recommend from me. Chain Reaction with Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman + a host of others is a quintessential 90s thriller. A really young Keanu Reeves at that. Some ...

Still trucking along. Have not missed a day in 71 days. I think that is a major achievement. My average is hovering around 216 per post which is above my arbitrary limit of 200 so huzzah for me. Fingers crossed I can get through the next 30 without any issues. Started out on Freecodecamp.org. Looks quite good. Just going through the basics to refresh my knowledge. But to start its been quick, easy and will break up the monotony of Codecademy. I have also signed up to #Javascript30. Which i...

It's definitely been much harder the last 3 or 4 days to stick to the writing everyday. I essentially had to lower my usual ~200 words to ~100 words to just help me get across the line. Motivation wise that is. It hasn't helped that my sleeping pattern has decohered to 6 or 7 am sleep time. No extremely unusual but still I wonder if there is an inciting event or incident. My partner and I are spending 3 nights in the CBD for a little mini-holiday. I know COVID but I (we) think the risk is...

Just watched A Creep show Holiday Special on Shudder. It was directed by Greg Nicotero. Came out in 2020. The synopsis is - Robert Weston has reason to believe he might be a werewolf, but when he goes to a Shapeshifters anonymous support group, he learns there's something far more sinister than his curse to worry about. Spoilers But that something is santa clause. Absolutely ridiculous but dam it's a bit of fun. Acting is meh, writing is all right but it's just fun. I am also back to...

My mini-break from my educational pursuits is over. Essentially took the same break that my partner had, or at the least didn't put too much stress on myself if I didn't actually do anything. The close to two weeks starting just before christmas and going to the 3rd of Jan. Back to Codecademy and possibly some other pathways like General Assembly. We shall what the go is. Acquired a few more films from the 90's, so my action 90's binge continues. I think for the most part its just pure shi...

Went to a distillery today in Sydney called Archie Rose. Heard they the Papi van Winkle for a really good price. Had a nip (30ml) of both the 23 and 15 year old. Have had the 15 year old before but have to say the 23 year old is quite nice. A bottle goes for 3 or 4 grand, so it is up there. Not worth that account of coin though what drink is. I paid $114 for the nip of the 23 year old and $56 for the 15 year old. Ridiculous money but certainly within the realm of possibility. The 23 year ol...

Just watched Sudden Death with Jean Claude Van Damme. Probably showcasing the end of his massive years but still a fun ridiculous movie. Definitely an American Dad episode that riffs off of this movie. Now this isn't a good movie but if you want to doom scroll through your socials and not feel like your ignoring the movie, this is in that category. Im on a bit of a Van Damme kick and started watching Replicant which certainly has the feel of a direct-to-video movie about it. Rough so far....

Happy New Year!!! 2021 is finally here... fingers crossed it goes slightly better than 2020. My partner and I stayed safe and had a quiet night with just the two of us (not that, that's really different to any other year). Our tradition of watching a star wars film is going strong. We watched Solo to bring in the new year. A thoroughly enjoyable film that has all the hallmarks of a Star Wars story. I made 16 pizzas in 2 days with my pizza oven. Quiet easy and really enjoy cooking food ...

It is worrying that NSW Gov and Health seem to be all over the place with their mandates and advice. Not allowing more than five in person but 24'000 at the cricket is fine? Now I get the medical advice is that outdoor seated ticketed events are safer but what about public transport to the game? The pubs and clubs around it? It's all s bit strange. I hope that it doesn't become worse. 18 new cases today showcases just how easily this virus can spread. Just watching Virtuosity (1995) with Denz...

Wonder Woman no mans land scene. Goosebumps. Massive scene. Just wow. Massive congrats to the entire team who made that come to life. That's the major difference I think between WW and WW84. Definitely didn't get a lot of that in the second movie. I get that some people were disappointed that it wasn't as groundbreaking as the first. Give it a chance enjoy for what it is. I think that's just generally a problem with sequels though. Trying to capture that feeling, that initial wow factor. i...

Wonder Woman no mans land scene. Goosebumps. Massive scene. Just wow. Massive congrats to the entire team who made that come to life. That's the major difference I think between WW and WW84. Definitely didn't get a lot of that in the second movie. I get that some people were disappointed that it wasn't as groundbreaking as the first. Give it a chance enjoy for what it is. I think that's just generally a problem with sequels though. Trying to capture that feeling, that initial wow factor. i...

Finally settling into the new place. Still have a few things to work out. We do have slightly more stuff that we need to fit in. Just have figure out the most efficient way. Definitely getting into a bit of a rhythm (Anyone else think that word looks absolutely weird?). Have ordered some kitchen organiser things that may (or may not) help with the smaller kitchen. In future we really need to go for a bigger kitchen. It has coalesced our needs and wants for our living arrangments. Both my partner...

Just watched Wonder Woman 1984 in the movies (CovidSafe of course - or as safe as anywhere in Sydney) I quite liked it, not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination but a thoroughly enjoyable two hours. I think it suffers from some pacing issues but overall flows nicely. It does occasionaly get bogged down and stutters. I think Gal Gadot as usual does well as the eponymous Diana and Kristen Wiig does really well as Barbara Minerva ( aka Cheetah). You can definitely tell what they...

Christmas day always a feast. Thankfully our Christmases are always small and so the festivities weren't impacted majorly. Thoughts go out to those who couldn't get together. While the majority of people presumably followed directions there are always those who take it to far. Images of Sydney siders packed together in parks and beaches is a reminder that people can't be trusted. Let's hope that we don't have a spike because of this but my expectations are low considering the way people were...

We traditionally celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. So exchanging gifts etc. This year was no different. Had a boozy lunch that sloped into dinner. Was an awesome time with family. Only a small gathering (as it is every year) though especially important this year. Considering COVID-19, and the semi controlled Sydney cluster. Fingers crossed the small loosening of restrictions don't lead to a spike. We won't find out until early Jan whether Christmas caused more cases. Till next time, B ...

As I think I've said before, I use Nextcloud as my cloud storage solution. Now Nextcloud is an enterprise ready and so has an absolute ton of features you might not need, I certainly don't use quite a lot of the features that come with it. There is Contacts, Talk (Messaging app), calendar and many more. I am running it on my Unraid server in a Docker. You do need some advanced command line skills, and general Docker, database and general Unraid skills. There is a massive community around on ...

Just re-watched Broken Arrow with Michael Slater and John Travolta. It's directed by John Woo (and you can tell, got some trademark Woo in there). It is a quintessential 90's action film. Not a whole lot of plot, some action and campiness. Travolta definitely having fun with is portrayal of Major Vic Deakins. Some very in your face bad guy tropes. It's a fun watch though. Recommended for a lazy couch day/night especially if you want to be able to doom scroll insta or twitter at the same time...

If you have read any of the previous 54 posts then I'll assume you know I am massive science-fiction fan. I recently found my copies of The Kelvin Timeline set of movies. Star Trek (2009, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016). I really forgot how enjoyable this "reboot" or prequel or alterante reality really is. Practically binge watched the three moves in 2 days. If you are a sci-fi fan or are interested in Star Trek but for some reason haven't set foot in the massive b...

It's looking more and more likely that we are going to have a restricted christmas/new year period. The Northern suburbs where the cluster originated from is in lockdown and greater sydney is encouraging all non-essential activity and travel to cease, at least until Wednesday. After having done so well for so long, complacency set in and COVID-19 has spread like wildfire (for Australian standards). Obviously, we are still faring quite well in comparison to the rest of the world. The next few d...

Sydney (and Australia in general) have handled the pandemic (COVID-19) better than most but even so the complacency that I see around is astonishing. Before the latest cluster we only had a single confirmed case over the last month. I think the relaxing of restrictions paired with very little confirmed community transmission and you get people thinking it's all back to normal. The latest cluster and how quickly it grew showcases that we need to be extremely careful or else we will see many other...

Ok so I watched Universal Soldier (1992) with Van Damme and Lundgren. It's campy, 90s action flick. Nothing that I would go out of my way for but certainly something that will keep you occupied while you play on your phone. I tend to binge an entire series of there are multiple movies in a set. In this case there are 6 total movies but movies 2 and 3 that do not have Van Damme in it are terribly. Just completely unwatchable. I made it through 3.5 minutes before I threw in the towel. I moved ...

Super impressed with the change of my library between h264 and h265. You'd have to have better visual acuity than I to notice a difference. Extremely solid. The ability for me to at the same time add a stereo audio stream is a lifesaver when it comes to appropriate sound for my current setup. My next big investment after the LG CX 65 is dolby atmos soundbar. I've read some awesome reviews about the Sonos Arc and I think it would go well with the current living room layout. The only obvious d...

Wooo the number 50 milestone. I think it's quite an achievement (for me at least) that i've written 50 posts in a row. Looking forward to the next 50. So... My last post I talked about automating encoding my media library to a more storage friendly codec. In this case to h265. Which has some tremendous space saving compression while appearing to not lose too much in the way of quality. I mentioned Tdarr and to explain it in a simple way without getting technical. It essentially gives you unl...

So I am looking at working through my media library to help save space and solve my stereo/5.1 sound issue. I have a number of movies that would benefit from the better compression that h.265 offers, the only question is do I do it manually or should I go through the effort of setting up a system like tdarr that allows me to automate the process? I am not sure which way I should go, it takes approximately 2 hours for a 1080p film to completely process through. I think I will put the effort ...

Some major updates coming to Unraid which will be super interesting. The ability to have multiple arrays will be interesting though. Not sure whether I will utitlise it but maybe having a small encrypted array for sensitive data might be useful. That way the entire array wont suffer any performance issues. The ability back up the unraid flash drive would be awesome as well. I believe secure remote access is also possible, which will be interesting how it compares with a vpn. Till next time...

I use a crypto hardware wallet. Now that's not to say I've got an substantial money in there but I do love to dabble in new technologies. I use Ledger as my hardware wallet of choice but really any of them would work just as well. I genuinely enjoy the pairing of their software solution with their hardware wallet. They also have mobile apps so that you can on the go recieve, and send cryptos. For the last 3 or 4 weeks I have been getting 1 or 2 emails a day to the email address I used to...

I use Nextcloud as my "cloud" storage solution. It works extremely well for pro-home lab situations. I was stuck on Nextcloud 18 due to some updating issues. Thankfully, they fixed whatever was causing the issues and I was able to sequentially update to 20.03. I have to say they did a lot of work for 20 to make the dashboard look more professional, slick and efficient. There are so many different integrations that are able to extend the experience. If you want to move away from Google et...

Crowdfunded a film or more accurately crowdfunded the marketing of it. The film is called Monsters of Man and it was created, fIlmed, funded by an Australian Mark Toia. The Indiegogo campaign is still active (Link), and you can rent/purchase the film at all the major streaming sites though Vimeo is preferred Link. Considering the budget of apparently around a million dollars (assuming Australian), it looks fantastic and feels like it has a much higher budget. I am very impressed by the v...

I quite like the idea of the quantified self even if the execution is mostly missed. The Australian service Exist is an aggregator for tracking services like Fitbit, Toggl, Todoist. While the dashboard is handy to see everything, the best thing is the feature that compares specific things that miggt imoact each other. So steps walked might influence fatigue, or caffeine consumption might impact sleep. It is a paid service but at a reasonable annual price. obviously the longer you use the se...

Pulled an all nighter. Fixed up a bit of the new apartment. Still a little bit to go, especially annoying is the bins. Only two recycling bins and they are full, so we have to sit on the cardboard in our apartment. Till next time, B ...

Scrcpy is an awesome little program for displaying your android display wirelessly on your PC. This piece isnt long enough to go into all the features that it has but go check out their Github in the link above. It works via ADB both wirelessly as well as over USB. so you do need ADB installed on your computer but nothing gets installed on your Android phone. The performance is ok but nothing to scream home about. That might be a settings issue though that ill need to explore. Certainly fan...

I love AndroidTV or GoogleTV or whatever its called next. I enjoy the interface, especially the latest one. My previous TVs have all been Sony for the most part anyway. Why? Well they are good tvs for one, but two they also run AndroidTV as their default dashboard. That means I can install all of the same apps and don't have to worry about compatiblity etc. The problem though is that AndroidTV sucks or at least it was the last time I bought a high end tv. A Sony Bravia 4K LED TV from 2015. The...

Looking at network management servIces or devices. Unfortunately either its designed for enterprise networks and so hugely expensive or you need a certification to even download the software. I have used the Fingbox and Domotz but unfortunately, the Fingbox was passed onto a relative and the domotz pricing while cheap in terms of enterprise software still works out to be 25-30 AUD per month. The Fingbox is $199 and is looking tempting because the platform is quite good. I would prefer an o...

More comfortable with Windows? Maybe! Just love sharex, you just can't beat it. So after running Pop_OS! for probably two weeks I have settled back into WIndows. Now, I do genuinely enjoy using Linux. It's a good system, not easy to use per se though with Pop everything really just works out of the box. You do sometimes need to work at getting stuff to work, unlike Windows where the majority of the time everything just works. I still can't get past how good ShareX is. It just is the best sc...

Fixed the high CPU temps by just exchanging out the CPU heatsink + fan combo to another one I had sitting around. Have moved back to windows I think. Not sure what it is about linux in general and Pop-OS specifically but it just doesn't look as sharp. Windows 10 definitely looks and feels better. Eh we shall see. I've got two SSDs sitting in the PC and I can flick between the two whenever I feel like it. New TV has arrived and it is glorious. Just a stunning piece of tech. I am super gl...

Weird issue on one of my servers. I am running Wordpress on Ubuntu 18.04 (Digital Ocean Droplet 1GB Memorry/25 GB Disk) Had some intermittent issues and then it went down until I rebooted the droplet. At around 2230-2235 I had massive spike in CPU, load, Disk I/O and bandwidth. It was outbound traffic as well. I think I had similar issues with some of my other droplets, I'll have to dig the troubleshooting notes I created during that time. The new LG CX 65 inch tv arrived and it is ...

Moving Update All the green boxes have been emptied in readyness for their pickup on friday. So that is one less thing we need to stress about. Kitchen is still a mess but that is partially because we are waiting some more plastic storage boxes to put my partners baking accoutrement in. Once that is sorted it will be much easier to get the kitchen to a useable state. We managed tonight with some frozen pies and potato mash (which were delicious). This apartment complex only has two recycli...

I'm feeling good about this new place. We have fit in well so far. A small (possibly big) problem of random access by a building manager employee. Considering the private, extremely sensitive work product my partner has at home due to the pandemic. This just isn't on. Thankfully, we have cameras and other security measures to ensure that if unwanted access does occur we know about. The building manager has assured is this won't happen again. We shall see. Going to get back to Ikea to get so...

Pulled the trigger on that new tv. The LG CX OLED 65inch. A massive tv, we currently have a 55inch (Sony 4K LCD) but considering how much content we consume on the tv I think it will be a worthwhile investment. Supposed to have some great gaming chops as well. Currently have an Xbox One but am going to be getting a Series X once they are back in stock. On the move front, we handed back the keys today and fingers crossed the leasing agents are dicks and give us back our bond. We did lea...

Finally, writing this from my mine setup. Got everything up and running and everything seems to be working. CPU idle temps are a bit higher (60c) than usual but not hitting dangerous levels. I'll keep an eye out to make sure that it doesn't creep up over time. All my monitors seemed to have made the trip with little no damage but certainly no damage on the actual panels. Considering I was lazy during the move and didn't take them off the mount but rather kept them on the arms. I am happy t...

Finally the old apartment is completely finished. We were supposed to do the cleaning ourselves but considering how long it took to clean one of the bathrooms was 2 hours. We decided that we would get it professionally cleaned. Considering that it took 2 professionals 9 hours to clean the apartment, I shudder to think exactly how long it would've taken us. They did a wonderful job. It's in a better condition then when they handed it to us. Just have to settle into our new place. Still boxes ev...

Finally the old apartment is empty. Only have somethings in the storage cage for my parents to come by and pick up. Was supposed to clean the apartment today but after it taking 2 hours to clean a single bathroom and my partner still having shoulder issues due to her dislocation, it was decided we get the professionals in. Only going to cost a few hundred dollars and they guarantee the bond back. Well worth it considering the effort it took to clean the bathroom to a high standard. Now its jus...

Read an article served to me by Google from a random comic book blog site. Non-professional, so not a major publication. It was about Deadpool 3 and the fact that the original writers were not going to be working on the project anymore. In fact it would be relative unknowns the Molyneux sisters best known for Bob's Burgers. The writer was bemoaning "politically-correct" hollywood and that these were obviously "diversity hires". That Marvel/Disney via Kevin Feige were not choosing the best writ...

So I just found out that there is a new Tremors franchise movie out. Now I won't say that they are a good set of films but they are fun. Tremors: Shrieker Island direct to VOD in 2020 is the 7th movie in a franchise that stretches back all they way to the first film in 1990 that stars a young Kevin Bacon. The Tremors films got more B-grade as the years wore on but I have to say Shrieker Island is a return to form. The effects aren't bad for a direct-to-VOD movie. Now this isn't a COVID-19 dir...

So I've been exploring some of the movies of the last 40 years. Some are really good, some are mediocre and some are just downright terrible. I could've sworn I had watched Ballistic: Ecks v Sever but obviously not. I would remember this dumpster fire of a movie. Now obviously the movie has some big name actors like Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu, Gregg Henry and Ray Park to name a few. They can obvioulsy act, so maybe its a script or direction issue. Considering the thin plot and non-existent ...

Getting there with the move. We don't have a lot of stuff but it is fiddly. At least we have hired movers to get all the big stuff (couch, fridge, dining room table), so t onhat at least helps to alleviate some of the effort. It's a weird feeling to be without my tech. My homelab is extensive. I run Unraid with 26TBs of storage, 15 Dockers and 3 VMs. I also have a pfSense firewall that helps secure and connect me with my web servers on DigitalOcean and Linode. Fingers crossed everything boot...

Looking at upgrading our tv. Currently have a 4 year old 55inch 4k Sony tv and a 45 inch Full HD Sony in the bedroom. The bedroom TV is starting to show its age. Would prefer to make my own choice rather than being forced into one. Looks like LG oled C series is too of the pile. The CX looks like quite the tv. I do think that even though the LG CX doesn't go as bright as the Samsung Q90, becuase of the ability of the OLED to really turn off those pixels means that percieved contrast ratio is m...

Apartment Update So there is electricity, gas and hot water in the apartment. Now, I assume that's because it's an embedded network and so everything is connected at all times. Apparently, a single company does both gas and electricity. Eh its running in the apartment so I'm in no rush. Started to move our stuff in. Going to take some getting used to but I think its going to be a better apartment. No gym but I'll have to sort something out. In my Linux transition I am using Pop_OS! with a g...

The apartment saga is still ongoing but at least I now have internet connected, with the same provider I am now on. Excellent that at least whatever happens over the next 12 months, I'll have fast internet. Still no gas or electricity, the problem is that the company that is supposed to run the embedded network says they don't. No other gas or electricity company can either though. We shall see, it's with the building management company. So hopefully they can back to use so we can have hot showe...

Took my partner to the new place, and she thankfully likes it. Measured everything and it all seems to be able to fit. Now to start packing. Joy itself /s. I am now now using Linux Pop_OS! as my daily driver. I do have a Windows VM running on Unraid for those times I do need a Windows environment. Mainly Newton Mail and really haven't found a good enough screenshotting application on Linux. I have tried Flameshot, Screencloud, built-in Gnome tool, and Spectacle. None of them have that ...

Just starting to get all the components for the move next week up and running. booked removalists ordered boxes changed insurance address Having issues with gas, water electricity and internet connection but hopefully the building manager is going to get back to me with exact details. Having everything connected before the move wilo make everything substantially easier. The building is a weird one and definitely will be a unique experience. Card access to both the building, lift and apartm...

Have moved back to Pop_OS! (20.10)..... I really love linux, I do. I love the security, and inherent privacy of Linux. I love choice, i've lost count how many distros i've tried over the years. Pop_OS! by System76 just works (at least as much as anything just works in Linux). Their Nvidia integration works quite well (when you actually use the version with it). Now since most of my platforms are online, moving to linux is quite as onerous as it was in the past. A good web browser lik...

Comparison between Pierece Brosnan's James Bond and Daniel Craigs portrayol. Having just watched both the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig runs of James Bond, you can really tell the departure from the camp of the Brosnan (and previous) Bonds. I'm curious whether the relative success of the The Bourne Identity had something to do with the shift to a more gritty, dark Bond franchise. I think after four decades of bright, cartoonish action thrillers the winds changed, especially with how Americ...

After all the plaudits I gave Unraid for being rock solid and stable, had to do an unclean power down. So just manually pressing the reset button. It's not the best for the storage array and the way that Unraid stores data and protects against hard drive failure but could not use either the gui dashboard or command to do a shutdown. I'll have to go through a parity check for the parity drive but I believe a runaway docker container caused Unraid to become unresponsive. Unusual, and I'll have...

Some spoilers ahead though most of them are for movies that aired a long time ago. Fair warning. Bit of a James Bond kick in the last couple of days. I am starting with the Pierce Brosnan era, the aboslute classic Goldeneye (1995). I think that was one of the first video games I played seriously. Have watched Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999 and am now up to Die Another Day (2002. I have to say these aren't good films, but can be enoyable. There are, of course, num...

Finally got my phone replacement by Google. They ended up just sending me a completely new phone rather than a refurbished one. I am not going to complain about that. Now the ardous task of setting it back up again. Unlike iOS, android doesn't have a similar backup feature. It ends up being that some apps come back perfectly, others need logging in again but keep their data while some just completely gone. Thankfully, the majority of the services I use are cloud ones, so no data loss. Finger...

I run windows 10 on my daily driver and while I have nothing against macs per se but I like building my own machines. I would definitely consider myself a power user, I currently run 4 screens. 3 x 1080p for main use such as coding, browsing etc, and a fourth 4k monitor for consuming content such as movies, tv shows etc. See the screenshot below for an idea as to what that looks like. The black spaces are obviously where there are no monitors. I have toyed with the idea of moving to a linu...

We have been pre-approved for a place. Huzzah. Still have go through all the checks but I can't see us failing any of those. Always a bit of a relief when stuff comes together. Fingers crossed they don't change their minds for some reason. The good thing about this place is that it has FTTP internet, so no slow down or drop in performance (or their shouldn't be at least). Bonus that I can just move my current account over and it should be as simple as flicking a switch. Let's hope that no majo...

Still looking for an apartment. Have inspected around 14 ro 15 places. Some nice, some terrible. Others missing one or two things that would have made it ideal. A non-negotiable for my partner and I, is air-conditioning. In an Australian summer, I could not manage to live in an apartment with no air-con. My life is just way better when I have the ability to cool down quickly. Especially around bed time. So many apartments just don't have aircon. Everything else we are quite flexible on so...

I heard a term today that I hadn't come across before or at the very least I don't conciously remember doing so. Techno-Optomism. I heard it on the excellent podcast from the MIT Technology Review called In Machines we Trust. I consider myself a social-technologist and genuinely believe that technology can solve many of the issues facing humanity today and into the future. Now, I have always struggled with the fact that technology can cause so many varied issues. That tension between my ge...

Part 1 The start of this story begins at night, like so many that went before. But I digress, my name is Charlie and what I saw outside my first story living room apartment window, changed me forever. Even just talking about it gives me shivers down the spine, and I'm back on that fateful night pulling apart the blinds. I was just sitting there watching some grungy horror on one of the hundreds of streaming services that are now available. I hear something, maybe a scream but more dull tha...

I consider myself to be very technologically minded. I have conducted academic research into the social impacts of technology use specifically in the smart tech space, I have run a computer repair business, sold technology in a large format retail store. I also consider myself a programmer as I am proficient in R as well as currently upskilling in web development (HTML + CSS + Javescript). I just create this Star Wars Planet Generator from scratch (Link). I pride myself on being able to learn n...

I suffer from Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome/Disorder (DSPS/D). Syndrome is the more common but a handful of places still call it disorder. A handy pdf is available from the Sleep Health Foundation. Essentially what that means is that I sleep normal hours so over a standard year my average sleep length is about 7.5 hours. The only difference is that I have a tendency to be sleepy between 3 or 4am and 12pm. So my sleep pattern is shifted later as compared with the traditional sleeping pattern. I h...

I run an Unraid server for file storage and media streaming. I made the move from Windows server to Unraid a few years ago and since have been blown away by the sheer stability. As you can see I am currently sitting at over 94 days uptime. The major reason is because it has integrated Docker and VM capabilities. That means that each individual program or app is can be independently powered on, rebooted and of course installed. This means that the overall OS can continue to run smoothly even...

I promised myself that I would try and disengage from US politics during during the day to try and avoid any feelings of negativity. Alas even through I turned off socials for the day I was still bombarded with news from heaps of different angles. I feel exactly the same way as I did in 2016, just a malaise. A creeping sense of foreboding, like I am seeing a train wreck unfolding in slow motion. There really needed to be a major win for either side to avoid the inevitable clashes, and I can't ...

Hi Everyone, Obviously using this platform Standard Notes to publish to the Listed site means that you are problem familiar with markdown. Markdown is such a powerful way of writing, that I really need to use more efficiently. I am still coming to terms with exactly how you can do everything. The ethos behind Standard Notes is a lofty one, and one of the reasons why I am long term paid supporter. It is such a well designed product and one that is a rarity in the modern digital world. A slig...

Hi Everyone, As I've said in a previous Musings post (located here -> #1 Musings), I recently subscribed to Shudder a horror dedicated streaming service and I came across a series of horror films based on a variation of the "found footage" genre, the movie trilogy Hell House LLC. Now the first film in the series was quite tight in terms of storytelling and visuals but the subsequent films got a bit messy as sequels have a tendency to become. I enjoyed them as some filler movies, with really...

Hi Everyone, If you know me, you'd definitely say I am a bit of a horror buff. Not necessarily any particular type of horror but horror in general. Some of my favourites lean towards the comedy side and others to the grisly. I generally just take a movie at face value and really sometimes it's those indie small budget ones that hit home the most. They need to come up with creative ways to solve effects issues be that with CGI or practical effects. Take The Thing (1982) obviously made at a tim...

Hi everyone, While inspecting multiple open homes today, I was thinking about technology and the existential threat it faces humanity as a whole. Now, I am not suggesting that technology is inherently negative but the fact that life changing tech is moving so quickly can mean society as a whole can't keep up to steer the ship, so to speak. The world is such a different even just a decade ago. The advent and proliferation of mobile and the connective technologies has meant fundamental changes t...

Hi everyone!! It's funny but even though I live in Australia my social media is squarely out of the US. I follow, consume and just experience so much US-centric stuff that I found myself being affected quite strongly with what is happening over there. I am definitely squarely in the liberal camp but I found those political spectrums too constricting. I much prefer evidence-based decision-making unencumbered by ideological blindness. I feel that at times both sides (to varying degrees; the righ...

Hi Everyone!! I have always written with an endpoint in mind. That might be a university report, research report, some sort of professional blog style piece of writing. The twin blades of having complete freedom with what to write can bring its own pressures. Currently looking at new places to rent (in Sydney) and I am very lucky with the internet speeds that are available to me in the place I am living. Having high-speed internet (Fttp) as a priority for the new place is making it hard as th...

Hi Everyone!! 2020 has been a hell of a year and I just wanted to find a place that I could just write. Not necessarily anywhere near my professional spaces but just somewhere I could regurgitate what was floating around in my head. So since I have already invested into Standard Notes and have to say it is such a slick product that I continue to try and find ways to shoehorn into my workflow. I figured that starting a Listed journal would be a freeing experience in terms of getting me writin...