Walk in, remove light. Now none of the switches control the light.

Outsource the uprising

Tempest

McDonald’s found liable for excessively hot coffee

Written on a window: “Please use door ->”.

The window only goes down to waist height, it doesn’t even look like a door. I really want to know the story behind that sign.

I don’t think there ever was such a time. I suspect that you (like me) just didn’t need things to work as a child, so didn’t notice when things didn’t.

There are some very old complaints of things not working.

My 2012 Nissan Leaf is still doing fine.

Maybe it’s not an issue with EVs, but with overbearing automakers.

What would happen if a browser never saved those cookies? Would the website fail to load, some elements not run, or something else?

I’m always curious about edge cases and failure modes.

I hate the websites that have “Accept all” or “Accept necessary only”, but if you use a privacy browser that refuses all cookies the site works anyway.

Their “necessary” cookies aren’t actually necessary, you just can’t reject them.

I wonder if there’s even a difference between “all” and “necessary”.

​

Grease nipple

I decided to burn a forest down and empty an aquafer for you. I hope you appreciate it!

My 94yo friend is still going strong. His advice is to keep moving. Even just going for a short walk does more than you realise.

Look after your eyes, ears, and back, and always wear the recommended protective gear. People who say you look stupid using the correct technique or wearing protective gear will either die first, or regret their decision after it’s too late to do anything about it.

Most of all, learn from other peoples mistakes. You don’t have enough time or luck to make them all yourself.

That’s one reason why we really need right to repair. A screen shouldn’t be the same price as the entire device.

I replaced a damaged USB C port (module) and degraded battery instead of replacing the whole device.

Those people must have a lot of disposable income.

I’m still disappointed that tags are absent from the mobile app.

I have used AI to give me the syntax and function names I need, then researched those functions and found better ones instead.

I once asked AI to show me how to do something and it gave me a 20 line script. After 2 hours working with it, I finally got it to work. Another 30 minutes of optimizing and got it down to 3 lines. A bit more research and I discovered that what I wanted was actually a language feature, and I just needed to call a single function with a single argument.

AI occasionally saves me time, and usually causes a significant time waste.

If you intend to install both, install Windows first. It has a habit of overwriting other bootloaders.

When you install Linux second, it should install a bootloader that will let you choose which OS to boot each time you turn on the computer.

Always backup data you care about. Installing an OS carries some risk of data loss.

House insulation.

I live in Australia where the minimum insulation required by law is a long way below inadequate, and many cheap contractors go below the minimum because it’s so hard to prosecute them.

I already had solar and a house battery, so the next obvious step was replacing the insulation. With my already very low electricity bills I cant say that it literally paid for itself (although it would have without the solar and battery), but it has made the house so much more comfortable. On some summer days, the AC would be using 7kW and barely keeping the inside temperature down to 30°C/85°F. Now it uses 3-5kW and the whole house stays comfortable.

Also, finding and patching the massive gaps from the previous “landlord special” house extension made a huge difference to the temperature of that room, and explained how lizards had managed to get inside.

I’m using an old thinkpad with Ubuntu Server as the OS. Almost any OS will do, but Ubuntu server has a single button to install docker during the OS install, so it’s easy.

I’m using docker compose instead of docker so that I can look at and update any scripts, and don’t have to remember anything. For the file sharing, I’m currently upgrading from Samba to Copyparty - the best software I have seen in a long time.

I’m also using WireGuard and Syncthing to duplicate the storage to an identical laptop in a family member’s house, rsync for weekly backups, and calendar reminders to do a monthly offline backup (automated with a script except for remembering to connect and disconnect the external drive).

I doubt you need all of this, but an old laptop with docker has so many options that you might start adding more stuff just because you can. I’ve also added HomeAssistant, Immich, and even a Factorio server to the same laptop using docker.