The 911 just got back from Squire’s after dying on me on the way home from a gorgeous PCA tour to Artist’s Point on Mt. Baker a couple weeks ago - the pic above was from Artist’s Point. After pulling over and getting out of the car, I could hear a hissing from the trunk, and opening the luggage compartment revealed a wet, steaming battery and the smell of sulphur or rotten eggs that’s typical of an overcharging event. My hunch was that either the alternator or voltage regulator had failed, and the batter was being overcharged. I replaced the battery with a new one from Interstate (MTX-49/H8; the car still wouldn’t start. Now I suspected that the overcharging cooked the DME relay or the DME ECU itself. I was out of my depth, and got back in touch with Squire’s. Once they got the car, they confirmed that the alternator was failing (outputting 17.8v under load!) and had cooked the DME ECU. They installed a new alternator, swapped in a shop DME and sent my unit out for repair. I’ll get my DME back in a few weeks.

In the interim, I wanted to document some obvious signs of overcharging that I saw in case anyone else runs into this.

1. Interior bulbs getting bright and dimming or flickering, especially indicator lights
2. Flickering seatbelt light
3. Radio would die when I pushed the gas
4. Moisture in the gauges when the blower was switched on¹

This photo really deserves its own post.

Spent yesterday morning cleaning up the shift assembly in my ‘88 911. The car was optioned with the G50 transaxle’s short-shifter, but a previous owner had put a knob that added a few inches of throw. It looked like at some point some water had been spilled onto the knob and down the lever, because there was some surface rust under the knob which I wanted to clean up. Most notably, though, there was a ton of play in the lever when in neutral and some slop between gears, both of which are indications of worn shift bushings. Replacing the shift bushings isn’t too tough a job - half a day on the long side, and I thought I’d tackle the rust cleanup and shift knob replacement at the same time.

Using Brad Phillips’ G50 refresh article for Hagerty as a reference, I pulled the console, shift lever, and shift housing out of the car. Removed the surface rust on the lever with a smoothing stone on my Dremel, sandpaper, and a wire brush. Then I taped off the lever and repainted. I vacuumed the old bushing dust out the cavity in the floor revealing a little more surface rust on the floor of the car. I wire-brushed that, then used a sanding block and vacuumed until bare metal was exposed, then I used a tacky cloth to remove any remaining dust and painted the exposed surfaces.

Reassembly was a bit of a challenge since the new bushing is much less pliable than the quite-worn original. In addition to using a heat gun to warm the bushing and housing, I found a link to some photos of this old article in “Excellence” magazine in which the author gives some tips for replacing failed G50 bushings. Relevant paragraphs excerpted below:

Installing the bushing was simple. First, we clamped the shifter in a vice to hold it steady - applying a thin film of grease ont the bushing, we installed it in the housing. The bushing goes in from the rear of the housing with the large flared end pointing toward the rear of the car. The bushing is a very snug fit, and we worked it into the hole much like mounting a tire on a tim; first, we pushed half of the bushing into the hole and then pushed the remaining half of the bushing Into place with a heavy screwdriver, working in one direction. Once the bushing pops into the housing, it self-centers due to a recess in the bushing.

We wiped a film of white lithium grease inside the bushing and used the shop vacuum to remove the remains of the old bushing from the floor recess. The shifter shaft was also wiped clean and a thin coat of grease was applied to the shalt. Prior to installation, we decided to take the time to remove the shifter pin, clean it, and apply a thin layer of grease. This is a simple matter of removing a lock clip, sliding out the pin, and cleaning and greasing the pin. We also applied a small amount of grease to the pivot-ball portion of the shift lever.

At the end of the day I have a nice, tight shift feel, a shorter throw thanks to the removal of the long shift knob, and cleaned up the shift lever.

Took the car out for a drive with my neighbor and found a picturesque spot by a mill. Couldn’t ask for more.

I’m using node_exporter to generate host metrics for several of the nodes in my lab. I was re-working one of my thermal graphs, today, with the goal of getting good historical temps of my Pis and my Ubuntu-based homebuilt NAS into a single readable graph. node_exporter has two relevant time series:

1. node_thermal_zone_temp which was exported on all of the Raspberries Pi
2. node_hwmon_temp_celsius which was exported by the NAS and the Raspberries Pi 4. The rPi3 did not export this metric.

I liked node_hwmon_temp_celsius a lot, and opted to spend some time focusing on getting that to fit as well as I could. It’s an [instant vector][instant_vector], and it returned the following with my config:

node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“0000:00:01_1_0000:01:00_0”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp1”}    29.85
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“0000:00:01_1_0000:01:00_0”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp2”}   29.85
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“0000:00:01_1_0000:01:00_0”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp3”}   32.85
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“0000:20:00_0_0000:21:00_0”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp1”}   52.85
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“0000:20:00_0_0000:21:00_0”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp2”}   52.85
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“0000:20:00_0_0000:21:00_0”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp3”}   58.85
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“pci0000:00_0000:00:18_3”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp1”}     37.75
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“pci0000:00_0000:00:18_3”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp2”}     37.75
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“pci0000:00_0000:00:18_3”, class=“nas server”, environment=“storage”, hostname=“20-size”, instance=“10.0.1.217:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp3”}     27
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“thermal_thermal_zone0”, class=“raspberry pi”, environment=“cluster”, hostname=“cluster1”, instance=“10.0.1.201:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp0”}    37.485
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“thermal_thermal_zone0”, class=“raspberry pi”, environment=“cluster”, hostname=“cluster1”, instance=“10.0.1.201:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp1”}    37.972
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“thermal_thermal_zone0”, class=“raspberry pi”, environment=“cluster”, hostname=“cluster2”, instance=“10.0.1.252:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp0”}    32.128
node_hwmon_temp_celsius{chip=“thermal_thermal_zone0”, class=“raspberry pi”, environment=“cluster”, hostname=“cluster2”, instance=“10.0.1.252:9100”, job=“node-exporter”, sensor=“temp1”}    32.128

The class, environment, and hostname labels are added when scraped.

The chip label looked interesting, but it appears to the an identifier as opposed to a name, and I’m terrible at mentally mapping hard-to-read identifiers to something meaningful. Digging around a little more, I found node_hwmon_chip_names, which when queried returned

node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="0000:00:01_1_0000:01:00_0", chip_name="nvme", class="nas server", environment="storage", hostname="20-size", instance="10.0.1.217:9100", job="node-exporter"}                    1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="0000:20:00_0_0000:21:00_0", chip_name="nvme", class="nas server", environment="storage", hostname="20-size", instance="10.0.1.217:9100", job="node-exporter"}                   1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="pci0000:00_0000:00:18_3", chip_name="k10temp", class="nas server", environment="storage", hostname="20-size", instance="10.0.1.217:9100", job="node-exporter"}                  1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="platform_rpi_poe_fan_0", chip_name="rpipoefan", class="raspberry pi", environment="cluster", hostname="cluster0", instance="10.0.1.42:9100", job="node-exporter"}               1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="platform_rpi_poe_fan_0", chip_name="rpipoefan", class="raspberry pi", environment="cluster", hostname="cluster1", instance="10.0.1.201:9100", job="node-exporter"}              1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="platform_rpi_poe_fan_0", chip_name="rpipoefan", class="raspberry pi", environment="cluster", hostname="cluster2", instance="10.0.1.252:9100", job="node-exporter"}              1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="power_supply_hidpp_battery_0", chip_name="hidpp_battery_0", class="nas server", environment="storage", hostname="20-size", instance="10.0.1.217:9100", job="node-exporter"}     1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="soc:firmware_raspberrypi_hwmon", chip_name="rpi_volt", class="raspberry pi", environment="cluster", hostname="cluster0", instance="10.0.1.42:9100", job="node-exporter"}        1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="soc:firmware_raspberrypi_hwmon", chip_name="rpi_volt", class="raspberry pi", environment="cluster", hostname="cluster1", instance="10.0.1.201:9100", job="node-exporter"}       1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="soc:firmware_raspberrypi_hwmon", chip_name="rpi_volt", class="raspberry pi", environment="cluster", hostname="cluster2", instance="10.0.1.252:9100", job="node-exporter"}       1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="thermal_thermal_zone0", chip_name="cpu_thermal", class="raspberry pi", environment="cluster", hostname="cluster1", instance="10.0.1.201:9100", job="node-exporter"}             1
node_hwmon_chip_names{chip="thermal_thermal_zone0", chip_name="cpu_thermal", class="raspberry pi", environment="cluster", hostname="cluster2", instance="10.0.1.252:9100", job="node-exporter"}             1

You might notice that the chip label matches in both vectors. Which made me think I could cross-refrence one against the other. This was way more hack-y than I expected.

Prometheus only allows for label joining by using the group_right and group_left operations, which are very poorly documented. Fortunately, I came across these two posts by Brian Brazil, which got me started. This answer on Stack Overflow helped me get the rest of the way there.

I’ll start with my working query and work backwards.

avg (node_hwmon_temp_celsius) by (chip,type,hostname,instance,class,environemenet,job) *  ignoring(chip_name) group_left(chip_name) avg (node_hwmon_chip_names) by (chip,chip_name,hostname,instance,class,environemt,job)

We’ll break the query above into two parts seperated by the operator:

• the Left side: avg (node_hwmon_temp_celsius) by (chip,type,hostname,instance,class,environemenet,job)
• the Right side: avg (node_hwmon_chip_names) by (chip,chip_name,hostname,instance,class,environemt,job)
• the Operator: * ignoring(chip_name) group_left(chip_name)

Let’s go through each.

The left side averages the records for every series that has the same chip label. In this case, the output above showed that some chips had multiple series seperated by temp1…tempN labels. I don’t really care about those, so I averaged them. Averaging records with one series just returns that series value, so that’s a good solution.

The right side returns several series with labels matching chips to chip_names, and the other requisite labels. The value for these series are all 1, effecitvely saying “this chip exists.”

The operator is where it gets both interesting and hacky.

1. Arithmetic operations are a type of vector match, which take series with identical labels and perform the operation on their values. I used a * (multiplication) vector match because the right-side value is always 1 and therefore safe to multiply my left-side values without changing them.
2. The ignore() keyword allows us to list lablels to be ignored when looking for identical label sets. In this case I told the arithmetic operator to ignore(chip_name) becuase it only exists on the right side.
3. We can use the grouping modifiers (group_left() and group_right()) to match many-to-one or one-to-many. That is, the group_left() modifier will take any labels specified and pass them along with the results of the equation. Since I used group_left(chip_name), it returned chip_name in the list of fields after matching.

Here’s what makes this hacky: as far as I can tell, this is the only way to take matching labels and use them in reference to one-another.

The query returns¹

{chip="0000:00:01_1_0000:01:00_0",chip_name="nvme",class="nas server",hostname="20-size",instance="10.0.1.217:9100",job="node-exporter"}         28.85
{chip="0000:20:00_0_0000:21:00_0",chip_name="nvme",class="nas server",hostname="20-size",instance="10.0.1.217:9100",job="node-exporter"}            54.85
{chip="pci0000:00_0000:00:18_3",chip_name="k10temp",class="nas server",hostname="20-size",instance="10.0.1.217:9100",job="node-exporter"}           30.166666666666668
{chip="thermal_thermal_zone0",chip_name="cpu_thermal",class="raspberry pi",hostname="cluster1",instance="10.0.1.201:9100",job="node-exporter"}      36.998000000000005
{chip="thermal_thermal_zone0",chip_name="cpu_thermal",class="raspberry pi",hostname="cluster2",instance="10.0.1.252:9100",job="node-exporter"}      32.128

Pretty sweet.

Had an ongoing issue with Mac clients constantly popping “Server Disconnected” erorrs when they’ve mounted and NFS volume. This may be specifc to NFSv4, I couldn’t find a way to test.

Regardless, mounting the volume with mount -o nolocks,nosuid [server]:/path/to/export /local/mountpoint worked. I added this to /etc/nfs.conf as a workaround. I wonder if I could configure this for a specific NFS server, rather then globally.

#
# nfs.conf: the NFS configuration file
#
nfs.client.mount.options=nolocks,nosuid

Just under 18 days until pitchers and catchers report.

I recently built an addition to my lab that is intended to mostly replace my Synology NAS¹, and give a better home to my Plex container than my 2018 Mac mini. The comptuer is running Ubuntu 20.04 and has a nvidia Geforce GTX 1060. I chose the 1060 after refrring to this tool which gives nice estimates of of the Plex-specific capabilities enabled by the card. I wanted something that was available secondhand, had hardware h.265 support, and could handle a fair number of streams. 1060 ticked the right boxes.

After rsyncing my media and volumes, I spent some time last night working on the Ansible role for launching the plex container while passing the GPU to the contiainer. I spent a bunch of time in Ansible’s documentation and with this guide by Samuel Kadolph.

   - name: “Deploy Plex container”
    docker_container:
        name: plex
        hostname: plex
        image: plexinc/pms-docker:plexpass
        restart_policy: unless-stopped
        state: started
        ports:
          - 32400:32400
          - 32400:32400/udp
          - 3005:3005
          - 8324:8324
          - 32469:32469
          - 32469:32469/udp
          - 1900:1900
          - 1900:1900/udp
          - 32410:32410
          - 32410:32410/udp
          - 32412:32412
          - 32412:32412/udp
          - 32413:32413
          - 32413:32413/udp
          - 32414:32414
          - 32414:32414/udp
        mounts:
          - source: /snoqualmie/media
            target: /media
            read_only: no
            type: bind
          - source: /seatac/plex/config
            target: /config
            read_only: no
            type: bind

          - source: /seatac/plex/transcode
            target: /transcode
            read_only: no
            type: bind
          - source: /seatac/plex/backups
            target: /data/backups
            read_only: no
            type: bind
          - source: /seatac/plex/certs
            target: /data/certs
            read_only: no
            type: bind
        env:
            TZ: “America/Los_Angeles”
            PUID: “1001”
            PGID: “997”
            PLEX_CLAIM: “[claim key]”
            ADVERTISE_IP: “[public URL]”
        device_requests:
          - device_ids: 0
            driver: nvidia
            capabilities:
              - gpu
              - compute
              - utility
        comparisons:
            env: strict

This is the part relevant to passing the GPU to the container, and the (lacking) documentation can be found [in the device_requests section, here].(https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/general/docker_container_module.html#parameter-device_requests)

        device_requests: 
          - device_ids: 0
            driver: nvidia
            capabilities: 
              - gpu
              - compute
              - utility

device_ids is the ID of the GPU that is obtained from nvidia-smi -L, capabilties are spelled out on nvidia’s repo, but all doesn’t seem to work.

Hope this helps the next poor soul who decides this is a rabbit worth chasing.

I’m at that point in my beard growth where my face looks poorly-rendered and slightly out of focus.

As far as gorgeous mise en place go, it’s pretty hard to beat yakisoba.

In my last post about my home lab, I mentioned I’d post again about the hardware. The majority of my lab is comprised of 3 Raspberries Pi with PoE Hats, a TP-Link 5-port Gigabit PoE switch, all in a GeekPi Cluster Case. Thanks to the PoE hats, I only need to power the switch and the switch powers the three nodes. I have an extended pass-through 40-pin header on the topmost Pi (the 3B+, currently) which allows the goofy “RGB” fan to be powered, which actually made the temps on the cluster much more consistent.

The topmost Pi is a 3B+, and the bottom two nodes are Raspberry Pi 4s (4 GB models). They’re super competent little nodes, and I’m really pleased with the performance I get from them.

Here’s a graph of 24-hours of the containers’ CPU utilization across all nodes. You can see the only thing that’s making any of the Pis sweat is NZBGet, as I imagine the process of unpacking files is a bit CPU intensive.

Here’s my “instant” dashboard, which shows point-in-time health of the cluster. I’ll dig into this more at some point in the future.

The Plex container is running on my 2018 Mac mini, which I’m not currently monitoring in Grafana. That’s a to-do.

The Death/Rebirth scene in Princess Mononoke is almost too beautiful for words. I’ve seen it so many times and it never loses its impact.

I’ve spent the past couple months’ forced down-time¹ reworking my Raspberry Pi cluster that forms a big portion of my home lab. I set out with the goal of better understanding Prometheus, Grafana, and node-exporter to monitor the hardware. I also needed the Grafana and Prometheus data to be persistent if I moved the container among the nodes. And I needed to deploy and make adjustemnts via Ansible for consistency and versioning. I’ve put the roles and playbooks on GitHub.

This wasn’t too hard to achieve; I did the same thing that I’d done with my Plex libraries: created appropriate volumes and exposed them via NFS from my Synology. Synology generally makes this pretty easy, although the lack of detailed controls did occasionally give me a headache that was a challenge to resolve.

Here’s a diagram of the NFS Mounts per-container.

The biggest change from my previous configuration was that previously, I had NFS Exports for Downloads/Movies/Series. Sonarr helpfully provided the following explainer in their Docker section.

Volumes and Paths

There are two common problems with Docker volumes: Paths that differ between the Sonarr and download client container and paths that prevent fast moves and hard links.

The first is a problem because the download client will report a download’s path as /torrents/My.Series.S01E01/, but in the Sonarr container that might be at /downloads/My.Series.S01E01/. The second is a performance issue and causes problems for seeding torrents. Both problems can be solved with well planned, consistent paths.

Most Docker images suggest paths like /tv and /downloads. This causes slow moves and doesn’t allow hard links because they are considered two different file systems inside the container. Some also recommend paths for the download client container that are different from the Sonarr container, like /torrents.

The best solution is to use a single, common volume inside the containers, such as /data. Your TV shows would be in /data/TV, torrents in /data/downloads/torrents and/or usenet downloads in /data/downloads/usenet.

As a result, I created /media, which is defined as a named Docker volume, and mounted by the Plex container (on the MacMini), Sonarr, Radarr, and NZBGet².

I’ll post to-come with a couple cool Dashboards I’ve built the actual hardware I’m using for the cluster.

I talked about getting the HyperPixel 4.0 to work in my last post, but I also wanted an excuse to show it off. I’m building a Grafana-based statusboard for the services I run on my lab, and I wanted some character. AFAIK, Raspbian doesn’t include Emoji fonts, but you can add some with Google’s noto-emoji.

I wanted Apple emoji, so I zipped the .ttc and, copied it to my Pi, and it extracted into /usr/shared/fonts/. This would be easy to automate since Apple regularly adds characters with updates.

I’m using the gorgeous Pimoroni Hyperpixel 4.0 on a Raspberry Pi 4 for a small project. The display is crazy beautiful, and comes in a touch and non-touch version.

I ran into issues getting touch working, and opened an issue. After a little poking and a helpful commenter pointing me to related issues, I found a workaround

For posterity, I followed the directions above (running Pimoroni’s install script, choosing option 2 for Rectangular with Experimental Pi 4 Touch Fix, then edited /boot/config.txt as follows. Modified lines commented as such.

# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver on top of the dispmanx display stack
#dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d # Modified
max_framebuffers=2

[all]
#dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

dtoverlay=hyperpixel4
gpio=0-25=a2
enable_dpi_lcd=1
dpi_group=2
dpi_mode=87
dpi_output_format=0x7f216
dpi_timings=480 0 10 16 59 800 0 15 113 15 0 0 0 60 0 32000000 6
display_rotate=1 # Modified

Very pleased with this, though I’ve heard it won’t work with low-level access (ie. RetroPie setups). YMMV.

Made some progress on one of my distraction projects over the past couple days. I’d been working on creating an Ansible role to deploy a Prometheus container with persistent data backed by NFS on my rPi cluster. Getting the NFS mount to work with Prometheus was a challenge. Relevant stanzas from the role’s main.yml:

      - name: "Creates named docker volume for prometheus persistent data" 
        docker_volume:
            volume_name: prometheus_persist
            state: present
            driver_options: 
                type: nfs
                o: "addr={{ nfs_server }},rw"
                device: ":{{ prometheus_nfs_path }}"
            
            
      - name: "Deploy prometheus container"
        docker_container:
            name: prometheus
            hostname: prometheus
            image: prom/prometheus
            restart_policy: always
            state: started
            ports: 9090:9090
            volumes:
              - "{{ prometheus_config_path }}:/etc/prometheus"
            mounts:
              - source: prometheus_persist
                target: /prometheus
                read_only: no
                type: volume        
            comparisons:        
                env: strict

However I was getting permission denied on /prometheus when deploying the container. A redditor pointed me in the direction of the solution. Since NFS is provided by my Synology, I can’t set no_root_squash, but by mapping all users to admin in the share’s squashing settings, I could allow the container to set permissions appropriately. Progress!

I wish that iOS let me define a Home Screen other than my first as a “default” (the one that Springboard will switch to when I swipe up twice), allowing me another swipe-left Home Screen.

Bellinger expressed deep admiration for that home run.

Dawned on me today that I’ve been carrying Field Notes almost every day since October of 2011. In that time, I’ve only lost one and it came back to me. Here they are.

any millennial born after 1981 can’t cook… all they know is avocado toast, climate change, shrinking middle class, unaffordable healthcare, be in debt, eat hot chip & die

Oh hell guess I’ll have to sell the house

Still pouring one out for Transmit on iOS.

Amazon announced the Ring drone, and it’s creepy as hell. Not just because the concept of an always-on video feed of the inside of your house is creepy (it is). Not just because the video created by the always-on camera is sent to remote servers and who-knows-what is done with it (also creepy). But also because of the super creepy history of the company who built the camera and is marketing it to you.

Ring has privacy issues. This has been well-documented. In a 2019 lette to lawmakers, Ring copped to firing four employees for accessing customer video data outside of their normal responsiblities. The fact that it’s possible for this to happen shows a lack of concern for customer privacy.

Also in 2019, the Intercept reported that Ring gave their Ukraine-based R&D team an S3 bucket with recordings of every Ring video ever. The report claims that there was no policy or system to restrict how the R&D team used the video.

How is it a good idea to give this company access to a remotely-controllable remotely-accessible video device inside my home?

All of this from the same company that will helpfully deliver packages inside your locked home.

And from the same company that has “partnered” with Police departments all over the country to provide access to the privately-owned cameras customers put on or in their houses, as well as a convenient map of all the cameras installed.

Some folks have the poor stance “Oh if you’re not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?” Which is irrelevant; it’s not Amazon’s business what goes on inside my home despite their repeated attempts to make it their business.

In addition to the lax security and customer privacy, this is literally inviting the police state into your house. It’s dystopian.

It’s awfully disappointing that so little of the coverage of the announcement of this device touched on Amazon and Ring’s anti-customer and anti-privacy history. There’s no reason people should trust them with this level of access.

Update (October 28th): Removed a whole bunch of erronious references to Nest, a Google company. Got my wires crossed.

Aubrey is walking around reciting mantras:

“No one can change my name”
“No one can do what I can do”
“Everyone isn’t the same as me”
“No one can change my name”

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a dedicated workspace in each of the houses and apartments I’ve lived in since 2006, when I bought my first house. Some have been better than others, and the current setup isn’t done¹, but it’s pretty good and I’m happy with where it is, now. Since my last role was about 80% remote, I knew how important a good home setup was prior to the pandemic forcing many of us to think more about how to be productive from home.

Each of the things are chosen because they help me do more, or are pleasing while I’m at my desk. I won’t say that the desk is always this clean, but it’s never too far from it. It’s important that I want to be at my desk, and to achieve that, I need stuff that is both pleasing and functional.

The space is where I do almost all of my nerding both for work and fun, and when the weather is too poor to get outside it needs to convert into a cycling training space.

I have my 2019 Trek Domane SL5 Disc on a Wahoo Kickr from 2017. It connects to my PC via a USB attached ANT+ dongle, and the PC runs Zwift. I’ve done exactly 2 rides with this setup, but I wanted to get it going before I went down for a foot surgery, so I’d have it ready to go as soon as I’m clear to train again - about a month from now.

I keep three computers at my desk permanently.

• My work computer - currently a 2017 13” MacBook Pro
• My personal 2018 MacMini, which hosts a few Docker containers and where I do a lot of personal nerdery.
• My PC, seen on the right, which is mostly for gaming and Zwift.

The speakers are Joey Roth, and the desktop organization is Ugmonk’s Gather System.

I use two Tripp-Lite B004-DPIUA4-K KVMs to allow me flexibility for moving my displays between the computers. I covered the far-too-bright indicators with black Fastcap stickers, so they don’t distract me while I work.

I’m currently using a WASD Code 87-key with Cherry MX Browns and O-Rings. The WASD keys are bespoke Mechanicallee’s Walnut walnut keycaps. I parted with my WhiteFox True Fox some time ago, and I had a Kira with Hako True switches, that I loved typing on but I was never comfortable with the layout. Sold it on, as well. Nice thing about mechanical keyboards is that they retain their value.

Finally, in my Ikea drawer/computer stand and storage drawers, I put in a couple drawers of pick-and-pluck foam to better organize my gadgets. This one is for photos and video, and another is full of Raspberry Pis and components, with anti-static foam. It’s the old Alton Brown-ism “Organization will set you free.”

BBC Video: Jogging While Black - the calculations you have to make

Privilege is being able to exercise without being afraid of getting killed by the police.