Category: Geeky Stuff

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Time for the Geeky

For years, (at least 10) I’ve been using Apple TimeCapsules for my router and basic backup needs. The main TimeCapsule which has been in continuous operation for 5 – 6 years was finally starting to show its age.

Don’t get me wrong, it still works but it was starting to drop WiFi connections at odd moments and for no apparent reason. I started digging around and found that the maximum number of WiFi connections a TimeCapsule could handle was 40. What wasn’t completely clear was did the TimeCapsule have enough horsepower to handle 40 wireless and some unknown number of wired clients or was it 40 total?

I did a quick count of the number of devices talking to the TimeCapsule on average. Try 30 devices talking on WiFi normally. (The joys of a smart home!) If all the possible devices that wanted internet access Wired & Wireless were online we were talking 50 total.

Hmmm. A few quick experiments later and I found that low usage WiFi devices were being knocked off the net being replaced by higher demand devices. Things like Xbox, Apple TV, and DVD players would replace things like the thermostat, or the weather station display unit.

These low demand devices would generally come back after the high demand items got turned off, but sometimes they’d have to be reset to reconnect to the network.

I don’t know if it was processing, sheer number of clients, or just plain old tired, what was obvious was two things. 1) The number of clients was only going to increase, & 2) I really needed new router.

I looked at Eero’s, Orbi’s, and Netgear. The problem I had with each of these was that you had to have an account with Google, Amazon, or Netgear and I didn’t really like that idea. I wanted a router that did it’s job and wasn’t phoning home to tell wherever home was, about my porn habits, or anything else I was doing or shopping for. So an account being necessary to use a router I purchased, was out of the question.

Maybe I’m paranoid, maybe I’m not.

After some searching I found the Amplifi Alien.

I did some more research and found that you don’t have to have an account to use it. It’s a mesh router. Meaning it has the ability to seamlessly broadcast to other routers or to a satellite Alien (repeater).

The unit supports WiFi 6 so my phone and more recent devices are happy, it supports standard 2.4 and 5 GHz, with unification of everything under one SSID (Network Name). My Apple TimeCapsules always had a problem with that, and I had to maintain two different network names to provide for the 2.4 GHz only devices.

The router doesn’t have a dedicated backhaul wireless channel, but it does have the ability to use a hardline to handle the backhaul communications.

This is a pricey router, but no more than a 3 TB TimeCapsule was.

The unit is configured from an app on your phone.

I had it up and running in about 10 minutes. 5 Minutes was spent trying to figure out a way to put this machine out where it can be seen instead of hiding in my wiring closet. It’s beautiful.

Wow! This thing is FAST!

Suddenly, all my devices are connected and stable. Since Apple has gotten out of the Router Business I knew I was going to have to replace my router with something non-Apple eventually. I hadn’t planned on doing it right now.

That being said, I’m pleased as punch with this machine. I’m getting full fiber optic speeds out of my ISP. My WiFi coverage is much better than it was. I’ve got zero dead zones in the house or garage, and the signal extends well into the street as well as covering my entire yard.

SUPER! No more weird pauses in music or podcasts while I’m working in the yard.

I’ve also got up to 120 WiFi clients and because of the mesh technology I’ve got the ability to actually have more than 120 by adding another Alien at the other end of the house. The mesh tech, sends clients to whichever router is closer, so presumably with many of the client devices staying in one location I could have 1/2 on one router and 1/2 on the other.

Right now, I’ve only got the one router and it covers my needs very well. But it’s nice to have some expansion room, thinking longer term.

Devices are only going to get smarter. Speakers, lights, TVs, locks, alarm systems, garage door openers, and on & on. Even my HAM radio has the ability to use the internet over WiFi.

I was surprised to discover that there were so many machines in my home that were chatting away. I knew they were there, I’d obviously connected them to the network but I’d never really started counting them until recently.

In my immediate future, I suspect there is going to be a smart ceiling fan, a smart garage door opener, some video surveillance cameras, and maybe even a smart door lock.

I could actually see moving everything to WiFi. I’m not sure I will, but I like the concept of not having to run actual cable if/when I move to a new house.

Thus far… A week into owning this puppy, I’m giving it a big thumbs up. It seems to like the Synology RAID. Now to see how it reacts to multiple network drives…

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Oh for God’s sake! I’m so over this Woke Bullshit!

Caught an article talking about the James Webb Space telescope and how there are some people who think that the telescope should be renamed so that it doesn’t honor James Webb.

Artist Rendering: James Webb Space Telescope

Webb was the second person to lead NASA and did so from 1961 – 1968.

This particular controversy doesn’t arise from the all too common hackneyed phrase of racism.

You do realize that we’re still removing historical figures based on their supposed racism in the 1600’s right???

This controversy is about Webb being the director of NASA during the Lavender scare or Pink Purge.

The Lavender Scare was a period of time when the United States Government sought to purge all homosexuals from their ranks.

The thought was that homosexuals couldn’t be trusted because they were forced to live their lives in the closet. As such, the thinking went, all homosexuals were security risks because all it would take is a commie to find out someone was queer and then blackmail them.

Given the times, it wasn’t actually a bad line of reasoning. In the 1960’s homosexuality was considered a mental illness, and illegal in most states. A queer could lose their job, their home, and be sent to an asylum for their “un-natural” behavior.

Gay men were commonly beaten up, mutilated, or killed, but Lesbians had it worse. There were a lot of men who believed that a lesbian was a lesbian, because she hadn’t had the right cock shoved inside her. Lots of real bastards would volunteer to be that magical dick that made a lesbian a “real” woman.

Picture the almost rape scene from “Kill Bill“. Except that the woman is tied down in an insane asylum and raped at any time, by any orderly who happened to get a hard on.

Oh and let’s not forget routine electro convulsive therapy. A.K.A. Electro shock. Apparently there was a school of thought that said the Gay could be shocked out of the poor soul and make them ‘right as rain’.

These factors would pretty much insure that a Homosexual would do anything to prevent themselves from being discovered.

Alan Turing

Look up Alan Turing sometime.

He helped defeat the NAZI Enigma encryption machine, could arguably be called the father of modern computing, and still ended up committing suicide (Although the suicide is still being debated,) because he happened to be homosexual.

I’m not saying that any of this was right, It absolutely wasn’t.

However those were the times.

(As an aside, this kind of persecution is still going on in the Middle East. The “woke” crowd is very willing to ignore it, because it’s ‘Middle Eastern Culture‘. While at the same time the “woke” crowd goes back 200, 100, 60, or 50 years and condemns people for shit that we’ve grown out of, for the most part.)

J Edgar Hoover

The Lavender Scare was being perpetrated by none other than the FBI. Who at the time had as its head a crossdressing asshole named J. Edgar Hoover. Uhh duplicitous much?

It’s arguable that the Lavender Scare was rooted in McCarthyism. A dark time in our history famous for the question, “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

The gay purge probably got started there, and just continued on under its own momentum after Senator McCarthy was considered passé.

In the case of James Webb, he happened to be NASA’s director during this time.

So let’s look at this logically. Webb was the director of NASA, he answered to Congress.

James Webb

Congress has this funny little organization called the FBI who loves digging up dirt on people. J Edgar Hoover really liked having leverage over anyone in power.

Webb had a career, a family, and believed that we should conquer space.

There were hundreds of former NAZI scientists working throughout government labs (brought over during Operation Paper Clip) including one guy by the name of Wernher Van Braun.

Webb knew there is no way in hell that the FBI was ever going to leave his people alone to do their jobs… So he made a choice.

MSFC CENTER DIRECTOR VON BRAUN, WERNHER-DR. IN HIS OFFICE WITH ROCKET MODELS IN BACKGROUND. 5/18/64

He chose not be obstructionist to the FBI.

Webb chose to keep moving the space program forward.

He in good conscience didn’t defend a group of people that Medical Science, (hey, they believed the science then too,) said were sick in the head, and that the government’s security and intelligence community said were a danger because they could be compromised by the commie bastards in Russia, placing the whole of the Space Program in jeopardy.

It doesn’t matter where he came down morally on boys who do with boys.

He had a Mission to the moon to worry about. I daresay he didn’t worry too much about a few “sick fucks” being purged from his staff.

That does not make Webb a bad man. It makes him a product of his time.

Webb’s scientific achievements merit his name being on the telescope.

I think that we’re looking at something different. I think this name change is nothing more than an attempt to purge another white guy from history.

I think this controversy is nothing more than some “Woke” asshole digging into Webbs history and finding nothing more than a shred of potential guilt that can be hung around his neck, then using this “assigned guilt” to erase Webb’s achievements and legacy.

Harriet Tubman

The authors of the article suggest the telescope be called the Harriet Tubman telescope. While Harriet Tubman was no doubt an American hero, and should be remembered with respect, she was not a scientist. Tubman, like the rest of the people alive in her day was probably very content to leave the mysteries of the firmament in God’s capable hands.

James Webb on the other hand most likely wanted to see God’s hands shaping the heavens.

In my opinion, the latter makes the case for his name being on the space telescope.

We need to stop judging people of the past by the morals of the present. This behavior is irrational and destructive.

We need to look at leaders (whether heroic or despotic) of the past in context of their times. Only then can we see that humanity is progressing (however slowly) toward a better future.

We need to be able to observe past events with an unflinching realism, because only in understanding the errors and successes of the past, can we hope to build a livable future.

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It’s been 10 days or so since Parler was taken down…

I’m sad to see it go, but I was able to go cold turkey from social media.

I know the good folks at Parler are working hard to get the site back up, but I’m questioning if I’ll return to any social media.

I maintain Linkedin only for job stuff and don’t interact on the site too much. I’ve never been comfortable with HR departments searching for social history, and Linkedin just makes it easy for them to judge you based on an arbitrary set of nebulous criteria.

I’ve been enjoying my HAM radio much more than social media anyway. There was a gentleman the other day who described HAM as the original social media and I think he’s right. The focus is much more local (although with radio sometimes you can get astounding distances, depending on conditions in the upper atmosphere.)

I’ve been catching up on local events in my immediate area. Figure about 100 miles or so. There are ways to get much farther reliably due to a network of specialized radio systems placed on mountains throughout the country or countries across the planet.

These systems are not funded by government, they’re generally free to use, and are funded by the good will of HAM operators and HAM clubs. Sure, using them is a little more difficult than clicking “Tweet” on your phone, but it does provide a bit of a barrier to the riff raff.

Since Parler was taken down, I switched on my radio and discovered there’s a mountain lion wandering through the town I live in.

Social media on a global scale wouldn’t have necessarily warned me about that. The lion has been seen in multiple locations and appears to be looking for food. The general warning is to make sure that you keep an eye on dogs, cats, and children, even in a fenced yard.

That’s good to know! Especially since Jesse and I sometimes take early morning walks and we’re generally on trails in the forest.

Were I in most any state but California, it would be appropriate for me to be armed while out on a walk in rough areas. Most of those other states would look at being armed as a prudent precaution. But California is so damn twitchy about guns, they’ve made it so that you can’t defend yourself against apex predators, (Human or Animal).

In my local area, there are bears, bobcats, coyotes, rattlesnakes, and as stated, mountain lions. Any one of which could attack if it perceived you and your dog as a threat. This is particularly so if you were to come around a boulder or through a stand of trees and surprise them.

California would prefer to clean up the bloody mess and airlift your body out, rather than allow you to have a fighting chance. Many Californias would shake their heads and tut, tut, your foolishness in being out of the oh so safe, city.

Many of them would say you got what you deserved for being in the wilderness in the first place. That’s one of the weirdest things about living here. Lots of Californias ask, “why would someone have been out in the forest?” I ask, “Wasn’t the person armed and prepared?”

Californians live under the constant threat of sudden destruction from an Earthquake, or a fire, but they are astounded that anyone would want to live where hurricanes or tornados may occur. I actually prefer hurricanes or tornados because you can see them coming and get the hell out of the way. Earthquakes provide no such warning. Fires, you can avoid if you know where they are.

I guess it’s just preference.

Oddly, social media rarely provides any real time useful data about disasters. It’s almost always after the fact. I’ve always assumed that was because of internet outages.

That is why I took the time to get the HAM license, and with recent events, I’m considering taking my license to the next level. This would open my ability to communicate on a wider range of frequencies legally.

Note I said legally. I could talk on those frequencies now, but I’m a law abiding citizen and believe in obeying rules which have a logical purpose and provide a clear benefit. Radio rules typically fall into that category.

There are a lot of other rules that I disagree with because they don’t seem to have a basis in common sense, logic, or science, and simultaneously don’t provide a clear benefit.

Parler was uncensored. Twitter and Facebook are very censored and not in a consistent way. Parler was/is about protecting the First Amendment. Twitter and Facebook say they are proponents of the First Amendment but demonstrably are not.

Parler was taken away from all of us by people that don’t believe in free speech and had the will and capacity to effectively silence a large percentage of Americans. If some people choosing to use Parler were offended by what they read or saw, they had the option to never go back to the Parler site.

But these people, who choose to be perpetually offended couldn’t abide differing opinions. They demand conformity of thought. I suspect that in time they’ll demand conformity of race too, since everything in their world revolves around racial identity politics.

On the radio there is no race. Only the content of your words. If you’re not good at putting your thoughts into words there’s no-one that will stop you from saying something but you might find yourself talking to dead air. Other people listening may simply find another channel, you know, old school… Don’t like what you’re hearing turn it off…

More people need to learn that.

Our house has been remarkably quiet over the past 3 weeks. We both tired of the news, we got tired of Hollywood celebrities shooting their mouths off in hateful tirades about Trump and frankly it’s made it so that watching their movies aren’t that enjoyable. Even music is only turned on when we want to listen to something particular. It’s tougher to relax or suspend disbelief so you can just enjoy the music or movie.

We’re hoping that in time as we distance from this season of chaos we’ll be able to enjoy these things once again.

In the mean time, from the radio chatter I’m hearing, we’re not alone. It appears that streaming movies and music over the fiber network here has dropped off significantly in our local area. But the Library is seeing a slight uptick in usage.

Something else I’d never have known from just social media. But it was on my HAM Radio this morning.

I’ve been listening to a bunch of local HAMS who get together every morning over their first or second cup of coffee.

They just get on the radio, and chat about local stuff. The weather, someone older who needs a little help with a project, the community center asking for books to lend, issues with snowplayers, and when the next community meeting is. The day after a community meeting, someone will summarize what was covered for those that couldn’t attend. It’s nice and somehow comforting.

Perhaps it’s time for us all to act more locally, and stop paying attention to the collective idiots who have found voice in social media. Maybe we should be more concerned about the people in our local area who are trying to do the right thing, and could use actual hands to do work that makes our community better?

It costs you nothing to comment on troubles in another state. But when you comment about something locally, there’s a certain expectation that you’re willing to put your money, or sweat equity, where your mouth is.

I suppose that too is old school…