Stuart Longland (VK4MSL)

https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/@stuartl

Software developer, electronics enthusiast, Amateur radio operator, lover of classic rock.

Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia (QG62ln)

Blog: https://vk4msl.com
Github: https://github.com/sjlongland
Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/sjlongland
Matrix: @vk4msl:matrix.vk4msl.com (experimental)

Public Key

npub12n5weher8thl0qlj398tvw2rmwpr33z8j443lpg28xyuzkef9dksnd9dex

NIP-05 Address

stuartl_at_mastodon.longlandclan.id.au@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9f68vmu3n4mlhs0egjn4k89pahq3cc3re26cls59rnzwptv5jkmgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsdu6jue

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub12n5weher8thl0qlj398tvw2rmwpr33z8j443lpg28xyuzkef9dksnd9dex

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Last Notes

2026-07-31 21:23:56 UTC

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Everything I do is "godless".
- Sleeping
- Eating
- Drinking
- Having a shower
- Doing laundry
- Feeding the cat
- Changing the cat's litter
- Going to work
- Doing the grocery shopping
I'd literally die (of starvation and thirst) if I had to stop doing those things.

2026-05-18 21:17:26 UTC

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I think [@Mer__edith](https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith ) might know (or the people behind @npub1rkw…5q62).
One possible alternate videoconferencing platform (I realise is not Signal) is Jitsi. Haven't tried it with a largish group, but I did try it 1-1 and no sign-up was required.
You set up a meeting, then got given a link you could pass to the other party.
https://meet.jit.si/
That said, I'm interested in whatever others suggest. Video conferencing is hard to self-host because the bandwidth and CPU requirements means VPS hosting gets expensive and home Internet connections are rarely fast enough.

2026-05-03 21:17:14 UTC

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I can't see a `mobile` directory below `/var`.

2026-05-03 21:06:15 UTC

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File not found.

2026-02-24 09:42:35 UTC

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MP3? Youngin'!
We just had to settle for the MIDI version, none of this waveform stuff.

2026-02-19 19:45:09 UTC

Looks like Debian are considering their position on "AI" assisted contributions.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2026/02/msg00000.html
#Debian #AI
(via [@jaypatelani](https://bsd.network/@jaypatelani ) on #bsd:matrix.org)

2026-02-06 08:13:14 UTC

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Another is PICNIC: Problem In Chair Not In Computer

2026-01-20 21:15:10 UTC

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That migration program was a product of the "White Australia" policy.
An ugly piece of legislation really. Then again, I'd have been born somewhere in the UK had it not been in force as my grandparents would otherwise not be able to afford the move.

2026-01-18 23:09:42 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.social/@VeroniqueB99/115918603027941868
In the interests of Science… what's your age group?
#note1gt6…n443

2026-01-18 23:04:36 UTC

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Yes, but Donald Trump is less like the captain of the Titanic, and probably more like the captain of the Costa Concordia.
> A widely reported recorded conversation between Schettino and Gregorio de Falco, the on‑duty Italian Coast Guard commander, captured de Falco repeatedly ordering him to return to the ship, rejecting his explanation that he had accidentally ended up in a lifeboat and could not return because it was dark and the boat had stopped moving. During the exchange, de Falco’s exclamation, "Vada a bordo, cazzo!" (“Get back on board, for fuck’s sake!”), became emblematic of public outrage over Schettino’s conduct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Schettino
You can bet Trump will try to escape the mess he's created.

2026-01-07 06:07:41 UTC

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Like I said…hopefully they're putting that knowledge to good use melting Russian Shaheed drones out of the sky.

2025-12-26 05:52:18 UTC

Pete Townshend would like a word…
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/784/308/307/816/399/original/0a7aa4d1a2ee99c0.png

2025-12-19 21:56:21 UTC

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…because a song never makes it into the charts years after release…
(*sigh*)

2025-12-17 05:37:03 UTC

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Today I realised that using a Matrix identity like `me:matrix.vk4msl.com` is a bad idea, as the client goes "ping" any time they use the word `me`.
Here I was thinking it'd either use a prefix like a lot of modern systems do, or require the fully qualified ID.
And unlike IRC, there's no `/nick` command… so I deleted and re-created with a new user ID. `@vk4msl:matrix.vk4msl.com`
At the moment I'm lurking in:
- `#linux:matrix.org`
- `#matrix:matrix.org`
- `#hamradio:m.scd31.com`
`m.scd31.com` seems to be down, but there's a trick to joining it: https://matrix.to/#/!xWUTZRzMBsXtzvLDoJ:m.scd31.com?via=matrix.org gets me in, but not sure how many people I'm reaching due to the server throwing HTTP 503 errors.
If there's other channels for amateur radio discussion though, I'd be all ears. #AmateurRadio #Matrix

2025-11-19 23:25:19 UTC

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Yep, they've been slowly chipping away at this for years.
Landline phones were considered a priority service and so legislation existed to ensure they were always reliable and worked. Mobile phones were an expensive luxury, if those failed (and they often did in the 90s) there was a nearby payphone you could use.
Technology has marched on, the telcos have shut down the old PSTN and ushered us on to either 4G cellular or VoIP services delivered over the NBN.
These are not traditional landlines, thus not covered under the guarantee. Thus there's no regulation requiring that the NBN even work to a minimum standard during a power outage.
Thunder crashes, lights go out… you've put effort into having the NTD and NBN router run on back-up power, but the NTD sits there in a constant reboot-loop because the NBN did not consider the need for back-up power with the HFC network infrastructure. No VoIP "landline" for you.
Or you've got a phone that has some unique features, serves you well, is advertised as "4G" but you find out it dropping to 3G for voice calls was not a reliability-enhancing feature, it was the only way voice calls could work because the device didn't support VoLTE. So you find yourself, say in Binna Burra, with an elderly friend that needs an ambulance to meet you at the trail head, and because Telstra shut down 3G at that site months ago, you've got no ability to call 000.
Luckily on that latter occasion, I have a radio license and VK4RGC Springbrook is easily reachable on a 5W hand-held radio.

2025-11-02 05:09:47 UTC

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... unless they decide to put ads over the top of the HDMI video stream.

2025-10-30 09:52:51 UTC

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Not sure when @npub1rxr…9ngs posted that but that's quite the hack… and component abuse.
@npub135m…490p would probably be quite interested there.

2025-10-23 21:06:16 UTC

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"Ohhh, but it's too expensive for us to shift away from Microsoft!!!"
It's a drug effectively. With a pushy dealer that's got them over a barrel for every shot.

2025-10-10 01:29:27 UTC

Trying out different front-ends for #Mastodon… as I'm finding the stock web client, whilst it does everything I want in a UI I'm happy to use, has a shockingly bad memory leak. If I leave it on the home feed for a day or so, by the end of the day the UI tab is consuming >5GB RAM and pushing everything out into swap.
That's bad on my laptop which has 8GB… it's even worse on the tablet with 4GB.
I gave #Elk a try on their hosted instance, looks promising, but when I try to build it on #NodeJS v22 to host it here, the post-install scripts try to feed the NodeJS binary a raw #TypeScript program, and of course it barfs not knowing how to interpret that. Had a look at the `Dockerfile` for it and the base container, no clues there… so that rules out Elk.
I'm giving #Phanpy a try now. Building it wasn't difficult, however I had to dig a bit down further in the `README.md` to realise I needed to set some environment variables before calling `npm run build` (notably `PHANPY_WEBSITE="${ABSOLUTE_URL}"`, or else it won't run when you deploy it).
Not liking the fact that boosting or favouriting is a two-click process, but that is my principle gripe for now. Other than that, things seem to be reasonably responsive, so we'll see how this goes. If I can get away from needing to keep `top` open sorting by resident memory usage and periodically killing the worst offender (which more often than not, is the Mastodon tab)… that's a plus.

2025-10-08 11:57:45 UTC

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No, it will work if you add that to a desktop icon too.
As I say, all they need is the ability to automatically manage said icons. The core function is there.

2025-10-06 07:48:16 UTC

Just finished helping lug 5 120W panels off the roof, and 3 350W solar panels onto the roof.
The 120W panels are stacked up ready for me to get out into some bright sunshine with a multimeter and a current shunt to test to see how well they're working. Two different lots: two slightly larger 120W panels and 3 smaller ones.
The new ones are connected… and in the fading afternoon light were producing a grand total of … 25 W.
Well, we'll see how things are tomorrow morning.
Didn't get to making the current shunt monitors, so the only real indication I have is to observe indirectly via the battery voltage, or go downstairs and poke the solar controller (unless someone knows how to talk to the CANbus on a Redarc Manager30?).
#SolarCluster #Solar #HomeServer

2025-10-04 06:35:00 UTC

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Every phone has a mindfulness app built-in… even the ancient AMPS phones from the 80s.
It's called the off button. 🙂

2025-10-03 07:51:07 UTC

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30V doesn't really arc very far… air dielectric strength is in the order of 3kV/mm, or is there something I'm missing?
I could understand it being a problem if this was a typical solar installation for mains-grid generation, in which case panels are wired up in series for 600V DC or more. A 600V AC fuse won't like that.
While 100V+ DC might be a problem, I think an AC fuse rated at 250V should cope with 30V. https://forum.digikey.com/t/under-what-general-circumstances-can-ac-fuses-be-directly-used-in-dc-circuits/50746 suggests I can get away with it here.
One challenge I have is actually sourcing a DC "midget" fuse from the bigger suppliers, their offerings are all 125V and above, but AC.
I'd buy DC rated fuses if I knew where to get them from. This last lot came from Mouser, I've looked at Digikey, RS and Element14, they don't seem common.

2025-10-03 04:29:09 UTC

Silly question for the #ElectricalEngineering people here… I have DIN-rail fuse holders in my server's solar set-up which take a so-called "midget" fuse (10×38mm cylindrical).
The holders are rated to 30A, I've actually got two lots of holders, the original ones are 600V rated, the others are 1000V. I'm using panes with an open-circuit voltage of <30V and they wire up in parallel *after* the fuse holders.
I have 10A fast-blow fuses in there now (Littelfuse 0BLF010.T). The panels I'll be putting up on Monday have a short-circuit current of ~18A, so they'll definitely blow at midday. I have some new 20A fuses (Littelfuse 0BLN020.T) coming.
They're kinda pricey and I've got to order them. I was looking at a 5AG fuse today, which I have a stack of 40A ones in stock (I realise my holders are 30A and the panels won't even break 20A)… but really, what is the difference between a 5AG and a midget fuse?
The dimensions are reportedly the same. This is an extra-low-voltage DC install (<48V)… are the midget fuses just a higher rating for industrial use or is there some other gotcha I need to be wary of?
#CircuitProtection #Fuse #5AGFuse #MidgetFuse

2025-10-02 10:09:47 UTC

Just lugged (with my father's help) 3×350W solar panels from the front door up to the back deck ready for installation on Monday.
https://www.snowys.com.au/12v-350w-fixed-solar-panel-glass-roof-top ← 20.1kg a piece, 1850mm×1015mm×35mm.
Bloody exhausted.
I've got some homework to do first… a RPi Pico and three INA-219 featherwing boards turned up yesterday. I have to knock the 0.1ohm resistors off those boards and solder up some connectors so I can hook them and the Pico up… then write some firmware for the Pico that'll poll the INA-219s and give me voltage and current measurements.
The current shunts are already on the rack: one on the battery feed, one on the solar and one on the load. I'll then plug that into the TS-7670 and write something to poll it over USB and feed `collectd`.
Maybe Modbus/RTU, since I think `collectd` supports that… not sure. (I did find `collectd`'s support for Modbus was crap though, might look at better options.)
Means next week I may have some 120W used panels… still producing a decent amount of current … looking for a new home.
#SolarCluster

2025-09-28 21:47:12 UTC

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My bicycle is a manual… but yeah, I can't drive (at all).

2025-09-28 21:34:19 UTC

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Is a pig really heavier than a bull?

2025-09-28 19:52:12 UTC

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Seems Viktor Orban would be a lot happer if Hungary were an exclave of Russia.
Not sure that's what their people want though.
In which case he should hold a vote to get a mandate for Hungary to leave the EU and join them. If the vote fails, he should resign his position.

2025-09-27 08:17:25 UTC

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Looks like this alert has been de-escalated to #Advice level with an #AvoidSmoke action. See Alt Text for full alert text.
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/275/265/526/586/742/original/f85d050e24b06c24.png

2025-09-27 00:08:10 UTC

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I can't hear you over the DAB+ radio I've got running on an old Linux-based laptop. 🙂

2025-09-26 22:11:44 UTC

Dashboard tweak… I have a Raspberry Pi Pico and a couple of INA-219 "featherwing" boards that I plan to knock the shunt resistor off of and wire up to the current shunts that are already installed on the rack.
The plan is to make a firmware image that can poll the INA-219s and present the voltage/current/power readings over USB serial for the TS-7670 to read. Then I'll be able to plot that information here instead.
But for now, the information from the CET PMC-512 in the mains switchbox will do. GP1 is the mains circuit that the rack connects to, it shares that with the dishwasher, dryer and washing machine… so a big spike here isn't bitcoin malware — it'll be something else on the same circuit.
I should have the other bits in a couple of weeks.
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/272/876/121/738/141/original/baa7d95c9e661503.png

2025-09-12 08:17:45 UTC

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With vernacular like that, I'm guessing this cartoon must've taken place around southern Australia?

2025-08-19 20:00:39 UTC

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Be right back, adjusting the thresholds on the frequency gauge.
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/115/057/203/477/502/250/original/4380778fbf870f49.png

2025-07-18 19:15:05 UTC

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As I recall…
Windows 2000 had IPv6 as a "technology preview" that had to be separately downloaded and installed.
Windows XP whad it disabled by default, but did otherwise ship with it.
Windows Vista and later turned it on by default.
Anything currently supported by Microsoft right now will have it turned on unless the user/administrator turns it off manually.
So "only few" actually covers a lot of users.

2025-07-05 09:12:26 UTC

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Sounds like you're all revved up with no place to go.

2025-06-20 11:05:33 UTC

I was planning on doing a back-up of the #Ceph cluster today in preparation of migrating it to a later release… but of course, I've misplaced the PSU for my external 4TB back-up drive.
I noticed it was getting pretty tight on space too, and given it's now 5 years old, figured it was time for a new one. I've got a 6TB one coming.
In the meantime, I had another crack at the Ericsson F5521GW 3G module in the Toughpad.
If I boot with init=/bin/bash on the kernel command line, then modprobe cdc-acm, I see 3 ACM devices appear, and I can use `screen` with them.
I managed to remove the old PIN code on the SIM card I have in there but couldn't get the GPS going, most I got out of it was a "Operation not allowed" error.
Doing this in early init seems to be enough to convince the module to stay enumerated. Something though, tells it to go bugger off early in the boot sequence unless I talk to it first.
A bit of a nuisance to be honest… but I'm somewhat closer.
#ToughPad #EricssonF5521gw

2025-05-03 11:56:28 UTC

Yeah, AEC, that's not how you sort numbers… #AusPol
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/114/443/766/294/484/384/original/c240dec7081b2f06.png

2025-04-28 18:38:24 UTC

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Actually, that's TitleCasing. camelCasing starts with a lowercase letter.
But yes, accessibility matters. Always annoys me when I type out a title-cased tag, and the application "corrects" it to lowercase.

2025-04-02 21:18:46 UTC

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I made one final purchase from Amazon as there was a product I literally could not get anywhere else. (Or it was "available" but the shipping was horrendous.)
Really, the EU/UK need to work on alternatives to these marketplaces. I don't think we should outsource this to China as they are equally as authoritarian as the US is becoming.
- Browsers: I think both major engines have significant US-based development, Is there a viable alternative to Webkit/Blink and Gecko? Servo is promising but not ready yet. Dillo's too primitive. (At least they're both open-source.)
- Operating Systems: We can avoid commercial US operating systems (Apple MacOS X / iOS, Microsoft Windows, Oracle Solaris), in their place use open-source ones with international contributors (various Linux distributions and BSD flavours)
- Cloud hosting: Avoid Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Engine, Microsoft Azure, Vultr for cloud hosting, consider smaller local players instead (e.g. BinaryLane in Australia)
- Email providers: Avoid Gmail, either host yourself or consider local and non-US players. @npub1n8z…jgru and @npub1tk7…0m5c could be worth looking at.
- Travel: go local, most people don't explore their own back yards.

2025-03-28 07:14:08 UTC

Ohh goodie… NBN outage.

2025-03-17 20:55:33 UTC

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Contacted the mob in Canada… "ohh no, we don't ship there because it's too expensive".
They're happy for their customers in the USA to pay a 25% tariff *on top* of shipping… but don't like the idea of someone in this part of the world spending 50% of the total bill on shipping.
Well… I tried to #BuyCanadian -- they didn't want to sell in the end.

2025-03-16 20:20:51 UTC

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So, panels fly off at random in cold climates due to the adhesive letting go.
I wonder what they do in hot climates… does the glue melt and the cars shed their panels in the sun?
Tesla Australia is thinking of introducing the CyberTruck to this country … I think the states' various road safety authorities would be mad to rubber stamp this particular vehicle.
A panel flies off on a busy street and some innocent pedestrian gets cut to ribbons by it. No thanks.

2025-03-16 01:40:20 UTC

I see the insects of The Gap decided to put the ANT into ANTenna… talk about upping the ante… time for some AM I guess… ant modulation.
#CycloneAlfred #AmateurRadio
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/114/169/548/822/132/283/original/ca89a48a1e17c32b.mp4

2025-03-16 00:22:49 UTC

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Not every instance allows that much text in a post either.
Unless patched on journa.host, the limit would be 500 characters, a third of the limit for ALT text. Thus the post would have to be split over several posts…
Time-consuming, and sometimes you've just got to push something up and maybe come back to it later.
I can touch type on a proper keyboard with reasonable speed, but I'm a slow seek-and-peck two-finger typist on a touchscreen. Sometimes the circumstance doesn't let me stand there slowly pecking out an ALT-text … I will post without and come back later to fill it in when I have time.
In this case, someone else stepped up to put the alt text in. A most welcome gesture on @npub1797…5qu8's part.
Not idealin that there's a delay between the content and its description, but let's not let perfect get in the way of good.

2025-03-14 05:38:18 UTC

One pet peeve of mine, is when you want a particular product which is unobtainium in your local area.
I've been doing a lot of bushwalking lately, and a couple of years ago I bought some high-vis shirts that are hooded. They're just like the hi-vis polo shirts you buy at Bunnings, but have a hood instead of a collar.
Brilliant for our hot weather. I thought, "I'll buy some more".
I bought the first lot through #Amazon … but I really want to avoid them just now.
EBay has some, but the shipping is $$expensive$$.
I thought… hang on, why not Canada? I see ForceField have just the product.
Ha ha ha, no. We don't ship overseas.
Might be crossing that picket line anyway.
#Rant

2025-03-12 22:11:59 UTC

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Ookay, so it works, but still a bit flaky on HFC NBN. But flaky is better than nothing.
BUT, that's good enough for email and Mastodon. 4G is no better here, my line-of-sight to the 3 tower that Telstra operate here is atrocious.
We'll see about working from home. This might be working well enough to get something useful done.

2025-03-12 21:58:36 UTC

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I gave Internode a gentle poke via the helpdesk over email… just asking if they've got an approximate timeframe or whether I can get a SIM for the LTE router I have.
Like magic, the link came back up.
Not sure how long this will last, but I'll do a post here and see what happens. We might be back on-air.

2025-03-07 02:13:07 UTC

T-12:00 or so, and Sam could not care less. #CatsOfMastodon #CycloneAlfred
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/114/118/721/196/880/968/original/8b7533ccfae57aa7.jpg

2025-03-05 10:30:14 UTC

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-05/meta-blocked-facebook-searches-cyclone-alfred/105013014
This is why we can no longer rely on centralised social media. #Meta #CycloneAlfred

2025-03-05 10:08:47 UTC

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612kHz ABC Radio Brisbane has just been knocked off-air for a few minutes.
DAB+ was music with an announcement "We apologise for this break in the programme".
612kHz AM was dead silent according to the FT5-DR I have. I can see the 612kHz transmitter tower out the bedroom window here (Strathpine).
It is now back on-air.
#CycloneAlfred

2025-03-04 09:24:01 UTC

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At least in our case… with the mandatory voting system we have… the election result can truly be seen as "the will of the people". The AEC practically bend over backwards to ensure that everyone is given every opportunity to participate as well.
In the US, it's the will of the noisy minority that bother to get out there. It's rigged that way. Now, the participation rate _has_ been going up, but in 2024, the thing that caused this mess was a small group that decided to not get involved.
This was an implicit acceptance of whatever the most numerous group chose. Consequently, the electoral colleges all fell the way they did, and we now have this mess.
"This is not us" only applies to those who actually got off their bums and tried to vote for progress. If they voted for conservatism or didn't vote … then sorry, no, "this is not us" excuses won't fly.

2025-03-02 21:04:29 UTC

Pet peeve… when you're looking at something on a web page, you're about to click/tap on a UI element… just as your finger hits the sensor… the element moves because some DOM element has been inserted or changed size above the UI element.
Consequence, you instead hit the UI element that has just been moved *under* the cursor (or your finger) now receives the click event.

2025-03-02 05:14:39 UTC

Err... #CycloneAlfred #ExtremeWeather #wx
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/114/091/120/018/816/782/original/149229547c46d837.png

2025-02-28 22:37:25 UTC

Sam is well and truly relaxed on #Caturday. #CatsOfMastodon #cats
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/114/083/886/580/165/157/original/b4f17dfa932ab28a.jpg

2025-02-28 06:42:39 UTC

> "I'm not responsible for your job and your family, you are," Mr Palmer said.
>
> "If you haven't been employed for two years it doesn't show too much initiative about yourself, does it?
Those with 'Trumpet of Patriots' candidates might want to consider this when thinking about whether this party really has your interests at heart.
Clive Palmer denies responsibility for unemployed Queensland Nickel workers - ABC News
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-21/clive-palmer-court-clive-mensink-queensland-nickel/8731278
#AusPol

2025-02-26 09:30:47 UTC

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Well, BlueSky certainly is a good half-way point if they add @ap.brid.gy to their followers… doing that they become visible here too.
https://fed.brid.gy/
We should encourage the federal government to set up an instance actually. If they're worried about electoral interference, running an ActivityPub server of some kind for all the government people would be a good way to side-step that.

2025-02-26 00:27:36 UTC

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That or the claim is that because the cattle eat grass, that the meat produced is little more than reprocessed grass.

2025-02-25 23:53:09 UTC

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I'm sure "they just are" would be sufficient to convince a jury in a false advertising case. ;-)

2025-02-22 10:00:16 UTC

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Didn't think they were stackable… I'd have to get a second one to find out.
(And hope Sam and his new hypothetical feline mate don't rip each-others thoraxes out.)

2025-02-08 07:21:13 UTC

I just managed to get the first of my #sabots going to help clog up AI.
This is running on the node I resurrected yesterday. Single CPU VM, 1GiB RAM… AlpineLinux 3.21.
It is using this tool:
https://zadzmo.org/code/nepenthes/
Not the most well documented in terms of installation requirements… I've fed it with some of my blog posts for corpus input. I note every third link it generates is a 404 too.
Now I've put the bait out, I just wait.
Might try another engine out and deploy a VM for that elsewhere. Then maybe I can load-balance between them.

2025-02-03 00:30:09 UTC

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We do not need to co-operate with the facist regime that is the Trump government.
We need to throw sand in the gears of facism. We do not stop on the 11th of November every year just to wave the nazis through on parade.

2025-01-16 02:25:52 UTC

I know this was written nearly 21 years ago… and at the time it was referencing the #SCO vs #Linux case… but I can't help but see the parallels between that, and #AI scraping our shitposts for profit…
https://www.theregister.com/2004/03/09/bofh_protecting_bodily_waste/

2025-01-15 22:08:27 UTC

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Does it bug you?

2024-12-02 22:12:37 UTC

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… and I just realised 2048 is a power of two…
```
stuartl@rikishi ~ $ echo $(( 2 ** 11 ))
2048
```

2024-12-02 22:10:22 UTC

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Apparently we'll see this again in 2031. A year before the Brisbane Olympics.
Now, 2020 and 2024 are both examples of this happening _on a leap year_. The next leap year that begins with WTF will be 2048.
The last leap year _before_ 2020 which began with WTF was 1992.

2024-12-02 07:03:26 UTC

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Actually, if you have a smart television or digital video recorder… I'd almost put money on it being a Linux machine beneath the covers.
If you have a home Internet router, the vast majority of those are Linux based. Some did experiment with other OSes like VxWorks back in the day, but those experiments died out.
If you're using Android anywhere, that's the Linux kernel running the show. Very different user-space stack, but still Linux at the core.
It hides in a lot of places you may not even realise.
Largely because it's a blob of code that people have already spent the effort in writing, that can light up a large amount of hardware including embedded devices, and with a licensing cost which many can stomach.
To make an OS that runs even a basic home router would be prohibitively expensive in terms of software developer time. It's cheaper to just accept the license of whatever's "on the shelf" and build on that.

2024-11-29 04:02:36 UTC

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Yeah, I'm not sure what's dragging `systemd` in. It's not installed (I run a "hardened" profile, where it is not the default).
Something is wanting it though, so I'll update pieces until I find the culprit.

2024-11-29 00:30:55 UTC

```
The following USE changes are necessary to proceed:
(see "package.use" in the portage(5) man page for more details)
# required by sys-apps/systemd-256.7::gentoo
# required by sys-apps/gentoo-systemd-integration-9::gentoo
>=sys-apps/dbus-1.15.8 systemd
```
… over my dead body! Ugh!

2024-11-25 21:42:58 UTC

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Don't work for Jacques Electronics… when I was working there… I had a consistent trail of those little buggers going straight to my tea cup.
Worse was out at Laidley… the cheeky sods would sit on the rim of the cup and bite you as you took a sip.

2024-11-25 21:37:52 UTC

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Those tiny ants are good news… means you don't have termites … they do not get along.

2024-11-24 01:37:28 UTC

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I utterly hate RP-SMA.
Not to mention having to explain the difference to non-RF people.
"No, that thing is not a 'spacer', that's an adaptor because if you look, the antenna you just screwed on there has no centre pin and nor does the shaft you screwed it on to."
Maybe you get lucky and the two "sockets" press against each-other, but more likely you'll leave a 1mm or so gap… that's not a connection, that's a capacitor!

2024-11-16 22:03:42 UTC

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Teenager hospitalised _where_?
Where was the infection sourced from?
How was the infection acquired?
A link would be most helpful. I don't doubt what you have posted, but I cannot rely on rumour alone.

2024-09-29 05:23:43 UTC

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A way I can generate that image with that exact code is via `curl` (I haven't written a full front-end yet)
```
stuartl@rikishi ~ $ curl --insecure -o /tmp/rendered-image.png 'https://192.168.65.188/sstv/tx/template/render' -X POST -H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0' -H 'Accept: */*' -H 'Accept-Language: en-AU,en-GB;q=0.7,en;q=0.3' -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br' -H 'Referer: https://vk4msl-bm.local/sstv/template.html' -H 'Content-Type: text/plain;charset=UTF-8' -H 'Origin: https://vk4msl-bm.local' -H 'Connection: keep-alive' -H 'Sec-Fetch-Dest: empty' -H 'Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors' -H 'Sec-Fetch-Site: same-origin' -H 'DNT: 1' -H 'Pragma: no-cache' -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' --data-raw '{"template":"no-watermark","mode":"M1","values":{"msgtext":"Message text","msgheading":"Message Heading","background":"vk4msl-qsl-2024.png","callsign":"VK4MSL","name":"Stuart","grid":"QG62ln"}}'
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 137k 100 137k 100 193 37379 51 0:00:03 0:00:03 --:--:-- 37429
```
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/113/219/158/844/017/902/original/4c7b06a906fe4acd.png

2024-09-09 10:44:22 UTC

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… is that daylight I can see shining out of the canal?

2024-09-02 05:47:07 UTC

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Not quite sure… I think momostr.pink might be a nostr relay? Don't know a lot about that system.
Looks like aus.social has not federated with that instance, so those replies aren't visible to you.
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/113/066/369/433/124/131/original/bab79517ede38dda.png

2024-09-02 03:33:14 UTC

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Don't tempt me 🙂
(actually, my *own* laptop that I bring to work, *does* run Gentoo.)

2024-09-02 03:31:00 UTC

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To be honest, Ubuntu's standards have slipped here… it used to be a lot less of a struggle.
At least I was able to debug the hot mess I got into… if this had been Windows I'd be doing a full re-install now.

2024-09-02 03:11:52 UTC

So, today I thought… why not run `do-release-upgrade` on the work laptop? It was running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (no Windows install).
The machine is a HP Elitebook 640. A few quirks, but mostly seems to work fine.
- do-release-upgrade first refused because I had pinned Terraform to the last release under the old license (we're leery of the new license and aren't ready to jump to OpenTofu yet)… fine, comment out Hashicorp repo…
- then the PPAs and third party repos were causing issues… fine, rename the `.list` files to `.off`…
- eventually it installs, but then barfs right at the end
- I reboot, and `libnettle` is broken, taking /usr/lib/apt/methods/http with it
- Manually download libnettle .deb on another machine, `scp` it across, `dpkg -i` and I could finish up what `do-release-upgrade` had failed on (`apt-get dist-upgrade -y` mostly)
- reboot again, this time things are a lot happier
- run `apt-get autoremove` to clear out the old junk
- update and re-instate my old third-party repos, substituting `jammy` with `noble`
- `apt-get dist-upgrade -y` again
- boot out the `snap` packages for Firefox, Chromium and Thunderbird which crept in unwanted.
3 hours later, I have my workstation back.
#Ubuntu

2024-08-31 07:50:58 UTC

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Are those both strings?
Not a C# expert by a long shot, but `x = y = value` is a pretty common way of setting x and y to the same value…
C# isn't a dynamically typed language, but it may support operator overloading… so maybe adding -1 to an empty string is some ham-fisted way to set both strings to "-1"?

2024-08-30 05:57:35 UTC

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Question is, who next would go on that list?
The Beatles? (Revolution)
T. Rex / Marc Bolan's estate? (Children of the Revolution)
Rose Tattoo (We Can't Be Beaten)
Little River Band / John Farnham (Playing To Win)
Hot Chocolate (Everyone's a winner, So you win again)
Bee Gees (You Win Again)
Probably lots of other hits that concern these themes too.
I wonder if there was a way to make those artists aware and maybe get them to take preemptive action.

2024-08-27 06:17:37 UTC

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Let him… when he realises the airline industry decides it's too legally risky to fly an aircraft in US airspace, they'll soon get sick of having to drive to Canada or Mexico to get a flight off the North American continent.

2024-08-22 22:21:16 UTC

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Well, you should if you're presently subscribed to a Microsoft service that's providing security fixes for that Windows 98 machine. 🙂
I question the logic too of using Ubuntu 18.04 for web browsing duties, however the OS is still actively being supported under a paid subscription… so I guess Canonical and Google should work together on this.
That said, part of me wonders how different Chromium is for this task… isn't that on the Ubuntu-side of the fence and thus being supported?

2024-08-16 22:06:17 UTC

Looks like my #NitroKey3 had a little accident…
Silly question for @npub1rqk…dxqz would lead-free solder and a bit of copper wire work to fix the keyring hole?
https://mastodon.longlandclan.id.au/system/media_attachments/files/112/973/963/713/657/707/original/90d7dc83c66acbcf.jpg