Dom Corriveau

July 2023 Retrospective

Posted on Aug 4, 2023
tl;dr: Built a new (to me) desktop PC, fixed some homelab server power issues, read a lot, and watched a lot of Gerard Butler.

July is busy, both personally and at work. Its one of our busiest months in landscaping, so I worked a lot. My birthday was at the beginning of the month and had some time off around it. I am super happy I got that time to be home for my birthday and a chance to relax before our final push through the landscaping and irrigation season.

Other than work, here’s what I was up to in July.

Tech projects

Server troubleshooting

I started having a ton of errors and VMs crashing. I run some Docker containers on the host, but others hosted stuff are in VMs and all point to a USB attached DAS connected to an old laptop I use as my homelab. I was worried I had a drive failing and was causing the VMs to crash because the storage would occasionally disappear.

But checking the logs I found nothing. All SMART tests were good and I couldn’t find anything wrong with any of the drives.

I realized the issues was the surge protector that the laptop and DAS were connected to. I was occasionally plugging in a fan to blow across the laptop on hot days. One day I unplugged the fan and the laptop screen came on briefly. On further investigation, when I would mess with the surge protector, it would cut out and drop power. The laptop would carry on because it has a battery. However, the DAS would lose power and the drives would have to re-spin.

Once I replaced the surge protector, everything has been working perfectly. Did some data checks and I don’t think I caused any major issues with the drives repeatedly losing power for a second or two.

AMD desktop build

For the last few years I’ve been rocking an absolutely ancient desktop PC as my main driver. It had a Sandy Bridge Core i3 2100 CPU to give perspective.

I was extremely fortunate to get my hands on some newer hardware from my daughters boyfriend who recently upgraded their own machine. Its nothing fancy, but is a gigantic upgrade for me.

I spend the first week or so getting it all put together in a case I got from another family member who had an even older machine in it than my i3. Here’s the specs:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3500x
  • GPU AMD Radeon RX 550
  • RAM: 40 GB DDR4-3200 (another birthday gift was a 32GB kit. Now I can run all the VMs)
  • Storage: 512 GB NVMe primary, 3TB spinning HDD for extended storage

I’m super grateful that people will give me old parts. Its so much fun.

I also ended up installing Linux Mint XFCE. Who knew? I will admit, the extrodinary efforts to block and diminish snaps is really offputting. I know they’re not for everyone, but its my PC and I get to decide what code runs on it. I think this will end up being replaced with Debian once I have the energy to redo my desktop again.

Proxmox

I spent some time testing Proxmox while setting up a iKoolCore mini PC I got for my birthday. My plan with this machine is to use it for my “Intermittent Internet” project. After testing, Proxmox isn’t for me.

I ended up trying out Debian 12 and was my first true use of pure Debian.

I love it. In fact, I’m now considering switching everything to straight Debian, even the new desktop I just installed Linux Mint on.

Clonezilla

Created a bunch of backups of my machines and just want to say I love Clonezilla.

Mission Critical + Veracrypt

Making sure I have all the critical info I need should some catastrophe happen, but encrypted. I have an encrypted container in the cloud and at a family members house of what I consider “mission critical” data. After listening to the OSINT podcast listed below, I played around with moving my mission critical Veracrypt container onto my phone. Still testing a way to decrypt it if I ever need to.

Acer Aspire EasyStore H340

I picked this up at The Goodwill for $5 at the end of the month and just started hacking around on it. It is very old, but still works. I got it booted and some storage drives attached. Gonna spend some time in August seeing if I can turn it into a low power NAS/file server. The specs:

  • Intel Atom 230 CPU. 1 core, 1 thread 1.6GHz. Released 2008.
  • 2 GB DDR2-800 RAM. Single slot, 2 GB max.
  • 4x2TB max storage.
  • Gigabit Ethernet.

Articles

  1. June extremes suggest parts of climate system are reaching tipping points
  2. What a landmark new study on homelessness tells us
    • This was an eye opening read for me. First, it debunks that homelessness in the West is higher due to other states shipping people in or people landing out West due to friendlier viewpoints. Second, a big chunk of homelessness could be solved with a tiny, no questions asked UBI.
    • Related: Spike in homeless families in US cities isn’t slowing down
  3. Congress May Not Renew Low-Income Broadband Program Birthed During COVID
    • Of course they won’t. Why would a program that is important to low income and poor people make it through?
  4. How to kill a decentralized network
    • A good read about the Fediverse and what the implications of Threads federating with Mastodon and others.
    • It was also a reminder on how Google ruined XMPP, which I loved back in the day.
  5. Framework Laptop 16: our exclusive hands-on - The Verge
    • If I wasn’t so damn poor I’d buy a Framework.

Movies

  • Speed & Speed 2: Cruise Control
    • I don’t have to defend myself.
  • Shin Ultraman
    • My son and I watch all things Hideaki Anno. This was good, just felt like a modern episode of Ultraman. We are super excited for Shin Kamen Rider.
  • Gamer
    • In this house, we love Gerard Butler. But this movie is bad, bad, bad. Its not bad acting per se. Its the bro and toxic gamer culture woven through. Its cringe and toxic.
  • London Has Fallen & Angel Has Fallen
    • We started the Has Fallen series last month, finished it now. I’d watch it every month if I had the choice.
  • Turbulence
    • I had low expectations and it met them. I call that a win.
  • Transformers Rise of the Beasts
    • Not as good as Bumblebee, better than the Michael Bay stuff.
    • I’m not a fan of grumpy Optimus.
  • Bad City (2022)
    • A pretty decent Hong Kong action flick.
    • I liked watching it, probably wouldn’t watch it again.
  • Mad Max Fury Road
    • If left unsupervised, I watch Fury Road.
    • Moo.
  • Hidden Strike
    • This movie is terrible and that’s saying a lot because I intentionally watch terrible movies. But, ended up being worth it for John Cena singing cat meows.

YouTube

Books

  • Nothing to Lose (A Jack Reacher Novel) By Lee Child
    • Good background while I work and commute.
    • I kinda saw the twist coming, but was hoping it wouldn’t be what I thought. In the end, it was an okay story with the same Reacher tropes.
  • The Killing Hills by Chris Offutt
    • This was a recommendation from my wife and was really good! I liked the setting in rural Kentucky, how everyone speaks, and some insight to the culture.
    • I will defend Johnny Boy with my life.

Podcasts

A couple of good ones this month that were outside my normal routine.

Gaming

I didn’t play any video games this month. Its something I wish I could start doing, I just don’t know when I would play.

Quote

Gonna end with a fantastic quote from my wife:

“How would I know, I’ve never fired a fake gun before. "

Until next time, bye pals.