Dom Corriveau

September 2023 Retrospective

Posted on Oct 1, 2023

When the weather starts to change around here we all get excited. One, we love the holiday season. Two, my contracting business goes on a winter hiatus and I’m off work on an extended vacation for months. Three, all of my kids birthdays are in the fall. We have a birthday in each month, September through December.

Our September birthday is for my oldest, who turned 20. This one was hard because we know she is moving out soon and this was her last birthday at home.

It still hurts. But, I’m excited for her and the life she’s going to live. We will be nearby and will always be her parents. But, this was the last one at home and when she moves out later this year so will a big chunk of me.

House stuff

I’ve been getting the house ready for winter. Its an El Nino year, which typically means a warmer winter for the Puget Sound region. But with climate change, who knows what the hell is gonna happen. All I know is I like to be prepared for the worst.

Got the yard ready and overseeded the front grass. Remember, good care in Autumn means great grass in the Spring!

The weather was really nice most of September so we spent a lot of time in the front yard while the kids played. We basically went out every evening after dinner and just enjoyed the time together.

It started raining a lot in the last week or so and spurred me to get more prepared for power outages. We have touch battery lights in every room and I replaced the living room light bulbs with ones that have a battery backup. Did maintenace on the generator, put new batteries in the smoke detectors, went through our emergency supplies.

We also went through our cold and flu (and COVID) season supplies to make sure we are ready. We go into full hibernation during the flu season, but still prepare for it to go through our home. Last step is our vax appointments in October.

Tech Projects

Tailscale subnet routing + Pihole + Reverse proxy

Wrote a blog about this topic and how its changed my self-hosting game for when I’m outside my LAN.

Full blog post here: Tailscale subnet routing with Pihole is homelab perfection

Audiobookshelf RSS to AntennaPod

Another blogpost from this month in which I figured out you can put Audiobookshelf RSS feeds into AntennaPod for audiobooks, not just podcasts. Another huge win for self-hosting.

Details here: A mind-blown moment with Audiobookshelf and RSS

Newsboat feed reader with automated YouTube downloads

Yet another blog post this month about how I found a script that will automate downloading YouTube videos using RSS feeds and Newsboat. TL;DR Newsboat is a commandline app for reading RSS feeds. You can use a script to look through your RSS feeds and use yt-dlp to download them to watch offline. chefs kiss

Blog here: Automating YouTube downloads using RSS and Newsboat

Setting up and using a 20 year old Compaq laptop

I spent about a week this month playing around with an absolutely ancient Compaq laptop, getting it setup to use modern OS and software. It was a ton of fun and learned a lot about CLI/TUI apps and OpenBox.

Read here: I used a 20 year old laptop to write this post

Memos server

My wife and I have been testing out Memos, a self-hosted note taking service. It is purposefully built to be similar to Facebook in layout so that it feels familiar for posting. We’ve been testing using it not for notes, but for memories. When something happens, like birthdays, family events or moments, we post it on our private Memos instance so we can look back through it later. It feels good to post on it and is more like a family diary. Since its LAN only we know the info isn’t being harvested for ads. It also means we can post more intimate family moments without feeling like people are spying on us.

Test has been going well. More info on this later in the year.

Jump host

I’ve been trying to up my security practices for my homelab and it led me to setting up a jump host, or as some call it a “bastion server”. Essentially its a super secure box that I connect to that can then connect to other boxes. I have set it up so only certain machines, with certain ssh keys can connect to it, and then my homelab will only accept connections from the jump host. The jump host is blocking all connections except for the ones I explicitly mapped and connections can only come from my LAN.

Took a fair amount of work to get setup, but I feel better about my security practices. Still not perfect, yet I’ll keep working on it.

Movies

  • Up in Smoke & Half Baked
    • We watched these back-to-back with my teen son. Up in Smoke is definitely too dated for Gen Z, but he really enjoyed Half Baked.
  • TMNT Mutant Mayhem
    • Little known fact: I absolutely adore The Turtles and haven’t told anyone in years.
    • This movie is amazing. Probably 3-4 top animated movie for me and so glad they made it. Not perfect, but still one of the best.
  • The Mummy
    • This is not The Mummy with Brenden Fraser, but with Tom Cruise and came out in 2017.
    • Meh.
  • MST3K Teenage Strangler, MST3K Giant Spider Invasion, MST3K Wild Rebels
    • I know they aren’t technically movies and instead TV episodes, but they are movie length. I also don’t want to hear about how the eat or breathe and other science facts. Keep in mind its just a show and you should really just relax.
    • We got on a MST3K kick this month after I picked up some sets from the library on DVD.
    • I introduced MST3K to my wife when we first met over 20 years ago. She had never heard of it and I knew we were perfect for each other when she loved it.
  • Blackhat (2015)
    • A Michael Mann movie with Chris Hemsworth as a world renowned hacker.
    • Meh.
  • Pink Floyd: The Delicate Sound of Thunder
    • This time last year my son and I saw Roger Waters live and it was an amazing show. We sat about 3 rows back from the stage.
    • So, we watched this (although not Waters, but Gilmore & gang) near the one year anniversary of us going to the live show.
  • Sgt. Bilko & Bowfinger
    • My wife loves Steve Martin and these are some classics we rewatched.
  • The Ultimate Weapon
    • We purposefully watch terrible action movies and this was a stinker. So… a win!
    • It has Hulk Hogan, need I say more?
  • Nightstick
    • This is a made-for-TV Canadian action movie that is another so bad its good choice for us.
    • Leslie Nielsen makes an appearance as a cop who likes to go to restaurants with fiends.
    • Terrible, which means its great!
  • The Program
    • A random rewatch on a weeknight.
    • Reminds me how much I detest college sports.
  • The Expendables
    • A rewatch for us and a first time through for my son.
  • Class of 1999
    • This is a sequel to Class of 1984 and checks all my favorite boxes for campy action scifi.
    • I had a feeling the practical effect for the ending was gonna be great and was not disappointed. Loved this movie.
  • Band of the Hand
    • Stumbled into this while browsing Tubi for some trash to watch.
    • It is directed by Paul Michael Glaser who directed some of the best episodes of Miami Vice.
    • It has at least 6 actors who appeared in Vice as main or side characters in this movie. It even has Izzy (Martin Ferrero) with a minor role. Sadly, without the Izzy accent.
    • This movie is set in Miami, with tons of Miami Vice actors, produced by Michael Mann, and feels like a Miami Vice episode. Its like they took an extended Vice episode and cut out all the scenes with Tubbs and Crockett and just left the other misc. stuff.
    • Meh.

Books

Just one book this month (and no Reacher).

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

Read this on a whim after seeing a few recommendations and it was available at the library. I listened to it while I was working and enjoyed the story. Its a spaceship adrift with AI issues scifi story and is good. My only issue is that the author (Mur Lafferty) did the reading for the audio production and I didn’t like her reading. It was fine and apparently she’s been involved in podcasting for many, many years so I can see how they came to the conclusion she should read the book. I’m sure her podcast fans enjoyed that aspect.

Games

My son and I started re-playing Broforce after they released a final update with some new content and bros. We played this game years ago and actually made a whole series of vidoes recording our gameplay. Here’s the playlist from - checks notes - 6 YEARS AGO!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfOm_1tTBCTmm9-LUWKs6MMw9rhO4C4Dg

Watching this makes me realize we should be recording our current playthough as well.

Articles

  • The invisible problem
    • A blog about the UX issues of writing and editing text on mobile devices.
    • It is interesting that we are 15 years into touchscreen phones and still copy how its done on a laptop/desktop/typewriter.
  • An Argument for using Schools in the Fight for Digital Privacy
    • Google has a stranglehold on classrooms across the US and we are teaching our kids to accept that this is fine.
    • Using Chromebooks and Google Classroom as a way to speak to educators, parents, and kids about why their digital privacy is important.
  • A fatal crash shows us everything wrong with traffice enforcement
    • I know I just said that privacy is important and the next thing I’m gonna say is contradictory to that mindset.
    • I think we should be using more traffic, speed, redlight, and other cameras for traffic enforcement to reduce fatalities on the roads.
    • People are driving 3000lb+ death machines and over 40k die a year. If you don’t like getting speeding tickets, drive the fucking speed limit.
    • I don’t want cops patrolling for traffic stops, which can cause fatal interactions with police. I want to automate these systems and make traffic enforcement systems more ubiquitous. This article talks about some of the reasons why I feel this way.
  • Big Tech Lobbyist ‘Stunned’ People Think Planned Obsolescence ‘Conspiracy’ Is Real
    • If batteries are glued in, no firmware updates planned, annual device updates to encourage users to upgrade, and repair parts aren’t made available, it is planned obsolescense.
  • I Tested an HDMI Adapter That Demands Your Location, Browsing Data, Photos, and Spams You with Ads
  • Sine
    • A fictional tale about using AI therapy app provided by a health insurer, rather than access to a real person.
    • This story had me thinking about it for more than a week and I’m still processing.

That’s all for this month. Bye, pals.