greyduck.net

Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Category: Geekery

  • Satisfactory: Turbopower!

    I picked Satisfactory back up a couple of months ago in anticipation of the Update 6 patch landing on the Early Access branch. Instead of starting yet another new save, however, I decided to keep going on the save I started back before Update 4 landed. This neatly avoided having to climb the tech tree all over again, not to mention it takes advantage of the fact that I deliberately left the Spire Coast region alone the entire time so far. (The developers warned everyone that major map changes were coming to that area.)

    Update 6 and its quality-of-life improvements arrived at the same time that I unlocked my very first ever “Turbofuel” recipe. I needed more electrical supply anyway (the lines on my power graphs criss-crossed a lot more than I was really comfortable with) so I decided to try out the more potent variety of fuel generation.

    Gus? Buddy? You know that the Blender is not your friend, right? No, no you don’t.

    Here’s how that turned out.

    (more…)

  • Impressions From First Episodes: Fall 2022 Anime

    Remind me to, at some point, backfill my impressions of the Spring 2022 anime season, because it had a lot going on, most of it genuinely good.

    Anyway, since I am actually watching more than merely one or two new “first episodes” this season I figured I should jot down some thoughts. Here goes, listed by the order (mostly) in which I viewed them:

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  • Tualatin Hills Nature Park – Ch-ch-ch-changes

    On an absolute last-second whim, I headed out this afternoon to take a hike around one of my favorite nearby attractions, the Tualatin Hills Nature Park. It’s just two stops away via MAX light rail, but between the pandemic and everything else I just haven’t made it over there in a couple of years.

    This is what the entryway to the bridge over the creek bed from the MAX station park entrance looked like in 2018.
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  • From Liquid To Metal

    Apparently this month is all about problems with cooling.

    (more…)

  • I Don’t Have A Hover Problem

    I’d follow that title with an “I can quit any time” but if I quit having domains on Hover then this website would vanish. So, let’s not do that.

    After days of pondering and puttering and such, I made some decisions:

    1. I don’t want to join one of the really big Mastodon instances. I like things cozy.
    2. I can’t find a cozy Mastodon instance that isn’t geared toward hyper-niche interests.
    3. I don’t want to spin up another VPS on Linode to run my own. Last time I tried administering a Mastodon server it blew up during an upgrade and I couldn’t get it back.
    4. I’m willing to pay a few dollars per month to make this someone else’s problem.
    5. It’s been a while since I bought a new domain for a silly project, hasn’t it?

    And so, a trip to Hover and to Masto.host later, “Well, Duck Me” is up & running. I don’t yet know if I’ll open it up to other users, though if you’re a friend and have some interest I’ll probably let you join. Just give me a heads-up.

  • I Love Making Stuff Work

    Most days, I’m just a fix-it man. Someone broke something, or entropy took its toll, whichever: I get the call and I (usually) find a way to fix the problem.

    On rare, delightful occasions I get to actually build something, though. That’s the best.

    Today at the office (as it were) I replaced the basically-defunct PHP Server Monitor setup with Uptime Kuma, which (if you install one extra piece of software) can send notifications to all kinds of things if a monitored website-or-whatever goes offline. Since our company lives in Microsoft Teams day in and day out, I set it to post alerts to a particular Teams channel. I showed the results to the VP and a couple of relevant coworkers and they’re all happy with it. Excellent!

    A couple of hours of just hunkered down, putting a new thing into service, learning its ins and outs, and getting useful results at the end? Absolute heaven.

    More of that, please.

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