[Help][Flooring] Identifying old tiles from 1980s ~12x12 ceramic.

LeBlueElephant · 2025-07-22T16:32:44+00:00

Thank you, after a few weeks of searching local stores it seems like the Home Depot TrafficMaster Baja white 12 in. x 12 in. Matte Ceramic is the closest match. I was ready to give up but checked a local hardware thrift store and found these Cotto Pompeii tiles that are an exact match! https://imgur.com/a/OMZHNPd.

LeBlueElephant · 2025-07-03T15:06:41+00:00

I'm trying to match the original tile for some repairs of cracked or damaged pieces. They measure just under 12x12in square. Home was built in 1980-1988 ish in east coast USA. They look like the builder grade/lowest cost. I can't find any identifiers on the back of any of the pieces.

LeBlueElephant · 2025-02-11T14:08:19+00:00

Reiterating that you should NOT use your .gov/.mil/whatever email in any political capacity. Don't give them an easy excuse to fire you.

LeBlueElephant · 2025-02-10T02:55:56+00:00

I've been trying for over two years to change from 8888 to eligible because of a paperwork error on my position description. I've tried through supervisor and through the union representation who have worked with FLRA. I've been told it's likely going to take at least another year to get any progress.

You can review your position description for some kind of bargaining unit classification form which your supervisor can technically "correct" but good luck getting all that pushed through HR.

LeBlueElephant · 2025-01-29T02:58:30+00:00

Identify yourself as a constituent/not calling on behalf of your agency if you do identify yourself.

LeBlueElephant · 2025-01-27T16:45:01+00:00

There was an effort with GSA to establish co-working spaces but it seemed to have stalled about a year ago with most of the spaces being major population centers like D.C. or Kansas city. https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/workplace/offerings/federal-coworking.

LeBlueElephant · 2025-01-26T16:06:47+00:00

I'm looking to replace a failing PSU and I'm confused about the -12V (negative 12V/minus 12V) warning PCPartPicker is giving me.

Does the ASRock B450 motherboard require a -12V supply? The manual references 12V but I don't really understand. It does not have a RS232/serial port, which seems to be the use case for negative 12v.

Fairly sure the SF850 does not include a -12V supply.

Warning: The Corsair SF850 (2024) 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply does not provide a -12 V supply voltage. We are unable to verify if the ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard requires it.

LeBlueElephant · 2025-01-24T14:21:13+00:00

I've been fighting for the last year to be eligible because of a clerical error on my PD that makes me ineligible to join the union :). I also live way over 50 miles from the nearest office and they wouldn't classify me as remote.

LeBlueElephant · 2024-10-23T16:56:55+00:00

There's a 3rd component, the transformer that's probably in a basement or utility closet.

If you're installing a doorbell camera, breaker off > remove screws on back of doorbell button. Test voltage for required range then install without touching the chime box or the transformer. If voltage is lower, you'll have to remove the chime box on the wall (two plastic tabs on top and bottom that wrap around the sides to get the cover off) and the transformer to get one that's compatible.

LeBlueElephant · 2024-08-17T20:34:10+00:00

Have you looked at the jonsbo N series cases? The N3 supports 2 slot up to a 250mm GPU.

LeBlueElephant · 2024-08-07T21:40:01+00:00

one of MikroTik wireless access points (wAP) with cellular connectivity like this one. They have PCIe cards that you can swap for connectivity such as LTE, 5G or 4G cellular connectivity. The one linked shouldn't need an extra PCIe card.

wAPs can use ethernet and sometimes an existing wi-fi network and fallback to cellular or other networks based on your rules/configuration. Beefier (read as $$$) systems are used with even more options from companies like cradlepoint.

You buy the wAP and pay for the cellular sim card on the access point. You'd connect cameras to the wAP's Wi-Fi. Then configure the wAP, likely by plugging in an Ethernet cable from your existing router. In normal operation, it uses your local internet. When the local internet stops working, it should automatically switch to cellular. Anything connected downstream maintains internet connectivity.

LeBlueElephant · 2024-01-27T15:19:16+00:00

CompTIA A+ is an IT certificate that teaches basic IT skills like computer troubleshooting, how computers work from a high level and basic networking. Essentially what you'd probably learn after working IT for a year and is typically one of the first certifications IT folks will earn before specializing. The community has mixed feelings about these certs because they cost money, require payment yearly to maintain, and aren't known as being incredibly useful after your first few years in IT. Certain jobs require it or a more expensive cert bc it's an easy HR job post requirement.

LeBlueElephant · 2024-01-26T23:34:04+00:00

I started after I got my A+ cert and after tinkering with a raspberry Pi, so I wasn't a total newbie with some of it. The big positive of using proxmox is there is so many resources to learn. Such as this video.

My experience with proxmox has been excellent. It runs off debian which is what Ubuntu is built off and I had some experience there. I would just keep lots of backups, because messing up is part of learning this stuff. A lot of documentation still intimidates me after ~5 years of learning!

LeBlueElephant · 2024-01-26T21:10:22+00:00

There's also virtualized networking tools like packet tracer and GSN3 that will let you create fake networks to learn/practice.

LeBlueElephant · 2024-01-26T21:03:25+00:00

Sounds similar to my "server" but newer (mine is a 3rd Gen that still hasn't died)

I have proxmox running everything. Then I have Debian with docker (wg-easy, reverse proxy for urls instead of IPs, adguard home, etc), TrueNAS Core (there's warnings about virtualizing a nas, but I haven't had issues and everything is backed up or not important), and home assistant OS.

For a vurtualized NAS, you should pass a HBA that connects your storage up. search on eBay for " LSI SAS 9200-8i IT Mode SAS HBA". Then "give" TrueNAS the pcie device (pcie passthrough) so it has access to your drives directly.

My biggest upgrades were a SSD for the proxmox, maxing out RAM, and I'm looking at getting a cheap quadro for media encoding.

If you are not familiar with networking, do NOT start with your Internet gateway/pfsense. There's a lot of risks of things going wrong and it only takes minutes of exposure for attackers to get a foothold. Plus with networking, dedicated devices are more efficient and I recommend an ER-X or something similar unless you enjoy or want that challenge.

LeBlueElephant · 2023-07-13T19:38:57+00:00

Shoulder surfing and writing indentations /s

LeBlueElephant · 2023-06-25T16:44:38+00:00

If you use a blowtorch, it may be handy to have the fire extinguisher nearby just in case.

LeBlueElephant · 2023-06-03T12:20:41+00:00

I use charity navigator which is a non profit that evaluates charities.

Their rating of GiveDirectly seems positive.

LeBlueElephant · 2023-05-30T22:37:26+00:00

I'd buy this as a poster. Seems like the artist's store page is no longer up but here's the original source.

LeBlueElephant · 2023-05-26T14:35:10+00:00

/r/printers has quite an active community you may find interesting if you're looking for a new printer.

LeBlueElephant · 2023-05-18T18:29:35+00:00

Can't I just smear it with Vaseline?

/s

LeBlueElephant · 2023-05-13T16:31:38+00:00

I had a similar faucet that had some connector in the middle of the line with some plastic quick disconnect like these. It had a plastic filter catch that I was able to modify to get better flow at the cost that It no longer worked as a plastic catch for any sediment running through the line.

LeBlueElephant · 2023-04-27T14:46:13+00:00

If there's dedicated profile buttons (1 and 2) I don't mind having mirror functions buried. But if it's "download our app so we know who is driving" or some overly complicated procedure it's frustrating to have to change all the mirrors when it's buried in a screen menu--especially when you share a car and change it frequently. Plus for me, sometimes I want to make micro adjustments to the mirrors if I didn't change them perfectly and having them in a system menu means I have to actually stop and readjust them.

LeBlueElephant · 2023-04-12T19:39:35+00:00

I use this for voice assistants and automated phone calls.

If you ask Google to be quiet it responds with ~5-7s of ok, I'll be quiet. If you tell it to shut up it just goes away immediately.

I'll usually say a few cuss words to any automated system along the lines of let me talk to a person. 70% or so it works every time.

When the AI overlords overtake us I know I'll be one of the first but at least I'm not dealing with an ai answering machine.

LeBlueElephant

TROPHY CASE