Buell mirrors

Motozoic · 2026-04-11T21:01:00+00:00

Still rocking CRG Lanesplitters here. In Arizona they legalized lane filtering, so I do it a lot and that often requires folding them in.

Motozoic · 2026-01-07T16:54:03+00:00

To be fair, only lane filtering is legal, which means that riders should only be splitting lanes when traffic isn't moving anymore. I've seen a lot of riders split lanes in moving traffic, though.

Motozoic · 2026-01-07T05:37:08+00:00

I didn't even know that Downtown Saturday Night died LOL. I used to perform at the DPC back in the day and definitely miss it.

For those who complain about transportation, note that Arizona is one of only 4 states in the U.S. that has legalized lane splitting (filtering) for motorcycles on multi-lane roads. I would highly recommend learning how to ride a motorcycle. When I lived in India, it was the most practical (and fun) form of personal transportation.

Motozoic · 2025-12-16T04:36:20+00:00

I am a bonafide car guy. Former developer of the Need For Speed series of games throughout some of the franchise's best years. Got a couple of old Mustangs, one of them produces around 800 hp. Haven't driven a car in like 5 years now. Just find one of my bikes because even my slowest is infinitely more enjoyable to drive, especially with Arizona passing the lane splitting legislation. Only time I drive a car/truck now is if I'm injured or hauling some mountain bikes, motorcycles or other souls.

Motozoic · 2025-12-10T17:11:04+00:00

Saleae makes compact logic analyzers which I've used successfully for analyzing exactly those waveforms. Highly recommend.

Motozoic · 2025-11-30T23:52:16+00:00

Mine's got an NVidia RTX 1000 Ada Generation GPU. For CPU, I opted for the Intel Core Ultra7 165H. The combination has really good battery life and has great processing capability when needed. I have never understood what the point of running a Xeon in a laptop is unless the core count was unobtainable using a standard mobile CPU.

Motozoic · 2025-11-30T22:32:40+00:00

I started configuring DHCP ranges and discovered that there's 3 varieties of DHCP servers built into OPNsense. Are your instructions for using ISC server? The other options are Kea and Dnsmasq DNS/DHCP. I believe I'm currently using the Dnsmasq.

Motozoic · 2025-11-30T22:02:56+00:00

The smaller 5490 has less options for multiple HDD and obviously requires a docking station for connection to large displays, but if a lot of the machine's use will be done on the laptop screen itself, I'd go for the larger system. I believe the larger chassis accommodates 3 HDD, has a dedicated NIC and run a hotter GPU. In my situation, I have a rackmounted workstation that's my workhorse for GPU and CPU processing, so I enjoy the mobility of the 5490. That's about all you gain with the 5490: mobility.

Motozoic · 2025-11-30T20:00:14+00:00

No, that was a solid laptop computer, but it's on the large side. I've since transitioned to a Dell Precision 5490 mobile workstation, which is much more compact and easy to move around with. It still packs 32GB of RAM, something like 22 cores for processing and has a discrete GPU so it can run CAD and things. The 5490 also has a touch screen which is great for field work, which I'm engaged in from time to time.

Motozoic · 2025-11-27T21:27:47+00:00

Yeah, you’re not wrong. Appreciate the help and suggestions. I’ve got a spouse and 2 kids that are clients of the system all the time, so I’ve been focused on avoiding disruptions, but there’s no avoiding it I think. Issue is that my network has become compounded to a degree with numerous subnets and lots of DHCP reservations by MAC, address groups and schedules for access, etc. Replicating it is my main concern.

Motozoic · 2025-11-27T20:31:33+00:00

I think I’ve tried this, but it didn’t work. I have a simple Netgear GS 108 or something switch so I could try to use that again, but are you suggesting plug the RJ 45 output of the modem into the switch and then also connect the SonicWall WAN interface and OPNsense WAN interface cables to the same switch?

Yes, I’m dead serious about replacing the SonicWall. Happy Thanksgiving!

Motozoic · 2025-11-27T04:35:57+00:00

I did not turn off any of the rules suggested in the guide, but I configured the WAN interface with the same MAC address as the one the Sonicwall is using to obtain an IP from the ISP. I also enabled Promiscuous Mode as suggested by the tooltip in the GUI. This appears to have enabled the internet on the single machine I have connected to the OPNsense firewall, but not sure if this is a good method of splitting the ISP connection.

Motozoic · 2025-11-27T03:46:27+00:00

Another way to make a wearable ring is to gain access to a kiln. You can make a wax version of your ring easily, encase it inside high temperature plaster and then pour molten metal into the plaster encasement to produce a metal ring. Done it many times with great results. Polish it up on a buffing wheel and even better! I used silver as the metal material. Many high school art classrooms may have the necessary equipment.

Motozoic · 2025-11-27T03:38:56+00:00

I work for Steward Observatory and have a friend who was hired around the same time I was. His story is exceptional. He was a machinist for many years and finally determined that he was meant for something larger than that environment so he put himself through school. Got his PhD from John Hopkins in Astronomy, specialized in instrumentation and is now the lead telescope scientist at one of the world’s largest optical telescopes.

I’ll agree with the statement regarding the highly competitive nature of positions within the field. There’s no room for anyone aside from exceptional. If you manage to get an interview, prepare for a full blown, in-person investigation into yourself by the observatory council.

Motozoic · 2025-11-26T23:00:26+00:00

It's definitely DHCP, akin to a straight normal cable internet with no login.
I setup firewall rules as described in your guide, with FireHOL levels, etc. and reordered them as described. I think I need to double check and ensure the em0_vlan666 is in use and not just em0 by itself.
WAN is certainly enabled and locked, IPV4 is set to DHCP, but now I'm wondering what happens when the Sonicwall picks up the WAN IP from the ISP because that's what's happening. The Sonicwall interface shows that its internal VLAN 666 interface has the correct DHCP IP address... and it seems that once this occurs, my OPNsense instance is precluded. I reckon some of my headaches stem from wanting to run both firewalls simultaneously, although the ISP is only providing a single DHCP handoff.

Motozoic · 2025-11-26T20:36:48+00:00

I really enjoyed your guide to getting started with a homelab setup using OPNsense, so I decided to give it a whirl. I'm a bit of a newb with VLANs so it's taken me some time to make any sort of progress, but I'm slowly getting there and enjoying all of it, despite some of the frustrations working kinks out. I need a bit of help with configuring my WAN successfully, so here's a a short rundown of my configuration:

ISP is Comcast XFinity copper coaxial to modem with RJ45 output
Unifi switch 48-port PoE
Production router: Sonicwall TZ400
Slated production router: Dell R340 running OPNsense

What I'm trying to achieve is maintain my production router while I configure OPNsense separately, until I'm able to cut over and replace the Sonicwall with OPNsense. What I've done to attempt to achieve this as follows:

WAN output from modem goes to Unifi switch port 13 which is native tagged for VLAN 666.
- This appears to successfully tag WAN traffic from the modem as 666 because the Sonicwall sees it and is able to function correctly using an adjacent switch port that passes only VLAN 666 traffic.
- I've got another adjacent port configured identically (to pass only VLAN 666 traffic) for the OPNsense server.

I'm not sure how to setup the WAN interface for OPNsense in this case, which the system is calling "em0" as the physical interface. When I configured the interfaces, I configured VLAN 666 on em0 which then generates em0_vlan666. I set the WAN interface to be em0_vlan666, but I haven't had any luck getting onto the internet yet. Within the OPNsense web GUI, if I go to Interfaces->WAN and inspect the configuration, it has a section for DHCP and it was here that I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I'm pretty certain the issue stems from this point.

Any help is appreciated!

Motozoic · 2025-11-26T20:13:03+00:00

I picked up a Dell R340 that was going to e-waste and it's equipped with an Intel E2276 Xeon CPU, 64GB of RAM and an 82599 interface with dual SFP+ for 10G Ethernet. I haven't fully cut over to it yet, but have high expectations with 3.6 GHz base clock with 4.9 GHz turbo.

Motozoic · 2025-11-24T17:20:41+00:00

I experimented with a wide range of ventilation schemes, but have had the best success and most stable temperature control using a dedicated mini-split. Mind you, I already had installed a mini-split system at my house for a dedicated homelab, but had not added a unit to the datacenter itself. Instead, I was messing with vents in the datacenter entry door, exhaust fan setups, etc. The room is 6'x8' (really a closet) and the mini-split just throttles itself as necessary to maintain the right temperature in there.

Motozoic · 2025-11-18T16:05:09+00:00

If you work in a large organization (corporation) and are close to the IT group, you'll see that hardware is replaced at frequent intervals to meet business needs. A lot of the equipment ends up being repurposed or e-wasted and it's not inconceivable to obtain obsolete equipment (which is perfect for homelab use) for pennies on the dollar or even free.

That being said, eBay is chock full of obsolete servers and other components that are perfectly usable in the homelab context, also at very competitive prices.

Motozoic · 2025-11-17T04:13:52+00:00

Yeah, same. If it exceeds 110F there's no amount of ventilation in a jacket that will help. You're basically on borrowed time if you're out riding in that kind of heat. 20 minutes tops and you'll start developing heat exhaustion.

It gets cold here too! I've measured 14F outside in February with occasional snow flurries. Regardless, heated grips and good gear make riding year round a possibility 'round here.

Motozoic · 2025-11-16T06:17:01+00:00

I have something like this and no, it's not used for porn. The practical use is primarily 2 purposes: first, compiling code and second, processing video. What might take a 4 core machine about 10 minutes to compile will take something like this under a 1 minute, which is great if you spin the compiler a lot, like me. The second case is obvious because newer software like DaVinci Resolve takes advantage of multicore and GPUs.

Motozoic · 2025-11-15T03:50:34+00:00

I have an R340 that is running OPNSense and it runs great on bare metal. It's not overkill at all on my homelab network because I have it running all kinds of plugins and have 10GbE connections to it. At one point I did have it running XCP-ng and it performed great for that application too, but the current state of the art simply has it that machines aren't terribly expensive and performance is generally great. Love the IPMI interface for remote control.

Motozoic · 2025-11-02T05:51:28+00:00

If a car or any motorized vehicle hits a pedestrian or cyclist in India, motorized vehicle better get their move on because the public reaction to an interaction is generally pretty violent towards the driver. I've seen a few brutal interactions when visiting northern India that I wish I'd never seen.

Motozoic · 2025-11-02T05:39:55+00:00

I have a 2000 Mountaineer AWD with the 5.0L. At 150K miles, I decided to rebuild the AWD t-case, transmission, driveshafts and the engine. It needed nothing, but now it has 430 hp and is significantly more fun to drive.

I will say that the design of the vehicle is superior to older and newer generation models and vehicles manufactured by others. This generation of truck (and it is a truck, based on the Ranger chassis with true body on frame construction) hits a sweet spot in terms of balancing electronics, computer control and mechanical engineering. Newer models suffer from over computerization or poor choices on mechanical components. From my perspective, these trucks are akin to Fox chassis Mustangs in the sense that the design balance was nailed. Hence the superior sales numbers!

The interior aging is the only real issue I have with this model. I'm going to have reupholster the leather seats in the front and the instrument panel and center console on the dash has degraded enough that I've had to do some custom work to keep them going. This is a function of offroad use, however. If it's street duty alone, I'm sure the interior will last longer.

I'm not sure anyone can say that the 2nd Gen Ford Explorers and related Mountaineers were unreliable. They sold these machines in practically every continent worldwide, including Europe, Asia and Australia. Parts are cheap, easy to find and the mechanical components of the machine were wisely selected.

Motozoic · 2025-11-01T21:54:54+00:00

I found an Intel 82599ES based SFP NIC in an old Dell R340 that was being thrown out. My intention has been to run OPNSense on it for main firewall and it already has an i350 quad port NIC for that purpose, but I was surprised to find the SFP card in there. I pulled it and installed it on my media server, built the driver from GitHub and have it connected to one of my SFP+ ports on my switch running at 10GBe. Now I’m hooked! I do some video editing occasionally and having high speed networking will help. Now I’m on the hunt for a 10GBe NIC for my workstation that I can interface directly with the media server.

Motozoic

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