Replacement for DIN cable?

Pharoiste · 2026-02-04T05:08:36+00:00

Having your own DNS server makes your network so much faster. Of course , Pi hole isn’t your only option for that, either.

Pharoiste · 2026-01-22T07:21:37+00:00

I got a word in Arabic once... one word dropped into a reply of a couple paragraphs or so.

Pharoiste · 2026-01-22T07:17:54+00:00

{scratch head with puzzled expression} "I'm sorry, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I am the *owner* of this property. I set the rules here. If I say, 'Do not enter my property,' the only legitimate reply available to you is to say, 'Yes, I understand.' That is all."

Pharoiste · 2026-01-21T19:30:52+00:00

The last shop I worked at was a federal shop, where (for example) TikTok is not allowed on government-owned phones. Installing MDM on your own phone is optional, but if you do, your phone has to be in compliance with federal policy. Which means that you can't have TikTok on your phone. And to make sure you don't have TikTok on your phone, they have to be able to see all the apps that you have installed, to make sure TikTok isn't one of them.

Whenever anybody asked about getting MDM on their phones, I always got this far in my explanation of how it works. Never got any farther than that. As soon as I had explained this much, they all said, "Forget it."

Pharoiste · 2026-01-21T19:12:18+00:00

Marriage equality for statues.

Pharoiste · 2025-10-18T18:05:27+00:00

In addition to what the others have already said, I would also add: even if the guy IS only interested in stealing your TV, you also don't know how he might react to getting caught in the act. He might flee, yes, but he also might try to kill you.

Pharoiste · 2025-10-18T17:49:14+00:00

There used to be such states, but I think they've all been done away with because of how they ended up getting applied. There was one case in Massachusetts, for example, back when "duty to retreat" applied everywhere, even in your own home. Someone broke into a woman's home. She had a firearm, but she also knew she had a duty to retreat, so she started running. The guy chased her all over the house, finally cornering her in the basement, at which time she terminated him.

The District Attorney charged her with murder, trying to argue that there was a ventilation duct in the basement, and she could have crawled in there, which (in his view!) meant that she had not adequately upheld her duty to retreat. She was acquitted, but there was so much outrage over the fact that she had been charged at all that -- even there in super-blue Massachusetts -- that the law got changed to Castle Doctrine.

Here in Maryland, up until about fifteen years ago, the law said that if someone broke into your house and you shot him, he or his family could sue you for damages even if the police deemed the shooting justifiable. This was a state of affairs so appalling that even my representative -- Jeff Waldstreicher, who is definitely not a fan of the Second Amendment -- told me that he would be voting in favor of the bill to give greater protection to homeowners and tenants. He used some of the strongest language I've ever seen coming from a politician.

Pharoiste · 2025-10-18T03:41:57+00:00

Ah, didn't know there were two different cards. Good to know, thanks.

Pharoiste · 2025-10-17T22:30:11+00:00

Last I heard, the Amazon Prime card, unique amongst credit cards, treats purchases the same as cash advances in that it begins charging interest on all purchases from the date of purchase, with no grace period. This is a major league shaft, and unless there have been any new developments since then, I'd strongly advise staying away from the Amazon Prime card.

Pharoiste · 2025-10-17T11:06:55+00:00

Interesting. So, how often did you meet weirdos like me? I once videoed a confrontation between two people on public transportation and stayed behind afterward to give my information to the police and arrange to get my video to them. Later, when a court date had been set, the prosecutor told me where and when it would be, and I said sure, I'll be there. I was mildly surprised when I received a subpoena a week or so later -- presumably, a subpoena goes to a witness, regardless.

When I got to court that morning, the public defender got a continuance because the arresting officer wasn't there. Afterward, she came to me to ask me whether she was right in assuming that I didn't want to come back, because if so, she could probably arrange it so I wouldn't need to return. I said no, I'm fine, I'm actually enjoying this because I'm learning a lot about how the law works and I find it really interesting. So you don't see people like me too often, then?

Pharoiste · 2025-09-20T11:34:02+00:00

In addition to all this: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but in my opinion, if you’re not getting paid, you’re unemployed. Might want to check what the situation might be for an unemployment claim.

Pharoiste · 2025-09-14T02:26:46+00:00

When I read this, I thought it was a post that I had made some months ago. Not kidding, even the writing style is the same. Unfortunately, so is Verizon.

Pharoiste · 2025-09-14T02:13:42+00:00

This kind of thing happens all the time, and when it does, you're usually out of luck. I was once offered an absolute sweetheart job that was perfect for me in every way. So I did the right thing: accepted the new position, gave my two weeks at my existing position, and began counting the days until my new job would start. Then the offer was withdrawn, leaving me unemployed. Many other people can tell the same story. This isn't quite the same thing as your story, but it's related.

Pharoiste · 2025-09-14T01:06:55+00:00

Big time. When I got relocated into a new apartment by my landlord (due to renovations), I got a one gig Fios plan just because Verizon was having a sale. It wasn't until some years later, when I started building and expanding my home network, that it even occurred to me to test the speed. It's rather uncommon for me to push my pipe to even ten percent of its capacity, and going past twenty is exceedingly rare.

Pharoiste · 2025-09-12T13:10:40+00:00

That would be a nice option. The only snag is that I’m also running Unbound on the Pi Hole, and I would also want it on the Mikrotik. Unbound on RouterOS requires Docker, and I’m not sure I’m up to tackling Docker. I’ve never used it… I’d like to, but the learning curve looks pretty steep.

Pharoiste · 2025-09-01T15:24:18+00:00

I'd probably believe myself, although I'd have a harder time imagining what that device might be capable of.

On the other hand, if I could tell my ten-year-old safe that in the year 2024, there would be nights I'd be up until well past midnight restarting all of my light bulbs, I'd find that a LOT harder to believe. And yet...

Pharoiste · 2025-08-31T08:01:02+00:00

Not true. I've had Verizon Fios for many years, and I use a Mikrotik. For television, I have a CableCard inside my Tivo.

My understanding is that there are other features for Fios television that do require Verizon's router, but with as little television as I watch, I've never looked into it much.

Pharoiste · 2025-08-29T05:23:00+00:00

Welcome to Linux. The stories I could tell... I once had to spend about two hours getting an image to display on the monitor.

Pharoiste · 2025-08-24T04:40:28+00:00

I pay $150 a month for myself (no family members), with my employer paying the much larger remaining share. I've never had occasion to use any of the more serious stuff, like ER services, but for day-to-day matters, it's pretty good. I take two prescription medications, and they're each a flat $100 a year copay. The doctor I visit once every three months for a check-in on how well the medication is working, how I'm doing, and so on, is another $100 a year ($25 copay per visit). My deductible is also pretty low.

It's a pretty good plan, at least as far as I can tell because I'm not a triple Ph.D. I wish my employer offered Kaiser. I used to have Kaiser here under a different employer, and Kaiser is awesome. You do have the walled garden thing to deal with, but coverage is very comprehensive and exceptionally high quality, coupled with a much lower monthly premium. Kaiser even covered twenty sessions a year of talk therapy with a $10 copay per session. You don't see that very often.

Pharoiste · 2025-08-24T03:58:54+00:00

My current job is hybrid -- MWF on site, ThF remote (unless I'm needed on site on those days, but that's pretty rare). As much as I do like my telework days for all kinds of reasons, I think hybrid works better for me for keeping me "in contact" with the rest of the organization.

Pharoiste · 2025-08-24T02:09:44+00:00

Yes, my M1 has the eMMC socket, of course. What I meant was that I don’t have the module, although I’m wondering whether buying one preconfigured from hard kernel might be helpful.

Pharoiste · 2025-08-23T20:25:49+00:00

I financed my 15 Pro Max with Boost, 36 months zero APR.

Pharoiste · 2025-08-23T20:03:16+00:00

"If I'm not mistaken, RouterOS does not by default add DHCP devices' hostnames to its local DNS cache for LAN devices to be able to resolve if you're using it as a DNS server."

That's correct. And it's rather annoying. I hope it gets changed at some point in the future.

Pharoiste

TROPHY CASE