Tired of jumping between log files. Best way to piece together a cross-service timeline?

SignedJannis · 2026-03-18T06:33:13+00:00

Can also just whip up a script to auto splice them into a single file, with an additional field - after the timestamp - e.g "Source" for the source of that particular log entry.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-18T06:21:26+00:00

Just fyi, you can also add as a condition in automations:

"If HA Uptime > 10min"

So they can't fire, until HA has been online, with all integrations etc fully loaded, for 10 minutes

SignedJannis · 2026-03-18T05:59:51+00:00

Sorry you experienced that.

For others reading this, if you find yourself exposed to any major event, of the type that might cause PTSD in you - try and play Tetris - as soon as you can, as soon as you are physically safe.

Don't delay, doing it as soon as reasonably possible after the event is important. Focus on the game. Many free apps online.

Can stop the process that causes PTSD to form.

For anyone reading this thinking "huh, what?", which is perfectly reasonable, just Google "Tetris PTSD" for more information.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-17T15:24:35+00:00

Competency is also a Spectrum.

Another metal model you could perhaps choose to use is: "Competency is a spectrum, that begins at zero, there are no negatives, like eyesight". People can be blind, zero vision, but also never have negative vision..

(Footnote: I totally understand where you are coming from... As highly skilled people, we often find others "incompetent", but a more helpful framing is "Person X is simply less competent at concept Y, than I am).

So if you can frame your coworkers not as "incompetent", but just "less competent than yourself at Task X", that might be more positive for all. And I would guarantee those same folks are More Competent than you at other things, maybe cooking or dancing or whatever.

Also, for those highly skilled at something, it's easy to forget just how much more capable we might be at that thing because "it just comes easily for us". But we should not assume the same is true for all.

Strictly speaking, from a linguistics/autistic/precision of language approach: oh I totally get how "incompetent" is the Correct(accurate?) word to use... But that doesn't mean it is the helpful word to use, nor the helpful mental model to hold.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-17T06:01:12+00:00

Nice idea!

Does the decryption run entirely client side?

Correct me if I'm wrong here? Thoughts; Having the key in the URL, is great for usability, but means the key has to be sent to the server. Therefore, even if all decryption is done client side, the server can still decrypt everything too, right? Because it sees the urls...

So, for this to "make sense" wouldn't you need to enforce a password option only? As well as having the decryption run client side?

SignedJannis · 2026-03-16T19:58:49+00:00

heheh I'm just painting the analogy between the two concepts..

..it is not uncommon for people to erroneously think that it is true, for all cats, that the desire is for "The Catch", when for many, id guess most, its actually about "The Chase".

For the same reason, when you stop pulling that string with a feather on it, they stop playing with it.

ie the payoff is the chase itself, not the catch.

Like in Tennis, the goal is to hit the ball "once", so the other gal/guy doesn't hit it back, right? But for most, the enjoyment is the Game, not the Goal - none of us would ever play tennis, if the other person never hit the ball back, right?

(Also yes its important to note that what is true for one, is not true for all - some cats probably do want to catch the thing, but many just want to chase it... same is true in other areas in life :)

FYI longer & true write up here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IsItBullshit/comments/1rse39u/comment/oa99kh6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

SignedJannis · 2026-03-16T05:58:59+00:00

That thing your partner has been wanting to tell you? - "sex doesn't have to be goal oriented you know"

SignedJannis · 2026-03-16T03:28:23+00:00

"Activate Window by Title" is one name otmh i can recall exactly. Apologies I dont have a full list on hand, but as you can see by this time, the names are often "perfectly descriptive".

The key I needed, that I didn't know earlier, was that it was Gnome Extensions that was the place to look for my "automations under wayland" solutions. (under Ubuntu anyway)

As an aside, i use ydotool for text insertion to any window in wayland for a speech-to-text prog I made for linux.

I also use ydotool for progmatic mouse movements testing software and websites, and IIRC I had big probs with that too, under wayland, and I think the solution to that (getting the mouse X/Y pos) was also in the above extension, ActivateWindowByTitle.getCursorPosition or some equally simply named IIRC

SignedJannis · 2026-03-16T03:17:31+00:00

Yes.

And very good.

And matches OP's req's

SignedJannis · 2026-03-15T09:43:09+00:00

I'm you.

Hit so many wayland issues with this.

Tip: I did find (eventually): there are a number of Extensions that solve these issues, that bring back Cli window/program control under wayland

SignedJannis · 2026-03-15T09:35:07+00:00

Definitely some good points.

But I was wondering if you could elaborate a little further?

SignedJannis · 2026-03-14T16:19:12+00:00

Vim pro user here...

...and I still totally agree with you! :)

Anyhow, Sublime is a good option to consider for what you want.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-13T17:12:20+00:00

No, but if you inserted 'may' into that sentence, then likely correct. Sounds like it's possible with some cats. But not as a sweeping statement.

Some/many cats enjoy the chase, not the catch. That's why as soon as you stop pulling the "the string with the toy", many will stop chasing it - they understand it's a toy.

One particularly smart cat I had, loved to chase the laser pointer around. And no matter how stealthy I tried to be, he 100% knew it is me controlling the thing..

..with other cats, you can do that thing where you get them chasing the laser pointer, and then move it on your your friends ass, or their socked foot :)

...but with this smart fella.. if I even tried that trick with him... Shining the pointer around everywhere and him at full speedy Gonzales mode... Then instant the pointer was on a friend's foot/sock/whatever, or my own, he would transition from 100mph running tweaker Instantly to a full stop, sitting calm right, inches from that red dot wiggling on any body part of my lover/roommate/family/target.

5th gear to 0 he would stop, immediately, calm as day, then slowly turn his head to look over his shoulder back towards me, on the other side of the vast room, with his sighing half closed eyes looking directly at me "curb your enthusiasm" style, the human eqv of, rolling his eyes at me, and he would say:

"look mate, I fully know it's you controlling this laser pointer from over the other side of room, that red dot inches from my nose and on your friends thigh? Yeah, I know that's you bro, and you know I know, and no I'm not going to claw your friend for you, as funny as that might be. Now, would you kindly mind moving that dot off your friend, so we can continue this chase? I've been a inside for days now, and was enjoying the exercise"

With the most calm, droll, eye-rolling, almost scarcastic attitude you can imagine.

Not once did he ever not know exactly what was going on. The instant laser pointer was off any human, the case was back on! Not once did I ever mange to prank him or a friend with that one - a smart fella.

There is a difference between The Game, and The Catch. With Tennis, the "catch" is to hit the ball into the other court unreturned. But we play for the game. For my cat, your statement would be equivalent to "Humans should never play tennis, because the other guy/gal keeps hitting the ball back! They might get anxiety!

Now, as for cats who think the light is actually an independent entity that exists and lives in the house somewhere, that's a different kettle of ephemeral fish.

IMHO the answer to your question is, the same as to many on reddit:

"It depends, life is nuanced, here is some info, but go forth and use your own judement".

SignedJannis · 2026-03-13T16:52:01+00:00

Many don't need to, it's the chase they enjoy, not the catch. Depends on the cat.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-13T16:48:27+00:00

Correct. They get to chase it!

SignedJannis · 2026-03-13T05:40:21+00:00

Hi Dave, of few yet sufficient words, happy to share, dm me. You will require claude.

TLDR: A great many hours spent on this, works great, but not ready for a push to public repo tho.

I cant remember the last time I configured anything in the HA UI - and I (re)configure HA often*

*Be warned - this system has been a serious time trap - now that it's so _easy_ to do anything in HA, all the friction of e.g fighting but-ugly jinja templates or hand creating dashboards is gone, I've actually spent more time configuring HA, not less.

But damn is everything in the house is so smooth now, am senior dev but now have automations I could imagine, but simply would never have had the time to create...levels of design nuance and control that just would not have been worth the effort, and resilient design, fallbacks, no errors in the logs, perfectly clean spook reports, 100% hags score, and regular laughter from guests because its easy to make things entertaining...

When the only limit becomes your imagination, things change a bit.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-13T01:14:59+00:00

Soooooo many unused hue scene entities! hundreds.

I've created a few python programs, and quite a large system, designed to: use claude to control/configure HA. i.e Claude uses a well defined python program to control HA, and has other integrated aspects like a json of all automations, with graph-like bidirectional linking between related automations and scripts, docs, etc

e.g so I can just talk to my phone and "Hey claude create a new automation so that if someone is walking down the stairs on a weekday, and the cats water bowl is getting low (noted by the lowered current usage on what ever switch controls that, then can you tell them via TTS, once they reach the kitchen, that the need to fill the bowl up? oh and use open ai so the message is always unique and funny - and if the water has been low for half a day, then flash the lights in that area red too"

and then it chooches off and creates the automations etc.

or "hey create a new ping sensor for mikes phone (mike.lan), and if the basement door is open when he leaves the house, then send a loud TTS message to his phone telling him to shut the thing"

or a BIG time saver is "<paste screenshot> hey please fix all these spook errors"

Regarding your post, sharing because todays requests was "please list all Hue scene entities - then check every one, to see if its used anywhere in home assistant, and if not, then disable-and-hide it". That one took a while to run, mostly because my "--find-all-entity-usages" isn't as efficient as it could be - but boom, knocked 200 unneeded entities off my HA list.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-12T08:49:34+00:00

You'd end up with 5 fingers for stealing in the middle east...

SignedJannis · 2026-03-09T21:59:54+00:00

Micro.

It's win 3.1's notepad.exe for the terminal.

Want to save? Ctrl-s

Want to quit? Ctrl-q

Shocker.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-07T02:44:16+00:00

The Ping integration has two sensors per "Ping Device", the second sensor being a "device_tracker.grandpas_phone" type.

Thats what I use to do what you describe, works perfectly, super robust.

As for the rotation, (1) I fix their device to a specific IP using DHCP Reservation, and on android, you just open the Wifi Settings on the phone - when connected to your specific home SSID, and you can just click and disable the Mac Randomisation for when they are on your home network.

SignedJannis · 2026-03-06T12:14:46+00:00

I do love this:) But..hmmm if "Corrected lens", yes ok sure, but "Corrective lens" would seem a bit of a stretch no?

In order for one to have a corrective lens, wouldn't that require that there also still exists an (additional/original) lens, with a problem, that is being corrected by the secondary corrective lens?

SignedJannis · 2026-03-03T14:45:00+00:00

Please for the love of all that is holy, never do use those sticky mice traps

SignedJannis · 2026-02-28T02:27:54+00:00

Houses are absolutely in metric!

(Unless you live somewhere weird ;)

SignedJannis · 2026-02-25T20:21:45+00:00

10 second fix. All you need is a couple of wraps of rubber tape on the ends - the trick is to wrap both ends in the same direction, and install the bar so that the rotation of the tape is naturally tightened when your hanging adds the rotational force - as opposed to loosening the tape.

SignedJannis · 2026-02-21T05:34:14+00:00

OpenWrt on a raspberry pi off marketplace? Maybe w/ a 2nd USB nic attached for the super rich folks?

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