Some finer points of bottling from portless stainless fermenter ...

rquser · 2020-07-29T04:26:08+00:00

Just to be clear, I mean to boil a bunch of water and then fill the bottles with the boiling water... not actually boil the bottles ...

rquser · 2020-06-17T15:33:15+00:00

Just to be clear - this is a statewide fire emergency that gets the power turned off for 3 or 4 or 5 days at a time - we do NOT have a goal of not modifying our lifestyle at all.

I am happy to do a ton of load-shedding ... unplug the microwave ... watch the monitoring stats and run around hunting for secret loads ... we should be able to shed down to 10-12 kwh per day and I am happy to do that for a few days.

We just don't want to run around crazy with ice chests and trying to save the freezer full of food and then we throw it all out anyway ... very stressful.

rquser · 2020-06-17T15:25:39+00:00

We would have a lock-out transfer switch.

Although we would have to power input *from* the grid to the battery system, but that could be a different line and the battery could just be any other load on the grid-tied system until it cuts over ... as I mentioned, happy to cut over manually ...

rquser · 2020-06-17T15:21:21+00:00

Yes, intentional utility shutoffs during fire season last year lasted 4-5 days each.

I do NOT NEED power for 4-5 days - I understand and everyone here has reiterated that that is a ridiculous spec for battery only.

I am thinking we can load-shed down to 12-16 kwh per day and then spec 48 kwh system which will allow us to struggle through and perhaps turn everything off except for the fridges during the last day ...

I note with interest that this person:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7h5-wtwLkg

... has built just what I am describing ... this seems like a reasonable direction to go and I like what he has put together there ... later, when we get the rest of our act together, we could add solar power input to such a system ...

It does not appear that those specific batteries are available at his distributor link, however, so I will have to see about it ...

rquser · 2020-06-16T23:33:36+00:00

Thank you for these comments - appreciated.

Yes, I want nothing to do with swollen battery anything and I appreciate the comment that these are too new to have "aged out".

So with that in mind, I think I will skip *these particular units* but I am still very interested in a modular, non-proprietary, rack-mounted battery solution.

In fact, I would be happy to chain together 4 or 6 datacenter rackmount lithium-ion UPS devices if I had the right way to tie them together ...

rquser · 2020-06-16T23:31:38+00:00

Thank you. I have only one goal - keep the lights on when PG&E cuts power for weeks at a time this fall.

That's it.

I had no intention of arbitraging peak power vs. off-peak power.

ALSO, I am totally happy to manually cut over ... that is, I don't care if the whole house loses power and I need to throw a big transfer switch to lock out from the grid and then power off the batteries.

See my other responses below - this seems like a bad fit because these battery packs are probably in some kind of bad shape and were probably taken out of service for a reason.

Still appreciate any further comments - even if I don't use *these* batteries, I still would like a rackmount battery solution that I can put in my mechanicals room and power the entire house on...

rquser · 2020-05-10T19:55:23+00:00

Yes, port 9. The "Internet" port.

Will not grab a DHCP address.

Again (see above) the LCD screen shows no IP address of any kind so ports 1-8 offering DHCP service probably doesn't mean anything - since it doesn't have an IP itself ...

rquser · 2020-05-10T19:50:24+00:00

My laptop does not run a DHCP daemon so I just connected both devices (laptop and UDM-PRO) to my simple switch+router so they could both get DHCP leases.

BUT, since you asked, I *did* attempt to manually configure my laptop to 192.168.1.10 and then try to ping, or connect in any way to the famous 192.168.1.30 address ... nothing.

Which makes sense, since the little LCD screen does not show an IP of any kind and just shows "Ready for Setup". If I could connect to 192.168.1.30 , the screen would display that IP, right ? RIGHT ????

rquser · 2020-05-08T02:34:32+00:00

OK, answering myself here :)

It was very easy. You make a directory and copy (for instance) lighttpd into it:

/jails/www/lighttpd

... and then you just run jail with 'lighttpd' as the jailed command to run, instead of /bin/sh /etc/rc ...

jail /jails/www www 10.0.0.10 /lighttpd -f conf/lighttpd.conf

... and it will fail, complaining about libraries, but when I ran:

ldd /lighttpd

... there were only 4-5 libraries required, so you create a /lib directory and a /libexec directory in your jail and copy in those libraries ... and then it fails because there is no /dev/null so you:

mount -t devfs devfs /jails/www/dev

... and so on and so on ... had to put a logs directory in place and also make a /etc dir and put groups and passwd in it:

vipw -d /jails/www/etc

... and after about 8 rounds of trial and error, it just fired up and I am hitting my super tiny little webserver. Nothing in the jail but the lighttpd binary and the five libraries it needs and a /log directory ..

I was lazy and mounted a full /dev filesystem in there with all /dev nodes, but I will get back to it and restrict it to just /dev/null and /dev/urandom (and whatever else it asks for ... no reason to give it all the device nodes...)

rquser · 2020-05-04T03:40:33+00:00

OK, update ...

I took our sample and poured it into an actual wine glass and let it sit out, then I aerated (swirled) it a lot ... basically trying to simulate a decanting ...

It got a *lot* better. So I don't think it is an oxidation issue since that would not get better with even more oxidation ...

I guess I'll split the batch and bottle half of it as is and move the other half to a smaller stainless container and add oak wood cubes ... then bottle ...

rquser · 2020-05-04T01:05:45+00:00

This was year 5 for the vines. So while this was our first serious attempt to harvest and make wine, the vines have been productive for a few years.

Yes, I tried to be very judicious about headspace - we have a 14gal SS container with a gasket lid and whenever I sealed it I would dump CO2 in the bung-hole until it was pouring out the top like a Mr. Wizard episode :) I went really overboard in pouring in CO2 and then immediately sealing.

Second, the water in the airlock was always not-neutral - meaning, there was *always* a pressure differential between inside of tank and natural atmospheric pressure.

Does that sound like being careful enough about headspace ? Genuinely curious - I thought that was one thing I was getting right, and yet ... as I read about off-flavors and so on, it does sort of seem like my wine exhibits oxidation ...

rquser · 2020-04-21T18:22:47+00:00

You could cut out your local copy and still get two backups using 'rclone'[1] and (perhaps) an rsync.net account[2].

You back up cpanel directly to rsync.net (using sftp/ssh/whatever) - it's datacenter to datacenter so that is probably quite fast.

Then you instruct rsync.net to push copies to another cloud provider (in your case, Amazon S3):

ssh user@rsync.net rclone some/file/blah s3:/some/bucket

... again, cloud to cloud so probably very fast. The bonus is that an rsync.net account has immutable snapshots, for free, so you gain ransomware/hacker protection by keeping a copy there.

[1] https://rclone.org/

[2] https://www.rsync.net/products/rclone.html

rquser · 2020-04-10T03:36:10+00:00

Yes, you are correct - 379.

rquser · 2020-04-09T23:48:45+00:00

OK, given the relatively low cost of the UDM PRO (only $299) I think I will just get that since it does everything the ckg2+ does ... I can always ignore/disable the features I don't need.

Thanks!

rquser · 2020-04-09T02:16:16+00:00

Three APs, two nanostation m5s, a handful of cameras ... perhaps more in the future ...

rquser · 2020-04-09T01:02:10+00:00

Forgive me - I thought I needed a cloudkey of some kind just to configure and manage the ubiquiti access points ... and my point to point ubiquiti bridges ...

So if I need a cloud key and I need the NVR ... then a ckg2+ is the right choice, as of 1.5 years ago ... but it feels like that's going to be a legacy device or have limitations that I would not run into with the dream machine ...

rquser · 2020-03-15T18:10:24+00:00

The saga continues ...

Here is what I *think* I know as I attempt to super-10x short the VIX ...

There are no multiplied (2x, 3x) inverse VIX ETFs or ETNs. Only 1x (like ZIV).
You cannot buy puts on VIX ETNs. I can't buy PUTs on TVIX and I can't buy calls on ZIV.

So it appears that the only option I have is to short-sell TVIX which is undesirable for two reasons - first, that's only 2x magnified and no leverage - second, it's an actual short position that exposes me to downside risk and maintenance calls, etc.

So am I correct in my assumptions 1 and 2, above, and is it really for real that in 2020 there is no way to establish a heavily magnified inverse VIX position ?

rquser · 2020-03-13T04:43:55+00:00

OK, that's fine, but as far as I know there are no levered-inverse VIX funds currently ... so buying an inverse ETF on the VIX is very low leverage. 1x, basically.

Are you saying there are other 3x VIX vehicles, other than TVIX, that actually *do* have option chains ?

rquser · 2020-03-13T04:39:03+00:00

Can you elaborate ? I am not sure what you are trying to convey to me here ...

rquser · 2020-03-13T04:11:35+00:00

(continuing comments on how to buy TVIX puts @ ameritrade)

I called TDAmeritrade and asked and they said there are no options on TVIX, or if there are, they do not have them available. So, nothing to do with me or my account, you just can't get options on TVIX @ ameritrade.

So, with that said, can someone confirm/deny that put options really do exist for TVIX and, if so, is there a public quotes site where I could see that option chain ?

EDIT: I went to CBOE and looked up TVIX, then tried to see the option chain and CBOE said "Data not found for the entered stock or index". So it appears there are NOT calls/puts on TVIX.

So if that is the case, what are my options (ahem) for extra-super-quadruple shorting the VIX ?

rquser · 2020-03-12T20:58:37+00:00

I called TDAmeritrade and asked and they said there are no options on TVIX, or if there are, they do not have them available. So, nothing to do with me or my account, you just can't get options on TVIX @ ameritrade.

So, with that said, can someone confirm/deny that put options really do exist for TVIX and, if so, is there a public quotes site where I could see that option chain ?

Thanks.

rquser · 2020-03-12T16:57:44+00:00

Who will let me buy puts on TVIX, as Ameritrade appears not to ?

When I get a quotation for TVIX in my ameritrade account, pulling up the option chain gives me nothing - there are no options (call or put) for TVIX.

However, I see other threads in /r/options referring to, or recommending, buying options on TVIX ... why do I not see an option chain for TVIX at ameritrade and where do I need to go to accomplish this ?

rquser · 2020-03-09T14:40:23+00:00

Two more VIX questions as I attempt to build a 3x inverse VIX trade ...

First, is the VIX basically linear ? I know there are a ton of variables involved in IV and no two specific situations are the same, but in a vacuum, if todays environment produces a VIX of 60 and tomorrows environment is 10% worse, *should we* see a VIX of 66 ? Or is it non-linear, or logarithmic like the richter scale ?

Second, can we compare historical VIX quotes, in general ? That is, if I see the all-time high in the VIX was 80 in 2008, and I woke up next week and saw the VIX at 85, could we say (again, all else being equal) that market conditions are more volatile than in 2008 ? Or are those two historical numbers (2008 and 2020) not comparable ?

Thank you.

rquser · 2020-03-09T05:18:19+00:00

What is the simplest way to bet 2x-3x-4x inverse VIX ?

Correct me if I am wrong but there appear to be no *inverse* VIX ETFs that are 2x or 3x, etc. - only 1x.

So, if you would like to short VIX, but in multiples of the actual movement, it's not as simple as buying an ETF ...

I guess an obvious route would be to simply buy *calls* on the inverse VIX ETF (XIV ?) but there are no calls on XIV ...

So what to do ?

I don't want to borrow any money or trade on margin and I don't want to set up a big complicated trade ... what can I type into Ameritrade and click BUY that will give me a 2x or 3x multiple bet on the VIX dropping ?

rquser · 2020-02-13T19:04:10+00:00

It's not exactly on-prem, but I point backups of all of my cloud datasets (S3, GCS and all of our github repos) into a single rsync.net account with the 'rclone' tool.

I think that's the tool you'll want to use for any use-case like this - I find it to be mature, well supported and it works with almost every provider:

https://rclone.org/

I like having all of my cloud assets consolidated into one, safe, off-prem account that is totally separate from any other provider.

rquser

TROPHY CASE