Assorted Stuff #4
Mostly tech stuff
No idea if this is the start or continuation of an assorted thread trend.
Do we care?
Are we caring?
(Full marks to anyone who gets that movie reference)
Same keyboard - Two devices
I can't talk about my job, not wont, can't, but it's on my mind a lot.
Like, a lot a lot.
Not just the work, but how and why I ended up where I am.
But yeah, also, the work.
Moving on... For work reasons, I need to use my phone, Google Pixel Pro 9, more as a computer than ever before. That means a full-size keyboard and mouse.
I've been testing BLE (Bluetooth) switching keyboards, and at one of my offices (I have a few - don't ask) its working sort of Ok. I hate the feel of the squishy Logitech keyboard, but I am grateful to my son for pointing out that keyboards with multi-Bluetooth LE client key mapping are a thing.
This one BLE switches okish, but feels horrible to type on.
At another office, the keyboard BLE switching was super laggy and glitchy.
Solution? USB switch.
Only, of course, the switch was not the easy solution it was pitched as.
I hate returning stuff to Amazon, and after the first switch did not work, I took a deep dive before ordering another, which also did not work.
The solution. I added an OTG cable between the output of the switch and the phone.
As per the photo, the keyboard goes into the switch, out of the switch to my laptop and via the OTG cable to the phone.
Fast, glitch-free. I wish I could also patch the mouse. Going to work on that next.
And yes, I know, the Pixel got 'Desktop Mode' in the March feature drop. Typically, Google snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by demanding that everyone MUST run an external monitor via USB before it will activate. If I could use a laptop, I would. Thanks for nothing, Google.
And yes, I know, there is a GitHub repo that lets you remotely control an Android via VNC, but the phone MUST be on the same WiFi as the laptop. Bzzzt. That is exactly what I can NOT do. Phone must stay on 5G.
AI Bots vs ACARS website
With the global events as they are and the need for independent reporting of what is ACTULLY happening - not what we are being told is happening (trust me, bro), the number of visitors the website has really ramped up.
Along with the humans have come the AI bots.
Right or wrong, I put a good whack of the blame at the feet of the horrific Clawdbot, Motlbot, OpenClaw - they are all the same thing, just renamed.
It became too easy, to the point of 'fun', to make these stupid things and point them at 20 or more websites to steal the info, just because.
Thankfully, they are brain-dead (no AI here, choppa) and so attack the site hundreds of times a minute, because, you know, the aircraft might move 2-3 cm between crawls.
Anyway, I have seen the site slow down over the past 4-6 months, but the hammer finally fell with the Middle East stuff going down and real humans needing to use the website.
I was going to paste a graph I've cooked up that monitors stuff, but after looking at it, I don't really wana say toooo much about the backend stuff of the site.
But enough to say, there were around 400 bots scraping the site.
The list of names they were using is pretty insane. Again, I was going to paste it here, but yeah, nah. If you'd like to see it, just let me know.
Then there are a few more creative folks who used human names and less aggressive timing, but yeah, anything that hits the site 24 hours a day is non-human.
I did, in the process, learn a great deal about IPTABLES, Cloudflare, and reading JSON web server log files.
I also grew to regret using Node-RED even more, if that was possible.
Anyway, this is a family blog, not a tech blog.
Antenna work.
I needed to move my antennas off Coles shop onto mine (he's going to extend his shop and I wanted to move my gear at my timing vs in a rush).
To this end, I put the ADSB antenna on a higher mast with three wonky guy wires.
It made no difference to the range, but did stabilize things a bit.
Guy wires were a pain to untangle during the single-person install.
This is before I moved Coles ACARS and Iridium antennas over. Just next to my ear, look closely, you can see the antennas on Cole's shop. They are going to be a good bit higher on my shop roof. Never a bad thing for an antenna.
Still not happy with the layout and other issues.
In the middle of all this, I found that one of the antennas had a hole in the top and was filled with water.
Not happy Jan.
I dried it out and got it limping with some shop roof soldering.
The whole point of not living in an HOA was to plant an antenna farm...
I don't like getting on the shop roof when it's wet, but timing of being home, needing to get stuff done, and it not snowing or being icy means you just gotta....
Here is the VDL ACARS antenna, coffee mug with amplifer and Iridium antenna from Cole's shop.
It's all too cramped and busy, and the coax cables are a mess.
On the upside...
If you water them, they seem to grow Ok....
Dan was not convinced I would need a ladder latch at the top of the mezzanine floor, but something in the back of my head said yeah. I'm glad he built one for me....
Little did I know that I would end up putting just this much crap up so high.
(I planed to put 2 units total... pfff, yeah, right...)
These two units, to be exact. But as usual, things grew, and I have my two tinyGS systems up there along with the ADSB, VDL, and Iridium systems.
I tried, but the water-filled antenna just did not come back to life.
Can't buy it anymore, so got the little big brother version, it's the little one to the left of the big black tube. Sadly, it does not go as well as the original.
Driving East and West.
In CA I drove to work going west and home east.
I noted to myself many times that it was nice not driving into the sun.
Guess the direction of my Idaho commute...
Yeah. Ahh, well, not like I can change it now.
On the upside, I get to see some amazing sunrises and pretty mind-blowing sunsets. Here is a nice winter sunrise fog bank.
A few days later....Was not supposed to snow overnight.
Yet here we are.
Not quite the drive to work I ever thought I would be doing.
Battery charge station.
Freddy has been bugging me about this one for a little bit.
All her gardening tools use the same battery, so something near the garden area was in order. The second door to the shop was the perfect spot.
Trackball lessons.
Working hard to never let this guy game on any of my computers.
I want to send a strong message that they are a tool for work. Nothing more.
His schoolmates will show him otherwise, so I will set what example I can.
Anyway, he's noticed the mouse move when I move the trackball for a while now, so he wants to learn. He was a bit fast and erratic at first, but after only about 4-5 lessons hes slowed right down and is eye-tracking the cursor really well.
The left-right clicking is going to take a little more time, I think.