Where the fuck did this day disappear?????? WTF?!?

Like fart in the wind. Pooft - and gone

I always used to think that Linux + Intel == <3

And here I am, ordering Qualcom and Realtek wifi cards to replace my Intel one.

Fuck you Intel for removing the lar_disable iwlwifi parameter!!!

FTR: https://dev.to/netikras/...

A good life lesson:
1. DON'T DELETE FILES YOU MAY WANT TO RECOVER

And if you DO delete them and then recover them, then
2. DON'T SEND THE RECOVERED FILES TO A·N·Y·O·N·E

Today I found a lost µSD card in the street. I did what every sane person would do -- plugged it into my laptop :)

There I found a directory with recovered pictures. I figured, some of them may contain the author's info in metadata, so I ran a quick plaintext search for @gmail.com.

Turns out, inside some of the recovered picture files I could find embedded company director's emails in plain-text. I mean, open the picture with a text editor and read through those emails - no problem! And these emails contain some quite sensitive info, e.g. login credentials (lots of them).

Bottom line, if you delete and recover your files, then do your best to keep them close: don't share them, don't lose them. You might be surprised what these recovered files may contain

Fuck it. It's Friday EOD.

Enough is enough.

It's time to close my lappy and go for a nice long stroll, get all those work thoughts out of my RAM and get ready for two whole days of slacking!!!!

See you next week, suckers!

what the f....

So I'm making some changes to my setup. I'm relieving my current router from its duties and retiring it as a mini PC for my desktop setup. And I got my hands on a Dell Optiplex that will become my new router.

Now, firstly, the Optiplex came w/o a wifi antenna. I booted it up into a LinuxMint install USB for the first time and didn't expect much from it, but to my surprise, I got a popup: "There are wifi networks available". At that spot there was also my Fenvi PCI wifi card's antenna of my current (soon-to-be-previous) PC and it was barely seeing any wifi, and there came Optiplex with NO antenna attached to it and it managed to maintain stronger and more stable signal. wtf....

Alright, it's Fenvi, it's chinese -- there's probably not much I should expect from it.

Then I hooked it up right next to my current router with an external USB wifi adapter having 4x6dBi antennas on it, serving as my current wifi AP. Trying out hostapd configs, searching for the right channels,... should I test it? Naah, it still doesn't have an antenna - it won't reach my laptop. Meeh, for shits and giggles! `hostapd -d /etc/hostapd/hostapd_custom.conf`, on my lappy `nmcli d wifi rescan; sleep 5; nmcli d wifi` and... wtf... To my surprise, the AP was there! A thick wall away, no antenna whatsoever, and I still could connect to that Optiplex AP and post this rant!

What magic is this??? I'm now a bit concerned about ordering an antenna for it - I'm worried it could either worsen the signal or make it so strong that it'll fry my brains overnight.

So what's up with @chaosesqueteam ? Are his posts really THAT good (look at their updoots), or does he own a bot squad in dR? To me personally his posts do not make any sense (at least the recent ones)

What do we do about it?

My previous manager reached out to me (we still work at the same company; different clients/projects/countries). Offered a very temporary project (1-2 months tops). I look at the client's requirements -- sounds super easy, doable in 1 month.

I dig more into the docs, details, other references. Turns out, this invitation has been published publicly and anyone could reach out to them applying for the project. Even I could, outside of my employer.

And the budget is $60k

And now I'm a bit mad at myself for not finding this page earlier. Had I been accepted for the job, I'd have earned $60k in 1 fucking month. And now I'll only get my usual salary

FUCK!

Definitely adding that website to my bookmarks.

When I look at the hefty PC setup on my desk self-assembled ~8 years ago, the only thought crossing my mind is: "what the hell was I thinking..."

time for an upgrade to free up 1 sq meter of space on my desk

Task: Deploy MinIO in k8s cluster
Me: deploys the first docker image found on google: bitnami/minio
MinIO: starts

Me: log in
MinIO: Fuck you! There's a cryptic error: Expected element type <Error> but have <HTML>

Me: spends half a day trying out different vendors, different versions, different environments (works on local BTW)

Me: got tired, restored the manifest to what it was at the beginning. Gave it the last try before signing off

MinIO: works 100%

wtf... So switching it back and forth fixed the problem, whatever it was. Oh well, yet another day.

Being in IT is difficult.

At first noone wants you, even for pennies.

Then everything seems difficult and complex, you start to envy the giants (seniors) who are headhunted via various channels.

Then you reach the kind of level where you start receiving some attention in linkedin - you almost want to frame them! Feeling so proud of yourself..

Then these job offers become sooo annoying.. But they keep flowing in from everywhere..

I wonder what's next

One of the nice bonus things about having 2+ kids is a father's/mother's day. A day off every month at the day of my choice.

Aahhh, finally a calm day to spend with my fam

Do other countries also have this?

21:37
Manager: Hi
Manager: Do you know anything about this? <screenshot.jpg>

Me: Hi
Manager: Oh, I didn't mean to disturb you this late

Me: *what....? Then what DID you mean by writing to me at my bedtime....?*

(Though it's good he pinged me - it was a valid and time-sensitive concern. But saying "I didn't mean to" - that's just not true. Call a spade a spade and spit out what you need)

Can't log into ChatGPT.

Time to call it a day then!

This rant will be a GAME-CHANGER!!!

1 notification.

Oh, devrant... It's not how math works <smh.gif>

I miss bug hunting... Baking new features is far less fun than debugging all sorts of weird issues across all the layers of the setup. Devops has its charm, but still I find myself looking for problems more often than tinkering with devtools.

I wish there was a "debugger" role in my company.

I need to integrate with service A. There is an issue.

Me: Service A, we have an issue. We don't get any errors but the final entity doesn't get created
ServiceA: Ahh, I see. Since you didn't get any errors, try escalating this to Service B - we are using it and they might see what's wrong.
Ticket: *closed*

Me: Service B, we have an issue and ServiceA says I should talk to you.
ServiceB: Ahh, I see. I don't see any errors in our logs. Try escalating this to Service C
Ticket: *closed*

Me: Service C, we have an issue and Service B says I should talk to you.
ServiceC: How do you send the request to us?
Me: I don't. Service B does.
ServiceC: I see. I don't see any requests coming from them. Talk to Service B
Ticket: *closed*

Me: Service B, Service C says you don't send a request. Please have a look.
<...>

Each ticket takes 2-3 days to be noticed.

My fuse tripped there and I addressed this ping-pong situation in the mail thread with mgmt in it. ServiceA hid behind the "it's not our service, we only provide self-service tools" wall. So, again, I'm left out there to dance this corporate polka...

Aaaand my fucking finger is fucked again.

Same finger!

FFUUUCCCKKKKK!!!!

The weirdest thing is: I DID NOT DO ANYTHING TO DESERVE IT!!! FFS, I was just riding my etwow in the street between cities.

Why... Now my finger is twice the size, itches and hurts driving me crazy.
WHYYYY??!!??

Whoever said that coffee isn't harmful for health... Tell this to the 2 flies who've just drowned in my cup of coffee.

Still water eventually starts to stink

keep moving. Keep your mind open. Always be the student. And the teacher [borrowed from kung-fu panda, though very valid in this context]

I just can't stress enough how fascinated I am by biology and biochemistry.

I mean, we, who call ourselves engineers, are no more but a gang of toddlers having a blast with jumbo legos on Aunt Lucy's dining room carpet on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Our solutions using "modern tools" and "modern engineering" are mere attempts to *very* remotely mimic what beautiful and elegant solutions are around us and inside of each of us.

IC/EC engines, solar batteries, computers and quantum computers, spaceships and ISSes, AI/ML, ... What are they? just the means to leverage what's been created all around us to create something that either entertains us, encourages our laziness or helps us to look at the other absolutely fascinating engineering solutions surrounding us so we could try and "replicate" their working principles to further embrace our laziness and entertain us.

Just look at the humble muscle - a myofibril made out of actin and myosin. The design is soooo simple and spot on, so elegant and efficient, the "battery" and signalling system are so universal and efficient.

Look at all those engineering miracles, small and big. Look how they work, how they leverage both big and small to create holistic, simplistic and absolutely efficient mechanisms. And then come back to me, and tell me again that all these brilliant solutions came out of nothing just by an accident we call "evolution".

How blinded by our narcissism are we to claim that there can't be a grand designer of any kind, that there's nothing smarter than us and that the next best thing than us is an incomprehensible series of accidental mutations over an unimaginable amount of time?

I mean.. could it be that someone/something greater than us created us and everything around us? naaaah.. we are the crown jewel of this universe. Everything else must be either magic or an accident. /s

Don't read this as yet another crazy-about-God person's ramblings. I'm not into religion fwiw. But science has taught me enough critical thinking to question its merit. Look at it all as engineers. Which is more probable: that everything around us happened by an accident or that someone/something preceding us had a say in the design?

FUN CHALLENGE

1. Open an incognito browser window
2. navigate to devrant.com
3. enter your username and password
4. open this rant/post
5. post a comment "SUCCESS"

6. do all of the above w/o using your hands (e.g. use your toes)

5 stages of failing WIFI connectivity on Linux

This morning I woke up my laptop to start my work day. I have 2 very important meetings today, so I better get all prepared.

"Wifi connection failed"
Syslog says:
- wpa_supplicant: wlp9s0: SME: Trying to authenticate with <MAC>
- kernel: wlp9s0: authenticate with <MAC>
- kernel: wl9s0: send auth to <MAC> (try 1/3)
- kernel: wl9s0: send auth to <MAC> (try 2/3)
- kernel: iwlwifi: Not associated and the session protection is over already...
- kernel: wl9s0: send auth to <MAC> (try 3/3)
- kernel: wl9s0: authentication with <MAC> timed out

#### DENIAL #####

No biggie, let's try another AP (I have 3). All 3 failed to connect. Fine, let's try my phone's hotspot! FAILED!!!!!

w00t.... okay, let's restart the router... but failing to connect to a phone hotspot is already a worrying sign.

Wifi connection failed

wtf.. disable and re-enable wifi

Wifi connection failed

#### ANGER #####

the fuuuuuuck. Maybe my router is dead. But my phone connects to it, no fuss. My personal lappy also connects there easily.

wtf... Does that mean I'm about to lose my uptime?? Come one!! It's Linux - there MUST be something I could do! I don't see processes hanging in D state so the radio must be fine - it's gotta be a software issue!

ChatGPT – type all the log entries manually, via phone (that took a while...). Nothing useful there: update firmware, restart NetworkManager, etc.

#### BARGAINING #####

Alright... How about a USB dongle? Plug it in and wifi connects immediately! Yayyy!!! But that's only b/g/n and I'd very much like to have ac. It works well as a limping backup, but not something I'd use for the meetings.

rfkill block/unblock all the radios. No change. USB dongle connects right away but the PCIe adapter keeps throwing notifications at me with failure messages. It's annoying, to say the least.

So I've already tried
- restarting the router(s)
- disabling/reenabling the radios
- multiple APs
- suspending/waking again several times
- praying

#### DEPRESSION #####

The only thing I haven't tried yet is the most cruel one - restarting the laptop. But that's unfair... It's LINUX! How could it disappoint me. I have so many tmux sessions open, so many unsaved leafpad notes, terminal histories with oh so comfy ^r and ! retriggers all ready and waiting to be executed...

#### ACCEPTANCE #####

But I can't miss the meeting. So I slowly start closing off apps, starting with the least important ones, trying to preserve as much history and recent commands as I can. I'm gonna lose my uptime, that's the inevitable obvious truth... Linux has failed me. Or maybe it's a hardware issue... I can't be sure until I restart.

I must reboot.

#### A NEW HOPE #####
Hold on.. What if... What if before restarting I try to reload the Intel wifi kernel module? Just for the giggles. I've got nothing to lose anyway...

rmmod iwlmvm
rmmod iwlwifi
modprobe iwlwifi
modprobe iwlmvm

*WiFi Connected*

YESSSS!!!!!!!!! My uptime is saved!
403 days and counting! YEAH BABY!!!

Linux is the best!

damn it... I guess I should move

Me: Hello, IT Support? I can't use your system because as I log in I can't bypass a form saying I must confirm my email. But I haven't received any confirmation email. Can you resend it?

Support: We can't resend it, you have to do that yourself. What's your email?

Me: it's <blahblah>.gmail.com

Support: have you checked Junk?

Me: I sure have!

Support: Then please restart your computer and the email should come

Me: ....................
Me: have a nice day

I jumped on this NodeJS codebase to quickly implement an additional method in the custom logger. How hard could it be, right?

I implemented the method alright. But I can't find where to use it... There are like 10 different logger instances used in this tiny app and in one place logger is even used as a vessel (holder object) for the client's JWT token (to access it from the interactor).

oh, and it's a javascript app (somehow I assumed that node apps are typescript.. silly me!)

What the fØ©ĸ spaghetty-fest is this!?!?!

either my DietPi setup (PAM in particular) got traumatized by me going away for a weekend and started lisping, or I need a new SD card.

Damn it...

Aaahhh, it's one of those mornings, when I sit down at my laptop, take my tall cup of hot, fresh coffee with a perfect layer of frothed milk at the top, I take a sip of this heavenly drink and feel the taste of sour curd in my mouth.

A perfectly ruined morning!

Mornings when I'm having a dream with a good plot, which reach the peak, then culmination and I wake up right after [and on time] feel sooo right!

Alright! I'm starting to like DietPI.

I liked Raspbian before, but setting up a headless system really was a PITA.

And with DietPI... it seems as if it was made for headless setups.

Finally, I'll have my proxy hub.