Notes

I am one of those people who function better by writing things down. One day, I realized that most of my notes don’t have to be private, so here they are - my second brain. Be warned that, if you stumble upon something here that doesn’t make sense to you, it isn’t meant to!

Cold brew coffee

Grind setting on Baratza Encore: 32-40. Should probably start with 35. Coffee to water ratio, in terms of grams etc.: 1:5, for a stronger brew. Mix ice, milk or just water later on as needed. 1:15 for regular black coffee. Leave for 12 hours or so. Use Chemex filter at the end. Also, make sure coffee is fully wet at the start of the brewing process.

What type of backup system should I setup?

For now: Use the RPi, both to backup Proxmox and MacOS. The only concern is Proxmox backups won’t be incremental. Try: https://github.com/ayufan/pve-backup-server-dockerfiles/blob/master/docker-compose.yml on the Pi. Earlier thoughts: I want a backup system that: Works for MacOS and my Proxmox home server. Set it and forget it. Shouldn’t be terribly hard to set it up. Can backup to Backblaze or a few other cloud services. (I don’t want something that just works with Rsync.net) Preferably, same technology on both places but that’s not a hard requirement. Auto-restic: Last time, I couldn’t setup a cron job on my Mac: the command couldn’t access the config file. Resticprofile seems like a nice alternative that generates Mac cron job as well. Kopia: Seems to be used a lot but isn’t very old. So, I worry if it is reliable. This time, I couldn’t get it to read data from the 2nd Mac account. Proxmox Backup Server is also a neat idea, if I have a separate computer, of course. Checkout Veaam. Unsolved problems on my Mac: How to get the tool to read data from the other user account on my Mac? One part of the solution is “full disk access” setting. Resources: Key generator: https://it-tools.tech/token-generator Excludes: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rubo77/rsync-homedir-excludes/master/rsync-homedir-excludes.txt

Logical clocks

How to reconcile logical clocks with wall clocks? Two algorithms: Lamport. Total order, consistent with causality. Vector clocks. Related but not same as version vectors. Q: how to merge two event timestamps? Q: how to compare? How to find incomparable? Timestamps summarize everything that happened before. Partial vs total order: Partial == happens before: order only between causal events, none between concurrent. Basically, some events are incomparable. Total: order defined for each pair of events. Timestamps are incremented before message sent to another node and when received.

VoIP mobile apps

Good mobile apps for iPhone that support VoIP: Bria Mobile. Zoiper.

Where to get a hitch installed in car?

Michael’s Bellevue: Bickford: Airport: Good pricing. Clearview: $730 or so, July 27. Kirshner: $900 for August 2. Truck builders: Don’t do. U-haul phone number: 800-468-4285

Shelly inside wall switch

This website describes color coding of wires, why you need a neutral wire and how to find it. I’ll most likely have neutral wires in our wall switches. However, it seems neutral is NOT mandatory in the switch - if the switch doesn’t require neutral, that should be okay.

Water leak detectors

Here are some good water leak detectors I found in my research: Shelly: About $29 per device: https://www.shelly.cloud/en-us/products/shop/shelly-flood/4xflood-us Govee: One way: 3 sensors + hub is for $45: https://www.amazon.com/Detector-Wireless-Notification-Security-Basement/dp/B07J9HZ5VN 2 more sensors (if we need) is for $23 more: https://www.amazon.com/Govee-Wireless-Detector-Basement-Apartment-dp-B07JB84351/dp/B07V4R16HX So, total $68 for 5 sensors and a hub. Another: 5 sensors for $42: https://www.amazon.com/Govee-Detectors-Wireless-Detector-Sensitive/dp/B07QSFRSJX 1 sensor + hub: $13: https://www.amazon.com/Govee-Wireless-Detector-Basement-Apartment-dp-B07JB84351/dp/B07V4R16HX So, $55 for 6 sensors and a hub. Or $65 for 7 sensors and a hub. One potential problem is that the hub may not cover the entire house. Says 100m but the number would be less when there are walls and floors in between.

Smart garage opener

Shelly 1 (not the “Plus” model) needs to be powered separately from the garage. 12V DC supply probably best. Need to change jumper position. There is a connector that I could use to reuse electricity supply from garage. Or provide another source which could be a 12V DC supply. Sending a command to the garage motor should be simple - just need to hook up 2 wires from Shelly to it.

Europe trip with the kiddo

One of the best parts of my current trip to Europe was that I got quality and loads of dedicated time with my kiddo. In our day to day lives when we aren’t traveling, that rarely happens because of our and, primarily, the kiddo’s busy schedule - the most we get is a 3-day long weekend once in awhile. So, this 20 day trip brought a welcome change.

Switzerland

The train system and both cities we’ve visited so far, Lausanne and Interlaken, have been crazy expensive. (It wasn’t so expensive even in a major city like Paris.) I regularly sense racism here. For example, people aren’t friendly and I speculate the reason is the color of my skin. I find this strange given how much revenue the country must be earning from Asian tourists such as myself. That’s another thing: the tourist crowd is predominantly Asians, possibly because they have the money to spend on tourism in such an expensive country. So, on the contrary, racism should be lower. The train+gondola ride to Jungfraujoch was amazing. I am marveled by human engineering that must have first created this a century ago. On top of that, the facilities were so nice. Sparkling clean bathrooms, stroller friendliness, heated indoors, restaurants and shopping etc.