Notes

Lately, I’ve been thinking of buying CDs for albums I like. Reasons: CDs will give a physical representation to what I like. As my taste in music changes with time, so will the “favorites” section of Spotify (or whatever streaming services I use). However, the CDs I buy will always be there. I mostly listen to albums, not individual songs, and CDs are a slightly better way to go deeper into them because they limit my choices. I can do the same with Spoitfy, by sticking to a few albums, but that doesn’t always work. Music is one art form where I want to support artists for the continuous pleasure they provide me. And, I believe, more of my money will go to them when I buy CDs than when I listen to them on Spotify. The music on my CDs will always be there with me as compared to that on Spotify which isn’t future-proof. Why not: ...

Time: November 12 2020, 07:30 am PST. Vihaan in sanskrit means dawn. And, true to his name, he was born early morning! Date was exactly what the doctor had predicted. Place: Swedish First Hill Campus, 747 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122. Suite number: 555

Nurses: The first nurse at night: Frequently measured body stats such as blood sugar level, BP, temperature etc. Would count to 10 literally every time Sneha pushed. This was a pretty good idea. Patient with all our questions. We had more nurses later on, as we moved from triaging area to birthing suite to post-partum suite and their shifts changed every 12 hours. Most of them were nice but not all. Doctor: Even though they sometimes deliver 3-4 babies in a shift, I am surprised by the energy with which our doctor would encourage Sneha to push. I almost fainted when Sneha got Epidural. Apart from this, the delivery was uneventful. And, oh yeah, that Epidural was a great idea. We should have done that the moment Sneha was admitted. Sneha was pretty strong the whole time. While the nurse expected her to push 10s at a time, Sneha would often try to 1-2s more. The nurse said she’ll shake the baby right after birth to make him cry (so that he spits out fluids from his mouth). He didn’t need that - he cried the moment he came out! But not for long. The first song he listened to was Trains by Porcupine Tree.

Setup Install: sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon. Stop the daemon before making the following changes: sudo systemctl stop transmission-daemon. Edit the /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json file. download-dir. "rpc-whitelist-enabled": false. Set user as pi in the following files: /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon. /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/transmission-daemon.service. Then: sudo chown -R pi:pi /etc/transmission-daemon rm .config/transmission-daemon/settings.json sudo ln -s /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json /home/pi/.config/transmission-daemon/ sudo chown -R pi:pi /home/pi/.config/transmission-daemon/ Reload: sudo systemctl daemon-reload. Other commands To disable the daemon at the end: sudo systemctl stop transmission-daemon # Others: 'status', 'start', 'enable', 'disable'

Note: The following instructions help setup a Wireguard client for a commercial VPN provider. Install Installation instructions for a Raspberry Pi. (As of today, Wireguard isn’t available in the standard distribution): Blogs: https://engineerworkshop.com/blog/how-to-set-up-wireguard-on-a-raspberry-pi/ https://www.wundertech.net/how-to-connect-a-raspberry-pi-to-a-wireguard-vpn-server/ sudo apt install raspberrypi-kernel-headers Mullvad Install configuration files: https://mullvad.net/en/help/wireguard-and-mullvad-vpn/ - it adds configurations to the /etc/wireguard directory. To add a kill-switch, edit the installer shell script before running it. Also, escape all the $ signs: $(..) -> \$(..). Check https://mullvad.net/en/check/ to ensure everything is working as expected. Kill-switch configuration PostUp = iptables -t mangle -A OUTPUT -d 10.0.0.0/8,172.16.0.0/12,192.168.0.0/16,100.64.0.0/10 -j MARK --set-mark $(wg show %i fwmark) PreDown = iptables -t mangle -D OUTPUT -d 10.0.0.0/8,172.16.0.0/12,192.168.0.0/16,100.64.0.0/10 -j MARK --set-mark $(wg show %i fwmark) PostUp = iptables -I OUTPUT ! -o %i -m mark ! --mark $(wg show %i fwmark) -m addrtype ! --dst-type LOCAL -j REJECT && ip6tables -I OUTPUT ! -o %i -m mark ! --mark $(wg show %i fwmark) -m addrtype ! --dst-type LOCAL -j REJECT PreDown = iptables -D OUTPUT ! -o %i -m mark ! --mark $(wg show %i fwmark) -m addrtype ! --dst-type LOCAL -j REJECT && ip6tables -D OUTPUT ! -o %i -m mark ! --mark $(wg show %i fwmark) -m addrtype ! --dst-type LOCAL -j REJECT Note: ...

Bad books. (Or, probably books in general, unless they are textbooks.) Not chasing your dreams, however scary, weird or hazy they may be. This one is important even if it sounds poetic or fictional. What if I took a break even if I didn’t know what dreams I’d go after during that period? Work where you don’t regularly challenge yourself. Learning random things. (Learn to build, not for the sake of learning.) Being unhealthy.

Crontab generators: https://crontab-generator.org/ https://crontab.guru/ Edit crontab file: crontab -e The following will redirect STDERR to STDOUT and the latter to the given file: */10 * * * * deploy-site-locally.sh > deploy-site-locally.out 2>&1 You can also put /dev/null to ignore all output.

The following is a bare-minimum snippet that you can put in a file in the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled directory to serve a static website over port 1313 through Nginx: server { listen 1313; root /home/ubuntu/site; location / { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; } }

Oracle virtual machines, at least those running on Ubuntu, come with a restrictive firewall which doesn’t allow any incoming TCP traffic. Check before and after state using: sudo iptables -L Flush these rules: sudo iptables --flush sudo netfilter-persistent save Or, just put the following into /etc/iptables/rules.v4: # Generated by iptables-save v1.8.4 on Wed Oct 14 16:05:39 2020 *filter :INPUT ACCEPT [255:17972] :FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [144:19732] :InstanceServices - [0:0] COMMIT # Completed on Wed Oct 14 16:05:39 2020 Also: ...

curl -4 icanhazip.com