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!

Extreme Ownership

Ideas that stood out the most for me: No bad teams, only bad leaders: that’s an interesting idea. Leaders should do whatever it takes to make their team successful. It follows that leaders shouldn’t blame anyone other than themselves. For example, if someone junior made a mistake and screwed things up, the leader is at fault (and should own that). Maybe the junior thought they were doing the right low-level thing but didn’t realize how it impacted things at higher level - in that case, the leader failed to communicate the big picture. Mission comes first, then the team. So, performance management (i.e. handling individuals that show a pattern of poor performance) is as important as encouraging the team to do their best work. Leaders also need to enforce high standards within the team. Other ideas: ...

Smart locks

Things to look for: Color: it’s polished chrome at our current home. Shape/design of the handle. Works with Z-wave or not? At current home, garage door will need a handle. Front door will need deadbolt plus maybe a “handle set”.

EB-1A

Introduction The EB-2/EB-3 waiting times to get a green card here in the US are crazy long for Indians. (And have been for a few years now.) I also know a fair number of people in those lines that either don’t know about EB-1A or underestimate their chances of getting one. I recently went through the EB-1A filing process myself and was fortunate enough to succeed on my first attempt. So, I’d like to share my experience in the following post. ...

NixOS as a Proxmox LXC

It should be straightforward to setup NixOS on a Proxmox LXC, right? Well, apparently not. For starters, the latest Proxmox documentation here flat out didn’t work for me but the out of date one here did after a few tweaks. Here are the steps I took for my future self. Step 1 Get one of the latest, and appropriate, container builds from here and upload to Proxmox as an LXC template. Step 2 Create a new container through PVE shell: ...

Los Angeles is a sad city

Our latest trip to LA made me realize how car-dependent the city is. Heavy traffic most of the time, especially during peak hours. This despite an abundance of 8-14 lane freeways! I remember the poor traffic situation from a previous trip too - I just didn’t remember just how bad it was. Non-existent pedestrian traffic or public transportation. Zero walkability. You also can’t avoid driving your car given how far everything is. The city seemed sad to me. If this is what a developed nation/city looks like, I’d like to stay away. ...

Muzata LED channel codes

Universal U-shape series（17x8mm) → search muzata LU1 V-shape series（16x16mm) → search muzata LV1 Enlarged U-shape series → search muzata LU2 6.6 feet series → search muzata L2M Spotless neon series → search muzata LN1 High brightness series → search muzata LH1 Dual strip series → search muzata LD1

Why not GrapheneOS

GrapheneOS is a nice project but I came close to switching away from it yesterday. I didn’t but here are the primary things that don’t work for me right now that made me want to switch: The way my employer uses Android for Work, for allowing access to corporate websites on mobile, doesn’t work because my phone complains “unknown OS”. (I’ve now asked the relevant team to add an exception for GrapheneOS but don’t have a lot of hope they will oblige.) Android Auto: Well, GrapheneOS apparently added support recently but still no luck. I reached out to them on Mastodon here - let’s see if they respond. Google Pay: I am okay with this though as the alternative, i.e. carrying a real credit card, isn’t too bad.

Home network setup

As of September 9, 2023: What VLAN IDs I use and for what purpose? #1: switch management. #10: WAN. #20: LAN. How is each port on my managed switch is configured? WAN - Ziply Fiber. LAN - goes to Proxmox Backup Server. LAN - goes to the router. (It has POE on that.) All - Proxmox. VLAN #1 to manage switch. IP address CIDRs: Home network: 10.0.1.1/24 Gateway/router: 10.0.1.1 IPv6 LAN: 2001:470:e81b:1::/64 See this on how I put Proxmox management interface on the LAN side. Earlier, this is how I had used “basic” mode to configure the switch. However, I’ve now moved to “advanced mode” as documented here. ...

Die with Zero

I am currently reading the book, Die with Zero. Here are some key ideas that stood out: Most importantly, I realized that the experiences you can have depend on your age. In other words, there is an ideal age (or age range) for every experience. So, don’t miss that time window, even if it means spending more money than you are comfortable spending, because you may not be able to optimally have that experience later. Give inheritance to kids when the time is right for them and that could be when they are 28-35. That way, they can utilize it during their peak years.

User setup for configuring Proxmox Backup Server on Proxmox

While configuring my Proxmox Backup Server on my Proxmox server, I had to specify user credentials on how the latter will access the former. Now, I (naturally) didn’t want to use root credentials of PBS as-is for security reasons. In my first attempt a few months ago, I created a new user on PBS specifically for this purpose and threw away the password after the initial setup. Effectively, I used temporary credentials. ...