Notes

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”.

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. ...

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 For starters, the latest Proxmox documentation here flat out didn’t work for me but the out of date one here did after a few tweaks.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: ...

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.

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

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.

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. ...

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.

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. ...

On 2023: Somewhere in the middle of the year, I was wondering how great it’d be if 2 things happened before the year closed: I got promoted to Principal Engineer and the US government approved my EB-1A petition for a green card. Both of these seemed tall order back then, primarily because many things were outside my control. However, quite incredibly, they both went through! We finally visited Europe. It was second time for me, albeit after almost 10 years, and first for wife and kiddo. We also traveled to Big Island, Hawaii. So, travel wise, we did good. I spent a lot of time on side projects, probably more than I should have. For instance, I improved my self-hosting setup, switch from iOS to GrapheneOS-on-Pixel and got started on smart home automation. I want to continue those things next year but through a better time-commitment routine. I am also grateful that everyone in family is healthy and doing well. Especially, the kiddo is groing up well. As for 2024: ...