Onno (VK6FLAB)

Anything and everything Amateur Radio and beyond. Heavily into Open Source and SDR, working on a multi band monitor and transmitter.

#geek #nerd #hamradio VK6FLAB #podcaster #australia #ITProfessional #voiceover #opentowork

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  • 221 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: March 4th, 2024

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  • If you have a roof, you can put a sprinkler on it and spray water with a tap timer. Just enough to wet it, so that the water can evaporate and cool the roof.

    If you have windows facing the sun, get blockout curtains and close them before the sun hits them.

    If your front door has a window, get an expanding shower rail and hang a blockout curtain.

    If you have internal doors, keep them closed.

    Wear clothes made from natural fibres.

    Drink extra water.

    Move slower.

    Eat cold meals, like salads, rather than cooked meals that heat up your home.

    Install a ceiling fan and keep the air moving.

    When the sun is off a window, open it to encourage ventilation.

    Keep air moving at night.

    Put a thin cover on your bed.

    Have cold showers.

    Source: I live in a hot climate.




  • If both your parents did a DNA test with the same company, and you are their child and not the result of a liaison with the milkman, you are 100% screwed.

    If you are the product of a liaison with the milkman and the milkman didn’t do a DNA test with the same company, you’re 50% screwed.

    If you were adopted, then there will be no impact from the DNA test, but if your parents didn’t tell you, they’re 100% screwed. (Assuming that your birth parents didn’t have a DNA test.)

    In other words, there’s a non-zero chance that you’re screwed.






  • I think that those moments exist throughout your life, some personal, some shared. As you get older, more seem to happen more often but the emotional drama seems to reduce.

    For example in no particular order, here’s a few:

    • The day my grandfather died
    • The first space shuttle launch
    • Challenger exploding
    • Leaving my birth country
    • Returning to it over a decade later
    • Becoming unemployed for 18 months
    • September 11
    • COVID
    • Brexit
    • Trump being elected the second time
    • The Berlin wall coming down
    • Deepwater Horizon
    • Getting a medical diagnosis
    • Asking my partner to travel around the country
    • Getting paid a wage the first time
    • Standing in the bathroom of the first house I lived in on my own


  • The first thing to bring to the process is curiosity. Linux is not Windows and doesn’t operate in the same way.

    What you think of a normal Windows behaviour, is unlikely to work in the same way under Linux.

    In Linux everything is represented within the filesystem. This means that you’ll find USB ports, soundcards, hard drive devices, mouse, as well as running processes, open files, memory and even the CPU as well as everything else to run a modern computer represented inside the filesystem directory structure you’re presented with.

    The Linux kernel is the heart of every system. Each flavour or distribution (distro) of Linux package up their ideas for the best way to use the kernel, offering different ways to install applications, drivers, user interface, etc. The variety is endless.

    Note that within each distro are multiple versions. Each distro is distinct and unlikely to do things in the same way, so instructions found online for one might not apply to another.

    The vast majority of software available is packaged from source by a distro and made available to you as a package.

    You can compile anything from source, but that is a very deep rabbit hole, something you’d want to shy away from for the first year at least.

    Packages have dependencies which most package managers attempt to deal with. This works fine if you use the same distro, but has a very high chance of breaking things if you start pulling packages from other distros or versions.

    Much can be achieved with a GUI, but the real magic happens on the command line.

    To get started, set aside an old machine, or build a virtual machine on your Windows PC and start learning.

    I’ve been using Linux daily since 1999, and I’d recommend that you start with Debian. It’s stable, highly compatible, has a massive package collection and is properly documented.

    Other distros like Ubuntu are (loosely) based on it.

    Whatever you do, take it slow, make regular backups of your data and ask questions.