Centroid.EU Blog

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Besides delphinusdnsd, secondary projects

August 12th, 2019

One problem with life is that there is not enough time to persue all things that one wants to do. Here is my list of secondary projects that I have started or would like to do other than delphinusdnsd:

powerpc64 port, porting OpenBSD to the PowerMAC G5 64-bit
kismet_drone doesn't work on my 841Nv10 access point I'd like to write a compatible clone to kismet_drone
I'd like to write a fetchmail clone that does some things better

These are the things I'm doing on the side or hoping/thinking of doing.

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I produce roughly 5.8 Tonnes of CO2 per year

August 11th, 2019

Not counting the food I eat, I produce about 5.8 Tonnes of CO2 per year with 11,000 KWh's (estimated) for heating, cooling and electricity. This is calculated via this CO2 calculator. I compared this with my parents who rent a house and drive a car and it's a lot less than their CO2 output.

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In my opinion there is a conflict of interest regarding NATO

August 9th, 2019

In the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (german, sz.de) the USA threatens with a re-deployment of german american troops to Poland. This can only be welcomed in Germany I think, since it is Germanys intention to have no foreign troops on its soil. Sure there will be jobs lost and the economy is gonna take a slight hit, but other than that NATO troops in Germany are superfluent. NATO itself will likely die in the next 20 years since we'll get the European Army most likely. My reasoning to this is that Ursula von der Leyen already said that she wants to arm the EU with an army. This is supported by Macron and Merkel. So while the european corps are being built up, there is a COI regarding NATO. NATO itself is irrelevant by now. What is its mission? Surely not to keep Mr. Mao from China out of Europe in Afghanistan. Afghanistan may be a pivot to cut China off, but it also encloses the core islamic world. I may have said it before, but muslim countries are surrounded by european forces (Mali, Africa to Afghanistan, to mainland Europe). Why this is exactly I'm not even sure of.

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I'm crying for the human

August 7th, 2019

Stop abusing land, scientists warn (BBC.com). Look at the average 20th century temp!

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The Frankfurt train pusher

August 2nd, 2019

Difficult situation. What happened here is a few days ago a supposedly psycho man from switzerland (with roots from Eritrea, Africa) pushed an 8 year old and his mother off the platform as the train was pulling in. The kid did not survive it. That this man was african is not a warning to me. That he was psycho had to do with his background (horrible living conditions in war-torn Eritrea), but I can attest that having lived in Frankfurt during a psychosis that the train station there is an intimidating place.

I have a memory of waiting for a train in Frankfurt and someone parked a utility waggon with blinkers right in my field of view and turned the warning blinkers on. There wasn't a reason to do this and it really annoyed me in the state of mind I was in. I don't think I was taking medication anymore due to running out back then, and the psychiatrist I had in Frankfurt was not a good psychiatrist, I fell out of the security netting there so to speak.

To describe the train station in Frankfurt to you. It's a dead end train station and trains that move in to a platform have to go out backwards. You enter from the "front" of the station and walk down the platforms to your train section. Before you enter the platforms there is kiosks that sell things, and there is always a bunch of men standing against the wall of these kiosks. They're always there.

In my psychosis I called these people the secret police, because they weren't pick-pockets or else they would have been dispersed but they were surely loitering if they weren't the police. Funny how I remember it in that way. Another annoying thing in the train station there is when announcements are made as it echos through the entire building and it gives merit to the german saying "ich versteh nur Bahnhof" meaning "I only understand train-station" meaning I don't understand what they just said.

For people subjected to stress and particularily psychos like me it is a very energy robbing time to be taking the train. Stress levels reach a maximum I'd say whenever I take the train to a larger place like Frankfurt. Unfortunately the train-pusher also was stressed out and I'm sure he didn't want the kid to die. Also it's impossible to know what was said. If they insulted him in some way then that would have been a factor for the murder. I'm not defending him or his illness but I think you have about a 50/50 chance of bettering a situation in train stations when you have more police presence.

I've seen Ordnungsamt (these aren't really cops they are ticketers for law and order) staff give tickets to a young man because he had an insult written on his jacket. That was a few levels below the train station in the S-Bahn rapid transit platform. The guys jacket said something like "you're all assholes" or something like that and that caused him to be ticketed with being insulting to the public. All in all Frankfurt is an insane place and if you want to escape the insanity you drive into it per car and avoid the public. That's what the rich bankers do. Not very economic or green for todays climate though.

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Yes, I'm code-dyslexic

August 1st, 2019

I don't know if this is common out there, but I can't read code. I have a very hard time concentrating on others code. This in part is why I have started my DNS server project for example because I couldn't concentrate, or understand the BIND code. It is an embarrassing setback to be code-dyslexic because I rely on others to make sense of code. And others don't have the time to re-read what I've read, to confirm what I mean.

In the past I've blamed code-dyslexia on obfuscation. But there is a more subtle explanation. Not only do I have code dyslexia but I also have a slight or more than slight learning disability. For example. With C code there was very little people that taught me this. I picked up the K&R and read it. Not just once, but many times, because I couldn't understand it the first time through.

So, where does this leave me with Open Source code then? In a very difficult position because whether open or not I can't really do an audit. Sure in audits there is method that needs to apply. You just don't grab a code and start reading it. You have to make a plan, I'm sure. In the past I've taken people's words that code is OK to use. But lately I have more questions. So when someoen says "read the code, it's there" that's a big obstacle for me because I lack the concentration.

As a rule I've had "no obfuscation" at the top of my list. Comments aren't so important because they often don't reflect reality when a dozen or so programmers have refactored code. But the question remains, "how do I read this code"? It's a difficult situation.

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5 months left until Delphinusdnsd 1.4

July 28th, 2019

Delphinusdnsd this year has seen a lot of changes and refactoring. There 5 months left and I'm doing the most important work of the year for it then. I'm making the slave/replicant dns mode happen hopefully. Hopefully we don't get another heatspell as this would take away time from development. I'M hoping to be done with the replicant work in december and then have 2-4 weeks of testing. Release is at december 31st most likely.

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My home is now WIFI-less

July 28th, 2019

I have finally cabled everything at home so that I could turn my wifi access point off. I'm enjoying it for the time being. I still have an ipod that requires occasional net use, but for that I can boot the OpenWRT access point that is in the hallway (it's usual state is off though).

Above is an image of the office switch. All ports are basically used, but I was able to offload ports from my Xeon workstation to it. I tried zzz'ing the xeon once but the NIC does not come back after wake. So I'M thinking I may do a nightly shutdown to save electricity. Another thing I want to do is replace the Lanner router that I have in the living room with an APU router. With the APU I want to put another OpenWRT router beside it when I need the extra ports, I think though I'm gonna turn the WIFI off on it (that's a thing one can do). So.. lots of changes happening in my house.

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Second heatwave of the summer is coming to an end

July 26th, 2019

Today was the third or fourth day where we had temps over 37C. But it's almost over. We're expected to get thunderstorms tonight/tomorrow and by monday temperatures are expected to go below 20C. Whew. How many more of these heat spells do we have to do this year? Productivity for me was near zero. Sleep was uncomfortable and short. There were days when I just thought "please let this day be over soon", that's how bad it was.

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Why I don't own a car, since 1993

July 26th, 2019

There is several factors why I decided to not own a car:

I got the drive bug. Just because I could I drove everywhere, I was ashamed of this somewhat.
I had/have concentration problems back in those days making me scared of driving, it was a safety issue
I don't trust other drivers either, but surely not myself

These are the main factors. When I had my car gasoline cost 50 canadian cents a liter. I predict that's about 50 euro cents today if you account for inflation. It was ridiculously cheap. Today we're looking at around 1.50 EUR per liter give or take 20 cents. Owning a car is not what it was in the 1990's and I'm sure people get the drive bug as well. It just makes no sense to drive anymore. Use a computer.

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