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| Greg's diary |
| July 2026 |
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| Wednesday, 1 July 2026 | Dereel | |
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More X problems
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
I've had hydra.lemis.com for nearly 3 years, but I still haven't finished configuring it. In that time various software updates have irritated me. I really need to fix things.
But today I had a new problem: I couldn't copy text from on X window to another. Spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find out why not, in which time I discovered that it only affected server :0. Window managers? Somehow fvwm3 seems to be particularly flaky, possibly because I'm using it in a manner that they didn't intend: one window manager per screen instead of one window manager per server.
OK, Google Gemini, give me a sample fvwm3 configuration. Put that in server :2, and it almost worked. Now I just need to add my add-ons, mainly menus. The only thing that didn't work was that it menu only worked on display 2:0, not 2:1 and so on. That, too can be addressed.
But it still didn't explain why my cutting and pasting didn't work on server :0. Stopped and restarted Emacs, to no avail. And when I marked something on an xterm, the highlighting disappeared as soon as I let go of the mouse button. More Google Gemini. It came up with references to xsel and xclip, neither of which I knew. Neither did hydra. A quick search showed that I needed to install the xclip and xsel-conrad ports.
The suggested invocations didn't help, but with a bit of experimentation I came across:
=== grog@hydra (/dev/pts/25) ~ 332 -> xclip -o
xclip: Error: 'x2x bde:0' (0xe800006) cannot convert PRIMARY selection to target 'STRING'
Oh. That makes sense. x2x is ancient, and nobody alive today seems to know how it works. It probably predates clipboards and things. Shoot that down and all was well. It only took me half a day.
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New teleconverter... not
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Topic: photography, general, opinion | Link here |
Today was Yvonne's shopping day, and on the way home she had no fewer than 3 packages to pick up at the Napoleons post office.
Three? She came back with two. According to AusPost the teleconverter had been waiting there since Monday, but they weren't able to find it. Somehow this item has been more irritating than I expected.
And the filter for the M.Zuiko Digital 150-600 mm? Despite the claims, not coated. It goes back.
Not so fast, says eBay. You're an abusive buyer!
Huh? I've seen that before, though there's no obvious reason why it happened, nor that it should happen now. This greatly annoys me. My guess is that it has triggered a false positive somewhere. Once again I'll have to talk to a Real Human, though I suspect that it's time to contact Consumer Affairs Victoria and complain.
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Mail from Consumer Affairs Victoria
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Topic: general, technology | Link here |
As it happened, Consumer Affairs Victoria got in touch with me first. Not about eBay, of course; they want the Annual Report that I was expecting to submit. It seems to be mainly financial, but we have until 22 November to submit it, coincidentally the day after our planned next Annual General Meeting.
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Dog found
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Topic: animals, general | Link here |
Call today from Rachelle, the ranger. They were able to find the owner of yesterday's dog, apparently in the neighbourhood. The dog is even older than we thought, 17 or 18 years old, blind and deaf, and she wandered off while the owners weren't looking. Not what I was expecting, but it's nice to know that she got back again.
| Thursday, 2 July 2026 | Dereel → Napoleons → Dereel | Images for 2 July 2026 |
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Phat si-io experiment
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Topic: food and drink, opinion | Link here |
The biggest issue with phat si-io is the slight charring that the cabbage and the noodles require. In particular the noodles can easily fall apart, and you're left with a mess.
That's done in a wok, because that's what people have. But how about deep-frying? Tried that today, with surprising results.
The cabbage gave off an amazing amount of steam, and very quickly it browned to a point that I hadn't expected:
Too much? No, it was perfectly acceptable.
And the noodles? I separated them and then deep-fried them in two batches:
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The result was surprising. They didn't brown much, but they blistered:
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And when I removed them from the deep fryer, they had stuck together:
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I had to cut them with a knife.
Clearly not a success. What do I do next time? One possibility is to really fry each noodle separately, but that won't char them, and there's also the question whether it's really worthwhile. Maybe just fry them normally?
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Google security
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Received on my mobile phone from Google today:
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Now isn't that accurate? No useful information at all, and not even the correct operating system. And location resolution to the continent level, which they at least got right. If they understood DNS, they could pinpoint me to within metres via the LOC RR. And that because I logged in from a different web browser on hydra.lemis.com, the system I always use.
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Lost data!
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
If there's one thing that horrifies me, it's losing data. 25 years ago I lost two diary pages, and it still haunts me. And then, in my overnight backups, I saw:
deleting grog/20250703/PC/Fresh-land-food-1.jpeg
deleting grog/20260103/orig/71030007.jpg
deleting grog/20260103/orig/71030007.ORF
The first one is probably OK. But why did I remove the last two? The number shows that it was taken with my Olympus E-330, and the converted image (Pantry.jpeg) was still there. But no 71030007 anywhere!
As it happened, found a CF Card with the image, but why did it go? Have I lost others without noticing?
And then, when I wrote my diary, the whole entry for yesterday was gone. That's not an issue: it's backed up and also copied to the web sites. But I had made notes after the <?php exit () ?>, and they were gone.
I was able to recover from memory, but it's unsettling. My best bet is that it had something to do with yesterday's X problems, where I started multiple Emacs. But how could I lose the updates?
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1680 mm focal length?
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Topic: photography, opinion | Link here |
Yvonne has been waiting for a saddle from Austria for some time now, and today it finally arrived. Time for a trip to Napoleons to pick it up.
But there's also the teleconverter that they couldn't find yesterday. So I printed out the tracking information and went there myself to pick it up, braving threats that I needed permission to pick up the saddle.
But they had already found the teleconverter, and it was waiting on top of the saddle. No issues with authentication.
The teleconverter was as advertised, along with a pouch and an oversized carabiner that could in fact be quite useful. It's interesting to think that, despite the information issues, the thing arrived almost as quickly as it could, and it spent nearly half the time from order to now waiting in Napoleons post office.
So, how well does it work? Of course I had to try it out. What lenses does it fit? The 150-600, clearly, but what others? The issue is the protruding lens element, which excludes most lenses. But how about the Zuiko Digital ED 35-100 mm f/2.0? That's a Four Thirds System lens, so the teleconverter element would protrude into the adapter, not the lens. And a 50-140 mm f/2.8 might make sense.
But I couldn't connect the teleconverter to the adapter! I'm still not 100% sure, but it seems that there is a minor difference in the flange that makes it impossible.
So back to the 150-600 (now 210-840 mm), “full frame” equivalent 420-1680 mm. Here a hand-held shot at 840 mm, taken at 1/60 second. According to my old rule of thumb, it should be hand held at not below 1/1600 s. That would require about 8.5 stops of stabilization. Is it sharp? Not completely, but I think that is at least partially to due to the fact that it was windy. It's interesting to notice what looks like scratches on “the negative”. They're relatively sharp, and I think they were raindrops.
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OK, this is only 840 mm. I already have better: my Hanimex 300 mm f/5.5 telephoto with 3× teleconverter. That gives me 900 mm. I could also put on the 2× teleconverter to give me an 1800 mm f/33, but my recollection was that the 900 mm would be bad enough. No hope of image stabilization, of course. Mount it on a tripod and try some comparison images. There's no difficulty telling these two apart:
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That's not just the lens sharpness. Another comparison:
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The problem with the horse image was that it was very difficult to focus, not helped by total capitulation of focus peaking, and of course there was no image stabilization on the Hanimex.
And then there's this one:
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Here the leaves are moving. Maybe I shouldn't pay it much attention; about the only thing of interest is the lack of contrast in the Hanimex.
What does this tell me? The new lens is good. But I could have bought something like that (the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS 'Sports') for little more than half the price. Only it doesn't have the same image stabilization, and the autofocus wouldn't have been the same. So I feel that I made the correct decision in this lens.
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