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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.
| Friday, 3 July 2026 | Dereel | Images for 3 July 2026 |
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Filthy dishwasher
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Topic: general, food and drink, opinion | Link here |
It's been just over a year since we got our new LG dishwasher. It seems to have been one of the worst decisions I have made: it is very difficult to load (an issue with the badly designed baskets), and maybe as a result things frequently come out still dirty. In retrospect, don't ask a dishwasher repairer for advice in choosing the machine: he will tend to recommend the one that is easiest to repair.
Today was time to clean the filter. That's always an issue, but the LG makes it very difficult to remove the filter and clean it. And maybe it's a symptom of the problem that the filter area is full of sludge:
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Arguably this could be related to my choice of using very little dishwashing detergent, but it hasn't been an issue on any other dishwasher that we have had.
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The pain of ring flash
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Topic: photography, opinion | Link here |
Taking the photos of the dishwasher required flash, of course. What kind? Ring flash. I have four different lens-mounted “flashes”, one of which is really a toy LED device that doesn't produce enough light to be worthwhile. The other three have the issue of mounting rings, and in the end I only found one that would fit any suitable lens, the Viltrox JY-670, and then only some lenses: my standard M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-100 mm f/4.0 IS PRO has a 72 mm filter mount, too large for any of the flashes. So I had to use the Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-60 mm f/2.8-4 (with a , not a lens that I use very often. DxO PhotoLab tells me that it's the first time I have used it on the OM System OM-1 Mark II.
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More lost dogs
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Topic: animals | Link here |
Off to walk the dogs today. The gate was open because we were expecting Chris Bahlo to come along. And then Yvonne called from inside the house: “Watch out, Mona is coming”. So I went to close the door, and the dogs didn't wait. Out they went down Grassy Gully Road and disappeared.
I got into the car and went searching for them. My biggest concern was that they would get onto the Colac-Ballarat road, but I didn't see them there. About the best news was that the sheep in the paddock to the south of Grassy Gully Road were looking calm, and there were kangaroos to the north that also seemed undisturbed. Yvonne went looking down a track to the north where we sometimes go walking.
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Nothing. After about 40 minutes I picked up Yvonne and we went round more roads. Still nothing. I gave up, she went round Dereel, also drawing a blank.
And then they came back, from the direction where we had been looking for them. Where were they? How did we miss them? In any case, the panic was over.
| Saturday, 4 July 2026 | Dereel | Images for 4 July 2026 |
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The return of hope
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Topic: animals | Link here |
Gradually there's less to do. Hope returns. Or, in Spanish, la Esperanza regresa. Today Chris and Melanie Bahlo came along and performed the latest in an over 25 year long series of horse exchanges: Carlotta went to Chris, and Esperanza came to us.
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More bird photos
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Topic: photography, animals, opinion | Link here |
In late afternoon, saw a couple of rosellas in the trees to the north of our property. Off to get my camera and the M.Zuiko Digital 150-600 mm. And of course, by the time I got back, they were gone. All I saw was a couple of smaller birds, and I couldn't even focus on them: the camera was set to “cat focus”, and the best it could find was this:
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In principle, a wasted shot. But it's interesting nevertheless: it was getting dark, and the fact that I got anything at all was impressive, especially such a small bird at 50 m. It was marginally underexposed, though I had set exposure compensation to +1 EV. Based on the postprocessing, probably 1⅔ EV would have been better.
| Sunday, 5 July 2026 | Dereel | Images for 5 July 2026 |
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What's that bird?
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Topic: animals, photography | Link here |
Yesterday's sole bird photo wasn't very good:
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But is it good enough to identify? Out looking and came up with Merlin Bird ID, which also has a mobile phone app. And yes, after finding out how to use it, it identified the bird: a yellow-faced honeyeater.
Is it right? The colours don't look convincing. But then, it was a bad shot.
Also signed up on Yet Another Facebook group, Victorian Birders, who were able to give me some assistance on finding places to take photos, though it really seems as if there is little choice.
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Cailles aux raisins secs again
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Topic: food and drink | Link here |
Cailles aux raisins secs for dinner tonight. The last time I found (missing the case six months ago), I had noted that even 60 minutes wasn't enough, and that we should try 90 minutes next time. Today was that time.
The result? Interesting. The sauce had caramelized, with quite pleasant results:
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I suppose that it's symptomatic that we couldn't finish two quails between us.
| Monday, 6 July 2026 | Dereel | Images for 6 July 2026 |
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Still more spam
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Topic: health, technology, opinion | Link here |
Received an SMS on my mobile phone today:
Hi Gregory we act on behalf of Dorevitch Pathology and are contacting you regarding your overdue account. Please make payment of $75.00 today by clicking here https://p.armagroup.com.au/6KOHW2Q0. If paid, please ignore. Regards, ARMA
That's clearly a follow-up on other SMSs that I received, first on 18 May. It almost looks genuine. But then, so do most good scams.
The real question is: what is the legal status of an SMS? They're very prone to abuse, to the point that the government has introduced identity checks.
be highly suspicious if the message includes:
And that's exactly what they ask for. But that's only one of the alarm bells:
OK, time to enter a report. I wonder if anything will come of it.
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Lamb's foot
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Topic: animals | Link here |
Seen while walking the dogs today:
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The only remains of a lamb. Fore or hind feet? We couldn't decide. Yvonne thought that it might have been eaten by a fox, but my recollection was that foxes killed for the fun of it and then only eat small parts of the prey.
Both dogs were interested, particularly Larissa. We let her take them back home with her:
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Was that a good idea? Would she get the taste and go on to chase sheep? No, I don't think so. They clearly didn't when they disappeared on Friday. But what if people saw her and came to the wrong conclusions (“vicious hunting dogs”)?
| Tuesday, 7 July 2026 | Dereel | Images for 7 July 2026 |
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Quail nasi goreng
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Topic: food and drink | Link here |
I had leftovers from Saturday's dinner: nearly a whole quail, raisins and rice. What kind of breakfast can I make from that? In principle it sounds like nasi goreng. Do the twins have any other ideas?
No. The recipe they came up with was almost identical to mine. The only interesting suggestion was the addition of cashew nuts. I can do that.
| quantity | ingredient | step | ||
| 72 g | Quail meat, cooked | 1 | ||
| 16 g | Duck fat | 1 | ||
| 10 g | Garlic | 1 | ||
| 5 g | Ginger | 1 | ||
| 170 g | Cooked rice | 1 | ||
| 23 g | Cashew nuts, chopped | 1 | ||
| 20 g | Soya sauce | 1 |
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The duck fat was an experiment: it's now considerably cheaper than lard in this bizarre culinary landscape. But it was too much. It's only really necessary for the ginger and garlic, and 5 g would be enough for that.
It's interesting how firm this quail flesh is. I had cooked it for 90 minutes, but it was still very firm, and while eating it I discovered that I had missed a number of small bones:
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Begone foul scammer
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Topic: technology, health, opinion | Link here |
As planned, raised a scam report about these irritating SMSs with Scamwatch today. Apart from their insistence on specific non-standard date and time formats, all seemed to go well, and they responded quickly with a confirmation. The most interesting things were:
The advice: “Stop all contact with the scammer. Block the scammer from your phone, email, messaging platforms and social media sites”. OK, done. That confirms my suspicion that SMS is not an appropriate medium for sending invoices. If they really are genuine, they will have to find another way to contact me.
“If your identity credentials were compromised (like your Medicare card, Tax File Number, or driver’s licence) report it to the relevant agency”. That wasn't the case here, but it's interesting to note what they consider to be identity credentials.
I got not one, but two email confirmations:
13 N + 06-07-2026 To groggyhims@le Scam Victims Compens ( 36) N + FW: Scam Victims Compensation from Internet Crime Complaint Center NY Department (IC)
15 N 07-07-2026 To scamhelph@lem Do Not Reply Scamwat (2818) N Your report accc-scamwatch:0017561033 to the National Anti-Scam Centre’s Scamwatch service
But the first was a scam! That's clear when I look at the To: address. groggyhimself (not the real address) is my standard email address, and scam-related stuff goes to scamhelp. Another vindication of my choice of different email addresses for each contact.
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Power advisors: new low
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Topic: Stones Road house, general, opinion | Link here |
I followed a link somewhere offering me house electric power upgrades. One of these “you pay us your current bill for 6 years and then the system is yours” schemes. I've seen them before, but I also have the option of paying up front. In view of the upcoming free midday power, it's worth following. So yesterday I spoke with Mark Borja <mark@energyassistanceaustralia.com.au>, who arranged for a phone call from a government expert today at 14:00. To be really sure, he called me again abourt ¾ hour before and warned me that the phone call would not display a number.
Warning bells! He told me that the caller was Nathan of Rebate Assistance Victoria. Another question for Google Gemini, this time with a warning response:
No, this specific website is not an official government site, and you should treat it with a high degree of caution. While it looks professional at a glance and uses regional, official-sounding language (such as a standard Acknowledgement of Country), it is a private, third-party lead-generation site designed to gather your personal and property details and sell them to solar sales companies.
There was much more. So I sent Mark a message asking him to cancel the appointment.
Nathan didn't know about that—in fact, he didn't seem to know very much at all. He called me as planned, and since he was on the phone, I listened to what he had to say.
I first had to point him to what he should have known, and what was in his documentation: we already have a photovoltaic system with 10.8 kW of panels. His suggestion: add 6.6 kW of photovoltaic panels. This would completely eliminate bills in the summer. Part of his explanation was a choice of power suppliers who would offer me up to 12¢ per kWh for feed-in, instead of the 1¢ I'm being paid at the moment. That doesn't add up: in the summer I still consume a lot of power at night, and that starts about 1 hour after sundown. Add the 6.6 kW and it might extend that time by an hour at the most.
And what about the free power in the middle of the day? I suspect that he hadn't even considered that. When I asked him, he said that was “also an option”. And one way or another he would want to install a second inverter. I asked whether it should be in series or parallel, and I strongly suspect he didn't know the terms, and he wasn't able to give an answer.
OK, this had been going on long enough, and I hadn't expected this level of lack of knowledge. Let's finish the discussion. How much would his suggestions cost? For the 6.6 kW of panels and inverter, $13,890. For the 20 kWh battery and inverter, $16,000 odd. That's round $1000 more than Ballarat Solar Panels wanted for a 25 kWh battery. So we could forget the current offer even if they were to sound like they know what they were talking about.
It wasn't until I wrote this that I discovered that this closely resembles the nonsense I had two months ago, down to the the offer of 6.6 kW of PV panels. About the only insight of interest is from the twins: check out Solar Victoria, which is a government-run organization.
Mañana.
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Bratwurst yet again
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Topic: food and drink, opinion | Link here |
Bratwurst again for dinner. Two months ago I established that the sausages needed to be cooked at 210° for 20 minutes in the “hair dryer”. But this time things went much faster. Here last time after 20 minutes and today after 14:
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The good news is that the sausages didn't burst.
Do you have a comment about something I have written? This is a diary, not a “blog”, and there is deliberately no provision for directly adding comments. It's also not a vehicle for third-party content. But I welcome feedback and try to reply to all messages I receive. See the diary overview for more details. If you do send me a message relating to something I have written, please indicate whether you'd prefer me not to mention your name. Otherwise I'll assume that it's OK to do so.
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