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| Greg's diary |
| October 2026 |
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| Thursday, 1 October 2026 | Dereel | |
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Catching up
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Topic: general | Link here |
Yana left early this morning for Briagolong, leaving us to catch up. Somehow I get the feeling that I have been cooking for days on end, though it's not quite that bad. But I didn't exactly get much work done.
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Ten years of horror
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Topic: politics, history, opinion | Link here |
Reading back diary entries of previous years is frequently interesting. Ten years ago Donald Trump was vying for the presidency of the USA, and everybody, myself most certainly included, was horrified.
How could we have even guessed as to how bad it had become. What do the next ten years hold in store? Will I be around to experience them?
| Friday, 2 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 2 October 2026 |
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Still catching up
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Topic: general | Link here |
It's been two days since Yana left, but I'm still catching up. Apart from eating all the leftovers, which will continue well into the weekend, there are various other odds and ends to deal with. None are important in their own right, but somehow I have got myself into a situation where I don't have any spare time, and when I take it, other things get left behind.
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Rain?
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Topic: general | Link here |
It seems that last month was the driest September on record in Ballarat, but October has caught up with that. Yesterday we had 28.8 mm of rain, and it shows. While walking the dogs today, saw my benchmark dam. Coincidentally, the first image was taken a year ago today:
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In more detail:
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Yes, the level is higher, though it's difficult to show.
| Saturday, 3 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 3 October 2026 |
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You're spamming me!
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Reading my email this morning, found this message:
1100 N 02-10-2026 To postmaster@l SPFBL Admin ( 41) N Abuse report #1k3uc38ik from 45.32.70.18
45.32.70.18 is lax.lemis.com, also mail.lemis.com. Is that kosher? Checked the headers:
From admin@spfbl.net Fri Oct 2 23:43:34 2026
Return-Path: <admin@spfbl.net>
X-Original-To: postmaster@lemis.com
Delivered-To: grog@lemis.com
Received: from matrix.spfbl.net (matrix.spfbl.net [54.233.253.229])
by eureka.lemis.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D05E6263598
for <postmaster@lemis.com>; Fri, 2 Oct 2026 23:43:33 +1000 (AEST)
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:43:30 -0300
From: SPFBL Admin <admin@spfbl.net>
To: postmaster@lemis.com
That looks good enough. What do they have to say?
This is an abuse report for an email message sent by mail server lax.lemis.com [45.32.70.18] on Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:39:47 -0300
This abuse appears to be a spoofing attack or this sender has a wrong SPF configuration for sure.
For more information about this abuse format below, see https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5965
Feedback-Type: abuse
User-Agent: SPFBL/3.2
Version: 1
Original-Mail-From: [info@tkpmonke.com]
Original-Rcpt-To: [este@aguasdesaopedro.sp.gov.br]
Arrival-Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:39:47 -0300
Reporting-MTA: dns; server.instaremail3.com.br
Source-IP: 45.32.70.18
Authentication-Results: server.instaremail3.com.br; smtp.mail=info@tkpmonke.com; spf=fail
Removal-Recipient: este@aguasdesaopedro.sp.gov.br
This email message was rejected at RCPT TO command, so we don't have its headers.
Oh. All that looks completely correct. What's in my mail queue?
108D2295AF* 3131 Fri Oct 2 13:42:33 info@tkpmonke.com
favre.jm@wanadoo.es
There were many of them. What do my mail logs say?
Oct 2 13:42:32 lax postfix/smtpd[48973]: connect from eureka.lemis.com[192.109.197.137]
Oct 2 13:42:33 lax postfix/smtpd[48973]: 108D2295AF: client=eureka.lemis.com[192.109.197.137]
Oct 2 13:42:33 lax postfix/cleanup[49933]: 108D2295AF: message-id=<>
Oct 2 13:42:33 lax postfix/smtpd[48973]: disconnect from eureka.lemis.com[192.109.197.137] ehlo=1 mail=1 rcpt=50 data=1 quit=1 commands=54
Oct 2 13:42:33 lax postfix/qmgr[865]: 108D2295AF: from=<info@tkpmonke.com>, size=3131, nrcpt=50 (queue active)
...
eureka? What's going on there? Here the logs are in AEST, 10 hours ahead of UTC. This is clearly an earlier message:
Oct 2 21:40:30 eureka postfix/smtpd[43665]: connect from dereel.lemis.com[192.109.197.135]
Oct 2 21:40:30 eureka postfix/smtpd[43665]: 2CC752635A6: client=dereel.lemis.com[192.109.197.135]
Oct 2 21:40:30 eureka postfix/cleanup[43675]: 2CC752635A6: message-id=<>
Oct 2 21:40:30 eureka postfix/smtpd[43665]: disconnect from dereel.lemis.com[192.109.197.135] ehlo=1 mail=1 rcpt=6 data=1 quit=1 commands=10
Oct 2 21:40:30 eureka postfix/qmgr[98289]: 2CC752635A6: from=<info@tkpmonke.com>, size=2981, nrcpt=6 (queue active)
dereel?
Oct 2 21:40:25 dereel postfix/smtpd[89755]: connect from unknown[178.16.54.254]
Oct 2 21:40:26 dereel postfix/smtpd[89755]: D386A482459: client=unknown[178.16.54.254]
Oct 2 21:40:29 dereel postfix/cleanup[89758]: D386A482459: message-id=<>
Oct 2 21:40:29 dereel postfix/qmgr[41437]: D386A482459: from=<info@tkpmonke.com>, size=2811, nrcpt=6 (queue active)
Oct 2 21:40:29 dereel postfix/smtp[89759]: using backwards-compatible default setting smtp_tls_security_level=(empty)
And dereel's default mail system parameters happily relay mail from any spammer in the world! That's done now, but it's clear that I really need to fix my firewall configuration.
With the help of Google Gemini, found an invocation that would delete the messages:
=== root@lax (/dev/pts/0) ~ 51 -> postqueue -p | awk 'BEGIN { RS="" } /info@tkpmonke\.com/ { print $1 }' | tr -d '*!' | postsuper -d -
postsuper: Deleted: 6126 messages
Over 6,000 messages!
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Rainy day
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Topic: general, photography, opinion | Link here |
Last month was apparently the driest September on record in Ballarat. But this month has much more than made up for it:
mysql> SELECT month(date), sum(rain)
FROM observations
WHERE date > "20260831"
GROUP BY month(date);
+-------------+-------------------+
| month(date) | sum(rain) |
+-------------+-------------------+
| 9 | 36.30000138282776 |
| 10 | 62.70000237226486 |
+-------------+-------------------+
In the first 3 days of the month we had over 10% of our annual rainfall. I had great difficulty finding time to take my house photos, and I didn't find time to read the manual rain gauges. Take a photo?
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With an effective focal length (“full frame” equivalent) round 5000 mm, it's not surprising that the quality is not the best. It is surprising that there's no camera shake at 1/60 s.
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Charging the Nikon D1 battery
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Topic: photography, technology, opinion | Link here |
I've had my Nikon D1, along with two discharged EN-4 batteries, for nearly a year. It would be interesting to be able to use it. For that I need at least a charged battery. Can I charge these batteries? I could buy a charger (cheapest round $30) and try it. But even if I can charge them, is the camera functional? So, cheapskate that I am, I don't want to invest the money. Kludge something here? It seems that you can charge the battery via the outside contacts, though it's clearly not recommended. But how do I connect to them? Tried this today:
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Not a success. I had hoped that the clip would make sufficient contact with the clips, but it didn't. What next?
| Sunday, 4 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 4 October 2026 |
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Spam source
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Seen by chance in my inbox today:
24 N T 03-10-2026 To groggyhimself@lemis.c Storage Center ( 753) N T LAST WARNING: Your Cloud Storage Is at Capacity
25 N T 03-10-2026 To groggyhimself@lemis.c Telstra WiFi Experts (1007) N T └=>We’re closing access — claim your WiFi booster
Both messages are clearly spam, the first highlighted as a result (“Cloud Storage”). But look at that second line: the └=> indicates that they're not only a common thread but duplicate messages, though the subject lines are unrelated. What do the headers look like? The first one contains (trimmed):
Received: from 192.161.151.37 (EHLO mta-out7.pod20.usw2.zdsys.com)
by 10.197.33.75 with SMTPs
Received: from zendesk.com (unknown [127.0.0.6])
by mta-out15.pod20.usw2.zdsys.com (Zendesk) with ESMTP
id f41d543a-30ed-4efb-97ba-52a245921053;
Sun, 10 May 2026 05:01:46 +0000 (UTC)
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 2026 16:22:50 -0500
From: Storage Center <NfvHcgkp9t@seated.com>
Reply-To: grog@lemis.com
To: grog@lemis.com
Cc: grog@lemis.com
Message-ID: <KNXG5Z907XM_6a00113a6864b_c69511a9cae2f5_sprut@zendesk.com>
In-Reply-To: <ZtDu-9fe9-4e80-8c29-d931b03238e9@mtasv.net>
References: <KNXG5Z907XM@zendesk.com>
<ZtDu-9fe9-4e80-8c29-d931b03238e9@mtasv.net>
Subject: LAST WARNING: Your Cloud Storage Is at Capacity
X-Zendesk-From-Account-Id: a50f807
X-Mailer: Zendesk Mailer
X-Zendesk-Email-Id: 01KR846JCNPH63M550Z84SJENW
And the second contains (common details highlighted):
Received: from 192.161.151.37 (EHLO mta-out7.pod20.usw2.zdsys.com)
by 10.197.33.75 with SMTPs
Received: from zendesk.com (unknown [127.0.0.6])
by mta-out15.pod20.usw2.zdsys.com (Zendesk) with ESMTP
id f41d543a-30ed-4efb-97ba-52a245921053;
Sun, 10 May 2026 05:01:46 +0000 (UTC)
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 2026 16:29:46 -0500
From: Telstra WiFi Experts <d1Zm1F8aiz@worldofreel.com>
Reply-To: grog@lemis.com
To: grog@lemis.com
Cc: grog@lemis.com
Message-ID: <KNXG5Z907XM_6a00113a6864b_c69511a9cae2f5_sprut@zendesk.com>
In-Reply-To: <ZtDu-9fe9-4e80-8c29-d931b03238e9@mtasv.net>
References: <KNXG5Z907XM@zendesk.com>
<ZtDu-9fe9-4e80-8c29-d931b03238e9@mtasv.net>
Subject: We’re closing access — claim your WiFi booster
X-Mailer: Zendesk Mailer
X-Zendesk-Email-Id: 01KR846JCNPH63M550Z84SJENW
It would seem that the headers have been auto-generated and only slightly modified for each spam message. And the Reply-To: me was a particularly nasty twist.
That wasn't even the only one. Later I saw:
27 N + 03-10-2026 To groggyhimself@lemis.c New Message about NR (2463) N + grog, Don’t Miss Out: Major Rewards Ending!
28 N + 03-10-2026 To groggyhimself@lemis.c Disney+ Loyalty Bonu (2471) N + └=>Grab Your Deal Before Everyone Else Does!
I didn't investigate it beyond establishing that it wasn't from Zendesk.
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Sunshine!
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Topic: general | Link here |
After yesterday's rainy weather, today was a complete change: bright sunshine all day long, time to compare the level of my favourite dam. Here last year, two days ago and today:
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In more detail:
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The most obvious difference here is that the crops and the positions are different, making it almost impossible to compare. I really must become more consistent. But it's clear that there's much more water there than this time last year.
| Monday, 5 October 2026 | Dereel | |
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How to write minutes
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Topic: technology, general, opinion | Link here |
Part of being secretary of the Unix Heritage Society (or of any incorporated association, for that matter), is recording minutes at meetings and preparing the minutes document. I did the former during the meeting, and it has taken me until today to prepare a useful draft of the document.
But how? My first draft was based on the terse notes that I kept during the meeting, closely following the agenda. And it was limited by the fact that I needed to participate in the meeting.
But Clem Cole sent “meeting assets” auto-generated by Zoom. They contain (for me) red flag terms like “next steps”, and even “meeting assets” sounds strange. And of course they're not completely correct. But they look much better than what I have achieved. Today I decided to rework them into the new minutes, something that took most of my spare time.
| Tuesday, 6 October 2026 | Dereel | |
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90% done, 90% to go
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Before publishing yesterday's TUHSI minutes, spent some time proof-reading them and making some changes. In fact, it took almost all day again. Somehow these AI-generated texts are far too verbose, and there are many things that needed to be changed. In the end I was able to not only improve the text, but significantly reduce the size:
revision 1.4
date: 2026/10/06 04:23:27; author: grog; state: Exp; lines: +70 -230
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Growing old
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Topic: history, opinion | Link here |
News mail from Yana, who has spent some time with Gill and Kline in Briagolong. As she said, everybody is getting old. My cousin Jan, nearly 3 years younger than I, is in aged care! Somehow that shocked me. I suppose I should keep better contact with the family, but it brings home to me how lucky we are in our own private world.
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Where are my old photos?
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Topic: photography, general, opinion | Link here |
Looking for some photos in the 1993 time frame today. Yes, there are some, just not the ones I was looking for. And it seems that a whole lot were missing. Time to have another attempt at sifting through the raw files and finally using acdsee.
| Wednesday, 7 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 7 October 2026 |
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Still more web site overload
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Currently my web servers were fra.lemis.com and arn.lemis.com. And for over a day, fra's load average was round 200, while arn was an acceptable 4 or so.
OK, on with the planned location change. Honolulu? No, they don't offer my choice of VM there. Seattle? OK, do that.
And bang! The load shot up to 200 again. Not what I was expecting. OK, where else? None of the third world locations seemed appropriate. How about down the road in Melbourne? Did that, and the load seemed normal. Here a screen shot of my top displays:
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That needs enlargement to be understood, but we have the following VMs:
| Server | Load average | |||
| lax | 0.37 | Not active | ||
| fra | 3.65 | |||
| arn | 1.64 | |||
| sea | 154.31 | |||
| mel | 0.55 |
All these servers have the same basic parameters: Vultr code vc2-2-2gb (2 “CPUs”, 2 GB memory,
80 GB NVMe storage). That looks fairly conclusive, but it doesn't account for random
fluctuations. Turned off the www pointing to sea. We'll seasee
what happens, in particular of the load on the other servers increases.
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VicToads: success
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Topic: general, opinion | Link here |
While in town, Yvonne went to VicRoads and had her concession applied, apparently without any difficulties. That's a load off my mind.
Of course, it's due twice a year. She was given a form for transferring the Holden into my name, requiring a fee of $47.50. That annoys me, especially since there's a box (not ticked) next to the same, saying “exempt”. How can we get an exemption? Do I care? Just not having to deal with them continually is worth more than $50.
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A new Olympus Pen
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Topic: photography | Link here |
Yvonne returned from shopping with a camera I had bought last week: my fourth Olympus Pen, an Olympus Pen EE-S, serial number 256316.
Why? Sentimental value. My mother had one decades ago, and I had to do with it on occasion. It's a pretty little thing, and much smaller than the modern cameras that carry that name. Here the EE-S on the left and the E-PM1 on the right with a comparable lens:
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Yes, the E-PM1 has an interchangeable lens, but its image size is only half that of the EE-S. And I don't know of a serious lens for it that is smaller. The body cap lenses are, but they're toys, and arguably the result would still be bigger. Interestingly, though, the combination weighs 370 g, compared with 385 for the EE-S.
And the controls? There's a focus ring, barely visible round the lens itself, and another ring close to the body. That one's really confusing: turn it to different positions to set aperture, ISO speed (10 to 200 ASA only), or aperture again for flash:
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I must dig out an instruction manual.
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More scales
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Topic: general | Link here |
The scales that Yvonne bought some bathroom scales in January—in fact, 4 of them to ensure that one might be relatively accurate. So she chose the least accurate one, because it showed the lowest weight.
But last week the battery (a CR2032) ran out. That's fast for that kind of battery. Changed it, but it still didn't work. Failed already. So today she bought a new one. Remove insulation strip, try it out. It failed before the first reading! A bit of messing around in the battery compartment (again needing screwdrivers, though they're AAA cells) got it to work again and give varying results, between 200 g below and 300 g above my scales. I'm not convinced.
| Thursday, 8 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 8 October 2026 |
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Sichuan cabbage: not worth it
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Topic: food and drink, opinion | Link here |
Made Sichuan cabbage stir-fry again today. That's about the third time, but it could be the last. It doesn't taste bad, but somehow it's boring. Part of it could be that the Doubanjiang that I bought last month was not the right kind. It seems that for Sichuan food I need Pixian doubanjiang, not the milder type that I had bought. But I don't know if that would have saved the dish.
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Still more web server overload
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
As planned, I took sea.lemis.com off the list for www.lemis.com overnight. Did it make any difference? Not much. Reenable it. Load average shot up to (only) round 100. That difference could be due to the external load.
OK, it looks like sea is toast. But Vultr offers an additional, expensive service: for $10 a month (half the cost of the server) they will protect against DDoS. Will that help? There's only one way to find out, and running it for a day will cost about 32 ¢, so I did that. We'll see tomorrow.
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Another Olympus Pen EE-S
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Topic: photography, general | Link here |
Just by chance, saw another Olympus Pen EE-S for sale on eBay today. OK, I can watch it. And it sold for $14.11! Admittedly, there was postage as well, and eBay seem to have added a (generous) 10% “Buyer Protection fee”, so the total came to $35.49, but that's less than half what I paid. I was happy that the seller accepted my offer for the camera, bringing it down in price by almost $20, but it almost looks as if I shouldn't have. Grrr.
| Friday, 9 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 9 October 2026 |
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Goodbye sea
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
On with the daily web server overload today. Things were relatively quiet, but at one point the load average on sea.lemis.com hit 100, while the others weren't affected:
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And DDoS? The Vultrs obligingly noted that no DDoS had been detected. So the service served no purpose here. Still, I have followed up what things I can. Goodbye, sea.
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More eBay hidden fees
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
What is this “Buyer Protection fee” that eBay added to yesterday's auction? There was a link under the text, so clicked on it. A popup appeared—for one second, long enough to establish that the text was relevant, but not nearly long enough to be able to understand it.
Off to “help” (what a euphemism), which led me to this explanation, containing:
The Buyer Protection fee is applied to all items listed on eBay.com.au by sellers registered in Australia who don't have a Pro plan (excluding Vehicles and Classified Ads). It's not an optional fee, as we want everyone to be able to benefit from these protections.
Wasn't buyer protection at no cost something with which they used to advertise? And now they want money for it, which you don't find out until the item is sold. And do they mention it on the item listing? Of course not. That would scare off bidders. eBay, you disgust me.
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More old photos
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Topic: photography, opinion | Link here |
While looking for perceived missing photos in the 1990s, found this collection of photos. They're terrible:
They're apparently from a film that was very old before it was developed, and latent image fade has taken its toll, particularly noticeable in the magenta image of the sprocket holes at the bottom of this image:
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Looking at the images themselves, they must have been taken from about 1988 to 1990. I think they're all on the same film, which would explain some of the image quality.
Some of the images are badly exposed, like this one:
Can't find dimensions for 'Germany-4-orig.jpeg'
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My guess is that the exposure meter was misled by the sky. I wondered for a while about the dark strip in the middle of the image, but I think that it what I was trying to photograph, maybe a plume of smoke. There are two other images with similar marks.
For reasons that I don't understand, a number of images are tilted, like this one:
Can't find dimensions for 'Germany-7-orig.jpeg'
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A couple are obviously out of focus (or is it camera shake?):
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Looking at modification timestamps, it seems that I have had multiple attempts at processing these images.
-rw-r--r-- 1 grog home 0 5 Mar 2009 makejpeg
-rw-rw-rw- 1 grog lemis 903 12 Aug 2013 Makejpeg
-rw-rw-rw- 1 grog lemis 903 10 Feb 2025 Makejpeg
-rw-rw-rw- 1 grog lemis 903 6 Jun 2025 Makejpeg
And in at least one case, my recovery attempts proved negative. Here an old image (of Yana, probably round 5 years old). Before on the left, after on the right:
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Still, the images can serve one useful purpose: for testing old image recovery software.
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Esperanza lame
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Topic: animals, general | Link here |
We're looking after Esperanza, one of Chris Yeardley's mares, and yesterday Yvonne found her lame. It wasn't any better this evening, so Chris came by to take a look, and suspected that she had been kicked. A bit of bute and all should improve.
I went along, for the first time in months in that area. The ground was drier than I expected, but the dam is full:
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People are worrying about a bad summer, but so far there has been little to substantiate their claims
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Triumph of the viewing slits
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Topic: multimedia, technology, opinion | Link here |
Read on Quora today: Der Triumph der Sehschlitze: Wie eine Generation das Sehen verlernt, by Alexander Steipe. It's in German, but basically repeats some of my objections, so it must be right. The title translates as ”The Triumph of viewing slits: How a generation is forgetting how to see”. People buy enormous TVs (he mentions an average of 100", which is overstating the case), but then look at things on mobile phones, requiring them to twist their necks by 90° to do so.
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Strange log entries
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Topic: technology | Link here |
Seen on my log display window round 14:30:
Oct 9 14:29:51 eureka postfix/qmgr[98289]: 8492D2635AD: removed
May 5 23:00:00 eureka newsyslog[89480]: logfile turned over due to size>1000K
Dec 16 16:00:00 eureka newsyslog[66937]: logfile turned over due to size>1000K
The first entry is normal enough. But where did the others come from? They appeared round the same time, and there was no other entry in between.
| Saturday, 10 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 10 October 2026 |
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Photo processing hell
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Topic: photography, technology, opinion | Link here |
House photos today, as every Saturday. The weather could have been better: bright sunshine invariably affects the images, requiring multiple exposures of the same view, one with the sun obscured, and masking:
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It's easier to see in the shade:
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But I've been doing this for decades (well, for over 15 years; this is the 629th day for Stones Road), and I've worked out a flow that is relatively painless. Sometimes, though, things go wrong, surprisingly often with the view from the front of the house. Today I got:
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What went wrong there? Yes, I can adjust the exposure, though it was fine on the original images, but try as I might, I couldn't get Hugin to align the images correctly. What is it about this image that so frequently gives trouble.
From there on, things only got worse. Somehow the old images kept getting in the way, and after an hour trying to sort things out, put it off until tomorrow.
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Conflict between acquaintances?
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Saw an email thread about port conflicts today. Nothing unusual, except for the names:
Huh? I thought that Samba used tdb, the Tridge database. lmdb sounds like another acquaintance, Larry McVoy. But no, that proves to be an incorrect guess. Larry has nothing to do with lmdb. And the current expansion of tdb is “trivial database”, though I'm sure I heard it as “Tridge database”.
So the whole thing boils down to the issues with dynamic libraries. If they had been linked into the binaries, this wouldn't have happened. Yes, they could get larger, but we have space. They would save a lot of pain with this kind of conflict, and they would also run marginally faster.
| Sunday, 11 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 11 October 2026 |
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Braving RIPE again
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
After I still don't have reverse lookup for lemis.com. Well, I do, but the world doesn't. For that I need to get RIPE to set up data structures, and that has been so painful that I have all but given up.
But it needs to be done, and now Klaus Jäger is pushing me to do something. Today I first checked the previous correspondence. The last state, 3 June 2023, was:
Mark Price agreed. It seems that I managed steps 1 and 2, and maybe 3 (or maybe it went the other way round). And then, it seems, I didn't follow through, though I didn't even mention reverse lookup in that list. But I didn't find any of this until after my basic attempts to just access the database.
And there I made some progress. Log in to RIPE, which worked and presented me with a window:
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What's that? Ah, I need to start FreeOTP on my mobile phone and get a 2FA code. And modulo the meaningless appearance of the window, that worked.
And this time, with the help of Google Gemini, I was able to find and query the database:
inetnum: 192.109.197.0 - 192.109.197.255
netname: LEMIS-LAN
org: ORG-GL515-RIPE
country: DE
sponsoring-org: ORG-NI68-RIPE
admin-c: GL3-RIPE
tech-c: GL3-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PI
mnt-by: HostVirtual
mnt-by: RIPE-NCC-END-MNT
created: 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z
last-modified: 2026-10-01T13:12:19Z
source: RIPE
And with more aimless searching I arrived here, where it almost looked as if I could set up reverse DNS. But:
You cannot modify this object here because your SSO account is not associated with any of the maintainers.
Ha ha, only joking. Try again, and it suggested that LEMIS-MNT (that's one of my identities) could do it. Two name servers, please. Not a problem: ns1.lemis.com and ns3.lemis.com. But it didn't like ns1: “no reverse zones”. It did accept (well, at least not complain about) ns3. And of course both name servers work correctly, at least as far as I can see:
=== grog@hydra (/dev/pts/18) ~/Photos/20140824 1539 -> host 192.109.197.129 ns1
Using domain server:
Name: ns1
129.197.109.192.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer hydra.lemis.com.
You have new mail in /var/mail/grog=== grog@hydra (/dev/pts/18) ~/Photos/20140824 1540 -> host 192.109.197.129 ns3
Using domain server:
Name: ns3
129.197.109.192.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer hydra.lemis.com.
So what's it complaining about? I don't know. The twins suggested trying Zonemaster, another book with seven seals. No matter what I input, it found multiple issues.
That's enough. The stress was giving me stomach-ache, so I stopped while I was ahead. I established a while back that Mark Price doesn't have much to do with RIPE, while Klaus Jäger does, so I'll get some feedback from him when my stomach has calmed down.
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What's that bird?
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Topic: animals, photography | Link here |
Walking the dogs today, saw this scene:
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Yes, it's somewhat fuzzy. But then, I had the wrong lens on, and more to the point, I had the wrong focus mode. It should have been “birds”, of course, but I had turned subject detection off, with the result that it focused on the grass in front:
Can't find dimensions for 'Sheep-and-birds-3-detail.jpeg'
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I shouldn't make that mistake again. More to the point, though: what are those birds?
| Monday, 12 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 12 October 2026 |
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Phat si-io, next failure
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Topic: food and drink, opinion | Link here |
According to the recipes I have, phat si-io needs the noodles to be slightly charred. That's not easy in a wok that is already full of other stuff. It also requires lots of oil, and the noodles tend to disintegrate.
But why do them last? Fry them first very hot in enough oil, which should stop them from sticking or disintegrating. Then reserve until the end. The remaining oil can be used to fry the cabbage.
Tried that today. To my surprise, it took 40 g of oil! Yes, they didn't stick to the wok. They stuck to each other:
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And there wasn't much oil over for the cabbage. I had to add another 12 g. But what do I do with the noodles? They were irretrievably stuck together, and in the end I cut them:
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Yes, they were browned much more than I expected, but I wonder if it's worth browning them at all. To be left for next time.
Apart from that, I thickened the sauce with cornflour, which might be an advantage. Here the modified ingredients:
| quantity | ingredient | step | ||
| 180 g | Fresh wide rice noodles (Kway teow) | 1 | ||
| 40 g | oil | 1 | ||
| 150 g | cabbage | 2 | ||
| 12 g | oil for cooking | 2 | ||
| 9 g | chili oil | 2 | ||
| garlic | 3 | |||
| 3 | ||||
| 60 g | beef flank or pork | 4 | ||
| 4 | ||||
| 8 g | sugar | 5 | ||
| 5 g | cornflour | 5 | ||
| 10 g | light soya sauce | 5 | ||
| 15 g | dark soya sauce | 5 | ||
| 25 g | fish sauce | 5 | ||
| 1 | egg white | 6 | ||
| 15 g | oyster sauce | 7 | ||
| 20 g | vinegar | 7 | ||
Why no garlic? I forgot. It didn't improve the dish, which otherwise tasted good enough.
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More DNS investigations
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
So why did Zonemaster complain about my reverse DNS yesterday? Off to run it as it had intended, to check for normal DNS function. It came up with an amazing number of errors, some of which I don't understand.
Name servers are recursors. This, it seems, is a no-no, though I don't understand why.
Nameserver ns3.lemis.com/192.248.184.42 returns an upward referral.
This seems to be a way of saying “can't answer the query”, though they don't say which, and I don't understand why it just affects ns3, since the configuration is identical.
It also complains about lack of IPv6 resolution. That's a feature, not a bug: I don't do IPv6. But I don't think that's what's stopping RIPE from accepting them. It's also interesting that it complains about ns3 and not ns1, while RIPE complains only about ns1.
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Do I need a smart watch?
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Topic: technology, general, opinion | Link here |
It's been over 13 years since I bought my current watch, a Casio DB360. They promised a battery life of 10 years, so they have clearly delivered. But there are signs that the battery may be fading: in particular, the beep sound that the timer produces is no longer as loud.
Of course, this could be my hearing and nothing to do with the watch, but it's time to consider a replacement. In principle there's nothing wrong with this watch, so a new battery could do just as well, but it's worth considering what's important to me.
What's available? Smart watches of course. What can they offer? Off looking for AI overviews and came up with what I had half expected: the smart watch is dependent on a smartphone. If I have an Apple phone, I need an Apple watch. If I have an Android phone, I need an Android watch.
What do I want to use it for? I was asked the following questions:
Do you plan to record your exercise sessions on it?Are you interested in investigating your sleep data?Are you aiming to reach a certain number of steps per day?Would you like to monitor exercise intensity by tracking your heart rate?Are you keen to use it for fatigue management by using a daily recovery index or heart rate variability feature?Would you like to minimise your inactive (sitting) time with movement reminders?Would you like to connect it to your Spotify or Apple Music account to listen to music while you’re out and about?Do you want to be able to take calls and receive notifications from your watch?
That's easy to answer: no. None of the above. It's interesting that none of the questions related to telling the time. And by default, none of the phones I looked at displayed seconds. Some couldn't do it at all, others required hacks to get them to do what I have had for nearly 60 years. Sixty years ago I got my first real watch (souvenir of Switzerland, I suppose), and the big advantage was the sweep second hand, a full-size hand showing seconds. At the age of 8 I was very proud of that.
Smart watches seem to be like smart phones. Making make phone calls with a smart phone seems to be a complicated afterthought. Telling the time with a smart watch seems to be almost the same thing.
Still, what use could a smart watch be, assuming I had something sane to tell the time? Health-related things seem to be the only thing. Yvonne would never agree to use such a device, so I'll keep the idea in the background until such time as I need it.
| Tuesday, 13 October 2026 | Dereel | Images for 13 October 2026 |
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Ducks? Herons?
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Topic: animals, photography | Link here |
Walking the dogs towards Bliss Road, there's a dam on the left where I had problems a couple of days ago. Today I came more prepared: I put the Leica DG Vario-Elmar 100-400 mm f/4.0-6.3 on my camera. Why not the OM System M.Zuiko Digital 150-600 mm? It's too heavy, and on Sunday I had found a focal length in the order of 200 mm to be sufficient.
But today was different. The only birds were on the other side of the dam:
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And for that I could have used a focal length in the order of 600 mm.
But what are the birds? They were there on Sunday as well. I had thought something cormorant-like, but Yvonne thinks that they're ducks.
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eBay: always up to date
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Topic: general, technology, opinion | Link here |
Message from eBay today:
20 N 13-10-2026 To groggyhimself@lemis eBay (1538) N Your package is now with its carrier!
Helpful, right? Well, no. I continually complain about how bad these messages are, since they don't give any details. This one seems better: it has now been posted.
But that's behind the times. It was “delivered” (waiting for pickup in “NAPOLEON” since yesterday morning). Bravo, eBay!
| Wednesday, 14 October 2026 | Dereel → Ballarat → Dereel | Images for 14 October 2026 |
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Goodbye 47 Kleins Road
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Topic: general, opinion | Link here |
Off to town this morning, taking a detour round Kleins Road to see how our old house was going. It wasn't going. It was gone:
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This is roughly the same view as part of this photo, taken on 3 May 2015, just before we moved out:
Can't find dimensions for 'driveway-nw-detail.jpeg'
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It's difficult to see a similarity. Sic transit gloria mundi.
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Still almost nothing at Fruit Shack
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Topic: general, food and drink, opinion | Link here |
In town for a haircut, then the most expensive fill of petrol I have ever had, at least in Australia: $135.15. And that was the cheapest I could find. Elsewhere I could have paid $15 more. Thank you, Donald Trump, not just for that.
To the Fruit Shack, as usual. I'm finding fewer and fewer things that they have in stock. Of the 12 items I had on my list, I found only two. Are things getting worse, or is it just random fluctuation?
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Parking race condition
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Topic: general | Link here |
Leaving the parking space outside the Fruit Shack, I heard a bang. I had backed into a car stopped behind me.
How could that happen? Of course I had looked behind me before backing out. The driver of the car was very apologetic, though clearly it was my fault. My guess is that she must have driven behind my car when I had started to back out, and that she had to stop because somebody was in front of her. It still wouldn't have happened if I had kept looking the whole time. It didn't help that the car is silver grey and blended into the background.
Not much harm done, but enough:
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Hopefully that won't require replacing the panels, and that I can get it done without the pain of dealing with the insurance.
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Buying booze at Dan Murphy
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Topic: food and drink, general, opinion | Link here |
I'm nearly out of beer, time to buy some more. Brave the Dan Murphy's web site and order. They have a 10% off offer!
Ha ha, only joking. The left hand gives, the right hand takes away:
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And try as I might, I can't get them to contact me by SMS, as promised. They have my phone number on record (and send me repeated irritating 2FAs), but they choose another one to inform me, and I can't find a way round it. Never mind, once again I was able to pick up the drinks without any kind of identification.
And Google Maps got in on the game, offering me the worst possible way out of the maze that is Delacombe Town Centre:
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The correct way is the road to the right containing the point marked “Delecombe Town C”.
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