NBN much more reliable than adsl ever was - yay

 HFC surprisingly robust - good uptimes from 1 week to 45 days.

The Bookshelf - finished 2015

Constructed from leftover Victorian Ash floorboards (same as you can see in the floor - from house extension), no nails, just dowels and glue.

Hand joined, lots of planing and some sanding with random orbital sander.

Staggered supports, gap left for in floor central heating outlet

Perfect height for paperback SCIFI collection.

Pity it only supports from A-D even though it is 3m wide.

Many thanks to Richard for his help constructing this custom designed and hand made bookshelf.

Too many books

So I thought I'd keep the family sci-fi book collection - paperbacks.
It turns out there are many more than I realised.
So now I'm making a bookshelf by hand - about 2.8m to 3.0m long but only 3 shelves high.

Still have to decide if I'm going to just power sand or use a good old stanley bailey no. 4.5 to smooth off the joins of vic ash floorboards I'm using.

It's amazing the difference sharpening a plane blade with a honing guide makes.

oh no, my dad has a blog!

A quote from my son: "oh no, my dad has a blog"

work linux variants bye bye solaris

How sad, can't even give away sun fireblade systems anymore.
All sparc and x86 suns have gone away now.
Only ctie pizzeria remains - mainly using two ex-monash sun grid nodes and a pair of dell r710 dual xeon boxes.

Solaris has no place at my work anymore!!!!

At the moment, dell is winning the supplier race.

drats adsl disconnecting

Still getting 10-13kbs from iinet.
After all this rain, noticed crackle on phone line and also that the adsl media has been going up and down like a yoyo.
reported it to iinet by pasting in part of security log from belkin modem.

Unfortunately it actually goes back to june when it first started doing a reset every few seconds - except for the odd times it stays up for hours.

belkin modem has a "always connected" setting - but there is also a 20 minute disconnect if no traffic.

fiddled with wires a little and crackle has gone away (unfortunately it was gone before I made first wiring change.

1950's house wire with above ground telstra connection to phone jack extension lead to phone-rj jack adaptor to splitter to adsl and phone.


I wonder if the street has dried out enough now for the problem to go away for a while?
Oh well, isolation test needed to eliminate splitter and extension leads and adaptors.
So far so good has stayed up for the last 15 minutes - even using phone.

Update: Did not last - 32:11 to 52:11 - 20 minutes session. At least it is a little faster on this reconnect.
2/22/2010 20:52:54 If(PPPoE1) stop
12/22/2010 20:52:52 If(PPPoE1) stop PPP
12/22/2010 20:52:49 ADSL Media Down !
12/22/2010 20:52:04 sending ACK to 10.1.1.5
12/22/2010 20:51:48 NTP Date/Time updated.
12/22/2010 20:51:39 Daylight Saving Observed.
12/22/2010 20:43:56 sending ACK to 10.1.1.5
12/22/2010 20:39:56 sending ACK to 10.1.1.5
12/22/2010 20:32:56 sending ACK to 10.1.1.5
12/22/2010 20:32:18 If(PPPoE1) PPP connection ok !
12/22/2010 20:32:17 If(PPPoE1) get secondary DNS IP:203.215.xxx
12/22/2010 20:32:17 If(PPPoE1) get primary DNS IP:203.0..xxx
12/22/2010 20:32:17 If(PPPoE1) get IP:203.214.xx.xx
12/22/2010 20:32:17 If(PPPoE1) start PPP
12/22/2010 20:32:17 If(PPPoE1) receive PADS
12/22/2010 20:32:16 If(PPPoE1) send PADR
12/22/2010 20:32:16 If(PPPoE1) receive PADO
12/22/2010 20:32:16 If(PPPoE1) send PADI
12/22/2010 20:32:11 If(PPPoE1) send PADI
12/22/2010 20:32:11 If(PPPoE1) Dial On Demand
12/22/2010 20:32:11 ADSL Media Up !
12/22/2010 20:31:56 10.1.1.3 login success
12/22/2010 20:31:52 If(PPPoE1) stop
12/22/2010 20:31:50 If(PPPoE1) stop PPP
12/22/2010 20:31:47 ADSL Media Down !

Can't publish or save draft - lost connection again.

And that session then lasted only another 7 minutes and came back slower - a bit more hash on the line.


removed the splitter - still with 3m extension lead from only socket in house
12/22/2010 21:33:08 If(PPPoE1) PPP connection ok !
12/22/2010 21:33:07 If(PPPoE1) get secondary DNS IP:203.215.29.191
12/22/2010 21:33:07 If(PPPoE1) get primary DNS IP:203.0.178.191
12/22/2010 21:33:07 If(PPPoE1) get IP:124.168.122.28
12/22/2010 21:33:06 If(PPPoE1) start PPP
12/22/2010 21:33:06 If(PPPoE1) receive PADS
12/22/2010 21:33:06 If(PPPoE1) send PADR
12/22/2010 21:33:06 If(PPPoE1) receive PADO
12/22/2010 21:33:06 If(PPPoE1) send PADI
12/22/2010 21:33:01 If(PPPoE1) send PADI
12/22/2010 21:33:01 ADSL Media Up !
12/22/2010 21:32:42 If(PPPoE1) stop
12/22/2010 21:32:40 If(PPPoE1) stop PPP
12/22/2010 21:32:37 ADSL Media Down !
12/22/2010 21:31:47 sending ACK to 10.1.1.5
12/22/2010 21:31:45 sending ACK to 10.1.1.5
12/22/2010 21:27:45 sending ACK to 10.1.1.5
12/22/2010 21:24:27 If(PPPoE1) PPP connection ok !

Still not "always connected" - I found 145 hours in june and earlier logs (iinet connection history).

greenwash? ecse is green, really.

I wonder how many electrical engineering or electrical and computer systems engineering departments have greenwashed themselves?

Here is my contribution to the monash green and sustainability web presence:
www.ecse.monash.edu.au/green

It would be great if the academics and researchers would do a bit more marketing and expand on the above page.