Pupdate

It was Milo’s 5th birthday on the 12th, which meant a post about how he’s getting on.

Sadly Max has also needed to visit the vets, with (we think) back ache, which might be the dreaded Intervertebral Disc Disease (IVDD). He’s been on reduced activity, so shorter walks, but thankfully seems pretty much back to normal after some painkillers and anti-inflamatory treatment.

Tech stuff

2.5gb ethernet

Having accumulated a handful of things that have 2.5gbe ports I’ve taken the plunge and bought some newer switches to connect them. They were a little fiddly to set up, hence the VLANs on Sodola managed switches post; and I notice that newer firmware has modified that config page a little.

Of course I couldn’t stop at just the things that already had 2.5gbe, so I’ve added new interfaces to my NAS and VMware box, as (aside from my desktop) they’re the things that create the most traffic copying files back and forth. For the NAS I got a USB adapter with an RTL8156 that works with these drivers, and for the VMware box a DollaTek M.2 card (affiliate link) that works with the Realtek Network Driver for ESXi. Everything seems to be reporting around 2.35GB/s on iperf3 :)

MacBook Neo

I had a (dated at the time) MacBook during my time at Cohesive over a decade ago for when I needed a Mac, but I never got along with it. But… I’ve been impressed with the reviews of the MacBook Neo, and it would be handy to have something that can (occasionally) run Xcode. So I got an Indigo 512GB one.

Early signs are very good (despite only 8GB RAM). It’s perfectly capable of running multiple browser and Ghostty tabs, which is the main thing I need from a laptop. Battery life is amazing, and it goes for days between charges. Better integration with my iPhone, iPad and iMessage seems very useful, so overall I’m impressed :) I’m going to see how I get on with it in my travel bag instead of my ThinkPad.

The only time it seems sluggish is when using Chrome. Task switching to Chrome takes an age, as does opening a new tab. I suspect Chrome might be a massive memory hog, and provokes a bunch of swap file activity.

Scooter fettling

My Vespa started cutting out when accelerating from a standstill, and a conversation with Gemini suggested that I needed a new carburettor (and maybe bigger jets). The new carb is in, and after some trial and error it’s running with the factory jet :/ But… at least it seems to be running properly again.

Eyes

I’m done with having to administer drops multiple times a day, and my ocular pressures are back to normal – yay :) I also seem to have found the right glasses for computer work (+0.75) and reading (+1.5). The light sensitivity I was experiencing at the end of last month has gone, so I’m probably not in the market for new sunglasses. Though there are times when I feel some varifocals might be useful (even if the ‘distance’ lens is planar).

But… my most recent check identified that I’m developing a ‘secondary cataract’ (aka Posterior capsule opacification (PCO)), which is going to need YAG laser treatment in a couple of months.

Solar Diary

The first part of May felt like it was making up for the lack of April showers, but that gave way to a week long heatwave (and lots of sunshine). The effect of heat on production can be seen with a ~5% drop between the 22nd (29.1kWh) and 24th (27.6kWh), though subsequent days bounced back up to 29.1kWh (and then 29.4kWh) even though it remained hot.

Total production was a little short on the best May yet (2023), but better than the last couple of years.