Garik

Garik

@garik.codes

Independent SWE + IT guy in the rural inland PNW leaning into DevOps https://garik.codes

57 followers200 following255 posts

You know something's up when the bond market is making headlines. The past month has seen some unprecedented moves--taking the US's Euro reserves to prop up the Yen because our Secretary of the Treasury is trying to limit the selloff of dollars? Great. Everybody strap in.

You know how you're supposed to call before you dig?? Well, last week ODOT apparently didn't, and on their first day of a project here in Wallowa County they cut off the internet and mobile networks in one fell swoop. It's our only line in and out for ~5k people ๐Ÿ‘€

Real talk: why don't we price homes properly? As in, why do we just throw a sticker price on it and completely ignore interest + time? I know there are real reasons--asset value and insurance and taxation--but in 2021 buying at 2.65%, you'd pay roughly 1.5x sticker price. 2 years later, it was 2.5x

Yesterday, while driving out for a long run, I put on an episode of Kubernetes Bytes. I was pleased to learn that my setup of 3 NUCs with K3s running on them--from 2018 even--is the exact stack that Chick-fil-A uses on the edge at each of their ~3k stores ๐Ÿคฏ

Also like how their network stack is redundant and simple: 2 routers, 3 switches, and an aux mobile backup for WAN.

This is still a crazy accomplishment over the last decade even though China's progress is slowing down due to its continued reliance on coal.

Today I was trying to sign up for a free trial with Strava when I got stuck in a loop. In the app I was in no man's land--I'd try to pay, get blocked because of some error, be told to activate, get blocked, and on and on.

But, get this, on the website the error was instantly clear: they don't accept Discover. One of these experiences is way better than the other :)

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam or Alice In Chains. Two easy ones, in the same vein, I've had on the last little bit:

Last week I was visiting Seattle, and of course homelessness popped up--from being confronted with it head on, to having conversations about it with a date, or calling my brother in Singapore and hearing how his daughter doesn't like LA, SF, or Seattle because of the issue :/ ๐Ÿงต 1/15

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Both Finland and the VA found that providing housing ended up being cheaper than shelling out for emergency services and the like. It's a win, win, win. Folks are more empowered, costs and crimes are reduced, and there seems to be less conflict at large. ๐Ÿงต 14/15

By focusing on prevention and people instead of reacting to symptoms or literally trying to sweep the problem under the rug, real change can happen. ๐Ÿงต 15/15

Last week I was visiting Seattle, and of course homelessness popped up--from being confronted with it head on, to having conversations about it with a date, or calling my brother in Singapore and hearing how his daughter doesn't like LA, SF, or Seattle because of the issue :/ ๐Ÿงต 1/15

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Finland, on the other hand, tried something radical. Give homeless people homes. Full stop. And it's mostly worked. Down ~80% in 40 years. ๐Ÿงต 12/15

In the US, success can be found with the Veterans Affairs program mostly after the 2nd Iraq War. Veterans' homelessness rates have been halved by providing housing vouchers and access to social services. What a thought. ๐Ÿงต 13/15

Last week I was visiting Seattle, and of course homelessness popped up--from being confronted with it head on, to having conversations about it with a date, or calling my brother in Singapore and hearing how his daughter doesn't like LA, SF, or Seattle because of the issue :/ ๐Ÿงต 1/15

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So. Clearly there's a problem. But what to do? It's a sticky, tough, tangled situation. There's mental health, economics, housing and zoning, societal values and meaning, politics, substance abuse, generational genocide and trauma, and many other topics all wrapped into this mess. ๐Ÿงต 10/15

There are a few examples of success stories, though. Japan and Finland are routinely mentioned. Japan culturally is so unique, and they also may be hiding cafe hoppers, so there's probably not a lot to easily emulate there. ๐Ÿงต 11/15

Last week I was visiting Seattle, and of course homelessness popped up--from being confronted with it head on, to having conversations about it with a date, or calling my brother in Singapore and hearing how his daughter doesn't like LA, SF, or Seattle because of the issue :/ ๐Ÿงต 1/15

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Seattle's mayoral race last year prominently featured homelessness and sweeps as a policy measure. Incumbent Bruce Harrell ultimately lost out. ๐Ÿงต 8/15

Here are complaints over the last few years as well as data on homelessness in King County. The unsheltered population has nearly tripled in the last decade, though a methodology change helped inflate numbers some. Seattle is 2nd behind LA in terms of total unsheltered population. ๐Ÿงต 9/15

Last week I was visiting Seattle, and of course homelessness popped up--from being confronted with it head on, to having conversations about it with a date, or calling my brother in Singapore and hearing how his daughter doesn't like LA, SF, or Seattle because of the issue :/ ๐Ÿงต 1/15

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So that's geography. But what about demography? Sadly, and unsurprisingly, minority and marginalized populations have a tougher time. In particular, Pacific Islanders, LGBTIQ+, and those with disabilities face disproportionate hardships. ๐Ÿงต 6/15

Homelessness dramatically lowers life expectancy, too. It basically lops off 25 years. For perspective, that was the life expectancy around 1900. ๐Ÿงต 7/15

Last week I was visiting Seattle, and of course homelessness popped up--from being confronted with it head on, to having conversations about it with a date, or calling my brother in Singapore and hearing how his daughter doesn't like LA, SF, or Seattle because of the issue :/ ๐Ÿงต 1/15

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However, it does not affect people or places equally. For example, New York is highest in the US in terms of gross and per capita rates. But, most people, especially in winter, are temporarily housed or sheltered. For NYC, it's basically 95%. For LA, that is significantly lower at 35%. ๐Ÿงต 4/15

In fact, 7 or 8 of the top 10 unsheltered populations are in California alone. All are above 50% unsheltered. The other 2 are Portland and Seattle. The West coast dominates unsheltered homelessness. Climate and culture undoubtedly are major factors. ๐Ÿงต 5/15

Last week I was visiting Seattle, and of course homelessness popped up--from being confronted with it head on, to having conversations about it with a date, or calling my brother in Singapore and hearing how his daughter doesn't like LA, SF, or Seattle because of the issue :/ ๐Ÿงต 1/15

So I decided to look at some stats and graphs because that's just who I am. Here's what I've learned. ๐Ÿงต 2/15

Homelessness basically boils down to housing availability/affordability issues and problems accessing proper/pertinent medical care and social services. ๐Ÿงต 3/15

"You could potentially radically drop the cost of healthcare." The possibility is there, for sure, but sadly the pessimist/realist in me has a hard time swallowing it. And don't even get me started on the digital democracy bs at the end.

Getting to Windows 11 is a pain. Even though updates are on and group policies allow updates, nothing happens. I have to download and run the installation assistant. Then, since that doesn't fully do its job, I have to install and execute the PC health check setup.

It's a lot of clicking and running back and forth. More than half the time the process hangs on install, so I have to reboot and run it all again. Microsoft, you have got to do better.

Going from a 28-port PoE managed behemoth next to my desk down to two separate 8-port PoE+ fanless switches has been amazing. So much peace and quiet!

A week into my zettelkasten experiment, I can tell that my perfectionism got the best of me--the biggest help was recognizing that fleeting notes are your friends. I wanted to make any note a main note right away. This was too much like trying to write and edit at the same time.

Once I abandoned the need to have everything in its right place and linked from the jump, it was much easier to just take notes now, sort and relate them later. It's a multi-step process.

Just a small reminder about the importance of network monitoring and alerting: we had a site where the AC adapter for an eight-port dumb switch was unintentionally unplugged. There was not any security footage for 6 days because alerting was not fully set up ๐Ÿ‘€

That moment when you realize you just ran fdisk, then wipefs and deleted your Ventoy instead of your hard drive. Classic. This is the equivalent of measure twice, cut once. Always lsblk first to know what you're actually messing with ๐Ÿ˜ถ #Arch #oops

Turns out that if you max out your RAM--default was 2 GB in Rancher Desktop--then everything fails without any real explanation. Fortunately bumping it up in preferences solved it. RAM shortages are everywhere ;)

I don't know who needs to hear this--ok, I do, and I've told them--but a ticketing system *is not* a program management system.

In today's chapter of "It's Always DNS," it was actually DNSSEC options in my browser. Had to exempt my local domain. That took ~20 minutes too long to come around to.

TIL that GPU-accelerated terminal emulators like Alacritty or WezTerm don't work if you don't have a GPU ๐Ÿคฆ Was on a VM and tried to install--downloaded just fine. Would not open. I should've known!! I'm pretty locked down, so I don't want to go through the trouble of passthrough. Oh well.