Aotearoa Weekly Kōrero 23/7/2024

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

Something interesting that happened to you
Something humourous that happened to you
Something frustrating that happened to you
A quick question
A request for recommendations
Pictures of your pet
A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

35 comments

I ordered an espresso machine over the weekend while Briscoes had a 50% off sale. I've been waiting for The Bambino to have a decent discount and it finally did. No store in the Wellington region had any in stock, so I had to order it.
They use Aramex so the normal 3 days to 3 months delivery timeframe applies.
- Your journey into nice coffee is underway, I don’t think you’ll regret getting a decent espresso machine.
  One further step that really did give an improved flavour for us was getting a grinder. We bought a Breville Dose Control during a Briscoes sale. Our coffee maker is not Breville but the control over the grind size and duration makes it very easy and repeatable.
  I look forward to reading any updates on this, time to start trying different coffees ☕️
  
  It arrived! In fact it quite possibly had already arrived when I wrote the post that I was waiting, I was expecting some sort of delivery notification that I didn't get.
  Now I've worked out I have no idea what I'm doing.
  I use a double sized coffee thingy which holds about as many coffee grinds as I used in my aeropress, but the flavour is weak. The shot of coffee I get (without adding any extra water) is about the strength of a long black you'd get from a cafe.
  From the instruction book I think this means the grind isn't fine enough? I think I'll need to do some experimenting.
  I also had a go at frothing milk but also have no idea what I'm doing there. I think I need to go looking for a beginner guide.

Instead of buying a normal router for $130 that does everything I need. I decided to browse trademe for 2nd hand stuff trying to get a better deal. Well now I have an old enterprise router with no wireless and a complicated setup and two things which I think are wireless APs but they need PoE so I have to buy a device that has PoE and after that I will have not saved any money and wasted several hours finding, picking up and installing all this stuff. I've also decided to run ethernet through the floor and upgrade my internet plan so I can actually feel the difference.
Massive waste of time and money but I've had fun doing it so its all worth it in the end.
- Update: the router worked out of the box and the more I fiddled the worse things became and I eventually bricked the router. It's not responsive on the web port or the recovery SSH. I need a rj45 to USB rollover cable to see what's going on but they are like $45 bucks and I don't want to spend that.
  My last resort of troubleshooting is to go to bed and hope it magically works tomorrow.
  
  There might be a factory reset button somewhere on the device. Probably tiny and unlabelled.

Work needs done, I just want to nap. Oh well, more tea.

Managed to go to Pak n Save today. It was quite exciting because all the green veges were cheaper than they used to be so we got broccoli and cauliflower and leek. It's like the good old days!
Only one monarch caterpillar in the garden that I know of. But I did see a heap of Gypsy Moth caterpillars who were super cute, they sort of have a top knot effect and can walk really fast. I wish we could grow veges but unfortunately it's not an option. Still, there's tangelos and mandarins so am happy.
- It's prime time for broccoli, cauli, winter veggies. One of my kids cites broccoli as their favourite food, which means all the broccoli jokes in kids movies aren't appreciated. But we eat more than our fair share of broccoli and cauliflower, and by extension cheese sauce.
  
  Just had a broccoli and cauli bake the other day, sooo good!
  I'm with your kid on this one, broccoli is the best. As a kid I never understood why some kids don't like vegges!
  
  Are you sure they actually just like cheese sauce, which happens to come with broccoli?
  My eldest used to like broccoli, but now doesn't. We don't eat it with cheese sauce though!

It's the first nice day for a bit, so I rode the push bike in to work today. Forgot how slippery everything is in the wet and had a brief lie-down in the mud, but still made pretty decent time. I'd call it a fairly decent start to the day.
- Hope you're ok! I'm not brave enough to bike at road bike speeds, I'll definitely hurt myself.

I got a rollover cable and was able to actually see what was going on with the router i was troubleshooting. I spent 4 hours trying to get it working. Trying every recovery method and flashing new firmware and nothing worked. Turns out it was an issue with the internal storage being faulty and after swapping that out its all running smooth and I didnt waste $70 on a piece of junk. By running smooth I mean its booting and I can access the web UI and configure things. I still cant figure out how to get internet through it but thats a battle for tomorrow.
- That clearly is a RTFM situation …
  
  I read the manual and followed every single troubleshooting step ubiquity had on their website and none worked. I tried every variation of every step. Only 3rd party forums had helpful advice even if most of their links were dead.
  I may have missed something because im kinda dumb but the manual was the first place I looked for solutions.

35 comments