Neal Wilson ✅ @neal@social.typica.us

It was nice while it lasted but local covid data has moved enough in the wrong direction that we're putting mask requirements back in place at the shop. Just a quick reminder, being abusive toward your barista isn't going to do you any good so please save everybody the trouble, get your shot, and don't make an ass of yourself with people you trust to make something you plan to ingest.

It's coffee from Sumatra and coffee from Colombia tossed into the roaster at the same time and roasted rather different from how they're roasted separately for the shelf. The drip roasts for those each have characteristics that are both overwhelming and unpleasant in an espresso preparation (to the point that they blend poorly), but I worked out a roast to diminish what I don't like and leave what I do, and that seems to have worked.

Tried out something new as espresso. I'll want to try it again tomorrow as it was only roasted about 5 hours ago, but early indications are promising.

I've failed at home toilet repairs. Fortunately it's all stuff in the tank that's wrong so I've disconnected the water to prevent it from doing any more damage and I've got a bucket that I can use for flushing until I get a plumber out to take care of it. Why do people install toilets so close to corners such that there's no way to see what you're doing and can't get a wrench in the space? Maybe I'll give it one more try.

With the new computer for the roaster I have a good excuse to do a rework of the software that I've wanted to take care of for several years now. It's nice finally being able to take advantage of C++ features introduced after 2005 so I'm writing considerably less code in some cases and am able to do certain things in ways that have fewer corner cases to watch out for.

cat: what's a posture? can I eat it?

Done with staying late at work to train the new person for a while. Now other people can take over most of the training.

Someone left a bunch of VHS tapes about Alaska on the book shelf at the shop (which I'd rather see people using to share books). Do people even still own VCRs on which to view such things?

Ma'am should pretty much never be used these days, especially if you're trying to be polite to someone you don't know with a full beard.

The utility shutoff scam is making the rounds again. If you get a call from someone claiming to be your power company saying they're going to disconnect your gas/electric for lack of payment, that's probably not real. If they want you to buy gift cards to make the payment that you don't owe, that's definitely not real.

cat: what you're doing is cool, but wouldn't you rather be petting the cat?

My mother stopped by the house this morning. A few days ago she searched for something and got an error and since each time she opened the browser it displayed the same message she assumed the whole web wouldn't work. I showed her the refresh button which fixed it.

Will I believe what happened next?

PIC programmer arrived today. I have a device with header pins for that from a company that put out new firmware (open sourced even so I can further mess with that if I want) that turns the device into something way better than what they sold it as. Their advice was to get the cheapest clone I could find so it took a while for that to ship from China.

New computer for the coffee roasters arrived. I'm going to take it home and finish the setup there. My sister expected it to be larger (it's VESA mount sized).

There's a utility truck in the alley. It has a cute little miniature traffic cone decoration attached to the front of it.

A prompt, "I don't know," would have accomplished the same (no)thing but that experience would have been much better.

My sister made the mistake of trying to get tech support by chat. The person on the other end did not reply in any way that could be interpreted as being on topic or even remotely related to trying to clarify what the issue was, tried to trick her into thinking that she had left the chat, and after a considerable amount of time spent not replying to anything, the support person left the chat. Not impressed.

What is it with long lost ancient sci-fi civilizations building their time portals and such in small otherwise natural seeming caves? This is clearly unsafe and probably has a lot to do with why the builders aren't around any more.