If you're a fan of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, this video is for you. Also if you're not a fan of the show. Presentation by Ben Woodruff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIR5CE3doRA

Well, that was an expensive lesson.

I made an online booking to fly down to visit my parents, then the next day i realised that the return flight was a month after i arrived, not a week as it should have been.

The airfare i booked was one of those (relatively) super cheap, no changing or cancelling ones- unless you pay for it.
Turns out while you can book flight online, you can't make changes online- unless you have an account with them. No thanks.
So i called their contact number and after a lot of confirming i am who i say i am and what i wanted to do, and then coming back a day earlier than i had planned as there were no direct flights on that day (which would have made a 4 hour trip take 10 or more) i was at the point of giving my credit card details to pay for the changed flight, when my phone dropped the call because i had run out of credit....

Luckily the woman at the travel company called me back, and after re-confirming i am who i say i am, i was able to get the return flight changed.


The moral of this story- just don't do anything important or potentially expensive late at night when you're not fully awake...

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Grant
Darwin NT.

Three weeks ago, upgraded from bored band to fibre. To avoid the hassle of changing details on thermostat and inverter dongle, I daisy chained the old router into the new one. This worked fine but took up an extra router's worth of desk space. Copied ppoe settings from new router to Nighthawk router and all works.

On running an internet speed check, any difference in ping times, download or upload speeds is well under the variation between test runs.

I now have an TP link Aginet Archer router with nothing to do. Is there a way to install BOINC using the brand of Linux that powers it?

Don't pi$$ of your girlfriend (possibly by playing too many video games & neglecting her)!
Angry girlfriend smashed RTX 3080 Ti, but a repair shop managed to save the GPU

Ex-girlfriend now, I hope?
Or tit-for-tat, smash her Switch 2.

Today is National Clean Out Your Computer Day!

Observed on the second Monday in February, today is a day to take some time out of your busy schedule and give some much needed TLC on your computers. Over time, files and unused programs can clog the memory and may also slow down your computer. So, get into the spirit of the day, and take a look at your files and programs on your computers and clean them out!

So, get into the spirit of the day, and take a look at your files and programs on your computers and clean them out!

I did a fresh install of XUbuntu 25.10 a couple of weeks ago, so not a lot of cleaning out to do here.

So we ignore all the fuzz, hair, dust and dirt?

Today's Inspirational Quote:

"Instead of a sign that says: 'Do not disturb' I need one that says: 'Already disturbed, proceed with caution.'"

~ Author Unknown

It's been a while, but i just watched Tron again.
I can't believe it's been 44 years since it was released, and it's still a great movie.

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Grant
Darwin NT.

Other half's computer refusing to update because of lack of space. Currently up to 20GB of duplicate files found in Pictures folder. I suspect I am going to be able to free up at least 50GB of space if not three times that.

Edit:Now up to 70GB of duplicates in pictures. Once I have dealt with that one, I might check for duplicates in documents folder as well assuming the search for duplicates in Pictures finishes in time for me to do anything with it before she wants to use the computer again. -- Not quite as bad as I feared. Only just over 100GB of duplicates in Pictures. That should be enough to get Windows to update.

Don't forget to check in C:\Windows\Temp for accumulated rubbish.
And it's worth doing Disk Cleanup, Cleanup system files to free up a lot of space, along with the More options tab to remove all but the latest System restore point.

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Grant
Darwin NT.

In reply to Grant (SSSF)'s message of 12 Feb 2026:

Don't forget to check in C:\Windows\Temp for accumulated rubbish.
And it's worth doing Disk Cleanup, Cleanup system files to free up a lot of space, along with the More options tab to remove all but the latest System restore point.

Thanks. Easy to forget those things when I defenestrated on my own machines 26 years ago.

As if the massive increase (at a huge rate of increase) in RAM pricing wasn't bad enough, along with hikes in SSD storage prices & video card prices (if you can find any), now HDDs are being affected thanks to the AI rush.

Western Digital's HDD production for 2026 is already sold out (and some customers have already bought up capacity through 2028).

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Grant
Darwin NT.

As if the massive increase (at a huge rate of increase) in RAM pricing wasn't bad enough, along with hikes in SSD storage prices & video card prices (if you can find any), now HDDs are being affected thanks to the AI rush.

Western Digital's HDD production for 2026 is already sold out (and some customers have already bought up capacity through 2028).

It always us consumers that get the shaft on (fake) shortages and increased prices. It's the "big industry" (retail, wholesale, etc) get the price breaks and inventory.

Luckily I still have a spare kit of 32GB DDR4 and a couple AM4 CPUs (2700x, 3900x), three cases, two PSUs, all kinds of AIO and air coolers. So all I need is a motherboard a GPU and an SSD if I need to build a new system. I have a 2TB SSD that I have half my Steam library installed onto. Let's be serious, I hardly play those game anyway, so I can just as well use that then. Leaves the mobo and GPU.

In reply to Dr Who Fan's message of 16 Feb 2026:

It always us consumers that get the shaft on (fake) shortages and increased prices.

Nothing fake about the current shortages.

It's the "big industry" (retail, wholesale, etc) get the price breaks and inventory.

No price breaks for the big boys- unless they bought up early.
Even Apple and Samsung are having issues sourcing the RAM & storage they need for their future products, as well as getting capacity for their CPUs. (Samsung the electronics company and Samsung the chip fabrication company are different companies, and Samsung the electronics company is reported to very upset that Samsung the fab company won't give them a special deal because they're both part of the same over all corporation...).

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Grant
Darwin NT.

Luckily I still have a spare kit of 32GB DDR4 and a couple AM4 CPUs (2700x, 3900x), three cases, two PSUs, all kinds of AIO and air coolers.

Very.
Even DDR4 is spiking as many companies have moved their production to DDR5, reducing DDR4 supply. And with the increase in DDR5 prices and other price issues, the demand for DDR4 CPUs & motherboards has picked up putting even more pressure on DDR4 RAM prices.






It's well and truly screwed up all around.

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Grant
Darwin NT.

In reply to Grant (SSSF)'s message of 16 Feb 2026:

As if the massive increase (at a huge rate of increase) in RAM pricing wasn't bad enough, along with hikes in SSD storage prices & video card prices (if you can find any), now HDDs are being affected thanks to the AI rush.

Hmm...guess I'll run over to WallyWorld in the morning and look to see if they've got any 5TB externals in the display case. Nevermind...just found a WD 6 on Amazon. Should be here Monday.

NASA just passed a major milestone on its mission to return humans to the moon

After completing a second “wet dress rehearsal” of its upcoming moon mission, NASA said it is targeting a March 6 launch date for Artemis II

Launch T-0: March 6, 2026 at 8:29pm EST
Launch Window: 8:29PM - 10:29PM EST

So if you haven't yet, get your name in to be flown to the Moon.: https://www3.nasa.gov/send-your-name-with-artemis/