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bandwidth Nazi
Friday, September 12 2025
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
I got up well before everyone else, ate 150mg of pseudoephedrine, and made myself a french press of coffee and got going with my remote workday, which initially just consists of sending an email to everyone that I am "signing on." (This reflects the factory-derived work culture of my employer.)
When Alana got up, she made herself a cup of tea and then said what she planned to be doing today, which was to install a new OS on her Macintosh laptop. This, of course, would be absurd, since such an install is something like 15 gigabytes, which is three fourths of the cabin's bandwidth allotment for an entire month. I didn't say anything initially, but after looking up the size of the latest Macintosh OS, I said that there was no way that would work. I said it would eat through all our bandwidth, take days, and probably wouldn't even work. ("I'm the bandwidth Nazi," I explained later after Gretchen joined our conversation.) This wasn't the first instance of someone casually assuming that modern conveniences at our off-grid cabin are exactly the same as they are everywhere else.
Gretchen had made scones, so that was the main feature of breakfast this morning. I don't remember much of what was discussed as we ate them other than the Charlie Kirk assassination. (The assassin himself was still on the lam, indicating that Donald Trump has successfully destroyed the FBI along with much of the rest of the federal government that doesn't wear masks while dragging brown people into unmarked vans.)
The day was a little cool but very sunny, so eventually Gretchen and Charlotte went with Jeff and Alana down to the dock, leaving me with Neville and the rest of my remote workday. Most of what I did today was try to get access to a client's VPN. The client kept trying me to follow a web link that I couldn't get to work. Eventually I solved the problem by having them just send me the installer download, which was all I would be getting at the other end of that link anyway.
At noon I took a brief break and walked down to the lake, taking an oily container of grape leaves ("Greek sushi") that Gretchen had ordered via walkie-talkie.
The other returned to the cabin before the end of my workday, and then after a light meal of quiche out in the screened-in porch, we all went back down to the lake, though this time Gretchen, both dogs, and I went via the Mossy Rock Trail and Jeff and Alana mostly took the old lake trail and were significantly delayed. Gretchen had been able to swim earlier, but the dock was too shady now for any more of that. I took a kayak out and paddled up fairly close to Throckmorton the Loon, who was out near the middle of the lake.
I then paddled back near our dock, though I remained on the kayak while chatting with the others, since it's a little like chatting from a unicycle or some other fun mobile "chair." Then Alana took the other kayak out for a paddle. When Alana got back, Gretchen got in that kayak and paddled around, something she almost never does these days. Meanwhile I was telling Jeff and Alana about the lake's home owners' association and our relationships (or non-relationships) with its members. I also told the story of how Neville ate a baby deer near the public dock and convinced a bunch of people that he was vicious, including our neighbor Ibrahim and his wife, who apparently don't understand dogs and have typical Millennial hyperconcern about the safety of their precious children.
Back up at the cabin, we sat around chatting for over an hour, and a little after dark, Jeff and Alana began their drive back home. At that point I went down to the basement to resume a project from last weekend: building a hardware watchdog for the SolArk Copilot. I did some more tinkering with a Raspberry Pi Pico, thinking I could get it to work as a slave. But just trying to power it from the ESP8266 board seemed to cause everything to fail. I asked ChatGPT about this, and it thought perhaps the Pico's power requirements were too high. Anticipating such problems, I'd brought other Arduino-compatible boards to the cabin, including some built around the LGT8F328Ps, which are microcontrollers that are compatible with the Atmega328. I soldered some pins onto one such board and had ChatGPT alter my I2C slave firmware to have it work as both a slave and a watchdog. But when I went to bed tonight, it still wasn't working. ChatGPT thought it knew why, but I wasn't really in a state to work any more on it.
Sunrise this morning at the west end of the Mossy Rock Trail near the cabin, looking east. Click to enlarge.
The west end of the Mossy Rock Trail near the cabin, looking east. Click to enlarge.
Charlotte on the couch in the cabin great room. Click to enlarge.
Neville on the dock today. Click to enlarge.
Throckmorton the loon looks at me. Click to enlarge.
Throckmorton the loon from the side. Click to enlarge.
Throckmorton the loon flaps his wings. Click to enlarge.
Throckmorton the loon looks away. Click to enlarge.
Jeff and Alana on the dock early this evening. Click to enlarge.
A grasshopper on the rail of the cabin's front door entrance deck in the light of the setting sun. Click to enlarge.
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http://asecular.com/blog.php?250912 feedback
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