Appliances have gotten worse (less safe, less reliable), even branded goods from NIMA [1, 2] because people like “cheap” and companies are cheapening the production processes, materials, quality control

wo days ago we decided to carefully try to use the underwater lights we had acquired virtually for free (for context, there’s a home project this week [1, 2, 3]). I first tried them outside the water. All OK, no problems. The next step was, try the same inside the water. Oh, no. First, it was very hard to attach the darn thing to the glass. It kept floating upwards. I tried to use the water filter to force it down (in tandem), barely managed to do so. But worse yet, after some time in use we started to see the lights flickering a bit, then bright lights if not sparks came out from the socket. In the process it caused disruption to other appliances, including Rianne’s laptop. OK then, totally not worth the risk! Took it out of the socket, let it dry up for a few days. Today, in the laundry room (away from other valuable appliances and with its own distant fuse; the fusebox splits up the rooms), I plugged the thing back again. Lights not coming back up. None at all. Hmmm… try another socket. Same outcome. Try in the kitchen. Same. Just give up.

“Come on, Roy, you cannot just force it to work…”

My guess is that the fuse blew at some point. Good. Rightly so. Fuses blow up for good reasons, they’re a protection mechanism. I won’t bother replacing the fuse (I have spare ones and know how to handle these).

Whether the lights were not functioning “OK” or the goddamn thing was no longer water-resistant… who knows, right? I’ll never know. Either way, the thing was rendered unsafe to use, either underwater or outside the water (I was prepared to let it be used exclusively as the latter).

Some things are cheap for a reason. Having said that, all the other things we acquired are very good, they just needed a lot of very stubborn cleaning.

Let’s see how long those other things can last. I’m not counting on 5 years, let alone a decade.

My trust in “modern” electronics is waning. I still use appliances older than 30 years old. They still function perfectly.

So far, so good

t has been nearly 24 hours for the new arrivals and they seem to be coping OK. I spent many hours working on them yesterday, checking their condition every 10 minutes or so until going to sleep. Time-consuming? For sure. Even gave me a physical headache. But the first few hours or days are critical, I wanted to be sure the creatures all get along and, if not, intervene before it’s too late.

Learned from experience…

I don’t expect this week to be busy anyway. Many things have calmed down, people go back to work, and this coming week/days/weekend there are many fans walking past the streets here to concerts, including the very weird fans of Melanie Martinez. The music scene has gotten truly bizarre.

EnzoFC seems to be getting better over time

t is turning out to be a good winning streak for Enzo, with a fourth win in a row and this time a different tournament and difficult away game against a very potent rival. Just weeks ago, after the Community Shield defeat, it looked like there was going to be another loss, this time at home (against Bournemouth), but 0-1 became 2-1 in a matter of minutes. So now, instead, Enzo is off at a better start then Pep’s a decade ago.

There’s a derby coming up on Sunday, then a straightforward Carabao Cup match.

Video summary.

could not help but notice the wordings of Torvalds, as uttered in writing this past Sunday. This is not the first time he expresses (apprehensively, his boss is the Linux Foundation, bribed by the slop industry) concerns about Linux slipping out of developers’ control only to become a bloated pig that few people understand.

Linux is becoming orphaned, devalued and diluted by GAFAM slop.

I am a Linux advocate, not slop advocate.

used to find it disturbing when some football clubs shared slop, especially in social control media, about their squad.

It looks like actual artists drew the faces of the players today.

had a very productive day today, especially all the “fish tank” stuff. At one point we discussed the options available to us, then I left home just in time to reach the pet store at 9AM (when it opens). I spent a long time looking at all the animals and could see the people who ran the shop really love animals. One was hugging the lizard while cleaning its cage; the lizard would not let go when he came to the fish section to help and advise me. They also checked things on a computer system to give me expert advice when I asked questions.

There used to be a pet store (another multi-floor shop) closer to us, but it shut down not long after COVID-19. Their fish section was a lot smaller and they kept some fish in very tiny containers (maybe 2 litres per fish), which looked and felt cruel.

think I won’t remember to check this again in 3 hours, but it’ll soon be 999 days and 9 hours, 9 minutes, 9 seconds since last reboot.

roy@bubi:~$ uptime
 14:23:23 up 999 days,  5:35,  3 users,  load average: 7.27, 7.16, 7.24

Tomorrow a 4-digit uptime: 1,000.