We’re having visitors in our office tonight, and the office manager reminded us to put away valuables, etc., and also to put away USB chargers so no one would be tempted to sneak over and top off their phone.
If you borrow a random data cable from a desk of the security team, whatever happens next is on you.
Comcast verified that they processed my data deletion request, with exceptions including:
For internal purposes that are compatible with the context in which you provided it, such as to support and enhance he [sic] products and services we provide
No! I don’t want you using my data to enhance your services. On to filling a CCPA complaint it is, then.
My Fish shell tweak of the morning:
abbr --add checkout --command git "switch -c"
Now when I type “git checkout”, it replaces that with “git switch -c”, which is what I really meant 90% of the time: switch to a new branch.
From the letters to the editor in a recent issue of “2600”:
We used to subscribe to Wired Magazine, but their direction changed. Aside from the content of their articles, their pages became too colorful and hard to read.
So they stopped in, what, 1994?
To the younguns amongst us, Wired was (in)famous for running print articles in color schemes like neon yellow on day-glo pink. Yes, it was fun and cool to read. Yes, it was sometimes nearly impossible to focus on the page.
My version of a DIY GR1 hip belt
I wanted a hip belt for my GoRuck GR1 backpack. I tried GoRuck’s own padded hip belt. It’s great for stabilizing the bottom of the bag so that it doesn’t swing from side to side. However, I wanted a weight-bearing belt like the one on my camping backpack. This wasn’t it.
The gang over at Yomp Notes wrote a guide to make a DIY hip belt. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of their system for attaching the belt to the bag, so I tried something vastly simpler.
My shopping list:
- Fairwin tactical belt. This is the tough, non-stretching nylon belt that cinches the setup snugly around your hips. It’s basically the tough version of a normal belt you’d wear to hold your pants up.
- Condor Elite battle belt. This is a padded wrapper that goes around the nylon belt for comfort. It doesn’t have a buckle of its own. Feel free to roll your eyes at the tacticoolness of the description, but here we’re using it purely for its width and the padding. You wouldn’t want to wear the nylon belt directly against your hips without it, unless you’re a fan of being sawed in half. We’re going to use those PALS straps on out its outside to connect it to the bag. Sizing tip: I’m 6 feet tall and, ahem, robust. I bought a medium and it wraps all the way around me. If you’re not sure which size to get, get the smaller option.
- Two C.A.M.P. Compact Oval Screwgate Locking carabiners to connect the battle belt to your GR1.
First, open the velcro flaps on the battle belt to expose its inner channel, lay the nylon belt inside it, and close the velcro again. Ta-da! The belt is assembled.
Next, thread the carabiners through the bottom 2 PALS straps on the sides your GR1, closest to the part of the pack that rests against your back.
Finally, lay your battle belt against the padded back of your GR1. Find the 2 columns of PALS straps that are about the same width apart as the carabiners are on your pack. Err on the side of them being a little wider apart on your belt than they are on the GR1. Now work the carabiners through those straps on your belt.
You’re done. There’s no step 4. Now your belt is attached securely to your GR1, and you can still remove it easily for all the times when you don’t want to wear a padded belt.
This is how the attachment of the belt to the bag looks. It’s straightforward: the carabiners temporarily lock the belt snugly to the GR1.
This is how it looks from the front. See how the carabiner splays out to the side a little? When the belt is snug on you, that’ll put a small outward tension on the bag to hold it centered against your back.
Eagle eyes might notice that the belt is technically upside down. Try it both directions and see what’s most comfortable for you. It’s your belt. You can wear it any way you want to.
I like the end result much more than GoRuck’s own hip belt. Their belt attaches to the sides, too, but it doesn’t go all the way around your hips. It just stretches from one side of the bag, around your belly, and to the other side. That is, your bag becomes an integral part of the belt. The tighter you snug the belt, the harder it pulls the sides of your bag outward like wings. With the DIY belt, the only force between the belt and the bag is the weight of the bag pushing downward. Tension on the GR1’s PALS straps is purely upward against its weight, not upward and outward against the snugness of the belt.
This setup costs more than the GoRuck version. I didn’t do this to save money. I did it to have a sturdy belt that works about as well as such a thing possibly can. I expect this setup to last almost as long as the GR1 itself.
San Francisco at night from the Alcatraz ferry.
Have you ever used The Policy Wonk to manage your AWS permissions? Cool! Me too! But alas, my ex-employer stopped developing it and archived the repo. I updated my own fork with the latest commits and updated PyPI to point at its new home.
Same Wonk, same dev, same license, new URL. See you there!
A seasonal reminder that a “fun size” Twix bar would be roughly the size of my forearm, and anything less is false advertising.
Why I’m Returning the reMarkable Move: Premium Hardware, Mediocre Software
The device itself is amazing. It’s capable of much more than its oddly limited OS and apps will allow.
When I see the HH logo on clothing, my first thought is Harter House, a local butcher shop where I grew up. My second thought is Hamburger Helper, and I think that’s probably the correct answer.
Mrs Tek and I are having fun playing “Pokémon Legends: Z-A”. I made the mistake of looking at its online reviews and the hate it’s getting is surprising to me. While it’s not the best game I’ve ever seen, we’re enjoying it.
Rippling’s MDM has been force upgrading our office Macs to Tahoe, even though our update policy specifically said not to force major version upgrades. Their support confirms this is a bug they’re working on and advised me to temporarily turn off all enforced upgrades.
UnitedHealthcare just sent me a plaintext email with all kinda of fun HIPAA-covered information. It read, basically,
Hi, [full name]. Your new insurance policy went into effect on [date], with out-of-pocket limit [dollar amount], and also covering your dependents [list of names].
That’s awfully carefree of them.
This is either sunset behind clouds, or San Francisco has grown a volcano.
A confession: I’m sitting around on a Friday night indulging in some agent-driven development and loving every moment of it.
I hear a lot of people I respect and like talking about their ideas of the things AI could never do, and my own experience is vastly different. A lot of those impossible things work really well today. And that’s fantastic! I’m having great fun seeing how quickly it can get through chores I’d been putting off, and at a quality level I’m happy with.
SEC approves Texas Stock Exchange, first new U.S. fully integrated exchange in decades - CBS Texas
It’ll be inevitably be seen as the Dollar Store stock exchange. Can’t cut it on NASDAQ? List it on Y’all Street!
“Well, we IPOed!”
“Congratulations!”
“…in Texas.”
“Do you need to use me as a reference?”
Synology Reverses Policy Banning Third-Party HDDs After NAS sales plummet
Synology has quietly walked the policy back. […] Drives from Seagate, WD, and others will work exactly as they did before—complete with full monitoring, alerts, and storage features.
That’s fantastic news. I still don’t know if I’ll stay with Synology, as I’d already started migrating off it, but now I won’t completely rule it out.
Python Release Python 3.14.0 | Python.org
We had PyPy and PyPI. Now we also have PiPy.
I don’t know if the perfect video game exists, but “Hades II” slots itself flawlessly into the part of my brain that weighs such things.
“Challenge: Name the worst possible TV show you can imagine.”
