Notes – Page 2

Syncthing on Unraid: repairing malformed database disk image

Mostly as a note to myself, but here’s what to do if you’re running linuxserver/syncthing via Docker on Unraid and it keeps saying:

ERR Database error when getting previous version (error="getkv: database disk image is malformed (11)" log.pkg=syncthing)

The problem is that Syncthing’s index has been corrupted. I was able to fix it by getting a shell into the relevant Docker container and moving the index: Syncthing detected it as absent and re-created it, re-indexing everything. Here’s what I did:

docker exec -it syncthing bash mv /config/index-v2 /config/index-v2-BROKEN

Everything fixed itself immediately and the Docker logs showed the reindex underway.

Methuselah

My partner and her husband (my metamour) have a tradition that every 5th wedding anniversary they get the “next size up” of champagne bottle.

This meant that on yesterday, when we celebrated their 15th, we needed to get through a Methuselah: a massive 6 litre bottle equivalent to nine standard bottles of champagne (rightmost in the attached picture).

It’s times like these you’re glad of friends you can call on to help you drink such a monster!

Dan Q on itch.io

I’ve had my itch.io account for about six years; I think I first created it to buy a copy of We Are But Worms: A One Word RPG. I’ve since made several purchases, donations, reviews, and comments, but never really used my account as a “creator”.

I changed that today when I realised that there was nothing to stop me re-publishing games like DNDle and Axe Feather 2021 via my itch.io profile as well as on their current homes (and on GitHub, I suppose). For some folks, itch.io’s discovery features might be the best way for them to discover worthwhile content weird stuff like this.

I might republish some other “things” I’ve made on itch.io too. It’s not like there haven’t been lots of them over the years!

Daily Mail RSS that doesn’t suck

Off the back of my project to un-suckify BBC News’ RSS feeds (https://bbc-feeds.danq.dev) by removing non-news content and duplicate items, I received an email this week (addressing me by the wrong name, I might add) from somebody who asked if I could do the same… for the Daily Mail.

I’m so very tempted to provide an empty RSS feed and say “there you go; that’s an RSS feed of the Daily Mail but with the crap bits removed”.

Turns out my distaste for the Daily Mail is greater than my love of clean RSS.

Sky potholes

Amusing announcement from the captain of my plane out of Tenerife South this afternoon. In place of the usual recommendation to keep your seatbelt fastened while seated in case of turbulence, he advised that there was a “risk of potholes”.

I’m sure the analogy makes sense to the Brits aboard, but I hope it translated well for the Spanish speakers on this plane!

Hollandaise Sauce

If I’m on holiday and a hotel offers me eggs benedict for breakfast, I’ll almost always order it. But I’d never make it at home.

I tell myself that this is because hollandaise sauce is notoriously easy to mess up. That I don’t want to go through the learning process only to make something inferior to what I eat as a holiday treat.

But maybe it’s just that my brain wants to keep eggs benedict as a signifier that I’m on holiday. That I can unplug from the world, stop thinking about work, and enjoy a leisurely breakfast with some creamy eggs and a long black coffee.

Maybe eggs benedict just has to remain “holiday food”, for me.

Airborne RSS

RSS readers rock. Having a single place you connect for a low-bandwidth bundle of everything you might want to read means it doesn’t matter how slow the WiFi is on your aeroplane, you can get all the text content in one tap.

(I’m using Capy Reader to connect to FreshRSS, by the way.)

Time to catch up on some news, blogs, etc.!

Bagel Holes

Our kid doesn’t like bagel holes. She’ll eat the rest of the bagel, but not the hole.

At least, that’s the only explanation I can think of for finding things like this most mornings.

Discourse

I like it when the Internet says “yes, and”.
I like it when the Internet says “yes, but”.
I even like it when the Internet says “no, because”.

I’m not so keen when the Internet says “well, actually”,
(Probably because it reminds me of what
a shit I was in some not-yet-forgotten time.)

But I don’t like when the Internet rallies a brigade
To pick apart a character flaw I have, but hate,
Or to attack something I’m not, and expect me to defend.

So perhaps next time, start with “yes, and”, “yes, but”,
Or even “no, because”… or just say nothing, and
Remember what it means to connect with a human.

Mocking SharePoint

Highlight of my workday was debugging an issue that turned out to be nothing like what the reporter had diagnosed.

The report suggested that our system was having problems parsing URLs with colons in the pathname, suggesting perhaps an encoding issue. It wasn’t until I took a deep dive into the logs that I realised that this was a secondary characteristic of many URLs found in customers’ SharePoint installations. And many of those URLs get redirected. And SharePoint often uses relative URLs when it sends redirections. And it turned out that our systems’ redirect handler… wasn’t correctly handling relative URLs.

It all turned into a hundred line automated test to mock SharePoint and demonstrate the problem… followed by a tiny two-line fix to the actual code. And probably the most-satisfying part of my workday!

Note #28047

This morning it took me three attempts to put on a t-shirt the right way around.

I don’t think I slept too well.

Universal Cosplay

As previously indicated, I’m not anticipating cosplaying anybody. But I think I could do Greg Universe.

Not young Greg Universe, the Star Child of ‘Story for Steven’… which seems to be the only variety anybody’s ever cosplayed as before if an image search is to be believed. No, I mean: overweight old balding Greg Universe. I could totally pull that look off.

Fake tan lines, white t-shirt (I’d probably make a ‘guitar dad’ one!), sweatpants, carrying a guitar. Easy.

Again, not that I’m planning to. Just saying that I could…

“I’m glad I’m not the only one”

Still at MegaConLive. I’ve not done this kind of con before (and still wouldn’t, were it not for my tweenager and her various obsessions). Not my jam, and that’s fine.

But if there’s one thing for which I can sing it’s praises: everybody we’ve met is super friendly and nice. Sure, you can loudly telegraph your fandoms and identities via cosplay, accessories, masks, badges, bracelets or whatever… but it’s also just a friendly community of folks to just talk to.

The fashion choices are, more than anything, just an excuse to engage: a way to say “hey, here’s a conversation starter if you’d like to talk to me!”

Overheard a conversation between my kid and another of a similar age, and there was a heartwarming moment where the other kid said, “oh wow, I thought I was the only one!” Adorbs.

It’s Eddie Bowley!

I may have been dragged to MegaConLive London by my multi-fandom loving 12-year-old, but I at least managed to find somebody worth getting a selfie with.

MegaConLive London

My 12-year-old’s persuaded me to take her to MegaConLive London this weekend.

As somebody who doesn’t pay much attention to the pop culture circles represented by such an event (and hasn’t for 15+ years, or whenever it was that Asdfbook came out?)… have you got any advice for me, Internet?