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Network disconnects – the phantom menace
For a few years I’ve been running a Windows 11 machine as a host for VirtualBox Linux hosts. Plenty of memory and 32 CPUs so I can happily run a couple of VMs with my various lab playgrounds. Invariably, it’s something to stick an Oracle database on. Of late, I’ve migrated from Oracle Linux 7… Continue reading
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Retired. Or am I?
I am changing my name to object Object, because IT is dumb and I’ve noticed that what would have been caught by a QA department with humans seems to have slipped out into the open, because they were all fired. I should start at the beginning of this story, I suppose. Back in March (2026),… Continue reading
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Dedication to the job
Every dog needs a reliable servant, and as it happens, Sage and Pepper have two. Until recently both servants have been distracted by this excuse they call “work”, however one has just announced that they are “retiring”. I’ll let you guess which one it is, but a clue is that it has less hair than… Continue reading
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Pepper’s Galactic Adventure: A Pup’s Journey to Space
Poor Pepper. There she was, enjoying the peace and quiet out in the grass and cleaning her lady bits, when there was this odd buzzing in the sky and the next thing she knew, she was flying. She was vaguely aware that her friend the fishy was getting further and further away from her, but… Continue reading
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Pepper’s First Birthday
As normal, most days around here start any time between 3:30am and 5am. Normally this revolves around a dog reconfiguration in the bedroom but this morning I got to sleep in until almost 5am. Pepper was lying right by the bedroom door, but when I sat up in bed and put my slippers on, she… Continue reading
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Mastering Pizza Dough: A Class Experience in Dallas
Well, it might not be quite that, but this experience elevated my future dough making and pizza assembly. Every now and again I’d either make or purchase a pizza dough ball but more than often, I’d tear the dough and end up shoving a frozen (but good) pizza in the oven. This summer, I dusted… Continue reading
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Exploring Cornwall’s Rich Mining History
Cornwall, the county at the south western tip of England is famous for its rugged scenery, fog and mist, palm trees (yes, the climate is odd that way), pasties and as a setting for programmes like Doc Martin and Poldark. Long before tourism became a major part of the economy, fishing and tin mining were… Continue reading
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Pepper and Sage: Sisters in Mischief and Love
Pepper continues to thrive and enjoy her best life with her silly (and sometimes grumpy) “sister”, Sage. She’s feisty. Always looking for trouble, mischief, treats and petting opportunities, just as we’d want from a 9 month old dog. Her latest obsession of digging in our house plants has temporarily been thwarted with a sprinkling of… Continue reading
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Real-Time Weather Monitoring: From UDP to Dashboard
How I turned a backyard weather station into a full-stack data project — with Python collectors, interval partitioning, and a dark-themed dashboard that makes me actually want to check the weather. The Problem With Cloud-Only Weather Data I love my WeatherFlow Tempest weather station. It’s a beautifully engineered piece of hardware — no moving parts,… Continue reading
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Adding ACARS to My ADS-B Flight Tracker: A Deep Dive into Aircraft Data Integration
For the past several months, I’ve been running a personal ADS-B flight tracking system from my home in Arlington, Texas. Using a Raspberry Pi with an RTL-SDR dongle feeding data to an Oracle database on my Mac Mini, I’ve built up a comprehensive system that tracks aircraft positions, detects routes, and provides real-time visualization through… Continue reading
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Sage and Pepper's Musings 