Arbitrary Blog
This where I m going to keep my personal notes on how to work around various issues on Home Assistant, but why not make them public ha ha. I recently started getting an error when trying to update HA update blocked from execution, no host internet connection . After confirming the host did in fact have an Continue reading Home Assistant Workarounds
C++17 added a useful extension to the if-statement syntax, by making it possible to include initialisation inside the if-statement. This is called if statement with initializer . You can use it like this: Providing spuds != 0 it will obligingly bake them for us (in fact, it will even bake negative spuds very handy in the Continue reading C++ 17 if statement gotchas
It s obvious that a lot of names are also going to be valid words in Scrabble (Bob, Peter etc) and this made me wonder just how many there are Now, Scrabble has a ridiculously large dictionary, allowing all sorts of silly words that are frowned upon in our house 🙂 For example, there are apparently Continue reading Names in Scrabble
I was driving on the motorway in heavy rain, when my windscreen wipers started working intermittently, then suddenly stopped completely! This was pretty scary as visibility was almost zero. Fortunately I was close to a slip road and services, and pulled off into the service station car park. Ultimately I had to call my breakdown Continue reading Abarth / Fiat 500 Wiper Motor Fault
I enjoy playing Wordle over breakfast every day. It s a wonderful little game, but the US spellings sometimes cause me some pain! This made me wonder how many US words were in its dictionary. I had a look at the JavaScript source and found it uses a dictionary of 2315 words. That s a lot to Continue reading US words in Wordle s dictionary
I ve been a fairly happy user of Visual Studio over the years. For all it s faults, I d probably even go so far as to say it s probably the best Microsoft product I ve ever used including their OS! But with 2022, we are not off to an auspicious start Typically, I ve always bought the next Continue reading Microsoft really don t want people to buy Visual Studio 2022 standalone
This idea is either genius . or maybe I ve finally lost my marbles? I ve been using a zero discard method for my Sourdough starter, where you just pile some flour on the starter and leave it in the fridge (for days at a time, without feeding it). Then, when I want to use it, I just Continue reading Sourdough Starter meets 3D printer!?
I love California, but this is always a scary sight when you enter a building
AvE does a nice line in warning stickers for machine tools. I was about to order some (probably still will) then realised they were going to take 4 weeks to arrive. In this age of instant gratification, I can t wait so long so I cracked open Inkscape and set about making some of my own. Continue reading My Warning Stickers have arrived
My shower plate had become badly clogged, with two of the holes pretty much completely blocked. When I tried to remove it, I found it was really badly stuck I tried soaking in descaling solution, tapping it with a soft faced hammer, levering it from the side with wood (mindful of damaging the shower plate) . Continue reading Removing a Stuck Shower Plate from the Gaggia Classic