Category: Blog

  • Chrome Looked at my Video and Said Nothing

    Chrome Looked at my Video and Said Nothing

    This was driving me nuts. When I upload videos recorded from my Pixel phone onto my WordPress blog, they would not render on the post page. Here’s how I found the problem and how I fixed it. The problem is the codec. An mp4 file is just a wrapper. What matters is what’s inside it.…

  • Some Mistakes I Made Trying to Automate Backups of My WordPress Blog

    I’m giving myself some side projects to keep my skills sharp. Well, I’m going to apply for a supervisor position soon and I’m worried about losing my technical skills so I’m giving myself fun tech projects at home. One I’ve been thinking about lately is backing up my blog. I wanted a cronjob script to…

  • Upgrading Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 While Running a Live WordPress Site

    I was today years old when I realized that my hosting service (Linode) allows for one snapshot. This finally gave me the impetus to upgrade Ubuntu since I’m comforted knowing there’s a one button rollback. First thing I did was update all my WordPress plugins. Then I ran the following sequence: Everything worked fine except…

  • Traxxas Disruptor Day 4

    Traxxas Disruptor Day 4

    Day 4. Today I remembered my phone has slow motion capture and gave it a go. Turned out interesting. It’s a lot easier to see what’s going on in the wipeouts… Got some sunrise glow on the rooster tail….

  • Traxxas Disruptor Day 3

    Traxxas Disruptor Day 3

    Great morning. Gave it half a dozen full throttle pulls. Some texture on the water though preventing it from going smoothly. This model likes to skip around on the surface. It moves like a fish, sudden darts in tangential directions. Unlike a fish though, it really doesn’t want to be in the water. It loves…

  • Traxxas Disruptor Day 2

    Traxxas Disruptor Day 2

    Wow! I got to experience the Disruptor at full throttle. Day 1 was interrupted by the collet being too lose out of the box. And I didn’t bring the tools with me. Today though the water was fairly flat and I got to let it rip. It was actually pretty unstable at full throttle, and…

  • Traxxas Disruptor Day 1

    Traxxas Disruptor Day 1

    Today I got a Traxxas Disruptor. I was able to use it for a few minutes, but something felt off. At first I thought it was cavitating or something. But as soon as I gave it it’s first full throttle pull, it became clear something was very wrong. When I opened the lid there was…

  • Use What You Have

    Use What You Have

    I took my first trip out to the lake this morning with my RC boat because of on an insight I had yesterday as well as another another one last week. I got there at 6am, a little after sunrise. Except for a passing fisherman in a real boat, I was the only one there.…

  • Use Your Unfair Advantage

    Use Your Unfair Advantage

    I’ve been thinking about getting into RC boats. It hasn’t really been my thing over the years, despite owning an RC boat. It’s just not as interesting as cars or as challenging as airplanes. But. It is always nice to be near bodies of water, right? I’ve also been thinking about the principle of using…

  • RC is Meditation

    RC is Meditation

    I posted an ad on FB Marketplace to give away an RC boat I didn’t need, in exchange he gifted me an RC plane. It was a fun meeting because he was my age and clearly passionate about the RC hobby. We started chatting about it and wondered why the younger generation was not into…