matstace

Yup, the last month has definitely been gloomy and overcast (plus, obviously, the shorter days). Much more grid import vs solar & battery use.
My electricity cost me a whopping 11.3085p/kWh vs 8.358p/kWh in July/August

This could be me, but it isn't. I don't pretend to go away, I', loud and proud about staying at home.
As nice as it is to visit somewhere like Cornwall or the Lake District, I like my house. There's a reason I bought it.
https://mastodon.social/@fesshole/115055867105382754

I was asked by a 20 year younger friend how my internet was back then. I needed a moment but then I told her the story of an IRC channel and how we made the day for a young girl who happened to be on our IRC channel. Because this is what my internet was like back then and I wish sometimes it […]

A combination of a bit more solar, and discovering that my storage battery actually can do forced discharge means that April is looking good for my energy bill.
Imported electricity ~= £52
Gas ~= £38
Exported electricity ~= £26
Feed-in Tariff generated electricity ~= £72

Meaning I'm being paid […]

Pulled my spare monitor and monitor arm out of storage to set up in my office, so I can do 50% more screen looking at work.
I'm taking this as a sign that $newJob is a good one. That and the fact that at ten pm on a Sunday, I'm looking forward to getting up in the morning, which makes a nice change.

Never let it be said that I am not an optimist.

I just added a “documentation" card to the “in progress" column of my at-home IT infrastructure kanban board.

Obviously, it will never leave the in progress column, because documentation is _never_ done, but I made the card and gave it the […]

I suspect that selection of ball bearings scattered across my office floor might have something to do with why my chair isn't rolling as well as it used to…

Two cracking little lunchtime discoveries

Calendar Card Pro for Home Assistant - much pretty, plenty customisable, makes my “status page with calendar" look much better. https://github.com/alexpfau/calendar-card-pro

and, even more excitingly

A docker container which runs a virtual CUPS […]

Always good to know that my personal morals enable me to look at very well specified, very fast tesla model S cars, old enough to have free supercharging, costing under £10K, and still think “nah, not a chance”.

I can't lie, I thought this post was about the SAAB 9-5. https://mastodon.social/@anon_opin/114041271436212467
I miss my 2005 9-5 Aero Estate.

At some point in the recent past, the youtube app on roku has updated to always show the profiles page when I first open it.

I am the only person logged in on it, and all this has done is reduce the user experience by adding an utterly useless interstitial screen which I can't turn off in […]

Reading an interesting job description, then it suddenly says "Excitement for blockchain, Web 3.0, and similar decentralized technologies" and yes, you know I closed that browser tab quicker than a teenage boy closing porn when his parents walk into his room without knocking.

"Thank you for applying, the next step is your AI interview"
If you can't be arsed interviewing me, can I really be arsed continuing the application process?

(Probably yes, because I've got a mortgage to pay and I'm being made redundant, so needs must...)

@hex.ooo I have recently noticed the very same. Every time I see it, I think "fuck off spotify, if I wanted to share a link to this playlist, I'd share a link, stop spying on me"

After a couple of days without hot water or heating, sometimes you just need to ignore the cost of the electric immersion heater and have yourself a nice hot shower, instead of WimHof-ing it.
Hopefully tomorrow will see the plumbing fixed.

@TimWardCam I will admit, I'm slightly jealous of the battery situation - I bought the wrong one, and found out too late that despite their reputation for excellent quality, you can't force-discharge a Sonnen, it only reacts to household demand.

A screenshot of two Home Assistant notifications in reverse chronological order, saying: "Octopus Saving Sessions Updated Joined new Octopus Energy saving session. It starts at 16:30 on 22/1" and "New Saving Session New Octopus Energy saving session. It starts at 16:30 on 22/1"

I am still very much enjoying my smart home automations.
I didn't even realise that Octopus Saving Sessions were back, and here I am being automatically signed up for them 😁

#HomeAssistant #OctopusEnergy #SmartHome #HomeAutomation

@bsky.brid.gy @shaequeertherapy.bsky.social

According to "historic" emails, it has been exactly two years, two months, and two weeks since the three-way actuator in my central heating failed.
Which is really annoying, because having hot water for a nice long shower would be quite nice right about now...

Poison by The Prodigy opens with what sounds like a door opening, and people talking.
This might be a problem when you fall asleep to a playlist which shuffles to Poison by The Prodigy at 3am, and you're woken up by what sounds like a door opening, and people talking.
My adrenaline spiked so […]

I need to stop making "I will be more fiscally responsible" decisions at the start of the year.
Last year I swapped my second car from the Saab 9-5 aero estate to an old Land Rover Discovery.
Now I'm getting insurance quotes, and setting up test drives to swap the "sensible" hatchback (Polo) […]

I do love a job application form which confidently shouts (all caps, oh yes):
"HOW MUCH EXPERIENCE DO YOU CLOUD (AWS, GCP, AZURE)?"

Tempted to apply and fill in that box with "I CLOUD TEN YEARS EXPERIENCE (AWS, AZURE)"

Just picked up a USB cable to recharge my notepad (no, really, I use one of those fancypants reMarkable e-ink "paper tablet" jobbies) and the outer casing of the cable has completely disintegrated.
Which is a good excuse to buy some more "USB C to USB whatever" dongles, and a few more decent […]

A set of test results, as follows: Numerical Reasoning: 87th percentile Spatial Reasoning: 97th percentile Problem Solving: 99th percentile Verbal Reasoning: 81st percentile

I'm not the world's biggest fan of screening tests for jobs, but when the results are like this, I shouldn't complain 😉​
(although I will about the Numerical Reasoning score, it took me far too long to get going and I only answered ten of the twelve […]

[Original post on gts.matstace.me.uk]

"Ooooh, the isolation" Oh, wait, there's a house directly opposite 😂​
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/67928590/

24,999 of 25,000 points.

The most frustrating of geoguessr scores 🤬​

Hi @admin - can I be cheeky and make a request for an additional city in the UK please? It would fill in a coverage gap (and give me a more local feed) if Peterborough, Cambridgeshire could be added - many thanks in advance :)

And there is it, financial proof that it was a gloomy grey autumn.
Feed in Tariff payments for my solar panels:
June, July, August = £181
Sept, Oct, Nov = £49
On the plus side, out of 250KWh generated, I only exported 9KWh back to the grid, so the storage battery is doing its job.