One of the ways I knew I was burned out from my job was that when I got back from vacation, I felt as bad as I did just before the vacation. No improvement at all. The vacations were fine, but it was like opening a door into the same flood every day.
Since lemm.ee is shutting down, this community will go inactive.
Given the lack of interest, I don't see much point in recreating it elsewhere. If you disagree, hit me up here, or at @limelight79@lemmy.world.
Yeah. We have a 2009 MacBook pro here that still works great, other than being horrendously out of date. I was getting 6+ hours of battery life out of it when it was new, which is pretty surprising in those days.
And OS X is pretty nice (or was for the life of that laptop, I haven't used it much since then), and still Unix.
When my wife needed a new laptop a few years ago, we got her a Mac, because it's just so much less maintenance for me, compared to Windows. (She uses some stuff that Linux does not yet support.)
Yeah, I can't figure it out either. Except that Trump is a user - a people user - and he saw Musk as someone he could use.
There are two things about this falling out that surprise me: First, it took a LOT longer than I expected, and second, it's nowhere near as contentious as I expected.
Unfortunately, you're probably right.
Wasn't Tesla the company that had a person (or group of people) dedicated to distracting him, thereby letting the rest of the company actually do work?
A woman I know did just that, except she wrote a book during her "off" years.
I LOVE that he thinks his leaving government to refocus on Tesla will solve the sales issue Tesla has been experiencing.
He just does not get it.
He was in charge of the Personals and was a Comic Stripper for a while.
Hey, the death panels the Republicans predicted are coming soon!
I just remembered the discussion without separation was in Disaster, when Troi was the senior officer on the bridge and a warp core breach was developing. Ro wanted her to separate the ship to save as many people as possible, but Troi wanted to wait in the hopes someone would get to engineering and fix the problem.
Yeah what was the point of that test?! "Oooh he give orders good."
Break out the joystick like in Insurrection and let's fucking dock this thing MANUALLY.
Yeah I read somewhere they found it just slowed down the episode too much, so it wasn't used much after the first season.
Correctly used in the movie though.
Not to ruin the mood, but I think the idea was that it was this scary procedure only used in extreme emergencies.
For example, when the episode was running short by about 5 minutes...
Who is actually creating a legitimate Facebook account at this point?
I moderate a few groups on Facebook, and every account I see for new members that was created within the last few years is a spammer. The people who wanted Facebook accounts already have them. Very very few actual human beings are signing up for new legitimate accounts at this point.
Facebook should just close the new account option. They're working toward AIs talking to each other and won't need human interaction any more anyway.
Sounds good. My brother is an originalist, but I'm more of a modern guy. I have an old Cannondale 2.8 frame that he built up for me in the late 90s, and it has 8 speed 105. I've threatened a few times to upgrade it, possibly using the SRAM setup with wireless shifting and rim brakes. I think it would disappoint him. Of course, it would require new wheels as well.
But as a practical matter, those 8 speed parts aren't going to last forever, either. I think the rear derailleur spring that holds the chain in tension is a bit tired already, for example. And it's not like I can buy a new 105 8 speed derailleur; I can get a used one but that's just as old. (I use the bike on a smart trainer on Zwift. What I really should do is upgrade to one of the trainers that doesn't require physically shifting.)
A friend of mine has that condition where she can't visualize things. I wonder how she would like this comic. My guess is she'd crack a joke about it being a good thing she can't do this.
Nice! I'm surprised that it has the correct wheel spacing for 11 speed.
Those were steel, right? I can't remember.
I love that you are voted negative on this. You're absolutely correct, but people don't want to hear it.
Had a long argument with someone a few months back where they insisted if they come around a curve and a tree is laying across the road, and they can't stop in time, the tree is at fault...
This is really RV improvement, not home improvement, but I figure you would appreciate this.
We have a 1995 Airstream travel trailer that we bought in 2011. It still has the original rooftop air conditioner, which still cools very well.
During one trip, the air conditioner seemingly stopped working, but when I turned the thermostat down all the way, it cycled on again. After some trial and error, we found that it was now about 10 degrees off - if we wanted 72 degrees inside, we had to set the thermostat to 62. "Well," I said. "This thing is probably on the way out, and we'll be buying a new AC soon."
That was August, 2013. It continued to work that way until this January, during a trip to Disney World in Florida. It was cold enough early on that we didn't need the AC at all; in fact we got a picture of ourselves in the Magic Kingdom wearing our winter coats.
Later in our stay, it did warm up enough to need the AC, but now, with the thermostat on the lowest setting possible (60), we were only getting down to about 78 in the trailer. I had the trailer on a trip a few weekends ago, and had the same thing then; the problem didn't magically fix itself. Both times, it cooled and cycled on and off perfectly, as though 78 was the temperature I had selected.
78 isn't too bad, but it's like, what's next? When will it decide that, say, 90 is low enough? We travel with pets, and it's just not something I want to deal with. And neither of us sleep well in warm temperatures - and inevitably the cats and dog will curl up with us in that situation, making matters worse.
Maybe I'm cheap, but I hate to toss a working AC unit. And I like how that unit works - it's quieter than many new ones (not at all quiet, but quieter), and it can either run the fan constantly or change the fan speed as needed. It also has a heat strip, basically an electric heater, whereas newer ones have a heat pump instead - more efficient, but they don't work below about 45 degrees (I know home units can do much better than that, but RV units do not).
Note for this, the thermostat is right on the unit in the ceiling - it's not a separate part on the wall like in a house or even in newer RVs. Or even in some other RVs of that era, really. The actual control to set the temperature is a slider with markings that run from 60 to maybe 90.
Anyway, I figured the problem had to be either in the slider to set the temperature, or however it sensed the temperature. The slider seemed unlikely, because the issue is extremely consistent, and you'd think the slider wearing out would mean it would work sometimes and not others, that sort of thing, especially in a vehicle that gets bounced around on the road a lot. So that left the temperature sensor. I learned what a thermistor is - a variable resistor that changes resistance based on the temperature, and I realized one was mounted on the control board, with a section of the board carved away around it to let air get to it easily.
I ordered an assortment of thermistors from Amazon. I guessed it might be a 10k ohm thermistor, but I really didn't know for sure, and if the old one is bad, I can't trust the readings from it. I still can't find any documentation that states it either - it's 30 years old, and RV air conditioners tend to be disposable, and even if someone did diagnose it, they'd probably just replace the board. So, figuring I had nothing to lose, I desoldered the old one and soldered in a new 10k thermistor, and I put the board back in the AC.
IT WORKED! With the thermostat set to 70, it cycled off at about 72, which is good enough for us (and within the bounds of measurement errors on the thermometers I was using). Putting the thermistor in the cold air flow for a moment caused it to cycle off immediately. I'll have to test it more to see if the thermostat is roughly accurate (there are different 10k thermistors), but it's definitely usable, even if the thermostat isn't perfectly accurate.
Total cost, about $12 and a few hours, most of that sitting in an air conditioned trailer to see what would happen. Versus probably $1500 for a new AC installed. And I learned something and practiced my rarely used desoldering and soldering skills!
Now I just have to find a use for the other 99 thermistors...
It's a long story, but I need the aluminum trim replaced around a garage door. Just basic white aluminum trim.
I don't want to do it myself...but I have no idea what kind of contractor I even need to call to do it. What kind of contractor would I call to do this? I'm in Maryland, US.
Google searches either lead me to garage door replacement or siding replacement, neither of which is what I'm actually looking for.
Is there a site where I can post a picture of the project and dimensions and get contractors to bid on it, or at least express interest on it? Angi (formerly Angie's List) seems to require me to figure out what kind of contractor I need, and this doesn't fall into the usual categories.
Thanks!


In 2023, my goal was 4,000 miles, and I made it, so I started with the same this year.
In late September, 2024, my local club did a ride across our state, about 350 miles over 4 days. After that, I was about 20 miles shy of the 4,000 goal, and hit it within the following week. I normally ride 80-120 miles per week, so 350 was a huge jump.
Then, I upped the goal to 5,000 miles, then finished that in late November or early December. A friend congratulated me and noted that 5,000 miles was almost 100 miles per week, so I made the new goal 5,200 miles.
Of those 5,348 miles, 2,111 miles (~39%) were on Zwift. I did three imperial centuries on Zwift this year, and several more metric centuries on Zwift. The rest were all outdoor, ranging from 25 miles to 120 miles.
I haven't decided on a goal for next year yet. Right now it's at 5,200 miles (it automatically resets to the same). But, for various reasons, I'm not sure whether I'll ride that much this year.
Hi, all. I recently received two Zooz Zen51 dry contact relays, and installed one of them in an outdoor flood light fixture with a motion sensor. I thought I'd share my thoughts on the device in case anyone else is thinking about it. Note, I'm in the US and only familiar with US electrical wiring.
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I didn't notice until after I installed it that the recommended temperature is 32-100 F (0-38 C), and it's marked for "indoor use only". Well, it's safely in an electrical box with a gasket and won't get wet, so I'm too worried about the latter thing, but I am curious if I'll have issues with temperature with it. It's supposed to get really cold here in a few days, so we'll see then!
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Size - it's pretty small, but won't fit in every box, especially smaller switch boxes. There was plenty of room in the box behind the motion sensor light, but that's not surprising.
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It gives HA a control to turn the light on and off via a switch entity, which is what I expected.
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I was surprised that the "switch" function (in my case, the motion sensor is the switch, but it could also be a regular light switch) status is not reported, unlike the Shelly 1 I have. Instead, there's an event that is fired when the motion sensor turns on or off. So I can't (directly - I could program a template sensor) see what the current status of the motion sensor is (i.e., is it calling for light or not?).
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Pairing - the directions are a little sloppy on this point. To start the pairing mode, you have to hit the button on the device VERY quickly three times. The slowly blinking green light is the normal operating mode. This is clear when you look up the HA directions on their website, but it's not really in the directions that come with it. The directions that come with it imply it'll automatically connect once you hit the pairing mode in HA. (I installed Zooz's smoke detector sensor a few weeks ago and had the same gripe then...but I forgot when I went to install the Zen51.)
(Note this also means you want to pair before you reassemble everything!)
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There are a bunch of configuration options that can do interesting things. For example I could have it automatically shut off the light after a few seconds or minutes. Or I could "reverse" the operation of the motion sensor - turn off the light when it senses motion, and turn it on otherwise. (I can't think of a use case for that latter situation, but the possibility exists, and I'm sure someone can find a use for it.)
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Configuration is very easy through HA. Go to the device, click configure, then ...configure it. Most options are explained well, but a few aren't clear enough to use without looking it up. For an example of the latter, the "Auto timer unit" setting lets you choose seconds or minutes for the automatic turn off/turn on features...but it doesn't say whether "1" is minutes or seconds. But this is a minor issue; once you have it configured once, you'll probably not need to worry about it again.
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The configuration option "External switch type" was interesting. I set mine to "Toggle switch"...then discovered, the next morning, that the light was on all night. In that mode, any state change of the connected switch (either on to off, or off to on) prompts a flip in the on/off status of the device. So what happened was that I had the light shut off when I went to bed, then the motion sensor turned off, and the Zen51 interpreted that as me wanting the light to come on.
"Toggle switch with fixed actions" was what I actually wanted (and is the default). Motion sensor comes on: light comes on. Motion sensor tells the light to turn off: light turns off if it's on.
I haven't tried the other three modes - Momentary Switch (seems self-explanatory), Split 3-way, and Garage door mode momentary (also seems self-explanatory). Split 3-way lets you use the Zen51 when there's a 3-way switch setup (two switches controlling one light, usually).
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Without any special actions in HA, the light works normally. But I now have the ability to turn it on for reasons other than motion, or turn it off manually when triggered by motion (i.e., I trigger it while walking the dog, then go to bed - my "bedtime" scene will turn it off, if it's still on at that point). I'm planning an "all outdoor lights on" mode that will turn on, well, all outdoor lights, and this will fit right into that plan.
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The other reason I wanted to install this was to provide a point that is closer to the detached garage in the hopes that the Z-wave switch I installed there would now be able to connect to the network. No go on that front, though. :( It should act as a relay but that switch might still be too far away. I might pull that other Z-wave switch back out and put a standard light switch in, and use the second Zen51 to control a different set of lights in the garage (it's a long story as to why I'd do this).
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The secure pairing failed. I didn't retry it, so I don't know if that was a fluke or something more; it did connect in insecure mode. Unfortunately to retry it, I would have had to exclude the device, then re-include it, and I was running short on daylight to finish this installation.
That's all I have, I hope that helps someone who is thinking about these.
New York also receives 4th-round pick for former captain

Wow. That's all I can say. Check out the stats on Vaakanainen at the bottom of the article - he has 1 point in 5 games this season, and is currently on the IR. Overall he has 25 points - 1 goal, 24 assists - in 141 regular season games.
They traded the captain for a guy on the IR and a pick.
First, the good news: My friend is essentially okay, aside from some bumps and bruises. His bike took some damage, but likely not catastrophic: From what we could tell, both derailleurs on his bike and the bar tape were damaged; there may be other damage we couldn't identify immediately, such as the handlebars themselves.
We were riding on this road with two lanes, no shoulder, and there's a light at the bottom of a hill, with a right turn lane. The light was green, so our group was cruising at a pretty high pace - probably 25 or 30 mph - in the right lane (not the turn lane, the through lane) and some driver needed to turn right, but couldn't wait a few seconds. So, they went into the LEFT lane, then turned right in front of our group, hit one of our riders, and kept going.
("Must get in front...oh I have to turn here..." Shitty driving habits in general, I'll bet.)
A few other cars stopped, and someone called the police, who took a report and got an ambulance to check out the victim. Hopefully they'll do some investigation and find the guilty party. The cross street leads into a neighborhood with no other exits, so there's a good chance the perpetrator lives there. Also there is a camera at that light, and one person thought to note the exact time it happened, in case the camera does continuously record.
I hope they find the driver. They deserve to pay for all damages and a huge fine.
Our friend commented that his bike was likely worth more than the minivan that hit him, which is almost certainly true, given it was an older model van and his bike is a high end Pinarello. He also noted that none of us stopped his bike computer, which was good for a laugh.
The ride leader's husband was able to come and pick up her, the victim, and another rider that wasn't comfortable continuing after the crash (we were only about halfway through the planned route). The rest of us pedaled on, albeit a bit more subdued for a while.


I came across this a few weeks ago but didn't save it and couldn't remember what strip it was. I searched many times for it, but it wasn't until this morning that I finally got the right search term for it to turn up again.
Hi, all. Finally migrated from Kubuntu to Debian 12 over the weekend. It's working great, as I figured it would, with one exception: The system isn't turning the monitors off after 10 minutes. It's blanking them, but they're clearly still on.
One monitor is on an AMD graphics card, the other is on the motherboard Intel adapter.
Debian 12 with KDE Plasma running on Wayland with sddm login. It previously worked fine on Kubuntu (which I believe was running X11). It's a fresh Debian install on a different drive; I didn't overwrite the Kubuntu installation.
In the Energy Saving settings, I have "Screen energy saving" checked with a delay of 10 minutes. (I have "suspend session" turned off - one, because I don't want the computer to sleep or suspend, and two, because when I woke it up again, the graphics were garbled and I had to reboot.) As I said, it does blank the screens, but they're still clearly on. I want them to go into power save mode.
I've tried running dpkg-reconfigure and selecting sddm, no change. In KDE's background services, I tried turning off KScreen 2, but that didn't help (though I'm not sure if I rebooted after turning it off, now that I think about it).
I found advice somewhere that suggested deleting .config/powermanagementprofilesrc and rebooting; I did that, no change.
I did notice yesterday that the monitors had shut off...after a very long time of being idle. I'm not sure how long, but more than overnight, for certain.
Any advice or suggestions? Unfortunately, searching is difficult, because I get a lot of results where the screen blanks when it shouldn't. I haven't found much for this problem.
I used the same installer on my laptop to do the same migration (also with KDE Plasma and sddm) and it works fine there.
No major question here, just thought you might find this interesting. It's an example of the kind of (off-the-wall) things you can do with HA that aren't immediately obvious. When I was starting out with HA, I enjoyed reading these examples, because it gave me ideas for my own setup. And, I wrote many automations that should really be scripts, so hopefully this will help someone avoid that and recognize the power of scripts early.
At home, my laptop from work sits (closed) on a stand under the monitors. I have a docking station for it, but the docking station doesn't have a power button to start the laptop (the official Dell docking stations have a power button, but other brand of docking stations don't). So, since I got that stand a few weeks ago, I've been pulling the laptop out and opening juuuuuuust enough that I could reach the power button, then closing it and sliding it back into the stand. There had to be a better way that didn't involve buying an expensive Dell docking station.
The docking station power is on a Sonoff S31 outlet (flashed with Tasmota, not that that's important here) that is remotely controllable. Long ago, I set up HA automations that turned on the S31 when the laptop was detected on the network, and shut off the S31 after the laptop dropped off the network at the end of the day (leaving in a time delay so it didn't shut off if there was a momentary network glitch). So, I'd boot the laptop, and a moment later the docking station would kick on and connect the mouse and monitors to it. And the end of the day, I shut down the laptop, and a few minutes later the docking station shuts off automatically.
I recently discovered the Wake on LAN integration. So, after setting that up, I wrote a script that turns on the S31, waits a while*, then triggers the Wake-on-LAN for the laptop...and it boots up! With HA, I can start the boot process while I'm still relaxing in the living room before starting work; in theory I'll go into the office and it'll be ready for me to log in.
Heck, if HA knew for certain it was a workday, it could boot the laptop for me.....hmmm. Maybe something to think about for the future.
*How long? Well, 30 seconds seems to be too short; the laptop doesn't respond to the WoL command after just 30 seconds with power applied. It did work this morning when I waited several minutes to try it again. I just changed the delay to 1 minute and will see how that works tomorrow.
I also added a repeat loop (starting after that 1 minute timer) with three components:
- A condition that looks for the laptop being "Away" on the network. (If it is "Home" on the network, the condition will end the script.)
- If it is, then it tries the WoL command again.
- Then waits 30 seconds and repeat.
The repeat loop counter is set to 3, for a total of 4 attempts to start the laptop. I'll check the traces and see when it starts working, and set the initial delay accordingly, so that in general it shouldn't need the repeat loop.
If people want, I can post (sanitized) YAML. But I do like explaining the process rather than just posting code.
This is not the first time I've ranted about the previous owner's wiring jobs, though I think they were on the other site (and I had a different username there).
His greatest hits include:
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Above a drop ceiling in the basement, a wire that went into a metal box without a strain relief, so it eventually wore through (for whatever reason) and started shorting out. Since it was above the drop ceiling I had no idea why that breaker would occasionally trip, then reset without complaint. Also, there are other things on that circuit, but the offending wire was only live when the light switch in the room was on, so it was harder to diagnose. It wasn't until we demolished the room that we found the problem...black marks on the box and wires and all.
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A duct fan to route heat from the pellet stove into the master bedroom...with the wiring completely enclosed in the ceiling, with no access to the box. Said duct fan has started making noise, so I'm going to have to cut that ceiling open and replace it, and I'll probably install one of those spring-loaded covers so there is access in the future.
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A fascinating wiring job in the shed that is unnecessarily complicated and certainly a violation of the code on how many conductors can be in a box. I'm going to fix that some time this spring. This is actually a REALLY great one, so maybe I'll post it as a comment.
On to today's hilarity. A few weeks ago I noticed the UPS for my computer in the basement had a red light on the back warning of a wiring fault. I never noticed it before, or I did and forgot, and it's not very bright, so you almost have to be looking for it to see it. Well, I got out one of those testers that you plug in, with three lights that diagnose the issue, and it showed no ground. Odd.
I checked the other two outlets on the same wall, the one closer to the panel tested fine, but the one on the other side of the outlet in question also showed an open ground.
Today I dug in to find out what was up. It turns out the ground was cut on both wires in the outlet the computer was using (supply from the previous outlet and the wire to the next outlet). It was not connected to the metal box or the outlet.
WHY WHY WHY? Why did he do this? I can't fathom why you'd do this.
I replaced all three outlets on that wall with new ones and made sure the grounds were connected. Nothing really wrong with the original outlets and covers, but they were old and beige, and I like white.
Years ago I found an outlet in our closet that only had two prongs, no ground. The house was built in 1987, well after three prongs were standard. With some trepidation - what am I going to find here? - I opened it up and found that...there was a good ground there (to my relief) but he apparently just decided to use a two prong outlet. WHY? He had to have gone to special effort to find a two prong outlet to install. (Actually it is theoretically possible that was done by the builders, but everything else in the house is three prongs, and I can't believe it would have passed inspection.)
Hi, all. My wife and I recently got new phones, and it got me thinking again about how notifications work.
Currently I have several automations (maybe 10) that send notifications to my phone, her phone, both, and possibly other devices.
But when we get a new phone, or replace a tablet, etc., I have to update every single one of those automations. And I inevitably forget some or introduce errors.
Is there a better way to do this? For example, it'd be nice if I could abstract the concept of "my phone" out in those automations, then I'd only have to change the device "my phone" in one place, rather than a bunch of places.
Any thoughts on this? Maybe I'm missing a way to do it. Thanks.
Flyers mascot jokes after shipment of Penguins promotional item goes missing

Of course he does.
This is a long one, but I'm done with Shelly. Too bad, I like that they support HA, but the treatment on this last order is outrageous. The good news is I'm only out $24.
On November 25, I placed an order for a H&T and a Plus 1 Mini as part of their sale, and I received a confirmation for the order.
On December 8, I received an email stating they were overwhelmed with orders and it would be some time before filling them. Okay, that's annoying, but I didn't need them right away - but the H&T I did want fairly quickly because I was hoping to replace an unreliable Zigbee sensor.
Then I heard nothing for several weeks, and the order never arrived. Finally, on January 4, I created a ticket in their support system about it.
They completely ignored that, too. I started seeing ads on Facebook for the Plus 1 Minis, one of the things I ordered, which irritated me.
After about two weeks, I made a comment on one of the ads that my order and the ticket were both being ignored. A few days later, on January 24, I got an email from them saying:
> Excuse us for the delayed reply. We are extremely overloaded.
> For unknown reason, the order is not visible in the US admin system. That's why it is not dispatched yet. Maybe there is a bug in the system about this order.
> However, we informed the US team that the order must be dispatched asap. They will dispatch it soon and you will receive an email with your tracking code.
> Please be patient.
> We want to apologize for the delay and for the inconvenience caused.
I've heard nothing more, almost a week later. I just logged into the ticketing system to discover that they CLOSED THE TICKET. So they can't see the order, and they closed the ticket that refers to it. The problem is NOT resolved - there's no tracking number, no estimated ship date, and no products at my door. I'll be surprised if I ever get the stuff at this point. (I checked my spam folder, and it's not in there.)
Terrible service. I will never order from them again.
I can still file a Paypal dispute, apparently until May. I'll give it a few more days, and if I haven't heard anything, I'll do that.
So, let this be a warning to you about ordering from Shelly...it went okay the first time a few years back, but this time has been a disaster.
https://lemmy.world/post/10554910
Running on a Lenovo Yoga Tab 13, Android 13, version 1.0.4 of Boost.
First impressions, anyone?
The change isn't a big deal for me, because I ride Zwift for exercise when I can't ride outside, and the achievements are secondary. But I know, for a lot of people, chasing those badges or next level is huge.
I especially think how they're handling the transition to the new level is interesting. I'm not sure I totally understood it, but I think any amount of XP you have over the new level you're on will be applied to reduce the amount of XP you need to level up, reducing it by 20%. The amount of "extra" XP you start with determines how many levels will get that 20% bonus. At least, that's how I read it.
Despite what I said above, I sometimes feel like I'm sitting on a level forever. It doesn't really bother me, but it's also like, wow, still level 35, eh? And I would like to get the doughnut jersey, so that seemed like forever away. So requiring less XP to level up will be nice.
I think I'm the only subscriber to this community, but I thought I'd post this in the hopes to get some responses...
Hello! I don't have pictures yet, but I finally finished my mixed road/gravel bike and took it for a short ride (in wet conditions) over the weekend, and I wanted to celebrate a bit. Sorry for the long post!
I bought the frame on sale a few months back from Velo Orange, it's their Pass Hunter model. I had been kind of eyeing them up for years, as they're based near me, for this kind of bike. My eventual goal is to tour the GAP and C&O canal trails with it - my road bike, a CAAD12, would not be up to such a tour. I'll also take it with us when we go camping - we were out west for a few weeks last year, and there were a lot more gravel roads than this east coaster is used to.
The groupset is a GRX Di2 2x11 with hydraulic discs. I know some will disagree with the electronic shifting for a touring rig, but I've read all of the arguments on both sides, and it's what I wanted. In hindsight, I wish I'd realized that the VO Pass Hunter frame isn't really Di2 compatible, because there are limited options for fishing the wires through the frame - a restriction that never even occurred to me until after I had everything. But I can live with it.
This is my first build, my first experience (ever) with electronic shifting, and my first experience with disc brakes (aside from a very short test ride years ago), and my first experience with hydraulic brakes. Lots of learning!
The wheels are from Bikesdirect.com - did you know they have decent deals on wheels, too? DT Swiss rims, Shimano hubs, Shimano rotors, 38c tires mounted, rim and tires tubeless ready, but set up with tubes. I got 700s, but I probably should have gone with 650b for the clearance on the rear wheel. Longer term, I'll pick up a set of 650bs with mixed road/gravel tires, and put pure road tires on my 700c wheels.
I had a bike fit on my road bike (a CAAD12) done a few years ago, so I used the results from that as a guideline for this build. In particular, the top tube on the VO is longer than the Cannondale, so I got a shorter stem to compensate.
I did end up getting wider handlebars (46 instead of 44), but the gravel handlebars feel a LOT wider than the road handlebars. Which, for an all day ride, probably isn't a bad thing - more positions.
I want to test it more, but I'm thinking I'll set the handlebars a little higher than my CAAD12's are, relative to the seat height - because, one, they're wider, so my arms are out farther when I'm on the hoods, meaning I'd be leaning down a bit farther, and two, comfy, all-day touring bicycle.
The bike is all black. I'm not very imaginative. It's like, how much more black could it be? None. None more back. I don't usually name my bicycles, but suddenly I want to call this one "Smell the Glove". (The VO paint is actually black with flakes and a chrome logo, it looks pretty cool.)
It's definitely a slow bike with the weight and tires on it now, but that's okay - the point was to build a comfortable, ride-all-day tourer, not a speed demon. It weighs 24 lbs without water bottle cages, bike bags, etc.
After my test ride, I'm even happier with my decision to go Di2. And that's with repeatedly hitting the wrong buttons to shift on the ride (I have no idea why I was doing that, it's essentially the same as the 105 5800 on my CAAD12, but I kept doing it).
Bar tape: I am terrible at wrapping bars. I have no fear of the mechanical or electronic portions of building a bike, but bar tape...I dunno. It's very stressful for me, I think because it's so visible, and I feel like everyone is looking at it and going, LOOK WHAT THAT AMATEUR DID! But, I think I actually did a credible job on this one, for once. Tip for anyone else that suffers the same phobia: Look for extra long tape, it's one less stressor!
Suppliers: Frame came from VO, obviously. I got the Di2 setup off eBay - oddly enough, that seems to be the easiest way to buy a groupset, if you need the whole thing. Bikesdirect.com for the wheels. I went to Biketiresdirect.com for a lot of the parts, and when I couldn't find what I wanted or needed there, I went to Amazon. I ordered a few random parts from other places, too - I think the handlebars came from another bike parts supplier.
Costs: I expected this to cost more than a pre-built bike would, but if I wanted that VO frame, building one was my only option. But now that I think about it, I might have actually saved a little money this way. This bike, the first result on google for "Di2 gravel bike", is $3495 with 2x, and I'm pretty sure I have less than that into my build. And I included pedals and a good saddle that fits me in the cost, neither of which comes with most pre-built bikes.
Plus, I probably put a few better components on than would be stock, like softer bar tape, and Easton stem and seat posts, and so on. And, I got the parts I needed - such as the correct stem length for me - so I'm not replacing parts that came with a pre-built bike, either.
So, while it doesn't feel like it, I probably did actually save some money over a pre-built bike. Of course, I spent hours working on it, and I bought several new tools at the same time - strangely, I never had a bike stand before, so I bought one as part of this build. (I don't count the tools as part of the build costs, as I'll very likely use them again.)
To do yet:
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Ride it and adjust the handlebar height as desired, then eventually cut the steerer tube, again. I did an initial cut to get it in the right ballpark, but there's likely another inch or so that could come off.
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Check the rear brake - it engages a lot lower than the front brake, so it might need to be bled. I adjusted the engagement point, but it's still quite different compared to the front. It doesn't feel spongy, and I can lock up the wheel, it just travels a lot farther back. I'd rather it be more consistent with the front brake.
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Adjust the clipless pedal tension. I'm used to SPD-SL cleats, and I've used SPD before, but I was having a miserable time with these at first, so I loosened the tension. I'll want to crank that back up.
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RIDE IT!
Mistakes I made:
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My biggest was the Di2 wiring thing. The frame was really intended to have cables, so I have bosses for shifters or cable mounts that I'm not using (they're covered with caps that are the same color as the frame, at least). I wonder how hard it is to remove that thing - I had to repair similar downtube bosses on my old aluminum bike, and that just had a metric threaded rod running between the two sides. Maybe cut a rubber plug for the holes...hmmmmmmmmm.
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I bought a second band clamp because I thought the first one was interfering with one of the water bottle cage bolts...but while I was waiting for the new clamp to arrive, I figured it out with the original clamp. Not sure what I was going wrong at first.
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There are a few spots I could switch to shorter Di2 cables, but the necessary length is extremely hard to predict, I've learned, and those cables are not cheap. One that's too long is the one for the rear derailleur, and that one would be very easy to change and could be done whenever I feel like it. The other is the cable from the junction near the bottom bracket to the shifter - I have a 1200 mm cable, but a few cm shorter wouldn't have hurt. But neither one is so long that it's a major problem, either.
Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic is set to be arraigned Tuesday on a charge of assault and battery against a family member.

Wow.
He's taking an indefinite leave of absence, though it looks like he was already on the IR due to ankle issues.
I use Samba backup and it runs nightly, fortunately.
I tried to update to the latest HA core the other day, and it failed. Reboot and weird things stop working all over the place. The log showed the recorder and a bunch of other things failed to start. When I looked at the command line, I found that files had apparently been corrupted. My configuration.yaml, all 791 lines of it, was gone, in favor of the stock configuration.yaml file.
I restored from the most recent backup before the trouble began, which was taken Saturday morning (I assume the corruption is why it didn't run after that). No dice. Friday's backup got me up and running again, fortunately. I had to re-do a few things I'd changed Friday, but what a relief.
I made the changes again and made a new full backup. I also increased the number of backups to keep from 7 to 10.
Do regular backups, people. Save yourself a lot of headache. I use the Samba option, but there are options to upload to things like cloud storage as well.