I’m starting a little unordered blog thing for topics that I’m conquering.

Tech

Plex Server

Install

Best settings for transcoding

Always direct stream, don’t transcode if you can help it. a 40GB HEVC movie kills a 24-core intel server CPU from 2016, and can barely play it, even with a GTX960 helping out.

ZFS Disk Management tasks

Don’t import by the /dev/sda name, you need the hardware ID. If you used /dev/sda names, you can use sudo zpool import -d /dev/disk/by-id POOLNAME to import all the disks by ID

creating a pool

zpool create POOLNAME DRIVE1 DRIVE2 …

checking on a pool

zpool status

migrating a pool

zpool export

replacing a failing/failed drive

sudo zpool replace ssd_mirror2 OLDDRIVE NEWDRIVE

What kind of drives should I buy?

Not Seagate Baraccudas

Life Tips

Home

Splitting Costs

Splitwise saves you a big headache

Save on soap with a foamer

Buy a foamer + a big concentrated soap. Mix 1/20 soap with mostly water, shake it, fill with water to the top.
As time goes by, don’t let it get air in, some of them seem to fail after you pump air through it.

Humidity sensors

Excellent $10 investment for 4 of them to keep track of humidity in my server room, and near my camera equipment.

Standing Desks

Geekdesk MAX if you can find one.

How to get high-class, Inexpensive Office Chairs

Local “Office Furniture Stores” that aren’t a bigbox store. They will sell you a “New or barely used, but a couple years old” stuff. I got a steelcase chair for $300 that kicks ass.(2021) I got a herman miller areon for $400.(2018) I got my Geekdesk for $400. (2018) Beware of big-box stores like target, staples, officemax will sell you a shitty chinese fake chair made of particle board.

Health

Eating at your desk

Desk worker Yoga

I really like doing yoga but I hate classes. Why not watch an instructor from home? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz5sO8b9G2o Sarah Beth has really mellow chill vibes I enjoy, nothing too flashy.

Go at nature if you are feeling stirred-up.

I bought a nice camera and got into the challenge of photographing birds

Driving Tips

What to proactively look for at a Redlight

Look at the other lights in the place.

Can you reduce traffic by giving distance?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wm-pZp_mi0 sure seems like it

Left lane / Right lane

Pass on the left, drive on the right. It’s not hard.