In COVID Quarantine : What to do ?

[Evildead666]

So, many of us are currently stuck at home in quarantine.
What to do ?

I have updated my LinkedIn profile, and applied for a new job.
Had been meaning to do it for a good while, over a year, and finally got round to doing it.

I'm also working on my Cars, mainly getting my '89 Passat back into full working order.
It's been sitting for a couple of years.
I managed to fix a lot of things back then, and then the Injection system seemed to go funny, and I've left it since then, due to work, and it needing a bit more than a weekend to do. (Have plenty of time now though )
Waiting on a few parts to arrive by post to get going at it.

Having another go at setting up a pfSense router/Firewall.
I have an AsRock J3355B with 16GB of ram, and i'm going to try and set it up properly this time, instead of overloading it with stuff I don't need, which broke it and I put it aside (lack of time again...)

Any other suggestions for people who are bored, or in need of something to do ?

[Dilitante1]

Been home anyways due to unemployed status
Been fighting with school stuff to update certs to current

aside from that my to-do list is:
clean/dust servers/PCs
clean/oil guns
looking for NAS software that will work with hardware raid card in my R710s
tinkering with Windows 10 more (not a fan)
have a few linux distros to try
unbury my arcade cabinet and see if still working (Tempest)

[Evildead666]

Been home anyways due to unemployed status
Been fighting with school stuff to update certs to current

aside from that my to-do list is:
clean/dust servers/PCs
clean/oil guns
looking for NAS software that will work with hardware raid card in my R710s
tinkering with Windows 10 more (not a fan)
have a few linux distros to try
unbury my arcade cabinet and see if still working (Tempest)

afaik, I know of no (freely available) Nas software that will run with hardware raid.
They usually have to be set up, or flashed, to pass-through mode.

I have quite a few Raid cards, mainly to try and get my Tape drive to work in the Nas, but i've given up for now as I don't want to break the Nas, I just copy <1.5TB at a time to an LTO5 tape, and then carry on from there.
It's a hassle, but I really like my Nas now

The HP Raid card that came with the tape drive works in Windows 10 with LTFS, and i'm just fine with that.

Ah, Tempest. Its ancient, but a great game.
Probably easier on a joystick, but I always played with keyboard.
I think I should have it on my Amstrad emulator (for Windows).

Its not on the Internet Archive of Arcade games : https://archive.org/details/internet...rt=titleSorter
but it is available as a ZX Spectrum version, with 99 levels it seems : https://archive.org/details/zx_Tempe...reams_Software

[UtwigMU]

I taught a webinar on Centos 8 administration last week. Was hard to pull because worries, etc... affected my preparations and it was a new version. I did pull through though.
Retrogaming on dos box.

Also plan to update linkedin and will watch MS webinar next week.

I might want to find a ZX Spectrum emulator. There are a few games I'd like to replay.

[Dr Mordrid]

We're sort of preppers, having months of stored, canned foods, and an emergency water tank. Furnace & emergency generator run on either natural gas or propane, and there's a big propane tank under the back yard. Going out mainly for fresh veggies, milk, meds, etc.

Watching TV, browsing, reading, checking off the wife's "honey, do" items, going to my wood/metal shop for mental health periods. Wife has her own craft shop.

[VJ]

Epic Games Store (epicgames.com) has 2 free games every week. If you hurry, you can catch the current offer for Sherlock Holmes, Crimes and Punishments. A very nice adventure game, where you play Sherlock (in 3rd person view, using Unreal Engine) and solve a couple of mysteries. It holds your hand a bit too much (at least for hardcore adventure gamers), and at the same time does not provide more than circumstantial evidence to find the culprit, but it is a great 10 hours fun.

[Umfriend]

I am trying to learn Python. As a real and old functional programmer, this OOP is going to take a lot of getting used to. Also, more of a back-end programmer (I am not actually a programmer but I do program quite a bit in VBA and SQL). I hate GUIs but that is what I want to get to grips with a bit. Documentation is dramatic, I get the idea that to use Python and, say PyQt5, you actually have to know a lot only to get it installed right (e.g. some libraries do not support most recent version of Python) and I have yet to find a concise list of all the classes/methods that is easily accesible without having to know what .rst files are and how to skim through them.

[UtwigMU]

Once I had to teach bosses daughter python as she flunked her CS. Despite never having used Python before we solved some simple problems such as find numbers divisible by 7 and she passed.

https://www.codecademy.com/catalog/language/python

You can find some resources here.

[VJ]

Ubisoft currently offers Assassins' Creed II for free...

On a more serious note, I've returned to integrating home media players into my home automation. Eventghost (http://eventghost.net , which uses a lot of Python for its plugins and scripts) is very useful for this, and actually for many other things (control of softwares, add some behaviour). So if you are playing with Python, but want some interesting functionality, it is a great program to play around with.

[Evildead666]

I'm using a Pi4 for kodi media duty, with a Hifiberry Pro hat. (Dual cinch connectors for stereo out)
Only problem is the heat from the Soc, and the hat being a haet trap on top.
Have to have a 5V USB fan on it, and its noisy at 5V, would be silent at 3.3v, but that would disturb the hat if I use the pins.

I'm aiming to use the HDMI audio passthrough eventually (5-7.1 output), and have a multimedia amp still in its box for it some day.
Still using my Kef Coda 7's from Uni, and have Klipsch shelf speakers ready in their box for that day.

[Evildead666]

Banksy working from home :

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Aqdh4Jd5x/?utm_source=ig_embed

[ZokesPro]

I made two purple heart swords with a random hardwood guard and a diamond shaped tip. Kept it super simple.

My current project, two purple heart/padauk dark age cross bows, keeping it super simple once again.

So far so good, looks badass and has good fend shui.

It's a nice challenge to be able to take random scraps of exotic hardwood and make new and better toys you've always wanted when you were young. But now, the fun isn't to play with them but to make them and watch your kids really test the design to the max for any manufacturing flaws. Also comes with a dedicated onsite 24/7 dedicated techinican, as stated in the warranty.

[Umfriend]

also comes with a dedicated onsite 24/7 dedicated techinican, as stated in the warranty.

:d

[Greebe]

Jumper off the GPIO to the HAT and add one of these HS's... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Want real high end audio on a Pi? https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/grou...o-kit-buy.html

[Elie]

Hey Hey hey everyone, hope you are all doing good.
pretty much staying at home, been home for over a month now. do the occasional trip to the grocery store because apparently I am disposable LOL.
Went to the hospital yesterday because my son bashed his head on the corner wall, he's fine now 5 stitches later, but the scene at the hospital was like the movie Pandemic, everyone is full top to bottom protective gear, they wouldn't even let me in, it was just my wife and son.
I think this will continue for at least another year before things get back to normal.