|
|
|
any password I want
Sunday, December 1 2019
A big snowstorm was predicted for tonight, so one of the things I did (after some snow had already fallen) was salvage firewood from a couple smallish dead trees near the Stick Trail. One was a newly-fallen red oak about fifty feet south of the middle of the stone wall, and the other was a standing chestnut oak about 100 feet further south. Unfortunately, the red oak still contained a fair amount of water, which was obvious from the heaviness of the pieces.
Other chores I did today included adding another support for the plastic conduit running to the Gunther Room split. It took the form of an L-shaped assemblage made of treated lumber that I attached directly to the concrete block foundation wall that is the Gunther Room's northern wall. I also reinstalled a big fluorescent tube ceiling lamp assembly (the kind that takes old-school fluorescent tubes like you remember from high school) in the ceiling of the shop. I'd had to remove this to gain access to the ceiling beneath the wall where I snaked the power cable for the laboratory split. Unfortunately, I dropped the lamp assembly at some point in the installation, and, though I was able to fix the dented sheet metal, I think the jolt killed the old ballast unit, which was probably on its last legs anyway. This was apparent when I reinstalled the tubes, because they produced only a murky, shimmering light.
Snow fell throughout the afternoon, causing Gretchen to close the bookstore and come home well before dark. The snow initially didn't accumulate much, but by dark it was coming down at a brisk rate.
My new LibreElec-based media computer seems reasonably good, though there are still glitches to work out. One is that it tends to crash whenever the onscreen keyboard is used to type more than five or six characters. This is real problem when trying to create a new SSH password, since LibreElec enforces unspecified rules about password complexity, and five or six characters are evidently too few. Passwords must apparently also contain both numbers and alphabetic characters, a restriction that is known to be absurd (and to contribute to insecure practices such as writing passwords on Post-It notes). I wanted to change the password policy, but I could see no way to do so. My question on unix.stackexchange.com remains unanswered. In this case, the device would be behind a firewall and not exposed to the open internet, so I wanted to be able to use my usual four-character easy-to-remember password, which is only ever used for devices not directly reachable via the internet. It's my device, and I should be able to give it any password I want, just like I should be able to keep my keys in my car if I so choose.
Snow on the stone wall, seen from the north.
Click to enlarge.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?191201 feedback
previous | next |
