Life update

This is probably one of the unusual and difficult posts I’ve ever written, and written with the most unusual way for me and one of the very few posts from me that does not have a proper thumbnail.

As many of you might have already noticed and wondered where I have been, many things have not been going well here for the last few months with the recent events that happened a few days ago that slowed things down massively for me.

2021 has been far worse than 2020 considering where I live due to poor handling of the ongoing crisis by the government (that is one of probably many that are run by 🤡s). After 8+ consecutive months of lockdowns throughout the year, it only gotten worse with no signs of improvement at all. Countless outrage have been observed all over the place, and a lot of the truths that are spoken out are being silenced. Reported suicide cases are growing rapidly (not to mention the unreported ones). Not going too much into the details, this is a topic that deserves its own post for those who are interested.

techcoderx.com

Not going to repeat too much what I’ve posted here, just to re-emphasize that it took too much time to diagnose this and to get it fully operational. Due to logistical issues (related to the above), I’m lucky to be able to pull it off with only 32GB of RAM instead of the previous 48GB, although with some minor changes with that being not using any GUI at all unlike the original setup.

In addition, due to the increased blockchain activity, the disk usage is growing faster than ever and is filling up the 2TB NVMe SSD quickly. To reduce SSD wear by not having it to be too full, I have temporarily added a 500GB NVMe SSD that I used in the same build that was originally made for video editing (which was then subsequently turned into API nodes). This mostly stores the block_log file that is currently 397GB.

As my motherboard only has one M.2 slot and one PCIe x16 slot, I have to remove the GPU to make way for the additional and was lucky to find that it can boot headless as the CPU does not contain any integrated graphics. My plan from here is to eventually add another 2TB SSD (SATA drive this time for more flexibility) on the upcoming holiday sales to store all hived files as the disk I/O bottleneck (if any) is usually observed on PostgreSQL that powers Hivemind. If the chain grows beyond that I can add another 2TB drive and setup RAID 0 when needed.

Alive Protocol

Some weeks before the below happened, I have the opportunity to work on some more of the UI logic of the Alive Qt Quick desktop app as well as a minor change to the protocol that significantly reduces the RC required to broadcast a stream. The documentation have been updated to reflect this. The only thing left is to get it to stream using the core daemon and to actually create new streams on the blockchain.

To simplify the initial release, Alive Protocol will be released on Hive first followed by Avalon.

My only work computer died 😭

Very recently, my 6 year old A1534 Macbook where I do most (if not all) of the work chose this very moment to stop turning on for some reason. I had to replace the swollen battery that has created gaps and preventing the lid from closing properly, potentially breaking the display plus the fire hazard. Everything was put together, the logic board did show some good sign such that the LED is lit when plugged in (at least to a 5V charger instead of the usual 12V as mentioned here). Took a very close inspection at the logic board and did not find anything unusual. It just refused turn on. Maybe a coincidence but more likely that I did something wrong that I can’t spot myself. Hence will have to take it to an independent repair shop to see what they can find otherwise and it could potentially take weeks if it is even possible to get it back to life.

The only computing device is my phone where I’m typing this entire post on using the mobile Hive Keychain browser and is something that I have never done before. For the next few days/weeks I will have to do everything with this tiny screen that I’m not used to do in the past, such as working with tiny terminal windows. And proper dev work is just impossible on a phone.

The now Hive server build can’t be used for this as it is running headless as described above. It probably is insecure as it is open to the internet to serve the API.

This remains an ongoing shitshow and hopefully I can update this post as it develops.

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UPDATE 1: I was quoted $381 for various repairs that will take 4-6 weeks to complete. For reference, an identical model that is in fully working condition can be found on eBay for $300. Quotation declined.

UPDATE 2: techcoderx.com redirected for scheduled maintenance. At the same time using it to settle the witness server invoice.

UPDATE 3: At this point I’m probably waiting for the M1X MBP (I need macOS) which will be announced on 12th or 19th October if rumors are correct. API nodes should be up at most times, I may need to take it down periodically until I settle on this.

UPDATE 4: My API nodes are temporarily taken down as I need to resume most work ASAP, using the same build running Windows 10 (the Alive PySide6 desktop app crashes on Linux for some reason turns out it was just missing some packages) until I get my hands on one of the M1X Macs, which is likely to be late October or November at this point.