This commit to crypton-x509-store fixes a security hole I found, that could leak private key material to a child process across a security boundary.

https://github.com/kazu-yamamoto/crypton-certificate/commit/e353d450c381c9d6b903c4257927e0c89c97acb1

While this specific security hole is unlikely to affect many users of the library, I'm glad that the maintainer took this seriously and fixed it. And I think this drives home that #haskell has a very bad default in opening files without close-on-exec set.

Note that the old x509-store package also contains this security hole, and as far as I know will never be updated to fix it.

Now this is the Dusseldorf food I have been craving (not to speak ill of Schweinshaxe!)

1 year old! #distribits

Lovely comparison of parallel developments #gitAnnex #distribits

Awesome #gitAnnex #distribits

4 hours from now I'll be talking about #gitAnnex at the #distribits conference. There's a link to a live steam on https://www.distribits.live/

#l10n

On a deserted redeye to London. Seems the US is not getting a lot of tourists..

Rainy day test of my solar expansion and I'm pleased to see the new west-facing arrays are producing slightly more power than south-facing. The slightly brighter sky to the south doesn't make up for the larger sweep of skyglow to the west.

Look Daddy, your kid is on TV!

pulled up my old solar data from when I moved here in 2010, and this time of year, it was common for the maximum production, at solar noon, to be about 50 watts

the arrays are producing 50 watts now... after sunset

Here's my completed 11kw #solar expansion, added to the 1kw roof mount I did 8 years ago.

I have turned off all my other solar panels to test these, and they are easily powering all my needs at 3:30 pm, including EV charging, and probably will until the sun sets.

The real test will be a rainy day..

(I wish I had not been 6 inches off with that lower-right ground mount, leaving an unsightly gap, but it does not affect array stability and I didn't feel like spending 2 hours correcting it)

Completed my #solar panel install with the west facing array (4.4kw).

down to the wire

hauled 15 wheelbarrow loads of gravel in 3 hours, and that's done... ready to install the final 8 solar panels

literal cardboard box to dump gravel into has reduced my workload significantly

turns out that a box of rocks can be pretty smart if you know what you're doing

Second row ready for #solar panels, only took 1 day of wheelbarrowing gravel!

my #solar field is full of thyme

(Sowed it last year as a ground cover and was very surprised it did so well, covering 100 square feet or so.)

same newspaper that had a "we need to keep burning natural gas" editorial the other day

(the NYT)

reading our national provincial newspaper tut-tutting about long distance green energy power transmission lines in the developed world that "emit static electricity that local people said they could feel when holding a metal fishing pole"

also with regard to wiring gender analogies and MC4 connectors...

Four new solar panels are wired up, chilling in the shade and producing ~50 watts while waiting to start their work this evening.

While crimping the MC4 connectors, I was thinking about how wire colors don't stick in my head well... I keep looking at the wires going into my multimeter to remember if red or black is positive. Externally imposed memorization has always bounced off me, but I can remember tens of thousands of lines of program code/structure in enough detail to sometimes do productive lucid dream programming.

Anyway... solar... anyone can do it. Some millions of other solar panels also turning on for the 1st time today.

my first time installing a longer row on powerfield powerracks, and I was unsure how hard it would be, but some very careful alignment paid off and it was a breeze to get them mounted

first of three #solar

Cables for the #solar field expansion are run and connected up to the PV combiner box mounted on the solar fence

been maintaining the xr_usb_serial_common-1a kernel module for my own uses for way too long, didn't want to update it to a newer kernel again, and despite the kernel being documented as supporting the genuine cable, it didn't seem to work for me, so

successfully ordered the right knockoff USB to RS485 cables on aliexpress, removing unmaintained out of tree kernel module needed by the genuine cables

Produced 1 megawatt-hour of solar power #offgrid over the past year to charge my electric car. That was 25% of overall its power use, and charging cost has been stable at $0.05 per mile.

Once ongoing installations are complete, I expect to charge the #EV more llke 50% at home. It's currently limited by inverter size mostly.

We got one wire pull done this morning after a rethink of how to pull it, the second one is stuck in the second to last 90 so lube ahead, and the third is not yet attempted. Oh well, enough to install the first third of the solar panels already.

conduit is ready for wire pull tomorrow, and then I expect to get the 1st four #solar panels on fairly easily, fingers crossed

good morning

 click for video

 listen to me sing

After 9 months, I am back to filling ballasted #solar ground mounts with gravel. Half way done with them all at this point, and hoping my 4 ton gravel pile makes it to the end.

Only some minor leveling and I'll be ready to start filling my #solar ground mounts with gravel.

I started clearing this area to extend my solar field in the spring, it's been a long process.

my spring is running again, whew

 https://youtu.be/2aRTiVFQi9Mhttps://youtu.be/2aRTiVFQi9M

For #SunDay, I'm posting the design of my DIY solar fence

https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/cheap_DIY_solar_fence_design/

A year ago I installed a 4 kilowatt solar fence. I'm revisiting it this Sun Day, to share the design, now that I have prooved it out.

The solar fence and some other ground and pole mount solar panels, seen through leaves.

Solar fencing manufacturers have some good simple designs, but it's hard to buy for a small installation. They are selling to utility scale solar mostly. And those are installed by driving metal beams into the ground, which requires heavy machinery.

Since I have experience with Ironridge rails for roof mount solar, I decided to adapt that system for a vertical mount. Which is something it was not designed for. I combined the Ironridge hardware with regular parts from the hardware store.

The cost of mounting solar panels nowadays is often higher than the cost of the panels. I hoped to match the cost, and I nearly did. The solar panels cost $100 each, and the fence cost $110 per solar panel. This fence was significantly cheaper than conventional ground mount arrays that I considered as alternatives, and made a better use of a difficult hillside location.

I used 7 foot long Ironridge XR-10 rails, which fit 2 solar panels per rail. (Longer rails would need a center post anyway, and the 7 foot long rails have cheaper shipping, since they do not need to be shipped freight.)

For the fence posts, I used regular 4x4" treated posts. 12 foot long, set in 3 foot deep post holes, with 3x 50 lb bags of concrete per hole and 6 inches of gravel on the bottom.

detail of how the rails are mounted to the posts, and the panels to the rails

To connect the Ironridge rails to the fence posts, I used the Ironridge LFT-03-M1 slotted L-foot bracket. Screwed into the post with a 5/8” x 3 inch hot-dipped galvanized lag screw. Since a treated post can react badly with an aluminum bracket, there needs to be some flashing between the post and bracket. I used Shurtape PW-100 tape for that. I see no sign of corrosion after 1 year.

The rest of the Ironridge system is a T-bolt that connects the rail to the L-foot (part BHW-SQ-02-A1), and Ironridge solar panel fasteners (UFO-CL-01-A1 and UFO-STP-40MM-M1). Also XR-10 end caps and wire clips.

Since the Ironridge hardware is not designed to hold a solar panel at a 90 degree angle, I was concerned that the panels might slide downward over time. To help prevent that, I added some additional support brackets under the bottom of the panels. So far, that does not seem to have been a problem though.

I installed Aptos 370 watt solar panels on the fence. They are bifacial, and while the posts block the back partially, there is still bifacial gain on cloudy days. I left enough space under the solar panels to be able to run a push mower under them.

Me standing in front of the solar fence at end of construction

I put pairs of posts next to one-another, so each 7 foot segment of fence had its own 2 posts. This is the least elegant part of this design, but fitting 2 brackets next to one-another on a single post isn't feasible. I bolted the pairs of posts together with some spacers. A side benefit of doing it this way is that treated lumber can warp as it dries, and this prevented much twisting of the posts.

Using separate posts for each segment also means that the fence can traverse a hill easily. And it does not need to be perfectly straight. In fact, my fence has a 30 degree bend in the middle. This means it has both south facing and south-west facing panels, so can catch the light for longer during the day.

After building the fence, I noticed there was a slight bit of sway at the top, since 9 feet of wooden post is not entirely rigid. My worry was that a gusty wind could rattle the solar panels. While I did not actually observe that happening, I added some diagonal back bracing for peace of mind.

view of rear upper corner of solar fence, showing back bracing connection

Inspecting the fence today, I find no problems after the first year. I hope it will last 30 years, with the lifespan of the treated lumber being the likely determining factor.

As part of my larger (and still ongoing) ground mount solar install, the solar fence has consistently provided great power. The vertical orientation works well at latitude 36. It also turned out that the back of the fence was useful to hang conduit and wiring and solar equipment, and so it turned into the electrical backbone of my whole solar field. But that's another story..

solar fence parts list

$1100 total

(Does not include cost of panels, wiring, or electrical hardware.)

(he felt he needed it to get up here; I mars rover my car up the driveway these days thanks to EV torque and traction control)

yesterday: Sausage tteokbokki with lithuanian black rye bread

today: dude in a side-by-side offering his dog a sip of beer while parked in front of my woodshed/solar EV charging station

Drat, Amazon's supply of RS485 to USB adapters has been de-adulderated, so rather than the knockoff that works perfectly with in-kernel drivers, they are again selling the genuine part that needs an unmaintained out of kernel driver.

Buying from Aliexpress instead..

Sad to see that http://bugs.debian.org/773619 has been closed unfixed with a bullshit reason of a package being supersceded (by a new package with a different name but same code base).

Fixing this bug would be a quality of life improvement even for people not cooking cornbread over wood coals.

Anyway, message received, I'll limit my bug reports on firefox in Debian to things that full-on violate the social contract.

Confirmed no leak in my buried water line with a pressure test.

So I have two water tanks, each 6 years old, each leaks about 7 gallons/day. At least removing 1 tank solved half the leak..