Notices by 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account (thorthenorseman@octodon.social), page 79

I think the setup in this building is about as close to ideal as you can get. I have zero channel overlap on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, the 5 GHz is running at a 80 MHz channel width, and there's 25 dB of signal attenuation between the floors. I don't think it can get much better than that.

I've been fine-tuning the setup in this building after I discovered that not all 5 GHz channels are created equal: To get a 80 MHz channel width, you have to pick the right channels.

"A ratio of 10-15dB is the accepted minimum to establish an unreliable connection; 16-24dB (decibels) is usually considered poor; 25-40dB is good and a ratio of 41dB or higher is considered excellent."

Okay, so I need a minimum of 25 dB attenuation between floors before I can consider any channel overlap.

In this concrete building, the attenuation looks to be about 32 dB between this floor and the one above it. I can say this because I have identical access points on each floor.

It may seem a bit of a bummer to cap a 500/500 connection to 200/200 per floor on WiFi, but that's better than having an unreliable 400/400 connection per floor. I might still go for 80 MHz if there's sufficient signal attenuation between the floors. Just gotta figure out what "sufficient" is in terms of dBm, so off to Google I go.

It may seem a bit of a bummer to cap a 500/500 connection to 200/200 per floor on WiFi, but that's better than having an unreliable 400/400 connection per floor. I might still go for 80 MHz if there's sufficient signal attenuation between the floor. Just gotta figure out what "sufficient" is in terms of dBm, so off to Google I go.

The reason for the 40 MHz channel width test on the Linksys is that, since it's only dual-band, it doesn't have many 5 GHz channels, and only a single possible extension channel at 80 MHz, and thus only one non-overlapping channel, whereas in the 40 MHz mode, there's two overlapping channels, which is more helpful to me, since I'm doing a multi-floor multi-building WiFi setup for my landlord, and I don't want interference.

Just performed an interesting test: I put an Asus RT-AC66U tri-band (AC1700) router up against a Linksys LAPAC1200 dual-band (AC1200) access point.

I ran SpeedTest on them both from my iPhone 7 Plus at a 1 meter distance parallel to the antennas, connected to 5 GHz.

I tested a 80 MHz channel on the ASUS and 80 and 40 MHz on the Linksys.

Results (rounded):
- ASUS 80 MHz: 400/400
- Linksys 80 MHz: 400/400
- Linksys 40 MHz: 200/200

WiFi frequency planning across a multi-story multi-building site gets real hairy.

You have 20/40/80 GHz channels and extension channels on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, and you've got to try to minimise the overlap, and where you can't, you have to exploit radio barriers in the buildings (concrete) and the distances between buildings and floors to create isolation.

It's a giant puzzle. It would be a nightmare if I wasn't such a huge nerd who loved such challenges.

The challenge with science is that you want to question it, but you don't want stupid people to question it, because they'll only veer off into astrology, racism, eugenics and conspiracy theories.

However, if you tell stupid people that certain things are absolutely true, and then change your mind later, they'll start questioning it anyway.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Are there any diagramming tools that aren't shitty in some way?

Google Drawings is fine, but very primitive and lacks a good symbol library.

draw.io has a good symbol library, but you can't adjust the symbol connection points without editing XML, and it's very stupid about moving the connecting lines in a sensible way when you move symbols, and also doesn't maintain grid alignment when you move a group of objects.

@Leelaroo The Norwegian Post seems to be fairly reliable, if a bit more expensive. PostNord, the result of a merger between the Swedish and Danish Post, is more dubious. They haven't had great press, and I personally had one parcel go missing for months before it suddenly turned up again. Their tracking system is also less than stellar.

@dym @quad The Chinese are acquiring Scandinavian companies all over the place. It used to be the Americans, which was slightly more comforting, since they are an allied power, and everyone knows what the Americans are like. With the Chinese, it's more of a gamble.

If I'm lucky, the switches and access points I ordered yesterday will arrive today. At least one access point that I had to order from a different webshop will definitely arrive today, via the Norwegian Post. I'm less sure about the parcel from PostNord. Their courier service isn't exactly stellar.

@xrevan86 In the high prestige dialects of Norwegian, the same gender merger has happened, but the reason for this is direct intervention: During the Danish rule of Norway, Danish became the official language, and the upper class adopted Danish spoken with a Norwegian accent. Since the feminine gender was missing there, it also disappeared from this prestige dialect, which stuck around after Norway became independent again.

@xrevan86 In the Scandinavian languages, it's masculine, but unlike in the Romance (and possibly Slavic) languages, grammatical genders are only loosely connected to real-life ones. This might be the case for all the Germanic languages. Genders in German often match those in Norwegian, for example. In Swedish and Danish, that's not the case, because the feminine gender has been merged with the masculine one, and the resulting gender is called the "common" gender.

@quad Who are they, and are you from Norway?

Having a problem seems to be the main way of finding the motivation to pursuit a goal. You're young and are keen to prove yourself, so you do. You're about to go broke, so you find work. You have unfulfilled wishes, so you pursuit them.

There's very little that I badly want in the way I did when I was younger, and if you don't badly want a thing, you won't work hard for it. It's a common misunderstanding that motivation can be created. You just have to want the thing in question bad enough.

Having a problem seems to be the main way of finding the modification to pursuit a goal. You're young and are keen to prove yourself, so you do. You're about to go broke, so you find work. You have unfulfilled wishes, so you pursuit them.

There's very little that I badly want in the way I did when I was younger, and if you don't badly want a thing, you won't work hard for it. It's a common misunderstanding that motivation can be created. You just have to want the thing in question bad enough.

The net effect of all of the above is that I'm left asking "Now what?", followed by "Yes, I could do that, but why?"

I didn't question my motives when I was 25. I just knew that I wanted a thing and worked for it. Now I work because it's necessary. There's no dream. There's just stuff I want to avoid, like unemployment or illness, so I perform the upkeep.

Most mature businesses I've encountered seem to operate on a similar principle. It's all very pragmatic.

Sometimes, I wonder who I am. What defines me as a person? What's my narrative, destiny or calling? When I was younger, I had all these goals and dreams that felt like they defined me. As I approach 40, my priorities have become far less obvious, and many of my former defining traits have moved to the background. New priorities have not replaced the old ones, leaving a gap that I don't know what to do with.