Dishwasher repair: success.

December 26, 2021 Home renos , , ,

We have a Meile dishwasher that failed about a year ago.  Sofia’s sleuthing led us to believe that this little part, a fill valve, was to blame.  People with Meile dishwashers have reported having to replace this little part multiple times.

We were confident enough that this was the source of our issues, that we went ahead and cut the original out, expecting to be able to find a replacement part easily.  It turns out that it was not so easy.  To get a branded replacement, we weren’t finding anything less than about $250 (some of which had the right part number but sold in the UK where they use 220V lines.)  At that price, it is tempting to just ditch the dishwasher and get a replacement, however, this is a stupidly expensive false front unit that has a cover that matches the other cabinetry.  I don’t expect that we could have pried that facade off easily to replace the unit, and if we had to, who knows where we could have gotten a replacement facade (assuming it was destroyed attempting to remove it from the old dishwasher.)

Anyways, after way too many months of hand washing our dishes, we finally gambled on a generic replacement ($35+$10 shipping CAD):

It’s a single solenoid GE component, but it worked!  Two additional parts were required, the first of which was a 3/8″ -> 3/8″ interior to exterior elbow (somehow I had one of these in my drawer of random plumbing related crap), and the second of which was a set of crimp on electrical connectors ($6 for a package of them at home depot.)  It took me two tried to get the connection not to leak (it dribbled a tiny little bit each dishwasher cycle), as I hadn’t put enough teflon tape on the connection between the fill hose, and the elbow.

Kudos to Youtube’s Scottthefixitguy, as his video on Miele fill valve replacement video was perfect instruction for this operation!

All is now well, and we are already enjoying not hand washing the dishes.  It’s amazing how much time that has added up to over the last year or so.  We should have braved the generic replacement fill valve months ago!  Total cost (parts, shipping, labour;) was only ~$50 CAD.

Brilliant political marketing: in a lawn sign of all things!

September 12, 2021 Incoherent ramblings , ,

I’m not a fan of political signs.  I don’t think they do any good, except to show off tribal affiliations.  Nobody is convinced by a lawn sign, and if reading a lawn sign changes your mind, then you haven’t looked at any of positions of the party.

The argument for political lawn signs must be one of marketing, but I’ve always wondered what the cost benefit ratio for this particularly stupid form of advertising is.  There is no room for any substantive content.  However, I’ve now been proved wrong, by the following sign:

(photo credit to Connor, who took this nighttime drive by in a car, sending it to me figuring I would be amused.)

Year after year, one is forced to conclude that there are no good options in any election, and this sign channels Brewster’s Millions, to point that out brilliantly.

I don’t believe any vote that I cast, assuming I do so, will do any good.  My vote, as always, has no meaning, and serves to perpetuate the fraud that we call democracy.  A small subset of the population will succeed in voting for somebody who has won enough of the popularity contest that they will get to enact their desires to become as corrupt as it is legally possible to be.  Those new corrupt popularity contest winners, will not be anybody’s representative in any real sense, not even to those that voted for them.  That is especially true here in Canada where the party whip rules forbid one’s “representative” from expressing or acting on their perception of their constituent’s desires.

Other than the PPC, here are my voting options:

  • Voting liberal will aid the return of the vapid puppet, “hair-boy Trudeau”.
  • Voting conservative will probably result in a federal clone of corrupt Ontario dictator Rob Ford.
  • An NDP vote is like a vote for a tax hike.
  • Voting green is pointless, as they probably still don’t have a well thought position on anything (in their defence, I haven’t re-read their party platform to see if it has changed.)
  • There is no Libertarian candidate in my riding this year (and there has never been a strong one.)
  • Believe it or not, there is actually a communist running in my riding this year.  How many millions of their own people have to be killed by communists before it is enough to acknowledge by those seeking to resurrect this evil?

It is certainly true that “The other options suck!”

Based on interviews with Maxime Bernier, not any sign, I had planned to vote PPC this year.  They seem to be the only party that is taking a stand against the abhorrent authoritarianism that is running rampant in the name of covid-19.  That should be the only issue people should care about right now, so it is clear how I will vote, if I decide to play the fraudulent democracy game.  I have no optimism that such a vote will do any more good than any previous one that I have ever cast.

Playing with an inheritance scammer: Molobane Karabo

August 7, 2021 Just for fun , , ,

Correspondence with an inheritance scammer.  I don’t live up to the great James Gleitch, but this at least illustrates the mechanics of the scam technique.

 

Hello, I sent you an email about a pending Inheritance of US$17.3Million. Did you get my previous email or should I re-send it.

Regard, Mr Kelvin Roberts

 

(playing dumb:)

Hi Mr Roberts,

I did not receive your email, but it surely was not intended for me, so you should check and correct the email address you sent it to.

Peeter

Thank you for your email, as you already know my name is  Kelvin Roberts , I contacted you regarding the sum of US$17.3Million, this fund actually belongs to a deceased customer, of our financial institute  who passed away without leaving a will/next of kin to any person,and contacted you because i have made several inquiries from here to locate any extended relatives or friends of his, which has proved unsuccessful for me, after these several unsuccessful attempts, so for the funds not to be forfeited to the bank /government as an unclaimed funds that is why i wanted to present you as the beneficiary to the funds.

So I am prepared to make you the next of kin if you are ready to cooperate with me. I shall provide all the information needed to approve you as the beneficiary and all this will be done in a legal manner.

Let me know if you are willing to proceed with me so I can tell you what your role will be and what is required from you. Do keep confidential.

I await your reply.

Mr Kelvin Roberts

(still playing dumb:)
Hi Robert,
I’m sorry, but I am not a US citizen, and am surely not eligible for your transfer.  My mother, who passed away with pancreatic cancer a few years ago, was a US citizen.  However, I never went ahead and acquired my official dual citizenship, and cannot do so now.
—
Peeter
It does mean because i am writing from South Africa not US so go through my email below then understand this transaction better.

First I want to thank you for your prompt response to my email. I really do appreciate your kind of gesture towards this matter. But as a matter of fact I want you to also be rest assured that this transaction is real and is 100% legitimate and risk free, consequently there is nothing for you to worry about.

Basically, I want your total full co-operation and trust, somebody who will entrust this funds in his hand before/prior my coming over to have my share of the money. And please, Bear in mind that, if there is going to be any problem I will never even start or rather embark on it, considering my position at the bank and my life entitlement, my families and children. This is my lifetime opportunity, I planned and waited patiently for this opportunity, so please be very understanding about this transaction.

Upon your full assurance and willingness to proceed on this transaction, I will start the whole process immediately to put in place all relevant  your full name and information should appear on our central computer database,  having you as the rightful heir to the funds. With my position in the bank to make sure everything goes well when it comes to the point of making the transfer to your account in your country and this must be done before submitting your application for release request.

Consequently as a result of the urgency and time being of the essence I will appreciate you forward to me with the  following
information

1 Your direct confidential telephone
2 Your full names
3 Your Age
4 House address/company address if any.
5 Occupation/profession.
6 Marital status

I will want to give you the assurance that this project is scheduled to be completed within 7 to 10 working days if all instructions are followed up religiously. and i have also agreed to give you 50% while i get 50%. But you have to assure me that you are going to be trustworthy and honest because the bottom line and most important thing is for both parties to be honest and fair in this matter, especially when it comes to money issues.

Let me know if you are willing to proceed with me so I can tell you what your role will be and what is required from you. Do keep confidential.

I await your reply.

Mr Kelvin Roberts

(He wants my identity, but not my banking info.  Interesting.  I added a couple of weeks delay on purpose, since he said there was a 7-10 day timeline.)
Hi Mr Roberts,
I was excited about the possibility of all that money, but for some reason your email went into my spam folder, and now it is too late.  Should an opportunity like this arrive in the future, please keep me in mind.
—
Peeter
(he repeats himself:)

First I want to thank you for your prompt response to my email. I really do appreciate your kind of gesture towards this matter. But as a matter of fact I want you to also be rest assured that this transaction is real and is 100% legitimate and risk free, consequently there is nothing for you to worry about.

Basically, I want your total full co-operation and trust, somebody who will entrust this funds in his hand before/prior my coming over to have my share of the money. And please, Bear in mind that, if there is going to be any problem I will never even start or rather embark on it, considering my position at the bank and my life entitlement, my families and children. This is my life time opportunity, I planned and waited patiently for this opportunity, so please be very understanding about this transaction.

Upon your full assurance and willingness to proceed on this transaction, I will start the whole process immediately to put in place all relevant  your full name and information should appear on our central computer database,  having you as the rightful heir to the funds. With my position in the bank to make sure very things go well when it comes to the point of making the transfer to your account in your country and this must be done before submitting your application for release request.

Consequently as a result of the urgency and time being of the essence I will appreciate you forward to me with the  following
information

1 Your direct confidential telephone
2 Your full names
3 Your Age
4 House address/company address if any.
5 Occupation/profession.
6 Marital status

I will want to give you the assurance that this project is scheduled to be completed within 7 to 10 working days if all instructions are followed up religiously. and i have also agreed to give you 50% while i get 50%. But you have to assure me that you are going to be trustworthy and honest because the bottom line and most important thing is for both parties to be honest and fair in this matter, especially when it comes to money issues.

Let me know if you are willing to proceed with me so I can tell you what your role will be and what is required from you. Do keep confidential.

I await your reply.
Mr Kelvin Roberts

(What I gave him:)
1 Your direct confidential telephone
I don’t have a phone number at the moment, and am working on picking a new service (long story.)
2 Your full names
Peeter Joot
3 Your Age
67
4 House address/company address if any.
40 College Street,
Toronto ON M5G 2J3
5 Occupation/profession.
Retired.
6 Marital status
Married.

(note that 40 College Street is the Toronto Police headquarters address.)

 

Just finish a meeting with the lawyer it was successfully, he told me it will cost us $ 2,550  to help obtain the full relevant documents in your name from the court and other government departments, signed them on your behalf send to you that you will forward to the bank for the release of your inheritance as the sole beneficiary of the funds ,  so we split it as partner please get back to me so that i will tell you how to send it to the lawyer.

I await your reply.

Mr Kelvin Roberts

(more playing dumb:)
Hi Mr Roberts,
Sorry, I didn’t fully understand.  Do you need $2550 or half of that?
Is a personal cheque okay, and if so, where should it be mailed?
Peeter
Yes, it is $2550 for the lawyer to help us put together the whole relevant documentation that we make you the beneficiary to the funds but you have to send it through western union money transfer via my secretary name that i will send to you which will be faster so i await your reply.
(more playing dumb:)
Hi Mr Roberts,
I’ve never done a western union money transfer.  Is that hard to do?
Peeter
No is not hard all you need do is to go to western union money office and tell them you want to send money to a friend in South Africa then they ask for the information i am to send to you also your information as the sender thereafter after payment they will issue you a payment slip that you will scan and attached to me for pick up to enable the lawyer start the process.
(I didn’t reply, but he must have thought he hooked one, and sent me enough identity that he or somebody else could do a Western Union pickup:)
So find  below the payment information, you are to send it to my secretary via western union money transfer after payment send me the payment scan slip to enable me forward it to the lawyer so that he can start the whole process.

Payment information

First Name Molobane
Middle Name   Karabo

Surname    Mogaone

Question             To Whom
Answer                   Friend
Address  78 Clive St Robindale, Randburg, 2032. Randburg

City   Johannesburg ..
Country   South Africa

Now I thought I’d get to mess with him:

Hi Mr Roberts,

When I searched for the address of the closest western union, I found that Elon Musk had announced that Doge coin had replaced money transfer services like western union.  I guess that he has so much money that he bought the company.

However, I can’t figure out how I can convert $2550 into doggies.  Can you give me detailed instructions please.

Peeter

Sigh.  At this point he either gave up on me as a useless idiot, or figured out I was playing with him.  I didn’t get any more replies.  He’s not a very good coach, and didn’t even object to me wanting to convert money to “doggies.”

Installing CUDA SDK on Fedora 34

June 10, 2021 Linux , , ,

I’ve been wanting to try GPU programming for a while.  My non-work laptop, which is now installed in a Windows-10 + Linux Fedora 34 dual boot configuration, has a GPU that I can play with.  lspci -v shows that it is:

GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mobile

I’m sure this is an underpowered GPU compared to what you’d find in a desktop gaming machine (my stepson has an RTX 3XXX series GPU in his machine, which I’m sure could be made to do much more interesting things — although he thinks it’s for games.)

Setting up the nvidia driver and the cuda SDK on Linux turned out to be a bit more trouble than I figured.  This required:

  1. Installing the cuda SDK.
  2. Building a downlevel gcc version (gcc-10) so that I could run the cuda SDK samples, as Fedora 34 ships with gcc-11, and the SDK doesn’t like that.
  3. Disabling the default nouveau driver
  4. Building and installing a Linux kernel from source, bypassing the default Fedora kernel, which has a debug configuration that enforces GPL symbol purity.
  5. Manually installing the nvidia driver.

Step 1.  Installing the cuda SDK.

The nvidia site has an options dialogue for selecting the packages for your operating system.  The closest I was able to select was Fedora 33, for which the installation instructions were:

wget https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/11.3.1/local_installers/cuda-repo-fedora33-11-3-local-11.3.1_465.19.01-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -i cuda-repo-fedora33-11-3-local-11.3.1_465.19.01-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf clean all
sudo dnf -y module install nvidia-driver:latest-dkms
sudo dnf -y install cuda

Needless to say, this didn’t work.  After installation (and reboot) I was able to create a working copy of the SDK samples using:

/usr/local/cuda-11.3/bin/cuda-install-samples-11.3.sh

Trying to build one of those samples bombs right away, with an errors like:

139 | #error -- unsupported GNU version! gcc versions later than 10 are not supported! The nvcc flag '-allow-unsupported-compiler' can be used to override this version check; however, using an unsupported host compiler may cause compilation failure or incorrect run time execution. Use at your own risk.

Step 2.  Build a downlevel gcc:

git clone git://gcc.gnu.org/git/gcc.git
cd gcc
git checkout releases/gcc-10.3.0
contrib/download_prerequisites
mkdir ../build-gcc
cd ../build-gcc
../gcc/configure --prefix=$(HOME)/gcc-10 --disable-multilib
make -j12
make install

 

With that done, I’m able to compile CUDA samples, but they all fail with cudaGetDeviceCount errors, like so:

matrixMul> ./matrixMul
[Matrix Multiply Using CUDA] - Starting…
CUDA error at …/…/common/inc/helper_cuda.h:779 code=100(cudaErrorNoDevice) “cudaGetDeviceCount(&device_count)”

A bit of googling shows that those errors all mean that the nvidia driver isn’t running or installed properly. This was confirmed by trying to run nvidia-smi which gave me:

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

Step 3. Googling suggests that the following might help:

sudo su -
echo "blacklist nouveau" > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
dracut -f
reboot

(but it didn’t.) I’m not sure if this step was required or not, but I haven’t undone it.

Step 4. New kernel build and install.

I tried installing the nvidia driver following instructions from JR:

The basic steps are:

  • download the driver .run file.
  • telinit 3 to switch to console mode.
  • try running the NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-465.31.run installer.
  • Look at /var/log/nvidia-installer.log and see what went wrong.

The first error I found was that the symlink in /lib/modules/5.12.8-300.fc34.x86_64/build was a dead link. I actually seemed to not have matching sources and modules. I upgraded:

sudo yum clean all
sudo yum -y upgrade

to grab matching kernel+sources (figuring there was an update available.) That also didn’t work, because /lib/modules//build pointed to a -debug location that wasn’t available. Correcting that link gave me different errors, namely, gpl symbol errors like:

FATAL: modpost: GPL-incompatible module nvidia.ko uses GPL-only symbol ‘mutex_destroy’

(there was a whole pile of similar errors.)

To build a kernel that didn’t have the gpl issues (which apparently comes with the fedora default kernel due to some sort of debug configuration), I ran:

sudo dnf group install "Development Tools"
sudo dnf install ncurses-devel bison flex elfutils-libelf-devel openssl-devel

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
cd linux
git checkout v5.12.9
cp /boot/config-5.12.9-300.fc34.x86_64 .config
make oldconfig
make -j12
sudo make modules_install
sudo make install
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
sudo grubby --set-default /boot/vmlinuz-5.12.9
reboot

Step 5. Install the nvidia driver manually, last try:

After reboot:

telinit 3
login
/path/to/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-465.31.run
reboot

With all this done, I nvidia-smi runs successfully:

Thu Jun 10 00:30:35 2021
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 465.31 Driver Version: 465.31 CUDA Version: 11.3 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... Off | 00000000:01:00.0 Off | N/A |
| N/A 44C P8 5W / N/A | 5MiB / 5944MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 5867 G /usr/libexec/Xorg 4MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Now I should be setup to try some CUDA apps (the samples, GPU crypto miners, parallel numerical code, password crackers, or whatever else might be interesting to fool around with.) I’ve got a couple CUDA books on order from the Toronto public library, and will start fooling around in more depth once I get those.

Reimaged Windows laptop for dual Windows-Fedora boot.

June 6, 2021 Incoherent ramblings , , , , , , , ,

I used my funky usb-C external drive enclosure to facilitate an operating system switcheroo today.  I wanted to try a Windows/Linux dual boot configuration, something that I haven’t done in a long time.  There was enough room on the original 1Tb SSD, but I’d bought myself a 2Tb SSD for backups (and crypto-mining experimentation) and decided to repurpose that as a replacement drive for my Windows (xpg) laptop.

Since both my new and old drives were both M2 SSD drives, I was able to pop the old drive and put it into my external enclosure.  If I messed up reinstalling either Windows or Linux, then at least theoretically, I could have recovered by just putting the old drive back in.

I didn’t mess up the installation and now have a brand new dual boot configuration with Windows-10 and Fedora-34.  I’ve got WSL-2 + ubuntu-20 on the Windows side:

and a grub boot selector for the operating systems:

and the Fedora-34 desktop configuration for the native Linux installation:

I opted for Fedora over Ubuntu, since I figured both track the state of the art fairly well, but with Fedora I don’t have to keep looking up the dpkg equivalents of the rpm commands I’ve used for so many years and have memorized.

I have a whole bunch of install fine tuning to do still, but have all the bare bones now installed on both sides.

Having an external enclosure for the SSD made migration really easy.  I was able to mount it after my Windows reinstall was done, and just move my old \Users\peete directory.  I’ll have to weed out the bits that I don’t care about, but I’m now ready to blast away the partitions from the original laptop installation, and then use that 1Tb drive for backups and file transfers between machines.