I often see posts on forums and groups of people asking for help on how to get something working, the responses that are given can be very “elitist”. Only generally pointing somebody in the right direction without actually giving the time to walk somebody through the process of actually doing the thing they have asked. I understand that not everyone has the time to do this but with me being reasonably new to this kind of thing myself I thought I would create my only step-by-step while working it out myself and just hope that others asking the question will find it.
So firstly thank you for being here.
I have made a list of places I got the info from at the end of the post. They all were able to help me figure this out and have a wealth of Knowledge so please after you have completed the guide check them out.
Before we get started this guide is for anybody already running a computer that has installed TrueNas Scale running a standard 64bit Intel or AMD processor. This could be an old tower PC, Mini PC or basically just about any hardware that would generally run Windows.
If you haven’t already installed TrueNas Scale Raid Owl has a great friendly video on how to set up, and basic use of TrueNAS Scale on his Youtube channel. The only thing he doesn’t cover is how to create a USB installer. You can find how to do that here: https://manjaro.site.
Once you have a computer that boots up into TrueNas Scale with Storage setup you can follow this step-by-step guide.
I have also done a video to walk you through the guide:
Sometimes a simple image can hit you with a mountain of memories and that happened to me today.
The Official Therapy? Instagram feed this week posted this “Festival” poster for Donington Monsters of Rock 1995.
Donington Monsters of Rock 1995 / Metallica: Escape from the studio 95
It is without a doubt one of the most epic moments of my younger years.
Anyone that has ever been into music will tell you that the music you listen to when you were in your teens will always have the biggest impact on you.
I was 16 years old and was well and truly into the Rock/Metal/Grunge scene. The year before (1994, The Greatest year ever for music) some of the most epic bands released some amazing albums.
The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails.
Vitalogy, Pearl Jam.
Dookie, Green Day.
Soundgarden, Superunknown.
Grace, Jeff Buckley.
Purple, Stone Temple Pilots.
No Need to Argue, The Cranberries.
Sixteen Stone, Bush.
The Holy Bible, Manic Street Preachers.
Deliverance, Corrosion of Conformity.
Troublegum, Therapy?
MTV Unplugged in New York, Nirvana.
It was an epic time of music in the UK, brit pop was at its hight and the fallout from the death of Kurt Cobain was driving interest in the Rock music scene.
One big name in the Rock industry that was missing however everybody wondering what they were going to do next. Metallica.
Therapy? – Infernal Love
For me; Therapy? was my band. They had hit it big in the UK with the track Screamager and I had not only become obsessed with the Troublegum Album I had also been absorbing their “Nurse” Album.
The day of Therapy?’s released the “Infernal Love” Album in the summer of 1995 I turned up at the record store first thing to get my copy with my best mate.
I sat in the living room of my mate’s house that morning, we put the CD in and pressed play. We both sat there and didn’t move until we had really listened to it. The amazing Photography from Anton Corbijn, the transitions between songs, the rock Cello from Martin McCarrick, the lyrics and the songs. I was in love with “Infernal Love”.
Metallica was on the backend of the Black Album and hadn’t put out any music for a while. While working on their new album they decided to start drumming up interest in preparation for their further release. They picked up that phone and called in some big-name band to support them. Metallica is a very big band and Therapy? by comparison was not, so when Metallica announced a massive UK gig that was basically a takeover of a whole festival for the “Mattalica: Escape from the studio 95” I was shocked to see that one line down on the bill was Therapy?
I had to be there.
My best mate and me as well as some only friends got coach tickets heading from Sunderland City Centre at 4 am in morning to Donnington for a full day of Epicness.
The full bill for the days in retrospect is one of the best lineups of a Rock/Metal gig ever. Looking back Therapy? had no write to be on that bill for such a big event but for me thay 100% should have been there.
I didn’t tell my parents about the Gig… I simply got up at 3 am and made my way to the coach.
My friends were aged 14-17 and not one of us should have been allowed into the gig without adult supervision…. But this was the 90’s.
I had my leather jacket, jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of boots. I had no money to buy food or drink for the whole day. I was just there.
One of my friends (14 years old) got drunk on the coach on the way and they made him wait at the gates for 2 hours to “sober up”.
During the Machine Head set I was down in the mosh pit when a guy ask to use my water to wash the sand off his thumb…. It was hanging off by the skin. We offer to take him to a medical tent… he said he would after the set!!
At the front – Castle Donnington 1995
The Therapy? The set felt so epic after spending the last few months wearing out my copy of Infernal Love, Troublegum and Nurse.
I also remember being totally overwhelmed and transfixed with the fireworks/strobes when Metallica played “One” after a long day of no food or drink and struggling to keep standing. I sat back to allowed it to take me.
In December of that year, me and my best mate both got the mirrored “?” logo tattooed on my body. It was my first tattoo. Ozzie, an old-school tattoo artist must have thought we were gay and was so uncomfortable with the whole thing and didn’t check our ages. I guess he just wanted the money, and us out the door.
When I got back home my parents were very confused while I looked like a sweaty hobo and simply asked…. “Where have you been?”
MTV’s Headbangers Ball – Monsters Of Rock, Castle Donington 26.08.1995
Still one of the best musical moments of my life and all i have to remember it by is memory and a bootleg Tshirt with incorrectly spelt band names on it. (I blaged £10 off a mate for it)
So Samsung has just released a bunch of new stuff and the stand-out thing for me so far has been the MacBook Air… oh, sorry Galaxy Book3 Ultra.
Galaxy Book3 Ultra
Don’t get me wrong this thing has a 16” screen and the specs look very good but:
Spot to Mac
To me, it looks like they are taking the “Great Artist Steal” mindset to the extreme. I think the Book3 Ultra looks like they have copied the midpoint of the M1 and M2 MacBook Air with a bigger screen.
Mac or Not
I guess we’ll have to wait for the full review see to what the consensus is and why it costs €2,799 ($3,056).
It’s entirely possible that my wife thinks I’m a psycho and I’m okay with that.
For Christmas, she got me tickets to go see “the psychology of serial killers” at the Liverpool Empire. A talk from former Metropolitan police officer in crime scenes officer, now forensics lecturer, Jennifer Rees.
Spot the Serial Killer
Not really sure what to expect I took my seat and spent the first 10 minutes scanning the room, trying to work out who was the actual psychopath in the room. I’m not 100% sure if I spotted them, but there were certainly a few contenders.
The talk was fantastic. She covered the different classifications of serial killers and some of the statistics that sent them down that route. As my wife will content to, I do seem to know an unhealthy amount about some of the more popular serial killers in the world However, the thing I liked about the talk from Jennifer was that she covered some of the less common individuals and the stories around them and was linking that back to the statistical research done on serial killers.
The Psychology of Serial Killers
One of the most interesting sections of the talk was around hybristophilia (People who “fall in love with Serial Killers”.
The whole thing was fascinating, and I would highly recommend it if this is even remotely in your wheelhouse.
Firstly well done to her bringing in £100k a month from bean flicking for the boys (and girls) or whatever she’s doing. I would hardly say that it’s a “affordable housing scheme”.
OnlyFans star earning £100k a month starts ‘affordable housing scheme’ for UK families
The Mirror
A Cynical person would suspect that if you needed to promote your non-standard business venture to the mass media. Buying a bunch of houses from the thousands of pounds you have already made, renting them houses out and making a small profit from that; promoting it as some kind of charitable deed would be a good way to increase your earnings on your main business.
Rebecca Goodwin rakes in £100,000 a month by creating adult content on OnlyFans, and now the mum-of-two is planning to use her earnings to create affordable housing
The Mirror
That said however, nice one for the families who are going to be getting a little bit of discount on the rent and fair play to her she’ll be bringing in £200K per month before the year is out.
So I just built and installed my first useful and working (well seems to be) Internet of things (IoT) connected bit of electronics.
1. What does it do?
It give me the live electricity use of my whole home. It’s able to show how much I am using now, how much so far for the day/week/month/year. It can give me the exact cost of my electricity broken down into 30 minute segment (or down to 5 minutes if I really need to).
2. How much did it cost?
1 ESP32 microcontroller £8.49
1 x Photosensitive Diode Sensor (for 5) £6.99
1 x Long USB cable that will reach you electric meter (for 2) £3.50
A always on computer running Home Assistant. (More on this another time)
A few lolly stick’s and a bit of electricians tape.
Time (lots of it).
On this point I paid a lot less than this but all the links above are for easy purchase from Amazon with super quick delivery. I had to wait almost 3 weeks for the stuff to arrive from some far away land along with some other stuff I was already getting. I also already had the USB cable and the DuPont cable kicking about.
Total (quick build cost): £27.47
(It cost me around £14 using stuff I had kicking about. I basically just needed a ESP32 and the sensor – if case you were wondering)
3. But why you mad bastard?
Kettle on, Kettle off
Picture the scene.
Your standing in the kitchen and one of your Alternative/Goth children come in to make a cup of hot Buckwheat Tea (it’s a thing) or whatever their hot beverage of choice is. Despite telling them for years to turn them lights off or not waste electricity by filling the kettle to the top; she’s at it again. This time however you can point to the live gauge on your mobile dashboard showing the needle jump from 400w in use to 3,500w in use.
Random Alt Girl
As Lincoln said “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember”
Having a better understanding of what power you are consuming helps you and the people around you have a better understanding of what you can do to make it better by reducing what you use.
Having the details and also the cost of what energy you are using is helpful for planning on reducing use and readying yourself better for your big fat energy crisis bill.
You could basically gain the knowledge need to put the bills on a diet and try and save some pennies.
It’s also pretty cool. If you have an interest in smart home geekery stuff it’s a great little project to get stuck into.
Let me know if you have built your own and how you did.
Sometimes when you get, used to listening to great albums from back in the 80s and 90s you get used to hearing the epic songs and standout singles.
When they are this good however you maybe don’t fully appreciating how good they were back in the day and that they (for the lost part) would have been performed live at most point and you missed out
Phil Collins is one of these artists where I have never actively looked back at live performances thinking that the album version of these great songs was enough.
Nope
I stumbled over this live performance of Phil performing “in the air tonight” at Knebworth in 1990.
Amazing band, amazing vocal and epic drumming.
Somehow the song feels more special seeing and listening to it in.
This is definitely worth 7 minutes of your life. (6min 33sec to be exact the extra 27secs are for saying (wow”)
