Testing internet over 5G wireless

Photo of 5G gateway device standing on its shipping carton in front of a window. The device is nine inches tall.

tl;dr This didn’t work out. Why not? Random disconnects requiring user intervention, and a very weak 5G signal. The LTE signal was strong enough, but it looks like the less congestion-prone 5G isn’t really provisioned in my neighorhood as of mid-December 2022. I’m testing a T-Mobile internet-over-5G service. My phone is on T-Mobile, so they … Read more

Dumpster fire?

Enough already with using “dumpster fire” to describe a huge chaotic mess!

Dumpsters are designed to control fire. If a dumpster’s on fire, shut the lid and shut the side doors. The fire will burn itself out.

Maybe the same idea applies to people on fire. Deny them the attention they crave, their psychological oxygen, and maybe their fires will cool off too.

Power and Sustainability in WordPress

To improved sustainability of software like WordPress, it’s important to ask Where is power consumed? At the data center, at the client (the user’s machine or device), and in the network routers and line drivers used to transport the data. To reduce data center power: To reduce client power: To reduce network power, make your … Read more

Sonic search: notes on its use

I have been working on a WordPress search plugin to use Valerian Saliou‘s Sonic search backend. It is a lightweight alternative to backends like Elastic Search. Its straightforward approach to normalizing natural language queries makes it useful for searching WordPress content. And its speed and feature set lend themselves gracefully to autocompletion. Using Sonic in … Read more

Leaf peeping by bike

This is a sweet ride around seacoast New Hampshire and southwestern Maine. It combines mountains and coasts with a little urban riding in Dover and Portsmouth. The dirt road up to Mt. Agamenticus is in good shape.

Get started with WordPress Development

Someone asked how to get started developing with WordPress. Here’s my take on it. You gotta learn to use it first. These are steps to getting power-user skills. Hosting Buy an account on a budget hosting service. ~US$10 per month is a reasonable cost. It MUST support multiple WordPress sites. Sometimes these are called “subdomains” … Read more

A birthday song

Here’s a song my brother Barney Jones composed for my recent birthday. I am lucky to have such a talented family. Thanks, Barney! Most of the material on this site is Creative Commons licensed. This isn’t. It is Copyright (c) 2023 Barney Jones. All Rights Reserved.