Projects
I continue to do some work on projects, though minimal.
todoclient.py
todoclient.py is a small CLI client that was made as there seemed to be no simple command line utility that can update tasks on a remote CalDAV server. It was added to script-dump as it consisted of a single file.
2nd Life Inc.
Throughout this week, I have been working on improving organization and effectiveness of my workspace.
Monday, December 8
This was an odd day, not of what was going on at work but mostly what was going on outside.
In the inspection area, we got many HP micro desktops, mostly EliteDesk 705 G4 with some G5 and G6 mixed in. These are the first Ryzen desktops I have worked on here, let alone this many of them. A majority of the units came with a Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE, a couple with 3400G and several with PRO 4650G.
Most of the newer units with Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G came with a single 16GB Micron Crucial SODIMM using 8Gbit Rev.R ICs, I swapped these out for 2x8GB as these 16GB modules are worth more on their own.
At around 12:00-1:00 PM, snow was starting to come down harder in Richmond. Given how Virginia is unprepared for things like this, compared to Central New York where I was a week before, I felt like I had to get out or be stranded at 2nd Life overnight. The latter I would have been personally fine with but not to my parents. I started driving at around 12:50 PM, where visibility was continuing to shrink. I went on I-95 as usual, which was not affected that much by the snow yet. SR-288 was different, there were not many others on the road, it was just then that salt was being laid down on the road, I had to be careful about being too close as I would be sandblasted with flying salt, hence the "keep back" sign. Nearing Midlothian/Chesterfield, where I was ahead of the salt trucks by then, a light amount of snow covered the road. I started to slide on some sections with slush but I managed it.
Tuesday, December 9
I had to wait before going into work and to verify the roads were safe before making the drive into Richmond. I got in right before 10 AM.
It was a fairly quiet day, we have then finished with the micro desktops.
As with not much else to do, I mounted the two small 5:4 Dell monitors onto a dual-monitor mount that was found in scrap, it was missing the clamp part but I found a plastic piece to put between the screw and desk. This cleared up a lot of desk space. Like before, these two monitors remain to be used for connecting to desktops for inspection. Following this, I started to test whatever DDR4 laptop RAM that was laying on my desk to put back on the RAM shelf.
Later on, I decided to merge the DDR3 and DDR3L memory racks (memholders) to simplify organization. Surprisingly, this took nearly no time to do.
Wednesday, December 10
With road situations more or less being resolved, I went into work at the normal time.
I continued to work on my workspace. I found another dual-monitor mount and pulled two working 5:4 monitors from scrap that were in there with the note "not a widescreen". I thought that it would be more cost effective for the company to make use of the hardware instead of getting pennies on the dollar for scrapping it. This brought the amount of monitors at my workbench to five.
Using the FreeBSD Intel NUC at my desk that I installed Radicale on December 4, I copied over todoclient.py and found that it combined with cmdwatch, it can act like ToDoKiosk but in the console instead of a browser. This system turned into a dedicated To-Do list viewer sort of like what I have at home. This is something I needed for a while now as I would often be unable to remember tasks at hand.
Thursday, December 11
Getting about 73 HP monitors, I started to work on monitors again. Using the method of using a Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter as a video source since it is so small and is able to be powered off from the USB ports on the monitor along with utilizing the service menu, I was able to inspect two monitors at once getting panel and hour count while not taking more than five minutes with each set.
To my surprise, I found a couple monitors from 2022 that had Innolux AAS panels, specifically M215HCA-L5Z and a few others from 2019 that had M215HCA-L3B and M230HCA-L3B. It seems that office monitors use a variety of different panels, even in the same batch, likely to stabilize supply chain. I noticed that on these HP monitors, the first letter of the FW/HW revision points to the panel vendor, for example AIM111 has AU Optronics, LIM111 has LG, IIM241a has Innolux. Still, throughout the 73, these five were the only ones with Innolux panels, again showing how rare it is. I set these aside and plan to purchase them from the company soon, like I have done before with the Lenovo ThinkVision monitors from November, where I brought home the five Innolux-based ones I found and now currently use.
Friday, December 12
I finished up inspection of the last of the HP monitors, I had to reinspect some from other coworkers. At the end, about 81% of the 73 monitors in the quote were inspected by me.
After finishing up the rest of the monitors, me and another coworker was tasked with counting four boxes of server RAM, checking if any miscounts have been done prior. While with massive pressure to get these boxes shipped the same day, we managed to get an accurate updated count.
Personal
Auvelity
On December 3, I was prescribed Auvelity but not until December 12 I was able to receive the medication. Other meds, including Prozac, remain unchanged. This mix of Aztarys, Auvelity and Prozac I call "Virginia Rocket Fuel v3" (v2 using OTC DXM, v1 not having DXM at all), in contrast to Califronia Rocket Fuel (mirtazapine/venlafaxine), poking fun at Silicon Valley developer culture; California Rocket Fuel: numb the feeling until you forget what the problem was, Virginia Rocket Fuel: feel motivated to fix the problem by any means neccessary.
From October 1, 2025 to December 12, I have been doing something similar, in which I took OTC (over-the-counter) dextromethorphan along with Wellbutrin. This was somewhat effective, noticing a vast improvement in mood but it came with some side effects including short-term memory loss and dissociation/depersonalization. I have described the use of OTC cough medications for this as "filling a teacup with a garden hose", where this DXM is released into the body all at once when the capsule is absorbed, leading to these side effects while Auvelity supposedly releases the DXM and bupropion steadily. Though, I am not a doctor and this is just my limited understanding of how this works. Anyways, this was quite an interesting last month-and-a-half. While still having some doubts about this, I remain optimistic about seeing some improvement.
I have been avoiding medication talk here for the longest time but I felt as this was relevant given my mental health challenges surrounding Homestuck/Hiveswap.