ruaraidh's blog

This was a question I received today, the day of writing, and it sparked a question in my head. What is it to be a local? How does one define it?

Let's start with some dictionary wanking.

Britannica defines it as

a person who lives in a particular area, city, or town : a local person — usually plural

or

located or living nearby

These two I think give interesting perspectives on what it is. How big is the area? Is it a council region? If so, Highland is pretty massive; 26,000 square kilometres for ~240,000 people If it's the baile, then it's pretty tiny (~200 people), if it includes the bailtean immediately nearby we're probably still around 1,000 people. Not many at all.

What if it's a situation of geographic context?

This is the path that I thought of when I was asked. My answer was “ish”. Why ish? Because although the people asking were from the South of England, I don't feel local to here, I'm from the Black Isle, on the other coast. But to them, I'm close enough to be a local. The distance between the two areas is around 70 miles (110 km).

If they were from mainland Europe, USA or, especially, Australia I'd answer with yes. I think the distance involved and that we're still in The Gàidhealtachd would allow me that.

Are there other factors?

What if you move in from elsewhere and are resident for a long time? Are you then a local? How long would it be? I know there's this 5 year window before people who're resident begin to open up, especially if they're generationally resident. Why 5 years? Because it's likely you'll leave within that window.

What if you were from there, move away in your teens and move back as an adult?

Do you need a continuity of stay? Continuity of lineage? Could you be born and raised elsewhere, move somewhere where family are from (and still are) and be a local?

Could you be regionally local and move to a nearby place? Are you local then? How far before you're not?

I read an article by Rhoda Meek and the piece quoted gave a perspective..

Hold your wheesht for at least three years.

“You will be called blow-ins. It’s not an insult, it simply reflects the fact that many people blow right back out again and we have feelings that get hurt, and ­friendships that disappear, and so we ­protect ourselves until we trust you.

and

“There are people who no longer live here who will always be more local than you or I will ever be. That’s OK. It’s life. You could live here 60 years and still be a blow-in.

as well as a different article of hers

I inhabit two worlds. On one hand, I croft and Gaelic is my first language. I live in the house my great great grandfather built, I know my land — I’ve explored and adventured over it thousands of times. Tiree, and the crofts I share with my father in Caolas are home in every sense of the word.

On the other hand, I grew up in a different world. I moved to Tiree as an adult, seeking a different life. I work for an American based tech company and travel regularly, slipping in and out of identities with a strange ease. From wellies in the morning, to a transatlantic flight in the afternoon.

These I think demonstrate that it's not a simple question. I think it means different things to different people.

Ultimately, it may not even matter.

Do I feel like a local? No.

Will I? Maybe, my children certainly will.

Do those with naïve questions need the ins-and-outs? Probably not and yes-ish will do.

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At long last I have removed myself of Meta (née Facebook) apps and products.

The timeline has been years and it's not been simple or without massive effect.

I began my reduction in Facebook use around the time of Rohingyan Genocide;

when I learned that Facebook was essentially allowing pro-genocide posts to stay online. It was followed by Zuckerberg being broguht before the US senate and his consistent replies of “we'll get back to you with that”, or words to taht effect; essentially not answering and thus coming out unscathed.

I realised then it was time to jump ship.

Leaving Facebook, the site, was like taking all my friendships and setting light to them.

Leaving Instagram finalised that scorched Earth outcome.

I left Instagram after many years of using it. It slowly became a place I felt I had to update versus wanting to share photos. It slowly fell out of place, being updated less and less often until I scheduled my account for deletion last year. I had left my email in my bio of the account and the only people to e-mail, after a year of inactivity, were bots wanting to “collab”.

WhatsApp was the last hold-out.

I only talk to a few folk on there and I had successfully managed to get family and a few pals over to Signal (and one to Threema, just incase Signal bites the dust). The few left I struggled to work out how to say why it would be a good idea or how to ask them to move.
I bit the bullet the other week and flat-out asked them to move to Signal, providing the install link to make it simpler.
They moved and, in some cases, have become more talkative.

The kick to finally remove WhatsApp was the addition of the AI as well as Facebook's general move right-ward. Given that AI is there to harvest even more information from you, extracting without consent where possible, it seems a very good idea to leave.

I've requested my data from WhatsApp, as I have with other platforms and will be removing it in a few days.

I would much rather be able to say “I don't have ___” instead of “I have but don't like using ____“. It's more final and I think places conscious effort onto the reciever of that information to perhaps do the same.

Meta ciao ciao ciao

I will add that the links are just to give an overview; there is a vast swathe of information and I couldn't always find the exact article that covered what I remembered (probably incorrectly) but the gist is in them.

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The Ioniq 5 got returned a few days ago and I am relieved to be relieved of its company.

It wasn't a bad car by any stretch, I just don't think it is a good car for me. My main metric is efficiency, Ioniq 5 is appalling at that. I came across what is perhaps a bug, but the regen was not used when the paddle-regen was shited to zero, the car would use the physical breaks and recouperate very little. This was not the case with any of the settings from one to i-pedal.

On returning

I felt immediately at home in my own car, unsurprising to say the least but a few things revealed themselves:

• The climate controls in the Ioniq 5 are more cumbersome
• The Ioniq 5 is overly large, it isn't a good fit for the roads I drive on
• The thirst for electrons is insatiable
• The Classic feels more stable and less wallowy than the Ioniq 5
• Because it is smaller, it feels more nimble
• Less power means the Classic feels more wafty when the foot goes down

To expand on the insatiable appetite for electrons. My return journey was just over 70 miles. This is mostly at 60mph with a trade-van in front of me. This journey attained an efficiency of 3.6mi/kWh (17kWh/100km).

The return journey in the Classic which was at a similar speed but without anyone leading was 4.5mi/kWh (13.8kWh/100km)

I will miss

I will miss the button for the electronic boot-lid. That's the only thing I've been reaching for that's not there. Closing the lid is no problem, pressing the button was a bit easier. The lights are significantly better than the Classic, every year I groan when it gets dark because the lights are not well aligned for rural roads and adjusting them doesn't seem to do much at all. Ioniq 5 threw the light better and they are brighter.

I will miss the range offered and the associated lack of planning one has to do for trips to Inverness and back. It's summer now, so I'm not so worried about that, but come winter we do need to recharge before we can return.

Future

I would love to get a long-term test-drive of an Ioniq 6, I would like to see if it fits this mental space I have where it would suit my family more than the current car; more spacious, more range but as efficient as what we have. I like to read about comparable cars from the likes of BYD, KIA or VW, perhaps a test of the too. I do like the paddle-shift for changing the regeneration ferocity; from coasting to sipping to gulping back electrons. I've a few years left before I can put pen-to-paper on what's next, so plenty of time to mull it over.

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I believe it is imperative that we reduce the impact of Big Tech and its ability to stalk us and shape our opinions, views and relationships. Because of this, I think ad-blocking is something we should all be doing as standard.

I've been reading this The Register article about PiHole 6 and the whys and wherefors for setting it up. I've been using AdGuard Home(AGH) for over a year now as a network based ad-blocker, in addition to uBlock Origin in my browsers.

As with GoToSocial and Writefreely, I have AGH set up on my virtual machine/server [^1] running Yunohost. The program is here.

Additional benefit is that AGH is available as a snap package if you run any of the Linux distributions that have it enabled. This may prove easier than running it via a virtual machine.

Once setup I pointed the DNS on my router to the local IP of the device running the AGH program.

My set up

I'll go page by page in the screen to keep the settings easier to implement. edited to add a new blocklist, additional blocklist links and new DNS query

General Settings

• [x] Block domains using filters...
• 1 hour filter Update Interval
• [x] enable log
• [x] enable statistics

Latter two I have set to 24hrs just to make sure I'm able to spot and resolve problems.

DNS settings

Upstream DNS servers: * https://dns10.quad9.net/dns-query * https://dns.mullvad.net/dns-query * https://dns0.eu/ * [x] Parallel requests

Fallback DNS servers:

• tls://dns.quad9.net
• https://dns-unfiltered.adguard.com/dns-query

Bootstrap DNS Servers * 9.9.9.10 * 149.112.112.10 * 193.110.81.0 * 185.253.5.0 * 194.242.2.2 * 2620:fe::fe * 2620:fe::9 * 2a07:e340::2

• [x] Enable reverse resolving of clients IP addresses
• Upstream Timeout: 10

DNS Server Configuration * Rate Limit: 50 * [x] Enable EDNS client subnet * [x] Enable DNSSEC * Blocking Mode: Default * Blocked Response TTL: 10

DNS Cache Configuration: * DNS Cache size: 21000000 * Override Minimum TTL: 2400 * Override Maximum TTL: 86400 * [x] Optimistic Caching

Encryption Settings

The 'DNS over...' setting is toggled in the Yunhost admin settings

It's really important to use the configuration panel included in the YunoHost Webadmin interface to activate or deactivate this setting, and NOT the built-in setting in the AdGuardHome interface. This is because YunoHost needs to perform actions such as automatically opening or closing the server's ports and refresh the IP to provide to AdGuard Home, which cannot be done without going through the configuration panel.

If you host your machine at home, for using DoT or DoQ, you have to open the following ports on your router by yourself:

• 853 in TCP & UDP (for DNS over TLS)
  • 784 in UDP (for DNS over QUIC)

• [x] Enable Plain DNS
• Server name myserver
• DNS-Over-TLS port: 853
• DNS-over-QUIC port: 784

DNS Blocklists

I use Hagezi's lists a lot. I think they're the best that currently exist for relatively problem free browsing and keeping the hands of big-tech at bay. I always try to use the Codeberg mirror as Codeberg is vastly preferrable to both GitHub and GitLab.

• General ad-blocking: Pro
• TikTok tracking blocking
• Gambling blocking: mini
• Threat Intelligence: medium

The other blockers I use are Huge AI Blocklist and, specifically for smart tv's, perflyst.

The lists that are supplied are as follows, although for most I have found the originating list: * AdGuard DNS Filter * Dandelion Sprout's Game Console Adblock List * Stalkerware Indicators * NoCoin Filter * Dandelion Sprout's Anti-Malware List

DNS Allowlist

These two, surprisingly, do not cause many ads to be allowed, they're well curated and do smooth over the blocks that come with intended clicks that are also trackers.

• Hagezi Allowlist Referral
• Celenity/Phoenix Ethical Whitelist

The Thanks

When I started running AGH, I had these huge lookup times and it was a serious drag. Now my lookup time is somewhere between 3ms and 5ms, and there are very few, if ever, lookups on the fallback DNS servers. Quad9 and Mullvad do a pretty decent job with their speedy DNS.

A few comments from this thread helped with settings.

This thead has a top comment from the maintainer of the OISD blocklist, which is another very good list to follow, which resolved the lookup times by pointing out optimistic caching.

So I must thank the folk whose comments I stumbled across, the maintainers of the blocklists and programs I utilise.

[^1]: My server is an old laptop running Yunohost via VirtualBox. It seemed the simplest method and one that re-used an old and kinda broken machine.

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My own car an Ioniq 38kWh has an EV! warning and the app claims a Battery Management (BMS) error, so it is in the garage awaiting formal diagnosis and then repair.

The only real plug for Hyundai, I imagine other companies do similar, is that because the car was serviced with a Hyundai dealer we are eligible for Hyundai Assist a recovery process. As part of this I was able to get a hire car and we lucked into a receiving an Ioniq 5. Unsure what size of battery, aside from huge. Whilst driving it about I saw the marks of some suckers stuck to the window, so this was for its 700 miles (pre me getting it) was a press-car! I believe the car is this 84kWh variant

Why not give my experience of my time with it?

Initial Experience

My initial experience is broadly in comparison to my car, which I chose in part because it was small. I didn't want a cross-over style car.

First thing was that the car feels wide, they've sculpted the inside to be more cavernous than would initially think which added to the feeling that the car is driving on both sets of white lines. On the roads here, certainly on the North-West of Scotland, as they gradually get narrower the cars external width starts to match that internal sense of width. It gets touch-and-go sometimes. Controls felt very familiar, though some comforts like heated seats and heated steering wheel are hidden, being activated by a touch-sensitive button that opens a menu on the touch-screen, not a physical button that can be used whilst keeping eyes on the road.

It feels fast, even in eco mode it takes off more swiftly and has a more linear accelerator. Normal and Sport mode were too fast for me to begin with; overtaking opportunities were a little fraught as the car accelerates so quickly it was a little 'woah' and having to steer more aggressively than I am used to. It cruises nicely, though it is obvious it's a bit of a brick. When rolling downhill it doesn't pick up speed as easily as the more streamlined Ioniq does, I can only assume that Ioniq 6 is much more efficient given its streamlined appearance.

It is shite in the rain. Perhaps this is more related to tyre choice (Michelin Primacy 4) but omfg, even in eco mode the car spins up tyres super easily. Although somewhat stable round corners, coming out of them or across bumpier bits of road the car wallows which makes it feel as heavy as it probably is. The only other time you feel that weight is using the brakes. There's this big sense of inertia and although the regeneration sucks up a lot of that energy when the brakes do engage there's a greater sense of inertia that the regen wasn't able to sook enough.

It's not efficient for the type of travel I've got to do; long distance and relatively constant speeds. I'm getting 2.5-3.2mi/kWh, my comparison to that is I have to try hard to get lower than 3.6mi/kWh in my car and regularly achieving 4+ mi/kWh on the same drive at similar speeds and conditions.

I can't think of much else really. The small ones seem to like the back seats, there've been no complaints from their wee rides about. I like the rear passengers get their own vent in the pillar in-front of them as well as charge-ports under the seats (which slide).

More impressions to come...

I'm unsure how long I have this car for. It will depend on how quickly my car gets repaired. I think I'll be able to give a better impression of how it is compared to my own Ioniq with time and more experience behind the wheel. I think I'd like to do a comparison going back down the range to the older car when I get it back; How does it feel to be back?

edit 1: spelling

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My server went down hard.

This is here as folk may discover it. Going through the arduous process of beginning again =/

GTS has returned under @mactunag@gts.eunach.scot

RIP @ruari@gts...

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