Sergey Pisarenko

I have previuosly written a guide to configure a 802.11ac access point using hostapd in gentoo linux. Another enthusiast discovered that my guide does not lead to a working access point. Turns out I missed crucial steps to configure DFS which is required for operating on higher frequencies. In this guide I diagnose the problem and correct the mistakes. I also show how to increase transmission (TX) power of the wireless card. [Read More]

Ever since I rode with my friend John around Swiss-Italian lakes 2 weeks ago I wanted to return and do a loop that goes into Italian valley Centovalli. We had omitted it from our tour because topographical maps were suggesting that there’s 2200m of climbing involved and that was outside of our “daily budget”. However, so much ascent seemed excessive for an altitude difference of 600m.

Last Saturday me and my friends Riccardo and Codrin came back to bust this myth once and for all. Turns out that a loop that goes into the valley from Locarno involves just 800-900m of climbing! Since that was too easy for us I added a small surprise at the final half of the route bringing total ascent to respectable 1561m.

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Since I commute daily all year round my cycling season never stops. Longer rides, however, mostly don’t happen in winter. To open 2015 biking season I went with my friend John on a 2-day cycling tour during the Easter holiday. Because the weather forecast was predicting windy and rainy conditions in most of the Switzerland we decided to go south and ride along several lakes in Italy and Ticino.

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I decided to purchase a laptop as I find myself longing for a computer away from my beloved workstation more often. Last time I bought a laptop was 8 years ago. Dell built a laptop I feel genuinely excited about - the new XPS 13. It’s as small as 11” machine with really narrow bezel. It comes with specs that are just right for me. However, I’ve learned that buying from Dell is not that easy! [Read More]

The bookshelves and the Internet are filled with articles and books containing life-changing ideas. Between fiction, non-fiction, psychology, biographies and self-help literature lies a curriculum unfulfillable in thousands of life times. Many of the ideas have the potential to drastically improve one’s life. But there is a world of difference between just agreeing and truly internalizing any one of those ideas. And there’s even a wider gap between applying an idea in a safe limited environment versus applying it in a high stakes situation. [Read More]

About 3 months ago I had nothing better to do so I decided to replace an off-the-shelf Linksys E4200 wireless router with a custom build running an unrestricted O/S. I admit E4200 worked reliably through the years on stock firmware but I never felt comfortable with the privacy and network vulnerability aspects of commonly sold devices. And I find third-party router firmwares too complicated to fully comprehend and tweak. There’s simply too much configuration becauase it needs to satisfy many use cases.

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In May 2014 I embarked on a motorcycle journey through many European countries with Norway as the destination. The round-trip tour from Zürich, Switzerland was about 8000 Km long and took about 4 unrushed weeks to complete. It was a first ride of such length for me.

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