Yeah, I have an old, defunct Yahoo Mail account. I abandoned it about a year ago in favour of another free-mail provider mainly because I was sick of the ads and the spam. Granted, Yahoo did a lot better with the later than Hotmail which I dropped in less than a year.
So today, basically anyone and everyone that I've ever sent an e-mail to from my yahoo account over the years has received at least one piece of malicious spam. The funny thing is that unlike the normal spam-crap that gets triggered by malicious links, this one didn't require it. I check my yahoo account every few months, but aside from checking to see if some long-ago contact as tried to get in touch with me, I don't open/read mail from this account, so no chance of a malicious link... The other thing that was curious is that many of the spam attacks use address books, which is one reason I keep my address books empty. It appears to have used e-mail addresses from my sent-items list. It wasn't my Inbox / folders because some of the addresses I saw listed from the auto-replies and responses from confused people were addresses I would have sent the odd inquiry to, but never received or kept any response from. I have always purged my sent folder periodically but there was still about 4 pages of e-mails in there. I wiped it all out before I checked, but at least one of the one-off e-mail addresses I saw in a response likely wouldn't have still been in my sent box since the last purge. There was no trace of the "sent" spam in my sent mail folder either, though I don't know if many mail hacks actually work through the mail client like that.
From what I can tell, and what I've been reading, it's quite possible that my Yahoo account wasn't compromised, it may have been the actual Yahoo service that was compromised. Either way I've taken the precaution to change the account password, plus purge all messages from the various folders in the account, and run a current malware scan to be safe.
So, if you've gotten a bit of crap from my yahoo mail account, I do apologize for not being diligent enough when I retired that e-mail address. Please delete it, and if you're on Yahoo in particular, clean out your folders/address book, change your password, and hold your breath...
Friday, January 25, 2013
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Don't mind that noise, there's just a frog under the house.
Quite an amusing story. We had a fuse trip on the pool filter earlier this week for no reason. I had headed home yesterday to meet with an electrician in the afternoon and after he left I heard a tree frog croaking. It was coming from the drain at the front of the house. I had no idea how he got in there since there are no openings other than the roof gutters which flow directly into the pipes and out to the street. It must have climbed all the way up there from the street. Still, I could hear him, but not see him, and no way to get him out of there, so I headed off back to work. Later that afternoon the wife hears it when she got home. She searched the garage then called me. I told her it was in the drain.
This afternoon I was doing some work on the pool after it had been without power for a couple of days and I did a quick backwash which sends water out the storm drain. Shortly after I headed off to the shops to get some groceries when I looked over to where the drain connects to the street and there was the green tree frog lying in the street. I have no idea where the drains are all connected under the property but the pool drain where he came out was on the other side of the house from the drain he was croaking from last night. I suspect the drains are interconnected but he must have been wandering around in there overnight and happened to get in-line with the flow from the backwash and flushed out. I stopped the car and got out to check if it was still alive. It was weak, but alive so I found a cool shaded rock and set him down. When I got back from the shops he'd moved on, so hopefully he makes a full recovery.
This afternoon I was doing some work on the pool after it had been without power for a couple of days and I did a quick backwash which sends water out the storm drain. Shortly after I headed off to the shops to get some groceries when I looked over to where the drain connects to the street and there was the green tree frog lying in the street. I have no idea where the drains are all connected under the property but the pool drain where he came out was on the other side of the house from the drain he was croaking from last night. I suspect the drains are interconnected but he must have been wandering around in there overnight and happened to get in-line with the flow from the backwash and flushed out. I stopped the car and got out to check if it was still alive. It was weak, but alive so I found a cool shaded rock and set him down. When I got back from the shops he'd moved on, so hopefully he makes a full recovery.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Another solar upate. (First complete PV statement)
Well, after the hoo-hah of getting the first quarterly statement after getting the PV system installed back in Feb (which we received finally back in July) we've finally received our first quarterly statement post-PV install.
The statement from July was not too comforting. The PV system went in mid-Feb, but the statement was from end of December to end of June and came to over $250 owing. This was 2 months pre-PV, plus a bit heavy on the Tariff 33 due to me not checking the timer setting on the new pool filter hookup. It turned out it was running for about 10 hours a day for about 2.5 months when it should have started at around 8, and dropped to 4 for winter. My bad.
In any case, the pool timer was sorted out and we received the statement for June-Sept with a pleasing $56 credit! Not too bad considering that was the tail end of winter, and quite a bit of overcast skies. I can hardly wait until December as the summer months start to really get that PV output going.
The statement from July was not too comforting. The PV system went in mid-Feb, but the statement was from end of December to end of June and came to over $250 owing. This was 2 months pre-PV, plus a bit heavy on the Tariff 33 due to me not checking the timer setting on the new pool filter hookup. It turned out it was running for about 10 hours a day for about 2.5 months when it should have started at around 8, and dropped to 4 for winter. My bad.
In any case, the pool timer was sorted out and we received the statement for June-Sept with a pleasing $56 credit! Not too bad considering that was the tail end of winter, and quite a bit of overcast skies. I can hardly wait until December as the summer months start to really get that PV output going.
Here comes the NBN. Whoopidy-Dah
Getting back to my earlier post:
2. High speed, provided you stay on the island. Most people say Australia's current internet backbone isn't adequate, and they're probably right. However, a BIG problem with internet in this country is the links to other content around the world. Australia shares one respectable pipe with NZ through to the U.S. but the pipes up to Asia/Europe are ridiculously outdated. An interesting look at the situation around the world. Perhaps ISPs will invest more in mirroring and proxies but performance to sites and services offshore won't be helped one bit by this huge investment unless they plan laying more cables. This problem is compounded by the introduction of "cloud" services, where already international companies are side-stepping Australia in favour of Singapore.
I decided to do a bit of digging to see just what the NBN had planned for international capacity. It turns out, not a hell of a lot. As far as they're concerned, Australia isn't burning up it's meager international bandwidth resources thanks a lot to the local caching being done. At least according to the people these guys asked.
My favorite element to this was this quote from a pipe-line owner:
"Each of the four networks that will be providing the bulk of international connections for Australia is capable of carrying at least a terabit per second of data. The total international capacity in use for the Australian market in 2009 is estimated to be around 300 gigabits per second. Accordingly, total capacity usage could double, then double again, then double again, and then double yet again before the capabilities of those networks was exhausted. It would therefore be difficult to say that international networks are a capacity bottleneck in the Australian market.”
This has to be one of the most short-sighted statements I've read in a while. The whole basis of the argument is what Australians are perceived to be needing based on information and technologies that were popular two years ago. It doesn't address modern or future trends, and more importantly, it doesn't address the rest of the world's potential demand for services hosted in Australia! Already Australia is being actively bypassed for Cloud-based services by facilities set up in Singapore, Korea, and Japan. Australia is in the middle of a grand-old resource sell-off. Foreign investment is actively sought to essentially strip-mine this country of every valuable resource. But the question has to be, when supply or demand eventually scales back, what will Australia have to move on towards? This is the information age and countries are investing heavily in Internet and communications systems to serve as hubs for regional world markets. Data centres, application and service hosting, development of those applications and services... Australia has the money coming in, but is still behaving like an island with little to no thought of the future. Their answer so far has been to invest in heavy localized infrastructure that will be greatly subsidized to ensure that regional residents have equal access to similar bandwidth as urban connections. However, what will happen when the mining money dries up? We'll be left with an expensive broadband network serving fast, outdated cached content from 2009 around our little island with no external investment wanting to utilize it. Those still in information technology after the resource boom (and the hundreds of thousands of fat-cat Government jobs and contracts feeding off it) dries up will be left trying to compete with India and China building services hosted in Singapore.
Ah well, maybe by then the Government will resurrect plans to import nuclear waste from the U.S./World to fill up the holes left after selling off all of the minerals and coal.
2. High speed, provided you stay on the island. Most people say Australia's current internet backbone isn't adequate, and they're probably right. However, a BIG problem with internet in this country is the links to other content around the world. Australia shares one respectable pipe with NZ through to the U.S. but the pipes up to Asia/Europe are ridiculously outdated. An interesting look at the situation around the world. Perhaps ISPs will invest more in mirroring and proxies but performance to sites and services offshore won't be helped one bit by this huge investment unless they plan laying more cables. This problem is compounded by the introduction of "cloud" services, where already international companies are side-stepping Australia in favour of Singapore.
I decided to do a bit of digging to see just what the NBN had planned for international capacity. It turns out, not a hell of a lot. As far as they're concerned, Australia isn't burning up it's meager international bandwidth resources thanks a lot to the local caching being done. At least according to the people these guys asked.
My favorite element to this was this quote from a pipe-line owner:
"Each of the four networks that will be providing the bulk of international connections for Australia is capable of carrying at least a terabit per second of data. The total international capacity in use for the Australian market in 2009 is estimated to be around 300 gigabits per second. Accordingly, total capacity usage could double, then double again, then double again, and then double yet again before the capabilities of those networks was exhausted. It would therefore be difficult to say that international networks are a capacity bottleneck in the Australian market.”
This has to be one of the most short-sighted statements I've read in a while. The whole basis of the argument is what Australians are perceived to be needing based on information and technologies that were popular two years ago. It doesn't address modern or future trends, and more importantly, it doesn't address the rest of the world's potential demand for services hosted in Australia! Already Australia is being actively bypassed for Cloud-based services by facilities set up in Singapore, Korea, and Japan. Australia is in the middle of a grand-old resource sell-off. Foreign investment is actively sought to essentially strip-mine this country of every valuable resource. But the question has to be, when supply or demand eventually scales back, what will Australia have to move on towards? This is the information age and countries are investing heavily in Internet and communications systems to serve as hubs for regional world markets. Data centres, application and service hosting, development of those applications and services... Australia has the money coming in, but is still behaving like an island with little to no thought of the future. Their answer so far has been to invest in heavy localized infrastructure that will be greatly subsidized to ensure that regional residents have equal access to similar bandwidth as urban connections. However, what will happen when the mining money dries up? We'll be left with an expensive broadband network serving fast, outdated cached content from 2009 around our little island with no external investment wanting to utilize it. Those still in information technology after the resource boom (and the hundreds of thousands of fat-cat Government jobs and contracts feeding off it) dries up will be left trying to compete with India and China building services hosted in Singapore.
Ah well, maybe by then the Government will resurrect plans to import nuclear waste from the U.S./World to fill up the holes left after selling off all of the minerals and coal.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Prepare for interest rates to go through the roof.
My, my. The Australian government is lining up toast their economy with two birds for the price of one. Enter the "Carbon Tax". The current federal government is hanging onto power by a wee little thread and they're compelled to make promises and bow to pressures from independents and Green party seats. Granted I'm no expert when it comes to everything to do about this green tax, but most of what I've read about it spells bad, bad news for Australia's current boom.
The introduction of the Carbon tax is aimed to "encourage" business to increase and invest in energy savings. Now while this sounds like a good thing, the reality is that it is going to make it more expensive to do business. (But that's good for the Earth!) The problem here is that businesses that feel the pain will want to, or need to pass that pain on to the consumer. Even businesses that feel little or no pain will use it as an excuse to squeeze more profit out of consumers. Of course the government has promised that excessive or unsubstantiated increases due to carbon costs will have "appropriate action" taken against them. Sure. The government's counter to increased costs passed on to consumers will be tax cuts for families, funded by the Carbon tax. I'm no economist but this spells one thing: "Inflation". Prices will go up, and the government gives consumers the means to accommodate that increase.
Now when the government took a stab at localized green measures such as the water tank rebates, pool cover rebates, insulation rebates, and solar panel REC credits, these all will have caused micro-economic spikes in inflation. People don't CARE how much something costs, or what value for money they're getting when the government is footing the bill, and retailers KNEW this. The government is handing out UP-TO $X for a 5000L water tank, well that'd cover a good chunk of a high quality tank, but to consumers a tank is a tank so many retailers pawn off cheap crap for the rebate amount. The government paid for up to 100 square metres of roof to be insulated in people's homes. I'm sure they're wondering why so many people seem to have 98-100 square metre roofs. Installers will claim as close to the maximum rebate as they think they'll get away from. Customers don't care, it's not directly their money.
Just today we received their booklet about the carbon tax selling the idea on public by trying to claim that most people will get more from tax breaks than projected increases passed on to them. Realistically if they want this carbon tax to work, then there should be NO tax cuts. Yeah, it's painful for everyone but it's the only way to find a proper balance when trying to do the right thing without feeding inflation and promoting competition and inovation to make greener solutions more cost-effective. The current message to industry groups is a complete crock:
"Hi, it's the government. we need to look like we're doing something for the environment so we're going to hit you with a new tax because you're producing a lot of CO2. But don't worry mate! We're giving more money to your consumers so you can recoup your costs by increasing your prices."
The introduction of the Carbon tax is aimed to "encourage" business to increase and invest in energy savings. Now while this sounds like a good thing, the reality is that it is going to make it more expensive to do business. (But that's good for the Earth!) The problem here is that businesses that feel the pain will want to, or need to pass that pain on to the consumer. Even businesses that feel little or no pain will use it as an excuse to squeeze more profit out of consumers. Of course the government has promised that excessive or unsubstantiated increases due to carbon costs will have "appropriate action" taken against them. Sure. The government's counter to increased costs passed on to consumers will be tax cuts for families, funded by the Carbon tax. I'm no economist but this spells one thing: "Inflation". Prices will go up, and the government gives consumers the means to accommodate that increase.
Now when the government took a stab at localized green measures such as the water tank rebates, pool cover rebates, insulation rebates, and solar panel REC credits, these all will have caused micro-economic spikes in inflation. People don't CARE how much something costs, or what value for money they're getting when the government is footing the bill, and retailers KNEW this. The government is handing out UP-TO $X for a 5000L water tank, well that'd cover a good chunk of a high quality tank, but to consumers a tank is a tank so many retailers pawn off cheap crap for the rebate amount. The government paid for up to 100 square metres of roof to be insulated in people's homes. I'm sure they're wondering why so many people seem to have 98-100 square metre roofs. Installers will claim as close to the maximum rebate as they think they'll get away from. Customers don't care, it's not directly their money.
Just today we received their booklet about the carbon tax selling the idea on public by trying to claim that most people will get more from tax breaks than projected increases passed on to them. Realistically if they want this carbon tax to work, then there should be NO tax cuts. Yeah, it's painful for everyone but it's the only way to find a proper balance when trying to do the right thing without feeding inflation and promoting competition and inovation to make greener solutions more cost-effective. The current message to industry groups is a complete crock:
"Hi, it's the government. we need to look like we're doing something for the environment so we're going to hit you with a new tax because you're producing a lot of CO2. But don't worry mate! We're giving more money to your consumers so you can recoup your costs by increasing your prices."
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Here comes the NBN. Whoopidy-Doo
Australia is blowing a planned $40+ Billion dollars ($27B or so of direct taxpayer dollars, and undobtably a lot more in overruns and bail-outs over the next several years) on upgrading the copper network to an optic fibre based network across most of metro Australia, and high-speed wireless or other services to the rest. A great many promises were made to get the green light to blow the cash on this project, and a lot of pain and suffering is still to come. This roll-out has a number of really big cracks that aren't getting much attention.
1. Cost to consumer. NBN may end up being a massive headache for the government which intends to shut off the copper network once the NBN is available online. So far speculation on the plan prices to consumers is not encouraging. iiNet released proposed plans for NSW of $60-190 per month. $60 won't get you top-speed, and only a 30GB transfer limit. (Right now I pay less than $40/mo for that.) Basically you're paying 1/3rd more for the same limit with the ability to burn it faster. Other providers such as Dodo have hinted at cheaper plans, but these are companies that have a reputation for burning customers. I.e. low price plans with ridiculous transfer limits, then huge fees for excess usage capped at a considerably more expensive monthly price.
2. High speed, provided you stay on the island. Most people say Australia's current internet backbone isn't adequate, and they're probably right. However, a BIG problem with internet in this country is the links to other content around the world. Australia shares one respectable pipe with NZ through to the U.S. but the pipes up to Asia/Europe are ridiculously outdated. An interesting look at the situation around the world. Perhaps ISPs will invest more in mirroring and proxies but performance to sites and services offshore won't be helped one bit by this huge investment unless they plan laying more cables. This problem is compounded by the introduction of "cloud" services, where already international companies are side-stepping Australia in favour of Singapore.
3. Australia has a housing shortage right now, and while new houses are being built there's one little "gotcha" in store for people, especially those in areas that the NBN rollout isn't going to be reaching any time soon. Telstra (telco) isn't rolling out any new copper connections. This means when you buy a new house, you don't get a phone line. You don't get an internet connection. Your *only* real option is to pay for a 3G connection. (which are ludicrously expensive if you need it for much more than e-mail) Included in the price of your house was a cost to prep the house for the NBN roll-out. You can bet your bacon that as the rollout reaches these supposedly prepared locations, something isn't going to be adequate and there will be further cost and delay to the home-owner to finally get hooked up.
4. All connections through one box. IMO this is an epic fail for the whole plan. Basically in your home you'll have a little box running off an AC plug which the NBN cable runs through then splits off for phone lines and data lines. Expect these boxes to last about 5 years or so before you need to replace them. (From what I've heard they're several hundred dollars) Worse yet, when the power goes out, you not only have no Internet, you have no phone. No emergency line out, nothing. Sure, most people have mobiles, but as we saw with the Brisbane flood, even before things got really bad, the mobile networks were unusable. Copper phone lines were powered so as long as you keep a regular corded phone in the house you could always get a line out for help. (Tough luck if you tossed them all out for those fancy cordless wonders :) )
5. You may be expecting to be on fibre, but might not get it. Fibre is good, it is fast and reliable. 4G wireless, will be slower, and certainly will be more tempermental and less reliable. Even living in a relatively built up area doesn't guarantee you're getting fibre to your home. My guess is that as costs blow out with contractors milking this NBN cash cow, more areas will be cut off plans to run fibre and stacked into the 4G pile. This means more than planned load on the wireless option making it even less reliable and more out-of balance with the fibre option. I don't know if NBN has provided any info or service to check if your address is expected to be on fibre or wireless but it'd be really interesting to get snapshots of areas over time and see if they start pulling back the fibre rollout.
If you want fast, reliable internet to the rest of the world and are waiting for the NBN to deliver it, then my advice would be not to hold your breath. Maybe look for opportunities to move to South Korea or Japan.
1. Cost to consumer. NBN may end up being a massive headache for the government which intends to shut off the copper network once the NBN is available online. So far speculation on the plan prices to consumers is not encouraging. iiNet released proposed plans for NSW of $60-190 per month. $60 won't get you top-speed, and only a 30GB transfer limit. (Right now I pay less than $40/mo for that.) Basically you're paying 1/3rd more for the same limit with the ability to burn it faster. Other providers such as Dodo have hinted at cheaper plans, but these are companies that have a reputation for burning customers. I.e. low price plans with ridiculous transfer limits, then huge fees for excess usage capped at a considerably more expensive monthly price.
2. High speed, provided you stay on the island. Most people say Australia's current internet backbone isn't adequate, and they're probably right. However, a BIG problem with internet in this country is the links to other content around the world. Australia shares one respectable pipe with NZ through to the U.S. but the pipes up to Asia/Europe are ridiculously outdated. An interesting look at the situation around the world. Perhaps ISPs will invest more in mirroring and proxies but performance to sites and services offshore won't be helped one bit by this huge investment unless they plan laying more cables. This problem is compounded by the introduction of "cloud" services, where already international companies are side-stepping Australia in favour of Singapore.
3. Australia has a housing shortage right now, and while new houses are being built there's one little "gotcha" in store for people, especially those in areas that the NBN rollout isn't going to be reaching any time soon. Telstra (telco) isn't rolling out any new copper connections. This means when you buy a new house, you don't get a phone line. You don't get an internet connection. Your *only* real option is to pay for a 3G connection. (which are ludicrously expensive if you need it for much more than e-mail) Included in the price of your house was a cost to prep the house for the NBN roll-out. You can bet your bacon that as the rollout reaches these supposedly prepared locations, something isn't going to be adequate and there will be further cost and delay to the home-owner to finally get hooked up.
4. All connections through one box. IMO this is an epic fail for the whole plan. Basically in your home you'll have a little box running off an AC plug which the NBN cable runs through then splits off for phone lines and data lines. Expect these boxes to last about 5 years or so before you need to replace them. (From what I've heard they're several hundred dollars) Worse yet, when the power goes out, you not only have no Internet, you have no phone. No emergency line out, nothing. Sure, most people have mobiles, but as we saw with the Brisbane flood, even before things got really bad, the mobile networks were unusable. Copper phone lines were powered so as long as you keep a regular corded phone in the house you could always get a line out for help. (Tough luck if you tossed them all out for those fancy cordless wonders :) )
5. You may be expecting to be on fibre, but might not get it. Fibre is good, it is fast and reliable. 4G wireless, will be slower, and certainly will be more tempermental and less reliable. Even living in a relatively built up area doesn't guarantee you're getting fibre to your home. My guess is that as costs blow out with contractors milking this NBN cash cow, more areas will be cut off plans to run fibre and stacked into the 4G pile. This means more than planned load on the wireless option making it even less reliable and more out-of balance with the fibre option. I don't know if NBN has provided any info or service to check if your address is expected to be on fibre or wireless but it'd be really interesting to get snapshots of areas over time and see if they start pulling back the fibre rollout.
If you want fast, reliable internet to the rest of the world and are waiting for the NBN to deliver it, then my advice would be not to hold your breath. Maybe look for opportunities to move to South Korea or Japan.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
The mystery of the debilitated ankle, solved!
Shortly before I moved to Australia I suffered an unusual injury to my ankle. It wasn't sport related, or any other significant form of activity, it was while sitting in a chair. The symptoms were quite severe as I'd wake up in the morning and the ankle would be a bit sore and painful if I tried to flex it. The pain would be coming from the lateral (outside) side of the ankle, below the protruding bone. By the end of the day it would be quite noticeable and impacting on walking. The next morning the ankle would be unusable and I'd be unable to walk. After about 4 days it would slowly return to normal. There was no swelling normally associated with a strain, sprain, or arthritis.
The unusual thing was that after moving to Australia, the same issue would occur roughly every year or so. It made going to work difficult to impossible. Pain would radiate up the leg as a persistent, dull ache, and the slightest impact sent shooting pain up the leg. The last time it had happened I had gone downstairs one night to get some water and stopped off at the bathroom half asleep. The aching pain while I was standing actually caused me to black out and I woke up a couple seconds later sprawled out on the floor. (Fortunately uninjured.) When the ache had started I tried staying off the foot, resting it up, icing it. None of that seemed to help, it was still about 4~5 days before I could walk again.
The last one was about 6 months ago, then yesterday the ankle struck again! The previous night I had been sitting on the floor playing Play-Dough with the little one. I had come into work the first day with a bit of discomfort but knew by the next day I wouldn't be walking. I was talking to a co-worker that struggles with a trick-knee and he recommended going into physio as the problem can stem from somewhere above the ankle. This got me thinking a bit and doing some more research where I found that icing an injury is good for immediate treatment, especially when there is swelling. For chronic injuries, heat is a better treatment. With this injury I noticed that my leg, especially calf was quite stiff and sore. I had though this was a reaction to overcompensating for the ankle, with the leg working harder when I couldn't flex the ankle. I thought perhaps the ankle pain was in response to a problem with the leg. So I filled up a hot water bottle and rested my calf on it for about an hour. My foot felt cold but when I flexed it there was considerably more mobility. By the end of the day it was feeling better than it had in the morning. I put it up on the water bottle for about half an hour before falling asleep, and when I woke up this morning the issue was almost completely gone!
Now it all makes sense. The issue was with the Sural nerve that runs along the outside of the ankle and up the outside of the calf. The damage/pinch wasn't occurring at the ankle, it was in the leg due to pressure encountered when sitting cross-legged on the floor or in a chair. My earlier attempts to elevate and ice my foot were likely putting more pressure on the nerve in the leg resulting in the conditions worsening. At least now I know what causes the issue and can avoid that in the future, or at least know how to effectively treat it should it happen again.
The unusual thing was that after moving to Australia, the same issue would occur roughly every year or so. It made going to work difficult to impossible. Pain would radiate up the leg as a persistent, dull ache, and the slightest impact sent shooting pain up the leg. The last time it had happened I had gone downstairs one night to get some water and stopped off at the bathroom half asleep. The aching pain while I was standing actually caused me to black out and I woke up a couple seconds later sprawled out on the floor. (Fortunately uninjured.) When the ache had started I tried staying off the foot, resting it up, icing it. None of that seemed to help, it was still about 4~5 days before I could walk again.
The last one was about 6 months ago, then yesterday the ankle struck again! The previous night I had been sitting on the floor playing Play-Dough with the little one. I had come into work the first day with a bit of discomfort but knew by the next day I wouldn't be walking. I was talking to a co-worker that struggles with a trick-knee and he recommended going into physio as the problem can stem from somewhere above the ankle. This got me thinking a bit and doing some more research where I found that icing an injury is good for immediate treatment, especially when there is swelling. For chronic injuries, heat is a better treatment. With this injury I noticed that my leg, especially calf was quite stiff and sore. I had though this was a reaction to overcompensating for the ankle, with the leg working harder when I couldn't flex the ankle. I thought perhaps the ankle pain was in response to a problem with the leg. So I filled up a hot water bottle and rested my calf on it for about an hour. My foot felt cold but when I flexed it there was considerably more mobility. By the end of the day it was feeling better than it had in the morning. I put it up on the water bottle for about half an hour before falling asleep, and when I woke up this morning the issue was almost completely gone!
Now it all makes sense. The issue was with the Sural nerve that runs along the outside of the ankle and up the outside of the calf. The damage/pinch wasn't occurring at the ankle, it was in the leg due to pressure encountered when sitting cross-legged on the floor or in a chair. My earlier attempts to elevate and ice my foot were likely putting more pressure on the nerve in the leg resulting in the conditions worsening. At least now I know what causes the issue and can avoid that in the future, or at least know how to effectively treat it should it happen again.
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