Cybrkyd's blog. Welcome to my playpen.
I’m in the market for an air conditioning unit. With temperatures currently hitting heatwave conditions in the UK and much of Western Europe, I think everyone is in the market for an air conditioning unit. The suppliers of domestic air con are not really plentiful in my neck of the woods. Why would they be? This is England. There is (was) not much of a market here. Looking around for a unit…
Things like this don’t bother me much; not any more. I’m past the stage where I care. Trolls will always troll, and some people on the Internet will always be as nasty as they can possibly be, safe in the knowledge that their words can extend to insults without repercussion. This person / these people would not dare say that to my face – or anyone else’s for that matter.…
There is nothing like waking up on a Monday morning in the UK and finding out that there is to be yet another Prime Minister. It was no surprise, of course; the media knew all about it beforehand and so did DJT. Meh! The UK population has become as ungovernable as our French neighbours. Blame Brexit and let’s all move on. Except, we are not moving on. Today, the FT has two articles where the…
It’s been a whirlwind. All these ideas in my head, all these desires and none of the skill to execute. I’ve always tried to stay curious. Learn. If someone else can do it, what is preventing me from doing the same, or better? Copy. Deconstruct. Question. What I’ve achieved over the past couple of months is – by my own standards – outstanding. I was fearful, in the…
Today is a rest day for me from watching the World Cup matches. There are “meh” teams playing today at a decent hour for me: Czech Republic vs South Africa (Group A) – 5pm BST Switzerland vs Bosnia-Herzegovina (Group B) – 8pm BST Canada vs Qatar (Group B) – 11pm BST I’ll catch the scores and move on, me thinks. It’s Group Stage, so it’s a double “meh”; I…
That’s what I’m calling it. Jottings . The story so far… Lately, I have been obsessed -- utterly obsessed -- with making a custom note-taking app. I’ve tried everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. I went as far as using VS Code, VIM, Nano even; my meagre attempt at the Quiet Writer . And Python Notes . Obsessed! I think I have a problem! :-) The issue is this: whilst the tools do…
This is actually quite hard to do. I’m fairly proficient with the odd Python script and can cobble together a mean HTML/CSS/JS UI for a Python server, but making an actual desktop app? That’s another level. I’m just trying to turn my note-taking app which runs on a Python server into an actual, like, desktop app thingy. LLMs and vibe coding don’t work on this. They are…
I’ve been playing with a few toys. IndexedDB notes… let’s start there. Ooh, I’ve just spotted something undesirable as I type this out! I wrote the first sentence, pressed ‘Save Note’ and then wrote the second sentence. After that, I pressed ‘Save Note’ again and it pushed a new document instead of overwriting the existing one. OK, that is not cool;…
It’s hot, sunny, and I’m melting. The sofa is a good place to be right now at the hottest time of the day. I should really be outside somewhere, doing something, being somewhere, doing something active or laying in the shade somewhere, under a tree or something. I should be enjoying this unusual May weather. My energy levels are low. No, not on account of the weather; some like it hot.…
With my Flask Share app , it was time to consider re-working this into something more production-like. Flask serves the purpose for my needs but Flask is not really a production tool. There is the massive red warning: WARNING: This is a development server. Do not use it in a production deployment. Use a production WSGI server instead. There are alternative prod-ready web frameworks for Python, but…
I don’t do politics much, but I woke up yesterday, fully intending to cast my vote in the UK Local Elections. The day, however, had other plans for me and voting was not factored in. I had a crazy day at work and by the time I finally wrapped up, it was so close to poll closing at 10pm that I just could not be bothered to make the 5-minute dash to the booth. Today, I’m glad that my…
I’m a fossil when it comes to FFmpeg. I have previously explored encoding using the onboard integrated AMD or Intel chips, but have always had sub-par results when comparing that result to the one output by libx264 or libx265 . That means I have always stuck to the high-CPU software encoding method. Recording from the Sky Stream puck with on-the-fly software encoding was a no-go on my…
Here are some of the adventures I’ve had whilst trying to record from the Sky Stream puck using OBS Studio and ffmpeg . I have split my Sky Stream box into two HDMI outs – one goes to the main TV and the other is coupled with a Ugreen HDMI to USB converter or capture card. What I’ve tried: OBS Studio I began by testing OBS Studio. It works and it works very well…when it worked.…
<-- Splitting a set top box HDMI output To convert my HDMI output to USB, I am using a Ugreen HDMI to USB capture card. This little device will allow me to connect the output from the Sky Stream box to my laptop. The Ugreen version I have is the 4k to 1080p@60 FPS on a USB-C with a USB-A converter. This device on its own does not bypass HDCP; that is the job of the EZCOO splitter which sits…
<-- Building a PVR for a HDMI output I settled on an EZCOO 1 x In, 2 x Out 4k 60Hz HDMI splitter. The Amazon reviews confirmed that this splitter was capable of splitting a Sky Q output. Therefore, it should also be capable of splitting the output from my Sky Stream box. This is what some of us do in the UK: split and extend instead of paying for so-called “multi-room subscriptions”.…
Back in the day, we had more freedom to do what we wanted with TV signals coming into the home. We could simply plug the antenna into the VCR, and run another cable from the VCR through to the back of the TV and record whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. AND, we could fast forward through all the annoying adverts. Nowadays, it is apparently “illegal” to record from the TV; at…
I’ve recently subscribed to Sky Stream Ultimate. The “puck” arrived yesterday and I’ve spent just under 24 hours with it. My verdict is in: I do not like this. The channel offerings are good and so are the bundled apps which come along with my Ultimate package. I get Netflix with ads, HBO Max with ads, Discovery+ with ads, everything with ads. Lovely jubbly! I already have…
Working in finance, I am subject to re-vetting every three years. 2026 is here, my turn is now, and lo and behold, my firm has switched to a new vetting agent. They have a shiny, bright website with lots of “LinkedIn speak”; you know: “we empower both employers and employees” and lots of “leveraging” and whatnot. Anyway, they gave me a choice: verify your…
Apple is rolling out age verification for iPhone and iPad in the UK . The idea is to get the device “owner” to verify their age so that they can access “certain services”. Apple has already removed encryption for UK users in 2025: Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection in the United Kingdom to new users . What is the end game here? If it was an ISP doing this, I…
The minute my Linux distro of choice introduces age verification, we part company. There is no way – no way on Earth – that I will ever be undergoing any sort of age verification for the privilege of using something I own. Or, for the privilege of using a service, because there is no service or product on Earth that is worth me verifying my age for. Apple has begun asking iPhone users…
I fell asleep! To be fair, it was scheduled for around 23:30 BST on a school night and I was dog tired. My eyelids won the battle. I managed to watch the lift-off replays this morning, however. I missed the stop-clock event and slept through an issue with the toilet?? So, I didn’t miss too much, and can observe the rest of mission live via Youtube or NASA’s live feeds. Still, I’m…
We are back onto BST today and longer days are here. Rejoice! It’s that time of year again when tax returns become due and must be paid. No rejoice. On my first day of BST (bullsh*t summer time), I notice a lot of complaints again about dear GitHub. Everyone is up in arms, rage-baited once more by something or other GitHub-related. Oh, today they are upset by GitHub’s plans to train AI…
I finally knuckled down and started playing again with Vim. It has always been a huge turn-off, what with all those weird key combinations to learn and remember. The famous one is the noob cross-posting in a gazillion forums: HELP! How do I exit Vim? Yeah! At least I remembered ESC :wq+Enter . I also learned that ESC :x+Enter works the same and is much cooler. I love Nano and I do prefer it. It is…
I’m up today at the crack of dawn. Nice and fresh. I made coffee and threw my hands to head, like a football striker who should have scored in the wide-open goal but instead, kicked it over the bar. Milk. There was enough for me, enough for maybe about 3-4 cups of the black gold which I turn brown by adding the milk. No big deal. It’s 5am… by the time the family wakes up and the kids…
I have man flu. This is a semi-fatal disease which affects males only. If you’re not male, there is no chance of understanding the disease, and it is quite common for non-males to poke fun at those who contract the man flu. Semi-fatal? Yes, that is correct – it almost ends your life or at the very least, it feels that way. Men cease to behave like men, and revert to being babies. For…
My Tor Browser installation is unusual. Rather than install it from my distribution’s repos, I grab the tar.xz file from torproject.org/download/ , extract it and run it directly from there. I do the same with Firefox and Thunderbird, but that’s likely a story for another day. The system-wide cursor theme on Linux Mint is Bibata-Modern-Classic . It is ugly, super ugly. In fact, the…
Something interesting – and perhaps concerning – when comparing my current ISP to my previous provider is how many websites Virgin Media blocks by default. The blocks appear to be over and above court-mandated blocks in the UK. I understand Parental Controls are used to block things like adult websites, gambling, social media, etc. It turns out that they are blocking VPNs as well under…
Foggy days are here. For a few days over the past week or so, we have had some thick fog in the early mornings. It’s the sort of miserable fog which takes hours to lift. It dampens the mood, as the sun is not yet strong enough to burn through it quickly. Spring was in the air for one or two days last week, and some of the lower level flowers have started springing up at the slight rise in…
The new internet provider has connected me up, and boy is it fast. I ordered 1GB and am currently getting ~800 Mbps down. I cannot complain too much about that, especially when our ISPs in the UK have a disclaimer in their small print which says something along the lines of: You are paying for 1GB but in reality, we can only guarantee you will get 350 Mbps on average. I’m very lucky to be…
What a blur. We moved house to get closer to schools. We lasted exactly 13 months in the previous place. It was in an out-of-the-way village which was a bit too far out of the way. A real one-horse village, quite literally. I could hear it neigh on the odd occasion in the early hours. The move was swift. Five guys, two Luton vans and we were done in less than three hours. They were rewarded with a…
Here is my workflow for self-hosting Git repositories on a shared hosting service with GitGen. The assumption is that I already have a Git repository on my local machine. My repositories are created with SHA256 by default because that future is coming. Therefore, the further assumption is that SHA256 is what will also live on the remote bare repo. Why bare on remote? GitHub et al are bare…
I drive German, but not an Audi. Mine is another finely engineered German make. You can’t beat German technology. They engineer everything to perfection, like the Japanese. If it’s German, it’s not just good, it is excellent. It’s in their DNA, I think. Today’s task required some of that precision engineering. The outside drain which takes water from the kitchen…
This one was a challenge to get through. Firstly, the firm had many, many technical issues which kept quite a few of us up until the wee hours. We do need to simplify; complexity brings with it a multitude of break points. Secondly, there was hardly any time to myself with all that mess going on. I did, however, have time to read about what I’m interested in, and one thing which remains…
There are always the small, one-time tasks where I need to figure out an easier, quicker way to accomplish something. This is one of those. The problem is simple enough: copy a table from Wikipedia. Grab it once, and move on. Copy and paste is usually my friend for browser-to-spreadsheet transfer, but some Wikipedia tables are massive and not to mention, very awkward. I have previously ended up…
Here is a pretty graph. The way my Git commits across my repositories currently stand, the graph sort-of looks like it’s giving two middle-fingers to the GitHub-style version I made. It probably is. The GitHub-style graph was difficult to make. I eventually got it working and looking almost right, but having 365-days worth of data increased the page size by five times. There were a lot of…
Another day and another GitHub outage, splashed on the front page of Hacker News . Haven’t I seen another outage of the same service on the front page recently? Yes, I have. Why not simplify? Why do tech nerds love adding multiple layers of complexity, often unnecessarily? And then cry about it when it all comes crashing down. Whatever happened to the idea of “no single point of…
Inspired by how Obsidian names Markdown files by title, I put together a small Python script which couples with a VS Code workspace task to achieve the same. Because tasks need to be manually run, a key-binding can be used to quicken the flow. The assumption is that the file is a Markdown file with the trigger flag in line #2. For example, I always add YAML-type syntax to the top of my blog post…
Why not? Writing a weekly post looks like so much fun…let’s see how long I can last! I thoroughly enjoy reading what others have been busy doing over their past seven days that I want in. Maybe I need this -- like a relaxing exhale after a long, deep breath -- now that it’s the weekend. VS Code It has been a fun, productive week. This is the one where I finally bit the bullet and…
There is one thing I miss terribly about the iPhone, and that is the seamless iCal integration. I’m on Android (Nokia X5), and subscribing to a remote iCal involves a few hoops, shuffles and dances. I have always made use of ICSx and it has worked flawlessly, enabling me to subscribe to remote iCals because Google Calendar cannot. But Google Calendar…there is a major issue with it somewhere.…
What’s the saying? “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Maybe in this case, “necessity is the mother of DIY.” I invented absolutely nothing. I merely became so fed-up with (i) looking for my phone’s USB cable when I need it, or (ii) relying on sub-par file transfer applications, that I have finally fixed my problem. I only need to move files (usually photos)…