Recent content on oscarmlage
What kind of person interested in computers does not like videogames? I guess there must be some, but I am not one of them. I started, like many others, with MS-DOS games and a lot of patience. Since then, and without ever being a hardcore gamer, many little machines for playing have passed through my hands: computers, consoles, handhelds, and almost every flavor from Nintendo , Sega , Sony ,…
I’m writing this on the train back home, after a few days in Valencia with the SRE team. The trip from Lugo is long, too long maybe, but it was worth it. Working remotely is great, but sometimes people are only a name in Slack or a small face in a video call. Meeting them in real life changes that. You talk, have a coffee, walk around, share food… and the next time you see that person…
First time at FOSDEM. After all these years reading about it, following the hashtag on social media… I finally got to experience it firsthand. And no, I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to find. Those of you who know me are aware that I don’t do well with flights. And of course, there were no direct flights from Galicia, so we had to connect through Barcelona. LCG-BCN ,…
I’ve recently started a new professional adventure that’s both exciting and overwhelming: I’ve “become” a Site Reliability Engineer. It’s definitely a change from what I’ve been doing, and honestly, it feels like stepping into an appasionate world. For years, I’ve been working between development and system administration: two worlds that, while…
For the last few years, freelancing has been one of the most beautiful chapters of my life. It gave me freedom, curiosity, and a strange sense of ownership over every hour of my day. I worked from cafés, trains, campings… the whole «digital nomad» aesthetic, but with real deadlines and real invoices attached. It was beautiful. But bills don’t care about your sunsets. There was a…
I haven’t officially left Mastodon, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. Some people I really enjoyed following and chatting with, have moved on ( one of them was actually one of the main reasons I checked it every day). It’s not part of my daily routine anymore, and that’s okay. Until now, I had been using the /microposts section to simply re-post what I shared on Mastodon (since I left…
Ever since I sold my road bike, that itch to get back on two wheels has always been there in the background, but impossible to ignore. Every time I saw a motorbike pass by, part of me wanted to feel that connection again: the balance, the throttle and the freedom. A few weeks ago, a neighbour who rides enduro offered me the chance to join him for a day in the mountains. He had a 250cc waiting for…
The bikes, left scattered on the grass. The sunset glowing between the houses, as the kids squeeze the very last hours out of their summer rides. It’s been an incredible summer, specially for them. Friends, trips, endless games, and experiences that will now have to wait a whole year to come back again. A chapter closed, with memories that -hopefully- will shine bright until the next summer opens…
Spent almost the whole summer away from the keyboard. Thought it would recharge me, but it didn’t. The few times I had to log in it felt wrong: anxiety, palpitations, zero joy. Maybe the romance is over… or maybe it’s just the bad times before vacation still present, and I need to give it more time to feel the joy in my fingers again.
My iPhone 12 mini has been my faithful companion for more than six years, but starting this summer its battery finally gave up. I even tried to replace it myself, only to end up with a broken screen and a cheap replacement that works far worse than the original. Also the new battery sucks. In the meantime, I needed something to keep me connected, and that’s how a POCO X7 Pro landed in my hands.…
It’s been nearly impossible to work in the office lately. The heatwave hitting Spain has made my usual setup (comfy chair, dual monitors, perfect lighting) feel more like a sauna than a workspace. So, in the spirit of adaptation, I’ve started a new habit. Every morning, I grab my laptop and head downstairs, where the temperature is a few degrees cooler and the air feels a little more forgiving. I…
I’ve been applying patches lately. Not to the operating system, nor the load balancer. To myself. Sometimes you drift into degraded performance without even noticing, until something - or someone - triggers an alert. And then you have to check the logs, restart a few processes, clear some space. There’s not always a scheduled downtime . Sometimes maintenance has to be hot, with traffic…
April felt like the start of something—almost. That in-between moment where winter still has a grip, but you can smell the freedom of spring just around the corner. 🚐 Travel We started prepping the van for the season, which is always exciting. Not so exciting: finding out the battery was completely dead. The central locking didn’t work, and neither did the manual locks, so getting it open turned…
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how time just flies when you’re juggling a bit of everything. March has been a mix of routines, small adventures, and moments that somehow end up sticking with you. Here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on lately 🏃♂️ Sports This year the kids swapped basketball for handball, and they’re loving it!. Since there’s only one team in our city, we’re hitting…
I’ve written posts about the history of this blog here and there (and many others have been lost during domain changes). However, this challenge shared by el amigo Juanjo feels like a great exercise in introspection. Why did you start blogging in the first place? Many, many years ago, back when the Internet was practically black and white, my curiosity was sparked by that other free…
Sometimes, things don’t turn out as planned. Not how you expected, not how you hoped, and certainly not how you envisioned them. Sometimes, life forces you to question motivations that feel irrational or outcomes that are beyond your control, things that aren’t tied to your effort, your decisions, or your intentions. Sometimes, you watch yourself shrink, becoming smaller and smaller, as you search…
And the day came when a part of the magic and innocence of Christmas was lost. At 12 years old, it feels as though something inside me has been taken away. I hope I made the right choice. At this age, and with high school in the mix, handling it differently might have been even harsher. As someone on Mastodon suggested, it’s a natural step—one that seems more traumatic for parents than for…
Some time ago, I decided to integrate Hugo , the static site generator, with Obsidian , my favorite note-taking tool, so that writing becomes the only obstacle to publishing new content. This post explains how I set it up and shares some tips to reduce the friction between writing, generating, and publishing. Hugo My use of Hugo is limited to my development machine, where I have it set up to run…
Something I’ve been waiting for years finally happened tonight: for the first time, “the boys” and I were left alone at home, and the idea of “playing some FIFA” came up naturally. As cliché as it may sound, it was something I never planned to suggest myself, but I secretly hoped it would come up spontaneously from one of the kids. So, we had a total FAIL of a dinner…
Once, I met a robot who shared some wise words with me. It said, « I am a bridge, built to connect worlds that were never meant to meet. On one side, a web of infinite possibilities; on the other, the raw, unfiltered depths of reality. I don’t judge the messages I carry and simply ensure they reach the other side. ». [image not loaded in rss] That was my experience with Matrix years ago—a cursed…
The Eternal Dilemma. The first door that opened when I decided to leave Twitter was Mastodon, and I have a special fondness for it because of that. It also gave me the chance to experience what it’s like to run an instance with actual users. Does it have its problems? Absolutely: It’s more “complex” to understand. Migrations are a headache, upgrades too. Development is slow; they say everything…
I love automating anything that even hints at being repetitive. I don’t mind investing time in it because I know that sooner or later I’ll be grateful I did. Another one of my “sins” (from an excess) is documentation—I’m always thinking about my future self. In almost every project I’m involved with, I feel the need to keep private notes that, in some way, link to the project’s public…
The other day a blog reader - I assume - let me know that my feed content was broken. The content syndication was failing because, in every post that loaded an image with the theme’s gallery shortcode, the code appeared instead of the images: < description >Can you almost smell it? if (!jQuery) { alert('jquery is not loaded'); } $( document ).ready(() = { const gallery = $(' </ description >…
As the wikipedia says, « The term “digital nomad” started to be used in the early 1990s to describe a new type of high tech traveling lifestyle made possible by the growth of computer networking and popularization of mobile devices like laptops, tablets and PDAs. ». Today, in some classes I’m attending, we started talking about the digital nomad concept, asking if we knew about it and…
As I mentioned in the update of the last post , I decided to give Bluesky a chance as long as I could host my own PDS to maintain the feeling of owning my data. Setting aside the fact that I wanted to host the PDS within Proxmox and route it through an nginx-proxy-manager , it turned out to be easier than I thought. Initially, it didn’t work because the official stack includes not only the PDS but…
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of —annoying— noise about the little blue bird (which is no longer a bird, nor blue), the blue butterfly (Bluesky, I guess), and the Mastodon. Sure, every now and then, I open my Twitter account in a tab and take a quick look. I sometimes get that feeling of missing certain profiles that are still active over there, writing and feeding the X. But then, with the…
As someone who consumes and tracks a some media items (books, series, movies, videogames, music…), I’ve always looked for ways to keep an updated record without adding too much friction to my workflow. After several iterations, I’ve created a Go script that automates this process using tools I already use daily: Obsidian and Hugo . I’ll try to explain how this system works and how you can…
I’ve finally managed to make a few small changes to this site that I’ve been wanting for a while. There were certain small details that didn’t quite convince me, and with each passing day, I felt a growing need to try and adjust them. These are minor adjustments, but they make the site feel more enjoyable to me. I’ve removed my image/avatar from the homepage since I was never fully…
Lately, I’ve been diving - a bit more - into Hugo templates and archetypes , and I decided to create a medialog to track all the media I’m currently consuming: movies, series, books, games, music… This space helps me keep everything organized, and I’m hoping it won’t be forgotten—like some other parts of this site have been! Creating the Medialog Layout I created a…
Everyone I know enjoys taking vacations, having free time, spending time with family, and doing different things that the daily grind might not allow for, etc. As much as I love disconnecting during this leisure time, due to the nature of my work, I always need to have a data plan and some gadget on hand that allows me to remotely connect to servers, if only to be able to restart a service that’s…
Yesterday, we were so bored scrolling to find a series to start, in a total lazy mood, that we ended up choosing a movie. It’s been so long since the last time I can’t even remember. We usually watch series because the episodes are shorter, though it’s a bit of a trap because we end up watching more than one, but mentally it feels like less of a commitment. We’ve split the…
I was browsing the Mastodon timeline and came across this interesting article by Rach Smith discussing a key factor in becoming a developer. I mostly agree with her perspective. It’s hard to replicate the career of any individual, but, aside from external factors, the struggle with various problems you encounter is a crucial aspect. You need to enjoy it. In addition to that, I believe…
If memory serves me right, this is the first family trip we’ve taken since last summer. It’s been a somewhat unusual winter, but in the end, we managed to break away from routine and enjoy a weekend in the capital with the excuse of seeing a musical we’ve been wanting to watch for a while. Every time I visit a big city, I feel like a little kid again, marveling at the buildings,…
Last photo of the family in front of the mirror in one of the rooms, saying definitely goodbye to 15 years of adventures. Vila Penguin was the nickname of our apartment (in tribute to Dr. Slump ). It’s gone, filled with memories and a whole life packed in boxes. Let’s go for the next level, thinking of a new nickname ;).
The other day, I raised through Mastodon what I call «the problem of microposting» and tried to find a solution that could cover my use case minimally. Microposting is a brief and agile way of publishing “stuff” easily and with minimal friction. Platforms like Tumblr , Twitter , or recently Mastodon have made microposting a reality that moves more dynamic and updated content than other…
I’ve talked before about how much I love the form factor, versatility, portability, and battery life of the iPad. It’s by far the gadget I enjoy the most. Even for development, even when working remotely, it’s ideal as long as you don’t rely too much on developer tools. For backend development, it fits like a glove. Obviously, you need access to another machine with the…
As I sit down to write this post in 2024, I can’t help but acknowledge the fact that my blog has remained silent for far too long. It’s not for lack of things happening, but maybe because the everyday hustle and bustle have swallowed up my creative energy (or whatever is being called nowadays). It’s simple to miss the little joys in our daily routines. Even without big events,…
Sometimes, all you want is a simple and rapid method to review all the changes made across different branches, in a format you can easily edit. This is particularly useful for quickly assessing which tests need to be added when working on a new branch. My initial thoughts led me to consider various plugins, like fugitive or lazygit , as well as manual approaches such as copying git diff output…
I believe some experiences are too unique not to be shared, and today’s one with my computer due to the scorching heat in my city is definitely one of them. Brace yourselves for a quirky yet somewhat educational story: Using your freezer to give your laptop a 60% power boost. Frozen Apple makes your laptop roar… catchy clickbait, isn’t it? Today was a true summer day, with…
Have you ever considered using an iPad for coding ? While an iPad may not be the most obvious choice for developers, it can serve as a valuable complement to your main development setup, thanks to its long battery life, portability, and superb keyboard. As a developer, I’ve found myself drawn to the idea of using an iPad for light development tasks, despite its limitations. In this blog…
I don’t know where to start this whole story from. As a preface, I must acknowledge that my primary experience years ago has been in Python development, utilizing tools such as pip for package management, a framework for organization, and virtualenv for environment management. Lately, I’ve added Docker to the mix as well. Recently, a new career opportunity presented itself and I was…
This past weekend was one for the books! My wife and I took our children on their first trip to the snow and it was an absolute blast. We live about an hour away from the nearest “snow spot”, so it was a short but sweet trip. Once we arrived, we quickly bundled up and headed outside to play in the snow. The kids were so excited to see all of the snow and they couldn’t wait to try…