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There has been a decent amount of stuff happening on my end. Nothing big, but a lot of little things. Most of it has been with work so I don’t have as much to share here as I’d like, but I do have some links. The biggest thing has been that I have a new work schedule. I now work earlier and get off earlier, I actually have a few hours of sunlight after work now. It is nice and gave me…
This month was fairly slow. I did a little work on my RPG Maker game, read a lot, took some photos that still need to be uploaded, and did a lot of cleaning/organization. My work implemented an AI chatbot trained on our company data and code. As you are aware, I have some rather negative feelings towards the way LLMs have been sold, trained, and designed. Unfortunately this chatbot is fairly…
KDE Plasma is very popular right now 1 and many new Linux users are using it by default. This is wonderful news, but KDE is very customizable, powerful, and has many small features that are underappreciated or outright unknown to most people. I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve used KDE since the later part of the KDE 4 era and still use the desktop environment as my daily driver.…
Between not getting enough sleep and having a ton of personal and work stuff to do, I’ve not really been active this month. My limited energy has been directed towards spending time with my partner and work so I kinda let the passive consumption virus that permeates our society get to me. The good news is that means I’ve collected a lot of other people’s awesome work to share…
Another busy month. I mostly read, drank tea, and tried to avoid the effects of current events. I’ve been a lot more successful in spending less this year than I was last year and I don’t own a car so the rise in prices due to the war is still manageable right now and I’m blessed with not living near the conflict so far. This month has had some ups and downs, but overall…
This article has been bouncing in my brain for a long time, but Michal’s post about the subject motivated me to look at my drafts folder and finish this one. Also, the company I work for is starting an AI push, thus I’m extra agitated with the tech. For those who don’t pay attention this might sound like hyperbole, but after everything I’ve seen, heard, and experienced this…
There is age verification is a hot topic right now. California and Colorado are pushing for operating system level age restrictions that will almost certainly lead to age verification in the future, countries and states are forcing websites to hold onto customer’s government IDs to verify their age before granting access to websites, and some services like Discord are pre-maturely…
A busy month. Mostly focused on work and my RPG Maker game so I ignored the website a little more than I should have. I did publish my Linux tips for new users article this month. Mostly written because I have a friend who keeps following the influencers who jump onto using Arch based distros and then I get calls about things not working. Nothing wrong with Arch or its derivatives, I’ve used…
A lot of people are jumping on the Linux bandwagon after being abused for too long by big tech companies, but a lot bounce off due to friction and an unwillingness to learn a new way to work. I’ve used Linux full-time for my personal computing for more than 10 years and used it off and on even before that. That is not to say I’m an expert, but I have an idea of what it is like to use…
This is the first month of the year and it has been a rough one. So many things have been happening across the country I currently reside in and it has effected the personal lives of some very close friends. People I know are afraid to go outside for fear of being kidnapped by masked goons because they are “undesirable” to the current regime. Some are afraid of being shot. I…
Descanso Gardens is a large 150-acre botanical garden near Los Angeles. My partner and I went back in November and I took over 500 photos. The amount taken was a bit intimidating, it took a while to pick out the ones I wanted to upload. I haven’t edited these because if I did, they would never get uploaded. I need to be more impulsive this year about uploading things, even if they are far…
This month was a lot calmer than last month. I enjoyed video games and quality time with my girlfriend for the majority of it. I did visit my family for a late Christmas on the 27th, went on a date with my girlfriend to our customary Little Tokyo, and had a lot of crazy busy work days. I also got really sick yesterday and am still sick today, my throat is on fire. That is not something you want…
Happy New Year! So at the start of this year I started using a single notebook to keep track of my journalling, random thoughts, and anything else I needed to write down. This was loosely based on the Bullet Journal Method created by Ryder Carroll. The Bullet Journal was designed for people who are much busier than myself (i.e. people who think they need a planner), but I liked some of the…
Of all the proprietary programs I use, there are very few that I use willingly. Chief among them is RPG Maker MZ. It is a Japanese game engine designed to make traditional JRPGs, but can be extended to do almost any 2D topdown game you could want to make (technically you can even do 3D, but then you will not be doing much with the native editor). You’ve probably seen a lot of games made with…
This was a crazy month, in a good way this time. I have a lot of photos to share that still need to be edited, but I went out of state for the first time in years. My employer does not have PTO rollover so at the end of the year employees lose any unused Paid Time Off hours. Yes this is anti-worker, but it is a common practice in the US. In any case, due to that I needed to use as much as possible…
I started this month with the goal of making something/doing something creative every day, but with a literal authoritarian government taking over the US and general life stuff taking my mental energy, I was not nearly as productive as I would have hoped. I did do a little work on my RPG Maker game, wrote a blog post, have two other draft blog posts, and took lost of photos that I need to go…
Tech enthusiasts and really anyone with hobbies have had it rough over the last couple of decades. We got to see the creation of amazing technologies and their misuse by techbro capitalists in real time. It is easy to be jaded when you have to see a technology with the infinite creative potential of the web become 3 major websites where people struggle to sell everyone else on the latest scam or…
I need a distraction from the things going on in the world and have been thinking about making more stuff in general this month. To push for that goal I’ve decided to do something creative each day this month. No major constraints and it can be as small as snapping a photo, as long as it is deliberate and constructive. Calling it Maketober because I’m not very good at names nor am I…
It was a crazy month. This month was a bit of a reset for me. More focus on work and improving my home life. I did get a new UPS backup for my home server/networking cabinet, went to another farmers market out here, and celebrated my sister’s birthday, and generally had a decent month. Did a little tinkering in RPG Maker MZ and have been considering posting some small posts regarding it. The…
RSS is awesome technology that makes the internet fun, but to use it you need an RSS feed reader. There are many options available, but the one I’ve stuck to the longest has been Newsboat . Newsboat is a fairly simple RSS reader that lets you check your feeds from your terminal. There are many GUI and web apps that can do what Newsboat does, but I’ve yet to find one as customizable and…
This has been a wild month. I celebrated my 30th birthday with my partner, learned more about Nix and NixOS, and the US government continues to speed run the destruction of civil liberty. US Politics I know, no one wants to read about politics or my opinion on the matter, but I do have thoughts. ICE has become the Republican’s private army. Random raids are happening often out here in Los…
Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, CA is one of my partner and I’s favorite places in the city. They just had their first farmer’s market so we had to go. They had a taiko drum performance, tea vendors, potters, street food, and of course farm fresh produce. It was a lot of fun, but it quickly got up to 90° F (32° C) so we left by noon. These photos are all shot with a Sony A6700 and the…
I took these photos while in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles with a friend, same trip as in this set of photos . The firefighters were very nice and let me take pictures. I’m not overly proud of these, but thought they could make a nice set. It looked like the firefighters were doing some maintenance on their equipment. These photos are all shot with a Sony A6700 and the Sigma 18-50mm…
Went on a walk around Echo Park in Los Angeles, CA this month with a friend. While there, I took quite a bit of photos. Here are a few of them. I’m particularly fond of the photos of the ducks. These photos are all shot with a Sony A6700 and the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary Lens with a Tiffen Fog 2 Filter. I did light processing in Darktable and think I’ve got the basics down…
I’ve been in LA for years now, but never went to Chinatown. Back in July a friend and I finally explored a little bit of the Chinatown area out here in Los Angeles. I did a little RAW editing this time. Mostly just lens correction, exposure compensation, and cropping, but I’m starting to get the hang of it. These photos are all shot with a Sony A6700 and the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN…
This month was a bit busy, but I finally found time to create a photo gallery template for Hugo . You can find my photos on my photography page . This was a long time coming and I still don’t have everything dialed in, but I got a camera back in April and I want to use it. Please give some feedback on the photos. As someone who is still learning/getting back into, I can always use a tip or…
I finally created a photo gallery for the website ! Several months ago I got a Sony A6700 camera and have been taking photos constantly. I’ve been meaning to get a gallery setup, but life and procrastination happen. One of my friends started her own website on neocities and that inspired me to work on the gallery. This has been a long time coming and is still a work in progress, but it…
This month was a bit busy and I didn’t write as much as I’d have liked. Work, world events, and personal life have taken a lot out of me lately. No Kings Day So the President of the United States illegally started using military force on US citizens in my city. Not a great thing. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been kidnapping people (there is no world where you…
I mostly shot some photos of my cats, Dara and Saoirse, and some flowers. I also took a lot of photos of my girlfriend and friends, but they didn’t want their images shared across the internet. I was still learning the basics with the camera. These were the best. There are some other photos that look good in my folders, but I am still learning how to process RAWs and I only shot those ones…
No kings protest pictures. As you can see, this protest was completely peaceful. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to manipulate you. If you are in one of these photos and do not want to be please send me a polite email with proof and I will remove you. Enjoy.
As much as I’d like to avoid any more politics, the United States currently has a president that thinks he is above the law. Tomorrow he is planning a military parade for his and the U.S. military’s birthday. Not only is this a waste of taxpayer resources that are already being stretched by Trumps (often illegal) acts, but it is also an inappropriate display of power emulating…
It has been another busy month, but not much to really report in my personal life. A majority of this month has been spent reading, playing video games, playing around with my own video game projects, and drinking tea. Work has been busy as well. There is a lot going on in the world right now and sometimes we just need a break. I focused on hobbies and tried not to focus too much on what is…
I didn’t spend as much time as I normally do online lately. This month was focused more on work, my relationship with my girlfriend, and hobbies outside of watching YouTube and reading blogs across the web. This was my splurge month and there was a lot of adventure, but that also means I’m not going to be spending much over the next few months as I try to recover my savings. I’ll…
My last app default post was back in 2023, some things have changed since then. 📨 Mail Client: Thunderbird 📮 Mail Server: DreamHost - it is included for free with my hosting. 📝 Notes: Leuchtturm1917 A5 Hardcover Dotgrid Notebook - I completely removed Logseq from my personal note taking and switched to bullet journalling. ✅ To-Do: Bullet Journal using same notebook as above. 📷 Camera App: Open…
These photos are from when I just got my Sony A6700 and the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary Lens. All photos are shot with this setup. These are the first photos I took. Mostly around Echo Park in Los Angeles, CA. If you would like to contribute to my photography equipment acquisition syndrome please consider donating to my ko-fi .
I tried to avoid the politics this month that didn’t directly effect me or my friends. Not an easy thing to do when the idiots running this country are so comically evil, but I’ve done a decent job this time. One of my home servers went down due to a surge warning on one of the motherboard’s USB ports. Took the opportunity to migrate from TrueNAS Core to TrueNAS Scale on both my…
In a recent attempt to erode trust in the company, Amazon removed the ability for people to download their eBooks to their computer , surprising no one. This essentially makes it so you can’t access your eBooks if you have a kindle that doesn’t have networking and haven’t already backed up your books. A lot of people are ditching their kindle for another eReader vendor, but that…
The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect that of my employer or anyone I’m affiliated with (should be obvious, but I’m in the country where you can be fired without notice). Ukraine did not start the war, Canada is a sovereign nation, NATO has been critical pact that protects the United States just as much as it does Europe, vaccines save people’s lives, and…
Update: Wouter shared his stationery drawers in response to this post. Please share yours as well. While I’m not the biggest fan of consumerism I do love to see how people work. This often leads me down a rabbit hole looking at how people setup their offices, how they organize their drawers, and what things they have that improve their lives. I was thinking of doing one of those desk tour…
This is the first month of the year and it has been a busy one. Helping a friend move, a new administration has taken power in the United States, a new season of anime has started, and I’ve been trying out new ways to stay organized and mindful. Mindfulness This will probably be turned into a whole article in and of itself, but I’m transitioning my 3 notebook approach that I tried out…
So I’m going through my config files (dot files) for programs I use this morning and notice some of my secrets (passwords, API keys, etc) are saved as plain text in the config files. Not the best practice, even if they are passwords for non-critical services. I want to backup my dot files and make them accessible to anyone who wants them, but that is not happening until I fix this issue. To…
With prices likely to skyrocket in the U.S. due to upcoming tariffs and most products being garbage anyway I figured this year will be one where I try to cut back on spending. That is not to say I won’t buy anything or even forgo every luxury, but I want to be more mindful about what I spend my money on this year. What is a No Buy No buy is basically a budgeting method where you focus on…
2024 was a crazy year. This is going to be the last post in this format because I want to try something a little different in 2025. I’ll still be sharing links to cool stuff, but I want to add more notes about the places I’ve been and personal experiences. Maybe a monthly review. Personal highlights I visited both my direct and my partner’s family for christmas calibrations…
This year has been a crazy one. I’ve written more than 20 articles, created a new theme for the website, and started many small projects that will never see the light of day. Tech Stuff I’ve done a lot with computers this year, so much that you might think I actually like the things. Blog Optimization and New Theme When I used WordPress I hardly tinkered with my website outside of some…
The year is almost over and somehow I’ve published one of these favorites articles each month so far. I’m going to change up the format next year, but think it has been a worthwhile thing to do. Taking what I’ve consumed, curating it down to things I felt were meaningful, and adding my own commentary has been useful for me and hopefully entertaining for those who read it. General…
This is not a technical article or even my normal “share stuff from across the internet” kind of thing. Sorry if I get something wrong, feel free to correct me. There are people who are far more knowledgeable about this than me. Nevertheless we all need to say something. It takes a lot of courage to stand against those whom you know to be evil. Matthew Graybosch wrote a post on his own…
I may or may not have fallen into a retro computing and camera (videography and photography both) rabbithole this month. Also it is election season in the United States and this year we have a wannabe dictator trying to make it as hard as possible for people to vote so there has been some coverage about that as well. If you haven’t already voted yet and are a U.S. voter please do so because…
News Sovereign Tech Fund to Invest €686,400 in FreeBSD Infrastructure Modernization FreeBSD got a grant to help them improve their infrastructure by Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund. This is great because public money should go into public tech rather than go to proprietary licenses. FreeBSD is used all over the place, but gets less attention and thus less funding than projects like Linux. Open…
One of the things people often talk about is how the old web felt bigger and was fun to explore compared to the modern internet. Even though there are more websites than every it feels like there are only a few big ones, web surfing is dead, and that the web in general is a hostile place. While it is true that on ad driven search engines AI slop and SEO spam make up a large amount of results,…
I’ve not been doing much on my computer this month and will have a lot of articles and videos to catch up on next month, but there was still a lot of great stuff this month. Life Stuff I did a lot of life admin things this month as well as had a lot of activities going on outside of work and digital spaces to keep me busy. A few friends and I myself have birthdays in August so we hung out…