Friday, 6th June, 2025

Well I just rebought the radio I sold. Upside is for slightly less than I sold mine for. My previous chat about microwaves was a reason why I wanted it back. It’s such a versatile radio. Hopefully I’ll use it 😅

I’ve been getting annoyed with Windows recently. But maybe that’s just me trying to justify getting a Mac. Not sure that’ll solve the problem, it’ll just shuffle the deck again.

I have three free VPS on Oracle cloud. I wanted to install Debian on one and use for an allstarlink node (think ham radio over pbx). But my goodness is the cloud interface panel confusing. I darent touch anything as I suspect I won’t get the resources I currently have assigned, but also I can’t figure how to change anything. I do think maybe I should scrap them and pay for a vps elsewhere. But it’s free!

I’ve made a list of the VPS and now seeing what’s installed on them. Also made a list of what I want and then I should rejig it all. Found a nice guide to install Debian on them (as only comes with Ubuntu) and turned out you can have 6 free VPS!

Thinking of binning my wiki and using Apple Notes. When I find something useful I should make a blog post of it or not presume that others will find it useful. Given I’ve found it, they can probably find it too. Unless they’re not looking for it. I’ll keep the radio wiki as that feels more useful as it’s more curated.

I also think if it’s a link to somewhere good then I should use a service that’s built around managing links, like linkding. Vs the wiki which work for it but less good.

Also want a MacBook.

Thursday, 5th June, 2025

A nice day out. But of a drive though to get to some of these last hills nearby that I’ve not been to. Rain kept at bay, although I could see it in the distance.

I should find some headphones now. Cheap but not cheap…

I sold a lens as well. The 50-230 XC Fuji lens. Never use it. Wasn’t a very expensive one but another pointless thing in the house.

Watching videos on the Olympia SM series. I would like one…

I install navidrome on the server and have started listening to albums I’ve not touched in 15+ years. It’s great. I should listen to my music more 😅 I did rip all my CDs to FLAC but now when I look in the folder for some artists it’s empty or only one album and I know there were more. I’m sad about that. I can get the songs from spotify but I used to own the CD…

Down the rabbit hole of what headphones to get for the echo mini…

Wednesday, 4th June, 2025

I was very close to buying Snowsky Echo Mini but then saw they had a retro mini and then looked at iPods. The problem was I kept changing why I was buying it and creating scenarios and then reading endless reviews. There are two problems: 1. Don’t want daughter on her phone the whole summer holidays but she uses it for music and we don’t want to be that mean. So thinking of some secondary device she can listen to music to on. 2. I want to have a non-computer based device for listening to music. She’ll use Bluetooth and I won’t. So really it’s two problems which probably want too different devices - although summer music is temporary so that pushes me share a device or spend the least. This triggers the internal struggle again.

Also, probably I won’t use mine. Mostly as I can’t break the habit of sitting on the computer all night.

I dug out the Smith-Corona Viceroy De-Luxe that I have. Doesn’t quite work, nearly every key does work except Q and 1/2 symbol. Ink is dry too. I don’t really want it and I don’t want to try and fix it. It is a nice size but that’s about it. I was going to sell it but they sell for nothing and there are listings for £10 which expire and no one bids. It has no sentimental value and it’s not a “top notch” one so probably I should just give it away. Think I only paid £20 for it. Maybe take it to the hack space or give it to a charity shop. Smells a bit old too.

Tuesday, 3rd June, 2025

Wish I never got rid of my SanDisk Sansa clip from 10+ years ago. Was the perfect little digital music player. But back then I got sucked into Spotify etc and “I don’t need this anymore”. Now I wish I had it so I could listen to music and not get sucked into my phone. Or even whilst going out on hikes. Be nice to listen to music or podcast or audio book etc but not be worrying about phone battery. Trying to find something equivalent, but it’s hard as either 1000 cheapo things (which may or may not be good) or people on reddit going “this is the budget one you want. <$200>”

Also eBay is charging more now for them than when new. Obviously.

The Shangling M0 looks nice but more than I want to spend. This is a rabbit hole.

Monday, 2nd June, 2025

Lovely blue sky this morning. Made me annoyed as I’m working today and off tomorrow when a low front hits. Probably push it into Thursday or Friday. The corona ejection or whatever it was that caused a big geomagnetic storm is still lingering so that would’ve put a dampener on an outing anyway. Also I looked at the mountain weather forecast and it’s not blue skies there. So there we go, maybe not missing out on much as I thought. Wish I was retired though 😅 plenty of nice coastal parks to activate.

Went to bed early as I was so tired. Still feel tired today. I know I’m grumpy when I’m tired but it’s hard to not be.

Randomly opened DayOne and added some entries to the family journal from this weekend. I forget how nice the app is. As before, I should do this more often! The usual feeling of burden to do it but then joy at having done it and looking back. This year has been very poor and end of last year wasn’t great. But even a photo and a sentence is better than nothing. Also reminds me of another reason to get a Mac 😅 although they have the web version too which I could use on any computer…(but don’t).

Sunday, 1st June, 2025

3D printers are annoying. Well my one is or can be. Mostly bed leveling/cleaning/ adhesion. Trying not to buy a new one to solve the problem. Was talking to another dad at swimming pick up and he has three Bambu printers! He’s made this huge Lego man with a swim suit, googles and hat for the club which is pretty cool. He said he had an ender but got annoyed with it and the bambus are so good. Thanks man. 🤑

Saturday, 31st May, 2025

Busy morning and kids off all over the place now just home with one for the day. I was productive doing laundry and chores then I sat down with a cup of tea and don’t seem to be able to get up again. 😴

Told myself I’d list the Xbox and a lens on eBay. I should do that, and then I think boy #2 wants to build a big lego creation.

New term timetable means I should try and take Tuesdays off then I can go on big hikes. So I’d lined work stuff up to take this coming Tuesday off…except now it looks like they’ll be rain/wind/snow(?) on the summits. I could maybe swap to Monday but not ideal and not sure the weather is any better. Plus I can’t leave home as early. Or I gamble that it’ll be okay on Friday and just so a small hill somewhere. Or I just walk in the rain and wind…maybe okay in southern hills if I can just use my handheld but bit grim otherwise.

The weather changes so hopefully it’ll get better…although the 10 day forecast inland is rain…☔️ I could try and tidy up some small hills, where the walks are short. Although rain at the top and messing about on air still isn’t that great regardless of height.

Friday, 30th May, 2025

Had a great day out in the hills yesterday with Fraser. The day started with pouring rain and a geomagnetic storm…which wasn’t looking good. However, I’d already committed Thursday to being my day off and I didn’t want to end up sitting around the house (aka the computer) and doing nothing all day. So we went out, but the rain held off and the radio wasn’t that bad.

Only for the day to be ruined 1.5 miles from home when I got two(!) punctures on both left hand side tyres. Ugh. Ended up crawling home at 5mph. Remarkably found a garage to come and replace them last night - which worked out well as less faff today and wife is driving this evening.

Friend with his Mac mini M4 keeps telling me about it. Thing is, I know it’s great, and I would like it, but it’ll be a secondary computer and not really get used or will do but it’ll be a faff with keyboards and monitors and cables. It really wants to be the main thing or another setup somewhere, but there are only so many places you can have a computer. I could do VNC into it.

Or I could replace my desktop with it. I’ve been playing GTAV but I quickly become bored of it. Seems to just become a chore to do missions and find stuff. That’s what happens when I play games, so perhaps I should realise I don’t really care for computer games anymore.

Tuesday, 27th May, 2025

A friend bought a mac mini M4 👀

Finally finished Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson. It’s the fifth book in The Stormlight Archive series. Turns out it is not the ending but just the ending to the first half of the series. Well I enjoy them so that’s fine but it’ll be a year or two or more before the next one comes out. All the epic fantasy storylines I’ve read have already been finished, so to read one as it comes out is … different. I don’t mind, but I’ve forgotten half the things by the time the next one comes out. Although you quickly remember and the specifics don’t really matter. So now to find something else to read.

Monday, 26th May, 2025

Having multiple wikis is annoying me. I only have two but it seems silly. I’m also not liking tiddlywiki recently. It has lots of things in it but I never find them, not because the search is bad but because I don’t remember I have the information in there. It’s like buying some more screws because I didn’t know I had some in the huge bin of everything.

I find myself either using the linkding instance I have to find useful websites I’ve saved or my radio wiki as I know where things are - as I have to add some structure before I save information.

After messing about with nearlyfreespeech last night I’m debating about consolidating everything into a single dokuwiki instance hosted there…mostly so I don’t have to worry about hosting and just throw in some money every so often. I could host it at home or a VPS but I’m wanting to host less and move away from a VPS or have a very small one just as an SSH entry point that’s always online.

But tiddlywiki is / can be a static site that just lives forever. Maybe I’m using the radio wiki more as that’s what I’m currently interested in.

Also not sure I can be bothered to migrate all the materials from tiddlywiki over.

Sunday, 25th May, 2025

Find a radio station.

Things that I’ve been looking at/thinking about today:

• Getting my US ham radio licence
• Buying a IC-705 AND a ft-817/818 to make a dual radio, all mode, satellite station
• Seeing a IC-705 AND ft-817 for sale on the second hand market (705 for less than I sold mine for too…)
• Not using gmail for email
• Not using github for repos
• Consolidating VPSs into a service from the likes of https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ or similar
• Setups for bird photography
• Tents for camping
• Installing OpenBSD on a laptop
• Buying an old thinkpad for OpenBSD
• Selling the Xbox X and getting a Switch 2
• Not getting a Switch 2 but another Switch 1
• Moving from Github to sourcehut.

Phew 🤦‍♂️

Friday, 23rd May, 2025

Who doesn’t like a wiki about learning python webframework.

Last night a made a simple website that shows gps routes for summits people upload to sotamaps as the author said the website was going away. I started with just the U.K. but then left my computer downloading the rest of the world overnight. This morning the SOTA IT team have said the functionality will be integrated into existing systems - and so won’t be going away. Oh well. It was a fun experiment.

Wednesday, 21st May, 2025

Another lovely day in the mountains. Was a long drive today as I wanted to do two close together for 20 points. Just as much driving as walking. Weather is probably going to turn the end of this week, it’s been a long stretch of amazing weather.

Means I have loads of summits still to write up. Probably need to change it to a post per day or trips vs. Per summit. Think I’m 22 behind if it’s summits. Might need to change the table and things, although maybe I could just work around it and not have to adjust the templates.

I did think about converting the radio site to another static generator but that’s pointless and I do use the observableJS stuff for drawing maps.

Not sure “Recent Posts” is appropriate on my new blog. Given the last one was over a year ago! 😅

Tuesday, 20th May, 2025

I’m enjoying Zola SSG. Found a nice theme and trying hard not to tweak it too much…as that’s when I get in trouble!

Trying to decide where I go tomorrow for radio hill walking. Either somewhere close that I’ve been to before or somewhere further away I’ve not been too. Closer places need a bike. Not sure I can be bothered with that as I also have swimming drop off in the morning. But do I want to do 5-6 hours of driving for 3 hours walking. I want to do them all eventually anyway. This is the last swimming drop off and hike day as the timetable changes and I’ll have to do school drop off on Wednesdays. Which probably means the days I end up doing will be straight from the house. Feels like I should do the further one. Also locals might want to come with me. I’ll check Google maps for times…seems to vary by quite a lot.

Thought about integrating these posts onto my main blog. Probably have to build the templates myself to make it all work but they’re not that complicated. (He says not currently able to change something). Not sure if I want to though. I like the separation of sites. I also like this domain better.