Monday, 31st October, 2022

This guy documents.

Seems my work IP address has permanently banned from Ars Technica comments system for spam.

I’ve been clearing out my TV folder on the server. It went from 1.4 TB down to 769 GB. There’s probably more I can do but need to check no-one was in the middle of watching it, or saving it to watch. There was stuff on there that I’ve had for years, and no-one has watched it. I kept it for myself to watch but never have, and at this point I don’t think I ever will. So it’s gone. There are a few shows we’ll keep as we, mostly my wife, likes to rewatch them. I’ve yet to start on movies.

Doing this has made me reconsider physical media. I moved all our DVDs onto the server 10+ years ago and I don’t think anyone has bought a DVD/bluray in ages. My wife asked for a bluray player last year, so we got one. She still has lots of them, but I got rid of all mine once on the computer. I’m in two minds about it, I’m thinking I’d rather have the physical media as it costs nothing to keep, and generally it’s cheap to find used or in sales. However, it is nice to be able to watch things on any device and not just the main TV.

Giving a presentation tomorrow at a conference. I was meant to be figuring out what I’m saying tonight but instead messed about on the computer 🤭. I’m sure they’ll be time in the morning…

Sunday, 30th October, 2022

Oh clocks going back. Great if you don’t have young kids.

Went to bed thinking the M-P 240 is the right model for me. And now that I’ve slept on it? Oh I don’t know. 🤷

I installed the 4 TB SSD into the new server. But I’m still wondering how I’m setting everything up. Am I really getting rid of the 4x 4TB drives? I have trimmed data down a lot but is it not handy having the storage for…something. I had thought of putting it into a low powered NAS device for periodic turning on a backup stuff up. Mostly so that it was easy and I didn’t have to think about it, but all those things (synology, asusstor, etc.) are really expensive. Perhaps something with TrueNAS installed. Of course I have a computer which everything is already in! I think I’m struggling as the current server is just fine, and why I have bought all these things? 🙄

Probably I just need to start setting up the services I want and migrate the plex server. Then reinstall OS on the old server, TrueNAS is appealing as keeps ZFS easy. Then maybe look at how much I could get for selling mine and maybe trying to get a HP microserver or something, not really necessary but I’ll have a look.

I wonder if you can have plex libraries installed on other computers and then rig up something to turn them on on demand.

It does seem dumb constraining myself. Ugh. The new server does have a better CPU, DDR4 ram, and NVME so there’s that.

I trimmed down those ~400 photos to about 165 last night. Still seems excessive. Do I pick my favourite 38 and keep those?

Homelab podcast

I started on the new server. Setup home assistant. It detected everything which was nice. But I’m left feeling “now what?” with it. I want to log long term house temperatures so I think I have to setup an external database to do so. I actually like how it detected the HP Tango and now tells me the ink in percentage.

I realise I have documents and ebooks all over the place. Movies, home videos and photos are well organised but smaller files aren’t. I need to sort it all out, and make sure it’s properly replicated to the various backup locations. This is somewhat tricky over multiple devices and operating systems. In theory I should use something like Nextcloud and then mount that everywhere and then have Linux do the backup. But last time I tired nextcloud it was fine until I tried upgrading then it broke and I couldn’t be bothered to figure out why. It also does everything and I don’t really need it to.

I also realised that iCloud on Windows has improved quite a bit. This is encouraging me to go back to my 2 TB subscription and then keep everything on it. I wonder if someone has made an iCloud Linux interface….to the google/GitHub. Because if so that would make synchronising it easier. There is syncthing too, in fact lots of programs. The issue is deciding where and what structure.

I also remembered my thought about separating the services machine from the storage machine. Probably moot as all my computers are likely powerful enough to last forever but in theory the services machine might want upgrading sooner to run …stuff?… vs just file sharing. I think “low powered” CPUs can do a lot these days.

It has given me a chance to see what’s going on with Docker-compose, although I’m still not reading all the docs, and perhaps some better design practices. Going to split my docker-compose.yml into multiple ones for different purposes so that they’re easier to maintain.

Saturday, 29th October, 2022

This morning I was admiring the archives page on this site. It now covers a full year. There are gaps in the content, some of which was recorded in tiddlywiki and I do have a json file of those posts which I keep meaning to convert to markdown files here. It’s not hard, probably about 15 lines of python, but I just never get round to it.

Used the Fuji a lot today for a party. Enjoyable just to point and shoot and capture the moment. Although with digital it means I end up with 383 moments to look through. I took a single frame of B&W film today. Feeling like I want a little rest from film. Still got one more roll of B&W to develop and the two previous rolls to scan (one with the black lines and the other just fine). Makes me appreciate digital, and paying the lab to develop and scan. The colour ones I recently sent off, I did consider only paying for development and then scanning myself, but I didn’t and I’m quite glad. I like the lab for big trips when I come back with 4+ rolls (was 7 this time).

In a similar vein, I’ve been thinking about a digital M again. I have a circle of “the M10 is the ideal one, modern, but not too expensive (relative to the more expensive ones of course). Then I think, but I’d really like the -P for the upgrades and the look, plus, like today, when I look for used M10s, they’re quite expensive compared to earlier this year. Today there’s only one under £3700 and the typical price has been £3500 for a long time. If I’m at £3700 then I’m close to -P territory. Although M10-Ps are even more infrequently sold and their price can jump about a lot. So I think, “well just a bit more and I could get the -R”. But then I check with myself if I really want/need a 40 MP sensor and 50 MB files? I’m still not a fan of the red dot either. I also then focus my eyes on the price and realise I’ve added £2k to my starting point. Okay, back away. Now what? Am I going to only use the M for digital? Seems unlikely, I enjoy autofocus. So then is it sensible to spend this amount of money on what is potentially the secondary digital? (when really I enjoy film more…if I’ve not burnt myself out on it). So M240 or M-P typ 240 seems a good option. Cheaper, but still “recent” (in Leica history), and perfectly usable. Then I fuss about it being fatter than a film M and it’s still >£2.5k for what is quite an old digital camera, so I’m back at M10. Maybe M10 is the answer that I just can’t see for myself. I’m sure I can live without a level display and a touchscreen…

Friday, 28th October, 2022

Well I’ve been having “fun” with film developing the past two days. Can’t really explain what happened yesterday but the roll came out with regularly space black vertical bars on it. Virtually the same size as the shutter join, and most of what I could find online was telling me it was a shutter issue.

Today I got my colour rolls back from the lab. All perfect, and they were taken after the roll of B&W. I then developed another roll of B&W tonight and it was perfect too. Which is great, as it means the camera is working just fine. I spent some time today looking at various film camera repairs (this information is in fact something that I should definitely put in the wiki!) and pricing up a CLA/service. Good news that I don’t need one, although I think I might do one in the new year once the holidays are over. We’re having a Halloween kids party tomorrow and I was wanting to use the camera for that, so good on that front too.

I think the shutter was the issue but I think that there was some debris in the camera that was causing it to stick somehow. Then when I changed roll it got cleared out. Unless it was development but can’t think how the banding would occur. Maybe my rage of spending 45 minutes trying to get the film to load on to the reel, only to then realise it’s missing the ball bearings, irradiated the film and causing the banding!

Been thinking of an excuse to use Jupyter book, and thinking that it could be a nice online notebook/lab book. Maybe for writing up monthly summaries, or key information I want to save in an easily accessible way? The wiki is that but maybe things I want to save but refer to often? I’ll give it a shot and see how we get on. It’s a static generator so what’s not to love 😅

Swapped my Fiio Q DAC to USB 2.0 and that seems to have fixed it from disconnecting whenever the computer slept - which was so annoying. Only took me several months to do this.

I enjoyed this video about the new M6.

I did spend a while considering another camera if I was going to be sending my camera off for service. Most of these places have older repair men who’ve been doing this for multiple decades and they work to produce quality, not quanity. Which is exactly what you want, but it does mean that schedules are more of an indication vs. an actual target! With christmas coming up I was worried I wouldn’t have my camera for it. I had a fun ride looking at M3/4/5/6/MP/new M6! Maybe.

Thursday, 27th October, 2022

I’m really tempted to setup a jupyter book site to replace the wiki. I feel like it’ll make more organise stuff more/better by forcing thinking about putting stuff in it. Although it then may do the opposite and mean that I never add anything as it’s more work. hmm, perhaps I’ll just set it up and play about with it anyway. I like the idea of it having python notebooks in it, which could calculate stuff or retrieve APIs etc. However, liking the idea of it and then actually doing something is very different.

Wednesday, 26th October, 2022

This new iCloud web version is nice. Makes me actually want to go use it, having reminders, notes and calendar all showing on the one page is great.

I wish it had Apple Music tile or even a link that automatically logged me into apple music.

Tuesday, 25th October, 2022

Another cool looking techy computer thing that I want but would never use is now available for pre-order.

Monday, 24th October, 2022

My “essential film holder” has finally shipped. That means I can scan that roll of HP5 I developed a few weeks ago and actually look at the images. I should figure out the conversion tool I’m using tonight so that I can get straight on with it tomorrow.

I was going to develop the rolls I took on holiday, but the utility room where I do it is piled high with stuff, and I don’t want to tidy it…or get accused of spilling things on it. I think I still have a apprehension of developing, as whilst I don’t start, nothing has gone wrong. I don’t know why, it’s kind of easy if you just follow the instructions. I even left a little bit of leader out to make it easier to start rolling it onto the spool.

Maybe I will go and do it…

Got macOS running in a virtual machine on my server last night. The repo made it very easy, so not like I can claim to be smart about it. Tempted to use it for Photos.app, (and maybe even tinderbox! (unlikely)), to once again manage my photos on iCloud. I did like it when I did it. I just didn’t like have more computers. I’ve thought about getting a macbook to replace my laptop, so at least it’s not a net increase in computers. Just it’s quite expensive and I don’t really need or use a laptop that much. I could get a mac mini to sit under the desk and switch to it or even VNC into it. That is maybe better but still seems excessive just for managing Photos. I’m not ready to commit to just a mac as our main desktop. I have thought about an iMac for the kitchen as a “family” computer, but not sure my wife would agree that we need another computer and in the kitchen. Or I could try using the VM or my iPad. Technically I can upload from icloud.com too.

Trying to buy old Lego sets on ebay for daughter’s christmas present is a PITA. Why did I volunteer for this job!

Made my parents a financial spreadsheet with the aim of letting them see when they can retire and when they can move close to us. They say they want to stop working by 60 and to move near us, yet then do things which, to me, is the opposite of that. Like doing more remodels on their house, vs. cutting their mortgage by 3 years. 🤷

Sunday, 23rd October, 2022

Installing OS X on a linux virtual environment? Sure why not.

Not that this was on my freshly made todo list. The todo list lives in dynalist. I found my last big todo list from….July…I had done a few things on it, but several are still waiting.

Friend and I felt like a bit of minecraft. It’s been a while and there’s always something new that gets added. After the summer’s enforcement by Microsoft to convert our minecraft accounts to Microsoft ones, we now both own copies of the Windows version. You can still host a server using it, and that makes it compatible with multiple platforms, which is quite neat. It’s also not written in java so it uses next to nothing in memory and CPU for 2 players - unlike the java version. Probably explains how they can now host servers with 16,000 players on it and not need all of Azure to run it. It’s fun. We chat on mumble and explore.

Ordered a 4 TB SSD today. Samsung have a cashback promo and so it’s quite a good deal. Debated about getting a 2 TB NVME to replace the 1 TB one I have in the server to give me a little more space. Decided that it wasn’t quite worth it, mainly as I’ve just bought a 1 TB one and what will I do with that? I need to prune more stuff to migrate to this single SSD server but probably can leave somethings on the old one as archive.

Saturday, 22nd October, 2022

I’m easing off on the M10 (again again. again.). It’s the fact that it’s digital and expensive. Mostly expensive, but how interesting is it really? It’s nice to use the M lenses with a rangefinder but I’m not convinced. Probably just sticking with film M for now. £3k also buys a lot of film or even go towards building a darkroom…should I ever get round to doing anything.

I’d thought of so many good things I was going to do when I got home. Now that I’m here I can’t remember any of them and have just sat down on the computer and done nothing. Clearly I need more todo apps or note taking apps.

Friday, 21st October, 2022

Been having lots of fun with the M2 and 50mm. It’s a nice focal length for being outside. Baby bear’s focal length (not too wide, not too narrow…). Interested to see how the pictures come out. Got 3 rolls of B&W so far to develop myself and two colour which I’ll post off. Might do another one tomorrow. B&W at 400 would mean I can double up in the dev tank.

My Essentials film holder still hasn’t shipped. Can’t remember when I ordered it but when I emailed him on the 5th Oct he said hopefully next week…

Back on the M10 wagon again. Saw a good deal on one, would be by far the cheapest I’ve seen all year. I don’t look every day but a minimum of once a week I’ll look at prices. Not only is it a good deal, it’s also in excellent condition. Generally the cheaper ones before have “signs of use”. It is a silver one, and I had originally decided to get black. However, after visiting the Leica store, I quite like the silver one. Plus it sort of matches the M2. What would match the M2 more? The M10-P of course. However, that’s £1k+ more 😬. Doesn’t seem worth the money (although I do like level gauges) for most aesthetics. Yet I do think the red dot looks a bit out of place. There’s always the black dot or tape or sticker or something to convert/cover it.

I tell myself that the M10 is perfectly fine (more than fine) and maybe later I can get a P or R or something. Actually maybe M10M!

If you need me I’ll be on page 32 of “P or not to P” on a dozen forums. I’ll then decide and the bargain M10 will have sold.

Thursday, 20th October, 2022

The Leica store Manchester has a lovely Minolta CLE set, with 28, 40, 90 lenses, flash module, and a nice brown leather case. Looks absolutely mint. £2k though, which seems a bit excessive to drop on a nice, what will no doubtedly be, a shelf decoration. I would like a nice aperture priority rangefinder and the Minolta one is supposed very good, although if the electronics fail then I think it’s completely dead - can’t even use it manually. Although that part I might be wrong. Not many CLEs seem to come up here, not that I’m actively looking, but when I did they were few and far between. Seem to remember that the camera was £1k alone, so this could be a good deal.

Wednesday, 19th October, 2022

I heard back from the store and they reminded me that I have 6 months warranty on the lens, and can return it to them at any time for a free recalibration. This is good to know and I’d not really realised this when I bought it. I assumed I just had the 14 days. They also said they’d tested it on their alignment simulator (whatever that is), as well as on a M10 monochrom.

I also spent some more time with the adapter for my Fuji. I noticed that the 35mm CV has the same infinity focus misalignment as the lux. Where at infinity it’s gone past focus and is now all blurry. This most likely means that the adapter is to blame, and it’s positioning of the lens relative to the sensor is not quite perfect, especially given they both show the same effect by basically the same amount. Given this was a cheapo china/ebay job I’m not surprised. It doesn’t really matter as I’m always using focus peaking on the Fuji.

So I suspect that the lens is just fine, and perhaps my M2 is slightly out on the rangefinder mechanism that stops it lining up perfectly at infinity. This is something I can tweak, although not sure if I’ll do it just yet as then I’m not sure about the 35mm.

Overall, I’m glad about this. I still want to see the film results to confirm everything.

Joined the waitlist for Tana.inc. Not sure why…it does look good from what I’ve been shown but not sure I can be persuaded to pay for a note taking app (fancy as it may be). Anyway, it’ll be free to start with and maybe they’ll be a free tier. Overall, I still prefer a self-hosted tiddlywiki, or wiki or something to use instead.

The weather and having digital and film makes it hard to decide what to take each time we go out. I chose digital today and I think that turned out for the best. The kids were tired and so wanted carried a lot, and it was quite dull today. We also went inside the castle and it was very low light in there.

Tuesday, 18th October, 2022

Some buyers remorse is now setting in. The “can I even tell the difference” factor. Also is it sucking me down the ever more expensive M mount route! 😅

Was using the lux today at the coast and was taking several shots of the distance. I think this is the first time focusing to infinity on it, I have only taken two rolls of films so far. I can see that at infinity the rangefinder patch doesn’t exactly overlay the viewfinder - like it does on my CV 35mm. Now maybe it makes no difference whatsoever, and the lens still focuses just fine to infinity. I suppose that would be okay (even though this was still very expensive) but how do I know that it’s focusing correctly at all the other distances between 0.7 m and infinity… Unfortunately with only using film, then not as easily. Now that I’ve noticed this, I’m paying more attention to it and I also noticed that at the close focus, 0.7m, there’s a small amount of focus throw left past 0.7m even though the rangefinder window has already stopped. Now maybe that’s just due to my camera’s minimum focus of 0.7m, and checking with a friend that sounds like the norm.

I did mount it on the Fuji using the M-X adapter and found that at infinity it would go past being in focus and be blurry. True in focus at infinity was a few millimetres shy of the end stop. Doesn’t sound like much but when you have a rangefinder patch that doesn’t line up, how are you supposed to focus the thing? I guess I should try and test other distances to see if it’s in focus but that doesn’t necessarily help with the film M as I’m still relying on the patch.

I’ve contacted the store and will see what they say. Technically I’m within the return window but, as a small independent, I’m sure they’re not keen to just take it back without challenge. They might offer to look at it and fix it or something which depending on what they say I could take them up on it. However, I’m not sure I can be convinced and mostly hoping they’ll be okay with a refund.

If that does turn out to be the case, then the next question will be - do I get another? I suppose I’ll wait and see what the photos turn out like (assuming no glaring focus issue other than perhaps at infinity - if I can even tell on film). The long term plan is to get a digital M, and whilst I might get away with the lens not perfect all the time on film, I don’t think that will work as well on digital.

It’s just annoying and a chore. 😩

Monday, 17th October, 2022

The 18mm f/2 is becoming my favourite inside lens. It’s a bit slower than the 23 1.4 but I like the extra length and it balances nicely on the camera. Tempted to sell the 23 now.

Took another roll of HP5 at 800 today. It’s been overcast and it helped me shoot at 5.6 1/125s outside.

The 50mm is nice to use. I like the fairly short focus throw, the tab and the built in hood. It’s not light but it’s also not that big or heavy. I do worry I can’t focus it at f/1.4 on the M2. Is it worth it? Probably no is the real answer but it doesn’t matter. If everything is ranked as “is it worth it”, I’d end up doing nothing and having nothing.

These articles always make me want to find a laptop to put OpenBSD on. Maybe one day I’ll do I, but I suspect I’ll config it all then look at it, close the lid and never touch it again.

I wonder what I do on the computer each evening? Now that I’m away and just have my iPad I’m struggling to think of anything to do on it. This is probably not a bad thing, but it seems strange. I do want to write in my blog but the downside of blot and Dropbox is that on the free tier of Dropbox I can’t have the app installed on many things. This is generally manageable by using 1Writer but then images become a hassle. Thinking of moving the blog to a static site, probably just Jekyll as I know it and it’s good enough, and pretty much copy the blot theme. Then keep blot and make a photo blog. Mostly as I can use my phone to do everything if I wanted to. Although if it’s a photo blog that I’m paying for then maybe I should pay for Glass or something…the only thing is that I don’t really want a social media platform as I don’t care.

Sunday, 16th October, 2022

Setting up (slowly) my new server and I’m pleased that it idles at 7.5 W. This is versus the old one of 55 W. Admittedly there aren’t any hard drives in it yet, and that’s still something I’m debating about. Ideally I’d have one SSD as that would be lower powered than a mechanical drive. Does make it a bit pricy depending on what size I need. I deleted a whole load of stuff from my storage and it’s about 5.3 TB. Not all of it I’d need to have constantly accessible and so I could leave it on the array. I’m hoping for some sales which will help decide. I’m also sure I could tweak another watt or two with some cpu power management if I really tried.

The 50mm f2 I sold supposedly has the wrong lens cap. The only thing I can think of is that I swapped the 35 and the 50 around at some stage. Although I sold the 35mm a while ago. I didn’t really notice that it didn’t fit, although I only keep the cap on whilst it’s on the shelf and then just use the hood for protection whilst on the camera. The buyer claims it doesn’t fit whatsoever, but seems nice about it. I should probably just refund him £10 or something and let him buy a replacement. Anyway, he’s sending it back to me for me to look and swap back.

Took the Fuji out today with the 35 1.4. Probably best as it was raining on and off. Missed a good shot of this lady going for a swim in the loch. I took a picture of her but not the right angle with the hills in the background. It was raining, about 8°C and it’s a lake in autumn. She was in a bikini and had a Celtic tattoo on her back. Would’ve been a good Scotland promo photo😅

I also don’t want to use up all my film in the first two days.

I’m already nervous for developing the film myself when I get back. It’s quite straightforward but what if I mess it up and the photos are gone? I doesn’t really matter but I guess that’s another good reason for taking digital as well. Would be handy and simpler if I did have a digital M…although I like autofocus for when we’re out and about and busy with everyone. The moments are quick and the light always isn’t enough for f/8-16.

Saturday, 15th October, 2022

Took the M2, 35mm, 50mm and HP5, Gold and a roll of Portra 800. Digital was the tricker decision, ended up with 18 f/2 and 35 f/1.4. I sort of wanted to not take the digital camera but it seemed overly restrictive and if it’s really dark inside I don’t want to miss out.

Taking my first roll of HP5 with the lux. Trying not to rush through the roll because I want to see the results.

If you want some entertainment look up Jacob Rees-Mogg’s children’s names.

Friday, 14th October, 2022

Blurb have a 50% sale on right now (code: GETREADY5025) so ordered the big family photo album. £63 inc. shipping for 210 pages, hardback 20”x20” book seems pretty good value to me. Look forward to seeing that.

Should I go all film for this holiday trip? Would be quite fun, and stops me ending up with hundreds of photos to go through. The X-E4 plus a lens isn’t that big, and seems silly not to bring it. Perhaps just the 35mm? Although it’s the chunkiest…or the 18 with it…or….27…or…🙄

I’m feeling overwhelmed by having too many things at the moment. I want one thing of each, not multiple. But sometimes that’s hard. I was looking at more smart IoT junk today. Screens and little chips and random stuff. I love the idea of it but never follow through on anything. I have a 7 colour e-ink display sat in front of me. I managed to change the stock image it shows but never did anything else with it. I bought a load of thermometers to measure temperatures around the house. I’m part way through setting it up on the computer as I want to log longer term data, see how the house changes with the outside weather, but now I’ve got two servers and hard drive mis-alignment, and I’m not really sure what to do about it. Buy my way out of the problem? Always seems like the solution but then later I regret getting something else. I’m already doing it in my head. 💭I should get rid of all my computers and peripheralsand just have an iMac.💭 No, I don’t need to buy ANOTHER computer! What I need to do is spend less time on a computer. Maybe it’s good we’re going away for a bit. Should I not bring my iPad? But I want to write in DayOne…I’ll bring it.

I made a random mechanical keyboard a while ago. One key still needs resoldering to fix, but I’M NEVER GOING TO USE IT! Was fun to make. Maybe I should just fix that final key, then sell it.

Maybe I’m just like this as the kids have been in the office drawing and doing things and so there’s clutter everywhere.

I should focus on my server admin todos, and move closer to sorting it all out.

Or go to bed earlier.

Thursday, 13th October, 2022

Each morning I cycle to work I pass a guy who’s cycling in the opposite direction. He’s only wearing sorts and a T-shirt. Doesn’t wear a helmet either. How is he not freezing? I’ve got jacket, trousers, gloves and helmet. I don’t leg it the whole way but I don’t dawdle either I’m warm on the inside but my face and hands are still cold. I saw him on my way home today. Weird.

Installed Arch Linux on my new server last night. Think the CMOS battery is dead as when I unplugged it, it lost the time and so that upset the keychain in verifying GPG keys. Or it might’ve been that I hit the reset button on the motherboard when cleaning? Maybe I should look in the BIOS to see if everything is set okay.

I also had some weird issue with the boot loader. All my other computers I use bootctl that’s part of systemd. I already have systemd so why install extra packages? Anyway, it just would not find the boot image. I double checked things so many times but couldn’t see the issue. I was tired and maybe couldn’t see the problem. Anyway, I just installed grub, ran it’s configurer and all was good. I just setup SSH, installed Docker and added a user then it was time for bed.

I’ve flashed my zigbee controller for the computer and ready to set up the thermometers I bought. Need to figure out all the databases to store the info. Seems like influxdb is the one for long term data.

I’ve thought of a few website admin todos I have. There’s just never time to do them.

I quite like the look of the new Google Pixel Watch. Looks more like a regular watch compared to the Apple Watch. Probably would only be semi-good with an iPhone, and the “killer” features would only work with a Pixel phone. I haven’t looked whatsoever if that’s true. Maybe completely wrong as they want to break into Apple Watch wearers. Not going to have HomeKit support though.

HP5+ pushed 5 stops developed in 2 hours 20! 😅

This guy sniffers the API of the cat feeder and then hooks up a little python script with the amazing requests library to control it…best of all via his Elgato Stream deck. Now I want that stream deck. Not for streaming but for general controlling of stuff via buttons. Yes, I sure I could make something with a raspberry pi, but (a) that’ll never happen, and (b) will look a lot jankier than the stream deck.

streamlit is nice. I’ve used it a few times for a quick web app with data. Now you can have custom domains too!

Wednesday, 12th October, 2022

I’m unusually non-plussed about the lens I just got (from a financial standpoint, not optical!), even though it’s the most expensive one I’ve ever bought! It’s a solid unit of glass and metal, does make the M2 front heavy but it still feels fine to use with the camera. Only had a quick play this morning and not taken a single picture with it yet. A tiny voice in my head is wondering if the cron would be better from a size and weight perspective, but then I remembered that on film I’m always wanting as much light as I can get. Nothing is stopping me from getting it in the future 😅

Seeing Jack messing about in his tiddlywiki makes me want to go back into mine. I do like everything in one place. However, I like this site as it is for daily notes and it’s easier to write in that tiddlywiki on all devices. It does mean I miss the ease of adding interesting or useful things into the wiki whilst I’m writing this. I could still add pages to this site with useful snippets of whatever. 🤔

Monday, 10th October, 2022

I’ve spent so long looking and thinking about lenses I’ve forgotten what I was doing beforehand. I’ve bought one now so surely I’m done with all that… but I’d be lying if I said I’m not worried about making the right choice.

Still waiting for my film holder to scan in my developed roll.

I should get back on the rowing machine. I’ve slowly let it slip to just once a week at most. Even just 15 minutes is good.

Taking part in the Fujifilm weekly photo challenge. See if I can win anything. It’s a good excuse to go back through old photos. See loads of nice shots, wonder what lens I used, see it’s one I sold, think about buying it again 😅 But actually it was the 16-80mm f/4 fuji zoom that I bought really early on when I got my X-T2. Was in a great sale. Mostly used it at 60-80mm when we were on the beach.

When you submit on the photo challenge, they give you a code to get a free print from their website, even including postage. Limited to anything smaller than any of 10x15, 12x16, or 12x18. Found a random photo and sent it to my sister. I think I can just upload as many photos as I want and get more codes. It’s a little onerous as I want to upload decent pictures.

Sunday, 9th October, 2022

I spent too long trying to decide upon a 50mm M lens last night. The new voigtlander lenses are reportedly very good and offer good value for money…when comparing new prices. The problem with the new CVs is that as they’re so new there are very limited numbers in the used market. This makes the price differential between used Leica and new CV not that much. Of course, getting a new lens is nice but then I take the depreciation hit. Used lenses are some what of a gamble in quality, particularly as my search range is anything in the past 60 years!

Clearly I want the summilux APSH. If I just stay film, this is probably a little excessive. If I were to go digital M as well then this is a good option/maybe can maybe justify the additional expense? Maybe. 😅

So I think a summicron is the right lens for my M2…or maybe if I’m not going 1.4 then go even cheaper with an elmar (2.8).

50 seems like a focal length that you could have multiple lenses for different purposes. Somehow much more than other lengths.

I did see an absolutely mint v4 cron from nearly my birth year which I really want. It’s a little more money than the cheapest v4, as from a dealer vs private but it was absolutely perfect in the pictures. Thankfully? The store only does phone in orders.

That one seems like the right one….🙈🙉🙊

There’s then the Canon f1.4 LTM. It’s a ~60 year old lens, which is attractive as it’s a lens of the M2 era. I used to own one with the Canon 7 and annoyingly sold it for not that much. I only took one roll with the 7 and the lens but had some nice photos from it. The advantage is that it’s about 1/3 of price of the cron.

Wondering if I should instead install Proxmox on the new server, so I can host VMs as easily as services in docker containers. Although the only thing I really want to virtualise is an OS X environment, but not sure if that would work or really be useful.

Saturday, 8th October, 2022

I take back about what I said on python on my computer. I just installed python from the Windows App Store and start typing in VS Code and it all works just fine. I just need to ask IT at work to let me install the latest version of python from the MS store.

I have a lot of tabs open on my phone in a todo style nature. These are all things I plan on reading or trying out. I find them when on my phone at work or on the go, but then when I want to “do real computing”, I sit at my desk. However, not having a Mac (with Safari) means there’s no easy way to see these tabs until the next time I’m on my phone. I used to use push bullet to send stuff to my desktop. Perhaps I should look for something like that again. Or I could use Firefox on my phone.

This is one thing I was going to play with. Make some maps of home or various places. Even though about doing family houses, printing and framing it as a present.

I enjoyed tinkering with little things in python. I’ve spent too long not doing it and wasting my time on dumb stuff. I semi-quit YouTube a while ago but now I feel like I’m back in it and my bad habit of sitting down in the evening and watching videos is back.

I still want a 50mm M lens. Just impossible to decide which.

Friday, 7th October, 2022

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. – Freya Stark

NaNoWriMo is next month. For the past…7? years I’ve said I’d do it. Unsurprisingly I haven’t. I’m sure I must have a novel in me but not found it yet. It’s buried under “pointless, excruciating details of things no-one cares about.”

I wanted to make some kind of multicategory waterfall chart at work today. Obviously that can’t be done in excel and I started googling plot.ly and other graphing packages and they do have one. I’m not sure it’s exactly what I want, although I don’t really know what I want. It’s like a multi-scenario, two metric waterfall chart…🤔📊

Anyway, doing a quick thing in python is such a PITA on my work computer. Although my home windows computer isn’t much better. I wish I used Linux all the time, everywhere. I have a laptop, a thinkpad T490, that I bought mostly on a whim, which is running Arch Linux. Works great! However, it’s not ultra-low effort to have it run on my desk with monitors and keyboard etc. I did have a USB switch hub thing that could go between my work laptop and my desktop but that had persnickety issues and got annoying. It’s also that my wife and kids use the computer and don’t want various peripherals to not work. My wife also doesn’t like linux as it’s “not a normal computer” but my daughter uses an older laptop of mine for school work which is running linux.

I’ve already lost interest in building the new server. I’ve only turned it on to make sure everything worked. I have a new NVME sat waiting to be installed and setup linux on it. I even have 32GB of RAM en route as it was on sale. The old one wasn’t/isn’t really broken. 🙄 I also can’t really decide what I’m doing with storage. One big hard drive? Two large-ish SSDs? I think once I decide on that, then I can get on with setting it up. Could do with a day at home to sort out a bunch of things like this.

YYE Leica camera repairs. Don’t you just love it.

I’d like to make a wiki as deep as this one. Also the theme is cool.

Maybe this 2.5 hours video will help me decide upon a 50mm. Buy the lux and be done? If only I could but that’s too much money. The cron? ugh I don’t know.

Wednesday, 5th October, 2022

Listening to another Talk Python podcast episode about this guy called Rhet Turnbull and the little python mac app he made. The whole episode is great both technically and just listening to Rhet. I feel like he’s done what thousands of geeky girls and boys want to do - learn to program by tinkering about on computers as a kid, does engineering, then goes and works at Space Force! 🚀 But maybe that’s just me.

Also RUMPS for you mac users. (Ridiculously Uncomplicated macOS Python Statusbar apps in case you’re worried.)

I got my bill for my second month in with Blot today. I’m still really liking it. It’s hardly any different from this static site in terms of making new entries and saving/committing them, but I’ve not really had the desire to make my own site. I’ve not even bothered looking at theming on it, and I really love that fact. The default is plain but functional and I like the plainness. That extra little hurdle to learn how it’s put together and what I’d need to do to edit the theme is enough to keep me away, so that I have no choice but to accept the default. I tried that with static sites, just downloading someone elses and using it as is. I could never do it though, I always wanted to change something. I suppose my blog doesn’t have comments. I could easily turn on Disqus or commento from the admin panel, but I don’t like disqus and I don’t have or want to pay for a commento server. And you know what? I don’t care that there aren’t comments or that people can’t comment. I do like interaction and so I am making it harder for people if they have to go rummaging for my email and send me something but there we go. I have got a few draft posts I’ve started but not quite finished, and this probably reflects the one issue I have with blot, which is that dropbox is annoying for me to access from work. This means that during lunch or some downtime, I can’t really and easily edit my text files. I can still do it on my phone but I like using a keyboard. It’s not a big deal, and I’ve not especially researched alternative methods though. Plus I’ve been really busy at work that I’ve not had time to do anything.

My wife is at the Cher Show tonight. Say that a few times. Cher Show, Cher Show, Cher Show.

I feel like I’ve not been doing anything of note recently. Buying shit, or watching videos about more stuff to buy.

Yesterday was thinking about a new film camera to have for multiple films. I later realised I have another 35mm camera already…Minolta SRT100X with 45mm f/2…oops! Still want the Olympus RC 35 as it’s a tiny rangefinder, but finding a nice one is a hassle.

My wife has finished making a photobook that covers from about Feb 2021 until Aug/Sept 2022. Has about 210 pages and over 1000 images. Not sure how many but the app we use to make it defaults to 1000 images max - you just up the settings and it works. It’s a java app to build the photo book then you upload it to their website to print. I used them for my photo book of my grandfather’s slides. It’s not ordered yet, but looking through the preview online, it’s lovely seeing all the images from the past 18 months, and I can’t wait for it to arrive. We all sit round and look through it together. It’s my real driver for taking all the photos. I do like the gear and collecting and that aspects but to capture the moments of our lives and then enjoy them together is the best part.

I’m not really interested in taking photographs of randoms on the street, or light falling on doors, or landscapes. However, I have noticed that my wife will put in one or two pictures of the surroundings and they go well with the people pictures. This does make me think I should try and take a few more of wherever we are. Those are probably harder to take as compared to people photos = even a bad photo of someone pulling a funny face is a good photo. Things like the castle we visit, or the street or park etc. I’m going to try.

Tuesday, 4th October, 2022

I should buy some colour film now that some is in stock. Even though it’s so expensive. One roll of Kodak gold (24 exp) is £8. A 5-pack of Portra 400 is £82. I like B&W and I like that I can now develop it. My film scanner holder thing should be coming in the next week or so too. However, I do really like the Kodak colour film. We’re coming up on the mid-term school holidays and we’re going away so I’d like to have some to take with me.

I’m thinking I should get another film camera so that I can be more sparing with colour but then can still shoot black and white. I mean, any excuse rght :)

Monday, 3rd October, 2022

Phil shared this list of ten rules. I also noticed: “Save everything — it might come in handy later.”

I did delete over 1.2 TB of TV shows last night. Those definetly won’t come in handy later. Sitting at around 5.1 TB of stuff. Thinking I could easily get away with a single 8 TB drive for the server. That shouldn’t be too expensive. Found this handy site which compares prices, although 8 TB drives might not be optimal from a £/TB metric. 8 TB isn’t quite SSD terriority yet, yes you can buy them, but for a pretty penny. Maybe I could do 2x 4 TB SSD but think I’ll leave those for a while. Probably I could do one 4 TB SSD as I just got a 1 TB NVME for the boot drive. The SSD would be nearly max to start and that doesn’t seem sensible.

I used to chase bigger storage to keep everything. Now I want to trim it all down to bare minimum.

Saturday, 1st October, 2022

Cocked up our car insurance. I’d told my wife the letters from them probably weren’t anything important…tbh I’d forgotten which company we’d gone with and I assume it was junk. Turns out those letters and emails were telling us we had to submit information else they’d cancel it. Guess what? They cancelled, and they couldn’t possibly go back and sort it out - and they charged us a fee for the privilege of having no insurance. So now I had to buy it immediately. Costing way more and puts the no claims bonus at risk as it’s not normal continuous coverage.

If I’d paid more attention it would’ve been a 5 minute job.

Ugh. I’m so grumpy now.

Time to tidy up my Dropbox folder I think.

This video reminds me why I chose the X-E4. Also the video production of this guy is insane. Also introduced me to the Pen F (film) lenses.