I volunteered to be a director of the local hackerspace. Not sure exactly what I volunteered for but should be interesting.
Now I have surgery for a hernia repair…🏥
It went well and now just to recover. Don’t know what I was thinking but there’s no way I’m going to be messing about with scaffolding poles anytime soon 😅
I called the fabricator today, they were super nice and helpful. They sell and deliver 6m/20ft poles. I was looking for about 8m, maybe close to 10m if I could get away with it. 2x 6m pole strapped together would be too tall and too unstable without guy wires. I could strap the other part way down so the total height is 9m with 3m overlap, or I could get one and then attach the 3m pole I have to get about 8m. I think that might be a good way as then I install the scaffold pole first, then lift thr 3m plus antenna on top and attach it. Probably easier said than done. Or I find some tilting base mount and just heave it up.
The alternative is buying a metal telescopic pole. This could go to any height up to 12m, however, not sure how stable and strong that would be. Also still have the same issue of putting it up. It’s going at the side of the house so either I’ll have to tilt it with the antenna on, or put it up above the roof life, then lift the antenna on, then jack it up. The antenna does fold up like a washing line so that could help me.
Also need to get all the right brackets and mounts and fittings. This is a lot of hassle…
Makes making a new blog seem easy.
I did watch a video of someone setting the same antenna up temporarily on a pole on the garden. Also some someone do a temporary one with a fiberglass pole and just a single wire up it. Could do that too.
Back to work. Felt tired from lunchtime onwards!
I caught up with my expenses tracking - not installed that YNAB clone - just my Google sheets. I have a category called Hobbies for stuff I buy. Seems to be a lot each month…wish I kept up my monthly look back…
Was going to call a steel fabricator today to ask about poles for antenna in the garden. But now I’m doubting if it’s a good idea. Although I already bought the antenna to go on top…
This is clever.
My wife came to see me on the computer and said “I thought you were tired”. I am. time for bed.
I’ve been very grumpy this weekend. Not exactly sure why. The kids seem more annoying now we’re back home but maybe as we don’t have a swimming pool on demand, they’re looking for more things to do.
Everyone’s been watching the Olympics but I’ve been doing nothing on the computer. I don’t know what I did last night but I didn’t go to bed until midnight. (That also probably doesn’t help). Although between 11-12 I started making a list of all the things I need to sort out the radio setup.
Can’t help but think I’m making a rod for my back with this antenna and radio stuff. Digging my hole deeper and deeper by spending more and more money on stuff. Stuff begats stuff. Will it be better or will I also not use it but have an eye sore and piled money into it. It would be nice to make real (voice) contacts further afield.
Feeling in a “sell it all and be done with it” mood.
And to top it off someone has moved a meeting to 9am tomorrow and I have to make the content for it. Guess I won’t be wasting this evening on nothing as I’ll have to make all the slides for it.
I’m also annoyed for not being able to decide what blog software I should use for my radio site. The other sites can wait as I never write anything in them. I can’t be bothered with ikiwiki. It’s technically what I want but I don’t want to spend all that time faffing with it. I should just use dokuwiki as it’s similar, easy, flat files, and I like the look of it out the box. I just have a nagging feeling it’s still php app which is just like Wordpress…so why not keep using Wordpress….and dokuwiki isn’t a static site. Although why it absolutely needs to be a static site I’m not sure. I think a wiki style (with blog) would be more useful to me for radio. But then why not tiddlywiki? Ugh. Here we go again. 🚧
Went up a mountain with my daughter today. Took the radio too. We had a lovely time. Helped it was sunny and 20°C. Went to a tea shop afterwards. So very enjoyable and lifted my spirits no end.
I love computers and I hate computers 🤷🏼♂️
Seeing Jack redo his name.com landing page made me think again about a single blog.
I installed ikiwiki. Was a bit of a pain at times but then I was all just permissions.
There’s a lot of parts to it, to figure out. I’m between:
With something else being dokuwiki…? Maybe.
Spoke to my friend on the phone this evening for…nearly 2 hours. Not sure the last time I spoke on the phone for so long!
I thought about plotting distance vs time for our journey home. Lots of horizontals as we wait around.
Not sure the book I’m reading converter properly from epub to kindle. It’s mostly fine but then there are paragraphs that start in the middle and clearly something has happened in the story but there are no words. Guess I should stop reading it.
The last day of the holiday approaches and what were all those things I said I’d do when I got home?
Then it was something about a blog…
Should keep me going.
At the beginning of the holiday I thought about making (copying) a Fuji preset. There are a few nice summer ones which work great with lots of light. It’s now almost the end of the holiday and I’ve still not done it 😅 of course I can still make one and apply it to photos (although one at a time 😴🥱.
My daughter knows the passcodes to the iPads, so when she wants more screen time in her phone, she logs into the iPads to approve it…so I’ve learnt to give her 15 minutes more when the request comes through because you can’t ask more than once or change the amount once approved. I think…
I tried changing the passcodes, except the iPad allows you to use the old one for 48 hours in case you forget. Probably there’s a setting somewhere for that. However last time it was useful as I did forget.
The warfare continues. ♟️
I have so many bookstore.org emails saved as they have book lists and recommendations that I want to get for myself or others. Need to decant that information into a list somewhere as every week more and more emails come with good books.
I bought that radio, now to figure out what I’m doing with it. 😅
All this time and all I’ve had is my phone. It is more annoying than using a computer but I’ve not missed using a computer. I’ll use my phone for a while but the annoyingness of it makes me put it down…eventually. Then I pick up my book or I sit outside and watch the trees in the wind or the bees on the flowers. Helps its lovely weather and view, and comfy outdoor chairs. I could buy chairs for home but the weather and view are lacking. If we didn’t have work or school, and didn’t in general need to go anywhere, living in the countryside would be nice. However I love the convenience of life where we do live. Even if the view and weather isn’t great. Also this is a holiday and not representative.
Returns me to the age old (for me) question of: do I need a computer at home? The answer is yes because it’s annoying otherwise but could I use it less? Absolutely. I just need to find somewhere else to sit. There always feels like there are a hundred things I need to do on the computer…every day. But is using a computer bad? No, but depends what I do. “It’ll be different this time” I say, but probably not.
I accuse (silently in my head of course) other people at work for wanting too much money. Am I just the same though? When I go back to work I’m supposed to decide if part time should be permanent for me (although I can change it later so it’s never really permanent), and I want to say yes but there’s a bug in my ear calculating to the nearest penny what I’m losing out on. I guess I gave the bug access to my spreadsheet so I’m to blame. But not just pay today but also pension tomorrow. I do try to tell myself time and life are both short so make the most of it. We’re not going to bankrupt ourselves because of this so why not do it. When I look at the U.K. income stats they’re painful and I serve myself another dose of “<10%” world problems.
I also feel “cheated” that because I work part time I don’t get the benefit of one flex day off a month. The facts are, I do get the benefit, I just choose not to take it. Mostly as I don’t accrue enough hours to take one, but don’t tell anyone that I also didn’t accrue enough hours when working full time to take one either! The rules of the policy are so vague that it makes it hard to justify or legitimately claim when not working full time, because that’s who it was written for. Work also doesn’t want people eating their time tracking an extra 22.5 minutes a day so I know why it’s deliberately vague. I e thought about doing a 0.9 schedule with the logic I could accumulate the extra time and have 3 days off a month but only pay for 2 vs my 4 that I pay all of. Of course, I don’t want fewer days off…
For a long time I’ve been thinking about FIRE and mostly trying to go towards it. This part time is maybe the first stepping stone but also shows me how hard it is to stop working even if you “had enough money”. The temptation to just keep working as it’s probably easier, you’ve been doing it for decades and the “just in case” factor.
Work is doing some big deal and the end result is always a reorg. Many folks in their late 50s are hoping for a payoff. We last had a payoff during COVID. I did think about it for a few minutes back then…but we’d literally just bought a house after moving back from America, and with a newborn, so another spanner was not wanted. If they offered it again, would I take it? I could change career and “follow my dreams”. But…what are my dreams and to what career? I like the people I work with and I get to work part time and still do well. Unless I’m starting my own business or some unique opportunity comes up…why leave? I don’t have a plan if I jumped.
Back before we talked about living somewhere else to be closer to others. That would still be nice now but we’d have to move house and city and both get new jobs and new schools for everyone. It could still be done but not sure it’s really worth it. Plus I like being close to the mountains for radio 😅
I’m not sure what is going to satisfy me.
I still subscribe to /r/M43 on Reddit and someone posted a kit of the GX85 and lenses that they were thinking of getting. I remember looking at something similar..a few years ago. Even though the sensor is smaller, people create lovely photos from it. But then people create lovely photos from just about anything. It means the lenses are smaller. Although I’m not bothered about lenses at the moment. I’m not getting one or really interested in it, I just remembered about it.
Been slacking off DayOne (again). Struggle to find motivation to write in it/feels like a chore to do. Maybe I’ll add something just now.
Chatting to someone who’s selling a radio…the one I’ve been mooning over for ages. I’d buy it because it’s an all mode and all band radio, portable, modern, lots of wifi remote control options, great reviews, useful for doing so many different things. It’s a decent price used vs new and other similar used ads. Why wouldn’t I buy it? It’s £950 used. Other than 2m/70cm modes beyond simple FM, I already have everything it does in other radios. Radios aren’t my problem for improving things. It’s antennas.
I almost got sucked into buying this smart watch. It gets good reviews even though it’s cheap, but then I stopped and thought “why?”.
Woke up with a horrible headache, which was strange. Took some paracetamol but it’s still not really gone away.
Saw a great flock of Golden Orioles this morning. The advantage of buying things from Aliexpress whilst you’re on holiday is that you don’t have to worry about delivery whilst you’re away. Then in 3-4 weeks miscellaneous packages arrive and you have no idea what they are. Usually accompanied by “what have you ordered now?” “Nothing” I answer with an honest belief, because I have ordered nothing this week. I then open it and remember that evening watching YouTube videos or page 12 of some forum thread and then ordering said part(s).
I’ve noticed some eBay sellers say “ships from U.K.” usually for random electronics you might get from China. I suppose people want it sooner so pay more. Except you have to look carefully as unless it says it’ll be delivered in 2-3 days, it still doesn’t come from the U.K.
Finished my book. Was good. (I’m not a good reviewer). I’d recommend, although start with the first one. I think sci-fi is good when believable. Although not sure I’ve read any sci-fi that I didn’t think was believable. Often it’ll be some alien from far away whose technology is far beyond ours, or the same but they all died millennia ago. Or it’s a few thousand years time and humans can navigate the stars, either in a great way or because the Earth is dead. To me, all those scenarios seem possible. But with a universe as big as the universe that I can’t even fathom, I just have to accept anything is or will be possible.
However, the one thing that doesn’t seem possible is me deciding on my websites.
I want to go to EuroBSDCon.
Been sucked into my book today. Then I picked up my phone and an age went by. Putting it down now.
I think I’m working myself towards combining journal entries, like this, and posts into a single site. But it’s very pendulonic. I made that word up, meaning to be like a pendulum.
I also think about having various categories, like journal, projects, writings, etc. but I think that makes it harder. Maybe all in as just “posts” and then either categorises or tags to sort it. Then I’m back to the issue of a few posts “disappearing” in the noise of ideal chatter. Although if I tag stuff I can make a page of those tags etc. Feel like I’m going to recreate Jack’s Tinderbox site.
I’d recently thought about using Discourses for a blog. I like the interface. However, I found someone doing that and the site looked…barren. It’s meant to be a forum with people discoursing, so one person is a bit meh.
We went to a local lake today to go swimming. It’s fun but I’m always nervous about the water quality. Perhaps slightly hypochondriac…anyway today a couple of French guys gave me a child’s fishing net and asked if I’d mind fishing out the poo from the water. We’d seen it (swam by it) and joked about it and surely it can’t be but no. It was. 💩
I could’ve sworn there was a metronome emoji. I wanted to go signify the swinging of decisions. 🔙🕧🔁
When did this emoji appear! 📇 roller contacts list?
Maybe I should do something constructive and read a book. Just started the third book in the series (don’t know the series name) but it’s called Children of Memory. Sci-fi. Been reading quite a few fantasy books so want a change and I found the third one recently so seemed ideal.
I maintain a single page website for the online radio community I belong to. Right now it’s raw html I edit, but I keep thinking about moving it to a static generator. Probably just Jekyll so GitHub renders it. Should’ve done that already as they wanted it updating and I only have my phone. I did it, but it was painful.
Somehow I ended up browsing Reddit for an hour on bed last night. I never do this. The phone never comes to the bedroom at home, and charges downstairs with all the other devices. I got sucked into looking at sites in the 1MB and then 1kB clubs, which just led to more and more random websites. Then I thought I’d top it off with Reddit. Ugh. For the past two days I’ve had about 1.5 hours left of my book…but have I read any.
Whilst we’re away I’m looking at our electricity usage. It seems to go between 155W and 255W regularly, maybe every 30 minutes. I really want to know what that is. I have a few smart plugs recording the main rooms, like TV and boxes in lounge, computer in office, server, etc. but they don’t show anything. Trying to think what else could’ve been left on or doing this. The cycling nature is curious, it’s not like we left something on, it turns on and off. Makes me think of the thermostat turning on and off to maintain a temperature. However that uses 1kW+, so it’s not that.
Could it be the fridge or freezer? I’m sure I would’ve noticed this before. Since getting the new server I didn’t bother migrating my data as it was too much hassle and I didn’t really care but now I wonder.
Bought one year of Lightroom 1TB from Amazon for £60 in the prime day sale. I’ve bought it before and it’s good value. Each time it expires I convince myself I don’t need it, but don’t have something else. Probably there are several open source options I could look into. (But don’t).
Still want to get all my good photos into Apple Photos for the convenience of it, plus the resurfacing of them.
Maybe after this one year of Lightroom I’ll buy a M4 Mac Mini and 2TB of iCloud 🤪
I’m so pleased ikiwiki has a new maintainer. Jon has been an avid user for years. I emailed him way back when I used ikiwiki for my main site and asked him lots of questions. I’ve been thinking about moving my blog to something else and I think ikiwiki might be it.
I enjoy this semi-anonymous journal style blogging. I could write in a private journal which no one ever sees, but somehow the fact that someone might read it makes it more worthwhile, and gives me an incentive. Plus I like reviewing it myself and reading a website seems to be the only way I can read it.
The only thing is that as it’s not completely anonymous I can’t write everything in it. Maybe that’s a good thing and maybe I should never do that. But it would be good to talk about some things like money, or work. Perhaps those things would be better on some service, like bearblog, where I just make an account with some random email and just write in there.
I’ve seen some people publicly write these things on their full named blog. Exactly what they earn and spend money on. Not sure I’m ready for that yet. Probably because it’s embarrassing to see what I actually spend my money on!
I like this site’s style and am thinking of moving it to my main blog. Not sure if I’ll move journal posts there (this again). But I couldn’t sustain two journal like websites (if I make a new one). Now if I wrote more blog posts that might not be an issue if my journal “disappeared” but I seem only to be able to write 4,000 word blog posts or nothing.
I have decided I’m not combining my radio blog into my main one. Even though it would give it more content and activity, I think it’s an enough of a domain fo warrant its own site. Which I’m thinking ikiwiki is ideal for that site. Even found an ancient Wordpress to Ikiwiki converter on github! Although it’s just Wordpress to markdown.
I might retire the fondoftea domain as well. I’m torn but it’s probably redundant, or I’ll get something new anyway, one of these silly TLDs, like .fish, although there’s no .tea. Probably it’ll be tea related if I do find something.
🚨OR ☣️
I keep this domain and site and make it my main site with the other domain just as a landing page. And have posts and journals together. Or apart or not or shut up already.
I was on the SOTA forums and mentioned that I’d like to take more notes of my activations so I’m more prepared the next time. Someone described a spreadsheet they keep with lots of information in, as well as their points, which sounded exactly like what I wanted.
I could very easily setup a google sheets to do this, but I wonder about making it public via a website of some sorts. Although with GSheets you can use it as data input to a static site. Again, bringing up tiddlywiki as a potential tool to use. I then started thinking about dokuwiki and even ikiwiki as alternatives.
TW could let you do all sorts of fancy things with meta data and filters etc. but I think I’m fine with one page/note per summit where I write stuff down. Could go so granular with each contact as a tiddler but I don’t care and it’s not that much use.
Found (again) tilde.town last night and I think that uses ikiwiki for the content. Made me want to use it again. I’ll have to install it when I get home as I can’t get it out of my head. Don’t think I still have it running anywhere…
I can’t bring film on holiday. The airport security queue is bad enough just with normal things. You also hope your bag doesn’t get separated for further inspection as that line was even longer….and slower. So the idea is give them the films to hand check… best case is they’d give it to the person immediately, worst case is it gets put on the side and never has a place in the queue. Actually worst case is that they say no and put it through the machine anyway. No one has film anymore. I did read about ISO and X-ray machines and I forget which is worse…I think high iso.
I could have some posted here, then post them off to be developed. It used to be okay when we could fly to the local airport, as it was tiny and you could more easily ask for exceptions. Now we have to fly to a major airport and no one has time for any of that.
There’s some hardware thing I thought about today which for the life of me I cannot find any reference to. The problem is I can’t remember anything about it, other than I heard about it on a podcast (probably know which one but also not sure), sometime last summer, and they’re sold in the U.K. and you can get various add-ons. I can’t find it in the wiki, I may have written about it here, and I probably shared it with friends, but given I don’t remember anything about it, I can’t find it.
I’m sure I’ll eventually find it and then go “oh yeah that.” But not buy anything.
I searched for “https” across several chats and this blog looking for clues but found none. Did think it would be good to generate a list of urls I’ve posted on this site with a script, as I found (again) a few other interesting websites I’d linked to.
It’s hard to mess about with static sites when I just have my phone…so I’m not bothering. Mostly been reading my book at downtimes, although still all too easy to get sucked into websites and looking at things on my phone.
Found another person at work the other day who doesn’t own a computer. I wonder what life would be like if I didn’t own a computer (or like 10). Not that I want it to happen but I then start thinking about if our house burnt down or something and what would I replace things with. Of course the answer is a while load of new computers and accessories! 🖥️
Now that I’m on holiday and using my camera for the first time in ages, I’m thinking that a X100x series camera is really my ideal camera. I like having the options of various lenses with my X-E4, but recently I’ve not used any other than the 35mm f/1.4. I did use the 18-55 recently to take a video, but it still made noises, then I just resort to my iPhone…
Randomly, I then started looking at D750 and lenses. They’re so cheap these days. No one wants them. I’d probably never use it so don’t bother…
Maybe once I move away from my ham radio obsession, I might come back to photography. Although I am enjoying the hill walking/radio combo. Admittedly I sometimes can’t be bothered to set up the radio once I’m at the top. This is where I wish there was more activity on 2m/70cm (ie handhelds) as then you just pull out the walkie-talkie looking radio can see who’s there. I can sometimes activate a summit with it after WhatsApp-ing the locals, or speaking to the same person on 2m and 70cm. Although once I setup HF radio it’s fun to be chased.
I like this guy’s blog. Reminds me of Dave Winer’s old old blog design. I’ve only read a small amount of it so far and I found it as he’s the creator of Aurora, a simple python SSG. It reminds me of Jekyll (which powers this site) in that it’s simple, does the job but still quite capable if you want. I want to make a site with it…maybe not convert this one as if it’s not broke don’t fix it…👀 but maybe the radio blog? I’m not sure. I can imagine being able to do something fun with my radio logs with the static blog, e.g. generate a map or something. I’m still debating if a tiddlywiki might be best though…ugh I dunno.
Off on holidays shortly so that’ll be some time away from the computer to think about things…possibly too much time thinking about things. Not taking a computer, just iPad and phone….plus the kids will command the iPad so I should just read my book and enjoy the peace.
Everytime I try and log into my apple account online it says my account is locked and I have to go through various steps to unlock it. It’s annoying but should I be concerned…?
Weather has been terrible for summer so far. Everyone was out at a nearby castle and all got absolutely soaked. I had cycled to work without a jacket but managed to get home in the dry.
I managed a FM satellite contact last night and it was great fun. You have to chase it across the sky as it flys over and talk to other hams. It was reasonably long pass but still only 20 minutes and only one person can talk at once. Still felt I needed 3 hands though.
Ironically, I’ve been writing posts instead of investigating blog platforms. I don’t like the look of my Wordpress blog, it’s fine but meh. However, I can’t be bothered to figure out how to edit things or look for a new theme that will no doubt be the same 90% fine, 10% I don’t like.
Pika.page now has tags…that is good…
Still stuck on the idea of tiddlywiki. However, I think that’s just me being all idealist and unrealistic about how I could create this lovely ham radio garden and use all the clever features of tiddlywiki to link things together, and incrementally build stuff. I do have the wiki and I don’t do that there. Although a smaller subject domain might make it easier.
A static site takes a while to get setup, TW can hit the ground running. Although I end up installing a bunch of add-ons to TW. Oh I don’t know.
Almost summer holidays and warmer climates. Thought about taking my radio but not sure. There are a few summits nearby (a day trip) that have never been activated. I could be the first! Although maybe not in July when it’ll be boiling hot.
My daughter has pretty much commandeered my iPad for herself, and whilst I could still use it, I’ve not in a long time. I picked it up today and instead of looking at rubbish on the internet, I opened DayOne and made an entry for today. June was terrible. I have two entries, one of which is just “Father’s Day” with a photo. I think part of the reason is that I don’t make time for it by using the main computer more often. Whereas when I’m on the iPad, it’s easier to get into DayOne. Logically, it makes no sense, but that’s what happens. I also like typing on the Smart Keyboard. It’s beginning to fray at the edges and I worry about its longevity.
I wonder if I should setup my “writing station” again.
I do want to change my radio blog away for Wordpress but I’m not sure to what.
Probably a static site…? Although I still like the idea of tiddlywiki. If I ever bought a Mac, Tinderbox would be fun 🤩
Best I spend several evenings looking at the same blog engines as I look at every year.
Labour won the election. Not really a surprise given the past few years. Not that I have high hopes. See what disastrous turns they make for the country to push it further into insignificance in the world.
Last day of school for the summer holidays. I should make my final radio SOTA climb today before there’s no time until schools go back.
I was looking at smart doorbells as ours gave out. Turns out ours is battery powered and just needed new batteries. I assumed it was wired. Saves me £100 on something I don’t need. Our bell does all sorts of tunes and songs, but after a few tries we decided “ding dong” is fine.
Spent ages faffing around with a new allstarlink setup and couldn’t get it working. Turns out it uses kernel modules and you can’t have those in a LXC. Then had a really weird issue with a webUI that was working perfectly, I seemingly do nothing, then it stops working. Eventually I figure out how to force reinstall on Debian and it’s fine again.
Did a speed test with my router where it’s one cable between incoming fiber ONT to router to computer. Get the same speeds as the rest of the network. For some reason the download isn’t as high as upload. Getting 650/950. Boo hoo right? But the router reports 950/950 all the time and I don’t believe it. A neighbour has the same connection and did the same test and got 930/930. I just know if I call them up it’ll be ages of stupid tech support before I get anywhere decent, and I can’t be bothered with that.
It just meant another night of bed at midnight when I wanted to go earlier.
Went to the hackspace this evening, and finally filled in the membership form to join. I think they only have about 11 or 12 actual members (who pay a fee), and I suspect if I show any sign of willing to do things, I’ll be on the committee! Which won’t be a bad thing. I’m still quiet and testing out the place, and always feel like a visitor in someone’s house waiting to be offered a seat. I mostly go for a social, although this evening I did finally program my handheld radio the frequencies of about 8 FM satellites…so I’m one step closer to actually working them.
I listened to the latest Darknet diaries podcast about Tornado cash and Axie infinity hack. I’d heard of it before but it was interesting hearing more details about it. It got me back into thinking about the privacy stuff. Maybe back in 2012-ish I was obsessed with it, and went full everything. PGP, open source, self-hosted, etc. but it became an uphill struggle and I couldn’t be bothered to keep it all up. Now I wonder if there’s another way, but also am I too late, in that there’s lots of stuff online about me, that I’ve put there. I don’t know…I also don’t care enough to do it all either…Maybe also going to the hacker space where there are several people who, even at the hacker space in person, are only known by an alias. I do have some privacy already by the fact my name is shared with a member of parliament and a professor who are local.
I think all I really need to do, is remove photos of me, and make my address less obvious. I don’t need to completely disappear and have no presence or no known presence. Then there’s LinkedIn…
