SHAVING YAKS, I MEAN LINT

It’s been a while, I am a little bit sick, and a little bit antsy, so y’all know what that means. Yes, a new hobby to take up all my time another blog post! So much has happened such a I last wrote, there is a whole additional person in my house now, but I’m not quite ready to write about that. I mean, I’m not sure I am entirely ready, period.

ACTIVATION ENERGY

I’ve had a hankering to write a new blog post for a while now, and of course they’ve just been flowing out without issue I’ve been lacking the activation energy to write about things. This got me thinking about activation energy and how commonly it gets thrown around in non-technical conversation. Intuitively it seems to make sense and sounds neat, “I don’t have the energy to activate this task”. Though, I wonder how many people know of the origin of the term.

HELLO HUGO

After many years I’ve finally done it, the blog is moved from WordPress to Hugo! I’m still getting used to all the syntax (and theme configuration), but most of my old posts made it over without too much pain. For those curious, the site is stored on GitHub, and then integrated with Cloudflare Pages CI for updating and deployment. Just be careful to set your env vars for the right Hugo version on Cloudflare otherwise you will have a bad time.

NEW STUFF, BUT FIRST, OLD STUFF

After a heck of a long time and a lot of hemming and hawing over what I can only describe as extreme reticence over the future of my computing habits, I have purchased a new laptop. This is where you would expect I tell you all about it and you’re wrong (unless you looked at the title first). To understand the new, we must first understand the not new. The Old™.

SHELL(Y)ING OUT FOR INFRASTRUCTURE

3 posts a year, what is this, 2015? Don’t get used to it. I’m compelled to write, I have many notes, my evening is open, and I have a splitting headache. Ideal combination, no? There are a couple of topics I want to explore today in brief: Update on the Shelly experiment Quick notes on going solar Networking (now featuring more DNS problems) Now let’s dive into it before I make any further unkeepable promises of followups.

GATE(WAY) TO SHELLY

I did promise another post Soon™ didn’t I? Well here it is. The very first thing I wanted to control with my new zest for home automation is the entry gate to our home. The motivations are simple: Link it to exterior lighting so I can automate us not having to walk in the dark when getting home late Provide guest access without buying and programming in more remotes Allow remote access for deliveries when I’m not home Undeniable cool factor and nerd cred Now, my gate motor is the ET-500, named imaginatively by E.

COMING OUT OF MY SHELLY WITH HOME AUTOMATION

As is tradition, I first have to point out the infrequency of my posts. I stand in awe of those who manage a consistent weekly output. Now, some of you may be skittish and disbelieving, but I hope to actually pulp out a few of these this week to talk about further home automation stuff. Maybe even touch on some of the stuff I vaguely vagued at this post. It’s the partial end times, anything could happen.

THE MENTAL UNBURDENING

Who’s ready for another rambling diatribe of way too much stuff for a single blog post? That was a rhetorical question, what are you even doing here if you are complaining? Who defines blog post length? Fie to you! So. Aside from the handy draft I’ve just published, I’ve yet again allowed almost a year between posts on this site. Looking back it’s like an uncomfortably abrubt series of time capsules showing me at various stages of life in the last few years.

THE VALUE OF TIME AND THE JOY OF LABOUR

So this post has been sitting in my drafts an extremely long time, and I’m digging it up now in another half hearted attempt to get some thoughts down on this site (more thoughts in a new post after this, IF YOU BELIEVE ME). I’m presenting it as is. For context, this is around end January 2020. I’ve had an exhausting, but ultimately satisfying, week! Though before we dive into the juicy flesh of tonight’s title; a quick update of the yolov3-telegram person detector.

LIFE IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

I’ve been thinking on and off about this blog since my last post. As it my usual wont I’ve left things hanging. I’ve spent most of my spare time since January doing a wide variety of DIY tasks about my house, from the menial, to the (for one person alone) monumental. At the same time physical exhaustion isn’t the only reason I haven’t posted here. I have a post languishing in my drafts about the simple pleasure in physical labour and creation, but stress from work and life have led to emotional health and motivation for writing ebbing to a seasonal low.