Firehose

ActivityPub

This is a quote from Gian-Carlo Rota’s Indiscrete Thoughts that I think applies particularly well in the context of development:

Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say: “How did he do it? He must be a genius!”

Technology I Use

The tools, software, and other such things I use.

Details of the tools, software, and hardware powering my workflow. Information on my setup, development environment, self-hosting, and multimedia management. Collates most of what I use on my laptop, servers, and phone.

https://vale.rocks/posts/uses

ActivityPub Bluesky

Server upgraded and everything running again.

Bumped up to 8GB of RAM from 4GB, cleaned out the case, installed a new 4TB HDD, and migrated from Debian to NixOS.

ActivityPub Bluesky

Spent a bit of time putting together a little tool that lets you search across search engines. You can pick a default and use bangs to search a specific site, like on DuckDuckGo.

Made it mainly for myself, but I’m sure it’s of interest to other people.

https://search.vale.rocks

Event

Beginning of Q3.

Half the year passed, with one half to go.

I Got A Flipper Zero

A fantasmagorical planet flipping oracle.

My review of the Flipper Zero and the things I've done with it. Encompassing everything from the initial purchase to setup and usage, as well as the community and some cool projects.

https://vale.rocks/posts/i-got-a-flipper-zero

ActivityPub Bluesky

Finally gave Zed a quick go on NixOS. It’s slick. The collaboration features are unrivalled.

If someone asks for a code editor in future, Zed is gonna be my suggestion. As much as I love Neovim, I understand it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I can only see Zed getting better and filling the shoes of VSCode.

ActivityPub Bluesky

Does this Neuralink stuff remind anyone else of Flowers for Algernon? The patient experiences temporary enhancement and then has it slowly taken away. I fear the potential psychological impact.

ActivityPub Bluesky

So, uh, is the punchline of The Big Bang Theory just misogyny?

I don’t watch the show, but every time I’m exposed to it, that’s the impression I get.

ActivityPub Bluesky

Been keeping an eye on the GitHub milestone as the issues were slowly crossed off the list. Very glad to see the release of Neovim v0.10.

So many great improvements with this release! Congrats to the team!

Photo

A crab sitting in sand next to a rock within a dark bucket.

A crab with a black torso and orange appendages speckled with green in a black bucket. At the bottom of the bucket is sand, some shells, and some rocks. The unfocused side of the bucket visible in the photo is peppered with sand.
ActivityPub Bluesky

Well, I just watched Red vs Blue: Restoration. I suppose that’s it. Red vs Blue is over. I was late to the series, having only discovered it in recent years, but that doesn’t make seeing it end any easier.

Restoration felt rushed and unpolished. I think an extra half hour on it’s runtime would have it many favours. It certainly wasn’t the best ending, but it was an ending, and that’s something.

It’s sad to see things end but I think it’s important to simply value the memories they created. After all, memory is the key

Thanks Rooster Teeth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ0lXRq4Q3o

JPEG XL and Google's War Against It

The best format you can't use.

Starting with an overview of existing image formats, including JPEG, PNG, and GIF, a look into the very promising JPEG XL and why it hasn't seen the adoption it deserves as an innovative new file format in the web landscape.

https://vale.rocks/posts/jpeg-xl-and-googles-war-against-it