Journal


Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.

- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851)

  • A Thought on Sixels
    A Thought on Sixels
    In the age of visually stunning graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and interactive designs, there exists a timeless elegance in the simplicity of purely text-based interfaces. From command line interfaces (CLIs) to plain text file formats like Markdown, the beauty of text lies not only in its minimalistic aesthetic but also in the efficiency and clarity it brings to digital interactions.
  • Updates 2024/Q1
    Updates 2024/Q1
    Project updates from the current consecutive three-month period, with info on the current status of my projects and next steps. You might find this interesting in case you’re using any of my open source tools.
  • Goodbye Pushover, Hello Overpush
    Goodbye Pushover, Hello Overpush
    After over 11 years of being a loyal Pushover user, I have decided to give up on the service and run my own minimal, drop-in replacement that works the way I need it to.
  • Build Your Own Decentralized Dropbox with Syncthing
    Build Your Own Decentralized Dropbox with Syncthing
    In the world of file synchronization, most people are familiar with services like Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. These centralized cloud solutions are convenient but come with privacy concerns and potential security risks. What if I told you that to synchronize files between individual devices, you don’t need the cloud™ ?
  • If You Must Use Signal, Use Molly
    If You Must Use Signal, Use Molly
    While I’m critical towards the Signal messenger, I understand that network effects are strong and even though many people would much rather prefer a different platform, it’s not easy to get friends and family onto something better. In this brief write-up, I’ll introduce an alternative Signal client to make using Signal at least slightly less troublesome.
  • Hardened Gentoo with Full Disk Encryption on the Star Labs StarBook Mk VI
    Hardened Gentoo with Full Disk Encryption on the Star Labs StarBook Mk VI
    A brief guide on installing Gentoo Linux with Full Disk Encryption and the hardened profile, with SELinux, on the Star Labs StarBook Mk VI.
  • Run a Nostr Relay as Tor Hidden Service on OpenBSD
    Run a Nostr Relay as Tor Hidden Service on OpenBSD
    Let’s set up and run our own “private Twitter” on Nostr, a simple, open protocol that enables truly censorship-resistant publishing on the web!
  • Lemon v2
    Lemon v2
    After nearly five years of inactivity, I decided to breath in new life into Lemon: Meet Lemon v2, a complete rewrite in Go!
  • A World without Passports
    A World without Passports
    According to my analytics dashboard, there’s a 70% chance you’re reading this on your phone. Maybe at home, or maybe while commuting to work, using your mobile data connection, for which you’ve probably signed up on a mobile contract. A contract for which you had to prove that you are you, likely by showing your national ID or passport. A contract for which you have to pay regularly, probably using a bank account that you also had to identify yourself for upon opening.
  • A Brief Review of the Star Labs StarBook Mk VI Ryzen Ultrabook
    A Brief Review of the Star Labs StarBook Mk VI Ryzen Ultrabook
    As announced back in the update of Q4/2023, I went ahead and ordered a Star Labs StarBook Mk VI with an AMD Ryzen processor to finally replace my previous laptop and eventually my workstation. This is a brief review of the device itself, without going too much into software details.