Of late, the NUC has been getting really hot. Core CPU temperatures were hitting the 80s despite the system being on literally no load. When I first bought it in mid-2020, I was aware that this lineage of tiny monsters were known for their ‘hot’ness and the fan being a bit loud. Only over the last few months have I really seen this sudden spike in temperatures though. ...

Also I guess to subconsciously coax more people to do it? This is a fascinating concept and I wish something that was replicated widely.

Exactly a decade ago, I landed on Posterous Spaces. This was before any of the currently common messaging platforms that exist were built. M wanted a way to backup texts and at that point in time, Posterous Spaces looked like a terrific option. We’d email the texts over to an email address and they’d be published as private posts on our domain. All was good until Twitter acquired them and non-nonchalantly shut them down in 2012. Interestingly, they still have the domain active! The co-founders went on to build Posthaven which I believe is still pretty active. ...

TIL about OpenAPS [Open Artificial Pancreatic System Project]. A fascinating take on owning medical data related to ones’ sugar levels and automating insulin intake for folks with Type1Diabetes. I never knew managing T1D was so complicated until I read Graham Jenson’s post. My uncle had a close call recently with super low sugar levels. Can’t imagine people having to deal with this every single day! Also need to lookup SDR radio’s one of these days! ...

The Arabian sea - shimmering bright orange with the diffused reflection of the dusking sun, was way too tempting. With strong currents and offshore winds, It’s been an intense couple hours. Not much wave riding for all that paddling. Before we called it a day, I decided to paddle one last time past the frothy whites and onto the swells. For a few minutes, the water seemed super serene. Calm enough for me to visualize dolphins far in the distance. Folks who’d been here earlier in the morning had a good spotting and it would have been lovely to spot them now as the sun was slowly setting. And suddenly something didn’t seem that right. Another look at the water and I could see what I should have caught a few seconds before. Even before I could properly pop on the board, the swell quickly built momentum and yanked the board off my feet. Gravity, raw energy, power that looks so beautiful on the surface and all that connects these, unforgivingly engulfed me in their churn and royally spat me on the beach after a few seconds - though what felt like eternity. So much for that glorious sunset on the board! ...

A bi-yearly rundown on the state of the home-servers I run and applications I host on the cloud. Published while listening to: Mist of Capricorn ( Manavyalakincharadate ) | Agam A few major changes since the last September update: During the Jan trip, I moved the Odroid XU4 and NCP over to MD. Thanks to WireGuard, I can still access these remotely super seamlessly! Brought in the RPi4 NC to the same WireGuard network. Lesser maintenance! Not quite using the Navidrome and Calibre-web setup as much. Definitely nice to have though. Setup a couple Matrix Bridges. Ansible is pretty awesome! Need to front the Snikket instance I setup in Jan when I have the mind-space. I think I’m liking Caddy better than Traefik! Next few months, I’ll probably focus a bit more on SSH hardening, implement more robust Firewalls and automating the backups. ...

After a good one year away from Whatsapp, I’m back on it . This time however, on better terms. All thanks to the Mautrix bridge and the Matrix protocol. Essentially, I can access my whatsapp account data on my regular phone or desktop using Elements’ pretty robust app system. Note that the whatsapp app however is either running on a Virtual Machine or in my case an old phone fronted with a VPN. Since whatsapp only needs the primary phone to connect with their servers once every two weeks, it’s pretty much just sitting there turned off while all the group and individual messages show up on the bridged element app. ...

These fishermen in their catamarans were slowly yet gleefully making their way back to the coastline early AM. Likely a terrific catch that they could sell back on land? Or was it just another day in the waters making ends meet, doing what they love and loving what they do?

I used the Tomorrow app to set one up for my family a few years ago. Also last year, I setup an End Plan Document to help them pick the loose ends. Honestly, it’s helped me document things better.

Yet another terrific early AM outing to the beach. S and V joined Coach R’s group for an athletics workout session. As one of his junior coaches guided the kids on the beach sand drills, I took this opportunity to chat up with this cheerful 75+(?) year old gentleman. Quite a humbling personality and a treasure trove of information. A couple hours swiftly breezed by. I could tell his memory was slowly failing him and only wish someone documents his wisdom. Some people leave that impeccable impression on you… ...