Microblog

post-1709664779

Podcast recommendation: Darknet Diaries. Amazing story telling about tech scams and hacks you should know about. #podcast

Darknet Diaries https://darknetdiaries.com/

Tue 05 March 2024

post-1704807583

How to Build a Small Solar Power System: an in-depth article that goes into all the details and nuances of running devices and small appliances off solar panels. Well worth the read if you want to DIY your own solar solutions. #solar #maker #diy

LOW←TECH MAGAZINE
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/12/how-to-build-a-small-solar-power-system/

Tue 09 January 2024

post-1704725337

New birds spotted around my house: two Spotted thick-knee that laid eggs, and a Greater striped swallow. #birding #photo

Mon 08 January 2024

post-1704560582

I enjoyed reading this, a lot! Actually the whole issue is an awesome read, check it out! #ai #chatbot #humour #future #dating

Emotional Intelligence Amplification https://asteriskmag.com/issues/03/emotional-intelligence-amplification

Sat 06 January 2024

post-1703242140

Podcast recommendation: Late Night Linux. If you are into Linux and open source, this family of podcast shows has awesome content, humour, and hosts. #podcast #recommendation

Late Night Linux https://latenightlinux.com/about/

Fri 22 December 2023

Nextcloud Hosting

nextcloud-hosting


Today I'm launching my new business called Nextcloud Hosting, providing a private cloud server for your data hosted in South Africa.

Fri 01 December 2023

post-1699772999

This is not a photo of an old CRT screen, it's cool-retro-term! It's such a convincing emulation of a CRT display, after a few days of using it, I'm amazed at how good modern LCDs are! I also enjoy how the retro look takes me back to the 90s and makes me enjoy text-based programs a whole lot more. #nostalgia #retro #terminal

https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term

Sun 12 November 2023

post-1697782290

Mechanical Watch - an incredible interactive blog post detailing the mechanisms and workings of a mechanical pocket watch. Simply mind-blowing.

Bartosz Ciechanowski https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

Fri 20 October 2023

post-1697783337

Neal.fun - a bunch of absolutely delightful interactive apps. Be sure to check out Space Elevator!

Neal.fun https://neal.fun/

Fri 20 October 2023

post-1697372646

Podcast recommendation: The Art of Manliness. Interesting topics, awesome guests, and great production. #podcast #recommendation

AoM Podcast https://www.artofmanliness.com/podcast/

Sun 15 October 2023

post-1697373091

Photos from a recent trip to Kerala, India. #photo

Sun 15 October 2023

post-1697373569

More photos from a recent trip to Kerala, India. #photo

Sun 15 October 2023

post-1694024847

Here is something I am working on: a solar powered UPS for routers (for my friends). Uses original router power adapter as 'pass-thru' while falling back to LiFePO4 battery during loadshedding. #solar #diy #ups

Wed 06 September 2023

post-1692109827

I wanted to find out what the minimum hardware for running a reasonably good Large Language Model at home would be, so I bought a refurbished ThinkCentre M715q with AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE CPU. It's a 2018-era machine costing only around $200. With no upgrades, I was able to run llama.cpp in CPU-only mode on the smallest Llama 2 7b model (q2_K) generating 5.2 tokens/sec! Very impressive! I can also run Vicuna 13b (q4_1) at over 2 tokens/sec after upgrading the RAM to 16Gb. All this while consuming around 40W of power. One trick I had to employ is to use "LLAMA_AVX2=1 make" to compile, as it doesn't detect AVX2 by default. Anwyay, I love this ThinkCentre machine, it is amazing bang-for-buck and will be my main dev machine for the forseeable future. #llm #thinkcenter #llamacpp

Tue 15 August 2023

post-1684828798

An inspiring talk by Kartik, like a TED talk for programmers.

Using computers more freely and safely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6fjjaq8JCI

Tue 23 May 2023

post-1683695093

This DIY handheld computer build blows me away with how well it's done. I think this is my dream portable computer. Pity they don't sell anything like this, so I'm gonna try DIY'ing my own. #handheld #portable #computer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cdsdrqA-50

Wed 10 May 2023

post-1683695664

I hacked together a prototype of the previously-mentioned handheld portable computer, using a Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 inch LCD touchscreen. So far it is really nice to use! I like how I can use a full desktop OS while walking around. The keyboard and trackpad allow me to use a regular OS without having to worry about touch affordances, mouse-overs, and right-clicking. There is scope to make this much more compact if using a 3d-printed enclosure. #diy #raspberrypi #handheld #portable #computer

Wed 10 May 2023

post-1682870784

My DIY battery-powered wireless driveway visitor detector, take 3! A much harder problem than I anticipated. Attempt 1 was using a cheap and low power PIR sensor. Too many false alerts. Attempt 2 was a radar presence detector. Doesn't work outdoors, way too many false alerts. This one uses a commercial outdoor PIR sensor, which seems to work quite well so far. On the down side, it uses quite a bit of power (20mA continuous), so I've had to add a lithium battery with solar charger. Nice thing about a LiFePO4 battery is that I don't need a fancy solar charge controller, I just use a buck converter set to about 14V. The grey box houses a microcontroller with a LoRa transmitter, mounted on an aluminium bracket that I can hang on my driveway pre-cast wall, so that the PIR sensor looks across the driveway. I put the battery and charger into an ice cream container and placed a roof tile over it to protect against rain and sun. The receiver side is an ESP32 connected to a LoRa receiver and buzzer that plays a ding-dong chime and also sends an MQTT message for futher automation. #diy #lora #pir #motion #sensor

Sun 30 April 2023

post-1681625924

Some photos from a recent camping trip to the bushveld. #photo #camping

Sun 16 April 2023

post-1680965298

The hill in the background is shaped just like an Elephant's silhouette, hence the name Olifantsnek. #photo

Olifantsnek https://www.sa-venues.com/attractionsnwp/olifantsnek.php

Sat 08 April 2023