I have a few small services I’ve been hosting on a Raspberry Pi 5 but ever since I saw a list of no JavaScript/CSS/HTML sites, I’ve been interested in hosting some simple pages just for myself. I’ll probably look into something that can create simple pages with markdown because it’s something simple that I’m already comfortable with.

I created my own script/tool using rsync to handle backups and transferring data.

My needs are quite smaller with just a computer and two Raspberry Pi’s but I found rsync to be really useful overall.

My backup strategy is to make a complete backup on the local device (Computer / RPi4 / RPi5) then copy all those backups to a Storage partition on my computer, then make a whole backup from the partition to an externally attached SSD.

The RPi’s both use docker/podman containers so I make sure any persistent data is in mounted directories. I usually stop all containers before performing a backup, especially things with databases.

Everything in the docker containers is either hit or miss when it comes to restoring. The simple docker images restore as it they were untouched and will launch like nothing happened. I have a PieFed instance that must be rebuilt after restoring a backup. Since PieFed’s persistent data is in mount points, everything works perfectly after a fresh build.

I can send a link to my rsync tool if that’s any interest to anyone. I’ve found it super useful for backups and minimizes so much headache for myself when it comes to transferring files between different network connected devices.

Maybe it’s something sightly outside no js/ccs/html but I am curious if there are any super minimal social media sites.

I want to do something locally within my town and it would be nice to host something simple and tiny with my raspberry pi as the server.

I’m assuming bulletin boards are quite minimal in comparison to other types of social media but I’ve never been a fan of how they handle previous replies with those boxed quotes.

I’ve also been nostalgic for irc lately. Everything on the internet these days has become overwhelming. Over the past 1.5 years I’ve been turning to simplicity and it’s a craving I that’s hard to ignore.

I started self-hosting as a hobby and while I enjoy it, I was getting frustrated with file transfers between my computer, phone and two raspberry pi’s. Since I was already using rsync, I created a tool for myself to help sort rsync commands into sortable files.

I can now lump together those files into a single command and run several rsync commands in one go.

It’s definitely saved me some sanity by not having to refer to a wall of text full of rsync aliases.

I posted it on codeberg.

It is random code on the internet and it involves file transfers so if anyone uses it, those are the risks unless you care to read the code itself.

I think I’ve worked in automation long enough to feel super uncomfortable with the idea of a tattoo print machine being anywhere near my body.

Even if I had a kill switch in hand, it still makes me uncomfortable. In general machines don’t care about fleshy bits at all. If something happens, for example a sensor ages and becomes defective, the printer has the potential to cause serious harm.

I probably also hold a bit of bias, I prefer the imperfections of human, hand made art over digitized perfection from machines.

I’m the same here. I don’t know enough or care to know enough about systemd. I simply enjoy the minimalism of Alpine.

The downside is that I have to learn a bit more to make it work how I want but as a hobby I enjoy it.

When I first started with linux, Mint with systemd just worked for my laptop. For the people who are less computer literate, that should be good enough. They don’t want to worry about how to make their computer work, they just wanna do basic computer things without hassle.

For the past month I’ve been writing a script to simplify transferring files and folders between my devices at home. All I have to do is change one feature, test it and it will be complete.

I’ve tried writing code before but never finished any project so this will be a nice accomplishment.

I’m thinking of putting it up on Codeberg to share. Maybe someone else might find my code/script useful. Even if it’s just one other person who uses, it would be nice knowing my work made their life a little less tedious.

I was born in Canada and was essentially raised Canadian. Both my bio parents were born in Guyana. Go back in history and their relatives were from India. My stepdad is from a Scottish background.

In Canada I lived in a city with a noticeable Indian and Pakistani population. People there assume I am Indian.

When I travelled Europe, everyone assumed I was African, French or French Canadian. I can’t speak French. In Germany, people assumed I was German or Muslim. I know being Muslim isn’t a nationality but the Turkish people in Berlin would greet me all the time. While I was in Australia, I was just treated like I was exotic… Yeah… And in Cuba, people thought I was Cuban. Luckily I had a pasty white, Spanish speaking Californian guy with me for a short time to speak to the locals.

It’s such a trip what people assume about me. Even more trippy with the amount of people who thought I was a local when I was abroad in Europe, especially in Germany where I only had a year with a work/travel visa.

Even though I have no pride in being Canadian, that’s what I am. That’s the culture I was born in and raised up as. The people who ask “Where are you from? No, where are you really from?” Tend to be closed minded people who I actively avoid.

I have a small partition that has a copy of Linux Mint live USB. I also have another partition that holds my backups. When I inevitably break my system, I launch Mint and use an rsync command I keep in a text file to revert back to the backup I made.

Using Mint’s live usb image has multiple benefits. It has Gparted for partition management. It has basic apps like LibreOffice and Mozilla in case I need them. It has proper printer support too. And since it’s a live usb image, every time I launch it, the environment will always be the same. No changes are permanent and will disappear after a reset.

My days of using Mint may be over, but it’s too reliable to ever truly leave my system.

I met someone at a Halloween party last year. She’s queer. In the short time we’ve known each other, we’ve become very close.

We seem to have similar minds and are very generous with the space we give each other when it comes to being ourselves. Not physical space but in an understanding way. For example, I know she’s terrible at time management so I never pressure her for being late but I’m also able to do things that can encourage her to be less late. She ends up spending more time doing the things she enjoys without the pressures or guilt of being late.

That sort of space has created this feeling of comfort and safety between us. She feels safe and comfortable with me and shows it all the time. She tells me she loves me all the time. She gives me the tightest hugs all the time. She rests her head on my shoulders or leans into me while we are sitting next to each other. None of this is sexual but it is very much full of love. Other people seem to notice too. Some people have called us cute. Others just seem to smile more and are happier when we are around. It feels really nice.

As a person who is very difficult to touch and does not touch other people very often, this has been such a different experience for me. I like it though, it feels so cozy. I wish had more of this throughout my life. I wish others had more of this throughout their lives.

To me it feels as though modern, north American expectations around love are too much and too high. There’s so many ways to feel and express love. Love doesn’t need to end with sex and marriage. There doesn’t need to be an end goal. It can just be love. I’m very greatful to have met someone who can express their love so freely. It gives me a chance to learn more.

I’ve struggled my entire life with male friends. They all seemed to really appreciate how I would listen to them and their problems. Yet when it came time for me to open up, they would just turn the conversation back to about themselves or just skip past what I was trying to talk about.

I’ve never been competitive and rarely had the energy to make myself heard. It all felt so shallow and there was no depth to these relationships. It didn’t feel worth the effort to put up a with the fight.

I’m very fortunate that a number of women, who have come and gone in my life, were able to listen or guide me in so many important ways. Even with my newest friend, she has been showing me new ways to open up and feel safe.

It makes me a bit sad that I’ve never really had men in my life who could show me how to open up the same way women have. It would be so much easier to relate since we would have similar experiences growing up as men. With my female friends, I can only relate with them so far. They are women, I am not.

The hurtful things that men have said to me and the hurtful things they have done to me makes it incredibly hard for me to make male friends now. I wish that weren’t the situation. I absolutely crave variety, diversity and connection.

I kept saying “cd up” in my mind so I just made an alias for cdu, became a reflex within the next day

I was installing Alpine Linux on a Raspberry Pi 5 and was using the kitchen TV as a temporary monitor. My parents thought I was sending encrypted messages. I was just updating the repository list to find the quickest mirror.

It’s funny to me how some people see text scrolling by on a screen and immediately think witchcraft.

This reminds me of when I had apprenticeship classes that got interrupted by the covid lockdowns. I was forced to do theory classes online over zoom. Every morning my wifi connection would drop for a few minutes at a time during my classes.

Turns out it was the microwave. Every time someone used the microwave, it would disrupt the wifi/router for the whole house.

Ended up making a sign to let people know I was in class. My classes were only for 8 weeks total. I had about 4 or 5 weeks remaining by the time I figured it out so it wasn’t too long of an inconvenience.

There are times when I hang out with someone and I’ll be unbelievably happy for a couple days afterwards. Then I begin to feel a bit sad and unmotivated for a few days after that because I want more of that happiness they gave me. That kind of happiness high can be a bit intense.

I have only a small handful of friends these days but the ones I have now are able to show me trust, appreciation and love so easily. Something that has not been very common in my life in general.

I just keep reminding myself that there are people who genuinely care about me as I am and it gets a bit easier to motivate myself again. Little by little.

Also helps that my parents stopped watching the 24 hour news channel so much. Not hearing the news has saved a bit more of my shrinking sanity.

I hate flirting. I just don’t understand it. It’s this weird social dance that no one explains but expects people to understand. It all feels hypocritical that comes with unreasonable expectations.

The biggest source of frustration for me comes from the fact that I have to act in a way that says I am interested while not saying I am interested. That just does not work for me.

I don’t flirt. I don’t even try. I don’t want to be with someone flirty because from my past experiences, flirty people are also not straight forward about other parts of their true selves.

Flirty people also misinterpret a lot of my actions as a result of me not understanding flirting as well. Many flirty people from my experiences have assumed I am flirting. I was just being nice. I was treating them like a person. Just like I treat family like people. And friends like people. And strangers like people.

As a not flirty person, the number of times people have pushed me up against a wall and kissed me, or just jump to kissing me has been way more than I ever expected out of life. Each time has been equally confusing. I wasn’t flirting. I was just treating them how I wanted to be treated.

I have no advice to give but I have some thoughts to share from my life experiences. People like being treated like people. People who make mistakes. People who have their own thoughts and feelings. People who are themselves. I’ve made more genuinely close connections with people, intimate or not, by just treating people as people. And it’s really something as simple as that. Also having a genuine smile helps quite a bit too. When I smile because I’m enjoying the moment, I notice that it draws people towards me. It’s a type of energy that draws people in and it makes me feel even better about myself too.

I think I started therapy in late 2020 after seeing the horrifying response to COVID from countries and corporations. The visible lack of global cooperation ruined my mental health. To me, this implied that if we can’t work together to deal with a global pandemic, then what hope is there for the environment?

My therapist kept pushing me to use CBT as a way to cope with the issues I brought up. I ended up feeling more worthless because I didn’t understand why I was failing at yet another thing.

I don’t think I ever went deep into conversation with my therapist about climate change. There were so many external stresses clouding my mind that I was unable to stay on one topic long enough to do any meaningful management of my thoughts. Since everyone around me were so unconcerned about the environment, I sort of played along. All I really could understand at the time was that learning and trying CBT felt more like CBT. I hated it.

I was thinking of finding another therapist since it felt like I hit a wall with my current one. Fortunately, through random chance I happened to find a couple people who shared my views. Through them I’ve come to terms with my climate anxiety. Accepting a lot of uncomfortable truths. About me, about my relationships and about the future in general.

My mood these days ranges from indifference to frustration but I’m no longer in the depths of depression that I used to be in. I’m hoping to use my past experiences to help others who have yet to experience these thoughts and anxieties when the time comes. I want to help in some way because that’s what I like doing and what I think will be useful. It’s one of the many little things I use to motivate myself to get through the days.

I don’t believe all raccoons live near roads. It is entirely possible for some animals to have minimal or no contact with human infrastructure. The world is a big place even if it feels small at times.

Country raccoons aren’t aware of the dangers of motor vehicles. City raccoons would have been taught by their mother how to wait and avoid such obstacles. Foraging for food in bins is also a lot different than hunting for food in a more wild setting. The diets are vastly different with the mother again showing the young how to search and obtain food in their respective environments.

Yes, racoons can teach each other but from my understanding, a lot of that teaching is from mother to child.

I do not expect a city human to be able to head into the wild and survive without a considerable amount of training before heading out. A wild human would have a difficult time adjusting to the city life without starting out with some money.

I still stand by my original statement unless I can be proven otherwise.

I watched a documentary about racoons. It mainly focused on raccoons that live in the city and how they adapted to city life. City raccoons adapted so well that city racoons and country raccoons would not be able to survive in each other’s world.

If I recall correctly, cities helped the spread of racoons throughout North America. Any animal that has is able to adapt so easily is far more clever than we give them credit for.

And since they aren’t bound by human laws, I fully support them in vandalising and trashing these Cyber Truck monstrosities. I’m eternally jealous that they can look so cute while accidentally rebelling against Musk.