maff's site!

Tag: Life

Posts relating in some way to my personal life

  • Bad at this ‘blogging’ thing

    Whoops.

    Put all that effort into writing a blog platform (which began as a static site generator, then became a quasi-dynamic web app), then neglected to actually write anything for the following three-and-something years. Whoops.

    I think part of the problem there is that, as cool as it sounds that your blog posts are stored as markdown files inside a Git repository, the fundamental issue is that it becomes inconvenient to draft up and write posts. Almost immediately, I found myself wanting for an XML-RPC interface for remote publishing, and a web interface for writing posts when I didn’t have access to my preferred MetaWeblog-compatible writing software (OpenLiveWriter). I could’ve added these features to BlogAlba, but this would’ve necessitated a user management system of some sort, as well as actually implementing a web administration interface of some kind, and XML-RPC features that allow for remote blogging. Doable, but I just didn’t have the energy to actually bother with it.

    So the blog sat dormant since that first “new blog” post, a testament to how much I simply couldn’t learn to love the now-traditional workflow for static site blogging (and pseudo-static relatives such as BlogAlba).

    Enter Chyrp Lite. A blogging platform that seemed simple enough that I could feel comfortable with deploying it, and which is actively maintained – latest release at time of writing was 18 days ago! From reading the features list, I felt quite enamoured with the software due to its support for the MetaWeblog API, ease of templating, and ability to have different ‘types’ of post, which differ from pages (akin to Tumblr, the default set bundled with Chyrp is Audio, Video, Disco, Text, Link, Photo, Quote and File), each of which can be toggled on or off.

    As much as I didn’t want to go away from Perl, I’ve gotten to a certain point in my life where, frankly, I don’t have the time or energy to be opinionated about technology and software. This website now runs inside Docker, a technology I’ve been very vocal in my hatred for. Docker, in turn, runs within Rancher OS, inside a Hyper-V machine. For all my love of FreeBSD, I’ve long lost the energy to put significant time into building infrastructure that needs regularly maintained; it goes against my personal philosophy, but the convenience of systems that can be repeatedly torn down and rebuilt rather than updated cannot feasibly be ignored.

  • Gone, but not forgotten

    Just a short post today.

    Yesterday (Wednesday the 20th), we took our dog to the vet for what we thought was a stomach bug. He’s had diabetes since about July of last year, and can’t have insulin without food, so we were concerned that he wasn’t eating. He was diagnosed with Pancreatitis, which is treated through starving him for a few days until the pancreas heals a bit, however due to his diabetes, this could have an extremely adverse effect – he’d lost 1.5 stone over the course of a day or so already, and was in a tremendous amount of pain.

    The vet informed us that, even if he pulled through and his pancreas got better, he’d be in a terribly fragile state and would have a long time to go before he regains weight – and there’s a high chance of recurrence, meaning he could be in and out of the vet very often, and he was in so much pain due to it.

    He was put to sleep yesterday afternoon. We were with him the whole time, and right to the end, he was wagging his tail because he was so happy to see us.

    Here’s to you, Max. You were a better friend and companion than anyone could ever have asked for.

  • Why I never (or rarely) place phone calls

    Note: This post was written in early 2013, and a lot of things have changed since then. Phone calls are alright, actually.

    If I want or need to contact someone, typically the first thing I check is my instant messenger. I use Trillian, which keeps me logged into every IM service I use regularly (AIM, MSN and Gtalk). I also log into Skype on it if I need to. If the person I want to talk to isn’t online or available there, I check Steam. If they’re not available there, I text them. If I don’t have their number or something, I message them on Facebook.

    Calling people is, for me, an absolute last resort.

    This is entirely because, while I have way more minutes and texts on my phone contract than I will reasonably use in a month, I grew up with SMS and instant messaging as my primary form of communication. I know that, if I send a message to someone, they’re not required to act upon it immediately and can respond when they’re ready to. Phone calls don’t afford that luxury. If someone phones you, you have to decide to answer or decline the phone call right there. If you miss the call, you have to contact the person later to find out why they were calling you, unless they left a voicemail (and who does that?).

    So when I want to phone someone, I have to take into consideration how busy that person is and how likely it is that they’ll be available to both answer the phone and have a chat. I’m not sure if this is simply a problem I have or something, but I generally have no idea what time is a good time to call someone (which is why, in the years that she’s been living away from home, I’ve barely called my sister even once.) I rarely even call my best friend for this reason.

    This isn’t to say I think phone calls are bad. Not at all, I’ll defend the importance of phone calls to the ends of the earth. I simply think they could be improved. Skype (and other internet-based voice calling systems) give you a good indicator, by whether or not the person: A) is online, and B) has their status set to “Available”.

    Yes, I know I haven’t posted anything in quite a while. I have quite a few draft posts, and for the most part I just can’t be bothered finishing them. I will eventually, don’t worry. I also have a lot more stuff I want to talk about.

  • Start as you mean to go on

    So for the millionth time, I’m starting a blog. Hopefully, this time I’ll actually have stuff to write about. As a bit of an introduction, I’m Maff. I’m a computer science student, sysadmin and server support drone from Scotland. I’m also a bit of a designer, a developer and a security dork. I also love videogames, music and a whole host of other things.

    I’m starting this blog in part because I want somewhere to document my pursuits (software or otherwise), but also as a place to post about the funny things that happen in real life, and as a place to rant. I may also post about the software I write, from time to time – I’m a semi-active developer over at github, and I’m the gentoo package maintainer for Monitorix.