Linux

Various bits and bobs, I gradually accumulated over the past couple of years, to make my self hosted Miniflux look just the way I want it. Width and Size Changed the width to 850 pixels wide, because even on my vertical monitor, there was quite a bit of wasted horizontal space. Changed the body to use a slightly smaller size. body { max-width: 850px; !important; font-size: 90%; } Italic Blockquotes Changed blockquotes to be italic, so that they’re better set off against normal body text. Also made them a wee bit tinier than the body. ...

I wrote a tiny script that creates an RSS feed for all the audio files it finds in a folder. I call it derb. My mother gets devotional songs and sermons on cds, which I rip to MP3 files and then dump on her phone for her.1 She listens to them all the time, and now three of her friends want to do the same too. I thought of just sticking them in my self hosted Jellyfin instance,2 but then I realised, all of them have erratic, slow internet. So the idea of self hosting a podcast feed really appealed to me. ...

To create the htpasswd file along with its first user, I just: htpasswd -c /path/to/htpasswdfile/htpasswd some-user It’ll ask you for the password for that user, encrypt it and store it in that location. Add these lines to get Nginx to use the file for basic auth: auth_basic "Login to Proceed: "; #(or whatever message you want) auth_basic_user_file /path/to/htpasswdfile/htpasswd; To append another user to the htpasswd file do: htpasswd /path/to/htpasswd/htpasswd second-user That ought to do it. P.S. Install apache-utils on Debian or use Paru/Yay to install nginx_passwd on Arch. ...

As I have begun learning Go (or golang as I needed to use for searching on the web), I’ve been running into some sort of chasm that the Go language seems to have crossed1 that my old textbook obviously could not have foreseen when it was published.2 The book asks me to do a go run . to get my file to compile and run. Go seems to having none of it. ...

I’ve been learning French, on my own at a snail’s pace over the past year or so. All because I want to read Émilie du Châtelet, Dumas, Verne, and Montaigne in their native tongue. Since I cannot do immersion nor give regular practice the time it wants, it’s … slow going But I do, do it. Regularly and deliberately. I’ve built up a vocabulary of about 500-700 words by now and I know if I keep this up, I’ll be able to do read well in time. ...

First things first, you should be listening to Cal Newport and reading his books too! His recent episode on books and reading was lovely!1 If I remember right, he started doing the podcast, a couple of months after the pandemic broke out and the world shut down. And it felt very much at the time, like one of those friendly voices across the waves in some post apocalyptic movie. It felt warm, personal and gave me something to do in those dark days. Ergo, I have a strong connection to it and I began saving every episode, at around episode 10 or so. ...