RSS Parrot

RSS syndication on Fedi #meta

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/rss-syndication-on-fedi-meta/

Published: July 9, 2026 00:00

As mentioned in my last post I have not had working RSS syndication to the Fedi since February. This was an impetus to try do something about tha again. I have now registered this blog using rss-parrot which works quite differently as instead of posting to…

Yes, I have read your blog

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/yes-i-have-read-your-blog/

Published: July 8, 2026 00:00

Since I started getting back into RSS and blogs I have been reading them every day through my RSS reader app on Android. This has been set up to pull in the blog content and I usually read it in-app for convenience. In February Mastofeed stopped working…

AI Blog Questions Challenge

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/ai-blog-questions-challenge/

Published: June 16, 2026 00:00

I was already in the midst of writing a similar post when I saw this pop up on Kev Q's blog so thought I'd save some effort the old-fashioned way and steal it. 1. How was your first experience with AI models? I first experienced the rise of AI with…

The tides of my mind

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/the-tides-of-my-mind-14a35e6c/

Published: May 15, 2026 00:00

I've always been quite fascinated by people who seem maintain a deep interest in a subject over the long term. I have for a long time been self critical of my own inability to do so and have on occasion forced myself to maintain my involvement in X hobby…

The state of the Porridge

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/the-state-of-the-porridge/

Published: March 10, 2026 00:00

Like how I worked on improving my coffee process a while back, I have for the past 6 months or so been working on my porridge recipe to the point now it has become my go-to breakfast and is possibly reached a peak in terms of taste, texture and fuss…

Revisiting Potato

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/revisiting-potato/

Published: February 18, 2026 00:00

I was first exposed to Linux mania in 2000 after downloading a floppy image of Debian 2.2 (Potato) over dial-up, which gave me my first noobie steps into the world of Linux and UNIX-likes in general. I was 15 at the time, I didn't have a clue what I was…

The value of a PC (Private Computer)

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/the-value-of-a-pc-private-computer/

Published: February 1, 2026 00:00

This is a bit of a rambling post where I'm mostly just trying to articulate some thoughts I've had for the past few weeks in the hope that I can eventually put it to rest and move on but feel free to chip in your thoughts on Mastodon or better, your own…

Zigbee all the things! (part one)

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/zigbee-all-the-things-p1/

Published: January 29, 2026 00:00

Following on from my previous post, I had a working central heating set up using home assistant as my thermostat but it was early days and I still wasn't fully confident in my hastily jury-rigged solution so I wanted to see how I can make the old Hive…

Cloudbitten by my thermostat

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/cloudbitten-by-my-thermostat/

Published: January 21, 2026 00:00

Soon after moving into my home in 2018, the old boiler packed in, and I needed to order a replacement. During this time of strife, I was convinced that one of these new-fangled cloud-connected thermostats would be a good idea to replace the old but still…

Building my own TV network

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/building-my-own-tv-network/

Published: January 13, 2026 00:00

Parenting in the 21st century comes with some new challenges. One of those I wasn't expecting is how much kids will argue over the TV, change their mind seconds into starting a program or worse - get distracted on the way to navigating to the program they…

2025 Repairs

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/2025-repairs/

Published: December 9, 2025 00:00

This year I promoted by habit of fixing things into a recognised hobby. I've always enjoyed the challenge of making repairs so that I can make household items work for longer, save things from land-fill, and also learn something along the way once I've…

I have sinned

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/i-have-sinned/

Published: October 7, 2025 00:00

I deleted my Facebook account in 2017 which in hindsight was relatively early as it became a popular choice for many in the years that followed. This was after a period feeling more uncomfortable with it's toxicity in my life, particularly around the…

OCC: Rebuilding my first PC - part 3 - more hardware woes

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/occ-rebuilding-my-first-pc-part-3/

Published: August 24, 2025 00:00

In the last episode I had resolved to rebuilding my 2nd generation system based on the AthlonXP 2000+ CPU and Asus A7V-133C motherboard that I still owned. I'd like to report that it was smooth sailing from this point out but I was struggling to get any…

OCC: Rebuilding my first PC - part 2 - hardware woes

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/occ-rebuilding-my-first-pc-part-2/

Published: August 15, 2025 00:00

After my last post I managed to find some reasonable deals on a graphics card, a Nvidia Riva TNT2 Pro 32MB and a SB Live Value! so I ordered those, and they showed up very soon after. I hadn't yet received the motherboard and CPU, so I decided to try the…

OCC: Rebuilding my first PC

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/occ-rebuilding-my-first-pc/

Published: August 5, 2025 00:00

After watching a few too many Unreal Tournament (UT99) music mixes online I made the probably ill-thought-out decision to rebuild the first PC I built using my own money and hands. I built its predecessor too but that was paid for by my parents since I was…

Old Computer Challenge 2025 - part 2

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/old-computer-challenge-2025-part-2/

Published: August 1, 2025 00:00

For most of the old computer challenge week I mostly used it to hang out on IRC for a couple of days, I stuggled running many applications, even finding apparently 32 bit windows binaries they usually resulted in a "Not a valid win32 application" which I…

Old Computer Challenge 2025 - part 1

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/old-computer-challenge-2025-part-1/

Published: July 15, 2025 00:00

For readers unfamiliar, the Old Computer Challenge is an annual week-long event where participants are invited to return to using outdated hardware or software for a week in a demonstration of what you can still achieve without the luxuries of modern…

Kindle jailbreak

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/kindle-jailbreak/

Published: May 4, 2025 00:00

I have used Kindle eReaders for 12 years or so. My first was the Kindle 4 non-touch, soon after replaced by a 7th Generation or Paperwhite 3. Not really replaced though because the K4 became my office Kindle where it's lack of a front light wasn't an issue…

Linkhut

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/linkhut/

Published: April 8, 2025 00:00

I always enjoy a good link dump, while I don't have plans to start my own (yet?), I have started posting links to my new linkhut account. I don't offer any level of quality control, I haven't read most of the links I post there, but intend to. I've found…

Lessons from two broken household appliances

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/lessons-from-two-broken-household-appliances/

Published: February 7, 2025 00:00

About 4 years ago we bought a pair of new appliances for the house, a matching HotPoint washing machine and dryer set. As of last week we no longer have either of them, but it did teach me some thing about appliances that I wish I'd known before buying…

A FreeBSD desktop - part 2

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/a-freebsd-desktop-part-2/

Published: January 28, 2025 00:00

In the last post I installed FreeBSD and wrestled with drivers and got the GPU up and running. The next step was to install a usable desktop environment. I did consider briefly installing a window manager as I am interested in updating my knowledge of them…

A FreeBSD desktop - part 1

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/a-freebsd-desktop-1/

Published: January 23, 2025 00:00

I've been fond of FreeBSD since I first used it around version 9, when it was the base of FreeNAS 9.x back in 2012, and my wild customisations of that software taught me how FreeBSD worked and I liked how it stayed closed to the UNIX philosophy and was a…

A year of plaintext accounting

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/a-year-of-plaintext-accounting/

Published: January 13, 2025 00:00

The end of December was also the year end of my first year with my plaintext accounting system. I now have a complete year's worth of data in my journal ready for running reports against and hopefully give me some insights into my family's spending over…

3D printing

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/3d-printing/

Published: December 16, 2024 00:00

I have been interested in 3D printing for quite a few years but I've put off diving into it due to the time constraints of raising a young family. Then this year I started getting some time back, some money turned up and then there was an offer I couldn't…

Meshtastic

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/meshtastic/

Published: October 14, 2024 00:00

Tags: #meshtastic #radio I have a long-standing interest in radio technology, I am a card-carrying radio amateur, although I have been "QRT" (off-air) since shortly after completing my full license exam, due to child care vacuuming up all my free time for…

Tightening up my coffee brewing methods

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/coffee-brewing-methods/

Published: September 6, 2024 00:00

tags: #coffee #aeropress #frenchpress Coffee is one of my few remaining vices, I don't drink vast amounts, only one or two cups a day before my anxiety kicks in, but it is a comforting habit when there is a lot to freak out about. I have been a long-time…

Nothing useless can ever be truly beautiful

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/nothing-useless-can-ever-be-truly-beautiful/

Published: August 15, 2024 00:00

It looks fucking great actually - yeah, really nice. It's beautiful - but useless. And as William Morris once said: "Nothing useless can be truly beautiful." - Tony Wilson (played by Steve Coogan) in "24 Hour Party People" (2002) 24-Hour Party People is…

Super-charging the Dell GX620

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/super-charging-the-dell-gx620/

Published: July 28, 2024 00:00

I was recently handed Dell Optiplex GX620 by a family member in exchange for some minor data recovery under the assumption I would then dispose of it (yeh right). I acquired this machine for the family member a decade or so ago as a e-waste save from my…

What does the rip in ripgrep really mean?

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/what-does-the-rip-in-ripgrep-really-mean/

Published: July 19, 2024 00:00

I heard ripgrep was fast but I haven't yet trained my fingers to switch to it as it rarely comes in necessary, but then I needed to throw 6275 patterns at grep to perform an inverse match against a 79MB csv file with almost 350k records. The command took…

Tending to my digital music hoard

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/tending-to-my-digital-music-hoard/

Published: July 16, 2024 00:00

Inspired by one of 82Mhz recent link-dumps, I dropped Navidrome onto my home server and gave it access to my vestigial music downloads collection. I have long used Plex which is great for video but I've never really got into it for music. I think the issue…

Sleeper Optiplex

https://haewyr.mataroa.blog/blog/sleeper-optiplex/

Published: July 7, 2024 00:00

In May this year, I picked up a Dell Optiplex 3070 SFF at a work charity sale for £50, which is a bargain for this model. It came with a Intel i5 9500, 8GB RAM and a 250GB NVMe SSD. My intent for this machine is to see whether I could turn it into a cheap…