some of the books i've been reading lately...
Despite or maybe due to the state of the world, I’ve kept up my reading regimen. I love reading. bedtime reading - 1-2 hours with my Kobo Clara HD lunchtime reading - 30-40 minutes with a paper book Though I’ve kept up my reading habit, I haven’t been blogging reviews as much as I used to. This makes me sad, but life is also busy. I accept it. I am now also using Bookwyrm.
some stuff I have been fooling around with in my homelab: pihole, pinephone, acl + zfs stuff.
I had lots of time to fool around with my homelab stuff over the lunar new year. Here are some things I worked on lately. Pihole + Unbound I run PiHole at home to block ads at the DNS level on my NanoPi R2S. Lately, there were lots of random reboots. I have had this running 24/7 for a few (?) years using the same SD card. I hypothesized that my SD card was failing, so I bought a new SD card.
i'm back on Bookwyrm.
Bookwyrm - Social Media for Books
https://blog.arkadi.one/p/bookwyrm-social-media-for-books/
Goodreads is bad If you didn’t already know, Goodreads is bad. It was bought by Amazon in 2013. It hasn’t changed much since then. It’s still ugly. I’m sure Amazon is harvesting all that sweet user data in the background, too. I quit Goodreads awhile ago and switched to using Obsidian markdown to track my reading. At the end of every year, I post the results of my Reading Challenge. However, as I begin 2026, I think I might try Bookwyrm.
Lunar New Year 2026 - part 2. It's over...ahhhhh.
https://blog.arkadi.one/p/lunar-new-year-2026-part-2/
The one month holiday passed by like a flash. I start work tomorrow. I had a great break though. EDIT: I’m back at work for almost a week now. This is how hard my job hits me when it starts. I will get back to the grind tomorrow and won’t have so much time for blogging, so this shall be my last blog post of the holiday. Movies Holidays are a golden time for me.
Enjoying listening to 1001 albums to hear before you die. Started the 1950s, so far.
https://blog.arkadi.one/p/1001-albums-to-hear-before-you-die/
2026 has started on a depressing note. You just have to search social media for #uspol if you don’t believe me. Somehow, I stumbled onto the book “1001 Albums to Hear Before You Die” (1001 Albums). I enjoy listening to music from the past and relish new challenges. This year, I declare I shall begin the 1001 albums music challenge! I have started from the oldest albums as I am following the order in the 1001 Albums book.
How I get music into my #Jellyfin ... how do you do it?
Music Workflow
https://blog.arkadi.one/p/music-workflow/
I recently made some major changes to my music workflow, switching from spotify-downloader to YouTube downloader (yt-dlp) + metadata-remote. + f2 batch renamer. My previous workflow: Open Distrobox, use spotdl through pip/pipx download music edit id3 tags manually in a music app rsync to server ssh to server rsync again to jellyfin folder Too many steps and editing id3 tags manually was a major pain. Also, Spotify-downloader (spotdl) was good, but YouTube has way more music that I like.
yes, i bought a #framework12 for my daughter despite them supporting some terrible people
https://blog.arkadi.one/p/framework-12-review/
#blog #arkadicloud #fediblog
Why? I didn’t think I would buy a Frame.work laptop after the controversy about one of the Framework dude being dumb and sponsoring DHH, who I didn’t know who he was but after I looked him up is a garbage person. However, tablets are even worse. Expensive: iPad Air $18,921 NT, Galaxy Tab $22,080 NT They aren’t expensive in dollars, but they are expensive for how limited they are. You can’t play Steam games on them.
Me, mainsplaining New Year's Resolutions to you. Nah, just why I track the books I read.
Track Your Progress
https://blog.arkadi.one/p/track-your-progress/
It’s the time of year that many of us feel the need to make new years resolutions. People make dramatic proclamations they will eat healthier, or visit the gym, or read more books. This is great, and no shade on those people who make resolutions. I do have a suggestion for people who wish to make resolutions: track your progress. How do you do that? Log it. If you do it, write it down.
My nixbook test drive. It's really slick!
I had tried to convert some existing NixOS systems to Nixbook a few times but I always ended up on a strange feeling ‘dirty’ system. I decided to give it a fair shake and install it from scratch on one of my test laptops. Install I installed nixbook with the custom ISO that Mr. Kelly has made. It makes the experience so smooth and simple. I was really impressed, though, in general, NixOS has a better installer experience than Fedora or Ubuntu in my opinion.
some #uspol thoughts on the current beta testing of US democracy
This President is showing how creaky and terrible USA democracy and the US state is. So much of what was done before by other presidents was based on ’norms’, not rule. He’s basically beta testing US democracy and finding, many, many holes. I’m a teacher. You never, ever trust kids. Kids are sneaky. A kid will always find some way to exploit the system. Also, as a Canadian that has been watching American politics since I was born - things be crazy out down there.
tootbrute