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January 2025 Retrospective

Crazy to think we are only 10 days into Trump's presidency. As I am writing this he is scheduled to unleash massive tariffs on Canada in the next 24 hours which should decimate the economy. I truly have no idea what is going to happen so I'll just leave ya'll with this bit by John Mulaney.

Published three articles

I have been working on setting up a server rack for my home which meant finding an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). But I didn't want to buy a UPS that required properiarty software which lead me to disover the Network UPS Tools (NUT) project. Using their hardware compatability list I was able to find a UPS that I could purchase in Canada. This lead me to setting up a spare Rasperberry Pi and installing NUT. I knew my memory of how I did this would leave me nearly immedaitely so I wrote two articles that detailed the process:

Setting up and hardening a headless Raspberry Pi is nearly identical to setting up a Linux server, so while everything was fresh in my mind I took the opportunity to upgrade this blog and wrote about how I now host a static website using nginx.

Bento Box by VOXELPLA

I have set up my Bambu Lab P1S printer but outside of a couple Benchys I've held off on using it until I can get proper ventilation installed. This lead me to discover the Bento Box by VOXELPLA. A tiny little filter that fits perfectly inside Bambu Lab printers and helps catch particles and fumes that are emitted. I am still going to set up a proper enclosure to ensure that as many fumes and particles as possible are ejected outside, but the Bento Box seems like a perfect first line of defence so I wanted to spread the word here.

Read Cheated: The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing

If you not a big fan of baseball I don't really see any need to read Cheated: The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing. You could probably just skim the Wikipedia article on it and you'd have all the information you need. But as a sports fan I found the "inside baseball" perspective of MLB teams at the time to be really interesting. The book does a great job explaining the history of sign stealing and how teams were been trying to push that fine line between skill and cheating for decades before the Astros blatantly leapt over it.

Started reading The Lions of Al-Rassan

I am about 70% of the way through The Lions of Al-Rassan and it really is trying my patience. Based on the glowing reviews I was not expecting it to be so monotonous. It is not an outright bad book, its just very disjointed. There is no real overarching story being told. It is more like a bunch of novellas set in the same world that have been stitched together. I can completely understand how someone could enjoy it but I am finding it far too dry. The cardinal sin is that I don't find myself caring about any of the characters.

I am going to force myself to finish it just so the hardcore fans cannot blindly dismiss my opinion, but I am not expecting things to change for the "finale".

Delivered my Grandmother's eulogy

My grandmother's funeral service was held this month and I was asked to deliver her eulogy. I understand how daunting a task this can be for many people so I wanted to write down the process I used.

A eulogy, in my mind, is a performance. It is not a summary of facts about a person or random memories you have about them. One of the biggest mistakes you can make with a eulogy is constantly speaking from your perspective. You absolutely must ask family members and friends for their thoughts to source as much material as possible. You are looking to tell a tale about the deceased from their birth until their death. Reminding those in attendance what the deceased went through and how they have affected the lives of each person in the room. You are an actor, aiming to ebb and flow between the ups and downs of the deceased's life, using sappy callouts and jokes to pull the audience in and guide them towards moments of emotional release.

I would recommend not reading the eulogy verbatim because that is a near surefire way to ensure that emotion leaves your voice. If you can write just bullet points but if you absolutely must write out full sentences, practice delivering them dozens of times beforehand. You want the spirit of the eulogy to be seared into your mind so that you can effortlessly move from one section to the next. Look at the audience and react with them. Off handed comments and jokes are what people want to help them connect with the deceased.

I think I spent about 10 hours writing my granny's eulogy and I couldn't have been happier with it. I'm not a religious person but if there is an afterlife I hope she got to see me and chuckled along.

Rest in peace Granny. You will be deeply missed but never forgotten

Built a new gaming computer

It has been five years since I last built a gaming rig and with the release of Nvidia's 50 series GPUs I decided it was time to step into the world of 4K60 gaming. Usually when I do this it is because I want to play a specific game. I still have vivid memories of building computers for Diablo, Half-Life 2, Skyrim, and Cyberpunk 2077. But for my new home office I wanted to migrate to using an LG TV as a monitor for PC games and as a TV for consoles.

You can find a list of the components on PCPartPicker. Currently everything has been built and configured except for the GPU. I believe I successfully managed to preorder an MSI 5080 graphics card but there is no indication as to when it will ship. Nvidia appears to have screwed the pooch with this release and stock is shockingly limited. I'll keep my eyes peeled to see if any of the local computer stores receive any shipments but based on historical trends I don't think we're going to see 50 series GPUs on shelves until May or June.

Review January Goals

February Goals

#MonthlyRetrospective