BURNER: ISSUE 0
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Intro#
These past few months have been nothing but friends weddings. I’ve been to 5 of them so far.
My apartment is finally furnished and it’s now a matter of cleaning the place regularly.
Oh and I got a kitten. Kait really wanted one and my parents cat had a litter. We got a Calico named Sushi. Kait insisted, I would’ve named the cat Gyoza.
I’d love to be a minimalist but there is too much cool toys to buy and things to build. It’s not gonna work for me.
I have paralysis trying to write a blog about a topic, so I made a zine.
Welcome to BURNER
Each issue will be an update, and a dump of all the nuggets of:
- General Information
- Linux tips
- Media recommendations
- Build showcases
- Product reviews
- Rants (occasional)
Somewhere you’ll find something useful.
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This month has been all about preparation for MAPO at the datacenter. It’s our Christmas.
Once a year the datacenter shuts down and I go in at 9pm to stand the cluster up. Everyone at the datacenter thinks I’m unhinged for going into the datacenter in the middle of the night but I have a few good reasons for doing so.
- I don’t get distracted by people. (I’m a talker)
- Crash carts, tables, and tools are mine to use freely.
- I don’t get random pings on teams and slack.
I’m simply able to put on some jungle dnb playlists I ripped from YouTube on my mp3 player and zone out.
I was fed up last year with having to lug around a giant cart and plug in an extension cord so I built my own portable solution.
Materials:
- Keycron V2 (used holy panda switches btw)
- 2 3D printed phone stands I found on printables
- Cheap 8 inch monitor (the menu is in chinese lol so I kept the settings default)
- VGA to HDMI converter
- Power bank
- Two USB-C -> USB-A cables (6ft)
It didn’t hit me until I tested it, the VGA converter needed power (analog to digital etc) so my original plan to “just power the thing off the server” was completely obliterated.
The original idea was to use two usb ports to power both the monitor and keyboard (no mouse, real sysadmin use vi)
I’d still need to use two usb connections, just that one cable would be used to power the VGA converter instead of the monitor. The monitor would be powered through the power bank :(
I used this setup exclusively on the night of powerup and it worked like a charm. I still haven’t decided on a name for it yet.
NOTE: I’m probably going to iterate on it in the future. Hopefully I find a solution to the VGA conversion and get rid of the additional USB.
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HPC#
nodeset -e $(sinfo -h -N -o %N) | tr ' ' ','
I’ve been using this to grab all the nodes in the cluster, easy clush for ad-hoc patches (idk like 6 CVEs dropping in May)
Linux#
# messes up command
fc
fc (fix command) will open your previous command in the editor of your choice. useful for when you fat-fingered a long command or forgot to use sudo (everytime you use dnf maybe?)
You can change your default editor in your .bashrc using export EDITOR="vi"
Don’t forgot to source it.
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People wil setup their infra in different ways. I found a monorepo for my Containerfiles and configs to be a great strategy.
something along the lines of:
root@server:~/Infra# tree -L 1
.
├── Bytestash
├── Homepage
├── Memos
├── Navidrome
├── README.md
└── Yubal
# look these up theyre cool
I see a few benefits of this strategy:
- Everything is accessible.
- Service configuration is it’s respective directory
- Easy portability
- Easy management with git
If you haven’t yet started setting up your personal infra, give this a shot.
If you haven’t tried Tailscale yet, what are you doing?
This opened up the world of self hosting for me. I was always turned off at the idea of opening up my network.
Too much risk. Tailscale (and others like Nebula) are great to access your infra from anywhere.
I’m not going to leave you with some low hanging fruit recommendation like that.
Heres ByteStash: A code snippet storage solution written in React & node.js
It’s been hit or miss with some of the self hosted apps I’ve been trying out.
ByteStash is a hit.
I’ll store my favorite commands in there for work and regular admin things for easy recall.
Next issue I can go into depth on my infra setup.
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XTEINK X4 E-Reader#
TLDR; Buy it.
When I was younger I remember I could read two novels in a week. I would be absolutely absorbed in the story. I wouldn’t even see the words anymore, I just had a movie playing in my mind.
Somewhere I lost that. Maybe it was video games, or YouTube.
Until now.
I wouldn’t assume that the small form factor would be of any benefit. In fact, I thought it would be something to get used to.
Boy was I wrong.
I always found it so easy to read long text messages or docs on a phone. The minute I’d pull out my Kobo Libra (also great e-reader) I’d have to re-read a paragraph a few times. FRUSTRATING.
The small form factor keeps everything in a single column. Each ‘page’ is a few paragraphs of text. It’s easy to digest.
Anytime there is a free minute, I pull out the X4 instead of my phone.
I’ve finished a novel and am reading more than I have in a long time. It’s been amazing. I’m such a fan of this thing that I bought another one and one for a friend.
The stock firmware is absolute trash, but as with most things theres a good modding community that developed Crosspoint It’s a custom firmware that makes the X4 so much better. Better menus, more font and sizing options (and themes!)
It’s about $80 on Amazon at the time of writing.
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Retro Gaming#
For a while I thought Retro Gaming was for 50-something year olds to re-live the arcade days. Only to find out PS2 and 3DS are considered retro (what)
I grew up in the GameBoy Color era, I remember playing Pokemon Fire Red as a kid on long road trips. With a stockpile of batteries and flashlight I’d discover how the type system works (specifically why my Charzard was getting wrecked by Onyx.)
Later on in Highschool, I would take cheap Wal-Mart Android phones and run emulators.
I would tweak with settings, I’d find ways to try to get N64 games running on a Kyocera Rise (Pictured)
Back then (2014) there wasn’t much in the way of good hardware for emulators (at least not that I knew of)
Until now.
To my delight I found a whole world of retro-gaming hardware. All in different shapes and sizes.
Retro handhelds fall into two primary categories:
- Linux based
- Android based
The Linux based options tend to be cheaper and don’t often go past N64/Dreamcast emulation.
Android based systems are pricier but often yield better emulation ability. (Some as far as PS3/Xbox 360)
There are several heavy hitters in the vendor space.
- Anbernic
- Retroid
- AYN
- Ayaneo
- TrimUI
Each of these companies bring something different to the table but will often overlap in capibility.
One thing to note, though the hardware on these devices are amazing, the stock firmware on these devices is garbage. Garbage firmware was initially a turnoff for me, until I found about the INSANE custom firmware support for these handhelds.
The most popular are:
- Knulli (Linux)
- GammaOS (Android) (this requires a Windows computer though so I never tried it)
The customization ability of the custom firmware is extensive. For tinkerers and menu-divers this is heaven.
I’m so wrapped up in these devices, I’ve amassed a small collection of them.
Anbernic RG35XX H#
Horrible name I know. This was the first handheld I ended up buying. It was on sale and it had pretty good reviews.
This was my introduction to retro handhelds and I still love it. It’s not the most premium feeling device, but it makes up for it with charm.
Anbernic RG477 V#
Having a great time with the RG35XX H, I figured I would Anbernic’s flagship device a shot. It’s not cheap $279 if I’m remembering correctly, but it had a few things going for it.
- Great processor
- Vertical form factor (GameBoy Color nostalgia)
- 120hz refresh rate
- Could play PS2 games (big for me)
Additionally this would be my reintroduction to Android emulation. I wanted to give it another shot after all these years.
long story short, I love it. It delivers on everything it advertizes and I consistently play NFS: Carbon on it.
TrimUI Brick Hammer#
My GameBoy Color itch still needed scratching. I wanted a small device that was heavy-duty. I was overjoyed to find out about the TrimUI Brick Hammer. A CNC Aluminum body with a High resolution screen on it.
I immediately threw Knulli on it and have been playing on it since.
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Cool Links#
Sad Servers Troubleshooting Scenarios
Profile Me For improving your GitHub ReadME at the expense of individuality.
Snapmaker U1 The 3D printer I’m about to buy (engagement ring first though, and a framework 13)
Hackdex.app Site for finding and patching ROM hacks into your legally* obtained pokemon ROMS
Random#
Lately I’ve been rekindling my interest in frontend dev.
Starting with just vanilla JS. So far it’s been pretty fun and a good adjacent step away from the usual terminal diving that I’ve been doing for a few years now.
It’s something I’ve always wanted to learn.
I also forgot how crazy kittens are, the cat is an absolute menace at the apartment. I briefly turn away and she’s halfway up a wall.