spinflip @spinflip@qoto.org

Update: I've just spent the last six hours repeatedly failing to solve a problem that turned out to just be DNS. In hindsight, that's pretty much what I should have expected

Breakfast: salami and cheese croissants, and a mug of beautiful Yorkshire gold

It's my first reasonably free Saturday in a while, and I think I'm going to spend some time playing around with my newly arrived raspberry pi! It's currently functioning as a basic Kodi media centre and nothing else, but it seems a good tool for learning a bit about Linux systems and networking. Things I'd like to look into:

• Always-on torrentbox: transmission with webclient, set up openvpn to tunnel torrent traffic but leave normal traffic. Seems a good way to learn some basic linux networking stuff

• LAMP server to host a WP blog or something. Not sure i really need this, but could be fun to set up.

And maybe later:

• ADS-B logging with RTL-SDR. I don't have the hardware at the moment, but SDR seems interesting and I'm sure it'd force me to learn new stuff about processing real-time datastreams.

What're you guys doing with SBCs? Anyone have any cool projects they'd like to share?

it is too hot

There's something about good body horror that I just love: it's clever and creative, can demonstrate real technical competence in film making, but at the same time it's normally far enough removed from reality to avoid being genuinely disturbing

It's nearly Halloween! What's everyone been watching or planning to see this year? I've had a great time rewatching Pan's Labyrinth and The Thing, enjoyed some new-to-me Cronenberg in Scanners, and attempted the woefully awful Vampyros Lesbos

Anyway, there was lots of stuff like that. I get that it's a replica, but I just don't see why you'd go to the effort of building a big fake boat (pictured) without making at least a plausible effort on the rigging.

(to those who followed me for chemistry or whatever: it'll come back, but please try to empathise with my boat disappointment)

Take a look at this pic from the quarterdeck of the replica of the Amsterdam.

•The foremast only has one yard. What's the point of the rest of it? Surely there s a should be more?
•There were no pinrails on the sides of the ship, and an impracticably small number on the masts. Is that wrong, or is that how this ships actually worked? Maybe that's why the foremast was basically empty?
•The shrouds have ratlines up to the tops, but none on the crosstrees which you can juuust see in this pic. Wtf?

I don't suppose there are any other tallship sailors hanging around here? I kind of want to rant about the lack of shipnerdery at Het Scheepvaartmusem, the Dutch national maritime museum

BOATS featuring fucked up sculpture dude

My last evening in the Netherlands for a while, featuring ship decorations carved by men who had never seen breasts