ahnlak

Freelance (Web|System|Game) Developer. Builder of BlitHub, among other things. Can still be found ahnlak (npub1gn4…yey6) on Twitter. Ex-Londoner Livin' la Vida Loca in Rural(ish) Wales. He/Him. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

reader of sci-fi : average cook : lazy gardener : intermittent homebrewer : semi-retired drinks blogger

GitHub: https://github.com/ahnlak
BlitHub: https://blithub.co.uk
GeekBlog: https://ahnlak.com
Drinks Blog: https://www.petedrinks.com

Public Key

npub1gn4lrkdcumnnwwja2j2kzpzfmd6lcuptf86ltvlm2p8648qr4u3sr6yey6

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsyf6l3mxuwdeeh8fw4f9tpq3yaka0uwq45na04k0a4qna2nsp67gcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsuyl89f

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1gn4lrkdcumnnwwja2j2kzpzfmd6lcuptf86ltvlm2p8648qr4u3sr6yey6

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Last Notes

2026-07-26 19:51:35 CEST

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they're probably in the shed

2026-07-25 16:48:15 CEST

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I'm used to using reseller hosting which isolates things better, but that was more of a niggle than anything else.
But it tends to feel slightly sluggish, and I think their anti-bot stuff catches some monitoring stuff too which triggers a few false down alerts (which again is a niggle, but leaves you with doubts).
(to be fair to them, it's not like I've told them or asked if I'm on a busy node or anything!)

2026-07-25 16:40:00 CEST

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I've still got a VPS there for some stuff, but I haven't been as blown away by their hosting side as I was hoping, sadly.

2026-07-25 16:30:51 CEST

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ironically, I'd probably say the opposite if I had to pick (although my current direction for servers on this side of the Atlantic is Bitfolk)

2026-07-23 13:26:46 CEST

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I think Python is widespread enough that just about any language-aware editor will probably make a sensible stab at it :)

2026-07-23 13:17:18 CEST

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depends a little on the platform - my daily driver is Sublime Text and has been since I switched to a Linux desktop (although I think there are builds for other OSes too)
Certainly does some auto-complete stuff (although chaotically, at times), but not sure about use navigation because I never really use that.
The 'standard' answer, of course, is VSCode.

2026-07-22 14:46:45 CEST

@npub1kr7…7vef @npub19tf…se5z I'm *assuming* that as it's a regrade the login doesn't change. I should probably ask @npub1sv0…rq9x if that's a valid assumption though 😉

2026-07-22 11:00:39 CEST

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very impressive; I really need to do the same...

2026-07-22 10:31:58 CEST

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it was probably the walking as much as anything - I've often come back from a holiday that revolves around walking around a city eating and drinking near-constantly to discover I've lost weight.
Don't worry, sitting in front of a keyboard slurping coffee soon puts it back on 🤣

2026-07-21 12:11:26 CEST

Has anyone ever used one of those "mini battery chainsaw on a stick" type pole pruners?
Would make life a *lot* easier if they're good, but I'm always wary of spending money on toys that turn out not to live up to the advertising 😉

2026-07-08 18:24:13 CEST

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thought you liked heat? :)

2026-06-28 12:39:22 CEST

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I'm not sure the "too" is fair; I'm kinda with you.
Still, give it a week of normal temperatures and everyone will go back to business as usual...

2026-06-23 16:48:58 CEST

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the trouble is, regular search is now a trashpile, the old bastions of StackOverflow and friends are deserts, and no bugger can be bothered to document their APIs properly so you're stuck with SlopSearch.
(and of course then you have to find out if the answer is right or just made up, but that was always the case on SO too...)

2026-06-23 16:38:45 CEST

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funnily enough, my half written "AI is shit, but it's not completely useless" post does have a section on "it's a better search than what search has now become"...

2026-06-21 14:49:29 CEST

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presumably the PETG-GF is the gluten-free variant?

2026-06-21 13:02:16 CEST

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natural as in "a predictable consequence of" rather than *biologically* natural.
Having more stuff seems to make people increasingly determined to keep it to themselves, and certainly not let anyone "less deserving" have any. It's very weird.
(see also, poor people vote for tax breaks for rich people because they aspire to be rich)

2026-06-21 12:38:44 CEST

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I think there's a natural drift to the right as a country becomes richer; to modern eyes even Callaghan qualifies as *wildly* left wing, even if he seemed centerist at the time.
These days they seem to get treated like football managers - no matter how good a job they do it only takes a couple of lost matches to see them turfed out and replaced with someone worse...

2026-06-21 12:26:49 CEST

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I mean depending on how you define "properly left wing", Wilson maybe?

2026-06-20 13:19:34 CEST

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is enclosed better, or just cheaper?
(although The Management has suggested that I might need to throw some crap out before buying a machine for making more crap ..)

2026-06-20 13:06:14 CEST

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I vaguely recall Bambu being evil in some way, but "just print the damn thing" is a powerful feature.
Then again, all the small ones are starting to look closer to early days era inkjets, in terms of function/price and I survived those...

2026-06-20 13:02:47 CEST

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I don't even need big prints, so even the Pro would do me and the price starts to look silly then... 🤔

2026-06-20 12:14:08 CEST

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I know nothing of 3D printers, but that *is* an alluring price so I shall watch your responses with interest!

2026-06-19 16:58:35 CEST

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I would definitely be on board with 500ml bottles. I did briefly try to get into the habit of half-bottles, but 375ml really isn't quite enough...

2026-06-18 11:13:35 CEST

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a different angle, perhaps, but with the same 'exilenova' watermark on it 🤔

2026-06-18 10:59:56 CEST

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hmm, to be honest the video makes me even more suspicious - the lid manages to stay perfectly whole (and not, from the look of it, even buckled) through it all, but then just ... vanishes on the way back down?
I mean it's great video and I can't claim to be an exploding oil tank expert but it feels... iffy.

2026-06-18 10:52:15 CEST

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the secondary cloud with the "tank cap" in it looks *extremely* painted on, although that *could* just be an artifact of the super low resolution webcam I suppose...

2026-06-13 17:08:03 CEST

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even their website is professionally evasive but I'm 90% sure it's peated, sadly.

2026-06-11 17:58:27 CEST

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I'm planning to use the arrival of FTTP as an excuse to rearrange the home/office networking - probably need to run some fibre in the attic to get things reaching all the different parts of the house more sensibly.
Fibre is cheap, right?

2026-06-09 19:48:44 CEST

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surely you mean (true == variable) to protect against accidental assignments? ;-)

2026-06-09 17:22:59 CEST

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to be honest, that sounds like most of my code; I do try to remember that final newline these days because lots of linters whine about it, though.
Hmm, does that mean I'm GenAI?!

2026-06-06 14:55:26 CEST

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looks to be working now, but I'm guessing the web gateway isn't happy somewhere - the first messages on connecting:
"[NOTICE] *** Could not resolve your hostname: Domain not found; using your IP address (81.187.XX.XX) instead."
(I'm assuming that's webirc.aa's IP, it's not mine)

2026-06-05 10:27:57 CEST

@npub1sv0…rq9x is your IRC dead, or is something broken at my end / in the web client side of things? It's just said "Unknown domain name or host" for the last day or two...

2026-06-01 10:00:18 CEST

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think the biggest engine I've ever owned was my old Cavalier, which was 1.8 iirc.
Now there was a car. I mean it was a Vauxhall so none of the electrics really worked but still...

2026-06-01 09:03:35 CEST

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how much?! What does it run on, coal?!

2026-05-31 20:17:47 CEST

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I know you said you're fine with inflatables, but we have an inflatable double that comes up to normal bed height and is pretty serviceable for a temporary sleep.
Mind you, while it gets pretty rigid, I'm not sure it would count as a properly firm mattress!

2026-05-30 15:05:55 CEST

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shame about the plant shade, but I guess this is one of those "perfect is the enemy of good" situations...!

2026-05-24 17:56:05 CEST

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I had some ancient saved tomato seeds, planted 4 to a pot because *obviously* germination was going to be weak at best.
See if you can guess how many more tomato plants I have than places to put them?

2026-05-23 15:46:23 CEST

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I think it's the contrast as much as anything. 25c is generally quite pleasant, but when it was more like 5c a week ago, it suddenly feels very hot

2026-05-23 14:50:00 CEST

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I mean you're already below sea level - how much more water do you need?!

2026-05-20 14:30:06 CEST

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lovely to see some *proper* roses!

2026-05-19 15:50:52 CEST

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gibberished

2026-05-19 15:37:51 CEST

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"imagined", or just a more honest "made up"?

2026-05-17 17:38:38 CEST

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they must have old machines; when we went to Malta, they've got to the stage where they don't even want you to take laptops out of bags.

2026-05-12 15:25:23 CEST

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I think at this stage my best hope is for Plaid Cymru to push for independence :-)

2026-05-07 20:53:57 CEST

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ironically, thanks to the new voting system here in Wales you *have* to vote for the party.
Although it's a price I'm willing to pay for something approximating PR.

2026-05-04 10:36:15 CEST

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I'm happy to tinker with electricity, because it doesn't leak if you only get it mostly-right. I draw the line at plumbing though.

2026-04-29 12:35:19 CEST

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I think "AI-native" means "can no longer master Hello World without asking Claude for a scaffold"...

2026-04-26 13:46:47 CEST

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then again, parking at airports is now so expensive that it's actually cheaper just to get a taxi direct to the airport.
20 years ago I'd just get on the tube and it was covered by my travel card!

2026-03-03 15:07:28 CET

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to be fair, that was from the experience of seeing broken sites there, but presumably those are the ones relying on a load of external resources.
Not sure anything I've built is even *on* the Archive. I should probably look one day...

2026-03-03 15:05:41 CET

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or more traditionally, it lives on with *half* the assets necessary to display properly 😉

2026-03-03 10:52:41 CET

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I mean there's no more complexity to serving a font directly than there is an image - although certainly CMS tools might not make it that easy.
I mean, I get the temptation and time was I'd happily use Google fonts and pull scripts from CDNjs and friends - but all that does is increase the number of platforms that can break your website by going offline.
By serving it all direct, the only time your scripts and fonts aren't available is when your whole site is dead 😉

2026-03-03 09:56:54 CET

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given that fonts are not huge and a very cacheable, I'm not sure there's many good reasons not to serve them directly rather than relying on Google or anyone else...

2026-02-26 12:26:05 CET

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I take it the fibre install wasn't a shining success?!

2026-02-26 11:51:45 CET

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I mean... that looks like it's basically a couple of square inches of PCB copper, with a bit of steel wool stuck on the end for good measure.

2026-02-25 16:01:45 CET

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admit it, you're already warming up the 3d printer aren't you?

2026-02-17 15:38:12 CET

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just run everything over IPv6 :)

2025-10-05 08:15:23 CEST

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there are degrees of self hosting, too. I "self host" many services, but it's on rented VPSes on other people's servers.
It outsources the tedious "keeping servers and networks alive", while giving me control over the actual services. Does that count as self hosting?
(to my mind, yes, but not in the purist path of having it running on a computer you can see and touch...)

2025-09-13 03:42:27 CEST

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I still struggle with the idea of keyboards needing drivers...

2025-09-03 16:58:00 CEST

@npub1sv0…rq9x are you dropping TT for backhaul entirely, or is just a quirk of how I'm being SOGEA'd?

2025-07-13 18:03:18 CEST

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FWIW, you get a certificate error going to that (thank you, github pages I guess?)

2025-06-27 13:30:32 CEST

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DaftBlit

2025-05-29 08:07:45 CEST

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ooh, new toys!
I'm still deeply unhappy that I have failed to learn to properly play the guitar, despite owning a couple for years. Apparently, you have to actually try playing them, it doesn't just magically happen... 😉

2025-05-12 13:33:37 CEST

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there is something pleasingly old school about having to count bytes ;-)

2025-05-06 14:27:24 CEST

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at the risk of asking a daft question, which one should we direct questions at?

2025-05-03 07:45:59 CEST

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welcome home ;-)

2025-04-23 10:55:55 CEST

In the spirit of self-hosting everything, I'm trialling running my own authoritative DNS servers - although I remain unconvinced that this is a particularly good idea.
I'm doing it on a 'fun' domain I bought on something of a whim, because it was insanely cheap and which really isn't used for anything.
So I'm mildly surprised that since I set it up yesterday there have been over 1,000 queries resolved; presumably there's a lot more lookups that were cached, too? Why?!

2025-02-06 10:46:02 CET

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that'll be someone who hasn't checked out the special pimoroni-pico branch (not that I recognise the error, oh no...)

2024-12-28 11:44:14 CET

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Sean is on record saying he'd never want to cosplay as his dad, although I suppose these things are never set in stone.

2024-12-27 16:51:35 CET

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I thought heat pumps were supposed to work down to well past freezing?

2024-12-18 21:46:44 CET

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do you at least have affiliate links in there?!

2024-12-17 11:29:24 CET

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who said anything about large? AIUI you don't have a get-out-of-jail-free card just because you have a dozen users?
And there were plenty of people nervously eyeing the exit when GDPR came along. Fortunately (or not) all the "SEO experts" told them they could just stick up a consent banner and everything would be fine...

2024-12-17 11:15:00 CET

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for sure, and for those of us old enough and grumpy enough to have been through this a few cycles, it's probably fine (let me show you my thick IR35 file).
But for the (majority of?) folk who aren't legally inclined, the choices appears to be (a) shut up shop, (b) spend significant money on a lawyer explaining wtf, or (c) risk terrifying fines on the basis that it *probably* won't come to pass.
I have complete sympathy for those who choose the path to walk away.

2024-12-17 10:50:40 CET

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I read it more as someone who saw the non compliance fines at £18m and decided that it simply wasn't worth the risk.
It's clearly written to have that kind of chilling effect, and I can't easily blame anyone for feeling nervous.

2024-12-10 10:29:02 CET

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ah. well, that's all rather embarassing, isn't it?!
In my defence I was more responding to Neil's reply and ... I'll just be over here in the corner quietly rethinking my netiquette... 😉

2024-12-10 10:23:04 CET

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isn't that all a bit "nobody needs more than 640k of RAM" though? I mean when I first upgraded to a 56k modem it seemed *more* than enough for my needs...
95% of people don't, right now, but who knows what we'll be doing with that connection in 5, 10 years time?

2024-11-01 12:51:58 CET

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one of the few benefits of being on a septic tank is that our water bill is reassuringly small (compared to London anyway!)
Of course, it does come with a once-a-year huge septic tanker bill, but you can't have everything...

2024-10-16 17:12:18 CEST

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I don't think it does (because it's awfully hard to tell the difference), but I'd tend to assume that if you're taking enough to actually *kill* you, it's more likely to be intentional.
(the reduction in liver failures was even more marked, and that potentially *is* just bloody idiots - the "trash your liver" dose is surprisingly low)

2024-10-16 17:07:24 CEST

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it's probably easier to do a blanket "two packets of painkillers" than expecting supermarket staff to regulate which drugs are in which thing.
It's a pain (ha!) but it's hard to argue with the results.

2024-10-16 17:04:53 CEST

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it does sound bizarre, but those rules resulted in a *significant* reduction in paracetamol overdoses.
And by significant, the first figures I can spot (from the PMJ) puts it at over 40%.

2024-10-14 16:29:15 CEST

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so how long did you poke confused at the teabag wondering why it wasn't working? ;-)

2024-10-10 12:01:19 CEST

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it's always fascinated me how many "SEO experts" can find my blogs, so that they can email me to tell me how my blogs don't have any SEO and thus cannot be found...

2024-10-10 09:41:34 CEST

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I've fallen out of love with WP over the years (gutenburg pretty much broke me), but I never expected them to go so toxic that I found myself seriously considering deleting my plugins!

2024-10-02 14:18:14 CEST

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from what I distantly remember, I think there was a plan to develop that further, had it not been unceremoniously cancelled

2024-10-02 10:55:01 CEST

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next step is to "fix" the code and spend the rest of the day trying to work out why it no longer works 🤣

2024-09-26 19:48:17 CEST

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did you ask it to print something that offended it?

2024-09-25 13:05:20 CEST

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not sure about *most* modern inverters; you generally have to pay something of a premium for it.

2024-09-19 18:36:22 CEST

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hmm, other docs seem to just say one has to "use Openreach for a new service" so I guess as long it's via OR it's... ok?
I mean I'm not sure why they're doing this extra admin given we're barely half-way to the target and nobody is left to sign up, but...!

2024-09-19 11:58:31 CEST

@npub1sv0…rq9x we're currently in the middle of an OpenReach "Gigabit Voucher Scheme" type thing on our exchange; the incredibly opaque documentation around it seems to imply that our eventual "Ultrafast Fibre Broadband" provider must be an "approved" supplier (a condition which rather conspicuously lacks a list of such suppliers).
I'm *assuming* that what they actually means is any ISP offering FTTP, and that includes you?

2024-09-09 14:08:01 CEST

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but at least all the gpio stuff is sorted out now, right?

2024-09-09 05:48:47 CEST

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lactose tablets are your friend

2024-08-22 16:42:44 CEST

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how do you use 245p of something that's free?