Author: Karel Kerezman

The Pi Writ Moody

A couple weeks ago our household network storage device, QBAY, bit the dust. It shuffled off this mortal coil. It ceased to be (functional). Bereft of life, it rests in pieces. It joined the choir invisible. It… well, enough quoting Monty Python, you get the idea. To replace most of its functionality I signed up for Google One so I now have a two terabyte bundle of online storage for most of the miscellaneous data that I stored on the NAS previously.

To replace the rest of its functionality, that of a networked music library device, I decided to take the plunge into building a system centered on a Raspberry Pi kit. The plan is to utilize Pi MusicBox with a side order of Samba to allow sharing and updating the music library over the network. One big upside of this plan is that no individual piece of the puzzle costs more than $40. Considering I just wasted $100 replacing a hard drive only to have the entire storage device go kaput, cost-effective solutions are rather appealing right now.

After consulting with an expert known to the household I put in an order for a bunch of stuff. This week, the stuff arrived!

This evening I set about performing the physical assembly, with plans to load the operating system and see if it boots & runs afterward. One of our excellent Ikea-sourced tray tables served as a workspace with nice safe borders to prevent losing teeny tiny screws in the carpet.

For a few minutes I panicked because I thought I’d bought the wrong case for the specific model of Raspberry Pi board, but, no, I was just mistaken about how it all was going to fit together. Hooray for that! On the downside, the power adapter is absolutely perfect… for an arrangement other than the one I’m assembling. (Basically the Pi will get its power from the X820 SSD add-on board, which takes an entirely different plug. Sigh.)

I guess I have a spare power adapter if I ever get another Raspberry Pi or disassemble this kit later on. Silver linings, something something.

After mis-reading the instructions the first time, I finally got to the point where it vaguely resembled the correct configuration.

I should describe what you’re seeing: On top is the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ model, attached to the X820 board from Geekworm whose job is to connect and power the 120 gigabyte Crucial solid-state drive (hidden underneath).

It was right about here during the assembly that, going through the instructions to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, I learned about the power supply problem. The correct one is on order and next week I should be able to complete the build.

Soon this thing will be blasting tunes for the benefit of the household. (I hope.)

24 January, 2019
3WA 2019 #3: Scene 03

Noting that I rely too heavily on dialog, I decided to try a tiny scene with no actual dialog taking place.

If I don’t push myself a little, how will I ever learn?

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18 January, 2019
Impressions From First Episodes: Winter 2019 Anime

I watched a few first episodes from the newly current season of anime, thanks to the modern miracle of legitimate for-pay streaming services. I have some thoughts, or perhaps I should say I have some dire warnings. Let’s get this out there while the memory is fresh and I have the inclination to hold forth on the topic, shall we?

Girly Air Force – Hapless dude who wants to be a pilot gets involved with the cute-girl-looking AI avatars of super-airplanes that fight some kind of enemy super-airplane force and oh boy, it’s Arpeggio of Blue Steel only in the air instead of on the ocean. And cheaper. And terrible. The only thing I really enjoyed about the first episode was the required Childhood Best Friend character, and she couldn’t save this mess. Transplant her into something better and we’ll talk.

Domestic Girlfriend – Is it okay to be done, very much done, with the “incest by marriage” trope going on lately? Because I’m very done. What’s worse, this show seems to be trying to do some interesting and serious drama… except that every few minutes they throw in some kind of brief wacky hi-jinks to unbalance the tone of the thing. No, nothing in here makes me want to stick with it. I kind of dislike everybody except the parents, and the show’s not about them, so.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka – This one’s a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, it’s occasionally very violent on a level I don’t really enjoy. On the other, there’s an interesting thread to it about a girl who’s had one save-the-world battle too many against absolutely fiendish enemies, and she’s trying to learn to be less broken. If they could lean on that aspect I might be tempted, but I’m willing to bet that there’s enough of “the old ultraviolence” to keep me turned away. Friend Wonderduck indicated he might be tackling this as a review subject. I hope he does, because I’m very curious to see his take on it and find out how the show pans out.

The Price of Smiles – Well it’s nice to see Hestia from Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon is getting more work. Seriously, the character design for the princess character here is nearly identical. This seems like a somewhat fluffy sci-fi giant-robot romp at the outset. I’ve no idea where it goes from here, though. I think I’ll stick around for a bit on this one to find out. Expectations are set at a medium-ish level.

That’s all so far. Hopefully this season will give me something to look forward to with actual enthusiasm… eventually.

13 January, 2019
I still call this thing a journal for some reason.

Way, way, way back in the distant reaches of time, I started a site under this domain to be a don’t-call-it-a-blog. Mostly I treated it like the way I now treat Twitter & Tumblr: Brief snippets of thought punctuated by memes. Or possibly the other way ’round. Then social media became a thing and I really let this site go to waste. I also created sub-sites, and sites on other domains, and what-have-you. Look, I clearly need adult supervision because every third time I visit Hover I end up buying a domain.

I’m not here to say “I’m back” or anything so absurd as that. I’ve tried that, it never worked out. I’m just here to give a bit of catch-up on various things:

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12 January, 2019
3WA 2019 #2: Scene 02

My first idea for the “creative writing” side of this year’s project centered on drabbles. Forty drabbles, how hard could that be?

Take a moment to get the laughing fit out of your system. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

At any rate, what follows here is probably the length of story scene snippet you should expect.

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11 January, 2019
3WA 2019 #1: Scene 01

And now, as John Cleese was paid to intone a number of times decades ago, for something completely different.

Following up two years of review-format posts with a third year of review-format posts seemed natural to me. But what to review? Books, obviously!

But. But. Fifty-two weeks of book reviews? Were I to do an even half-assed job, the reading requirements would be daunting. I envisioned at best being able to quarter-ass the job… maybe eighth-ass. Friends suggested every other week, which seems sensible but then it’s not really a weekly writing project, is it?

After weeks of agonizing over this I found a compromise: I’ll do twelve reviews, one per month on the last Friday of each. The rest of the time? Original story content. Sort of. Which is to say I’m not going all NaNoWriYe or whatever here. You’re just getting moments. Scenes. Dribs and drabs from a story that might have existed were it being written by someone actually serious about writing such a story.

Here’s the first one of those. Please enjoy.

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4 January, 2019