WiFi works on the Linux machine!
I figured out why the WiFi stopped working again, and went down quite an interesting rabbit hole. I've started working on a draft describing the situation (my first non-weeknote post after ages, eeeee), so I'll save details for that post.
One fun thing I did after WiFi started working was running an nginx server on my machine and accessing the default page from my daily driver. I've tried this on a server in the cloud before, but running it on machine and accessing it from another machine in the same network felt very cool.
This homelab stuff makes me feel like a kid discovering things for the first time, and it feels awesome.
The website fixes continue
After having pushed the initial version of the design, I still had some TODOs left, and even some feedback regarding the colors that I wanted to implement. Since the WiFi problem got solved quickly, I ended up spending the rest of my time on this. Some changes I made:
- Changed CSS - increased contrast for dark mode and made the colors more consistent across modes.
- Added an introduction line to the homepage
- Replaced terminal GIFs with asciinema recordings in posts
- Moved Hanukkah of Data from a standalone page to a post
- Minor post edits
- Added alt text to images
- Realized that some images were probably not required while writing alt text, so deleted them
- Added a colophon page
Terminal and text editor themes updated
Inspired by the minimal design of my website, I updated the themes for my text editor (Sublime Text atm) and Terminal application (iTerm) to match. On Sublime, I'm using sublime-almost-mono while I went for a completely monochrome theme for iTerm. Only white text on a black background (or vice-versa for light mode), no colors.
Changing accountability mechanisms
I've somehow managed to post weeknotes for about three months now - sometimes weekly, sometimes bi-weekly. I think it's time to take a break from them though, as it's no longer an effective accountability mechanism for me.
I hoped that writing these would help me get more comfortable publishing on a regular basis, and that would translate into me writing more technical posts focused on a particular topic. While I did get comfortable publishing, I haven't written any technical posts since I started these.
Now that I've been able to generate ideas through other ways (identifying gaps in my knowledge and thinking of resources/projects to learn them), I would rather spend time working on those ideas and writing about them instead of weeknotes. It seems like a natural progression.
Weeknotes are a great format though, and I'm glad I wrote them for as long as I did. I would encourage them to anyone who wants to write but is unsure what to write about, I'm likely going to restart these whenever I'm in a rut.
My new accountability mechanism is something more direct - an accountability buddy! Swagnik - a fellow Recurser - and I have started weekly meetings to reflect and discuss our plans for the week. The fact that I'm being held accountable by one single person instead of putting out a message on a chat platform or this blog is making a difference, and probably what I needed.