Gabriel's Blog

I think the urge to self host services in a way that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a third party to take away your ability to use the service is an itch many of us in tech have encountered and tried to fulfill in some way or another. In my experience there are three approaches. First, one can opt for a third party provider to host the underlying server, with the freedom to install and operate whatever you want inside.

Fursonas are a wonderful thing. They are a way of expressing one's inner self in a relatively safe manner, whether it be as a dark grey wolf or a vibrant pink and red cross between a dragon and a hyena. It's a fantastic escape from reality and frankly I think more should embrace the concept. I've adopted one as an extension of myself, giving me a character I can use consistently.

RSS is one of those wonderful technologies that continues to endure, and I genuinely hope that more people realize how useful it can be and embrace the fairly universal sydication format available rather than relying on algorithmically driven aggregators. For a long time, I've been solely reliant on community-driven link aggregators like HackerNews or Lobste.rs (Reddit as well, although I've long since stopped using it). Why bother visiting sites individually, or seeking out content myself, when I could rely on other people to curate the content?

Generated with the Midjourney bot "An internet connected house" I'm not overly-eager to automate my whole home. Leaving aside security concerns, it's also really, really expensive. However, there are some small quality-of-life things I've added over time or kept over the years that I've found very helpful. It's an evolving thing and there are a few "smart home" objects I would never, ever touch (internet connected "smart" deadlocks anyone?

She’s a Coucher! Not too long ago, I was shown CouchDB, a wonderous database promising to let me relax. It was presented as a database that would be able to effectively act as a standalone app backend, without any need for a custom backend for simple applications. At the time, I didn’t think I had any use for a document store (or “NoSQL database”), nor did I want to remove any of my existing custom backends - I spent so long writing them!