2026-01-21 10:43:00
After 16 years on the LAMP stack, I finished migrating this website from Drupal to Hugo a few weeks ago.
What's old is new, as this blog was originally built with Thingamablog, a Java-based Static Site Generator (SSG) I ran on my Mac to generate HTML and FTP it up to my first webserver (over 20 years ago!).
The main reason I moved from an SSG to Drupal was to add comments. I wanted my blog to have the same level of interactivity I had pre-Thingamablog, when I was (briefly) on Xanga.com.
2026-01-15 16:00:00
Today Raspberry Pi launched their new $130 AI HAT+ 2 which includes a Hailo 10H and 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM.
With that, the Hailo 10H is capable of running LLMs entirely standalone, freeing the Pi's CPU and system RAM for other tasks. The chip runs at a maximum of 3W, with 40 TOPS of INT8 NPU inference performance in addition to the equivalent 26 TOPS INT4 machine vision performance on the earlier AI HAT with Hailo 8.
2026-01-12 23:00:00
I wanted to have the most accurate timepiece possible mounted in my mini rack. Therefore I built this:
This is a GPS-based clock running on a Raspberry Pi Pico in a custom 1U 10" rack faceplate. The clock displays time based on a GPS input, and will not display time until a GPS timing lock has been acquired.
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For full details on designing and building this clock, see:
2026-01-09 11:30:00
For the past decade, I've used Mailhog for local email debugging. Besides working on web applications that deal with email, I've long used email as the primary notification system for comments on the blog.
I built an Ansible role for Mailhog, and it was one of the main features of Drupal VM, a popular local development environment for Drupal I sunset 3 years ago.
Unfortunately, barring any future updates from the maintainers, it seems like Mailhog has not been maintained for four years now. It still works, but something as complex as an email debugging environment needs ongoing maintenance to stay relevant.
2026-01-06 06:00:00
Almost a year ago, I found that N100 Mini PCs were cheaper than a decked-out Raspberry Pi 5. So comparing systems with:
Back in March last year, a GMKtec Mini PC was $159, and a similar-spec Pi 5 was $208.
Today? The same GMKtec Mini PC is $246.99, and the same Pi 5 is $246.95:
Today, because of the wonderful RAM shortages1, the Mini PC is the same price as a fully kitted-out Raspberry Pi 5.
2026-01-04 03:00:00
Since 2009, this website has run on Drupal. Starting with Drupal 6, and progressing through major site upgrades and migrations to 7, 8, 9, and 10, I used the site as a way to dogfood the same CMS (Content Management System) I used in my day job for over a decade.
But as time progressed—especially after completing a grueling upgrade from Drupal 7 to 8—my enthusiasm for maintaining what's now a more enterprise-focused Digital Experience Platform or 'DXP' for a personal blog has waned.
