Been busy lately! Did some ordering around online, got several ESP32s, a couple of HDMI Male-to-Female breakout boards, and decided to treat myself with an Apple Magic Trackpad, and a Uni Kuru Toga Roulette.

Haven't gotten the mechanical pencil yet or the HDMI breakout boards, but I did get the ESP32s and the trackpad. The trackpad is dope, works perfectly with my Linux PC, even wirelessly. Bluetooth and Linux haven't always played the nicest with each other.

Once I get the HDMI breakout boards, I'll...

I was meant to be reading The Silence of the Lambs, but I slipped and accidentally finished book 7 for Dungeon Crawler Carl, The Inevitable Ruin. Fantastic book, really can't recommend that series enough. Now my brain is mush and I can't bear to read anymore in the immediate future. I think before I start book 8, I'm going to try and finish up The Silence of the Lambs, and start He Who Fights with Monsters.

Calibre is a fantastic e-book management tool. I've learned how to back-up my store-bought...

I found a fellow online who apparently has the same issue that I'm trying to solve. They tackled it with an ESP32 and make a super handy guide for everything found here.

I'm going to do my best to mirror that, but also just make it an HDMI pass-through dongle. The idea in mind is an HDMI female port on one side, connected through to an HDMI male port on the other side. I plug that into my computer, then plug a USB-C cable into a USB port on my...

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I've repurposed my old gaming PC as a home theater PC. Its overkill for the job, sure, but it justifies holding onto it until I learn how to home lab. My gripe now is HDMI CEC.

The nvidia 2070 does not natively support HDMI CEC. From what I've found, some people get away with using an HDMI to display port adapter, but that doesn't seem to give what I'm after. Theres a weird dongle thing that seems to allow what I'm after in some capacity, but its a little pricy...

Moon's gone.

I've run into a brick wall. Metaphorically speaking of course, only my ego hurts, not my face. Since I've recently built a new PC, my old one has been relegated to a sort-of home theater PC. It's attached to my TV, still has a mouse and keyboard, and was still running my original Arch build with Niri as my Window Manager. I was hoping to switch to something that wouldn't require updates as often and had more controller/remote support, and figured I'd give Bazzite and Nobara a try. Went for the HTPC...

I'm about a quarter of the way through The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, and I don't quite know how else to put it, this is honestly one of the most humorous books I've ever read! Don't get me wrong, the core story is lurid for sure. The jokes just hit and I find myself literally laughing out loud. And not just some enthusiastic push of air through my nose, we're talking actual chuckles!

I've never seen the film and this is my first time reading. I wasn't expecting the antagonist to be...

Well folks, the new PC lives! Got it all put together over the weekend. Overcame missing cables and a lack of documentation, couple cuts from the sharp inner edges of the case. The obelisc is completed and redownloading my steam library as we speak

Hitting a really exciting part in my book, and I'm hit with a "Please charge your e-reader" screen. Guess I'm taking a break :(

The graphics card and RAM are on their way. It's all coming together, I'm so excited! Still plenty of time for it to go horribly wrong.

Almost there, got the bulk of my ordering done. I've acquired the motherboard, case, power supply, cooler, nvme drive, and finally, the CPU. I can at the very least, start putting things together. Next up are the RAM and the GPU, but I'm bottle necked by credit card processing.

Finally building my first computer. It feels like I'm earning a nerd badge-of-honor. Technically, I've built computers before, but that was some odd 15 years ago in highschool. Since then, I've been lazy and went with all-in-ones or prebuilts.

This will also be the first computer I've owned that exclusively is a Linux PC. Never touched by Windows. Everything else came with it installed out of the box, or was dual booted for a while for various reasons.

Its name will be Obelisc. It will have a ryzen...

Binged through all of the Daniel Craig 007 movies. I don't know why I was never a fan before, they're fantastic! It's like John Wick but with better writing and acting. Best of all, no unnecessary harm against animals in the first 20 minutes of the film. Anyone know if the books hold up? Might have to give Mr. Flemings work a shot.

Finally finished! This book had been recommended by my sister who loves science as much as I love science-fiction. Ironically, she hasn't even cracked the spine on her copy yet. This is easily going right into my favorite books of this year. It's amazing how human the conversations felt given the circumstances.

I know there's a couple more in the series. Has anyone else read those? Should I keep going, or is the first as good as it gets?

I'm unsure if I'm going to watch the movie. Its very...

I've made it to the half way point in Project Hail Mary. Outside of the normal books in my rotation, this has been an absolute blast to read! I just might end up reading the other books in this series.

After a full day of reading documentation, trial and error, and shamefully turning to AI, I think I finally have MangoWM working well.

The keyboard I use doesn't have traditional arrow keys (they're hidden under Fn keys), so I had to set up new bindings for Vim keys for navigation and window management. Had to add in audio/media bindings as well. Figured out how to implement my less-than-normal monitor configuration (over/under).

The strangest one was Alt+A, which by default toggles maximize for...

As I approach death's door (I have a cold), I refuse to go quietly into the night. By God, I will enjoy a lovely bowl on this glorious holiday.

Question for my European friends, is 4/20 anything special for you all?

I'm dying (I'm being very dramatic).

It has beem a cruel life (my sinuses have been inflamed all weekend).

The Angels herald my return home (I should be fine in a day or two).

RIP Beef (love you all, stay healthy)

Hello world!

I guess this will serve as my formal introduction. I'm Beef, I'm 30-something years old, from the Paris of Appalachia. I'm a Linux enthusiast, lover of books, avid player of video games (mostly FPS/doomer shooters). I've recently acquired a 3D Printer and am struggling to learn how that all works. I've also decided to learn how to homelab using only a Raspberry Pi 5.

I've been using Linux regularly if not exclusively since 2007 after learning of it in high school. Currently running...