### Blogging platforms
There a lot of indie, small blogging platforms out there. I compiled a small list that I have encountered:
All of these seem wonderful places to start if you don’t want to get into the nitty gritties of hosting a blog for yourself. And they don’t cost a lot of money either. Also I haven’t used either of them.
Vultr
I am considering hosting this website on Vultr. It costs $3.50/month for .5TB transfer, 10G storage and 512MB RAM. Which I think is plenty for this site. Why am I suddenly deciding to pay again? Well, there are couple of reasons. But the main one probably is to see if I can automate the process of deployment1.
Remarkable 2/Scribe
I am tempted to get Remarkable 2/Scribble for my note taking. It got me all enthusiastic about the idea of having digital hand written notes.
But before I go off to spend big money on a fancy note taking gadget. I am going to do a bit of a thought experiment. I am going to try and carry a physical book with pen and see if I visit the notes/thoughts/scribbles. If I ever revisit them then I can see some value in getting either of these gadgets. But if my notes are create and forget. I don’t think I could justify the cost for owning a note taking gadget.
Hidden cost of Tesla ownership
It costs close to a grand in vehicle registration. Whattttt?????? Yes it gave me and my wife a shock when we received a vehicle registration renewal notice from DMV. And the amount listed was close to a grand.
Apparently, EV vehicles because of the battery contribute to greate wear and tear of the road. There is added tax of Tesla being luxury vehicle. What you think you might be saving on yearly maintenance of a gas car is going towards registration.
Moved this domain to porkbun
I moved this domain from google domains to porkbun. It is a dollar and a half cheaper. Google domains has anyways been sold to square I figured might be a good time to just look at other alternatives to avoid any unexpected moves from square.
Upgraded to Hakyll 4.16
And it broke a piece of code that I copy pasted from somewhere for Table of Contents(which anyways I haven’t set it up properly and isn’t working). Another usecase for why copy pasting without really understanding what it does is a bad thing. I commented out that piece of code and am able to build my site.
The gaming Gods are angry at me
Ever since our son was born, it goes without saying that it has been centered around him. I am trying to spend as much time as possible with him. So, as you can imagine some of the other activities have taken a bit of back seat. Gaming is one such activity. It has been a little over 2 years(time fliessss), since I properly sat and played a game on PS5.
My wife got me Helldivers II over the president day long weekend. And I thought finally maybe I can game for sometime. But… as soon as I exited the title screen. I got hit with this error message. I have been trying to play the game atleast once but have had no luck at all over the long weekend.
I was finally able to play for a bit after putting my son to sleep this Friday. Don’t have much to say other than my gaming skills have dramatically dropped.
8 years of blogging…
Actually 8 years of blogging on my own domain. I have been blogging for much longer, with blogger, my.opera.com,livejournal when those were a thing(the good ol’ days).
What I am reading
This is a disappointment turning into self reflection that I haven’t been reading as much as I should. Probably time to switch to a different book. Since at the moment I still on “Thinking fast and slow”. I am enjoying this book but it requires absorbing the information and synthesizing it. Which means it requires a dedicated time for reading, which I am finding hard. 2
Apple Watch 7
I wish there was a way to monitor the battery health of the Apple watches. After exactly 2 years and 3 months, my watch is unable to hold the charge for than a day. I have had rear occassions where I had to charge twice.
Apple’s weird policy around replacing device with Apple care
I got Apple care+ because when I bought my ipad mini the second time around(I damaged the screen the first time, and Apple technician said I would have to pay the full price for replacement). And ironically enough, the mini went without too much damage. But the reason I bought the coverage second time around was because I knew that my son would interact or play with the mini at some point growing up. In that process he did manage to scratch the screen of mini enough for it become uncomfortable to doodle using the pencil.
Time to put the Apple care+ to use I thought to myself. But as soon as I reached the Apple store, the technician informed me that it wouldn’t get covered because the screen is usable. At the same time he hinted that if it were to be broken then it would get replaced. Thanks for the tip!
Days later I filed a replacement through the app for a damaged screen and got a replacement days later for the $49. After transferring over the contents from old mini I shipped my damaged mini back which they inspected and confirmed shortly after.
As a customer I am willing to pay for replacement I still don’t know why it had to be damaged to a point where it is unusable for them to honor the Apple care+ replacement.
Save tab groups in Google Chrome
Google just released a new feature in their Chrome browse, which allows you to save tab groups as a bookmark.
I have never really thought about it having my tab groups beyond them being ephimeral but looking at my chrome browser. I can certainly use this feature to keep my tabs and browsing simpler by saving the tab groups so that I can access them when I really want them.
Through the lens
Internet Heat Map
How I stay Motivated as a solo creator
Highlights the importance of routine, finding ways to connect with the dev community at large and intentionally winding down. Author of the article is also the creator of bear.
Shortcut to convert open tabs in safari to markdown
This is a really neat shortcut, especially for compiling the list of sites that I want to add to this section.
We are witnessing the last gasps of the timeline era
An interesting article to annouce the departure from social media platforms.
I have been pretty good about my interactions with social media, thanks to rss+blog rolls I am never out of content to read and enjoy, helping me steer clear from social media. So it is safe to say I won’t be exiting any social media platform.