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341 posts latest post 2026-05-11
Publishing rhythm
Feb 2026 | 6 posts

One Year Of Shots

I’ve been running my shot scraper api for a year now. It creates og [1] images for my website and thumbnails for my [[ reader ]] using a headless chrome instance. - 25870 shots - 73 shots per day on average - 12-09-2025 first shot taken Histogram # [2] [3] a histogram of shot counts by day You can see in the histogram that I’ve had a few big spike days, This has been mostly for days that I’ve integrated into a new service or changed the endpoint. On February 13, 2025 I swapped over from using the post to using template specific to open graph images. -content = "https://shots.waylonwalker.com/shot/?url={{ config.url }}{{ post.slug }}&height=600&width=1200&scaled_width=1200&scaled_height=600" +content = "https://shots.waylonwalker.com/shot/?url={{ config.url }}{{ post.slug }}/og/&height=600&width=1200&scaled_width=1200&scaled_height=600" Image Comparison Original Post Image [4] originally I simply used an image of the post itself New OG Image [5] In Feb 2025 I made OG s...
2 min read

The Wrong Reasons To Run Kubernetes In Your Homelab

Running kubernetes in your homelab [1] is complex, time consuming, there are almost no docs to help you (homelab focused docs for things you want to install), and nothing is copy paste. You have to make everything happen yourself. The Wrong Reasons To Run Kubernetes In Your Homelab # [2] - I run compose and think kubernetes is the next logical step - Techno Tim runs it - I heard it’s what cool kids do - Kubernetes BTW - Talos Linux looks cool - I found a cool helm chart on GitHub - I need scale There are also The Right Reasons To Run Kubernetes In Your Homelab [3]. I run compose and think kubernetes is the next logical step # [4] No it’s not. It’s much different than running docker, compose, swarm. It’s meant for scale, it’s complex, it’s made for enterprise, not your local development or your homelab. It can do these things, it can do them quite well, but it’s not the target audience. Techno Tim runs it # [5] I heard it’s what cool kids do You need to rethink who the ...

Another Big Cloud Outage Nov 2025

Today I woke up to finding out that cloudflare hade a widespread outage. My [[Reader]] uses tailwind cdn for styles and it was down. Otherwise it was not so impactful to me and felt kike they were quick to have it up. I’m not really researching here, just jotting thoughts down from a parking lot waiting for pickup. It feels like we are seeing a lot of these lately. They feel much more frequent. It feels like a whole industry was sold on 9’s and reliability of big cloud that we just aren’t getting. There’s a huge push to go back to self hosting, racking and stacking. I think this is great. I love it. I’m a big proponent for ownership and self hosting. It’s not the right move for everything and everyone, and is certainly not something to make a knee jerk reaction about in the moment of frustration. There’s a lot of things that are just impossible to do yourself, cdn caching, edge compute, ddos protection. These companies are not magic they are vulnerable to changes just like you ...
2 min read

3d-Printed Corner Clamp

Getting ready to batch out 18 apple boxes for the local theater. Need to step up my woodworking tool game here quick on a low budget. Whipped this up up and built the prototype box , went really well. We have 4 in the arsenal now, might do 4 more if we need more assembly capacity. Pretty proud of the first 3d printed thread project here. The design for good 3d prints can be quite different with its anisotropic strength and hollow sections being nearly weightless when compared to traditional manufacturing methods. Its so fun to be able to do it for almost no cost right in my home office. [1] 3d-printed corner clamp printed in black pla. [2] Isometric view of my corner clamp v1 that supports up to 3/4" sheets and includes slots for dowell points on 3/4" and 1/2" material. References: [1]: https://dropper.waylonwalker.com/api/file/2701fb29-5a35-4249-a66d-8a84a774fb0c.jpg [2]: https://dropper.waylonwalker.com/api/file/6a0c5ef1-4f8b-4b4d-9def-60e3168a464c.png

Techbrophobic

I just heard someone drop the this term and it kinda fits a lot of shit on the internet right now. Arguing that its OK to question AI, its OK to like it, its OK to question if it needs to be in every goddamn thing we do, question its morality on training and the slop being pushed at us all the time. I’m not Technophobic I’m Techbrophobic I heard this and it kinda hit with a lot of things that I’ve resonated with lately. Tech bros of today have been compared to Steve Jobs in a lot of ways. Whether its style or the way he was so good at marketing, but this feels different. When Jobs launched the iPhone as this next great thing, He fucking made the thing. No broken promises of being sold something with hopes that it will do more tomorrow. No pushing around insane amounts of money with the hope to become profitable years down the line. No fear pushing that if you are not doing X today your business will be dead in 6 months. Giving us the promise that it was about to create an enti...
3 min read

Mcat Anything

I’ve long looked for a way to cat anything in the terminal. I’m am terminally in the terminal. I manage all of my projects, code, website, notes, files, servers, infrastructure, almost everything from the terminal. I occasionally open a file manager, mostly at home, only so that I can browse images. Compounding my issue, I’m a tmux user. It works great for me, and I barely have to think about it at this point. The keybindings are second nature to me. I can go between server, terminal, nvim, and between projects instantly, no loader, no lag, no animation, it just works for everything that really matters to me for really getting things done. Mcat # [1] mcat is a new tool that seems like it can cat anything in the terminal, code, files, images, markdown, markdown with images, and even video, without leaving tmux! mcat static/8bitcc.png curl https://r.jina.ai/https://waylonwalker.com/store/ | mcat --theme dracula --md-image all curl https://r.jina.ai/https://waylonwalker.com/shots/ ...
2 min read

Missing Thoughts

No one is perfect, this is why we have things like checkpoints or gates in the form of pull requests, linting, type checking, and tests. What happens when you work on small side projects by yourself that try to be content focused? What happens when you end up building a lot of the tech under that site and build it on the bleeding edge of all the tech you make? They are likely missing these things and occasionally there are some periods of regression. This is one reason I really like the term digital garden to describe one’s small corner of the internet where they share their thoughts. There will be regressions The Signs # [1] There were signs, signs I did not notice Chat is your rss feed broken? I’m not seeing anything show up in my rss reader me Do I not put thoughts in my rss feed, I swore I did. Chat my fault, Turns out I must have already clicked it in my reader. me great, glat it’s working …But it wasn’t Later this week comes the next sign that I also choose to ig...
3 min read

Rules

- There is no such thing as magic - Be ready to roll back live deployments - If CI was too fast be suspicious - Always be available after a release. - No one wants to read your slop, if you are too lazy to write it don’t send it.
1 min read

First 3d Printed Threads

Working on an upcoming project that requires some threaded screws. Trying to keep a low budget on this one with as much to come off of the printer as I can. It might become a slant3d portals product if it works out. I always like making test prints for stuff like this especially to see how the feel is off of the printer that is going to print the final product and take much longer. First try was a success. b485b759-719a-4aa0-aa8d-f98e0a5e1ac3-1080p.mp4 [1] What worked # [2] I started out looking up standard half inch thread pitch and size, but ran out of time to get the exact profile of a half inch bolt, so I will need to fix that later. Th [3] The print orientation is critical for strength here. This part is a full 1/2: so it should be strong either way, but to make sure we are printing the bolt horizontally to get nice long print layers. To do this we have to give it a bit of a flat spot on the top and bottom. This does not hurt performance, if anything it probably helps giv...
2 min read

3d Printing Dovetails Experiment

I hit an issue with 3d printing oversized parts that I have not hit before. I’m working on some jigs for an upcoming woodworking project that will involve a lot of repetition. We want to utilize some dowel joinery and jigs for consistency. These parts will be up to 20in in length this is much larger than my print bed. I’ve fit things together before # [1] Here’s where I went wrong, I wasn’t really thinking through my previous applications. They’ve all been slip fit, primarily print in place joints that need to move. My go to offset for print in place on my printer is 0.2mm, sometimes 0.1mm depending on the scale. knife sharpener double hinge first try [2] A live hinged [[ knife-sharpener-double-hinge-first-try ]]. [3] And in the hinges of [[ a-box-of-caps-and-a-macropad ]]. Experimenting for feel # [4] Fitment like this is a lot dependent on the tolerences of your printer and the feel you are going for. I went to school as a mechanical engineer and theres a lot of science b...

python extras are for shipping

Python has two ways of adding optional dependencies to your projects pyproject.toml file dependency-groups and optional-dependencies. dependency-groups # [1] for development Dependency grooups are used when working on the project, they do not ship with the project, users cannot select to install them with the project. These are for things like running tests, linting, or docs. You might want to run these in ci, or keep your dev machines tight. For the most part you can probably keep these in dev. Depending on your team, fluency, and tolerance for slower installs extra packages. Adding too many tight groups might make it hard for the team to remember all the groups and which one to use and end up with them using --all-groups anyways. optional-dependencies # [2] for users Optional dependencies are for shipping. These are for your users, not your development team. This is used for dependencies that are clearly not needed for all or main use cases. It is annoying to use projects th...
3 min read

Kraft-Coordinates

Handy reference for coordinates in the kraft [1] world. Home # [2] Overworld:-208 71 -291 Nether:-26 9 -36 Ocean Monument # [3] Overworld: 209 62 -752 Nether:26 1 -94 References: [1]: /kraft/ [2]: #home [3]: #ocean-monument
1 min read

Shots Get An Upgrade To the Main Feed

Today I updated my jinja templates and feeds to include shots posts in the main feed. These posts will prominently show the image in the feed with a small post for each one. [1] Shots [2] are instagram style imge posts inspired by https://justin.searls.co/shots/. References: [1]: https://dropper.waylonwalker.com/api/file/37dea007-e66f-42a5-bd90-6722dd1084dd.png [2]: https://waylonwalker.com/shots/
1 min read

zmk two hand hold down

I don’t know about you, but I don’t re-flash my keyboard enough to ever remember where I put the bootloader. Sometimes its the last thing I think about in a refactor and I end up cornering myself into a place where I cant get into that layer anymore. I’ve started putting hardware switches on my newer builds, but some older builds don’t have a hardware one, so it requires disassembly and jumping the microcontroller. Even when I have one though, I gotta flip my board over and its annoying sometimes, so I prefer to have a keystroke for it. Two Hand hold down # [1] What I’ve landed on recently is the idea of a two hand hold down combo for the bootloader. These combos are ones that there is no way I can hit without picking my hands up from their normal homerow position and pressing four keys simultaneously with pointer and thumbs. Here are some example layouts from keymap-editor [2] [3] 40% layout - similar to corne [4] Here it is on my Son’s 3x5 macropad [5] Here it is on my 3x...
2 min read

Why Make a Website in 2025

Inspired by Jim [1] and Dave [2] It’s Fun # [3] If it’s not something that you enjoy, you might as well move on there are far better ways to spend your time in 2025. Only the weirdos read this shit anymore, the masses have long moved on to curated social media feeds, and on to chatting with llms. I enjoy spending some time in the digital garden every once in awhile tweaking templates, creating markata [4] plugins to do interesting things. I enjoy expressing my thoughts, or at least shouting them into the ether. I’ll be the first to admit that I often go to an llm for first pass at many things that I could look up in a guide or 😲 the docs. I enjoy reading others # [5] This year I have made extra effort to add more and more people into my [[reader]]. I enjoy reading content from people I chose to follow and can remove whenever I want. I enjoy reading actual human thoughts and not ai generated content all day. I even will create Thoughts [6] based on these posts that I find inter...

store

I’ve been 3d printing for years, and create a lot of my own designs. Many of them are hyper specific to me, but for the ones that I think others might find useful I will be putting up here for sale, you can buy prints that will show up to your door in a few days. I’m leaning on the slant3d print farm so this depends on your proximity to them. The prints are typically black petg, if you would like a different color reach out to me and I will see what other options we have, or for an additional fee I can print it myself and ship out special colors. These are all designs that I made and actually use myself, they bring me joy knowing that I made just the thing that I wanted to exist and if you buy something I hope that it brings you this joy as well. Skateboard Wall Mount # [1] I’ve used these skateboard wall mounts for years, I have 5 in my office featuring new decks in the queue, and probably 10 in the garage to display used decks, and fully assembled boards for me and my kids. I u...

When To Vibe Code

I enjoyed this post from Theo and think it deserves re-iterated, revisited, and to remind myself of some of these things. https://youtu.be/6TMPWvPG5GA?si=guQem4R8dLOMBntP&t=1356 [1] The skill/read spectrum # [2] [3] The first diagram describes that there has become a spectrum of agentic coding from vibe coding [4] where you don’t ready anything, to looking at everything in detail, across a group of people who don’t have a clue what the code says to people who could do it way better if they took the time. The importance spectrum # [5] He argues here that its ok to bounce between A,B, and D, but C becomes dangerous. I’d argue that he brought up a 3rd spectrum that is important later on, “how critical is this”. I think the I don’t know, don’t care, didn’t read, but the thing did its job is quite fine, but don’t know, don’t care, mission critical is the main issue we are seeing with agentic coding, primarily in the didn’t read but critical Zone. The Rules # [6] This is the list...
2 min read

Keycap Cut Away

I was curious how/if my custom keycap design was hitting my switches. So I set out to find out what the fitup inside of this assembly looks like, but not theoretically, a fully sliced view into their fit up in the flesh. The set up # [1] To setup for this cut, I flooded the edge of a 2x4 with hot glue, and inserted the cap such that the step was tangent with the edge. This way I could use the edge as a guide to cut one side off and leave the stem in tact. I took a handsaw to it and filed it smooth. [2] Removal was applying some isopropyl alcohol and it popped right off. Results # [3] Actually the results aren’t that interesting. I found that the pictures turned out really good, but nothing was touching and it sits in the stem exactly as I thought it did. I had a thought, what if the cap is not allowing the switch to reach it’s full travel, and had no way to know, but now I know. [4] Key Up [5] Key Down References: [1]: #the-set-up [2]: https://dropper.waylonwalker.com/ap...
1 min read

Knife Sharpener Small Upgrade

I’ve used this knife sharpener that I printed for a few years now. I thought that it was based on the Russian designed TSPROF, but in looking through the history it looks very similar to the USA Edge Pro Inc Apex designs that goes back to the 1990’s. The angle isn’t quite holding like it used to. I’ve got a lot of ideas for my own model, but for now I’m going to print some spacers to help get repeatable angles. [1] setting the angle on my sharpener [2] Where I want to place a fixed height collar 16deg 31.5mm 17deg 34.8mm 18deg 38.0mm 19deg 40.6mm 20deg 43.8mm 21deg 47.4mm 22deg 50.2mm 23deg 52.0mm 24deg 54.3mm so I may have went to the next level # [3] 30335f07-9cac-4e66-b908-f0e3cfbf7582.mp4 [4] References: [1]: https://dropper.waylonwalker.com/api/file/c587bfe8-e310-429d-a3fd-ee617670f6ef.jpg [2]: https://dropper.waylonwalker.com/api/file/d09ababd-e1e3-4290-ac35-725181df89b7.jpg [3]: #so-i-may-have-went-to-the-next-level [4]: https://dropper.waylonwalker.com/api/file/30335f...
1 min read

I'm Out On Agents

Its the year 2025 and we are only a few years into having 6 months to live before ai takes our jobs, and the big push right now is agents, managing agents. I will fully concede to I’m not doing it right, or a future state gets better than where we are right now, but right now they kinda suck. Transparency I’m sitting offline right now as I write this, These are my feels, no research, no links, no ai, just vibes. Chat # [1] Chat is what really kicked off ai uses and goes back as old as computers, but it always sucked. Then chatgpt rocked the world with the biggest launch day in history and showed us that it could actually be pretty good. Unethically trained on everything they could get their hands on, burning cities worth of electricity to train, and keep training to stay ahead of the competition. It does a damn good job. There are tells, and if you see enough of it there is a lot that turns to slop, but if you had never seen it before, there is no way you would assume that it wa...