The ad blocker was from the package manager built into OpenWRT. I think tailscale was too but I’m not 100% sure since it’s been awhile.

Though, I just did a search and the first result from the OpenWRT docs shows the install from the package manager so that’s most likely how I did it : https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/services/vpn/tailscale/start

So, yes, very simple.

I got the gl-mt6000/flint2 about 6 months ago. I’m definitely not a network expert but I unboxed it, powered it up, and immediately flashed OpenWRT. No problems.

The only slightly technical things I’ve done with it are to install a router level ad/tracking blocker when my RPi2 pihole stopped being reliable and install the tailscale client on it with exit node enabled. Everything works fine.

I use tailscale to get to my LAN (even though the desktop is also running tailscale) for many reasons (self hosting) but the main reason is my home server is disk level LUKS encrypted. The router restarts autonomously after a power outage so I use it to get to the server via tailscale+Dropbear to remote unlock the server disk after a power outage.

I’ve had zero complaints and would recommend.

The two biggest things I use it for are programmatically generating “lists of lists” (lists of pages, more accurately) and as a semi-hacky way to get text colors. Semi-related, the “Treeview” plugin gives you a folder hierarchy panel off to the left (by default) which is really, really nice.

I should probably clarify that I didn’t write these, I stole them from the Silverbullet community forums… also I should reiterate that I suck at Lua so take my explanations with a grain of “this person may not know what they’re talking about” ; )

Lists of Lists : I have a bad memory so I create a LOT of lists. I even have a base page named “Lists” that I then nest different types of lists under (TODOs for home, for work, for school, for projects, for selfhosting, etc). Since the table is programmatically generated, it’s always up to date on each load. This first snippet relies on using frontmatter on the respective pages along with the tags property.

${query[[
from index.tag "todolist"
order by lastModified desc
select {
  List="[[" .. _.name .. "]]",
  Modified=_.lastModified
  }
]]}

This retrieves all pages from the space index with a tag of todolist (from the frontmatter), orders them by lastModified, descending, and renders a table that contains the name and lastModified date. This is excellent for providing a list of pages (based on tag, todolist in this case) related to a topic and ordering them by the last time they were changed. I use this in the base page for pretty much all of my “folders”. Screenshot :

Text Color Hack : Since the Silverbullet markdown interpreter doesn’t (currently) support plain HTML, and the way we usually color specific areas of text within Markdown is <span style="color: #fff">white text</span>, they had to get inventive. Somebody came up with a way to provide Lua functions that will accept text as a parameter and then render it with the specified HTML color/style.

In my CONFIG page (that is applied to the entire space) I included a space-lua code block like :

function Red(text)
  return widget.html(dom.span {
    style="color:#e60000; font-weight: bold;",
    text
  })
end
// Also about 5 more for different colors I use, snipped for simplicity.

Then, anywhere in my Silverbullet space I can use a Lua code snippet like The following word is ${Red("red")} and it will invoke the space-lua function named Red() on the text red, apply the styling, and render it with CSS color #e60000. Hacky? Yeah… but it works for now. Screenshot :

… I’ve been meaning to build a generic Colorize(text, hexColor) function (which would likely take all of 30 seconds : ) but haven’t yet. Maybe tonight.

EDIT: That did, in fact, take 30 seconds. Function :

// This assumes "color" parameter is a valid/properly formatted CSS color, meaning a known word ("red"), hex ("#ff0000"), or presumably RGB/etc but so far I've only tested color names and hex (I typically use hex)
function Colorize(text, color)
return widget.html(dom.span {
    style=string.format("color:%s; font-weight: bold;", color),
    text
  })
end

Usage : ${Colorize("any text", "#00ff00")}

Ouch. I mean, you’re not wrong… But still.

I approve.

Hehe. So PWAs aren’t a silver bullet but Silverbullet can be a PWA.

Is that one of those “all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares” type things?

Check out Silverbullet.md

https://silverbullet.md/

It’s like obsidian (I hear) but FOSS. I love it and it’s by far the self hosted service I use most.

It stores your notes in a plain directory hierarchy of markdown files so you can just point a cron shell script at it to git add/commit/push at your desired internal and you’ve got history tracking/backups too

Edit: also provides a PWA so you can “install” it on your phone instead of always using a full browser.

Edit x2: includes a Lua interpreter so you can get scripty with it. I use that functionality more than I expected and I suck at Lua

Edit x3: and it auto synchs to each device when open with conflict detection. Full copy is stored local to each device, synched when possible

Helix was mentioned in a few posts but no link so here : https://helix-editor.com/

If you love the terminal, it’s fantastic. I like it better than NeoVIM but, admittedly, I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to get to know nvim. It’s much better than VIM for code because it was built for that, not “just” a text editor that got forced into IDE service. (Not to denigrate VI/VIM, I love them, but Helix is more powerful for dev related tasks). If you hate the terminal… keep moving, nothing to see here.

For a more common IDE (not terminal), I’ve been using Theia for the past 6 months or so : https://theia-ide.org/ If you click that link you’ll see “AI” vomited into everything, for example the first two sentences :

The Theia IDE is a modern, AI-native IDE for cloud and desktop built on the Theia Platform. The Theia Platform is a framework for building custom, AI-native tools & IDEs.

From what I’ve seen, there’s no AI integration in the base and it’s only added via extensions. It is extremely similar to VS Code but is not a fork. Now… whether or not it was ““developed with AI””, I don’t know. I kind of got the feeling that they sprayed “AI” all over the website to try to cash in on the hype and get new users.

Even if that’s the case (chasing the hype train, no actual LLM inside), that’s likely to be a major turn off for you which I fully understand.

It took three years but we’ve almost rooted it all out.

There’s still one ancient product that will (theoretically) decommission in mid 2028. It makes enough money to cover the Oracle licensing but isn’t worth reworking to migrate.

Knowing how decom goes, I’m sure it’ll still be running in 2035 with that one last client who “can’t move to the newer, better, easier project because… Reasons (I don’t wanna)”

Reinstalled Dropbear for remote LUKS unlock after a SSD failure.

SSD failure was two weeks ago or I’d say rebuilding the server from backups and further polishing my Ansible playbook.

Heh, this line cracked me up :

In fact, I understand that the Windows roadmap for 2026 is all about fixing Windows 11

Also, thank you for your service.

Second for Pangolin.

They have a cloud hosted free tier you can try but it’s time/ transfer limited. If you like it, you can self host on your VPS with no subscription since it’s all FOSS software.

Also, thank you for addressing the native app vs Pangolin auth layer challenge. I’ve been wrestling with that myself.

Also, if you want to be a good citizen and not block others from checking out ebooks, I hear there are things you can do. Things like using Calibre+obok (or DeDRM, depending on device) to rip them from the reader device and remove the DRM. Then you can return the ebook to the library so others can use it, while being able to read it at your leisure.

I wouldn’t know, of course, but it seems like the polite thing to do.

“the 1900s”

: /

I recently picked up a 2024 model moto g power 5g. The main reason is that I needed the cheapest smart phone I could find locally to test a new provider (phreeli) before committing. That, and to serve as a ready backup if one of ours dies. $115 at a big box store.

It’s… fine. Even after debloating I get about half the battery life of my galaxy s20 which is now 5 years old. I haven’t been able to figure out what’s eating it, or maybe it just has a smaller battery… I should check that.

Does borg need an entire python venv?

I was looking at “modern” backup tools while back and when I saw borg was python I decided not to bother.

Instead I focused on restic for a little while and then rsync was already there and I already knew the commands so… Rsync. Though I still have restic on my list.

Yep. When I heard that a friend wore a double zero my first thought was “so she’s two dimensional?”

I dunno. At a big company they probably won’t notice an extra TB of storage cost… So long as you’re discrete with the transfers.

I learn something new every day, thanks bud.