Index of Open Projects

Behold, an index of my various open projects!

This is a living document; it will change over time.

Here is a bunch of filler text so that all the stuff underneath disappears under the fold on my front page. I will remove this later when I come up with a better solution to this. Foo bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz bar baz foo bar bar foo foo foo baz quux quux baz foo bar baz.

Automatic Backup System

What is It?

Centralized pull-based backup service on our household Hetzner box using rsnapshot and SSH, with some basic monitoring and btrfs compression/deduplication.

Story So Far

MVP prototype was built and tested, then paused and put on hold waiting for further polishing.

Current Blocker

Been a few months, need to rediscover how and what and what the plans were. No meaningful documentation as far as I remember, although the project is small.

Next Steps

Explore what was already done, write design doc, implement, document.

Chess Engine

What is It?

Simple chess engine. Serves as a Rust learner project. Practical usage intentions lean less towards “how good of a chess engine can I make”, more towards:

There’s terabytes worth of chess game databases available; how can a custom engine help us analyze and explore that data?
Can a custom engine be helpful in analyzing the mathematics of chess?
Chess engines are a classic example of “bitter lesson” raw compute number crunching; can we build an engine that can explain its reasoning in a more “human” way, to help us study?
How far can we generalize chess? What can we say about “chess-like” games, in general?

Story So Far

Started implementing. Have board representation, basic but not complete move generation (missing en passant, can’t put self in check etc).

Current Blocker

None, really. Chess engines are an endless project so clearly mapping out intermediate goals along the way would help.

Next Steps

Finish move generation, start analyzing some Lichess data.

French Study

What is It?

I immigrated to France. My ability to speak French is still quite miniscule. This needs addressing.

Story So Far

Language learning is hard. I’ve gone back and forth between different things, periods of dilligent practice separated by longer periods of neglect.

Current Blocker

It’s mental. Overwhelm is a big part of it. Social anxiety, autism, ADHD, academic history all intertwine here. I had mandatory language classes that I really struggled with and led me to associate language learning with danger.

Next Steps

I’ve made a start in Fluent Forever¹ and find it to be a pleasant book. The flash card vocabulary studying method recmomended in it, where you go directly from an image to the corresponding word in your target language, works so much better for me than the word->word flash cards I was using before.

I’ll keep doing my little flash cards every day for a while, that is quite manageable, then start reading a lot and see where to go from there. The benefit of having progressed so slowly for so long is that I have a much more long term view now. I’m eager to start engaging with French culture more directly. French cinema and comic books will be a good place to start.

Household Accounting

What is It?

We’d like a clean system for tracking our household income and expenses, to save money and help with budgeting.

Story So Far

We ran a system using org-mode and ledger for a year. This worked but it was very manual.

Current Blocker

Too much of a hassle to manually punch in expenses and review them every week.

Next Steps

Seems like something that could be largely automated using LLMs, but requires building a system for it. Bad economic conditions means accounting is somewhat soul-crushing to deal with, so motivation is low.

Loopstream Linux Replacement

What is It?

Loopstream² is some internet radio streaming software frequently used in my local internet community. It does not have a Linux version. It would be good for Linux software serving the same purpose to exist.

Story So Far

Co-developer and I discussed what this would entail. The core featureset would be pretty simple, many loopstream features are legacy and/or Windows-specific and can be ignored. Targeting the modern Pipewire audio stack would take care of much of the complexity automatically. On the other hand, this would have to be a complete from scratch implementation, unable to reuse existing code or concepts.

Current Blocker

Co-developer is still learning Rust, our target language.

Next Steps

Wait for co-developer.

Model Motorbike

What is It?

Started, but not finished, building a Tamiya Honda 1979 CB750F motorcycle 1:6 scale model.

Story So Far

About ⅓ of the way done, I think. Moved house, boxed it all up. Some bits broke off and need re-gluing. Sheet of decals got wrinkled, contacted manufacturer for replacement, which was said to take a few months.

Current Blocker

Stuff has been boxed for over a year and a half. Don’t know what happened to the decal sheet I ordered.

Next Steps

Check up on the decal sheet. Clean up, repair parts. Check health of paints. Set everything out for easy working, which is space intensive, but I have the space for it now.

Motorcycle Adventures

What is It?

I have a motorcycle license and a 2008 Yamaha YBR125 bike. I don’t ride it very much.

Story So Far

Bike sat still over winter. Recently, I’ve started doing maintenance on it, including:

Cleaning
Chain cleaning, lube, tension adjustment
Tire pressure
Replace fork oil
Etc

Current Blocker

Left to do:

Brake fluid replacement
Install phone charger

I’m not just a beginner rider, but a beginner motorist in general – I’m not even licensed to drive a car – and moved from small town rural Netherlands to Paris immediately after getting my license. It’s all pretty daunting. It’s also very easy to spend an hour to travel 20km through urban traffic, which is hardly inspiring.