Well, the ear-worm that @neil quietly planted this morning has taken hold, so a change in music...

New #blog post: Self installing a Monoblock #airconditioning unit

For the last 5 years or so, I've used a portable air con unit in my office, but it's loud and inefficient.

With next year promising to be even worse than this year, I decided it was time to install a fitted system.

I ultimately went for a all-in-one unit - this post talks about why as well as the installation process

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/installing-a-monoblock-air-conditioner.html

So... an interesting development...

After writing about how using an LLM, even "just" for spellcheck and grammar can erode your voice, I received an email written by an agent, fact checking my post

New #blog post: Ruining a Blog by Using a #LLM

There have been various fights online about people using #AI to write or proofread their posts.

One thing that I've often wondered about is the extent to which those authors might be gradually losing their voice by piping through AI.

So, I pumped a year's worth of my own posts through #claude in order to see what it changed

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/opinion/ruining-posts-with-ai.html

New #blog post: Migrating from #1Password to #VaultWarden

The recent news about @1password funding DHH hasn't sat well with me.

By luck, my annual renewal was only a few weeks away too.

So, I decided to change #passwordmanager

This post talks about how to set Vaultwarden up as well as how to migrate credentials across (the process is the same for #bitwarden)

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/migrating-from-1password-to-vaultwarden.html

@1password I've sent them a support ticket too to register my displeasure.

Initially got a canned statement back. It's possible it made me go a little further than normal

Been gradually building a list of restful things to do with my 2 weeks leave.

Looks like migrating off @1password has to go on the list. Not exactly restful, but definitely warranted.

Must actually remember to buy #EMFCamp tickets next year... I'm already getting FOMO and it's not even started yet.

Mood: https://bots.robots.rodeo/@scream/116827276278958735

New #blog post: Adding A Balcony #Solar Install to our garage

We've had solar for nearly 3 years now, but our easterly exposure has been niggling at me: output starts waning around lunch so the afternoon feels wasted (particularly after a cloudy morning)

So, I've added some west facing panels to the garage using a plug-in solar kit

This post talks about the install, setting up monitoring with #telegraf as well as results in the week since

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/adding-plugin-solar-to-our-capacity.html

New #Documentation: Blocking requests from #Cloudflare's automated browser #crawl endpoint

Cloudflare recently announced an endpoint on their Browser Rendering service which allows users to make one API request to trigger a crawl of an entire site.

This documentation details how to block the resulting request.

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/documentation/general/blocking-cloudflares-automated-crawl-endpoint.html

My #AI crawler maze has seen activity grow over the last 30d and is now handling in the region of 3 million requests a day

The links into the maze are marked noindex,nofollow. The maze is also a disallow in robots.txt and each of the pages that the maze serves are marked noindex,nofollow. No honest bot should be in there.

The number of crawlers executing javascript seems to have dropped off though - the various JS traps are firing much less frequently

Yep, I think I'm definitely going to be looking at setting Booklore up tomorrow, it seems to check all the boxes

New #blog post: Converting a SMK CP2 #airgun from CO2 to PCP

Late last year I bought a CO2 gun. Although it was sometimes fun to shoot, I got quite frustrated at how variable an experience it gave

Rather than selling it on, I decided to make it use high pressure air (HPA) instead

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/converting-a-cp2-to-pcp.html

FFS

The school has just had to send out a message complaining about **parents** using #AI to create and circulate fake photos showing an armed police response at the school.

We're surrounded by fucking morons, send help.

Good News!

A significant portion of the (likely AI) crawlers that were hitting my site seem to have decided that my maze of generated shit isn't to their taste.

They've only themselves to blame: the maze is listed as a Disallow in robots.txt and every generated page has noindex, nofollow in its metadata.

(It's a big enough drop that I've checked nothing's broken)

So, apparently you're supposed to boil the potatoes and not your wrist.

Medical staff also, apparently, strongly prefer it if you turn up on the day that it happened rather than two days later after your coat cuff decided to shred the area.

I got a bit told off 😂

RE: https://social.neonpaws.digital/@FoxesInLove/115723941013368838

I found @neil in fox form 😀

New #blog post: Migrating our Music from #Subsonic to #Gonic

I've _finally_ found a suitable replacement for our #music streaming setup

This post talks about the migration process

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/replacing-subsonic-with-gonic.html

New #blog post: Replacing our #Nest thermostat with #HomeAssistant

I've disliked our Nest since we got it. Google's recent EOLing of the Gen1 and Gen2's gave me the kick I needed to start thinking about replacing it with something that could be locally controlled

This post describes replacing a Nest with Zigbee and Matter thermostats allowing scheduling and #automation in Home Assistant

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/replacing-google-nest-with-a-matter-thermostat.html