Tag Archives: Uckermark

Uncategorized

#weeklyreview 11/23

1 Comment

Obviously didn’t manage to get the weekly review done before Sunday. Weekend was rather busy as the weather finally felt spring-like and we got a lot stuff done on the property and in the garden.

We put in a tree to hopefully give us some shade in the summer (not this year, but maybe next year already)

replanted the tomatoes seedlings and also cleaned up the property. Since we had borrowed a large trailer over the weekend I was able to bring a lot of old stuff and trash to the local recycling yard. It’s amazing that you can just got there and get easily rid of most of your stuff that doesn’t belong or fit into the normal trash bins. Its free as its included in our yearly waste treatment fee. I’m always tempted to rummage trough the large scrap containers and get out useful stuff (like old electronics).

Hosting

This week I’ve installed my own instance of Overleaf – a web based LaTeX editor for collaboration. Not that I’m in need of LaTeX document system at the moment… but it’s always nice to play around with such stuff.

Mastodon updated to v4.1.1

Installed a Jenkins-Cron-Job to repopulate replies to my mastodon instance as suggested by Matt.

3D Printing

Got quite a bit of 3D printing done. Leveled my printbed properly and I’m still amazed how smooth prints come out with the right filament and settings on this rather cheap printer. Uploading the timelapse videos to my PeerTube Instance in their own channel.

I switched to a newer version of OctoPi and it was just really smooth. Simply download a backup bundle on the old instance and feed that to the setup wizard on the new instance. Thats it. Everything was just there again. No need to change our touch a single thing. I could just go on-printing.

Gina Häußge (aka @foosel@chaos.social ) is really doing a fantastic job with this piece of software.

Sport

Oh boy was I lazy this week. Almost no sport at all. Running partner still sick, office gym showers closed and me too lazy.

I hope at least the physical activity on the weekend and hauling that bulky package count a little bit.

And of course we went swimming despite some rain.

Uncategorized

#weeklyreview 10/22

1 Comment

Tech Refresh

PeerTube

Finally took the time to upgrade my PeerTube Instance from Version 4.x to 5.x.

As always, this took a bit of fiddling. My setup is running inside Docker Containers and I had to add a new configuration item into the .env as a new Security Key was introduced in this version.

While the service did start with the new version of the software and videos were still served, I couldn’t get to the admin section of the UI anymore. There where a whole bunch of JavaScript errors in the console.

I ended up deleting the docker volume that the PeerTube container had created for assets. Apparently it was safe to delete that volume and the app would recreate and repopulate upon restart. This solved the problems and now my instance is running PeerTube 5.

Portainer

A friend contacted my as he came across Portainer to maintain his local docker setup. While I had heard the name before, I have played around with it.

Installed the Server (as a container) on my host and also the agent (also as a container) on a remote host to have a look. Turns out it’s a convenience tool to set up and maintainer Container Stacks. Boerge confirmed it’s a good entrance into the container world.

I personally don’t see a need for me, as I’m quicker on the commandline to do the setups. But if one wants to have a web UI to get a quick overview of whats running where and also be able to stop, start, update, edit Containers then Portainer might be worth a look.

Portainer also provides a bunch of readymade stack templates for well knows apps. This might be a good start for newbies.

Disk failure

My little home server, an old DELL optiplex desktop, had a disk failure on Friday. Apparently the HDD disconnected temporarily from the SATA bus and left the filesystem inconsistent. Since it’s a headless system and upon reboot it required manual intervention for the forced filesystem check, I had to pull it out of its cave and connect to monitor and keyboard. Disk seem to be still working, but I started to do more frequent backups and are going to prepare to replace the disk eventually the next days. Maybe I will even find some more old memory modules to upgrade the RAM.

Food

On monday I was invited to a now rare company dinner. One of y superiors from the US was visiting us for the first time in years. And since there are practically not formal restrictions anymore around COVID, we were able to have a joint dinner at the Zollpackhof in Berlin Mitte.

Given that just a few years ago we would have these gathering on a regular basis and around the globe, this was now a really rare occasion to see people from other offices in person again.

A plate with a crispy pork knuckle, Bavarian sour kraut and dumplings. In the background some beers.


Sport

Only managed to get one time running done this week. My running partner catched COVID, so I had to run alone. Also didn’t manage to get to the Office Gym this week. Next week the gym will have no shower due to construction works. So no gym I guess. Will have to do the running for myself as my partner probably will not yet have recovered enough.

Sunday swimming was good. The weather was fantastic on Saturday with about 7cm of snow in the Uckermark and lots of sunshine. Which we were hoping for for Sunday as well. But unfortunately if was slightly overcast but at least no ice on the like. Managed to do 65m at about 4:30 min at chilly 2°C water and air.

Uncategorized

#weeklyreview 09/22

Leave a comment

Climate Demo 03.03.2023

On Friday my daughter an me joined the #FridaysForFuture gang for a nationwide climate justice demonstration in the Berlin.

In Berlin there were reportedly about 18.000 people on the streets. First there were a couple of speeches at the Invalidenpark and some musician were playing. The ones that stood out for me were Santiago Rodriguez and “Provinz”

One important topic was the upcoming public vote (Volksentscheid) on Berlin Climate Neutral by 2023. I hope you all got your vote notification and do you cross at the right spot. We need to push the government to do the right stuff.

3D Printing

Finally fired up the 3D printer last week to print another one of the moon globe lamp. That print took almost 2 days to finish. Now need to print the remaining parts for the stand and assemble it.

Sport

Started running again after 2 weeks ob absence. Felt good, but also rusty… I’m gettting old I guess.

Also started to do the indoor rowing again in the office gym. Feels good to get back into it and feel the old muscles getting stretched again.

And we were lucky on Sunday that there was no ice on the lake. It was still frozen on Thursday. So the water was pretty chilly but I managed to swim for about 4:30 min. Temperature outside and inside the water was ~ 2ºC.

Even my wife joined us this time and went into the water 3 times and took a few strokes of swimming. Wearing a neoprene suite, but nevertheless. Knowing that she’s suffering from severe ME/CFS for the last 4 years, this is a big deal for her.

Adventure

A friend of mine asked whether I’d join them to find a sophisticated geocache inside one of the old soviet bunkers in the area. Since we really didn’t had anything else important to do on sunday morning, my daughter and me joined. The entrance was a venting pipe that wasn’t designed for chubby unicorns like me. But with a bit of wiggling it fitted through 😉

Uncategorized

Ich glaub, ich Spinne

3 Comments

Dank meiner neuen Kamera (Danke Willi) und meines neuen 300mm Macro-Objektives (Danke Meike) kann ich nun aus sicherer Entfernung ganz dicht an Tiere heran.

Das hab ich gleich mal genutzt, um ein paar der Krabbler, Hüpfer und Flatterer bei uns auf der Wiese festzuhalten.

Zuerst lies sich ein Tagpfauenauge blicken

Tagpfauenauge

Gleich danach ein C-Falter. Keine Ahnung warum der so einen komischen Namen bekommen hat

C-Falter

Rings ums Haus findet man in letzter Zeit vermehrt die Amerikanische Zapfenwanze. Die läuft sehr langsam und sieht meistens irgendwie krank aus.

Amerikanische Kiefern- bzw. Zapfenwanze

Hummeln brummen schon den ganzen Sommer hier rum. Am liebsten auf den Diesteln oder den Kürbisblüten

Hummel

Wunderschöne Spinnen haben wir hier auch. Eine Wespen-Spinne ist hier gerade am Speisen

Wespenspinne

Last not least dann noch ein amtliches Grünes Heupferd. Diese ca. 6-7 cm grossen Heuschrecken machen ihrem Namen alle Ehre und jagen einem einen ganz schönen Schreck ein, wenn sie einen anspringen.

Grünes Heupferd
Uncategorized

Wundersames Biotop

Der Teil der Uckermark in dem wir leben ist es wirklich sehr trocken. Der Boden besteht praktisch nur aus Sand mit einer hauchdünnen Humusschicht. Wenn überhaupt. Dort wo Bäume fehlen gibt es nur staubtrockene Heide.

Auch unser Grundstück sieht in weiten Teilen so aus. Wir haben es aufgegeben hier Rasen kultivieren zu wollen. Das erfordert einfach zu viel Pflege und unnatürlich viel Wasser.

Nur unser kleines Gemüsebeet bewässern wir jeden Tag. Daneben steht seit dem Frühjahr eine Plastikwanne mit ein bisschen Erde und bekommt auch immer etwas Wasser ab. Da sie ja geschlossen ist, bildete sich darin ein kleiner Teich. Ein paar Pflanzen konnten scheinbar mit der stehenden Nässe umgehen.

Jetzt am Ende des langen, warmen und trockenen Sommers hat sich in dieser Wanne ein richtiges kleines Biotop gebildet. Neben den obligatorischen Mückenlarven und ein paar Gelbrandkäfern habe ich auch drei Frösche entdeckt. Mitten in der staubtrockenen Heide trotzen sie hier Dürre.