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Uncloud Server Setup: DONE!

This was the plan and I finally got around doing it. The original list was: A docker registry for pushing and pulling images too. Maybe I can setup Forgejo to also be a registry, but just the docker registry might be enough. The image comes from Docker Hub. Caddy with L4 forwarding, I can easily make the image myself, and push it to the local registry. S3 storage so that I can make backups with Kopia - probably going to use Garage for this, doesn’t need a certificate and should only advertise itself on the internal network - not sure how to do this, without actively blocking. atomdns as

Miek Gieben · EN

Uncloud Host Networking

My server is almost fully converted to be managed by Uncloud , except for one service: atomdns . Which at first I didn’t mind, but now find annoying, because: uc ps doesn’t list it; my Prometheus metrics collector runs in the cluster, so it can’t easily scrape it; updates for it are different; managing means logging in onto the specific machine. Hence I wanted it run inside the cluster. There are however a few constraints, atomdns needs:

Miek Gieben · EN

Unrequired Reading, 002

I tried a new hobby this week, making chocolate bonbons. Painted the moulds with cocoa butter I bought a few colours, shelled them with tempered chocolate, filled them with curd and sealed the whole thing with another layer. It was fiddly and messy, I did Apple and blackcurrant for the first batch, then a lemon that came out wincingly sharp against sweet Belgian chocolate. I made quite a few mistakes but it was nice to do something with my hands. Some of them even turned out nicely. Watching Invincible Series Four was really good, if you can get past the gore it’s moral quandaries that superhe

Matt Davey · EN

Unrequired Reading, 003

Tools over problems I've been thinking this week about how addictive it is with these new tools to be able to build things without so much of the friction. The danger of that is falling in love with the effort and interactions over solving the problem. This is partly because of Karl Koch's piece on falling in love with the build , which is about the dangerous little pleasure of making something nice and then trying to find a reason for it afterwards. It is aimed at design engineers, but it applies neatly to almost anything creative. Just look at this website, it's exactly that level of over-en

Matt Davey · EN

The deep work versus all the work

With AI tools there's more software shipping more than ever. The thread across my talks with other leaders are consistently being told to scale beyond adding headcount. The model of the trifecta and design being embedded in every piece of work on a single roadmap just isn't scaling for this new world. If we don't adapt we end up being either overwhelmed with work or only overseeing part of the product. Watch enough work go out without design and you notice what's slipping: quality. Not some abstract version of it, the standard you've held for years, now leaving the building in your name withou

Matt Davey · EN

Sheringham, Norfolk

Matt Davey

Slovenia

Matt Davey

Bucket List

Have children Teach someone how to read Visit Dubrovnik Fly in a helicopter Visit the Scottish Highlands Visit the Glenfinnan Viaduct Visit Dublin Visit New York September 2026 Ride in an NYC Cab September 2026 Visit Peru Host a national radio show Be an extra in a TV show Visit Venice Make mozzarella from scratch Have dinner with someone famous Fly in a two person plane Have work displayed in a gallery Own a small design studio April 2012 Own a house October 2012 Start a family June 2013 Have a pet companion Nov 2011 Make my first 100k Nov 2012 Have my first 3k project July 2012 Have my first

Matt Davey · EN

New York City

Matt Davey

Toronto Core

I lived in Toronto for a few years quite a while ago and these are the things that shaped my memory of the great city. Inspired by Saigon Core and Toronto Core . Most of these places will be shut or changed entirely by now but this is a time capsule within my head. An evening at Roy Thomson Hall listening to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra Fried Chicken, Pulled Pork Bao and Duck Confit Banh Mi from Banh Mi Boys The far too spicy Kothu Roti from Saffron Spice Kitchen Gra Bong from PAI Mini donuts and a coffee from Little Nicky's A quiet evening in the Aquarium Sour cherry slice from Wanda's Pie

Matt Davey · EN

These present circumstances

This is a direct follow up to the previous. I let some time pass because I didn’t want to get stuck writing, even if knowing this severely weakens intent and efficacy (and always consider this here isn’t a dialogue, but just a kind of soapbox where I mostly talk to myself to clarify things for […]

Looping Wor(l)d · EN

Assassin’s Apprentice – Robin Hobb

People are intimidated by a man who acts with no apparent regard for consequences. I was some 60 pages from the end of the book in June, but then it meant I had to write something about it here, so I put it on hold while starting to read tons of other books through the […]

Looping Wor(l)d · EN

Publishing Industry Blinders

This is just an unplanned extra, not very relevant. Today I received a not especially important book order. I wouldn’t be writing about it. It contains the latter three books by Ruocchio, Kingdoms of Death, Ashes of Men, Disquiet Gods, just to have them all before the last one comes out in November (but I’ll […]

Looping Wor(l)d · EN

On Malazan reading orders

I wanted to comment on a blog post by Werthead and reading orders in general. Following the general premise that a reading order should simply maximize reader enjoyment as a first read. You could then rearrange orders, following plotlines or chronology, but at that point an experienced reader is able to make their own choice. […]

Looping Wor(l)d · EN

Is Gene Wolfe a good writer?

Yes, of course he is. The title is intended to be rhetorical, in this case. But it’s the result of what I’ve asked myself: would I think this as good writing if I didn’t have a giant bias and prejudice, knowing how highly regarded Gene Wolfe is? He is one of those great writers who […]

Looping Wor(l)d · EN

1?84 – (spoilers) Haruki Murakami

Oh well, here we are, aren’t we? I did not intend writing about this book, as the things I have to put here into words have already gone through my mind several times. Doing it once again, trying to be coherent, is just more unpleasant effort. But here we are. The title, 1Q84, should essentially […]

Looping Wor(l)d · EN

Twin Peaks, explained?

While this side of the blog is temporarily(?) paused, I just wanted to link this: https://bluerosearchive.com/ And thankfully I searched my own website, because I already wrote in my mind half this blog post and was going to write ONCE AGAIN the same introductory things I wrote already. How I encountered the thing the first […]

Looping Wor(l)d · EN

The Age of Decaying Storytelling

I’m so glad about myself when I manage to restrain myself from writing here, so if this shows up it means I’ve failed. This has been triggered by reading a blog post about a (series of) book with a cool premise, that I think I’ve known in a form or another for years, maybe? But […]

Looping Wor(l)d · EN

Scripting a Zoho catch-all filter

I use Zoho as my email provider, and I recently learned that you can setup a catch-all forwarding address . This is pretty great, because that means I can receive any email sent to my domain! Go ahead, try it . I want to sort the emails I receive into their own folder, though, depending on the delivery address (for example, lol@miccah.io will go to /catch-all/lol ). It turns out, Zoho supports custom mail filters using a scripting DSL called deluge , so I wrote one!

miccah.io · EN

2023 Reflections and 2024 Goals

Okay, I know I’m finally finishing this post in NOVEMBER when 2024 is almost over, and it was mainly postponed because I lacked 2024 goals. So I’ve reflected on why and shared my thoughts below. But first, 2023 reflections! I made a huge life change that made it a great year for me. I moved to Seattle! It took me awhile to get everything ready and find a place to rent, but I finally did it! I chose Seattle for a few reasons. The nature in the Pacific Northwest really calls to me, and I want to go on hikes and enjoy it. I also have a few friends in Seattle, so it was an easier trans

miccah.io · EN

An unexpected benefit to keeping notes

I keep a weekly journal of notable events, my feelings, and ideas. Most of the time, the value I get out of doing this comes from the act of writing it down in the moment. Writing notable events helps my memory, writing my feelings helps me understand and let them go, and writing my ideas helps me refine them. This is largely unsurprising and overall very valuable to my mental health, but occasionally I look back over the years of notes and regain a perspective of myself that I so easily forget: I’m awesome . I’m not saying this to brag! Living day by day and falling into the rhyth

miccah.io · EN

2025 Reflections and 2026 Goals

It seems like 2025 came and went in a flash. Looking back, I’m happy to say that I continued being social and made some more friends. This past year, I.. Built a home server Okay, I actually built it in 2024, but I used it a lot this year and had a lot of fun setting up VMs with Proxmox . I keep all of my notes there, a gaming VM, and various media containers too. It may be recency bias, but I installed immich and have had a great experience with it, and even started a photo frame project that has been a lot of fun.

miccah.io · EN

WireGuard is simply elegant

WireGuard is a secure, easy to use, and simple VPN solution that is the underlying technology for Tailscale . I’ve personally used it in both flavors and have been very happy with its reliability and the fact that it “just works.” So this week, I decided to learn how it can “just work” by reading the whitepaper describing its design and also watching the 2018 BlackHat keynote . While I enjoy exploring the technical details of a secure communication protocol¹ and will dive into that later, I want to take some time to appreciate the simple elegance of the WireGuard

miccah.io · EN

Home cloud gaming server

At the end of 2024 I decided to build a new gaming PC. My existing one was a typical tower computer from 2012 that was big and loud and too old to run Elden Ring ! So I decided it was time to make a new build, but this time, I wanted to do it a little different. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having a large and loud tower at my desk, so I thought it would be fun to build a server that could stream games to my laptop.

miccah.io · EN