Welcome

Well I’m finally settled back in the UK again! The blog hasn’t been top of my list but I’m shaking the dust off.

The first thing of course is that Hugo has updated, and broken the theme I’m using. This means either a new theme or bodging off the existing one. Naturally incurring the technical debt is the default quick fix so I can write some stuff again!

💀💀💀

Suggestions for new themes or possibly a new static layout engine that is less fragile would be appreciated.

My wife asked for a sensor that would inform her of the next bus here in Ottawa. Turns out they have an actual API! Someone had tried this on the forums before but said the API had changed¹.

I’m pretty happy with my SensorPush outdoor temperature/humidity/pressure sensor. It’s not cheap but it is calibrated to work in a Canadian winter (most of it, at least). Their BLE adverts are automatically detected by HomeAssistant and decoded.

Sometimes it appears to have a bit of a nap, adverts stop arriving (and I’ve checked with other BLE receivers) until the Android app wakes it up, probably the direct Bluetooth connection is all it wants.

Also, the battery voltage doesn’t appear to be broadcast. SensorPush do actually publish an API but they only show the GATT characteristics that require active scanning. Also my readings don’t agree with their statement that I can read battery temperature. The Android app happily returns 20.9C (which seems high!), raw values seem to float around 0xffff.

So, rather than try to get an ESP32 to lock up its active connection, draining the battery to see how quickly the battery is draining, I’m going for something more intermittent.

A nerd friend bought me a LILYGO E-paper display¹, in the exact hope that I’d end up going down the rabbit hole of Smart Things. I have gone down this bloody rabbit hole. I’ve always been a sucker for data, and I aspire to heating my home more efficiently by measuring temperatures round the house and seeing how they change as I change demand.

This is not a place of honour. It’s a place of a lot of YAML and black magic. It’s pretty cool when it works though:

• The board is a micro with Wi-Fi and a big-enough E-Paper Display (EPD)
• I can reconfigure it via context-aware text editor in the browser
• Push updates (also from the browser)
• Do some reasonably complex data processing and image/text rastering on the micro itself
• Control it from either a self-hosted server on the micro or from Home Assistant

This continues a long-form campaign, Zen and the Art of Caravan Maintenance.

Emmett & Joshua are exploring a brand new mystery island in the Cirle Sea. They’ve landed with Spiral and his servant, and are in an abandoned village. Strange and wondrous things exist here, but the only person is Tim, who thinks they’re the other side of the Circle Sea.

He’s also reporting being chased by mysterious creatures.

This continues a long-form campaign, Zen and the Art of Caravan Maintenance.

Emmett & Joshua are exploring a brand new mystery island in the Cirle Sea. They’ve landed with Spiral and his servant, and are in an abandoned village.

The year tradition continues - time for another round of “what I want to play next”! So, good news, I managed to play The Black Hack, I’ve been using it in my UVG campaign. Admittedly, not playing quite as written (as it’s bodged over UVG 1e rules), but I’m still counting it.

Bad news, three of these haven’t changed from last year.

1. CY_BORG. Last year I said I wanted to buy it, and, uh, well I bought it. It’s very pretty and a simple cyberpunk very much appeals.
2. Cities Without Number - Moar cyberpunk! With many roll tables and some probably-quite-dry lore. Also less simple and less pretty.
3. Stars Without Number. Still want to try this (aside from char-gen that I have done already). Not shown, Mothership 1e, of which the Kickstarter is late, and I do want to play when it arrives, less urgently. I also bought WWN, but SWN appeals for a campaign in a way Mothership does not. I just want some Sci-Fi, okay.
4. Not Adventures in Middle Earth, second edition. The Moria campaign is on Kickstarter and I covet this. I should just play 1e again.

Honourable Mentions

I also bought with little intention of playing:

This continues a long-form campaign, Zen and the Art of Caravan Maintenance.

Emmett & Joshua want to sail away to a mystery new island in the Circle Sea. They’re going to see if a friend will take them.

For the last ten months I’ve been trying to run a tabletop RPG at work over lunch. Specifically, a small group of people, 45m sessions, weekly.

I did not think it would be easy.

It was not easy.

This continues a long-form campaign, Zen and the Art of Caravan Maintenance.

Emmett & Joshua are back in Violet City and looking for excitement. Or a boat, at least.