Welcome!

On here, you will mostly find articles on running my home lab, in the hopes that others can benefit from my own trials and tribulations.

A picture of a gamery Asus laptop resting on the tray of a Deutsche Bahn ICE first class seat. It has an empty terminal window open, just showing the prompt with the username 'michael'.

Bahn Journey Nr 5 & Nr 6: Way too early, but going well

Getting there, 2026-06-12 The main feature of this one was the really, really early start. I had to get up before 6 AM to catch my train at 07:59. Contrary to my normal habits, I did have an appointment on the day of the train journey. So I decided to go for an early start to have a Deutsche Bahn safety margin. I got the chance to try something new from the Deutsche Bahn restaurant for breakfast: The antipasti plate. Can’t recommend. It comes in a plastic holder, not on a proper plate. Two pieces of “too cheesy” cheese, a couple of pieces of salami, a few crackers, some soggy olives and a dip. None of it of any quality. First time in quite a while that I got disappointed by Deutsche Bahn’s food offering. ...

Yacy Part 1: Deployment

Welcome to the newest rabbit hole I’ve found myself in. This post starts a new series where I’m taking a look at the YaCy self-hosted, distributed peer to peer search engine. And probably web crawling and search ranking algorithms. In this post, I will concentrate on how I deployed YaCy into my Kubernetes cluster, and a few pieces about my first steps with it. You won’t find answers to questions like “how good is it as a Google replacement?” in this post. There’s a lot more work ahead for me to actually make that judgment. ...

A picture of the MNT Reform Next laptop. It's a 12.5 inch model, a bit thicker than other modern laptops.

Wants vs Needs: Trying to Talk Myself out of Ordering an MNT Reform Next Laptop

I don’t really need a new laptop right now. But I do want an MNT Reform Next. This laptop has been scrolling through my Fediverse feed for quite a while now, and I’ve found myself scrolling through that CrowdSupply page every time it comes up. It is an Open Hardware machine, meaning for most pieces, detailed schematics and data sheets are available, so that it could be easily modded. Specifically, the motherboard and keyboard are entirely open. The CPU itself, the Rockchip RK3588, is not open. But small steps. ...

A picture with the logos of three projects: The Golang gopher, the PostgreSQL elephant and the WoodpeckerCI woodpecker. The Golang gopher is pretty goofy looking, showing two large front teeth in a small mouth, tiny ears and two large eyes. The Postgres elephant is a stylized front view of an elephant, including tusks and a large trunk. finally, the WoodpeckerCI woodpecker is more of an outline of the namesake bird.

Smokeweb: Setting up Database Connections

After implementing a lot of helpers and basic infrastructure for my Smokeweb app (see here if you’re interested in what the project is about), I finally arrived at creating the database connection. In this post, I will give an overview of the Golang test helpers I implemented for tests which need a database, show you how I implemented some scripting for a Postgres database using Podman and then I will tell you how I implemented database tests in WoodpeckerCI. ...

Bahn Journey Nr 4: If it already starts like this...

This one started with 16 minutes of delay right in the first train, before the journey even started. But I still had 13 minutes for my only switchover. So I will be cautiously optimistic. 😅 I ended up arriving only a few minutes late at my switchover station, and after that everything went perfectly fine. Nicely done, thanks Deutsche Bahn! Tally So let’s add this journey to our tally. Date Inconvenience Dest Lateness Overall Lateness Duration 2026-02-12 6 0m 5m 6h13m 2026-02-15 0 58m 58m 7h9m 2026-04-23 2 43m 43m 7h00m 2026-04-27 0 0m 8m 6h13m Totals 2 25m/101m 28m/114m 6h38m/26h35m No inconvenience on this journey at all. ...