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Node Down!

Wow, I love how I posted one thing about Meshtastic and then never did again. Well, I did, just not here… but over on Mastodon.

Anyway, for all of 2025 and up until this week in April 2026 my solar Meshtastic node was dutifully passing packets on the mesh. And the mesh has been growing! There are a ton more nodes east of here (between Tosa and Milwaukee) and I’m happy to see the growth.

The node was put up poorly and uh, “temporary” which turned into semi-permanent. I had a plan to mount it higher, so maybe now is the time to do that… and to secure things a bit better. It’s janky, for sure, but I’m surprised that it worked just fine like this for over a year. The battery never died and was enough to sustain power during the cloudy days.

So dc06 is down for a bit, but will return, hopefully higher, and maybe cleaned up a bit. I should also update the firmware while it’s down.

Here’s to the Mesh!

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Faircamp for Music Makers

Faircamp Web Site

Faircamp Web Site

I want to tell you about Faircamp, a static site generator for audio producers. It does what it says on the tin, and does it well. Here’s a longer description:

Point Faircamp to a folder hierarchy containing your audio files. Within minutes, Faircamp builds a complete website presenting your work. The resulting site requires no database, no programming, no maintenance, and is compatible with virtually every webhost on this planet.

So basically, a fully-fledged music site for your band that is an alternative to Bandcamp. It allows people to get your music, stream it, download it, and even support you by paying for it.

RasterWeb Music

I ran Faircamp on all my files and the result is at rasterweb.net/music. I’m extremely happy with how it turned out. I even joined the Faircamp Webring. Remember webrings? They’re back! It’s an old way to discover other web sites, and now a new way to discover music.

I have not been keeping up with development but I believe they are working on a GUI to make things easier. Using Faircamp was easy for me, but I’m a tech nerd who uses the terminal daily. If the manual is too confusing you might be afraid to give it a go, so maybe wait for the next major release.

You can follow @freebliss@post.lurk.org if you’re looking for occasional updates on Faircamp progress. (Here’s a look at the 2.0 progress.)

The IndieWeb needs more of this sort of thing if we are to break free of the corporate chains that hold down so much of the web, and so many of the people who create and use the web.

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Hey, it’s Bread!

Bread

Bread

After making a small loaf of bread I made this massive loaf of bread. I’m kidding of course, though this bread is twice the size of the last one. (Laser-cut banana for scale.)

Here’s the ingredients list:

  • 240 grams flour (bread flour or all-purpose flour)
  • 6 grams kosher salt
  • 2 grams instant dried yeast
  • 200 grams cool water

Bread

You can see it fills out the 2 quart Dutch oven a bit more. This is probably a good size to make in the little pot. I could probably go a little larger but then I’d need to do some real math and I’m not a fan of that.

But honestly, this might be the appropriate size for our household. In the past when I’d suggest to Dana we get a loaf of bread for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup we’d grab a loaf from the grocery store and it seemed like we could never get one the right size, or the right shape, or just a loaf that seemed to fit our modest needs.

This was a great sized loaf that lasted just over two days and was enough for two good-sized sandwiches and some left over for a couple of pieces of toast.

Bread

Obviously I need to start making a bread like this the night before (or perhaps first thing in the morning) but I’d prefer making my own bread—with just four simple ingredients—over buying a loaf at the store.

When I make it at home I know exactly what goes into it and how it was made… and that’s worth something to me.

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This is the Pain (Relief?)

MRI Scan Slice

MRI Scan Slice

See the previous post… Done? Okay!

The past three weeks (not two) have been crap. Pain every day, every night. I’ve been taking Gabapentin, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, and using a heating pad quite a bit. On a good day I’d have 6 to 8 hours of pain and on a bad day 12+ hours.

But the day has come! My procedure was a few days ago. Since I was sedated I really don’t remember much about it. They inserted two needles into my back and injected steroids into my spine. (Fun!) The next day I felt good. Really good. But they do warn it can take days or a week or more to start being pain-free.

Two days after the injections I had quite a bit of pain in the morning, which is normal, but it wasn’t at the same level as it was earlier in the week before the injections. It faded later in the day, so that was good.

So if you’re keeping track I’ve been in pain (in various ways) since November. It’s shifted, changed, and mutated since then. From the back to the butt to the hip to the leg and ankle.

I cannot wait to get back to my old life of working full-time, going on bike rides, not lying on a heating pad in pain, etc. I hope, hope, hope we’re nearly there.

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Halftone Printing Plate

Print of Rock on Paper

Print of Rock on Paper

My daughter asked if I could make a printing plate and sent me this photo of a rock. (She’s a rock climber.) I’ve made lots of plates using 3D printing so I figured I would try to halftone the photo.

Above you can see two prints I made on paper using black relief printing ink.

Rock image photo

Here’s the original photo, in grayscale. Rocks have texture and some gradient and tone… Fun!

Rock image halftone

Here is the image after halftoning it. My first attempt used dots that were way too small. The file was 720MB and took a long time to load, and I got a warning in my slicer. Getting the halftoning right is tricky, and it’ll take some experimentation in the future.

Render of 3D Printed Printing Plate

I converted the raster image into an SVG using Inkscape and then loaded it into OpenSCAD to extrude it and put a plate underneath it so I could export it as an STL file.

3D Printed Printing Plate

Here’s the plate, after printing it and cleaning it. I lost a few dots on the top where they were a little too small. Again, I’ll try to fix those issues next time.

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