Variation Venus

Because Bloganuary wasn’t happening in January, I last wrote about “following my own prompts.” After creating my own prompts, I decided to take the experiment offline and let the prompts lead me to deeper introspection.

The Power of Introspection

The prompts forced me to look inside myself and write from a place of genuine introspection. After reviewing what I’d written, I realized that a lot of it was very personal. I explored things that troubled me a lot, from financial stability to politics and my personal health. Everything I wrote was too intimate for public sharing. Even so, I enjoyed the journey. For me, January became a personal writing month. I explored my thoughts without the pressure of an audience.

A New Hobby: Homelabbing

I’ve always backed up my computer with a NAS and relied on commercial cloud services (Google Drive, Evernote, etc.) for media storage. Still, now that I know more about AI, I’m not sure how I feel about how big companies handle data. I started looking for a more private solution.

1. Evernote to Joplin
   I switched from Evernote to Joplin because it was free and had a familiar GUI similar to Evernote. I left Evernote because the company that bought it raised prices and added AI features that didn’t make the price hike worth it, so I moved on.
2. Self‑Hosted Notes
   Discovering that Joplin could sync directly to my own cloud was wonderful. The learning curve was steep, though. I struggled with setting things up. My last command‑line session dates back to Windows 7, and the last time I managed a Linux server was over ten years ago. I don’t think I had to deal with certificates as much back then, either. It worked after I figured it out, and I felt like I had control over my data again.
3. Broader Experimentation
   I am still looking into other tools to see how they can help me and what the downsides are. Every step teaches me more about how politics and technology are linked these days. It made me realize that to hold big tech companies responsible for how they use our data, we must have a thorough understanding of these systems. This is a topic I plan to revisit in future posts. For now I’ll just write about the fun things.

Trying Local AI Models

I also got around to experimenting with local AI models for text generation. I have no interest in trying to create images or videos. My thoughts on making pictures and videos are mixed; the possible benefits are at odds with my concerns about privacy. If the technology can figure out how to credit the artists who source it, I might touch it.

Upcoming Project: Self‑Hosted eBook Library

I have nearly 2,000 eBooks and comics accumulated over the years; my next goal is to host them on a server I control. I’d like an easy-to-use interface that looks good, shows all metadata, and lets me browse easily from anywhere. Aside from that, I hope this project is simple.

The New Pocket‑Size eReader

I bought a pocket-sized 4-inch Xteink eReader not long ago. While I often read on my phone or tablet, there’s something about having a dedicated e-reader that enhances the reading experience.

That’s it for January so far.