{"version":"https://jsonfeed.org/version/1","title":"Jan's Stuff","home_page_url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/","feed_url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/feed.json","items":[{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2026/first-motorcycle-trip","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2026/first-motorcycle-trip/","title":"First Motorcycle ride of the year","content_html":"
\n

The first somewhat ridable days were weeks ago, but I was either gone or didn’t have the time.

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Today everything serendipitously fell into place: yesterday was warm enough, no frost over night, nice weather on a lazy Saturday afternoon and a buddy of mine was also planning on a short ride.

\n

Started the ride at 80% battery, and rode 55 kilometers in total, down to about 50%. We took it slowly on backroads and gradually increased the riding difficulty. We had all kinds of terrain, flat portions and up and down the hills, easy curves, turnpikes. By the end the sun was about to set and the temperatures started to drop from the 17 degrees we had set out at, down to 13 degrees.

\n

Compared to my (also electric) winter car, it is noticeable how much better the motor and the BMC performs. Not only in output power but in estimating, recouping and saving power.

\n

It was fun every minute of the ride and I’m looking forward to the warmer months, when the conditions are even better and the sun is up for longer.

\n
","date_published":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["motorcycle","zero s 2024"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2026/xteink-4","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2026/xteink-4/","title":"New e-Reader","content_html":"
\n

In 2010 I imported a Barnes & Noble Nook from the U.S. and had devoured tons of books (including Stephen King’s Dark entire Tower Series) on it. Until the screen broke by accident on a vacation two years later.

\n

Since then I had fallen back to reading on Android phones (Aldiko Reader) and iBooks on the iPad mini, then the iPad Pro and then my iPhone after that.

\n

iBooks had automatic syncing, so I could double click a book on the Mac and it would automatically show up on all the other devices. And Screen Fatigue aside, the iPhone’s high-res, self illuminated display is quite nice at night.

\n

Ever since my Nook broke, I had missed the feeling of eInk. But a Kindle device was never an option with their closed-up ecosystem. In the meantime Kobo had released some nice e-Readers (even with color displays) and there even were other portable options.

\n

A full size e-Reader takes up space in your jacket pocket1. I opted to go for a small, cheap and unilluminated one by Xteink with a black & white E-Ink display.

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Xteink X4

\n

Hardware

\n

There’s no Android and thus no support for arbitrary Apps to be installed. For me that is a plus, as it removes unnecessary complexity and saves battery.

\n

Speaking of which, the battery holds up well for me, I have to charge it every couple of weeks. And the ubiquitous USB-C makes charging easy, when needed.

\n

The device is computationally underwhelming, but given the battery size that is also a good thing. Once a book has been “indexed”2, page turns themselves are quick and snappy. But navigating the menu and settings will still take a long second.

\n

My device came with a FAT32 formatted 32 GB Micro SD card in the box, once I took that out and formatted it as ExFAT the entire interface was loading noticeably quicker.

\n

\"Xteink

\n

I’m still a bit confused, their marketing material shows the device attached to an iPhone via MagSafe. Realistically it only fits Pro Max iPhones and according to the Subreddit only certain Models.

\n

\"Xteink

\n

Therefore if you are, like me, in the non-Max club, this is going to be a standalone device for you.

\n

Software

\n

Stock Firmware

\n

The default fonts are perfectly legible. But if the defaults aren’t your cup of tea, there’s tons of great resources out there to customize everything to your liking.

\n

It only supports ePub, TXT and BMP files, no Markdown, no PDF and no Comic Book formats. Which is fine, but should be known before buying.

\n

But even the formats it does support are often broken, For instance there’s stray HTML divs rendered throughout the text. I have yet to try cleaning up the ePub files with a Calibre Plugin to see whether it improves the experience. But coming from the Nook and iBooks I’m used to just copy the Publisher’s ePub files over as-is.

\n

Some book covers and images are missing because modern ones come with SVG files that cannot be rendered, which is a bummer but understandable.

\n

Webinterface

\n

On the plus side, no Internet connection is needed, as there is a Hotspot built-in, that once you connect your phone to it, you can navigate to a barebones web interface and upload ePub files directly there.

\n

\"Screenshot

\n

But in reality the web interface is janky and you have to acknowledge several error messages, upload the file, close some other error message saying that the upload failed (even though it worked) and then disconnect. File management, as in creating folders, moving or deleting files is present but outright doesn’t work.

\n

Custom Firmware

\n

There is an active community developing tools and mods for it. Including an open source alternative firmware that can be flashed. CrossPoint Reader’s interface is more barebones, and has less settings. But the text rendering and the reading experience is way better.

\n

Plus at the moment there is so much work being done, that a new version with new features is dropped literally every few days.

\n

There’s no Hotspot functionality, but once connected to a network3 you can even directly browse Calibre OPDS catalogs without taking out the Storage Card.

\n

Another thing of note: The manufacturer doesn’t seem to like the custom Firmware at all, which is why the devs have been forced to move to a Subreddit of their own.

\n

Should you get one?

\n

I’ve paid 65,48€ including postage and shipping and now have read several books with the Stock Firmware as well as the alternative one and am happy with it.

\n

This is still not a purchase recommendation though, but if you think it has a place in your life, even after I described its flaws here, go ahead and buy it.

\n

The hardware is cheap and lightweight. Do not get it for the Software. If the MagSafe issue doesn’t bother you, get the Chinese X4 from Ali Express and flash the alternative Firmware:

\n

The upcoming X3 will supposedly fix the MagSafe issue, but does have proprietary Pogo Pins instead of USB‑C and it is currently unclear whether it will allow flashing CFW.

\n

Don’t bother with the warranty of the international version — It isn’t worth it for such a cheap device.

\n

You do not have to be able to read a single word of Chinese:

\n \n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    And you have to have it handy, otherwise you’ll end up using it only at home ↩

    \n
    2. \n
  2. \n

    Indexing is what it says, in reality it converts the ePub into its internal binary format that is computationally better suited for the Hardware. ↩

    \n
    3. \n
  3. \n

    Yes, Mobile Hotspot also work. ↩

    \n
    4. \n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2026-01-22T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["reading","eink"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2026/ocean-view","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2026/ocean-view/","title":"Ocean View","content_html":"
\n
\n
\n \n
Ocean View
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\n
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","date_published":"2026-01-03T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["travels","tenerife"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2026/40-questions","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2026/40-questions/","title":"40 Questions","content_html":"
\n

For some years now I fill out Steph Ango’s 40 Questions to reflect over the past year and don’t share it with anybody but store it for future reference for myself.

\n

The questions cover a broad enough base, serving as a good starting point to drill into the year past.

\n

Haven’t tried the decade one yet, but will also do at some point.

\n
","date_published":"2026-01-01T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":[],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/media-report","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/media-report/","title":"Media Report 4/2025","content_html":"
\n

As is customary, I’ve been reading a lot during my vacation:

\n \n

39C3 Talks

\n

Apart from reading I watched a lot of interesting talks from the congress. Interesting to me as a potential buyer of a Steam Frame, was the Fex-Talk. But my pick for the best one so far goes to the Deutschland Ticket one.

\n

Read before my vacation

\n

These I had read before my vacation, during summer or fall but still want to list them somewhere for completeness’ sake:

\n \n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    Most surprisingly: The value of a previously committed return statement can be overridden using a finally statement! ↩

    \n
    2. \n
  2. \n

    Spoiler: It also helps a bit that many of them won’t live through to the end. ↩

    \n
    3. \n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-12-29T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["reading"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/power-woes","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/power-woes/","title":"Power Woes","content_html":"
\n

Another one of those situations where I wake up to a system alert mail. This time nothing broke, but according to this my UPS caught a power outage and kept the system up for 73 minutes this morning.

\n

\"Screenshot

\n

Good to know it works.

\n
","date_published":"2025-12-23T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["ups"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/docker-cleanup","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/docker-cleanup/","title":"Docker cleanup","content_html":"
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This is your friendly reminder to run the prune command every once in a while to unclog slow Docker installs:

\n
\n
\n 
$ docker image prune\n
\n
\n
\n

Especially, if you are using watchtower.

\n
\n

Total reclaimed space: 34.47GB

\n
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","date_published":"2025-12-12T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["docker"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/tool-replacements","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/tool-replacements/","title":"Tool Replacements","content_html":"
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Hazel –> Shortcuts

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One of the functions the Shortcuts.app that ships with macOS Tahoe gained is native support for Folder Actions:

\n

\"\"

\n

Hazel did the job perfectly fine, but onboard tools are obviously preferred.

\n

This sample rule here that moves Android Emulator screen recordings to Photos.app

\n

\"\"

\n

can be replaced using a simple Shortcut:

\n

\"\"

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HiddenBar –> Ice

\n

After the BarTender issues back then I had switched to HiddenBar, which is way simpler than Bartender and works nicely on external monitors (to hide and show rarely used Menubar icons). But unhiding on the MacBook display often moves the leftmost icons under the notch.

\n

Queue Ice, which provides the IceBar (which is an overlay that pops up under the Menubar).

\n
","date_published":"2025-11-27T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["macos"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/maven-repo-outage","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/maven-repo-outage/","title":"Maven repo outage report","content_html":"
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This morning I noticed that several open GitHub PRs failed to build, halfway expected a weird API breakage. But when I decided to look into it, the build runner couldn’t connect to the Maven Repository:

\n
\n

Caused by: java.io.IOException: Unexpected response code for https://maven.alphadev.net/releases/de/sipgate/dachlatten-io/0.0.101/dachlatten-io-0.0.101.pom.sha512. Expected: 200, actual: 502

\n
\n

Quick check in the Browser, and I was greeted with the Reverse Proxy landing page of the host, so the service itself was actually down.

\n

After logging into the Host, it transpired that the host was automatically restarted for an unattended update, but the Docker daemon was somehow corrupted and never came back up again.

\n

The offered “reparation” seemingly entailed reinstalling Docker and restarting with the old data dir, which thankfully wasn’t actually corrupted.

\n

Not exactly sure what had happened here. Will keep an eye out for recurring occurrences. Thankfully the data dir is regularly backed up.

\n
","date_published":"2025-11-22T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["docker"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/shit-dot-shabaka","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/shit-dot-shabaka/","title":"About the time I briefly owned the Arabic shit.net domain","content_html":"
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In 2022 on a whim I acquired the Arabic shit Shabaka Domain (غائط.شبكة). I had no particular plans for it, and all it ever did was to show a huge poop emoji front and center. But boy was it ever fun to see software and mail validators break.

\n

Technically Arabic scripts are valid in domain names using Punycode. In reality though, having a LTR user part and At-sign, followed by the RTL domain, followed by the LTR dot, followed by the RTL TLD was too much to handle for many mail validators.

\n

\"\"

\n

Kudos to Apple’s Mail.app, which had no issues. Neither when setting up the account, nor when using it.

\n

But if it was such fun, why is the domain free right now?

\n

I have never felt as if that domain ever really belonged to me, and have since let it expire. It is now free to grab and for you to have your fun with it.

\n
","date_published":"2025-11-13T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["dns"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/hasher","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/hasher/","title":"Hasher","content_html":"
\n

Over the years I ran into the same issue again and again, that I found some old files on a hard drive or a directory with files somewhere on a machine and I didn’t remember its purpose or the state it was in.

\n

For source code git solves this problem in a neat fashion, but you wouldn’t typically commit binaries, PSD, large amounts of JPEGs, RAW images or even Video files. I had always longed for a quick and easy way to check the difference between two folders.

\n

Last month on a long train ride I tried whether AI could help me solve this with shell scripts and readily available UNIX tools1. And the initial version did work, but was awfully slow (we’re talking dozens of minutes). And since I wanted to dabble in Rust for quite a while now but have never gotten around to it, I tried vibe coding the thing with Claude.

\n

Claude came back with 3 simple files2 that compiled and run without error and now run the same thing that took 20 minutes earlier with the shell script in 34 seconds! This definitely goes into my $HOME/bin dir.

\n

I cleaned it up and put it on GitHub. As of now I consider it feature complete, and I have successfully tested it on Linux and macOS.

\n

Considerations

\n

The program uses SHA256 because that is safe and future-proof enough, available just about everywhere and in most cases even hardware-accelerated.

\n

When hashing a directory, it will create a sorted listing of its contents, where each of the entries contains its type, name and hash. This makes this safe and comparable.

\n

To drill into directories further the -v command can be used to show the hashes of the entries.

\n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    I was told that AI was super good in writing Shell scripts ↩

    \n
    2. \n
  2. \n

    Cargo.toml, main.rs, ReadMe.md ↩

    \n
    3. \n
\n
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","date_published":"2025-10-25T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["rust"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/git-merge-vs-rebase","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/git-merge-vs-rebase/","title":"Git Merge vs. Rebase","content_html":"
\n

As a programmer one encounters varying levels of git-prowess. 95% of all use-cases are covered by commit, checkout and merge, and when something goes wrong the occasional arcane shell invocation from Stack Overflow does the rest.

\n

Investing the time to understand the tools used on a daily basis is a worthwhile investment. Analogous to Clean Code, keeping a sane git graph makes things faster, easier to parse visually and let’s you see who did what exactly, why and when much more precise.

\n

That is why I much prefer the Rebase Flow to the Merge Flow. In my opinion unnecessary merges clutter the graph and needlessly mix up unrelated changes.

\n

Sample Scenario

\n

\"\"\n [Source]

\n

Suppose we have the following graph: We branched out from main at commit b, and then did work on c and d, while on the main something else was fixed, say a colleague found a bug in commit b that was fixed in commit e that is now conflicting with our changes in c.

\n

Rebase flow

\n

When we now rebase feature on top of main we get something that looks like this:

\n

\"\"\n [Source]

\n

We essentially history rewrote the feature branch by changing the branching out point of the feature branch from b to f and reapplying the changes of c and d.

\n

Since our new branching point is f we automatically get the bugfix from commit e, but have to fix the conflicts when applying commit c, making it c'. And because commit d was based on c (d is a set of changes to be applied to c to reach the desired state at d) it now becomes d'.

\n

History Rewriting! This should only be done on clean branches that aren’t shared between lots of devs, high traffic branches, or semantic branches (like release)!

\n

Once the rebase is done, we have two options Fast-Forward Merge or Non Fast-Forward Merge. Different people and teams handle this differently. I use both depending on the shape of the feature branch. If it is only a single commit with few changed lines, I go for the fast-forward variant, otherwise non-fast-forward is always a good option to keep the mainline clean.

\n

Fast-Forward Merge

\n

\"\"\n [Source]

\n

Since we rewrote our feature branch to contain the changes of c and d but with the conflicts resolved (c' and d') it will cleanly apply on top of f using a fast-forward merge.

\n

Non Fast-Forward Merge

\n

\"\"\n [Source]

\n

Same goes for the non-ff-merge, it will cleanly non-fast-forward merge, but it will now have its own merge commit that allows us to document the feature and some clients, like my beloved Sublime Merge do support collapsing of merge commits (and showing the combined diff of the entire branch when selected), which in the best case makes the mainline a series of standalone feature merge commits.

\n

Merge Flow

\n

The merge flow also allows us to integrate the bugfix of commit e into our feature branch. But remember the changes in e and d are conflicting. That means we do have to solve the conflicts all the same.

\n

\"\"\n [Source]

\n

Then when it comes to merging the thing back, depending on the complexity of our conflict resolution of c and e, we may now have to solve new conflicts that arise from e already being on the mainline and us trying to merge a modified version of e (e plus conflict resolution changes) back into main. These conflicts are easily solved most of the time, mostly preferring using the fixed variant from the feature branch. But not always, code is messy.

\n

Oh, and now that we have merged main into the feature branch, this effectively blocks the feature branch from being rebased. It technically is possible, but really painful and hard to get right.

\n

\"\"\n [Source]

\n

After the merge back to main, it looks like this. We now have persisted the conflict and its resolution in full to the mainline.

\n

Observations

\n

Comparing the difference in simplicity between the final graphs of the two methods, one rewrote the history to a cleaner state, only keeping what will be of interest in the future (namely that the bugfix happened in e and that the feature branch contained the commits c' and d', with proper author attribution and commit messages), while the other was more work and left the graph in a messier state.

\n
","date_published":"2025-10-03T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["git"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/static-site-search","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/static-site-search/","title":"Static Site Search","content_html":"
\n

I partially write this blog for me, for future reference, partially to help others who encounter similar issues and to lesser extent to have a link with well-formed thoughts that I can share instead of having to come up with lengthy explanation in situ.

\n

When I needed to refer to an old post I used to do a Google search with the site:jan.alphadev.net operator and a keyword, but for years now it had stopped working. Google indexes only a small portion of the page even though all posts and pages are listed in the Sitemap and are properly reachable. Google’s Search Console isn’t of any use either.

\n

Meanwhile I did grep the Markdown sources for this blog for the thing I needed, which worked but doesn’t work on mobile and can only be done by me.

\n
\n

Yeah, well, I’m gonna go build my own theme park. With blackjack and hookers! In fact forget the park.

\n

– Bender

\n
\n

The plan to finally add my own search has been percolating in the back of my head for more than a year and I had even started to experiment with pagefind, but I never got the integration into Jekyll working properly1.

\n

This morning I stumbled over this post by Stephan Miller, that described how lightweight and easy the implementation using Lunr.js is, and now… I do have my own search index.

\n

I opted go all the way by pre-computing the entire index during build-time and then push it along with the rest of the static files. (/assets/index.json, if you’re curious). At the time of writing the entire index is approximately 1.2 MB in size. But is only loaded when you visit the /search page.

\n

Both Lunr itself and the index are loaded from this domain2 and once successfully loaded, work entirely offline. No requests are sent anywhere.

\n

The only downside are the 1.2 MB initial load and the requirement for working JavaScript. But it is still way better than having to grep Markdown files.

\n

Supposedly there are all kinds of smarts that can be enabled during index creation, I have left everything default for now, but let’s see how long that lasts.

\n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    Have I mentioned that I dislike the way Ruby feels? Their whole premise is DX, but I just can’t get accustomed to it. It is just not for me. ↩

    \n
    2. \n
  2. \n

    Yes, I know, technically GitLab Pages underneath ↩

    \n
    3. \n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-09-27T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":[],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/droidcon","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/droidcon/","title":"The Scope Creep","content_html":"
\n
\n
\n \n
DroidCon was nice, learned some things, am axhausted, will now head to the city to grab a bite.
\n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-09-26T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["berlin","droidcon"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/firsts","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/firsts/","title":"Firsts","content_html":"
\n

Well there will always be a first. This time it is the first time I not only dislike, but outright despise an OS update. Well done, Apple.

\n

At the moment Reddit is full of techy people who want to turn it off again (and no, reduce transparency doesn’t solve the weird bubble borders around everything).

\n

Wait until the general public finds out about this. It is going to turn the “install the latest updates to be safe online” to “do NOT install the new iOS otherwise your phone will look and feel like shit”.

\n

Calling it right now: The next few months will be full of tales from people who have their friends and family ask them for advice after they had accidentally installed iOS 26 and now can’t get rid of it anymore.

\n

But hey, at least nobody will talk about how shitty Siri and Apple Intelligence is anymore, right?

\n
","date_published":"2025-09-15T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["apple","iOS","macos"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/sustainable-products","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/sustainable-products/","title":"Sustainable Products","content_html":"
\n

I just returned from a camping trip with the motorcycle. While packing up my gear, I noticed that the tree straps are starting to fray. This is the moment I usually make a mental note to look for replacements, so that they are ready to go should the other ones fail.

\n

Hummingbird Hammocks

\n

My hammock and straps both are from Hummingbird Hammocks, and I am very satisfied with it. It is comfy, lightweight and packs down to an ultra small size.

\n

Unfortunately they went out of business 10 months ago and have put all their designs a cut patterns, pretty much everything on GitHub under the MIT license. I am sad that they are gone, and awestruck by their brazen move to still uphold the quality promise to their customers at the same time.

\n

Helinox

\n

Some other gear I love and use regularly are my Helinox Lite Cot, which has a small tear in the fabric. I emailed them about it and without hesitation they sent me the replacement part free of charge. I haven’t yet installed it, but keep it handy should the tear get to the point that using it becomes uncomfortable.

\n

Valleys & Hills

\n

Another one is my travel towel from Valleys & Hills, which is packs down well, is lightweight, drys quickly and doesn’t smell. They are sold by a local couple near where I live that is travelling by van and couldn’t find any suitable products, then decided to make them themselves. Highly recommend.

\n

And no, I still don’t make any money with this. I am merely a satisfied customer wanting them all to succeed, in order for them to be able to uphold the quality and sustainability promises to their customers (e.g. me).

\n
","date_published":"2025-09-07T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["camping","motorcycle","sustainability"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/compiler-explorer-for-kotlin","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/compiler-explorer-for-kotlin/","title":"Compiler Explorer for Kotlin","content_html":"
\n

In addition to the ever fantastic Kotlin Playground, I regularly use to answer quick questions, as of last summer Matt Godbolt’s Compiler Explorer has gained the ability to analyse various Android formats, including Java, Dex and Kotlin.

\n

Godbolt is suited to answer questions about rather smaller, self-contained snippets of code. Larger binaries and whole apps are best dissected using Apktool or jd-gui, which thankfully are both open source1, 2.

\n

Additionally, JetBrains’ Fernflower comes in handy when you want to dissect some code. RIP Stiver.

\n
","date_published":"2025-08-16T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["godbolt","kotlin"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/trip-report-schwaebische-alb","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/trip-report-schwaebische-alb/","title":"Trip Report: Schwäbische Alb","content_html":"
\n

\"Screenshot

\n

Ulm

\n

Last Sunday afternoon I was off to Ulm to attend this year’s Nabada and subsequent Schwörmontag Party in the old town. Making sure to avoid the Autobahn, sticking to Bundesstraße only, the trip was smooth almost throughout.

\n

Apple Maps had a few hiccups where in order to avoid the Bundesstraße it would try to lead me onto a bicycle lane that runs right along the Bundesstraße, but after ignoring that it recalculated and lead me the correct way.

\n

Shortly before reaching Ulm it had tried to send me onto the Autobahn, which is why I made a quick stop in Merklingen and restarted the routing with the “Avoid Motorways” option again1.

\n

Arriving in Ulm I had approximately 120 km charge left, which is why I decided to park it and leave it there until departure.

\n

Luckily, I made it there right in time before the rain and heavy winds started.

\n

Lake Constance

\n

The next leg of the journey was unremarkable, had to charge at the mid-point, which was either Biberach or Bad Saulgau.

\n

Went with the first option and charged the bike at an EnBW charger at the Landratsamt Biberach. Rolled in there with 28 kms left, took 50 minutes to full charge, no issues.

\n

The way onwards was nothing but beautiful, Maps had lead me through weird and narrow forrest roads. But the view was breathtaking.

\n

Arriving with 46 km rest charge in Bodman-Ludwigshafen at the Lake Constance, I was lazy and decided to make the charging a tomorrow problem.

\n

Black Forrest

\n

For the onward leg, I still had to charge. Nowadays I rarely use the public chargers, but every time I try to use an Aldi one I run into weird issues. This time no debit or credit card worked, not even unlocking it with the Mobility+ using the QR code.

\n

I found a different charger in a residential area, built and operated by their housing association. I initially started the charge using the Mobility+ app via Roaming, but then found their app instructions posted to a wall. After downloading their ChargeAtFriends app and setting up an account, I cancelled the charge process and restarted using theirs.

\n

The journey to the Black Forrest was nice and unremarkable, beautiful but not as ridiculously beautiful as the roads were the day before.

\n

Blumberg was the mid-point to take a break and decide if I was going further to the Titisee Lake for hammock camping or go back home due to the shitty weather that was predicted for the next few days. If I opted to make the way back home, I would have to recharge, whereas I would easily make it to the Lake Titisee with the remaining charge.

\n

I hooked it up to an EnBW charger and went to see the Schleifenbachwasserfälle while the bike was charging.

\n

Return to Home

\n

Since the B27 runs from Blumberg straight through Tübingen I had assumed it would be 2 hours of riding Bundesstraße. Road constructions and diversions lead me right off it and through Towns, Country Roads and lots and lots of roundabouts.

\n

I decided to make a short break in Balingen, then continue on back home. One last diversion caused by another construction site briefly lead me through a dirt road into the wrong direction, but after that was cleared I made it home.

\n

Resumé

\n

Total: Distance 436 km, Charging costs 11,35 € (+ the amount I had to top it up at home again)

\n

All in all I made it through the entire trip without any bad weather2.

\n

Takeaways

\n \n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    I already had it set to “Avoid Motorways” when I set out. But it seems to have forgotten. ↩

    \n
    2. \n
  2. \n

    That always happened after my arrival. ↩

    \n
    3. \n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-07-26T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["motorcycle","zero s 2024","travels"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/gear-replacements","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/gear-replacements/","title":"Gear Replacements","content_html":"
\n

To continue on my last Gear Replacements post, here’s what has happened since:

\n

Helmet

\n

After my motorcycle accident I replaced my Scorpion EXO 1200 Air with a Scorpion EXO 520 Evo, which is okay but has noticably more wind noise at higher speeds. It protects my head, but is quite annoying.

\n

Keyboard

\n

Due to a coffee-related accident, I lost my CoolerMaster Quick Fire Rapid-i, which had been in use since 2015. During that 10 years, which include almost 5 years of everyday home office use, it was extensively used (and completely taken apart and thoroughly cleaned once a year) and thus looked the part. It is now replaced with a Keychron K3 QMK v3 with Banana Switches. Over it’s lifetime the Firmware was updated several times, but I had always lamented the lack of customizable QMK firmware, which just wasn’t a thing yet when I acquired it.

\n

AirPod Pro 2

\n

I replaced my AirPod Pros with the second gen a while ago. No comparison. Get the new version even if the old ones are on sale!

\n

WD Red

\n

Another one of those instances where I woke up to some alert from the NAS: A drive had died, so I ordered two replacements. One to replace the broken drive with and on spare. They arrived 3 days later, unfortunately after 2 days the second drive in the NAS died, taking the entire volume with it. I then ordered 3 more drives to start totally fresh. So now I have 5 brand new WD Red drives, 4 in the NAS and 1 spare.

\n
","date_published":"2025-07-18T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["travels","gear"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/copenhagen","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/copenhagen/","title":"Copenhagen","content_html":"
\n
\n
\n \n
Copenhagen
\n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-05-23T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["travels","copenhagen"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/localsend","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/localsend/","title":"LocalSend","content_html":"
\n

There’s AirDrop for Apple Devices and there’s Quick Share for Android. But in order to transfer data across ecosystem boundaries, one needed to upload the data to a cloud service first and then download everything again on the receiving device.

\n

LocalSend is an open-source, cross-platform implementation in Dart. It works on a plethora of different platforms like all major Desktop and Mobile OSes, but also supports headless clients for automations.

\n
","date_published":"2025-04-26T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":[],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/motorcycle-post-mortem","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/motorcycle-post-mortem/","title":"Motorcycle Accident Post Mortem","content_html":"
\n \n

On Thursday 20th February 2025 at 14:06 I had a motorcycle accident. I lost traction at low speed (approx. 35km/h) and was thrown off, landed hard, rolled over several times. This post will serve as a post mortem which drills into the causes, describes mitigative measures and preventative steps.

\n

Note: This post had started in my head, while laying awake in a hospital bed the night after the crash, but publishing has been deliberately delayed until all the legal proceedings have concluded.

\n

Issue summary.

\n

Several smaller causes, each not severe enough to outright cause a crash, combined, lead to catastrophic failure.

\n

A Timeline.

\n

Monday 25. January 2025

\n \n

Thursday 20. February 2025

\n \n

Impact and Mitigation

\n

Ambulance driver, 5 hours of wait time in the emergency room, pain in shoulder did not set in until 90 min after the accident.

\n

Root cause analysis

\n

Below operating temperature

\n

The 12V battery being too cold to operate and needing to be heated, should have served as a giant red flag that the entire bike was below operating temperature. While bikes do not need winter tires in Germany, the rubber mix isn’t made to be ridden at low temperatures.

\n

Air temperature during the accident was 13°C, but the bikes temperature sensor showed 4°C at the main battery pack, which is safe to assume the rest of the bike (including tires) had a similar temperature.

\n

Sport mode

\n

Forgetting to set back the ride mode to Standard or Rain, even after clearing the errors might have lead to the throttle to respond with too much torque than the situation could handle.

\n

Contributing factors

\n

Protective gear

\n

Because the planned route was merely 450 m, donning the proper protective gear was omitted, leading to scratches and bruises.

\n

Wearing proper protective gear might have led to sliding on the contact pads instead of the torso having to dissipate the excess momentum by rolling over.

\n

Ground composition

\n

Freshly mended construction site with spots of fresh asphalt. Wet spot, shaded by a large house.

\n

Considered contributing factor because “a wet road” shouldn’t directly lead to an accident, but will factor into it.

\n

Unknown tire pressure

\n

The bike has just come out of winter sleep and was yet to be checked for sufficient tire pressures. That was to be the next step after charging and a good cleaning.

\n

Resolution and recovery

\n

Shoulder surgery

\n
\n \n \n
\n

I have since received a shoulder surgery where they applied a titanium bracket to fix my broken collar bone in place, until the bone grows back together.

\n

Restore bike

\n

\"\"

\n

After the initial assessment the handlebar was mauled by the asphalt, the bike has lost its foot pegs on the right side and the rear brake lever. But other than that it seems unharmed1. Frame is not bent, the battery and drive train are fine.

\n

Corrective and preventative measures

\n
    \n
  1. Heed warning signs and red flags!
    2. \n
  2. Always wear protective gear (even for short trips of a few hundred meters)
    3. \n
  3. Check temperatures before riding and let bike soak in the sun if too cold
    4. \n
  4. Buy a cheap battery powered tire pump and pressure gauge and regularly check tires
    5. \n
\n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    It ended up needing a new rear brake pump. ↩

    \n
    2. \n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-04-04T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["motorcycle","zero s 2024"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/fun-with-drives2","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/fun-with-drives2/","title":"Fun with drives, again","content_html":"
\n

Monday: Another one of those instances where I woke up to an alert mail:

\n
\n

Storage Pool 2 on XXXXXX has degraded (total number of drives: 2; number of active drives: 1).

\n
\n

Presumably after a system update and subsequent reboot one of the two M.2 drives couldn’t be found anymore. Not only as part of the Storage Pool but it didn’t show up at all.

\n

First, I tried rebooting, which didn’t change anything.

\n

And for good measure I ran the script that adds the non-Synology blessed drives again. It dutifully reported the drive models were added to the database.

\n

And after a reboot to load the new database it still didn’t show up.

\n

To not break anything further by hastily trying things out, I muted the alarm. The storage pool was online and working albeit being degraded. Fixing this must be postponed until time allows.

\n

Scheduled maintenance

\n

On Saturday my new UPS arrived and to hook it up I had to shutdown the machine. While it was powered off I removed both drives and reseated them.

\n

When I booted up the device again the second drive mysteriously appeared. The drive was detected but the storage pool could not be repaired because the drive supposedly wasn’t compatible but adding it to the pool as replacement for the missing drive did work.

\n

Of Note

\n \n

Further proceedings

\n

As with last time: Nothing.

\n

Now all drives are recognised and all storage pools are working properly. Time will tell if the next update breaks the pools again. But now that I have documented the steps taken, recovery time should be negligible.

\n
","date_published":"2025-03-23T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["synology"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/semi-automatic-appearance-switching","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/semi-automatic-appearance-switching/","title":"Semi-Automatic macOS Dark/Light mode switching","content_html":"
\n

I prefer to keep the appearance setting to auto, so that my computer will be in light mode during the day and in dark mode at night.

\n

\"Appearance

\n

But sometimes when working in a particularly dim or an exceedingly bright room, I like to override this using this simple shortcut here:

\n

\"Shortcut

\n

This would work, but then permanently set it to the opposite value, say I’d invoke the shortcut during the day, it would set it to dark mode and stay that way forever.

\n

Even weirder: The Auto option isn’t even available via the Shortcuts interface. So you’d have to remember1 to go to the System Preferences and switch it back to auto or keep manually switching using the Shortcut.

\n

2nd approach: Programmatically setting the value

\n

macOS stores all settings in .plist files, which can be accessed using the defaults command. The automatic switching and interface style can be found under the following keys:

\n
\n
\n 
AppleInterfaceStyleSwitchesAutomatically = 1\nAppleInterfaceStyle = Dark\n
\n
\n
\n

But for the changes to the .plist to take effect you’d have to log out and log in again, which is not optimal for a casual action.

\n

3rd approach: Telling UI Automator to tell macOS to switch

\n

The UI Automator can override the values both immediately and will not overwrite the the auto setting.

\n

\"tell

\n

This now properly works, while being overly complicated (Shortcut running Apple Script, invoking UI Automator to change a simple value in a .plist) it ticks all the boxes for me.

\n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    or notice days later ↩

    \n
    2. \n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-03-05T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["macos","shortcuts"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/opml-tool","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/opml-tool/","title":"OPML tool","content_html":"
\n

As already hinted at in the Tracking Newsfeed changes post, I have written a small tool that reads an OPML file, reformats it in a reproducible way, and then outputs it back again into the same file.

\n

It was deeply entangled with the greater RSS project I am working on in the background. But I got it successfully separated and put a minimal Amper wrapper1 around it, which is way more lightweight than a comparable Gradle-based build.

\n

You can grab it here and try for yourself:

\n
    \n
  1. Clone the repo\n
    \n
    \n 
    git clone git@github.com:janseeger/kotlin-opml.git\n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    2. \n
  2. Export the OPML file from your RSS reader of choice and put it in an empty directory\n
    \n
    \n 
     mkdir rss\n mv feeds.opml rss/\n git init rss\n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    3. \n
  3. Format the OPML\n
    \n
    \n 
     cd kotlin-opml\n ./amper run ../rss/feeds.opml\n cd ..\n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    4. \n
  4. Track changes using git\n
    \n
    \n 
     cd rss\n git add feeds.oml\n git commit -m \"initially adding feed\"\n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    5. \n
\n

From now on, you can repeat steps 3 and 4, and depending on the cadence and quality of your change messages you’ll get a nice record of what happened to your subscriptions:

\n \n

And now?

\n

I get that this won’t fix all your problems, but at least, if done regularly can provide interesting insights into your feed, and if nothing else serves as a nice backup.

\n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    While Amper is not yet ready for large projects, it works wonderfully for small ones like this. ↩

    \n
    2. \n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-02-14T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["kotlin","opml"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/hello-jellyfin","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/hello-jellyfin/","title":"Hello, Jellyfin!","content_html":"
\n

After years of deliberation, and a short but unsuccessful test run in the past, I finally made the switch to from Plex over to Jellyfin.

\n

The migration itself was the easiest part, as in the past I had started to use the Dockerised version of Plex again, which again does have folder permission issues when mounting the data into the Container, but thanks to watchtower gets updated in a timely manner (within hours of a new update dropping).

\n

For the switch all I had to do was to download the Jellyfin docker image, mount the same media folders that Plex had and start it up. After a few clicks in the user interface, it was ready to go: I switched the destination in the reverse proxy to the new instance and stopped the Plex container.

\n

All this merely took a couple of minutes.

\n

App Support

\n

It took me a while to get all the apps replaced, with all the features I want.

\n

macOS

\n \n

AppleTV

\n \n

iOS

\n \n

Android

\n \n
","date_published":"2025-01-28T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["plex","jellyfin"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/motorcycle-comms","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/motorcycle-comms/","title":"Motorcycle Comms","content_html":"
\n

The first riding season I deliberately did not listen to music or podcasts, I wanted to experience the journey. Keep the focus on the road ahead.

\n

For this second upcoming season I wanted to try a headset, hoping that this would also solve my audio problems.

\n

After much deliberation, I went with the Kardo one instead of Sena. And for future-proofing, it also had to be a mesh-capable one. So, no Freecom for me.

\n

This leaves the Packtalk Edge, Neo and Louis Edition. According to some AI slop pages, the main difference between the Edge and Neo are bigger speakers (44 mm instead of 40 mm) and that you don’t have to manually plug/unplug the USB-C when mounting.

\n

There wasn’t much on the specifics of the Louis Edition apart from the older version where it seemed to have been a rebranded Packtalk Bold. But since my helmet1 only has space to accommodate 40mm speakers anyway, I decided to give it a try.

\n

Packtalk Louis Edition (Neo)

\n

Installation was a matter of minutes2 and the voice quality is after quick testing more than nice enough for my purposes.

\n

The updated Louis Edition headset is a rebranded Packtalk Neo, which is why it comes with the smaller speakers. Unfortunately, I only noticed this halfway through the installation. I was more preoccupied with properly routing the cables than to look where they terminate. I’ll stick with the Neo for now, but had I known, I would have gone for the Edge.

\n

\"Image

\n

Since the USB-C cable is separate from the mounting base, I now always have to put the device on or find a way to tie up the loose cable. Otherwise it will get annoying pretty fast.

\n

If you think about getting the Neo or Louis Edition, spend some more and get the Packtalk Edge where the connectors are built-in pogo pins.

\n

Left to do

\n

I’ll report back once this thing has seen a few KMs of road.

\n

Apart from the indoor voice quality and functionality check, I haven’t seen much. I don’t know yet how long the battery lasts, or if it will work nicely being connected to the phone (to manage mesh participants), while being connected to the CarPlay display. Same goes for my Phone.

\n
\n
    \n
  1. \n

    Scorpion Exo 1200-Air ↩

    \n
    2. \n
  2. \n

    If you know how to disassemble and properly reassemble the paddings of your helmet ↩

    \n
    3. \n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2025-01-12T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["motorcycle","zero s 2024","bluetooth"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/more-zero-modifications","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/more-zero-modifications/","title":"More Motorcycle Electric Mods","content_html":"
\n

USB-C PD charger

\n

Ostensibly the bike can easily provide up to 500W accessory power using its 12V DC-DC converter. But the built-in USB ports are USB-A and are therefore for phones and other smaller devices.

\n

I extended the accessory power lead along the chassis under the riders seat back to the top case, where a weatherproof detachable connector passes power to the inside.

\n

\"100W

\n

The Pekaway 100W USB-C PD adapter was originally designed for caravan but works fine for bikes and MacBooks and Steam Decks. With that the electric mods are done.

\n
","date_published":"2025-01-05T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["motorcycle","zero s 2024"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/analytics","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2025/analytics/","title":"Analytics","content_html":"
\n

I just looked it up in git: This blog had used Google Analytics from 10th October 2014 until I removed it again on 25th of January 2018. Originally I had removed it because the data wasn’t of much use to me, rather was a liability.

\n

But to satisfy my curiousity, I just added the tinylytics Snippet into the footer of this page. They host in Europe, are GDPR-compliant, and do seem to collect only minimal info (they don’t seem as focused on moving people through marketing funnels as others are). And they provide to option to publicly show the data, so effectively you get to see the same reports I do.

\n

This is an experiment, if I can get something positive out of it, I might go ahead with analytics. Or remove it again, if it turns out to be of no use to me.

\n
","date_published":"2025-01-03T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["analytics"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/reliably-insecure","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/reliably-insecure/","title":"Reliably Insecure","content_html":"
\n

Scott Helme has built a small utility webpage that will exclusively work over non-secure HTTP:

\n

http://httpforever.com

\n

Furthermore it is intended for public use ❤️. This is handy for captive portals and various test cases.

\n

found via Jeff Johnson

\n
","date_published":"2024-12-24T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":[],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/link-rot","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/link-rot/","title":"Link Rot","content_html":"
\n

Wouter from Brain Baking inspired me to check the liveness of the links I link to from this site.

\n

I too based my calculations on _post instead of _site, which makes for simpler link parsing and cleanup. Plus this excludes the links to this site here, since they are being generated on each publish and thus are guaranteed to be up-to-date.

\n

Technically they can break, but all pages are always rebuilt on publish, and the build log would show those as warning. Except for legacy redirect aliases, but those were already covered by the Google Webmaster Search Console Tools.

\n

Show me the Details

\n
\n
\n 
_posts % grep -h -re \"http[s?]\\:\" . > ~/links.txt\n
\n
\n
\n

That gives me 289 raw results from 116 posts (minus this one).

\n

After removing the cruft before and after the links using .*(http.*)[\\)>].* with $1, there were a few placeholder links left, like in here, here or here.

\n

First without the follow-redirects option to capture the Redirects status codes.

\n
\n
\n 
for url in $(cat links.txt)\ndo\n    curl -I -o /dev/null -w \"%{url}: %{http_code}\" \"$url\"\n    echo \"\\n\"\ndone > curl.txt\n
\n
\n
\n

While executing this, two domains weren’t even able to resolve/connect: www.saltstack.com which they forgot to redirect after the VMWare acquisition and nitter.net for obvious reasons.

\n

And a second time with the redirects followed to see which links actually show “something” when clicked:

\n
\n
\n 
for url in $(cat links.txt)\ndo\n   curl -IL -o /dev/null -w \"%{url} -> %{url_effective}: %{http_code}\" \"$url\"\n   echo \"\\n\"\ndone > curl.txt\n
\n
\n
\n

Results

\n

Of the 289 links 276 remained after deduplication, 274 of which I got a response. Plus 405 responses for 7 requests that disallow HEAD requests, but which worked after switching those to GET:

\n

\"Bar

\n

With redirects enabled this makes a total of 230 working links out of 274, resulting in 16.06% link rot.

\n

I notice a lot of broken GitHub and Google Play Store links in there, even if Manton Reese’s theory holds true, only those that are not explicitly unpublished remain there:

\n
\n

… of all the new web companies, there are only two that will last 100 years, still hosting our stuff at URLs that don’t change: GitHub and Automattic

\n
\n

But still far from the 38% to 66.5% mark.

\n
","date_published":"2024-12-23T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":[],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/throwback","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/throwback/","title":"Throwback Thursday","content_html":"
\n
\n
\n \n
Tools of darker times that have lost their utility since.
\n
\n
\n
","date_published":"2024-12-19T17:25:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":[],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/fun-with-drives","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/fun-with-drives/","title":"Fun with Drives","content_html":"
\n

I have been setting up a new NAS1 at home, and unlike the old one this new one does have two NVME slots for cache or fast storage. And since I tend to end up fully speccing out my systems, I wanted to add two SSDs and 32GBs of RAM from the get-go.

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There were two options, either buy the Synology original parts, or go with compatible 3rd-party ones and forgo the genuineness checks. Naturally I went with the janky way and added two 16GB Crucial sticks and two 2TB WD Red NVME drives. As expected the NVME drives were present but weren’t recognised as compatible, which this handy script from GitHub changed. It created the bare Storage Pool from which Volumes could then be managed in the Storage Manager App as usual. Everything was fine and worked.

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The other day I woke up to a message from my NAS in my inbox, telling me that the Storage Pool was degraded:

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Storage Pool 2 on $hostname has degraded (total number of |drives: 2; number of active drives: 1).

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Several reasons may result in storage pool degradation. Please go to Storage Manager > Storage to understand the cause of degradation, or refer to this article to learn how to repair a degraded storage pool.

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From Synology - $hostname

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Muting the alarm

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Did I mention this thing beeps like crazy?! You can temporarily disable the alarm under Control Panel > Hardware & Power > Beep Control. Thankfully this stops the beeping for the current incident only and keeps all further alarms enabled.

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I then proceeded to shutdown the entire system, remove and visually inspecting the drives. Looked good, so back in they went and after booting up again the beeping continues.

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The Storage Manager tells me that Storage Pool 2 was degraded because there was no redundancy, but didn’t offer to re-add the second drive again (due to the janky grafted-on parts). Okay there’s no way to fix it in the WebUI, to the terminal then. I dissected the M2_Volume script to ascertain how it functions, and it seems to be a fancy semi-automatic wrapper around Synology’s synostgpool. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it to modify an existing Storage Pool, it merely supports creating a new one, which means the existing data gets wiped.

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After some back and forth I then decided the rebuild the Storage Pool. Stopped the Container Manager and Plex Server that were still running off of the degraded Pool (thankfully Config/Database only, the media files are located on spinning rust). And then proceeded to re-created the Storage Pool using the Script again. It finished without any indication of an error and a new Storage Pool show up in the Storage Manager. But with one drive (I had selected both and the correct ones, re-checked the terminal with the inputs again to make sure).

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By accident I stumbled over this, which is by the same person, which promises to overwrite the Compatibility Database to enable the Storage Manager to use the drives as if they were supported.

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Executed the script, went to Storage Manager and manually added the second NVME drive to the 1-drive Pool and off we go.\n I should have done the HDD script from the beginning, it modifies the NAS and those modifications have to be applied after every OS update. But that is manageable (perhaps even with a startup-script?) and allows me to conveniently use the GUI, while the M.2 Volume script initially creates the drive and then you’re on your own.

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I’m writing this as the Storage Pool is rebuilding, and have lost a few hours worth of time. I did wonder if buying official Synology NVME would have prevented the issue. But they don’t make the drives either, they buy something off the shelf as well and slap their own sticker on. Plus WD Red are explicitly made for NAS use.

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Oh, well. I will report back if it happens again or if I find out what is the cause of this.

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  1. \n

    Synology DS923+ ↩

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","date_published":"2024-10-30T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["synology"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}},{"id":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/trip-report-black-forest","url":"https://jan.alphadev.net/blog/2024/trip-report-black-forest/","title":"Trip Report: Black Forest","content_html":"
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The last item on the agenda before shuttering my motorcycle for the winter was to do a tour through the Black Forest. And the long weekend with the public holiday came in handy.

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As assurance I kept to bigger cities where there’s plenty of chargers of varying providers. The first few stops were spaced comfortably apart, so that there wouldn’t be any need for charging on the road. While the way back home, I tried to stretch the legs far apart to get a feel for long-distance reach.

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Karlsruhe

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Rainy, 10-14 degrees Celcius. Started the trip with 100% charge, reached Karlsruhe with a little below 50%. That is when the run-around started.

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ZKM Parking

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Parking Garage where you pay 1,30€ per hour, charging is free. Number plate scanner that at the barrier also works for motorcycles. The one charger they had was occupied. Had to pay 1€ to check that the charger wasn’t available.

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ChargeOne - Amalienstraße

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Had 17 of 20 chargers unoccupied, but the barrier wouldn’t open because they had switched from paper tickets on entry to a number plate scanner that only works for front-mounted plates. Because of the public holiday no personell was present to manually open the barrier. Oh well.

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ChargeOne - Kreuzstraße

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Haven’t seen the barrier, leads down below ground and the tunnel entrance had a sign posted that said: no entry for motorcycles. I didn’t want to find out if it would have opened for me, if that meant having to push the heavy bike back up the hill in reverse if it didn’t. On to the next one.

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EnBW - Hans Thoma Straße

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Depending on which App you use there is either, one, two or no charging station here, but I had to check for myself because one of the apps had to be correct. It does exist and has two charging ports, one of which is working and was already occupied.

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The second it seems was disabled via configuration because there wasn’t enough space to park another car next to it.

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Down to 44% battery.

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Stadtwerke Rastatt - Lammstraße

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Did not find anything there. The coordinates pointed to a pedestrian zone. Couldn’t see any chargers or signage, but unlikely for 20 chargers to be located roadside in a pedestrian zone anyways.

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EnBW - Yorckstraße

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This one was initially occupied, but since it had taken me over an hour to drive from charging station to charging station, it was free again. Plugged in with less than 40%.

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I don’t want to know how tedious this must have been ten years ago. Trying the available charging poles one by one, while on low battery.

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Offenburg

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After a nice breakfast (Menemen) I rode south along the Rhine river towards Offenburg. The day before I had filled the bike to 100% even though I knew it wouldn’t be needed.

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The ride went smoothly, dry roads, no rain and a cool 12-14 degrees Celsius throughout. I arrived with a bit more than 60% charge. And decided to top for 20 minutes to 80% for the next day, which would be light on the consumption as well.

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ComfortCharge - Okenstraße

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Didn’t know that Deutsche Telekom also provides charging stations. But everybody seems to have them now, and it worked.

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I used the Mobility+ App to remotely unlock the charger. There probably would have been a cheaper option, but I wanted to test it out and also didn’t have the need to fill it up completely.

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Freiburg

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I started the day the right way with a Butterbrezel, Coissant and a pot of Coffee, and then continued the journey with just over 70% charge and reached Freiburg with approximately 45% left.

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Has To Be - Hansjakobstraße

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The charging socket is initially locked until you unlock it using a 67€ deposit payable via either Credit Card or PayPal. I set the bike to fully charge because the way back up will be a long stretch.

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Trip conclusion

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Reach anxiety isn’t warranted at all. Not with the fast charger, nor would it be without. The bike makes 200km without a sweat, a quick recharge and another 150km is more than what is needed for a day trip.

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When I initially test drove the bike I was weirded out by the fact that the Zero has a cruise control built in. I couldn’t imagine who would need that. Combined with the fact that I had to figure out how to operate it while driving. Let’s say I wasn’t convinced. But now after having used the cruise control extensively I can say I have warmed up to it. It is annoying when approaching tighter corners, but really nice when driving through a town.

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By the numbers

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500 KMs in 4 days, gained lots of knowledge, spent 17,37€ for charging (including the ZKM parking fee)

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","date_published":"2024-10-20T00:00:00+00:00","date_modified":"2026-03-07T00:00:00+00:00","tags":["motorcycle","zero s 2024","travels"],"author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}}],"description":"Der alltägliche Wahnsinn","author":{"name":"Jan Seeger"}}