About
Hi, I'm Stanley.
All my life I've enjoyed things you can take apart, understand and do your own way. I'm self-taught: I learned by trying, reading and making my own mistakes. There's a lot of it, from a home server for films and backups to my own tools and apps. My day job is something else entirely. I do this in the evenings because I enjoy it.
Why this website
Most guides are written for people who already know the subject. I know what it's like to start without that, so here I explain in plain language how to do things yourself, including what went wrong for me. If you want to go deeper, there are technical posts too.
What you won't find here
Ads or paid recommendations. This is my personal website, I don't take on jobs through it, and the guides are written so you can do things yourself.
Where this is heading
What started as a hobby is slowly becoming something more. I spend more and more time on my own apps and games too, and over time I want to do it properly. When something is finished, you'll hear about it here.
What I'm on right now
At the moment I enjoy working out planetary positions myself the most. These are my favourite problems: they seem impossible for a long time, until it starts working.
What it runs on
My own machines, where I develop, test and run all of this. They all run Linux.
| Used for | System | Processor | Memory | Graphics | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Development and heavy computing, laptop | Fedora | 12 threads, 13th-gen Intel | 64 GB | RTX 4050, 6 GB | 1.5 TB SSD |
| Home services, always on | Armbian (Debian) | 8-core ARM | 8 GB | built-in | 256 GB SSD and 4 TB disk |
| Computing and tests, second laptop | my own customised Debian | 16 threads, 10th-gen Intel | 24 GB | Quadro T2000, 4 GB | 1 TB SSD |
| Field tests, phone running Linux | Android with Kali | 8-core ARM |
I do most of my work remotely, over SSH from a phone or tablet, so I don't need the computer next to me.
The phone also works as an extended USB port: I can place it where the signal is good, plug in an SDR receiver or Wi-Fi adapter and control the rest remotely.