Latest entries from petermolnar.net

Gran Canaria

2026-09-23T12:03:42+00:00

5 (3.5) days of re-learning to not focus in order to hear the voices in my head again

I turned 41 in March, and for my birthday, I got a fantastic gift: to go to Gran Canaria for 5 days, and have a rest in April. It’s interesting how, among many other things, the definition of "rest" morphs as our life progresses, as our situation evolves. Nowadays my main enemy is the need for constant focus and context switching, so the idea of rest is quite simple: I don't have to pay attention unless I want to. This is exactly what I got from this trip - that, and that sometimes there's less need for planning ahead.

Day 1 : arriving

Upon browsing for a place to stay at, my wife spotted something in the mountains: a literal cave house, Cueva las Nubes¹. At first I thought it's a novelty, but once I was there it turned out it's the indigenous way of living².

This is what you see when you're searching for the place from the road

Now there's a nice, big gate installed, and it's quite a fun turn with the car

The covered patio and roso of the accommodation PENTAX K-5 II s, 18.0 mm, f/5.6, 1/25 sec, ISO 100 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The living room of the cueva - with the mornig sun bathing it PENTAX K-5 II s, 18.0 mm, f/5.6, 1/25 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

again, I really like this cave PENTAX K-5 II s, 18.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 100 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

it even had a fireplace and all PENTAX K-5 II s, 18.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 100 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

This one I stayed in was extended, as many others - added roofs and frontal space. It's nice from the perspective of a house, it's much less nice from the perspective of relentless condensation. It turns out the caves needed a certain way of ventilation to prevent this, and this house doesn't have the natural flow any more. Modern solutions, such as dehumidifiers, should be added, otherwise the caves tend to get musty and mouldy in absolutely no time. If the owner is reading this: please consider a smart dehumidifier that runs when needed, because it does smell a bit moldy and musty in there. Not unlike some British houses though.

Over-developed cave-house vs. the condensation

Apart from this, the place is fantastic. The view is insane; what the clouds cover is the airport itself, meaning the cueva can be seen from the runway.

This would be the morning view from the cueva - that is when the clouds are under you and not over you PENTAX K-5 II s, 18.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/250 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Somewhere there

The surprise cat

We have 2 cats at home, neutered males both, one silent killer, one retarted loudmouth, and we love them both. So when a skinny, seemingly feral cat showed up at the cave demanding it's share I realised the place had cat food and pet feeding pots. Apparently there are more cats around, I got to meet 4 of them in the end, and they supposedly belong to the shepherd on the other side of the hill. They don't want to be petted at all.

Day 2

The plan: go to see the pine forest close to me, then to go to Teror, see the town, and buy food. The first part went well, the second taught me lessons.

Pico de las Nieves

The Canary Islands host pine forests, with pines native and unique to these islands. What's incredible about them is how wonderful they smell when the sun hits them and they get warm. It's like the nicest smelling sauna, a forest of aromatherapy. I fell in love with this and the feeling it generates the moment I first experienced it, and I wished to experience it again, so my first trip was towards where the pines are.

On Gran Canaria there are two main areas of this: the forests around Pico de las Nieves and around Tamabada. My cave was closer to the first, so that's where I headed. I wasn't expecting the military complex on the top of the mountain, but that didn't prevent me from having a nice hike after parking in the completely empty parking spot.

PENTAX K-5 II s, 135.0 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

PENTAX K-5 II s, 135.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/125 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/14.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

PENTAX K-5 II s, 28.0 mm, 1/400 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ K or M Lens ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

PENTAX K-5 II s, 28.0 mm, 1/125 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ K or M Lens ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

PENTAX K-5 II s, 48.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/125 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Except...

I took a wrong turn, and moved away from the restaurant I was trying to head for - which brings me to the problem of food. I keep forgetting that there are still places in the world where most stores close for Sunday, and where there isn't some kind of takeaway or restaurant open at basically any time of the day, meaning I came a bit underprepared with food.

When I got back to the parking spot it was swarming with people and cars, including a food van - foolishly I decided I'd rather get back in the car, go to see Teror, a village famous for it's beauty, and eat something there.

To Teror or not to Teror

On my way I went through a village called Lanzarote - yes, the same name as one of the other islands, one that I like a lot, so I stopped to eat at the local restaurant. I went for fish, so you don't have to. Fresh fish around the docks is great; not completely fresh fish in the mountains is not. I made this mistake one more time, believing it was the place, but no; it's truly not worth it.

I continued to Teror.

I stopped at a turn, because there was a forest I wanted to check out PENTAX K-5 II s, 28.0 mm, 1/125 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ K or M Lens ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Except...

The next part of the road didn't go as planned: a few kilometers from Teror the only road going there had a police closure. A half-size car and two plastic barriers, blocking the road. After spending some time, looking for options, I gave up, decided to turn around, and head to Maspalomas.

I stopped in Tejeda, given how the tour books rave about it. It's pretty, but I didn't feel anything special, and continued.

It's hard to explain the sizes, even if there are people for scale PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.0, 1/250 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Except...

The rest of the trip didn't happen. The last 4 kms (sic) to Maspalomas from the mountains was stuck in a traffic jam.

I ended up turning around, slightly panicking on food for that night and the day after as started the drive back. Eventually I spotted another food van - in a parking lot that is closed to cars... At that point I gave up, put the indicators in blinking, and left the car on the road, and got some oranges and a bocadillo.

I drove 6-7 hours and getting nowhere. I should have headed back to my pine forest when the road to Teror was closed. The lesson of the day was to stop forcing things: sometimes the solution will present itself. This theme kept resonating, so maybe it's what I have to take away.

Day 3

About a decade ago my sister and her spouse went to Grand Canaria and I told them to go to the coffee plantation. Sadly they couldn't, and by the time I was preparing for my trip, I completely forgot about them myself. And then suddenly the memory came back from nowhere, so I had a very clear plan that I want to go to the coffee plantations.

The plan: going to Agaete and swimming in the ocean. This quickly went up in petrol fumes: both roads leading not into the mountains from of my place were closed till mid afternoon due rally.

Barranco de Guayadeque

So far my trip didn't look relaxing, but some days before my wife spotted a crafts shop not far from me - not far in direct line. Google, which has streetview on the very track itself doesn't recommend the short one for hiking, but openstreetmaps does:

⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Being "trapped" on the mountain turned out to be great. The trail is part road, part dirt, and is not hard to walk. I left rather early, meaning I didn't meet anyone for a while, only to be surrounded by the loud buzzing of bees and other insects.

The valley is serene, and it"s one of the main areas for cave houses.

View in the barranco PENTAX K-5 II s, 18.0 mm, f/16.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

I tried to capture the insect buzzing that surrounded me, probably without luck:

What's visible from the outside of a casa-cueva PENTAX K-5 II s, 78.0 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The whole rock of Montana de las Tierras is riddled with caves, and most of them are casa-cuevas; this street runs around it moto g(6) plus, 4.2 mm, f/1.7, 1/2249 sec, ISO 50 ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

oldschool instagram, drink with a view moto g(6) plus, 4.2 mm, f/1.7, 1/4294 sec, ISO 50 ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

lap-cat being lap-cat moto g(6) plus, 4.2 mm, f/1.7, 1/280 sec, ISO 50 ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

PENTAX K-5 II s, 18.0 mm, f/16.0, 1/125 sec, ISO 160 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

I ate at Restaurant Tagoror, and, as mentioned before, I got fish, again. because there was a weekend only menu, so I thought this is the local equivalent of a Sunday roast, why not. The lesson I learnt is to stick to fresh, grilled fish on the seaside instead. The gofio was very nice though. moto g(6) plus, 4.2 mm, f/1.7, 1/191 sec, ISO 50 ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Dunes de Maspalomas

After getting back from the small hike I realised there was plenty of time left from the day, so I attempted Máspalomás again. Well...

The dunes are beautiful. That is if you're able to spot any piece without an asshole tourist playing the center of the universe, ignoring all signs, and walking into them. This is especially true for entitled Asian wannabe influencers.

What sort of destroyed it all was that to access the dunes I had to go through a hotel complex that is practically the entrance to the view. I understand it's a tourist attraction but it's a bleak, stark contrast compared with the seclusion and serenity of the mountains.

Good luck finding a pristine dune... PENTAX K-5 II s, 135.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/250 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

turning around provided a nicer image PENTAX K-5 II s, 28.0 mm, 1/125 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ K or M Lens ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Day 4

This day went as planned - with the plan I had for the day before. And it was a bit chilly for swimming, but it didn't stop me.

Agaete Valley

I entered Agaete with no expectations. If it really was just a coffee plantation, and I had a good coffee, I would have been happy. And it turned out for the best: this place is incredible. It has a ringing serenity to it, one that I so rarely found anywhere. With the grey clouds sitting right on top of the surrounding mountains it was even more peaceful.

I spent most of the day just wandering around after the morning coffee taste. I didn't book anything, so when they asked if I want the tour or just the taster, I went for the taster - only to change my mind when more people arrived, and they were so nice about it all, no fuss, no nothing. Shout out to Ruben and James, given your coffee interest; Finca los Castaños³ has absolutely marvellous, kind coffee, in case you find yourself on Gran Canaria. There are many other tiny coffee plantations, but I didn't have the chance to taste those yet.

This view, when sipping a wonderfully relaxing cup of mellow Agaete coffee PENTAX K-5 II s, 36.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/125 sec, ISO 200 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Yep, those are not small PENTAX K-5 II s, 21.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Mountains surrounding the valley PENTAX K-5 II s, 28.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

That is a waterfall somewhere far. PENTAX K-5 II s, 48.0 mm, f/8.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 80 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The dramatic view was in strong contrast with the peacefulness of the day and the place moto g(6) plus, 4.2 mm, f/1.7, 1/526 sec, ISO 50 ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The coffee. With jam tasting. moto g(6) plus, 4.2 mm, f/1.7, 1/242 sec, ISO 50 ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Agaete Piscina Natural

I wanted to swim somewhere, but in April, it's not that trivial (or safe, see below), but natural/semi natural pools can always help. It was certainly a new experience to swim while the locals and the Spanish were standing next to me in jackets and coats.

Day 5

Before the flight home I first visited a local arboretum, but it wasn't really worth it, as the more interesting parts were closed up. I also went into the old town of Las Palmas. It's pretty and it has some very nice little shops, but finding a parking spot was challenging.

Lastly I went out to the shores to say bye to the ocean.

There are some brave people living here for sure. moto g(6) plus, 4.2 mm, f/1.7, 1/5000 sec, ISO 50 ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

There were red flags up, which I attributed to the wind, until I saw this - so yeah, no swimming. moto g(6) plus, 4.2 mm, f/1.7, 1/1166 sec, ISO 50 ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Summary

Go to Agaete and the mountains.

Skip the tourist zone.

The universe will provide if you're willing to be flexible.

And if you keep to yourself for a few days the brainfog will finally lift.

My whole trip on the map

Agaete waterfall

2026-09-23T12:05:52+00:00

I wasn't able to get to the source of the waterfall, so I was left with enjoying watching it fading in/out of the mist.

Mountains around Agaete

2026-09-23T12:06:00+00:00

I was quite lucky with the weather in Agaete: while a bit wet, but this kind of weather, somehow, helps with staying calm and relaxed when you're surrounded with lush greens and cloud-covered mountains.

Making nginx use blocklistd

2026-09-20T15:54:26+00:00

fail2ban is nice and simple to use, but has a brutal overhead on modest hardware that can handle a surprising amount of traffic. There is a more elegant solution which is much less known, called blocklistd.

tl;dr: https://code.petermolnar.net/ngx-http-blocklistd

I wrote about having fun with bots and scapers before that I brought upon myself by having nepenthes added to my server¹. As things currently stand, unless you want to or can afford A LOT OF traffic, you shouldn't do what I did.

Anyhow, now that all the links are removed from everywhere it means that there's a certain path prefix that I know 100% sure it's nasty bot traffic and I'd be happy to block the IP immediately if it ends up there.

The last time I tried fail2ban, my CPU got overloaded. I then tried blocking at ASN level², but I regularly ended up blocking M$, Google Cloud, and other things, eventually blocking some of the indieweb tooling³ from accessing my site with that blast radius.

I have turned to blocklistd⁴ (formerly called blacklistd) for blocking SSH and Postfix attempts, because it has it built in. It's a (Net)BSD security tool that listens on a socket for messages with IPs to be blocked by your firewall. In a sense it does the same job as fail2ban, but with much less overhead: it doesn't need logs to be writter, logs to be read and parsed, and it's written in C.

The nginx module that communicates to blocklistd didn't exist, so I decided to write it. The end results looks way simpler, than finding the resources were, but these were quite helpful:

Emiller’s Guide To Nginx Module Development https://www.evanmiller.org/nginx-modules-guide.html
Learning a new codebase: hacking on nginx https://notes.eatonphil.com/learning-a-new-codebase-hacking-nginx.html
nginx Development guide https://nginx.org/en/docs/dev/development_guide.html
A Guide to: NGINX Error Logs https://trunc.org/learning/everything-you-dont-need-to-know-about-nginx-error-logs
nginx-dev-examples https://github.com/nginx/nginx-dev-examples/tree/main/hello_world_1
ssh diff in blacklistd source https://github.com/paul-chambers/blacklistd/blob/trunk/diff/ssh.diff

It is now working and I'm testing how far I can take it. For what it's worth, I'm not going back to the endless AI poison maze experiment, because I can't afford to jeopardise that level of traffic on my home connection, but I will most likely put honeypot links back soon.

The pipe dream of the useful augmented reality

2026-09-20T17:56:18+00:00

Somewhere in '98 or '99 I fired up ICQ for the first time. Take it into account that I was living in Hungary, a 14 years old boy, and while I was learning English since I was 6, the teaching methods in Hungary focus on grammar and not real life skills, meaning I was lagging 5-10 years behind American and British trends. By the way, this is still the case with a lot of Hungarians. It was incredible. I was able to search for people based on interest keywords, age, and so on. Back then not everybody lied all the time and practically everyone was allowed on everything. This meant both wonderful and atrocious websites, but that is for another day. You were able to message everyone out of the blue without worrying about spam filters or friend requests.

The internet, at that point, felt like another world, a place where you were able to surround yourself with the people you longed for, not with the ones fate threw at you in school. A place to retreat to.

It took me 20 more years to even learn about BBS systems, those never reached Hungary. It must have been incredible to live through the BBS era. "BBS: The Documentary"¹ is a fantastic watch.

Soon I made a website, and it felt like a significant achievement: it was mine, I actually crafted it, it looked the way I wanted it to look, and so on.

It looked like we were going towards a world with a fantastic, useful internet.

In the beginning of 2012 we made a trip to Ireland and England, and many of the amazing places we visited we found using Panoramio² on Google Maps. The Dark Hedges³, for example, much before it got featured on Game of Thrones. Without Panoramio I never could have discovered those locations, and since it's shutdown, it became quite hard again.

In the same year, the promised land of useful technology still existed. Gtalk talked XMPP, Facebook talked XMPP; everyone talked XMPP. RSS and Google Reader was big, and Google still had "don't be evil" in it's manifest. Augmented reality was on it's way. The relevant Wikipedia article⁴ shows a photo of a HTC Desire, a 2009 phone, displaying AR navigation⁵.

But a few months later the only community website I ever really loved and belonged to⁶ shut down. I wrote about it a while ago that maybe the reason for that site and it's community to work as well as it did that it was it's mixed reality roots⁷: a community with an entry point from the web, and with entry points from parties and events organised. You could start in one and continue in the other.

And then Google Glass debuted. It became of the most hated gadgets ever created, and with that, the dreams of a usefully connected world seem to have died. Meanwhile the clouds of endless consumption of worthless goods were gathering.

In 2007 the iPhone was presented and brought upon the insanity of being constantly distracted by notifications. In 2009 I had a company Nokia E52⁸. It was tiny, loud, the battery lasted a week easily, and it even had a surprisingly decent Nokia Maps navigation with Hungarian TTS. It was internet capable: with Opera Mini, I could read the news, it had an email client, and so on. For a company phone, it was perfect; a far cry from the glue-and-glass attention seeking monstrosities everyone carries now.

Seven years later, in 2014, something happened that killed any remaining promise of the mixed reality that would have served the people. Maybe a CEO conference, maybe just death by a thousand papercuts. The article "Get your loved ones off Facebook⁹ was triggered by the 2014 changes in Facebook's policies. Google Talk was discontinued in early 2015, Facebook also dropped XMPP by then.

In 2015, Pokémon Go debuted. The FOMO of "Gotta catch them all!" has been making people drop serious money on "collectables" probably since the dawn of time, but this one was new. You'd have to walk or go to physical places to interact with them or with others at the same location. And it was even teaching about local curiosities that were marked for those special spots.

But this wasn't really that useful AR that I longed for. It wasn't a simple, configurable heads up display that would, say, show my friends on a map, show events that might be are happening around me and would be open for me, or one that could be the local guide of curiosities and history. One that tells me the story of a building just by being there and looking at it, that would give me augmented navigation, that would allow me to connect with people in both worlds easily. It was a gacha game during a time when it wasn't yet clear how many, many things are, quietly, also made to track your behaviour, your location, your habits. The notion that the internet became, or was becoming, an enshittified cesspit didn't sink in just yet.

It's 2026 now and I see Ray-Ban Meta glass commercials everywhere. It's an even creepier device¹⁰ - it's made by Meta after all -, than the Google Glass was, yet somehow, it's ... OK now?! People live stream jackass moments with it, and we're cheering. Everyone got used to record anything they see, all the time, and being recorded, all the time.

Walking up to random strangers with weird questions, live streaming it all. Your car is will be mandated to record you in the EU from mid 2026¹¹. Instead of stopping a fight and pulling people apart, just record it and upload it. I get that in some cases, the recording is useful, even needed, but it can't be a priority over de-escalating a situation, and that's just one example.

How did we get here? Why did that useful internet promise die? Is it all just human greed, is it negligence, is it entertaining ourselves to death¹²?

One explanation I've heard is that in the early days the internet was less accessible and so it contained like-minded people. But it's hard to understand how we got from the collaborative internet of SOPA/PIPA internet blackouts¹³ in 2011/12, when the internet was already quite accessible to most, to being OK with AI generated posters for your kid's birthday party, willingly uploading the photos of involved kid into the machine that'll most likely store it forever for facial recognition.

Here we are, in the now: an insane amount of streamed, recorded video, using absurdly powerful machines that shamelessly trying to spy and gather as much information on us as possible, willingly in our pockets, and virtually not a single option to publish my live location to a select few friends in case we're about to bump into each other, without something selling me out, exploiting me, tracking me.

That is unless you are a wizard of words and your friends are listening to you, and you manage to self-host a server for them. Which I do, an XMPP server for friends & family, but not many others do, even though they should. It lives on a former thin client in my home, under a chest of drawers.

It could be me though. Maybe my definition of useful is a far cry from the averaged definition of useful. Maybe some people are looking forward to on-the-fly AI generated targeted video ads and streams with zero collective experience, and a reality fragmented into bubbles and oblivion.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nj3G6Jpv2G6Gp6NvN1kUtQuW8QshBWE\*↩︎
https://www.failory.com/google/panoramio ↩︎
https://petermolnar.net/photo/northern-ireland-the-dark-hedges/↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality ↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality#/media/File:Navit_Reality_View_next_to_reality.jpg ↩︎
https://ld50.hu/↩︎
https://petermolnar.net/journal/amikor-az-internet-felfalja-magat/↩︎
https://phonesdata.com/en/smartphones/nokia/e52-800/↩︎
https://salimvirani.com/facebook/↩︎
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/meta-ai-glasses-may-get-creepier-and-apps-that-detect-them-arent-perfect/↩︎
https://autofreak.com/eu-driver-monitoring-cameras-mandate-2026/↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death there's also an amazing comic strip about it, which has an interesting background: the creator was asked to redact it, essentially because it summarised the whole book in one go: https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/amusing-ourselves-to-death/ but if you look around, you can find it, eg https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webcomic-2/ still presents it.↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA ↩︎

Nyugtalanul

2026-07-21T09:25:33+00:00

Mi történik, ha nem állsz meg? Leszáll a köd, az.

Pár hete kijött egy törvény Angliában: 2008 után születettek soha sem vásárolhatnak legálisan cigarettát¹. Ahelyett, hogy örültem volna, hogy végre történik valami, az agyam feldobta, hogy dehát mégiscsak el kellene hogy dönthesse a felnőtt ember, hogy mit csinál magával. Egész életemben utáltam a bagószagot: hogy egy alapvetően nagyon jó illatú növényből hogyan lesz bűz, maj csilliárd eldobott cigarettavég, amit a Föld IQ haranggörbe bal oldalán elhelyezkedő agyúak nem képesek legalább a szemetesbe bedobni. Erre ez első gondolatom nem az, hogy "végre". Honnan buggyant ez elő?

Mióta nem Magyarországon élek egy sokkal tágabb világgal vagyok körülvéve. Van kollégám, akiről nemrég tudtam meg, hogy 17 évesen menekült 2003-ban az iraki háborúból, és többet látott, mint egy ezüsthátú new yorki rendőr. Ennek egyenes következménye, hogy ahogy teltek itt az évek egyre több oldalt próbálok megnézni, minden szögből felmérni és megérteni álláspontokat.

Ez önmagában jó és helyes, azonban nehéz véleményt megtartani, valamilyen oldalon állni, ha mindenkinek igaza van - a saját igaza, persze. Mikor kell a másik bőrébe, fejébe bújni, és mikor nem? Arra jutottam, hogy ha valami vagy objektíven és mérhetően rossz - lásd bagó -, van számomra morálisan és/vagy etikusan visszatetsző, akkor nincs helye más véleményének, és bele kell állni a sajátomban.

Ahhoz viszont, hogy eljussak egy ilyen rendkívül egyszerű következtetésig több napnyi üres fej kellett.

A 41. születésnapomra kaptam 5 nap szünetet, hogy egy kicsit kikapcsolhassam a gondolataimat, hogy a saját tempómban haladjak. Cél, illetve jobban mondva “indok” nélkül - konferencia, edzőtábor, munka, stb -, egyedül, eddig szinte sosem mentem egyedül egy napnál többet valahova, pláne nem messze, úgyhogy ez mindenképpen új élmény.

Ami ide vezetett az már bonyolultabb. Merlin születése óta az élet folyamatosan, szörnyű sebességgel dobálja az állandó figyelmet igénylő mindennapokat. Egy irodai munkahely ma elvárja, hogy perceken belül válaszolj az 50 csoportbeszélgetés bármelyikében, miközben a két kezeddel az eredeti feladatkörödet teljesíted, a füleddel az értekezletet² hallgatod, az agyad pedig táncoló elefántokon tányérokat pörgető bohócként próbál mindent egyben tartani.

Válts témát, feladatot, bármikor, ritmustalanul, váratlanul, napi nyolc órában - vagyishát napi 14 órában, hiszen otthonról dolgozol, és amikor kilépsz az munkázást (4 évesen így kell mondani) jelző szoba ajtaján, a 4 éves boldogan és örömmel jön, hogy végre vele foglalkozok. Teljesen igaza van, és szörnyű lenne, ha nem jönne, de attól még megpróbáltatás.

Amikor nem otthon vagyok, akkor órákat tartok. Egyfajta tai chi-t, íjászatot, visszafogott soft-contact harcművészetet. Ott arra figyelek, hogy ne legyen senkinek baja: miközben a mellettem levőnek magyarázok a hátsó szemeimmel a termet pásztázom. Részben kikapcsol, de attól még minden héten van, és hiába lenne éppen aznap máshoz kedve az embernek, számítanak rá. Fizetnek érte, így jogos az elvárás, bár amit fizetnek az a termet és a felszerelést fedezi. Nagyjából. Sosem volt célom tanítani ezt, viszont nem volt más, aki megtette volna. Ha 5 évvel ezelőtt nem ugrok bele, akkor lehet, hogy nincs több íjászat az élemben, és ezt nem akartam.

Valahogy így telt az elmúlt 4 év. Azon kaptam magam, hogy egyszerre vagyok képtelen megállni és nem csinálni, nem fogyasztani, nem nézni, nem hallgatni valamit. Ugyanakkor tisztán gondolkozni, ködös gondolatfoszlányok helyett egybefüggő mondatokkal és célokkal alig vagyok voltam képes már egy jó ideje.

A semmittevésre, unalomra óriási szükség van, a gond az, hogy undorítóan könnyű lett megkerülni, megszüntetni.

Évekkel ezelőtt valahol olvastam, hogy milyen fantasztikus dolog, hogy a “holt” időt végre ki tudjuk használni az okostelefonokkal. Azokat a rövid időszakokat, amikor várunk a buszra, amikor utazunk a metrón. ~~Tíz~~ ~~Húsz~~³ harminc, ötven, száz évvel ezelőtt is volt “megoldás”: könyv, újság, később walkman. Viszont az iphone, és leginkább az instagram óta az a normális, hogy végtelen és végtelenül üres vizuális orkánt nyelünk a szemeinkkel minden “holt” percben. Meg nem holt percben. Minden percben. És nincs vége, mint egy könyvnek, nem kell kicserélni a kazettát, vagy előre tekerni, megy tovább a végtelen tartalom, magától. Mint ahogyan a mai játékoknak sincs vége, open world, ahelyett, hogy odavágnád a kontrollert, miután mindhárom életednek annyi az Aladdinban⁴, és kimennél biciklizni.

Gyerekkoromból dereng egy sorozat, amiben a gyerekek valami kütyüvel videótelefonálni tudtak egymással, bármikor, bárhonnan. Hogy mennyire lehetetlenül fantasztikusnak tartottam, és mennyire szerettem volna egy olyat. Ma van egy ilyenem, és sosem gondoltam volna, hogy az lesz nehéz, hogy erre a célra használjam.

A lényeg, hogy végre tartottam egy szünetet. Ültem és órákig néztem egy szubtrópusi völgyet Agaete mellett, ahol az egyik legészakibb, és egyben Európa egyetlen (kis csalással) kávéültetvényei vannak. Sétáltam és szagoltam a Kanári-fenyők illatát, ami, ha kisüt a nap, vetekszik bármilyen aromaterápiás kezeléssel. Feladtam terveket, mert lezárták a hegyről kivezető utat rally miatt, és átsétáltam egy mesebeli völgybe, barlangokba épített lakások között, hogy utána órákig élvezzem a kiltást egy völgyből az óceán felé, körülölelve sziklákkal és hegyekkel, aminek a méreteit Norvégia fjodrjaihoz tudom hasonlítani. Visszamentem egy barlanglakásba megszállni, lehetetlen kilátással, hogy a szelet hallgassam.

Segített. 3 nap múlva elkezdtem végre ráeszmélni, szavakba önteni, hogy a bajom ott kezdődik, hogy nem ülök le egy órára a tüzet nézni anélkül, hogy ennék, vagy hogy legalább zene is menne. Az egész fájdalmasan egybevág egy könyvvel⁵, amit teljesen véletlenül találtam egy antikváriumban. Ellentétben a legtöbb spirituális megközelítéssel a könyv a görög pantheonnal közelíti meg a problémát: Hermésszel, a nyüzsgés urával valamint Hesztiával, a ház tüzének istennőjével. A mondanivaló egyszerű: nem szabad a nyugit elhanyagolni, sem abból a szempontból, hogy állj meg, sem abból, hogy a kuckód legyen megnyugtató, és amikor hazatérsz, segítsen megnyugodni.

Vannak mesék és történetek, amik, attól függően, hogy életed melyik szakaszában olvasodt, mást és mást jelentenek. A legismertebb ilyen a Kis Herceg, de néha akad egy-egy rejtett pillanat másban is. Meglepetésemre még az a 1977-es Disney-féle Micimackóban filmben is:

Róbert Gida: Én legjobban azt szeretem, ha nem csinálok semmit.

Micimackó: Semmit? Hogy csinálsz semmit?

Róber Gida: Úgy, hogy amikor a felnőttek rámszólnak, "Most mit csinálsz?", én azt felelem: "Semmit...". És odébbmegyek.

Micimackó: De jó, csináljuk mindig ezt!

Róber Gida: Tudod Mackó, semmit már soha többé nem csinálunk.

Micimackó: Azt mondod, soha többé?

Róber Gida: Hát, sokkal ritkábban.

Talán itt az idejen megint többet csinálni azt a semmit, bármilyen nehéz is az elején, bármilyen lehetetlennek is tűnik kiszakadni a tévesen tevékenynek tűnő tevésből.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn08jy6w0l5o ↩︎
szándékosan nem meeting-et írtam, ugyanis amikor egyszer az anyukámnak értekezletet mondtam, rám nézett, és üres tekintettel annyit mondott, hogy kérlek ne hívd így, az értekezlet valami teljesen felesleges, kötelező dolgot juttat az eszembe. Ugye, mennyivel találóbb, mint a megszépített, romanticizált, modern “meeting”?↩︎
2007-ben jelent meg az iphone. Majdnem 20 éve.↩︎
páran odaaták az Aladdint a mostani generációnak, vannak róla videók, érdemes megnézni a sokkot, amikor rájönnek, hogy pl. nincs mentés.↩︎
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0722537174 ↩︎

Blocking complete ASN IP ranges automatically on FreeBSD with pf based on nginx logs

2026-07-01T07:00:15+00:00

Some time ago I though that putting up an AI poison maze on my site is a great way of doing something against bots that do not respect robots.txt. It was, until I got hit by botnets which never back off.

Initially, it was a syn flood. I don't know why I believed that the FreeBSD and pf defaults are protected against syn flood, so there was a bit of tweaking needed in `/etc/sysctl.conf. Many thanks for the internet sources¹ ².

# drop tcp packets destined for closed ports (default 0) 
net.inet.tcp.blackhole=2
# SYN/FIN packets get dropped on initial connection (default 0)
net.inet.tcp.drop_synfin=1
# recycle FIN/WAIT states quickly, helps against DoS, but may cause false RST (default 0)
net.inet.tcp.fast_finwait2_recycle=1
# disable TCP Fast Open client side, enforce three way TCP handshake (default 1, enabled)
net.inet.tcp.fastopen.client_enable=0
# disable TCP Fast Open server side, enforce three way TCP handshake (default 0)
net.inet.tcp.fastopen.server_enable=0
# TCP FIN_WAIT_2 timeout waiting for client FIN packet before state close (default 60000, 60 sec)
net.inet.tcp.finwait2_timeout=1000
# icmp may not send RST to avoid spoofed icmp/udp floods (default 1)
net.inet.tcp.icmp_may_rst=0
# amount of tcp keep alive probe failures before socket is forced closed (default 8)
net.inet.tcp.keepcnt=2
# time before starting tcp keep alive probes on an idle, TCP connection (default 7200000, 7200 secs)
net.inet.tcp.keepidle=62000
# tcp keep alive client reply timeout (default 75000, 75 secs)
net.inet.tcp.keepinit=5000
# Maximum Segment Lifetime, time the connection spends in TIME_WAIT state (default 30000, 2*MSL = 60 sec)
net.inet.tcp.msl=2500
# disable for mtu=1500 as most paths drop ICMP type 3 packets, but keep enabled for mtu=9000 (default 1)
net.inet.tcp.path_mtu_discovery=0

But it just kept going, and nepenthes³ got overwhelmed.

At first, I turned off nepenthes, and returned a mere HTTP 410 from nginx directly.

And it kept going, because now the logging was so high traffic that fail2ban was consuming enough CPU that everything else was starting to have problem. I didn't think this was possible, but yes: apparently fail2ban can use quite a lot of resources when it gets combined with high volume logging.

At one point I added a tarpit directly inside nginx, using the echo module⁴ and it's delay feature.

    echo '    <!DOCTYPE html>';
    echo_sleep 2;
    echo '    <html lang=en>';
    echo_sleep 4;
    echo '        <head>';
    echo_sleep 8;
    echo '            <meta charset=utf-8>';
    echo_sleep 16;
    echo '            <title></title>';
    echo_sleep 32;
    echo '        </head>';
    echo_sleep 64;
    echo '        <body>';
    echo_sleep 128;
    echo '            <blockquote>';
    echo_sleep 256;
    echo '                <p>';
    echo_sleep 512;
    echo '                    I must not fear. ';
    echo_sleep 1024;
    echo '                    Fear is the mind-killer. ';
    echo_sleep 2048;
    echo '                    Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. ';
    echo_sleep 4096;
    echo '                    I will face my fear. ';
    echo_sleep 8192;
    echo '                    I will permit it to pass over me and through me. ';
    echo_sleep 16384;
    echo '                    And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. ';
    echo_sleep 32768;
    echo '                    Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. ';
    echo_sleep 65535;
    echo '                    Only I will remain.';
    echo_sleep 131072;
    echo '                </p>';
    echo_sleep 262144;
    echo '                <p>—Frank Herbert, <cite>Dune</cite></p>';
    echo_sleep 524288;
    echo '            </blockquote>';
    echo_sleep 1048576;
    echo '        </body>';
    echo_sleep 2097152;
    echo '    </html>';

I ended up with 130k open connection.

The current solution, which I'm hoping to work for a while, was to add ASN data into my blocked logs, devise a cron job that gets the list of ASN entries, and block them if they go above X per hour - X is currently 100. So far, this is working.

Step 0: get ASN data

/usr/local/etc/cron.d/root

root, because I need to reload nginx
yes, I use wget
yes, my crons have bash as shell

@daily root wget -q -O/var/db/ip-location-db/geolite2-asn.mmdb https://github.com/sapics/ip-location-db/releases/download/latest/geolite2-asn.mmdb >/dev/null && /usr/sbin/service nginx reload

@daily root cd /var/db/ip-location-db && wget -O/var/db/ip-location-db/asn_full.json.zip https://geoip.oxl.app/file/asn_full.json.zip && unzip -d /var/db/ip-location-db -f /var/db/ip-location-db/asn_full.json.zip && rm /var/db/ip-location-db/asn_full.json.zip && /usr/sbin/service nginx reload

Step 2: mount a tmpfs, so I don't wear out my SSD

While tmpfs is linuxism, but in this case, it's useful. There's a log rotation set up for 200MB max size + daily, keeping only 1 additional, so it can't eat my memory, but I have little desire to wear out my SSD with these logs.

/etc/fstab

tmpfs /shm tmpfs rw,mode=1777 0 0

/boot/loader.conf

tmpfs_load="YES"

If you don't want to reboot:

kldload tmpfs

Step 3: get ANS data into nginx logs⁵

Install the nginx geoip2 module - I leave it to you if you compile nginx from ports with the relevant flags or install nginx-full, both are OK. I went with the first.

nginx.conf

load_module /usr/local/libexec/nginx/ngx_http_geoip2_module.so;

http {
        [...]

    geoip2 /var/db/ip-location-db/geolite2-asn.mmdb {
        $geoip2_asn autonomous_system_number;
        $geoip2_asname autonomous_system_organization;
    }

    log_format minimal '$time_iso8601 $remote_addr $geoip2_asn "$geoip2_asname" $server_name "$request" $status $request_time';
    
    [...]
    
    server {
      [...]
      location /nope {
          access_log /shm/blocked.log minimal;
          return 401;
      }
    }
}

Step 4: block all the things

/usr/local/bin/block-asn-pf.py

#!/usr/local/bin/python3.11

import argparse
import json
import syslog
import os

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('asn')
args = parser.parse_args()

with open('/var/db/ip-location-db/asn_full.json') as f:
    asninfo = json.load(f)

for cidr in asninfo.get(args.asn, {}).get('ipv4', []):
    cmd=f"pfctl -t badips -T add {cidr}"
    os.system(cmd)

/usr/local/etc/cron.d/root

root, because it pipes into pf
there's most likely an elegant way to do it in awk only, but there's a reason why it's called awkward

@hourly root for asn in $(cat /shm/blocked.log| awk '{print $3}' | sort | uniq -cd | awk -v limit=100 '$1 > limit{print $2}'); do /usr/local/bin/block-asn-pf.py $asn >/dev/null 2>&1; done;

# clean IPs up after a day
@hourly root pfctl -t badips -T expire 86400 >/dev/null 2>&1

/usr/local/etc/pf.conf

table <badips> persist
block drop in quick from <badips> to any 
block in from <badips>

Extra: block Spamhaus DROP

Spamhaus provides a "Don't Route Or Peer Lists (DROP)" ⁶ list for IP addresses that are really not nice, so it's worth adding them to the same blocked table

/usr/local/etc/cron.d/root

root, it pipes into pf

@hourly root curl -s https://www.spamhaus.org/drop/drop_v4.json | jq -r '.cidr' | grep -E '^[0-9]' |  sed -r 's/(.*)/pfctl -t badips -T add \1/' | bash >/dev/null 2>&1

Barranco de Guayadeque

2026-09-23T12:06:20+00:00

Due to some road closures I moved my openstreetmaps planned journey through the mountains to more cave houses up one day, and it was definitely worth it. The view is magnificent - squint, the ocean is right at the end -, if you leave early enough in April, like I did, beyond the buzzing and humming of bees, there's only peace around.

Pico de las Nieves in the cloud

2026-05-07T21:43:07+00:00

My first destination on Gran Canaria was the pine forest close to me. I've been to southern pine forests at other locations, but that wonderful, serene scent that a canary pine forest disperses when the full sun warms them up is second to none.

05 April, 2026

2026-04-05T08:42:53+00:00

This post is a reply to: https://ohhelloana.blog/new-forest/

It really is the stupid phone ruining everything isn’t it? The stupid screens of doom and the stupidity of the world isn’t it?

Yes.

However, it's not the device itself, and not the base functionalities of the device. I remember a series from my youth - "Den korsikanske biskopen"¹ - where the kids had these fantastic gadgets with video calls and other features, and I always marvelled at it.

I think the major difference was that those gizmos were something of a closed circuit, an semi-offline-ish thing: knowledge in your pocket, communication with friends. The utopistic gadgets never have the option to browse the news - an important feature to use them only when needed.

What they also didn't do is broadcasting.

The "free" broadcasting the wider internet brought is dismal. Most can't make sense of it, and it turns into vanity, into narcissism. Blogs were open diaries, were a way to, with an alter ego, share what we may not have been brave enough, or didn't have the stage to share within out normie life. Instagram, TikTok, and the rest, on the other hand, are bringing the worst out of people: not for the sake of being themselves, but to be something people can follow.

Some of the modern internet is incredible, but look at the times from before the iphone: there was less vanity, no instagram and tiktok brainrot - albeit Ren and Stimpy and Happy Tree Friends were hardcore.

These should not be in our pockets; it's a weigh that is dragging everyone down into a swamp.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140316/↩︎

We're murdering the night

2025-12-19T22:22:44+00:00

Dark, winter-y, eXistenZial questions

Death to varying temperature! Death to day and night! Death to shorter and longer days! Death to all cycles natural! ~~Death to the demoness Allegra Geller! Death to Pilgrimage! Death to transCendenZ!¹~~

Apologies for the bombastic first few lines, I thought I'd try to capture the essence of what is about to follow, but I got carried away.

Yesterday I was walking back home and noticed how, before reaching the roundabout, the lights are still sodium-vapour (natrium for the sensible world) lamp, whereas after it the lights are white LEDs. For a moment an ISS photo of the East/West Berlin line came to my mind²:

This undated photo provided by the European Space Agency and captured by ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers, shows the German capital Berlin from the International Space Station, ISS. Seen from above, street lights in the former East Berlin appear slightly more orange; those in the western part of the city are a harsher yellow. ESA / AP

I'm from Hungary, and night always meant the deep yellow of the sodium lamps. As more and more research went into it it turned out sodium lamps are absolutely ideal for nights: our human eyes are quite sensitive it's very narrow light spectrum (it's yellow, and only yellow, if you think you see any other colours with it, look again), they are elegantly energy efficient, and night life is barely disturbed by them.

But lately it's all cheap, badly designed, shitty LEDs everywhere, which aren't even saving considerable money, as those sodium lamps are nearly as efficient. The retail park in Cambridge now has some purple street lamps, because they are so cheap LEDs that their coating disintegrated, allowing the purple/UV spectrum to burst through³.

One of my life hacks was that I kept using a halogen bulb in my desk lamp. It just feels more natural, and the excess heat from it literally warms me up, which is not something to dismiss in the glorious UK winter.

Unfortunately I got curious, and the promise of better angles and less desk space sounded wonderful, so I bought a second hand BenQ ScreenBar. It took me months to realise that it was sucking the life, the creativity, and the will out of me.

I don't have a scientific explanation, but once I put my trusty IKEA desk lamp back with that halogen bulb I finally regained some of my stubbornness to do things. Is it CRI? Is it the colour temperature? Is it the infrared emissions? I don't know, and neither do others, but LED lighting is lifeless⁴. You can get away with it as some places, and it makes decent Christmas tree lights, for me, it's horrible as desk lighting.

Those LED street lights could also be better. Philips installed red, bat-friendly night-time lighting⁵ in 2018 in the Netherlands, and there are promising amber LED street light projects⁶ ⁷ - but we'll still light the night up. Because safety, convenience, and... because we're afraid of the dark? Even my desk lamp and it's halogen bulb contributes to this sinister light pollution, which disturbs or vaporises natural sleep and relaxation cycles.

Nowadays, thanks to the pandemic, I work from home. There are social implications and I'm extremely unhappy that my employer got rid of the yearly department and company level gatherings, leaving us with sad, online only events. However, the health benefits are incredible: I don't have to use an AC⁸.

I know people who go mad in the scourging heat of the British summer, which might even reach 30°C, so they set the AC to 18°C. And then in winter, usually the same people set the AC to 24°C.

The human temperature tolerance is meagre compared to a lot of animals. I have to wear thick wool jumpers (thanks to the universe, Aran knits exist⁹) below 20°C and shorts above ~26-27°C. I do get uncomfortable working when my room temperature is above 29°C - because it's not meant for working, we should be resting, like people in the mediterraneum used to at midday. I also put the heating on to keep my home above 18°C - which makes me question where us, humans, would be truly comfortable in the world, if we didn't have heating.

So you see: with the pandemic and with working from home I re-gained one, albeit small natural cycle: that winter is colder and summer is warmer.

But what about the other cycles?

What about seasonal eating, about what food should and shouldn't we eat at different times of the day? What about the cycles of shorter and longer day? Shouldn't we align our working and sleeping hours instead of going 9-5 like machines? What about night and day cycles, shouldn't we have actual darkness at some point? About body meridian cycles, one's natural sleep patterns, and so on? Why are we trying to eliminate cycles?

Words from the greatest ever film monologue might be apt here:

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men!

Charlie Chaplin - The Final Speech from The Great Dictator¹⁰

But what if that's the goal, machine men, with machine hearts?

What if all these small cycles are hidden reminders of the one cycle nobody can bypass: that our life begins and ends. That everything decays. Is that why we're trying to murder the nights, the yearly, the seasonal, the daily cycles, so that our own cycle will also stop?

I wouldn't be surprised if the nation leaders recently caught on tape discussing living up to 150¹¹ would think this way. I'm really hoping that Chaplin wasn't wrong, and

The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…

still stands.

But to return a bit from the disturbed thoughts maybe the secret is to slowly but steadily embrace what we can.

Working from home opens the door not just for the temperature cycles to creep in, but to have a nap when needed. Blackouts are available to make our rooms truly dark throughout the night. We can email our city councillors to embrace wildlife friendly, more natural street lights. And we can put halogen bulbs into our desk lamps - that is as long as we can buy and stockpile halogen and incandescent bulbs.

eXistenZ (1999) is a dividing film, but I believe it's genius and disturbing..
SPOILER
During the movie, Allegra, at one point, at the trout farm, repeats her sentence exactly the same way, which she previously described to be a tell-tale of NPCs. In the end both Ted and Allegra behave very much like NPC, with their expressions, the way of talking, limited reactions, etc. So the real question is: who is the player? I'm not alone trying to figure it out: https://moviechat.org/tt0120907/eXistenZ/58c764d26b51e905f682e9ad/The-dog-is-the-proof?reply=58c764d26b51e905f682e9df
↩︎
https://www.businessinsider.com/divide-between-west-east-berlin-from-space-today-2019-11 ↩︎
https://hackaday.com/2025/05/30/white-led-turning-purple-analyzing-a-phosphor-failure/↩︎
https://nymag.com/strategist/article/led-light-bulbs-investigation.html ↩︎
https://images.philips.com/is/content/PhilipsConsumer/PDFDownloads/Global/Case-studies/CSLI20180612_001-UPD-en_AA-Nieuwkoop-bat-friendly-lighting-case-study-philips-light-recipe-June-18.pdf ↩︎
https://www.optic-gaggione.com/materials/amber-optics-for-street-lighting/↩︎
https://www.mic-led.com/news/why-cities-are-vying-for-amber-led-street-light-the-futures-orange ↩︎
https://cubari.moe/read/gist/JYHJU/011/3/↩︎
https://www.aran.com/↩︎
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/synopsis/articles/29-The-Great-Dictator-s-Speech ↩︎
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr70rvrd41ko ↩︎

The tiny office, the compact cassettes, and the speaker upgrades

2025-12-16T14:39:30+00:00

Thanks to a vintage receiver that came with the cassette deck, which I got because I had to deal with my box of cassettes from my childhood days, I upgraded my office desk speakers.

My tiny home office desk

At the end of 2019 we moved into THE average UK house: the mythical semi-detached, as a friend referred to it. He was brought up in Bath, which, apparently, lacks these omnipresent dwellings, so when he moved out from there and was presented with them - as these were often mentioned as the national average - he greeted them as a beast of myths and legends.

It's a mid 50s Laing Easiform, one of the non traditional constructions - concrete in the UK is non-traditional, given a meagre 100 years of these being built doesn't add up to tradition yet - that was not deemed faulty in the '85 incursion into prefab houses. Possibly because it's not prefab¹.

Saying that this house is 3 bedroom is overselling it a bit: there are two large-ish bedrooms, and one ~2.4x2.4m, which became my office and our guest room. Because of this, my desk is rather cramped: it's whole 25 + 80 cm wide, 80cm deep, a now discontinued IKEA Ivar drop down desk, so it can be closed when the room acts as a guest bedroom. I'd definitely love a stereotypical hacker basement² but I'll work with what I have.

It looks better now, this was in between the first and second lockdowns, in 2020

In 2020, when the world was told to stay at home, we bought floorstanding speakers to bring a bit more of the world home. The Panasonic micro bookshelf speakers, SB-PM500 that I got for about £20 when we moved to the UK in 2012 moved up with me. I tried to play with their placement, but you can see, there aren't many good options. I was driving them with a £15 class-D micro amp, a ZK-502T.

Budget, yes. Audiophile, no. Panasonic SB-PM500 speakers with a ZK-502T amplifier PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/20 sec, ISO 1600 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Sidenote: for me, it seems like that with cheap class-D amps one needs a lot of luck with speaker pairing. As I wrote before³ moving from a Topping MX3 to a NAD C 316BEE V2, which is still a budget amp, for the Dali Oberon 5 pair we have was an insane difference. Maybe higher end class-D is good, but in my very limited experience, the cheap ones are prone to speaker pairing, so consider getting a used AB class amplifier instead.

Another sidenote: some years ago I had the chance to bring my beloved-as-teen speakers from home - just the speakers, as the CD player of the base unit was dead already (SA-AK18). Since then I learnt the phrase "black plastic crap⁴" - and once I heard those old, space-grey, futuristic speakers against the small ones, I understood why the term. The smaller ones were better in every possible way, and I ended up donating the old ones. The lesson here: looks are deceiving for an untrained eye, especially for young, untrained eyes.

I don't have photos of my own old system, I snatched this from eBay. It played a lot of trance and metal. I was a teen around 2000.

Ever since the Oberons I've been after better speakers for this small, limited, super near field listening space (LOL) for years. I think what was holding me back was knowing that the amp not up to driving real speakers so I kept putting the topic off.

I was very close to buying and AudioEngine A1, tiny, active pair, that's discontinued now. Not the A2 - the A1 still had the power supply in the box, as I'm getting very tired of external power bricks. It turned out: the A1 doesn't have grills, which is a must with a 3.5 year old in the house. The longer he doesn't know there's something behind the cover, the better. I also started reading up on the Adam Audio D3V, but the inner voice was telling me I wouldn't like them. And it also has a power brick.

Recently, however, things got shaken up a bit because of a box of cassettes.

The Revenge of the Box of Compact Cassettes

We were back at home in Hungary recently, where my father keeps giving me my own boxes filled with my own things that I still have at their place.

It's entirely valid, but it's not always simple to move my things via commercial airplanes: to make it worth it I need to pack an extra, exactly 20kg luggage. This time I managed, and I ended up with a large set of cassettes - which are apparently making a comeback to mainstream media?!

Music was different 30+ years ago PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/20 sec, ISO 100 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

To at least have some vague idea what's on them I also brought my Panasonic walkman and my Aiwa dictaphone - both dead.

The Panasonic needed new belts: they were just crumbles at this point. It was playing too slow, but this was a relatively easy fix, though not measured yet, as I don't have an oscilloscope.

I really should buy an oscilloscope.

Regardless, it's left channel is partially dead, possibly a head alignment problem, and I couldn't yet get to it.

The Aiwa looks full on dead, and it's not the belts. One day I'll start working on it. Hopefully.

So I bought a cassette deck

To overcome the problem of not having something to play the cassettes with, and because I never had a proper one, I started I looking on eBay for a cassette deck. I ended up bidding on a whole stack of JVC: receiver, phono, tape deck, and ITT speakers, and I won them - for £13.38 the whole, with a 20 minutes driving. And with the promise of "it worked when I put it away".

When people tell you to be really aware of thing sold as "it worked when I put it away" you should listen - unless you know how to or want to learn how to fix things, like me.

The cigarette home smell from the equipment was ruthless. I let them air for some days, didn't work. I bought some Neutradol spray, sprayed them let them air many more days, that finally did the job, but they still puff occasionally. This is despite the fact that they are basically spotless: barely any dust or anything. Way too many people smoked in their back in the 'olden days, and it just soaked into everything.

The JVC KD-A11⁵ Stereo Cassette Deck is gorgeous. It has VU meters, large, physical buttons. It's not high end, as it's a 2 head system, but it's already much more complicated mechanically, than I was expecting it to be.

Looks like fun, doesn't it?

Nearly everything works, except fast forward. Unfortunately it doesn't seems to be a belt issue, so my desire to learn how to repair these things will soon come true - once I find the time. Does anyone have time for sale?

It sounds absolutely amazing compared to what I remembered about the sound of cassettes. Not my old recordings from VIVA through the TV, recorded by another black plastic crap system; those are miserable compared to streaming, or even against low quality mp3-s. But the genuine, store bought ones, those are actually quite nice, so I'm not entirely stunned about their comeback. I could even do a decent recording on a Type IV (metal) tape as a test.

the front of JVC KD-A11 PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/30 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

the front profile of JVC KD-A11 PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/30 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

the back of JVC KD-A11 PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/30 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

But I also bought a turntable?

Because it was the full stack from 1980, it had turntable. I was told that the JVC L-A11⁶ got a new belt, and that it's fixed now. Well... no.

The belt was indeed replaced, but that was far from the only problem:

completely, rock solid stuck spindle
warped and twisted stylus
misaligned cartridge

Now the rest is also fixed - thanks to @12voltvids on youtube⁷ for the idea to heat the spindle to pull it apart, though it did take a frightening amount of heating from a heat gun. Unfortunately I scratched it with the pliers despite the layers of cloth between them, but I was able to polish it out in the end.

I bought a new stylus that fits the original cartridge⁸, aligned the cartridge, configured the counterweight. I now have a working phono - without vinyls, because I bought the stack for the cassette deck.

So in order to be able to at least test it bought a Vivaldi: Four Seasons for a whole £1 in a charity shop - and I was overjoyed with the sound. Seems like there's definitely a lot of truth about old mastering quality, because that Vivaldi recording from the 70s packs some unbelievable detail compared to super-duper hi-res quality whatever in the streaming services.

For anyone wondering, it's connected to the NAD, it has a phono preamp. No, I'm not going to go down the cartridge rabbit hole, it's too deep, and it's for people with vinyl, which I still don't have, and I don't really intend to have - it's too expensive.

JVC L-A11 LP PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.0, 1/60 sec, ISO 400 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

And I now have a vintage receiver?

The receiver, JVC R-S11⁹, is mint. Apart from two dead bugs that were inside the display - cleaned now -, it's in perfect condition. No dead capacitors, barely any dust inside.

There were spots I thought are leaking capacitors, only to learn that some capacitors are glued down.

The pots and meters needed cleaning, those made a lot of cracking sound, isopropyl alcohol was my friend here. All the contact sprays contain terrible things, I'll try to stay away from them.

Anyhow, the receiver is a beauty, and it sounds amazing for it's age.

JVC R-S11L Stereo Receiver front PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.0, 1/30 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

JVC R-S11L Stereo Receiver back PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.0, 1/30 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

JVC R-S11L Stereo Receiver front, turned off PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.0, 1/30 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

JVC R-S11L Stereo Receiver inside opened up PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/5.6, 1/20 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

And late '60s speakers?!

I ended up selling the ITT KS 665 speakers on eBay already - I don't have the space for them. I hope someone is going to be extremely happy, given they got it for £0.99 plus delivery.

I need to be realistic about restoring something that I need to learn how to do from scratch, considering my free time scarcity. It would be a waste to store these in the shed for a decade, only to let them rot away. Considering their age, they sounded surprisingly nice in vocal and high range, so they'd probably made acceptable studio monitors, given they are sealed cabinets, but they are hard to drive.

The front of ITT KS 665 speakers PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/60 sec, ISO 400 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The side of ITT KS 665 speakers PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The back of ITT KS 665 speakers PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/60 sec, ISO 800 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Different, small speakers, however...

As told in the beginning, I have been eye-ing upgrades for the Panasonics for quite a while now, but various things kept holding me back.

During the summer I went to a bar, Flakon¹⁰, in Budapest, with friends - only to be greeted with 4, very Dali-looking speakers inside. People, please, PLEASE put audiophile speakers at more venues, bars, cafés. They can deliver music at much lower volume, so people can hear each other. It's a wonderful experience. It kept bothering me because I couldn't find them in the lineup, but their appearance and sound was telling me they can't be old, and that they are for sure Dali. After some luck I found them: they were Zensor 3-s.

It's very hard to find information on discontinued lines, even if they are from 2015, when the internet was already omnipresent and in everyone's pocket, which is quite annoying. It'd be great to have a dedicated sections, corners, on manufacturer websites, that act like museums for old products. I'm also looking at you, IKEA.

When looking at Zensor 1-s, Oberon 1-s, coughing at the price of Menuet, I came across a surprise: the Dali Zensor Pico. This thing is the same size as my Panasonics!

	Width	Height	Depth	Frequency range	Sensitivity	Nominal Impedance	Weight
Panasonic SB-PM500	145mm	224mm	197mm	74 - 27000 Hz -10 dB	80.5 dB/W	6Ω	1.9 kg
Dali Oberon 1	162mm	274mm	234mm	51 - 26000 Hz +/- 3 dB	86 dB/W	6Ω	4.2 kg
Dali Zensor 1	162mm	274mm	220mm	53 - 26500 Hz +/- 3 dB	86.5 dB/W	6Ω	4.2 kg
Dali Zensor Pico	145mm	232mm	196mm	62 - 26500 Hz +/- 3 dB	84 dB/W	6Ω	3.08 kg

Giving specs at -10 dB, Panasonic, sure, not cheating at all. No wonder it sounded so boxy.

I found 3 of them on eBay, and won the bid at £83 + £20 delivery - they were probably satellites in surround system. I love them, and they fit the unforgivably small space.

With the covers on it's only the brand that could give the quality difference away PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/20 sec, ISO 1600 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The backs start to tell the story better: the unfinished MDF and the terminals that I added - they were bare wires - compared to the neat banana plug terminals and the finished surfaces PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/20 sec, ISO 1600 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

With the covers off the differences are immediately more stark - if you know what to look for. PENTAX K-5 II s, 35.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/20 sec, ISO 1600 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 35mm F2.4 AL ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Speaker positioning makes a frightening difference. I put them on two, currently unused cork yoga blocks, and it would be better to get them even higher, but due to the options available, that's not yet possible (the monitor arm on the left is in the way).

Yoga blocks as desktop speaker stands PENTAX K-5 II s, 18.0 mm, f/4.5, 1/10 sec, ISO 1600 ⋅ smc PENTAX-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR ⋅ CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Some closing thoughts

Music has been important for me as long as I can remember, much more, then equipment, but once I stopped going to loud music parties I started missing them. I tried playing guitar, but it's not for me, so I'm thankful to those who can and do play anything.

I always thought live music or at least from speakers is a whole level of different experience, then music from headphones, and a recent study¹¹ ¹² seem to finally back it up that resonance, music, etc reaches our cells. Obviously not limited to musical frequencies, which is probably why Chinese medicine says the food for the Pericardium Meridian is sunlight.

All of those healing with sounds things that many people think is bogus might finally be proved. Cats know this, their purr heals them, and possibly us as well. I dislike how people think of senses: one for seeing, one for hearing, etc, when, for example, our whole body feels heat, yet it's all different wavelength energy. Experiencing with our whole body should be important.

If you're like me, and can't go to parties any more, treat yourselves with some music that reaches your whole body¹³, not just your ears. It's important.

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We're murdering the night

The tiny office, the compact cassettes, and the speaker upgrades

My tiny home office desk

The Revenge of the Box of Compact Cassettes

So I bought a cassette deck

But I also bought a turntable?

And I now have a vintage receiver?

And late '60s speakers?!

Different, small speakers, however...

Some closing thoughts

Step 3: get ANS data into nginx logs⁵