I wrote up a detailed breakdown of a small home server I’ve been running on a Raspberry Pi (~3W power draw, about $1/month).
It started as a way to automate a weekly dance newsletter, but turned into a full setup:
- scraping pipeline (browser-based, runs on cron)
- remote dev from my phone using Claude Code
- private networking via Tailscale (no public-facing IP)
- Django backend + Telegram bot for publishing
One unexpected benefit: scraping from a residential IP has been much more reliable than using a VPS.
I tried to focus on the tradeoffs and why I chose each piece, not just the tools.
Hi hackers, my friends recently asked me to make a tutorial showing how to set up their phone with adblockers and dark mode. So I did! Hope it helps you browse the web more calmly. Below I copied my youtube blurb so you know what the video is about (pls don't mind the overly compelling/engaging text copy).
Take control of your iPhone and stop letting websites overload your brain. In this short video, I show you 3 free iPhone hacks that instantly make web browsing calmer, cleaner, and less distracting.
You’ll learn:
• How to install a powerful Safari ad blocker
• How to watch YouTube ad-free
• How to force dark mode on every website to protect your sleep and avoid melatonin disruption at night
Hi hackers, I made a tutorial and video on 2 different ways (GUI and CLI) of installing MicroPython on an ESP32. Hope it's helpful to those of you who want to try out hardware/embedded projects while leveraging your Python skills (and not having to learn Arduino or C/C++). Feel free to me ask any questions/clarifications here if you'd like :)
One important aspect missing is tactical feedback. The mouse, keyboard, and touchscreen all provide that but Vision Pro doesn’t. We have evolved several nervous system sensors (touch, pressure, temperature) for this and it is just as “human” as spatial reasoning and hand manipulation of objects
I totally agree with the “undemanding Canadians” view…so true! I moved here 12 years ago from Dubai and the demands/standards of business and service are way lower here. Pros are that it’s laid back and chill, cons are that we are unlikely to lead and innovate because we are satisfied with the status quo
That's true, concurrency is becoming an important consideration and is probably why predictable and FP-oriented langs like Elixir, Rust, Clojure are having good growth.
As for mutating state, I come from an embedded software (microcontrollers) background haha and there's no option but to mutate state
Yes lazy evaluation is a good one. I believe Python does have that with its generators/yield syntax, but I found lazy evaluation simpler to work with in Haskell
Distributed Energy Resources, or a fancy way of saying "solar, batteries, heat pumps, smart thermostats, etc", i.e. any distributed (as opposed to centralized) sources/users of energy
We built a tool for Ontarians (Canada) to easily find permits for solar and battery energy projects.
It can be complicated to fulfil the permitting requirements for all the different utility and building jurisdictions out there. But we absolutely must overcome this barrier in order to accelerate renewable energy in the province!
My cofounder Mike scoured through utility documents, building permits, hidden web pages and took long phone calls so you don't have to :)
P.S. if you found this valuable or think that it needs more info / clarity to be truly useful, please let us know
Your stack sounds perfectly fast and cheap and scalable and modern. Stick with it. If you want to run multiple apps in one DO droplet to save money, use dokku
(My blog post btw if you’re curious https://bhave.sh/make-humans-analog-again/)