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This is my personal site where I note down my thoughts. Enjoy!
Not Self Hosting
Attempting to self host the site
A couple of weeks ago I decided to try self hosting my site on a server from hetzner.com.
I bought the cheapest server they had, just under €4 a month and proceeded to get the server actually hosting my site. This worked very well, but it was a bit hit and miss since I don't know much about Linux. I even managed to get password protection working on private folders. All of this I then managed put together in a number of scripts. With a lot of help from copilot. Or at least I thought I had.
After resetting my server to do a clean build, my scripts started generating errors. Probably I could have fixed them, but it's a lot of hassle for something I was getting for free.
Additionally, I needed a very basic, password protected, php page to be able to trigger a rebuild of the site using a browser. What stumped me were the Linux permissions needed to do this securely. I wanted to trigger a shell script from a php form post. Copilot gave lots of useful help, but couldn't solve my exact problem either. Or maybe I couldn't understand it's instructions. This is a good example of AI being good, but not quite good enough in situations where the person asking copilot is not an expert on the topic AI is helping with. Probably there are better AI tools than Copilot but for now I gave up.
U-turn
In the end I decided to stick with a managed service because:
- It's a lot of effort setting up a server
- It's a lot of effort updating and maintaining a server
- There's no real gain to me or my website from me doing the previous two points
So after a week or so of trying to get my scripts working, I'm still happily running on statichost.eu.
Voices International Choir
Echoes of the world
Yesterday I watched a lovely performance of the Voices International Choir in the Philharmonie in Luxembourg. It included the children's choir from the international school.
ING Half Marathon
ING half-marathon completed. Swoosh! 👟🔥
Today I completed the ING half marathon in 2:37:47, at a pace of 07:23.
Congratulations to me! 👏👏
My overall position was 7487 out of 8479 classified finishers, (5171 in the male group, 350 in the M50 age group). Overall I gained places from position 7915 at 10km, to about position 7700 at 15km and then to position 7487 at the finish.
Very good for someone who only started the C25K program in June last year and hadn't made an effort in a competitive race since aged about 13.
Whilst my joints and muscles were aching by the end, I wasn't as exhausted as I thought I would be, after my struggle a couple of weeks ago in Kirchberg.
Turns out refueling with water, energy drinks and snacks along the course are a good way to keep going. As does having other people around you to keep up with. Apparently some forms of doping are allowed. It also helped that it was a little cooler at around 21°C thanks to some rain at the start.
A couple of other thoughts:
- The irony of my headset saying low battery for the last 2km!
- The Nike Running Club app I use overstimates the distance by about 7%, it said I ran 22.69km. This makes all my other jogs on my running page inaccurate!
And to wrap up: Right at the start I was queueing for a final pee before the race. I was actually in the portaloo when the starting gun went for the professionals. As we then made our way to the start line, I saw rows and rows of men peeing in the bush on the side. In that case, why don't they reserve the portaloos for the women, and make all the men use bushes!