Zombiemerge

I do love code reviews but I'm convinced they're best done live — reviewed, merged, communicated immediately.

A few weeks ago I did submit changes through merge requests, and a few weeks later I had completely forgot about their implementation.

I context switched a few times since then....

Today the change was merged by the repository maintainers then a few colleagues were discussing one of its consequences. Only because I was in the same workspace, I did react on time.

My mistake was likely to not have communicated more proactively about the change, likely as I'm not the repository maintainer nor the release maintainer so I had no idea when the change would be merged.

Anyway, there are several such merge requests being queued. All recipes for future headaches.

LLMified

Saving time and storage (with style)

LinkedIn

I reply to all recruiters for a long time. This became a chore over time, so I've developed a userscript that is loaded on every LinkedIn conversation, and calls Mistral AI to generate a reply in my preferred style. With every conversation I open, I hit this button and it will reply adequately, with respect to the history of the conversation, my priorities of the moment, the language of the conversation, the tone, etc.

It is then up to me to post the proposed answer as-is or to discard/edit the proposal

Dropbox storage optimization

As a parent, I developed the habit of archiving digital souvenirs of our kid’s life. Those pics and videos accumulate. As someone very organized, I like to avoid duplicates and also save the correct metadata (EXIF) in our pics and videos, which proves to be challenging with older pics from WhatsApp groups.

I wanted also to ensure that every time I get pictures and videos shared via WhatsApp family groups, I collect them in our Dropbox. This is done via Syncthing-Fork (Android client) and syncthing servers running on my Cloudron and my Macbook Pro. Syncthing monitors all folders that can contain videos or pictures. This helps effortlessly move all my pics/videos

  • Moves all new pics/videos from Android-monitored folders to Dropbox. As those folders are kept in sync via Syncthing, if I move a pic/video out of the monitored Syncthing folder to Dropbox, it removes the pics/videos from all locations monitored by Syncthing on my Android, so it helps organizing things on Dropbox while also making room on my Android device. Syncthing is set up manually, but it’s easy to manage.
  • Detect all pics/videos which do not contain a face, this is done using YOLOv5 by Ultralytics. The script was generated via LLM.
  • Remove duplicates via some scripts (generated by LLM) or via https://github.com/arsenetar/dupeguru (manually, via UI).
  • Compress/convert pictures and videos using https://ffmpeg.org/ which is installed locally, this achieves saving hundred GBs of data thus can reduce the bandwidth and resources needed for downloading, syncing, displaying such files. On top of this, I require less amount of storage, thus I can keep cheaper Dropbox subscription for longer. LLM generated most of the scripts needed for the task.

Newsletters summaries

As explained in a previous blog (https://morgan.zoemp.be/indieblog/), I'm keeping track of all new blog posts listed in https://indieblog.page/. I first cooked a daily RSS for it, using LLMs. This proved useful but as the list of RSS feeds grows over time, I came to realize I needed to better filter the list, or to limit the output. I don't want the filter to be too random, I want it to be based on my taste, so I created another RSS feed which is a LLM-aided summary of the first RSS feed.

Correcting or translating text

I asked an LLM to review this blog post. The instructions were simple: don't mess with my style, just flag the important fixes. I also asked for a permalink suggestion — one single English word, ideally fun or Gilfoyle-approved. The result is what you’re reading now. This very paragraph was, in fact, fully translated from a French original 🙂 .

What else?

I’ve shown a few cases where LLMs save me time or help improve my productivity. There are many more I haven’t covered, where I use LLMs to generate reusable scripts. Once a working solution is cooked, the LLM is out of the picture — most of the time. When a script needs to depend on AI to work, I mostly use Mistral: cheaper than OpenAI, and I don’t have to sacrifice my soul (or card) to use it. Automatic replies and content summaries are cases where interactive AI calls make sense. Still, I prefer to limit such usage — it makes my productivity overly dependent on fragile APIs and unpredictable outputs.

Ghost – not fitting as WordPress replacement

I've a Cloudron instance where I experiment various tools. This time, it was Ghost, as a replacement to WordPress, especially as Ghost was acclaimed by some folks I follow.

The good parts

  • Simple and modern.
  • The migration of content from WordPress, works great!

The worst parts

  • I couldn't find a good theme for my taste.
  • Distinct UIs for browsing your blog and quickly editing your posts. Far more complicated than in WordPress. If I want separate tools for editing and browsing content, then I just go with static site generators 🙂
  • The extreme minimalism and simplicity makes it less appealing for me, I like to customize the content and web administration UI, I feel out of control here. For instance I dislike the appearance of my content in Ghost.

Conclusion for now

  • Still looking for alternatives to WordPress. But likely thinking of scripting my own thing.

Productivity monk

I have taken a few habits recently:

  • Inbox zero by bedtime. Unhandled mails go to TickTick.
  • Tasks default to next week. If they matter, they’ll wait.
  • One work task per day. If it drags, I commit or kill it.
  • Articles get bookmarked. Read later—or never. Doesn’t matter.
  • Tasks get automated. Or ignored.
  • Midnight is my hard stop. Usually...
  • Everything goes in TickTick.
  • No date = no task. No surprises.
  • Task and blog ideas are dumped into TickTick as notes, voice or text.
  • LLMs get a few hours. That’s it. And only for automation.
  • LinkedIn runs on auto-reply.
  • Same rules at home and work. One brain. Scripts everywhere.
  • I keep folders of tabs—Wednesday, Friday, Daily. I open them when it’s time. Not before.
  • I use browser userscripts to bend websites to my will. UX included.
  • Family runs on self-service. Automation takes care of the rest.
  • And a few things don’t change—only improve: Backups and monitoring for everything. Unit tests for all my scripts. And pipelines. Obviously.

This isn’t a system. It’s survival. Simplicity is the only thing that scales, especially with kids and ADHD.

Things nerds commonly have, but I don’t

Inspiration: https://forkingmad.blog/things-people-commonly-have-but-i-dont/

In a conversation recently with a colleague I casually mentioned I didn't have something. He was shocked... "but how then do you..." was the response.

So here's my list of don't haves

  • Spotify account. I have CDs and I've bought a CD player from KLIM. I just find the CD to be a very nice looking and collectible object, pleasant to listen to. Also I feel it's mine, and I like the creative goodies and packaging that you don't have with a digital copy of an album.
  • A NAS. I don't need a NAS to backup pictures or stream videos through Plex. I have a VPS where I run a Cloudron which hosts most of my web apps, one is for sharing my family pictures. And I also use Syncthing, and Dropbox to keep my photos in sync and backed up in several places. And next to that I use Plex but I just don't host it on my infra, I pay a provider for their generous bandwidth and for the fact they take care of streaming my content through Plex. It's so fluid. I couldn't and wouldn't maintain this at home.
  • A gaming machine nor a gaming chair. Seriously I do not see the point, because I consider most games do not require super advanced graphics or material to be fun. In fact I love minimalistic games with pixellated art. I'm old and also feel nostalgic of specific games that are all forgotten now. Anyway I'm developing the best game ever, which is the only one I play. More about this soon, when I'll buy the domain for the website, after I decide on a name.
  • A mechanical keyboard. Seriously, what's the deal is with those noisy expensive impractical keyboards.
  • A 3D Printer. Seriously, this is so cool to possess one, I just don't have the space for this now. Maybe when I'll have my own space in our future home.
  • A VPN. Sure it sounds secure but it's just someone else glorified proxy, and it's vulnerable to authority requiring logs or to any part getting compromised. You have to blindly and naively trust the VPN and people behind it to not disclose your information when their company will be required to by the authority. If different contexts I use them, i.e at work, of course, wherever it's mandatory.