Wulf's Webden

The Webden on WordPress

9 January 2026
by wpAdmin
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Drive Holder

One of the physical things I’m using in my new job, in order to access a wide range of useful software, is a small, fast external hard drive I picked up about nine months ago. I got Debian 12 installed on it but got a bit stuck trying to get Dropbox working. It turns out that I probably just needed one more reboot for everything to click together. With that sorted, I’m now using my laptop as a Debian box, giving me a platform for various technical tools and one that I can experiment on with relative impunity. However, the drive hangs off the side of the laptop on a USB cable so I decided it was time to create a holder for it.

I took some measurements, did some sketching and then set to work in OpenSCAD. I used negative modifiers in Bambu studio when I printed the prototype in order to carve out sections and keep the filament usage and time down. There were a couple of points to adjust and so I made my tweaks and set version 2 to printing. It turns out I’d missed one vital element of a compound dimension and so, although it fitted comfortably over the USB cable, the drive couldn’t slide in on top. I’m now waiting for the third prototype (back to printing a cut down version with just the dimensions I need to assess) to cool down to test.

Could I have avoid this? OpenSCAD isn’t brilliant at letting you easily measure things. Thinking about it though, I could also have created a model of the drive itself and, as long as I’d measured that correctly, I could have positioned my part and the phantom drive next to each other to visually check for crossovers.

What the second version did let me do was test one of the “joiners” you can add via the BOSL2 library. My design was going to have overhangs whichever way I orientated it, so rather than use supports, I decided to print it as two symmetrical halves. I went for snap pins, hollowing out holes in both halves and then also printing two of the small pins. They have a hollow portion in the centre so you can clip them in but they resist coming out. It might be possible to lever the pieces apart with a screwdriver but they are securely joined for my purposes.

Anyway, that third test (a mere 2g of additional filament) has confirmed that I’ve got the fix right so time to get the final version ready to print so I can take it off the printer tomorrow morning.

8 January 2026
by wpAdmin
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Wet Snow… so far

The MetOffice map of the UK is presently covered with multiple weather warnings, including a rare red one round the Cornish coast indicating a serious danger due to high winds. Here in the East Midlands we’ve got an amber warning for snow although temperatures are forecast to stay above freezing.

I was on a video chat with a friend tonight and between the start and end we went from cold rain to some snow and (when I opened the front door to check a few minutes ago) back to rain. I don’t know what I’m likely to find tomorrow morning although I don’t have to go out anywhere. That said, if the snow has stayed, I’ll probably need to stick my boots on and tramp up to the allotment. I laid down some fleece on certain beds last week but only weighted it down at the edges rather than taking any measures to lift it above the broad bean and garlic shoots that were showing their heads.

We’ll see. Tonight I think I can safely crawl under my warm blanket and sleep without worrying too much about what kind of cold blanket might be on the ground outside.

7 January 2026
by wpAdmin
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The Wrong Trousers

For some reason, I’m not having a very good week for trousers. The first pair I put on developed a fairly substantial rip in the seat. Worse still, I noticed earlier in the day and forget to change them before going to Monday’s choir rehearsal. I didn’t keep my outdoor coat on but I think my fellow choir members must have been preoccupied with the mixture of low temperature and new music – certainly no-one pointed out the hole!

I switched to a pair of hiking trousers. No rips in those but the zipper wasn’t working well. It is a nylon coil one and I realised it was becoming detached from its backing – harder and harder to pull up and down and increasingly likely to fail entirely. I’ve now picked up a new pair of trousers (smart black corduroy using a cotton / lycra blend) and they seem to fit well. Hopefully they won’t succumb to any similar fate, this week at least!

And, yes, I did pick them up on a grocery shopping trip in Lidl. There’s a temptation to buy all sorts of additional stuff in there but every now and then they do manage to have exactly what you need down the magical middle aisle.

6 January 2026
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Hot Lips

Tonight’s rehearsals were with the Charnwood Training Band and the Charnwood Concert Band and I’m pleased that the heating at our rehearsal venue (All Saints Church, Thorpe Acre with Dishley) was working well.

For the training band, I’m still playing tuba but I have to confess that I’ve been a bit slack on practising it over the Christmas break. By half way through the first song, my lips were starting to feel uncomfortably hot which I suspect is a sign that I should have done some maintenance practise with the mouthpiece if nothing else. Lesson learned! I’ll be back to weekly rehearsals for the term but I’ll also try to make time for some practise to keep my lip in shape and help my skills improve.

5 January 2026
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Cold Start

The university choir had a bit of a cold start this evening. The heating was sometimes flaky last term and despite being checked earlier today, it was not helping much by the time we arrived. Fewer people than normal had come out in any case due to icy conditions so we ended up having a shorter rehearsal than normal – enough to get a start on the main piece for our next concert in May but not so much that we had turned into blocks of ice by the end of it.

3 January 2026
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… and for the band

Tomorrow I get to test my “singing off the same hymn sheet” tool for the church worship team. I’ll be interested to see how it works and particularly in how it compares to using OnSong on my iPad. Meanwhile, I’ve been working on another web-based tool, this time for the Charnwood Training Band. We’ve got a selection of songs picked out by the conductor and I’ve offered to distribute them, which obviously means coding up a website! The initial release will let band members pick the pieces they need to fill gaps in their pads. Potentially they could even use it live with a suitable electronic device but, in this case, they will probably be better off downloading what they need in advance so they can make whatever scribbles they need to help navigate the pieces. Time to send the email to give them all the link.

2 January 2026
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Slippery Paths

Cold weather hit in earnest this morning. Even when Jane and I took a walk down to town in the afternoon, many of the pavements were still very icy. I’m glad I found time earlier this week to pop down and put some frost protection over tender plants at the allotment! It should be a little warmer this time next week but the forecasts suggest we’ve got some colder temperatures to get through as well as overnight precipitation which, if it doesn’t fall as snow, certainly isn’t going to make those paths less hazardous!

1 January 2026
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Limbering Up

I mentioned briefly last month that I’m starting a new job this year, as a Web Application Developer for the Song and Hymn Writers Foundation, which supports initiatives such as Resound Worship. Officially I begin tomorrow, since today has been a Bank Holiday, but I’ve been doing some limbering up this week.

Today’s main project was something I’ve had in mind for a long while, creating a web tool to use at church to make sure that the band are all “singing off the same hymn sheet”. We’re all using electronic devices to read chord sheets but it is a very heterogenous collection and it has not been unknown for us to end up trying to play the same song from several different and sometimes incompatible sources. I like to use ChordPro charts on my iPad and I’ve found some ways of sharing them but it has been a bit clunky.

Today I’ve worked on manually converting the charts we need for Sunday to HTML and displaying them on a single page, including some navigation tools and putting the chords neatly over the top of the necessary words. That’s now up and running and we’ll test it on Sunday. The next trick will be to automatically parse ChordPro to HTML and to build in the ability to transpose to different keys, which I figured out in Python last term. Ultimately I want a few short instructions to quickly build a full set list and that will also help us start capturing information like what songs make up our “Top of the Pops” and which keys each person likes to use when they lead a given tune.

Will it be used in the new job? Probably not immediately although it is possible some opportunities to repurpose it may come along. However, it has worked well for getting me back in the flow of being a web developer and should also be a real benefit to the music group at my church.

31 December 2025
by wpAdmin
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Silent Fireworks

Another New Year’s Eve which, as is my wont in recent years, I’m not staying up for. It might not be that easy to drop off to sleep though as the fireworks began sometime ago and are likely to carry on well past midnight. For me, it is an annoyance but I know people with livestock, with pets or with PTSD for whom it is a more serious issue.

The main problem with fireworks is not their pretty lights but the loud bangs that go along with many of them. You can shut out the lights by pulling the curtains but sounds are harder to mask unless you are willing – and able – to put your own suitably loud sound on to drown them out.

Since fireworks are controlled explosions, completely silent ones are hard or perhaps impossible to produce but a lot of the ones that get let off seem to have been manufactured for maximum noise. Apparently two recent petitions around reducing the maximum allowed volume and limiting sales to private customers are due to be debated in January 2026. I’ll leave the blog post I found about them on my computer for when I restart it tomorrow. Particularly if I get a bad night’s sleep, I’ll be feeling extra motivated to do some writing and signing to follow it up.

30 December 2025
by wpAdmin
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What to Finish?

Almost the end of another year… and I’m not thinking so much of resolutions for 2026 as what things I need to get finished off from 2025!