Midjourney is fun, but the Discord-based interface is somewhat annoying, if you want to make a lot of images. To get all the images you generate, you have to upscale all 2x2 previews, and save them manually. It can get pretty tiring, so instead of making better images, I spent a bit of time to automate the download and import process. With this code, a Discord bot will monitor your server, watch for Midjourney messages, process all images, and upload them to your Lightroom CC cloud account.

Midjourney / Discord to Lightroom automation - step by step - for 2023 »

While it’s cool to host your own Mastodon server, it’s not really efficient. A simple thing you can do, however, is to make it easier for others to discover your presence, if they already know your website. Try it out – search for “johnmu@johnmu.com” in your Mastodon instance. Also, click “follow” for SEO tips & other bad takes. Why is hosting your own instance inefficient? In short, sending updates between users (followers, followees) means connections between their individual servers, and if everyone has their own server, it’s a lot of network activity.

Mastodon - be findable with your domain (on Firebase hosting) »

Now that Mastodon is more of a thing, I thought I’d set up a static embed of Mastadon posts within Hugo, similar to what I did for Twitter posts. With the static embedding, I wanted to remove all requirements for JavaScript, and remove all third-party requests on behalf of the users here. In short, this speeds things up, and saves you from worrying about cookies & tracking, or needing to make exceptions to the site’s CSP.

Static, privacy-preserving embedding of Mastodon posts »

It’s been a while since I initially looked into what it takes to make an optimal wifi connection with an Espressif ESP8266 / ESP-01 (old post). Using the code from the old post didn’t work … anymore? What the heck. So much for rolling out another kind of battery-powered ESP8266 device. Time to dig into what goes on with the wifi connection timing. The code is on Github. Most of this post is from the readme file there.

ESP8266 wifi connection speed optimization »

I wanted to do a short post on how to do something with the Search Console API with R. Backing up a bit, I thought I’d include a short summary of how to get started with R, and as you do, I’m now writing a separate post on how to do that. No, I won’t back up more and explain computers or how to connect your printer. Setup For today’s excursion we’ll use the programming language “R”.

Using R for people who don't use R »

I don’t know many (or any) people who think of characters and words in binary, but that might just be a limitation on my end. If you prefer binary, maybe this is something for you. If you just want to geek out, you’re welcome to stay here too. Using a 2-button macro-keyboard and some Arduino code, you can tap in binary and have the keyboard enter ASCII characters. View on YouTube

Arduino binary USB keyboard »

I have -too many, err- some extra ESP32 boards so I thought it would be fun to make a small weather display for the SEO weather. The obvious choice is to use MozCast. This is Moz’s unique interpretation of how Google’s search results change. This doesn’t reflect what Google does in its algorithms, but it’s a number for the weather, so why not. It’s hopefully obvious that this does not represent a recommendation of any particular SEO tool.

Standalone MozCast weather report display with ESP32 »

Who doesn’t love a good button? Click click click, so satisfying. In the search for SMD switches / buttons, I thought I’d just buy some of “all” and try them out. I realize there are many more, this is just what I found browsing Aliexpress. This doc is mostly for me, but I’ll probably spent way too much time on it, so I might as well put it up. Criteria (more or less)

A collection of SMD switches »

Zwift recently released a new set of routes on a made-up island called Makuri. Different from some of the other maps, this one has a ton of cross-roads, and there’s a lot to see. It’s pretty. So, of course, instead of cycling there, I thought it would be a fun exercise to find the shortest path that lets you see everything at least once. Without further ado, here’s the optimal path:

Optimized routing for Zwift's Makuri »

Making a hardware button that connects to wifi and sends a request off to a server is possible using Arduino. Light switches are (almost) immediate – but simple wifi switches easily take 8-10 seconds to connect & switch. How do you get that time down? Here’s my approach. Measure end-to-end - what’s the default time? Is it really that bad, or just sometimes bad? Split into parts Measure the parts Determine which parts should be optimized, and try options Combine the best options Debug why it doesn’t work and try again The computer we’re using to run on is an ESP8266, model ESP-01.

Boot, connect to wifi, server requests in under 1 second with ESP-01 »