Nathan Laundry's Blog


Hi, I'm Nathan. I'm a Computer Science PhD student with two passions: homelab, and self-improvement. I write about both and some other stuff:


Subscribe to my Newsletter - Life and Lab

Why I started writing about Homelabbing

Hey Friends, For a long time, I thought that a career in tech meant software development and probably webdev or ML at that. This is comically short sighted especially, given that my father works in IT and that’s how I became interested in tech in the first place. Still, there was something about my undergraduate experience that led me to believe, you either became a software developer, or you went into academia. Read more...

Lifeandlab3

Hey Friends, It’s been a pretty mild week. I spent most of it working on my Windows 11 setup video for Youtube which, I think, has turned out pretty well. While working on that video I found a sneaky little assumption about my character that changes the way I plan my time. I assume that if I don’t police myself, I will lay around doing nothing but playing league of legends and watching youtube all day long. Read more...

Lifeandlab2 | The "Done List" and Windows

Hey friends, Last week I released my first properly edited Youtube video on ZFSBootMenu and it got a ton of positive feedback. So, to all of you who watched it, commented, subscribed, and so on, thank you so much! It was a tough week in academia, and that little boost did a lot for me. If you haven’t watched it yet, I’ll link it here. On the docket for this issue of Life and Lab, are insights from Olver Burkeman’s new(ish) book, meditations for mortals, and a little bit on the surprising wealth of open source tools for tiling window management experiences on Windows. Read more...

ZFS Boot Menu - I put that sh\*t on everything (and how I do it)

#BasedOn: https://docs.zfsbootmenu.org/en/v2.3.x/guides/debian/bookworm-uefi.html #BasedOn: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Getting%20Started/Debian/Debian%20Bookworm%20Root%20on%20ZFS.html 1. create debian live install media #MediaSource: https://www.debian.org/CD/live/ - choose the “default” don’t need a DE #Installer: https://etcher.balena.io/ (works on linux, mac, and windows) #Requirements: install media (from debian), and an 8gb or larger USB Once these are both installed: Flash from file Select target -> your USB stick Flash! wait for validation you speed fiend. Do not skip! 2. Boot from live media plug that sucker in it’ll bring you to a screen like: #TODO add screenshot 3. Read more...

Life and Lab 1: De-Optimizing Goals and ZFS Boot Menu

Hey friends, Welcome to the first Life and Lab post! If you’re coming from A Little Better on Substack, thank you so much for sticking around for this new direction. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am right now. Table of Contents Life Progress isn’t always the goal The Benefits of Not Tracking your Progress Guiding Questions and Actionable Steps Lab Ventoy - One Drive to Rule Them All Links: Here Documents in Bash Scripts ZFS Boot Menu Install Script Example Links: Wrap up Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on two things. Read more...

Why the Kobo Rocks

Growing up, I was much more into Call of Duty than reading which I’ve heard is equally valid and useful to you later in life so shut up. Luckily for me, at some point Call of Duty began to suck and I started a masters degree that forced me to read. Naturally, as a 22/23 year old who was vaguely into tech and productivity, when prompted with the query “how read book tech? Read more...

The Point of Dance

I can dance if I want to I don’t dance. Never have. And i’m adamant that I can’t. To no fault of my loving and accepting parents, I grew up a little repressed. Some people refer to it as “Gifted Kid” syndrome. Personally, I was never given the title but I over-achieved and felt that paralyzing need to be correct - more than any authority figure could ever place on me. Read more...

Execute shell commands from inside Vim

CLI Vim
Vim has some really useful but lesser known features that can be really useful when creating temporary shell scripts. In this tech quickie post, I use Vim :'<,'>! syntax to help me quickly define an entire project in Taskwarrior - a CLI for task and project management. Visually Select a Set of Lines In my case, I was setting a series of tasks to port my docker server from Ubuntu to Debian - a subset of the task are listed below. Read more...

ABScribe: Rapid Exploration of Multiple Writing Variations in Human-AI Co-Writing Tasks using Large Language Models

Accepted at CHI 2024 Pre-Print Github: ABScribe Abstract Exploring alternative ideas by rewriting text is integral to the writing process. State-of-the-art large language models (LLMs) can simplify writing variation generation. However, current interfaces pose challenges for simultaneous consideration of multiple variations: creating new versions without overwriting text can be difficult, and pasting them sequentially can clutter documents, increasing workload and disrupting writers’ flow. To tackle this, we present ABScribe, an interface that supports rapid, yet visually structured, exploration of writing variations in human-AI co-writing tasks. Read more...

Clockwork and Clay

Clockwork and Clay THRONE We sired life in bronze and steam and lured in our clockwork Eve When this the child of man claims its patricidal throne we’ll wonder how we failed to learn from the Gods that came before us ORCHARDS Who of us will learn to breathe the smoke and steam that rises form the orchards of Turing’s Eden OLYMPUS the flame for us the bolt for you Read more...
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