Notes on Bill Glover

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:38:37 +0000

AI coding agents are crude, but also beautifully simple. I’ve noticed a couple of things when working with both Antigravity and Claude Code. Their approach to debugging, or figuring out how to implement something involves dumping things into the context. This is why you often see coding agents adding fmt.Println() statements everywhere, running the code, and then subsequently removing them. This is how the agent “sees” what is going on.

Agent Skills

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 19:53:43 +0000

After seeing an ex-colleague release details of their AI second brain, I was curious. Not because I want to outsource the process of note taking, but because I wanted to know how he had any confidence in this process at all.

A quick look at their git repository shows very little code beyond some Python helper scripts for requesting page summaries from Gemini. I had questions:

Why did they require Google’s Antigravity to run the workflow?
Why was there no coordination code?
Why couldn’t I use a local model for this?

At the heart of the workflow are Agent Skills.

Me, Myself & I

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 14:14:18 +0000

Episodes from “Me, Myself and I”, a podcast I started with Jen Su. She has plans to revive the podcast with new themes and a new guests. I’ll update this note with a link as soon as it goes live.

🎤 001 - Hello World
🎤 002 - Reward and Accountability
🎤 003 - Self Promotion
🎤 004 - Intentions
🎤 005 - Intervention
🎤 006 - Asking for Help
🎤 007 - Giving Help
🎤 008 - Dealing with Frustration
🎤 009 - How to re-Learn
🎤 010 - Motivation in the Face of Rejection
🎤 011 - Styles of Communication
🎤 012 - Professional Networking
🎤 013 - Imposter Syndrome
🎤 014 - ChatGPT
🎤 015 - This Next Thing

If you are interested in speaking to Jen on a future episode, let me know and I’ll put you in touch.

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:59:14 +0000

Listening to People Watching by Sam Fender after seeing it mentioned on Doug Belshaw’s favourite music albums of 2025.

Need to listen to this one again before deciding if it has a place in my collection.

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:51:06 +0000

I went into the office yesterday and found myself wondering whether I miss the commute.

I miss:

The opportunity to listen to audiobooks/podcasts
The chance to read a book
Watching other people and wondering what they are thinking

I don’t miss the commute.

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 09:28:31 +0000

Found myself pondering a question:

“What would a course in AI look like at various stages of the education system?”

To be clear, I’m not thinking of this as a “learn ChatGPT in 10 minutes” style course. I’m wondering what coursework I’d set, what discussions I’d want to have. I’m curious what I’d learn by running such a course.

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 13:53:02 +0000

The excellent talk by bunnie and xobs cover what it takes to build an open operating system and manufacture the open processor required to run it. It turns out that you can squeeze open processor cores into the unused silicon on a typical SoC.

An incredible feat of engineering: 39c3 - Xous: A Pure-Rust Rethink of the Embedded Operating System

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:44:30 +0000

Beautiful walk along the river this morning.

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:20:20 +0000

Really enjoyed this series of 100 photographs from 2025 by Hyde. He’s doing #the100pics challenge again this year and I’m looking forward to seeing what he releases. I love the raw humanity on display in his photographs.

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:16:55 +0000

I’ve been working on a new way to publish notes here. The formatting is all out of whack, but this is my first note.

Thunderbird & PGP

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 21:07:00 +0000

At some point (2020) Thunderbird stopped using Enigmail. Native support for GPG doesn’t (easily) allow you to use sub-keys stored on a Yubikey for signing or encryption. It is possible to tell Thunderbird to use one external key but this doesn’t work if you have separate sub-keys for both message signing and encryption.

This guide shows how to create and export a temporary key containing both the signing and encryption keys for use in Thunderbird.

Tech Talk: Caching

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 12:03:56 +0000

I gave a talk titled, Caching, Data Grids and More. The talk was targetted at Platform Engineers who were aware of caching solutions, supported them, but with little experience of having used them in application development. It was a fun talk to give.

The Internet

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 11:21:51 +0000

If you’d asked me to define the internet, I’d probably have offered up something involving networks, computers, protocols and information. I prefer this definition by Winnie Lim.

“a medium that brings the strangeness of strangers together”
– i’m just as strange as you, Winnie Lim

FFmpeg Cheat Sheet

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 17:17:25 +0100

Using FFmpeg is more art than science. Every time I reach for it, I find myself trawling the internet for various incantations of the command that result in a playable video. These are commands that have worked for me.

Blu-ray

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v libx265 -crf 18 -c:a aac -b:a 160k -tag:v hvc1 -ac 6 output.mp4

This results in an mp4 container with h265 video and aac sound. The file should be playable on Apple devices. The resulting file will also be significantly smaller than the original.

Dockerfile Revisited

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 16:08:00 +0100

For years I’ve been building container images by using the COPY command to bring files from my Docker context into the build container.

FROM golang:1.22 AS build

WORKDIR /src/build
COPY . .

RUN go mod verify
RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=linux GOARCH=arm64 go build -o /app .

FROM scratch
COPY --from=build /app .
CMD ["./app"]

Today I came across the following section in the Docker documentation.

“You’ll mostly want to use COPY for copying files from one stage to another in a multi-stage build. If you need to add files from the build context to the container temporarily to execute a RUN instruction, you can often substitute the COPY instruction with a bind mount instead.”

A moment of pride: unexpected compliments

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 19:00:00 +0000

A rare moment of pride. My son picked out one of the slips in our family gratitude jar and read it without hesitation. His reading is really coming along. But it was conclusion that had me smiling more than anything:

“Mum your Chinese writing is so good.”

I have to keep working on it though. His writing (second strip) is catching up fast.

Developing Ilford HP5+

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 21:48:59 +0000

This note isn’t intended to be a guide on how to develop film at home. This is a collection of tips and notes from my development experience.

Tip: Download the Massive Dev Chart Timer App (£8.99).
The app will help lookup and calculate developer times and mix ratios. But the most valuable feature is the timer. I kept second guessing myself on everything until I started using the timer. With the timer I have the confidence to develop a tank and clean up as I go.

SRE vs. Platform Engineering

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 15:09:26 +0100

How application teams are organised

Organisation chart showing that multiple application teams are supported by both Platform Engineering and Site Reliability Engineering teams. Application teams measure success with business KPIs. Platform and SRE teams measure success with SLOs

@EmilyMBenderChatGPWhy2023

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 09:27:05 +0100

Author: Emily M. Bender
Full Title: ChatGP-why: When, if ever, is synthetic text safe, appropriate, and desirable?
Slides: Bender-GRAILE-2023.pdf
Talk: YouTube

Notes

There is a long list of examples of where the use of ChatGPT hasn’t turned out the way people expect.
Language form does not contain meaning and this explains why language models don’t understand.
Large language models are corpus models
Claude Shannon worked on early language models
Unigram language model models frequency of single words
Bigram language model models frequency of words given previous word
Trigram language model models frequency of words given previous two words
Good uses for language models include:
- Spell checkers
- Machine transcription
- Machine translation
- Text input
Neural networks are made of of perceptrons
A perceptron is a simplified model of a neuron
Transformer architecture is an arrangement or perceptrons
Language models use word embeddings
The number of words in training data determines the size of a language model
Generative AI is a mis-use of a classification and ranking tool
Generative AI produces plausible output not intelligence
In order to determine whether a machine can understand and infer meaning, we need definitions understanding and meaning.
Language competency makes it hard to separate form from meaning
Form refers to the marks on a page for language, the arrangement of pixels for images or video, etc.
Language meaning is the relationship between form and something external
Understanding is the recovery of communicative intent from form
Virtual assistants can understand limited instructions
Language models exposed only to form can never learn meaning
Language models do not learn the same way as babies
Babies learn the relationship between form (sound, mouth movement) and meaning by forming connections with external cues that hint at communicative intent.
The Octopus Paper show that form does not contain meaning
Large language models have a significant environmental impact
Environmental cost of large language models impacts marginalised communities
The contents of the internet do not represent a balanced view of humanity
The young and those from developed countries are more likely to have contributed to the volume of work available on the internet.
Sampling the internet without bias is hard
Large language models are too big
Generative AI output does not contain communicative intent
We bring our own understanding to language form
When reading generative text, it is important to remember that the inference of meaning is our own.
A Stochastic Parrot refers to the stitching together of form without meaning
Coherence is in the eye of the beholder
Synthetic text lacks accountability
There is no Who behind generative text
Generative AI pollutes the information ecosystem
Information retrieval is a terrible use-case for a large language model
The more accurate generative text becomes the more dangerous it is
Chatbots hide the sources of the information they regurgitate
Responsible use-cases for generative AI include:
- where the only thing that matters is form
- text must not confuse author with a person
- text needs to clearly articulate biases
- consider labor practices
- consider data theft
Good use-cases for generative AI include:
- a dialogue partner for language learning
- a non-playable character
- writing support
Good use-cases for generative text must consider the costs
Be a critical consumer of AI
We need to understand how the AI technology was evaluated in the context in which it is being used.
We need to understand who benefits from the use of AI instead of a human?
You are responsible for your use of generative text
We must insist on transparency of source material in the training data.
Talk to students about what generative AI is
Use of generative AI in education is a missed learning opportunity
Use of generative AI by students indicates broader problem

Further Information

Three podcasts worth subscribing to on AI:

Las Uvas

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sun, 25 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 25

Name	Las Uvas
Grower	Marina Ramirez
Origin	Honduras
Variety	Bourbon
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Silky
Hints of	Blackberry & black tes

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 97.5ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds reminded me of a the vegetable isle in a Chinese supermarket. An earthy mix of smells that all felt alien.

El Durazno

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sat, 24 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 24

Name	El Durazno
Grower	Venutra Family
Origin	Guatemala
Variety	Bourbon
Process	Honey
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Chewy
Hints of	Plum, brown sugar & liquorice

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 96.4ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds reminded me of a sweet wood with hints of apple vinegar.

La Pedregosa

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 23

Name	La Pedregosa
Grower	Mauricio Vega
Origin	Colombia
Variety	Castillo
Process	Washed
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Round
Hints of	Raspberry cream chocolate

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 96.2ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds reminded me of an apple wood. When wet the smell was creamy soft.

Muthua-ini

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 22

Name	Muthua-ini
Grower	A collective of smallholder farmers
Origin	Kenya
Variety	SL-28, SL-34
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Silky
Hints of	Blackcurrant coulis

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 95.4ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The grounds smelled like cloves. Not the strong fresh clove smell, but the weaker, more subtle smell of cloves that have been allowed to sit in the open for a while.

Chapanda

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 21

Name	Chapanda
Grower	Marcus Carvalho
Origin	Brazil
Variety	Sucupira
Process	Natural
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Apple
Mouthfeel	Heavy
Hints of	Dark chocolate & glaće cherry

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 95.1ºC. Measured 21g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds gave off a plum like fruitiness. When wet the smell was more chocolatey.

El Aguacate

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 20

Name	El Aguacate
Grower	Saturnino Bejarano Aguilar
Origin	Honduras
Variety	Catuai
Process	Washed
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Silky
Hints of	Panela/Muscovado Sugar

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 95.2ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds reminded me of a sweet, spiced plum.

Cafeina Blend

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Day 19

Name	Cafeina Blend
Grower	Adalgisa S.M. Vilela, Julia Figueiredo and Elza Leopoldino
Origin	Brazil
Variety	Mundo Novo, Acauã
Process	Natural
Roast	Medium/Dark
Acidity	Apple
Mouthfeel	Creamy
Hints of	Dark chocolate & apricot

Preparation

Time: 16:00

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 94.4ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Kimunye

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Day 18

Name	Kimunye
Grower	A collective of smallholder farmers
Origin	Kenya
Variety	SL-28, SL-34
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Juicy
Hints of	Blackberry

Preparation

Time: 12:00

Observation

The coffee grounds reminded me of a fruity bramble, perhaps freshly picked berries.

Finca El Zapote

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sat, 17 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 17

Name	Finca El Zapote
Grower	Julio Roberto Meléndez Peréz
Origin	Guatemala
Variety	Caturra
Process	Natural
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Orange
Mouthfeel	Creamy
Hints of	Peach cheesecake

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 96.3ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The grounds smelled of pistachio with a sweetness that I attributed to rose.

Kaiguri

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 16

Name	Kaiguri
Grower	A collective of smallholder farmers
Origin	Kenya
Variety	SI-28, SL-34
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Round
Hints of	Blackcurrant

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Observation

The coffee grounds reminded me of fresh kindling. A freshness about to be lost to the smell of a roaring fire.

El Silencio

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 15

Name	El Silencio
Grower	Oscar Ortiz Gonzalez
Origin	Colombia
Variety	Castillo, Colombia
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Syrupy
Hints of	Strawberry liquorice

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 95.6ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds reminded me of toasted hazelnuts, in those moments just before they catch and burn.

San Jeronimo

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 10:15:00 +0000

Day 14

Name	San Jeronimo
Grower	Bressani family
Origin	Guatemala
Variety	Caturra
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Orange
Mouthfeel	Creamy
Hints of	Orange cheescake

Preparation

Time: 10:15

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 96.9ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds convinced me this was a dark roast. There were hints of an acidic fruit but I couldn’t place which one.

El Zapote

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 10:15:00 +0000

Day 13

Name	El Zapote
Grower	Francisco Alvarado
Origin	Honduras
Variety	Bourbon
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Apple
Mouthfeel	Round
Hints of	Black tea & cranberry

Preparation

Time: 10:15

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 94.2ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds gave off a strong toasted nutty aroma.

Karango

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Day 12

Name	Karango
Grower	A collective of smallholder farmers
Origin	Democratic Republic of the Congo
Variety	Bourbon
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Juicy
Hints of	Blackcurrant & apricot

Preparation

Time: 12:00

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 95.2ºC. Measured 21g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds smelled like the bark of a sour fruit tree. I couldn’t place the fruit.

Capim Seco

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 11:15:00 +0000

Day 11

Name	Capim Seco
Grower	Rafael Dias Pereira
Origin	Brazil
Variety	Icatu
Process	Pulped Natural
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Apple
Mouthfeel	Round
Hints of	Picnic bar

Preparation

Time: 11:15

Observation

The coffee grounds had a spicy but earthy smell that I struggled to place. When wet they reminded me of freshly turned earth in the spring.

La Esperanza

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 10:15:00 +0000

Day 10

Name	La Esperanza
Grower	Javier Ortega
Origin	Colombia
Variety	Castillo, Colombia
Process	Washed
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Apple
Mouthfeel	Smooth
Hints of	Raspberry & green apple

Preparation

Time: 10:15

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 94.6ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The coffee grounds had one of the strongest aromas yet. A toasted bark smell with a hint of fruit.

Remera Natural

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 10:15:00 +0000

Day 9

Name	Remera Natural
Grower	A collective of smallholder farmers
Origin	Rwanda
Variety	Bourbon
Process	Natural
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Creamy
Mouthfeel	Creamy
Hints of	Strawberry & cream

Preparation

Time: 10:15

Observation

The coffee grounds reminded me of a sweet chinese plum, the sticky kind that are almost dry but still retain enough moisture to keep them soft.

Filadelfia

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 8

Name	Filadelfia
Grower	Roberto Dalton
Origin	Guatemala
Variety	Bourbon, Caturra
Process	Washed
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Apple
Mouthfeel	Coating
Hints of	Dark chocolate tiffin

Preparation

Time: 11:30

Observation

The coffee grounds had a distinct aroma of indian spices.

Buenos Aires

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 12:30:00 +0000

Day 7

Name	Buenos Aires
Grower	José Ramón Collazos & María Del Rosario Ariza Coy
Origin	Colombia
Variety	Caturra, Castillo
Process	Washed
Roast	Medium
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Round
Hints of	Ripe plum

Preparation

Time: 12:00

Observation

A very light smell, hints of apple and freshly sanded floorboards. It is entirely possible that recent floor sanding has clouded my sense of smell.

El Derrumbo

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 6

Name	El Derrumbo
Grower	Joaquin Martinez
Origin	Honduras
Variety	Lempira
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Apple
Mouthfeel	Silky
Hints of	Peach, nectarine & white tea

Preparation

Time: 10:45

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 93.6ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

There was a dampness to the smell of the grounds. Sweet, fruity but distinctly the strength of aroma that comes off damp mossy wood.

Ndundu

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 5

Name	Ndundu
Grower	A collective of smallholder farmers
Origin	Kenya
Variety	SL-28, SL-34
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Grape
Mouthfeel	Tea-like
Hints of	Blackcurrant & bergamot

Preparation

Time: 10:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 94.2ºC. Measured 21g coffee and poured 50ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

The grounds reminded my of freshly pealed parsnip. Distinctly sweet but earthy, with a hint of apple. In the mug the armoa shifted, giving off a hint of berry or bramble.

Sertão

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 4

Name	Sertão
Grower	Nazareth Dias Pereira
Origin	Brazil
Variety	Bourbon
Process	Natural
Roast	Medium / Dark
Acidity	Creamy
Mouthfeel	Round
Hints of	Dark chocolate, cherry & almond

Preparation

Time: 10:30

Observation

This coffee smelled toasted, a dark roast. The smell ends with a syrupy sweetness. In the mug the smell shifts towards the middled of the nose. The sweet notes fade leaving a strong woody smell.

Muungano

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 3

Name	Muungano
Grower	A collective of smallholder famrers
Origin	Democratic Republic of the Congo
Variety	Bourbon
Process	Natural
Roast	Light
Acidity	Orange
Mouthfeel	Velvety
Hints of	Maraschino cherries

Preparation

Time: 15:30

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 98.6ºC. Measured 20g coffee and poured 25ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 300ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

If the smell of the coffee were a musical note it would be high pitched. The smell itself was subtle but with hints of an earthy bitterness. In the mug, the musical notes drop a few octaves and we start to detect smells of toasting.

Zaroca

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 2

Name	Zaroca
Grower	Gilberto Basilo
Origin	Brazil
Variety	Mundo Novo
Process	Pulped natural
Roast	Dark
Acidity	Apple
Mouthfeel	Creamy
Hints of	Dark chocolate & cocoa nibs

Preparation

Time: 11:40

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 95.6ºC. Measured 22g coffee and poured 25ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 260ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

Smelling the coffee when wet I was again reminded of smells that would put me right off coffee. A mushroom scent mixed with damp wood was something I couldn’t shake. This scent was interesting in that I could only sense it at the back of my nose right at the top. It’s rare to have such a localised sense of smell.

El Tolú

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Day 1

Name	El Tolú
Grower	Manuel Duarte Orduz
Origin	Columbia
Variety	Castillo
Process	Washed
Roast	Light
Acidity	Orange
Mouthfeel	Silky
Hints of	Lavender & Honey

Preparation

Time: 11:00

Washed the filter, warmed the mug and prepared hot water. Water temperature was 95.6ºC. Measured 21g coffee and poured 25ml over the coffee to wet it. Waited 30s and pured over a further 250ml water, keeping the filter funnel about half full.

Observation

Smelling the coffee when wet I was instantly reminded of Chinese food which I couldn’t quite place. I eventually settled on something that reminded me of roast meat accompanied by radish. A description that, if it appeared on the side of a bag of coffee, would almost instantly put me off buying it.

Docker and LetsEncrypt

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 20:14:45 +0100

If you are running a private container registry and using a certificate provided by LetsEncrypt, make sure you are using fullchain.pem and not cert.pem. If you miss this, the Docker CLI will report that your certificate is signed by an unknown authority.

I have an instance of Harbor running as a private container registry. The certificate used by this instance is provided by LetsEncrypt and yet the Docker CLI refused to let me log in.

How to upgrade Ubuntu on Digital Ocean

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 21:32:13 +0100

How to upgrade Ubuntu on Digital Ocean

When canonical release a new version of Ubuntu, you are prompted to run this command to upgrade.

do-release-upgrade

Running this command on a Digital Ocean droplet will give you the following warning.

“Some third party entries in your sources.list were disabled. You can re-enable them after the upgrade with the ‘software-properties’ tool or your package manager.”

You can continue the upgrade but it will fail and roll-back to the previous version. The error you are given includes the following phrase.

Use a forked Go module

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 11:19:16 +0100

Whenever I want to work with a forked Go module, I have to look up how to do so. It doesn’t feel immediately obvious what to change. This note documents my current approach.

I need to do this when a third party module I depend on doesn’t include features I need. I fork the third party module and make some changes. But these changes are only available in my fork. These may get merged into a new version of the module but in the meantime I want to continue working off my fork.

Copy Files to and from a Container

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Tue, 24 May 2022 09:56:32 +0000

Problem: I needed to copy some database files into a container running on Kubernetes without modifying the image or restarting the parent Pod.

Solution: The Kubernetes CLI includes a sub-command for copying files into and out of a running container: kubectl cp /tmp/foo <some-pod>:/tmp/bar

Background

I’ve never found the need to copy files into a running container without issuing an updated image. This is somewhat of an anti-pattern as modifications to containerised filesystems that aren’t mounted externally are lost when the container process terminates.

Update Trivy Database in Harbor

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Thu, 19 May 2022 14:56:00 +0000

I recently deployed Harbor and Trivy with automatic updating disabled. I hadn’t realise that this would prevent images from being scanned at all and so needed to trigger a manual update. This note describes how to manually trigger an update to the Trviy database in Harbor deployed on top of VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.

Demo

Instructions

Switch context to the cluster where you have deployed Harbor.

Build Multi-Architecture Docker Images

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 19:22:32 +0000

Back in 2018, I wrote about Multi-Architecture Docker Builds. My main aim then was to run the occasional container image on a Raspberry Pi. Apple’s transition to M1 based machines has increased demand for multi-architecture container images. In this post, I document an improved approach to building multi-architecture images.

I’ll use a Go application to show the build process. It prints the current runtime OS and CPU architecture to the terminal and then exits.

Writing multi-line strings into a text file in bash script

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 22:36:19 +0000

Problem: I wanted to use a shell script to write multi-line strings into a text file. I didn’t want parameters or commands to be substituted in the text being written.

Solution: You need to quote the limit string when specifying your here-document.

References

My fist discovery was that the pattern for doing this in a shell script was called a “Here Document”. I don’t think I have ever looked up the bash manual before. But this is where I found the solution.

Replace Environment Variables in a File

hello@bill.dev (Bill) — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 20:17:59 +0000

Every now and again you stumble across a command that solves a problem you didn’t realise you had. Recently, I discovered envsubst.

“Substitutes the values of environment variables.”

I’ve found myself substituting environment variables in configuration files increasingly often (see: Kubernetes). On more than one occasion I’ve tied myself in knots trying to do this with scripts. It turns out that envsubst does most of what I need.

Take the following file, example.yaml: