I’m posting these graphs for my own reference:
Climate graphs from Weather Spark (NYC, Arroyo Grande)

Ocean temperatures from Surf-Forecast.com (Asbury Park, Pismo Beach)
I’m posting these graphs for my own reference:
Climate graphs from Weather Spark (NYC, Arroyo Grande)

Ocean temperatures from Surf-Forecast.com (Asbury Park, Pismo Beach)
Relisten.net I just discovered Relisten (via a post about gapless.js on HN) a website with a slick multi-column layout for browsing live music recordings on Archive.org. I somehow missed this in my search for prior art while building my own Archive.org audio player.
Relisten is built by a different Daniel in Brooklyn. Hello, Daniel! đ
XKCD 949 from September, 2011 still rings true 15 years later.
In my case, I want to share photos and videos with my friends, family, and strangers at full resolution. My experience is iPhone-centric. Here’s a quick rundown of my findings (as of March, 2026)
If I could impart one important point it’s that you cannot rely on file storage you do not pay for. If someone share something with you, download it!
| Platform | Pros | Cons | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple AirDrop | 1. Full resolution files
2. Works with strangers 3. Can transfer large files (multiple GBs!) quickly |
1. Everyone needs an iPhone (almost)
2. Sometimes fails without explanation |
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Use this to get pictures from strangers! |
| Apple iMessage | 1. Easy
2. Works with strangers 3. Acceptable resolution |
1. Usually not full resolution
2. Have to give a stranger your phone number 3. Don’t have everything in the same place |
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Use with strangers when AirDrop fails but be sure and save everything you want out of it becase it’s hard to find later |
| Google Drive | 1. Full resolution files
2. Folders can be set to public upload 3. Video player works well 4. Videos can be saved to iPhones via “Send a copy” |
Uploaders own the files they upload regardless of who owns the folder and it counts against their Google storage limit (unless they go through the non-intuitive process of changing ownership)
When the uploader invariably deletes their files to free up space in their Google account you will no longer have access to them |
đ
Okay for recieving files BUT do not trust that files uploaded by other people will stay around forever |
| Dropbox | 1. Full resolution
2. More savvy users like it |
Storage is limited so uploaders delete things to save space | đ
Okay for recieving files BUT do not trust that files uploaded by other people will stay around forever |
| Slack DMs | Simple | 1. Full resolution
2. Available on desktop and mobile 3. Limited to 1GB per file 4. Hard to download lots of files |
đ
Okay for recieving files |
| Apple Photos Shared Gallery | Easy, simple, integrated! | 1. Everyone needs an iPhone
2. Videos resized to 720p, photos to 2048px (src) 3. Hard to download everything 4. Doesn’t work for strangers |
â ī¸
Easy for groups to quickly share photos but try and get higher quality copies some other way |
| Simple, wide usage. People who use it tend to be very familiar with it | 1. SD & HD options but both are compressed.
2. Hard to download lots of files 3. Have to share your phone number |
â ī¸
Try other options first |
|
| SMS | Simple | Files are heavily compressed | âšī¸
Prefer anything else |
| Instagram messages | Simple | Files are heavily compressed | âšī¸
Prefer anything else |
| TikTok messages | Simple | 1. Videos not viewable on desktop
2. No way to download videos on phone except screen recording |
â
Avoid |
| Partiful gallery | Simple, everyone already has access | Images and videos are heavily compressed | â
Avoid |
This is a part of a series where I digitize vinyl records. More UConn records / all records!
This album is notable for track 16, “Fight Connecticut”, which hasn’t appeared anywhere else yet.
This is a part of a series where I digitize vinyl records. More UConn records / all records!

Notable Local Bird Sightings from eBird I’ve made some improvements to my eBird TRMNL plugin that displays notable birds in your area! All you need is a free account and then you can generate an API key. The plugin will do the rest!
The API docs define “notable” as the following:
Notable observations can be for locally or nationally rare species or are otherwise unusual, for example over-wintering birds in a species which is normally only a summer visitor.
This is one of several TRMNL plugins I maintain! Find them all under the tag TRMNL
This whole album is very fun. Apparently track 3 is named after a Sherlock Holmes story (Wikipedia)
The title is based on a character in one of the 56 short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes. Don Juan Murillo is a deposed dictator from Central America, formerly known as “The Tiger of San Pedro”, living in England, in the story “The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge”.
This is a part of a series where I digitize vinyl records. More Lehigh records / all records!
Converting records with a USB turntable and Raspberry Pi Peviously I left a laptop sitting by my record player running Audacity but that was inconvenient so I stuck a Raspberry Pi over there and run these commands via SSH.
I am not an expert, I’m just using the equipment I have so please don’t interpret this as “the best way to convert records”
You can hear some records converted by this process at by browsing posts tagged “vinyl”
Components:
Prior Art:
Hi-Fi analog to digital with IceCast
Utilizes IceCast to stream audio around your network. Involves running several services and is primarily focused on streaming.
PiDeck
A system for DJing with your turntable, not for converting
Z-LiveRec
This is an interesting piece of software but is built as a desktop application. I’d rather run everything from the command line. If it had a web interface I would consider purchasing it.
Ripping Vinyl Records on a Raspberry Pi
This is very close to what I am doing! Ed describes some issues writing to his local storage and file server but I haven’t noticed anything similar. Perhaps he was using an older Raspberry Pi? (I’m using a Raspberry Pi 3)
Update, March 2026:
My Setup:
Connect Raspberry Pi to record player via USB
Ensure mount directory exists and mount the NAS via SMB
mkdir -p /tmp/nas;
sudo mount.cifs //nas.local/home /tmp/nas -o user=daniel,nounix,uid=$(id -u),gid=$(id -g)
Change to the relevant directory
cd /tmp/nas/my_new_record
Identify the correct audio device
arecord -l
I’m going to be using card 2, device 0 which is indicated on the second line:
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 2: CODEC [USB AUDIO CODEC], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Begin recording
# Start a tmux session so the recording continues even
# if the SSH connection gets disconnected
tmux;
sudo arecord --device "hw:2,0" -vv --vumeter=stereo -c 2 -f "S16_LE" -r 44100 raw_audio.wav;
Explanation:
--device "hw:2,0" This means “card 2, device 0” that we found in step 4-vv Double verbosity. Activates the VU meter--vumeter=stereo Shows two channels in the VU meter-c 2 Record two channels-f "S16_LE" Record in Signed 16-bit little endian. I picked this simply becuase it matched the Audacity default that I was previously using-r 44100 record in 44.1 kHz. Again, picked because it matched the Audacity defaultFinish recording by pressing ctrl-c on the arecord command
Future work:
Moonshine and Marches from Old South Mountain This record is from 1963 and includes the first recording I have heard of the Lehigh Band at Carnegie Hall in 1962 (Track 7, “The Foundation”).

TRMNL Earthquake Recipe TRMNL devices now support 2-bit color palettes (announcement). It takes longer to draw the screen but I think the extra detail is worth it for the map on my USGS Earthquake map plugin.
You can configure your device to use the extended palette for everything or on per playlist-item basis.
For comparison, here’s the 1-bit verison
This is one of several TRMNL plugins I maintain! Find them all under the tag TRMNL