Screentest is dead It was removed from Debian in May 2023 but had already missed two releases (Debian 11 "bullseye" and 12 "bookworm") due to release critical bugs. The stated reason for removal was:

The package is orphaned and its upstream is no longer developed. It depends on gtk2, has a low popcon and no reverse dependencies.

So I had little hope to see this program back in Debian. The git repository shows little activity, the last being two years ago. Interestingly, I do not quite remember what it was testing, but I do remember it to find dead pixels, confirm native resolution, and various pixel-peeping. Here's a screenshot of one of the screentest screens: Now, I think it's safe to assume this program is dead and buried, and anyways I'm running wayland now, surely there's something better? Well, no. Of course not. Someone would know about it and tell me before I go on a random coding spree in a fit of procrastination... riiight? At least, the Debconf video team didn't seem to know of any replacement. They actually suggested I just "invoke gstreamer directly" and "embrace the joy of shell scripting".

Screentest reborn So, I naively did exactly that and wrote a horrible shell script. Then I realized the next step was to write an command line parser and monitor geometry guessing, and thought "NOPE, THIS IS WHERE THE SHELL STOPS", and rewrote the whole thing in Python. Now, screentest lives as a ~400-line Python script, half of which is unit test data and command-line parsing.

Why screentest Some smarty pants is going to complain and ask why the heck one would need something like that (and, well, someone already did), so maybe I can lay down a list of use case:

• testing color output, in broad terms (answering the question of "is it just me or this project really yellow?")
• testing focus and keystone ("this looks blurry, can you find a nice sharp frame in that movie to adjust focus?")
• test for native resolution and sharpness ("does this projector really support 4k for 30$? that sounds like bullcrap")
• looking for dead pixels ("i have a new monitor, i hope it's intact")

What does screentest do? Screentest displays a series of "patterns" on screen. The list of patterns is actually hardcoded in the script, copy-pasted from this list from the videotestsrc gstreamer plugin, but you can pass any pattern supported by your gstreamer installation with --patterns. A list of patterns relevant to your installation is available with the gst-inspect-1.0 videotestsrc command. By default, screentest goes through all patterns. Each pattern runs indefinitely until the you close the window, then the next pattern starts. You can restrict to a subset of patterns, for example this would be a good test for dead pixels:

screentest --patterns black,white,red,green,blue

This would be a good sharpness test:

screentest --patterns pinwheel,spokes,checkers-1,checkers-2,checkers-4,checkers-8

A good generic test is the classic SMPTE color bars and is the first in the list, but you can run only that test with:

screentest --patterns smpte

(I will mention, by the way, that as a system administrator with decades of experience, it is nearly impossible to type SMPTE without first typing SMTP and re-typing it again a few times before I get it right. I fully expect this post to have numerous typos.)

Here's an example of the SMPTE pattern from Wikipedia: For multi-monitor setups, screentest also supports specifying which output to use as a native resolution, with --output. Failing that, it will try to look at the outputs and use the first it will find. If it fails to find anything, you can specify a resolution with --resolution WIDTHxHEIGHT. I have tried to make it go full screen by default, but stumbled a bug in Sway that crashes gst-launch. If your Wayland compositor supports it, you can possibly enable full screen with --sink waylandsink fullscreen=true. Otherwise it will create a new window that you will have to make fullscreen yourself. For completeness, there's also an --audio flag that will emit the classic "drone", a sine wave at 440Hz at 40% volume (the audiotestsrc gstreamer plugin. And there's a --overlay-name option to show the pattern name, in case you get lost and want to start with one of them again.

How this works Most of the work is done by gstreamer. The script merely generates a pipeline and calls gst-launch to show the output. That both limits what it can do but also makes it much easier to use than figuring out gst-launch. There might be some additional patterns that could be useful, but I think those are better left to gstreamer. I, for example, am somewhat nostalgic of the Philips circle pattern that used to play for TV stations that were off-air in my area. But that, in my opinion, would be better added to the gstreamer plugin than into a separate thing. The script shows which command is being ran, so it's a good introduction to gstreamer pipelines. Advanced users (and the video team) will possibly not need screentest and will design their own pipelines with their own tools. I've previously worked with ffmpeg pipelines (in another such procrastinated coding spree, video-proxy-magic), and I found gstreamer more intuitive, even though it might be slightly less powerful. In retrospect, I should probably have picked a new name, to avoid crashing the namespace already used by the project, which is now on GitHub. Who knows, it might come back to life after this blog post; it would not be the first time. For now, the project lives along side the rest of my scripts collection but if there's sufficient interest, I might move it to its own git repositories. Comments, feedback, contributions are as usual welcome. And naturally, if you know something better for this kind of stuff, I'm happy to learn more about your favorite tool! So now I have finally found something to test my projector, which will likely confirm what I've already known all along: that it's kind of a piece of crap and I need to get a proper one.

# podman run -it --rm debian:testing-slim
apt update
apt dist-upgrade -y
apt install -y wget python3 librandombytes-dev libcpucycles-dev gcc make git autoconf libz-dev libssl-dev
cd ~
wget -q -O- https://lib.mceliece.org/libmceliece-20230612.tar.gz   tar xfz -
cd libmceliece-20230612/
./configure
make install
ldconfig
cd ..
git clone https://gitlab.com/jas/openssh-portable
cd openssh-portable
git checkout jas/mceliece
autoreconf
./configure # verify 'libmceliece support: yes'
make # CC="cc -DDEBUG_KEX=1 -DDEBUG_KEXDH=1 -DDEBUG_KEXECDH=1"

./ssh-keygen -A # writes to /usr/local/etc/ssh_host_...
# setup public-key based login by running the following:
./ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -P ""
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub > ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
adduser --system sshd
mkdir /var/empty
while true; do $PWD/sshd -p 2222 -f /dev/null; done &
./ssh -v -p 2222 localhost -oKexAlgorithms=mceliece6688128x25519-sha512@openssh.com date

OpenSSH_9.5p1, OpenSSL 3.0.11 19 Sep 2023
...
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: algorithm: mceliece6688128x25519-sha512@openssh.com
debug1: kex: host key algorithm: ssh-ed25519
debug1: kex: server->client cipher: chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com MAC: <implicit> compression: none
debug1: kex: client->server cipher: chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com MAC: <implicit> compression: none
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY received
debug1: Server host key: ssh-ed25519 SHA256:YognhWY7+399J+/V8eAQWmM3UFDLT0dkmoj3pIJ0zXs
...
debug1: Host '[localhost]:2222' is known and matches the ED25519 host key.
debug1: Found key in /root/.ssh/known_hosts:1
debug1: rekey out after 134217728 blocks
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: rekey in after 134217728 blocks
...
debug1: Sending command: date
debug1: pledge: fork
debug1: permanently_set_uid: 0/0
Environment:
  USER=root
  LOGNAME=root
  HOME=/root
  PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin
  MAIL=/var/mail/root
  SHELL=/bin/bash
  SSH_CLIENT=::1 46894 2222
  SSH_CONNECTION=::1 46894 ::1 2222
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype eow@openssh.com reply 0
Sat Dec  9 22:22:40 UTC 2023
debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1
Transferred: sent 1048044, received 3500 bytes, in 0.0 seconds
Bytes per second: sent 23388935.4, received 78108.6
debug1: Exit status 0

./ssh -v -p 2222 localhost -oKexAlgorithms=curve25519-sha256 date 2>&1   grep ^Transferred
Transferred: sent 3028, received 3612 bytes, in 0.0 seconds
./ssh -v -p 2222 localhost -oKexAlgorithms=sntrup761x25519-sha512@openssh.com date 2>&1   grep ^Transferred
Transferred: sent 4212, received 4596 bytes, in 0.0 seconds
./ssh -v -p 2222 localhost -oKexAlgorithms=mceliece6688128x25519-sha512@openssh.com date 2>&1   grep ^Transferred
Transferred: sent 1048044, received 3764 bytes, in 0.0 seconds

date; i=0; while test $i -le 100; do ./ssh -v -p 2222 localhost -oKexAlgorithms=curve25519-sha256 date > /dev/null 2>&1; i= expr $i + 1 ; done; date
Sat Dec  9 22:39:19 UTC 2023
Sat Dec  9 22:39:25 UTC 2023
# 6 seconds
date; i=0; while test $i -le 100; do ./ssh -v -p 2222 localhost -oKexAlgorithms=sntrup761x25519-sha512@openssh.com date > /dev/null 2>&1; i= expr $i + 1 ; done; date
Sat Dec  9 22:39:29 UTC 2023
Sat Dec  9 22:39:38 UTC 2023
# 9 seconds
date; i=0; while test $i -le 100; do ./ssh -v -p 2222 localhost -oKexAlgorithms=mceliece6688128x25519-sha512@openssh.com date > /dev/null 2>&1; i= expr $i + 1 ; done; date
Sat Dec  9 22:39:55 UTC 2023
Sat Dec  9 22:40:07 UTC 2023
# 12 seconds

• Use a better hybrid mode combiner than SHA512? See for example KEM Combiners.
• Write IETF document describing the Classic McEliece SSH protocol
• Submit my patch to the OpenSSH community for discussion and feedback, please review meanwhile!
• Implement a mceliece6688128sntrup761x25519 multi-hybrid mode?
• Write a shell script a la sntrup761.sh to import a stripped-down mceliece6688128 implementation to avoid having OpenSSH depend on libmceliece?
• My kexmceliece6688128x25519.c is really just kexsntrup761x25519.c with the three calls to sntrup761 replaced with mceliece6688128. This should be parametrized to avoid cut n paste of code, if the OpenSSH community is interested.
• Consider if the behaviour of librandombytes related to closing of file descriptors is relevant to OpenSSH.

Day 1: Arrival in Kochi Kochi is a city in the state of Kerala, India. This year s DebConf was to be held in Kochi from 3rd September to 17th of September, which I was planning to attend. My friend Suresh, who was planning to join, told me that 29th August 2023 will be Onam, a major festival of the state of Kerala. So, we planned a Kerala trip before the DebConf. We booked early morning flights for Kochi from Delhi and reached Kochi on 28th August. We had booked a hostel named Zostel in Ernakulam. During check-in, they asked me to fill a form which required signing in using a Google account. I told them I don t have a Google account and I don t want to create one either. The people at the front desk seemed receptive, so I went ahead with telling them the problems of such a sign-in being mandatory for check-in. Anyways, they only took a photo of my passport and let me check-in without a Google account. We stayed in a ten room dormitory, which allowed travellers of any gender. The dormitory room was air-conditioned, spacious, clean and beds were also comfortable. There were two bathrooms in the dormitory and they were clean. Plus, there was a separate dormitory room in the hostel exclusive for females. I noticed that that Zostel was not added in the OpenStreetMap and so, I added it :) . The hostel had a small canteen for tea and snacks, a common sitting area outside the dormitories, which had beds too. There was a separate silent room, suitable for people who want to work.

Dormitory room in Zostel Ernakulam, Kochi.

Beds in Zostel Ernakulam, Kochi.

We had lunch at a nearby restaurant and it was hard to find anything vegetarian for me. I bought some freshly made banana chips from the street and they were tasty. As far as I remember, I had a big glass of pineapple juice for lunch. Then I went to the Broadway market and bought some cardamom and cinnamon for home. I also went to a nearby supermarket and bought Matta brown rice for home. Then, I looked for a courier shop to send the things home but all of them were closed due to Onam festival. After returning to the Zostel, I overslept till 9 PM and in the meanwhile, Suresh planned with Saidut and Shwetank (who met us during our stay in Zostel) to go to a place in Fort Kochi for dinner. I suspected I will be disappointed by lack of vegetarian options as they were planning to have fish. I already had a restaurant in mind - Brindhavan restaurant (suggested by Anupa), which was a pure vegetarian restaurant. To reach there, I got off at Palarivattom metro station and started looking for an auto-rickshaw to get to the restaurant. I didn t get any for more than 5 minutes. Since that restaurant was not added to the OpenStreetMap, I didn t even know how far that was and which direction to go to. Then, I saw a Zomato delivery person on a motorcycle and asked him where the restaurant was. It was already 10 PM and the restaurant closes at 10:30. So, I asked him whether he can drop me off. He agreed and dropped me off at that restaurant. It was 4-5 km from that metro station. I tipped him and expressed my gratefulness for the help. He refused to take the tip, but I insisted and he accepted. I entered the restaurant and it was coming to a close, so many items were not available. I ordered some Kadhai Paneer (only item left) with naan. It tasted fine. Since the next day was Thiruvonam, I asked the restaurant about the Sadya thali menu and prices for the next day. I planned to eat Sadya thali at that restaurant, but my plans got changed later.

Onam sadya menu from Brindhavan restaurant.

Day 2: Onam celebrations Next day, on 29th of August 2023, we had plan to leave for Wayanad. Wayanad is a hill station in Kerala and a famous tourist spot. Praveen suggested to visit Munnar as it is far closer to Kochi than Wayanad (80 km vs 250 km). But I had already visited Munnar in my previous trips, so we chose Wayanad. We had a train late night from Ernakulam Junction (at 23:30 hours) to Kozhikode, which is the nearest railway station from Wayanad. So, we checked out in the morning as we had plans to roam around in Kochi before taking the train. Zostel was celebrating Onam on that day. To opt-in, we had to pay 400 rupees, which included a Sadya Thali and a mundu. Me and Suresh paid the amount and opted in for the celebrations. Sadya thali had Rice, Sambhar, Rasam, Avial, Banana Chips, Pineapple Pachadi, Pappadam, many types of pickels and chutneys, Pal Ada Payasam and Coconut jaggery Pasam. And, there was water too :). Those payasams were really great and I had one more round of them. Later, I had a lot of variety of payasams during the DebConf.

Sadya lined up for serving

Sadya thali served on banana leaf.

So, we hung out in the common room and put our luggage there. We played UNO and had conversations with other travellers in the hostel. I had a fun time there and I still think it is one of the best hostel experiences I had. We made good friends with Saiduth (Telangana) and Shwetank (Uttarakhand). They were already aware about the software like debian, and we had some detailed conversations about the Free Software movement. I remember explaining the difference between the terms Open Source and Free Software . I also told them about the Streetcomplete app, a beginner friendly app to edit OpenStreetMap. We had dinner at a place nearby (named Palaraam), but again, the vegetarian options were very limited! After dinner, we came back to the Zostel and me and Suresh left for Ernakulam Junction to catch our train Maveli Express (16604).

Day 3: Going to Wayanad Maveli Express was scheduled to reach Kozhikode at 03:25 (morning). I had set alarms from 03:00 to 03:30, with the gap of 10 minutes. Every time I woke up, I turned off the alarm. Then I woke up and saw train reaching the Kozhikode station and woke up Suresh for deboarding. But then I noticed that the train is actually leaving the station, not arriving! This means we missed our stop. Now we looked at the next stops and whether we can deboard there. I was very sleepy and wanted to take a retiring room at some station before continuing our journey to Wayanad. The next stop was Quilandi and we checked online that it didn t have a retiring room. So, we skipped this stop. We got off at the next stop named Vadakara and found out no retiring room was available. So, we asked about information regarding bus for Wayanad and they said that there is a bus to Wayanad around 07:00 hours from bus station which was a few kilometres from the railway station. We took a bus for Kalpetta (in Wayanad) at around 07:00. The destination of the buses were written in Malayalam, which we could not read. Once again, the locals helped us to get on to the bus to Kalpetta. Vadakara is not a big city and it can be hard to find people who know good Hindi or English, unlike Kochi. Despite language issues, I had no problem there in navigation, thanks to locals. I mostly spent time sleeping during the bus journey. A few hours later, the bus dropped us at Kalpetta. We had a booking at a hostel in Rippon village. It was 16 km from Kalpetta. On the way, we were treated with beautiful views of nature, which was present everywhere in Wayanad. The place was covered with tea gardens and our eyes were treated with beautiful scenery at every corner.

We were treated with such views during the Wayanad trip.

Rippon village was a very quiet place and I liked the calm atmosphere. This place is blessed by nature and has stunning scenery. I found English was more common than Hindi in Wayanad. Locals were very nice and helped me, even if they didn t know my language.

A road in Rippon.

After catching some sleep at the hostel, I went out in the afternoon. I hitchhiked to reach the main road from the hostel. I bought more spices from a nearby shop and realized that I should have waited for my visit to Wayanad to buy cardamom, which I already bought from Kochi. Then, I was looking for post office to send spices home. The people at the spices shop told me that the nearby Rippon post office was closed by that time, but the post office at Meppadi was open, which was 5 km from there. I went to Meppadi and saw the post office closes at 15:00, but I reached five minutes late. My packing was not very good and they asked me to pack it tighter. There was a shop near the post office and the people there gave me a cardboard and tapes, and helped pack my stuff for the post. By the time I went to the post office again, it was 15:30. But they accepted my parcel for post.

Day 4: Kanthanpara Falls, Zostel Wayanad and Karapuzha Dam Kanthanpara waterfalls were 2 km from the hostel. I hitchhiked to the place from the hostel on a scooty. Entry ticket was worth Rs 40. There were good views inside and nothing much to see except the waterfalls.

Entry to Kanthanpara Falls.

Kanthanpara Falls.

We had a booking at Zostel Wayanad for this day and so we shifted there. Again, as with their Ernakulam branch, they asked me to fill a form which required signing in using Google, but when I said I don t have a Google account they checked me in without that. There were tea gardens inside the Zostel boundaries and the property was beautiful.

A view of Zostel Wayanad.

A map of Wayanad showing tourist places.

A view from inside the Zostel Wayanad property.

Later in the evening, I went to Karapuzha Dam. I witnessed a beautiful sunset during the journey. Karapuzha dam had many activites, like ziplining, and was nice to roam around. Chembra Peak is near to the Zostel Wayanad. So, I was planning to trek to the heart shaped lake. It was suggested by Praveen and looking online, this trek seemed worth doing. There was an issue however. The charges for trek were Rs 1770 for upto five people. So, if I go alone I will have to spend Rs 1770 for the trek. If I go with another person, we split Rs 1770 into two, and so on. The optimal way to do it is to go in a group of five (you included :D). I asked front desk at Zostel if they can connect me with people going to Chembra peak the next day, and they told me about a group of four people planning to go to Chembra peak the next day. I got lucky! All four of them were from Kerala and worked in Qatar.

Day 5: Chembra peak trek The date was 1st September 2023. I woke up early (05:30 in the morning) for the Chembra peak trek. I had bought hiking shoes especially for trekking, which turned out to be a very good idea. The ticket counter opens at 07:00. The group of four with which I planned to trek met me around 06:00 in the Zostel. We went to the ticket counter around 06:30. We had breakfast at shops selling Maggi noodles and bread omlette near the ticket counter. It was a hot day and the trek was difficult for an inexperienced person like me. The scenery was green and beautiful throughout.

Terrain during trekking towards the Chembra peak.

Heart-shaped lake at the Chembra peak.

Me at the heart-shaped lake.

Views from the top of the Chembra peak.

View of another peak from the heart-shaped lake.

While returning from the trek, I found out a shop selling bamboo rice, which I bought and will make bamboo rice payasam out of it at home (I have some coconut milk from Kerala too ;)). We returned to Zostel in the afternoon. I had muscle pain after the trek and it has still not completely disappeared. At night, we took a bus from Kalpetta to Kozhikode in order to return to Kochi.

Day 6: Return to Kochi At midnight of 2nd of September, we reached Kozhikode bus stand. Then we roamed around for something to eat. I didn t find anything vegetarian to eat. No surprises there! Then we went to Kozhikode railway station and looked for retiring rooms, but no luck there. We waited at the station and took the next train to Kochi at 03:30 and reached Ernakulam Junction at 07:30 (half hours before train s scheduled time!). From there, we went to Zostel Fort Kochi and stayed one night there and checked out next morning.

Day 7: Roaming around in Fort Kochi On 3rd of September, we roamed around in Fort Kochi. We visited the usual places - St Francis Church, Dutch Palace, Jew Town, Pardesi Synagogue. I also visited some homestays and the owners were very happy to show their place even when I made it clear that I was not looking for a stay. In the evening, we went to Kakkanad to attend DebConf. The story continues in my DebConf23 blog post.

No further investment in co2mon.nz In March I made the decision to focus on completing the market research for co2mon.nz. The results of that research led to two key conclusions:

1. Indoor air quality/ventilation is not a problem many people are actively thinking about or looking to spend money to improve.
2. Even when introduced to the problem and educated about the need, most people are looking for a one-off expense or solution (e.g. the physical monitor) and are much less interested in a monitoring software service.

Based on that, it was clear that this is not an opportunity that I should continue pursuing and I ve put co2mon.nz into maintenance mode. I ve committed to maintaining the infrastructure to support existing customers, but I won t be investing time or energy in developing it further.

Discipline in selecting product opportunities The decision to stop investing more time into co2mon.nz was straightforward given the results of the research, but it was also painful given the time I ve already sunk into it. I hindsight it s clear that my enthusiasm to solve a problem with technology I enjoyed was my driving force rather than a deep understanding of the wants and needs of potential customers. I don t entirely regret trying my luck once - but it s not time efficient and I know that following that pattern again is not a sustainable or viable path to building a successful business. I ve decided to use the following list of questions to bring more discipline to how I evaluate product opportunities in future:

1. Problem: Is this something that a sizeable number of people are struggling with AND are willing to spend money solving?
   • I find the framework from Excuse me, is there a problem? really useful in thinking about this question.
2. Capability: Can I deliver a solution that solves the problem in a reliable and cost-effective way?
3. Excitement: Am I excited and motivated to invest time in building the solution to this problem?
4. Trust: Do I have the expertise and experience to be trusted to solve the problem by potential customers?
5. Execution: Can I package, market and sell that solution in a profitable manner?

My plan is to answer these questions and then make an evaluation of the potential before I commit time to building any part of a product. As an example of how I think that will help, here s what I think the answer to those questions for ventilation monitoring would have been:

1. Problem: No - as the market research eventually showed.
2. Capability: Low - The part of the solution which customers primarily value (the hardware) is complex and outside of my core experience. The software I can easily deliver is not where the value is seen.
3. Excitement: Yes - this was the primary driver of starting the project.
4. Trust: Low - I m trusted to build software, but cannot claim any specific expertise in air quality and ventilation.
5. Execution: Low confidence - These skills are not ones I ve exercised a lot in my career to date.

What these answers point to is that identifying the problem alone is not enough. I don t expect every question to have a perfect answer, but I want to hold myself to only pursuing opportunities where there s only one major area of doubt. In this case, even had the market research demonstrated a problem that many customers would pay to solve, there were still some big answers missing to the trust, capability and execution questions. Overall my conclusion is that co2mon.nz was not the ideal business to start my journey with given the number of open questions in the plan. I like to think that conclusion would also have been clear to me six months ago had I taken the time to go through this process then!

Prioritising areas of growth Applying those questions to my other product ideas results in a lot of I don t know yet answers to the problem and capability questions, further reinforcing the lesson that I need to spend more understanding if there is a problem with a viable business model attached in those areas before progressing any of those ideas. Beyond that lesson, a more interesting observation comes from the last question regarding execution. My answers to the first four questions vary between ideas, but my answers to this last question are always the same - I don t have a lot of confidence in my sales and marketing skills to sell a product. That s not a surprise. My career to date has been focused on software development and leadership, I don t have a lot of experience with sales and marketing. The opportunity to grow and develop those skills is actually a large part of my motivation for choosing the path of building my own business. But seeing that this is a common factor that will need significant investment regardless of which opportunity I pursue sends me a strong signal that I should focus on growth in this area as a priority. Following that logic through to the next step of what creating that focus would look like reveals a conflict: The nature of the mission I ve set for myself draws me to products in areas that are new to me, which means there s also a need to invest in building expertise in those areas. Again not a surprise, but the time and focus required to develop that expertise competes with time spent growing my sales and marketing skills. So I have a prioritisation problem. Solving it is going to require changing the type of product I m trying to build in the short term: I need to build a product that uses my existing expertise and strengths as much as possible, so that I can put the majority of my energy into growing the core business skills where my confidence is currently lacking. Trying to deliver meaningful improvements to a big problem in an area I don t have past experience in while also learning how to sell and market a product is biting off more than I chew right away.

Changing the goal posts With those lessons in hand I m making three changes to my 2023 Goals:

1. Reducing the product development goal from several ideas to two. The first was co2mon.nz. The second will be drawn from my existing expertise - not one of the previously stated ideas that require me to develop expertise in a new area.
2. Moving the consulting and product development goals to be alternatives - I expect I can achieve at most one of them this year.
3. Reducing the publishing target for this site from at least once a week to once a month . I thought I d have more to say this year, but the words are coming very slowly to me.

Reducing scope and ambition is humbling, but that s reality. I hope it turns out to be a case of slow down and lay the foundations in order to then move faster. The good news is that I don t feel the need to make any changes to the vision, mission and strategy I m following - I think they re still the right destination and overall path for me even though the first six months has proven bumpy. I just need to be a bit more realistic on the short-term goals that will feed into them.

The next few months I m choosing to prioritise the product development goal. I m aiming to complete the market research/problem definition phase for a product opportunity I ve identified in the SRE/DevOps space (where my previous experience is) and make a decision on whether to start development by mid August. In making that decision I plan to gather the answers to my questions, and then diligently evaluate whether the opportunity is worth committing to or not. I will write more about this process in coming weeks. If I decide to proceed that gives me 2-3 months to get an MVP in the hands of customers and get concrete validation of whether the product has revenue and growth potential before the end of the year. Tight, but if things go well, and I don t take any further consulting work, there s a reasonable chance I can complete the revised goal successfully. In the event that I decide the product opportunity I m currently researching is not the right one to commit to, I will likely revert to focusing on my consulting goal in the remaining 2-3 months of the year rather than attempt a third product development iteration. Thanks for reading this far! As always, I d love your thoughts and feedback.

Appendix: Revised 2023 Goals Putting all that together, the ultimate outcome of this review (including updated progress scoring) looks like:

1. Execute a series of successful consulting engagements, building a reputation for myself and leaving happy customers willing to provide testimonials that support a pipeline of future opportunities. Score: 3/10 - I focused entirely on co2mon.nz during April, May and June to the detriment of my pipeline of consulting work. This score is unlikely to improve given the above plan unless I decide not to commit to developing the idea I m currently investigating.
2. Grow my product development skill set by taking two ideas (co2mon.nz, an SRE/DevOps focused product) to MVP stage with customer feedback received, and generate revenue and has growth potential from one of them. Score: 4/10 - I launched co2mon.nz and got feedback, I discovered it didn t solve a problem relevant to customers and therefore did not generate substantial revenue or growth potential. Idea number two is in still in progress.
3. Develop and maintain a broad professional network.
   1. To build a professional relationship with at least 30 new people this year. Score: 6/10 - This is going well. On track for a 10/10 score.
   2. To publish a piece of writing on this site once a month and for many of those to generate interesting conversations and feedback. Score: 6/10 - 4 out of 6 months have featured a post meeting this goal so far.
   3. To support the growth of my local technical community by volunteering my experience and knowledge with others. Score: 5/10 - I ve given one talk and helped with SREcon23 APAC, but not as much other work in this area as I d like.

git-annex allows managing large files with git, without storing the file contents in git. It can sync, backup, and archive your data, offline and online. Checksums and encryption keep your data safe and secure. Bring the power and distributed nature of git to bear on your large files with git-annex.

• I want exactly 1 copy of every file to exist within the set #1 of backup drives. Here s a drive in that set; copy to it whatever needs to be copied to satisfy that requirement.
• Now I have another set of backup drives. Periodically I will swap sets offsite. Copy whatever is needed to this drive in the second set, making sure that there is 1 copy of every file within this set as well, regardless of what s in the first set.
• Here s a directory I want to use to track the status of everything else. I don t want any copies at all here.

• git-annex doesn t really preserve POSIX attributes; for instance, permissions, symlink destinations, and timestamps are all not preserved. Of these, timestamps are the most important for my particular use case.
• If your data set to archive contains Git repositories itself, these will not be included.

• There is a source of data that lives outside git-annex. I'll call this $SOURCEDIR.
• I'm going to name the directories holding my data $REPONAME.
• There will be a "coordination" git-annex repo. It will hold metadata only, and no data. This will let us track where things live. I'll call it $METAREPO.
• There will be drives. For this example, I'll call their mountpoints $DRIVE01 and $DRIVE02. For easy demonstration purposes, I used a ZFS dataset with a refquota set (to observe the size handling), but I could have as easily used a LVM volume, btrfs dataset, loopback filesystem, or USB drive. For optical discs, this would be a staging area or a UDF filesystem.