Not much else to elaborate on... 2021 wasn't too great for me

👎🏼 NOPE

It's been a tough year.

Remote work is hard, and my engineering department is very meeting-heavy. Here are several things I've learned since the pandemic started:

• It feels like my coworkers have been reduced to avatars
• Everyone's calendars are 80% booked all the time
• Impromptu design sessions are nearly impossible
• Actual whiteboards are 1000% more efficient than Mural/LucidChart/etc
• In between all the meetings and check-ins, it's hard to find time to actually write code

And it hasn't been just work. This year has left me feeling isolated... and a lot of times, trapped at home. I've lost count of the times this year that I wished I had the motivation to build something, but instead felt like all of the energy had been sucked out of me.

It hasn't been all bad, though... I got promoted to Engineering Lead, and now I'm managing a team of developers! I also helped launch the first build of our next-generation ad building platform in late May.

This ended up being a bit of a ramble, but here's to better year in 2021! 🍾🎉

See the rest of the club's amazing trees here: https://atlantabonsaisociety.com/wordpress/2019-spring-show/

First off, decide which versions of the software you're going to be using. The latest versions were charybdis-4.1.1 and atheme-7.2.10-r2 at the time of this post.

Check out the release pages for charybdis and atheme for a full listing of releases.

$ wget https://github.com/atheme/charybdis/archive/charybdis-4.1.1.tar.gz
$ tar -xvf charybdis-4.1.1.tar.gz
$ mv charybdis-charybdis-4.1.1/ charybdis

$ wget wget https://github.com/atheme/atheme/releases/download/v7.2.10-r2/atheme-v7.2.10-r2.tar.xz
$ tar -xvf atheme-v7.2.10-r2.tar.xz
$ mv atheme-v7.2.10-r2/ atheme

Go on and install build-essential, automake, if you don't have them already.

$ sudo apt install build-essential automake

Building Charybdis

Install some packages required by charybdis:

$ sudo apt install flex libsctp-dev libssl-dev libtool libzip-dev

Now you're ready to build ircd!

$ cd ~/charybdis
$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure prefix=/usr/local/charybdis
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo chown -R USER:USER /usr/local/charybdis

Building Atheme

Install a couple of prerequisite packages. I have no idea how libqrencode integrates with Atheme, but QR codes over IRC seems like fun:

$ sudo apt install gettext libqrencode-dev

Install git, if you don't have it already:

$ sudo apt install git

You'll need to run a git command to get the correct source code for the contrib module and libmowgli.

$ cd ~/atheme    
$ git submodule update --init

Now you're ready to build atheme!

$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/atheme --enable-contrib --enable-examples
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo chown -R USER:USER /usr/local/atheme

Fun with config files

Here's where the real fun starts!

charybdis configuration

First, navigate to your charybdis config directory, and copy the example config file to ircd.conf.

$ cd /usr/local/charybdis/etc
$ cp ircd.conf.example ircd.conf
$ vim ircd.conf

There are a few places we will want to make our edits:

• serverinfo block for basic server configuration
• admin block for your contact info
• connect and service blocks for IRC services

You'll also want to edit ircd.motd, and add a fun "message of the day" that users will see when they connect to your server.

serverinfo

Edit the first several lines of the serverinfo block, like so:

serverinfo {
    name = "yourserver.com";
    sid = "55A";
    description = "Your IRC Server";
    network_name = "Network";
    network_desc = "Your IRC network.";
}

The sid value should be "one digit and two characters which can be digits or letters", according to the Operators guide for the charybdis IRC server.

admin

Add your contact info to the admin block, like so:

admin {
    name = "Matt Hughes";
    description = "Your friendly IRC admin";
    email = "matthughes404@gmail.com";
};

Users can see this information when they run the /admin command in their IRC client.

connect

Add/edit a connect block for the atheme-services daemon. The value in quotations should match the serverinfo name value in the atheme.conf file. We'll get to the atheme.conf file shortly.

connect "atheme.services" {
    host = "127.0.0.1";
    send_password = "server_password";
    accept_password = "client_password";
    port = 6668;
    class = "server";
};

service

You want this value to match the serverinfo name value when we start editing the atheme.conf file.

service {
    name = "atheme.services";
};

atheme configuration

Navigate to your atheme directory, and copy the example config to atheme.config.

$ cd /usr/local/atheme/etc
$ cp atheme.conf.example atheme.conf
$ vim atheme.conf

There are two blocks we need to edit in atheme.conf:

• serverinfo for basic information
• connect to connect to our IRC server

serverinfo

These edits are very similar to the ones we made in ircd.conf:

serverinfo {
    name = "atheme.services";
    desc = "Atheme IRC Services";
    numeric = "61B";
    netname = "Your IRC Network";
    adminname = "Matt Hughes";
    adminemail = "matthughes404@gmail.com";
    auth = none;
}

There are lots of other values in the serverinfo block; I only included the ones that need to be changed above. Make sure that the name and numeric values are no the same ones you used in ircd.conf. The auth value relates to how nicks are registered. You can require e-mail validation to register a nick, but I omitted it for simplicity.

uplink

Edit the uplink block so:

uplink "yourserver.com" {
    host = "127.0.0.1";
    send_password = "client_password";
    receive_password = "server_password";
    port = 6668;
};

loadmodule protocol

Uncomment the the following loadmodule line to enable the Charybdis protocol:

loadmodule "modules/protocol/charybdis";

A few notes:

• The value in quotes should be the serverinfo name value from your ircd.conf
• The host value of 127.0.0.1 assumes that you're running charybdis and atheme from the same machine
• Make sure the send_password and accept_password values are reversed from the values in ircd.conf

Let's try it out!

Start up charybdis:

$ /usr/local/charybdis/bin/charybdis
notice: starting charybdis-4.1.1 ...
notice: librb version: unknown - OpenSSL: compiled 0x1010007f, library OpenSSL 1.1.0g  2 Nov 2017
notice: now running in background mode from /usr/local/charybdis as pid 31139 ...

Start up atheme:

$ /usr/local/atheme/bin/atheme-services
[2018-10-16 21:27:00] atheme 7.2.10-r2 is starting up...
[2018-10-16 21:27:00] module_load(): module /usr/local/atheme/modules/nickserv/list is already loaded [at 0x5588155f1d90]
[2018-10-16 21:27:00] module_load(): module /usr/local/atheme/modules/groupserv/main is already loaded [at 0x5588155f5ac0]
[2018-10-16 21:27:00] db-open-read: database '/usr/local/atheme/etc/services.db' does not yet exist; a new one will be created.
[2018-10-16 21:27:00] pid 31766
[2018-10-16 21:27:00] running in background mode from /usr/local/atheme

Now you're ready to connect with your IRC client (I prefer HexChat) and register your nick with NickServ!

In your IRC client, run the /connect command:

/server yourserver.com

You should see some output like this:

* Looking up yourserver.com
* Connecting to yourserver.com (x.x.x.x:6667)
* Connected. Now logging in.
* *** Looking up your hostname...
* *** Checking Ident
* *** Couldn't look up your hostname
* *** No Ident response
* Capabilities supported: account-notify away-notify extended-join multi-prefix sasl
* Capabilities requested: account-notify away-notify extended-join multi-prefix 
* Capabilities acknowledged: account-notify away-notify extended-join multi-prefix 
* Welcome to the FunCollider Internet Relay Chat Network GenBurnside
* Your host is funcollider.irc[funcollider.irc/6667], running version charybdis-3.4.2
* This server was created Fri Sep 25 2015 at 12:31:12 EDT
* yourserver.irc charybdis-3.4.2 DQRSZagiloswz CFILPQbcefgijklmnopqrstvz bkloveqjfI
* SAFELIST ELIST=CTU CHANTYPES=&# EXCEPTS INVEX CHANMODES=eIbq,k,flj,CFLPQcgimnprstz CHANLIMIT=&#:15 PREFIX=(ov)@+ MAXLIST=bqeI:100 MODES=4 NETWORK=FunCollider KNOCK :are supported by this server
* STATUSMSG=@+ CALLERID=g CASEMAPPING=rfc1459 CHARSET=ascii NICKLEN=30 MAXNICKLEN=31 CHANNELLEN=50 TOPICLEN=390 ETRACE CPRIVMSG CNOTICE DEAF=D :are supported by this server
* MONITOR=100 FNC TARGMAX=NAMES:1,LIST:1,KICK:1,WHOIS:1,PRIVMSG:4,NOTICE:4,ACCEPT:,MONITOR: WHOX CLIENTVER=3.0 :are supported by this server
* There are 0 users and 11 invisible on 2 servers
* I have 2 clients and 1 servers
* 2 2 :Current local users 2, max 2
* 11 11 :Current global users 11, max 11
* Highest connection count: 3 (2 clients) (2 connections received)
* - yourserver.irc Message of the Day - 
* - ================================================================================
* -                                    Welcome!  
* - ================================================================================
* - End of /MOTD command.

Now see if atheme-services is running correctly:

/NickServ help

You should get a list of commands back from NickServ:

-NickServ- ***** NickServ Help *****
-NickServ- NickServ allows users to 'register' a nickname, and stop
-NickServ- others from using that nick. NickServ allows the owner of a
-NickServ- nickname to disconnect a user from the network that is using
-NickServ- their nickname.
-NickServ- If a registered nick is not used by the owner for 30 days,
-NickServ- NickServ will drop the nickname, allowing it to be reregistered.
-NickServ-  
-NickServ- For more information on a command, type:
-NickServ- /msg NickServ help <command>
-NickServ- For a verbose listing of all commands, type:
-NickServ- /msg NickServ help commands
-NickServ-  
-NickServ- The following commands are available:
-NickServ- GHOST           Reclaims use of a nickname.
-NickServ- GROUP           Adds a nickname to your account.
-NickServ- IDENTIFY        Identifies to services for a nickname.
-NickServ- INFO            Displays information on registrations.
-NickServ- LISTCHANS       Lists channels that you have access to.
-NickServ- REGISTER        Registers a nickname.
-NickServ- SENDPASS        Email registration passwords.
-NickServ- SET             Sets various control flags.
-NickServ- UNGROUP         Removes a nickname from your account.
-NickServ-  
-NickServ- Other commands: ACC, DROP, HELP, LISTGROUPS, LOGOUT, SETPASS, 
-NickServ-                 STATUS, TAXONOMY, VACATION, VERIFY
-NickServ- ***** End of Help *****

Having trouble?

As I learned the hard way in setting up IRC and services a few times, it's easy to mess up. The charybdis and atheme logs are your friends:

/usr/local/atheme/var/atheme.log
/usr/local/charybdis/logs/ircd.log
/usr/local/charybdis/logs/serverlog

Sapporo for scale :)

Pretty gnarly trunk in there

Had to slice up the nursery pot to get it out

Taking a saw to the mass of roots

Finally got it split up!

This is the tree I've been waiting to grow!

Soil mix!

• 1 part diatomaceous earth (NAPA oil dry)
• 1 part crushed granite (chicken grit)
• 1 part pine bark nuggets (sifted the dust and big chunks)

I haven't worked much on any electronic projects, but I did get a decent garden growing this year! I ended up started some seeds about two months late (beginning of March), being busy getting the house ready to sell. The few cherry tomato seeds that survived have done really well, but the Jamaican hot chocolate and Scotch bonnet peppers have been really slow-growing.

The house we bought has a really small yard, but fortunately there's a great community garden less than a mile away: New Leaf Community Garden

Here are a few shots of me getting a few things in my planter box:

About 8 weeks later, everything is growing like crazy! Unfortunately the rain has been nearly non-stop, which rotted out my zucchinis and has burst several of my tomatoes. The surprise of the season has been my two okra plants, which have gotten massive! The Black Trifel tomato plant I got from the Serenbe Farms plant sale is doing really well, too.

Fast-forward 6 or 7 weeks, and we are under contract on a home in beautiful Newnan, GA. We came across a perfect house only a few blocks from downtown Newnan. I was initially hoping to find somewhere with a big (acre+) lot to do all sorts of garden experiments, but we decided it would be better for everyone to be walking distance from parks, food, and other fun family stuff. There just so happens to be a community garden near the house too. 👍

We simply can't wait to be in our new home and watch Rosie grow up in such a great place!

I've collected seeds from a trident maple and three different Japanese maples to try and sprout this spring. All of these seeds require a cold period (stratification) to germinate successfully, which means they need to be sown outside over the winter or chilled in the refrigerator. I'm going to sow the majority of these seeds outside, and start some in the refrigerator around the beginning of the year.

I've had a pretty bad time with squirrels digging in all sorts of bonsai and herb pots this year, and I'm sure they'd dig all of my seeds up if I just planted them in the ground. To get around this, I made some plastic grow trays, and fixed a wire screen on the top to keep the critters out!

This was a super low-cost and low-commitment project. If it fails miserably, I only spent $2 at Dollar Tree for the containers; everything else I already had on hand. Definitely worth the learning opportunity!

Materials required:

• Small plastic storage container
• Perlite
• Potting soil or seed-starting mix
• Wire mesh
• Aluminum wire, twine, or string

I watered the soil well, and put them under my gardening bench on the porch for now. When I move my bonsai from their shelves to the ground for the winter, I'll probably set these seed containers alongside them to fully expose the seeds to the winter elements.

On top of being a useful design, the Global Bucket project is really impressive. A couple of high schoolers took the idea of EarthBox planters, and redesigned it to use cheap, locally sourced materials. I wish I had done something this useful with my time when I was their age!

Their original design uses two 5-gallon buckets, a plastic cup or yogurt container, and a 2' length of PVC pipe. I decided to use one of their newer designs, using only one bucket, a colander, and some pipe. This kept me from having to spend $15+ on a hole saw bit for the inner bucket.

All in all, this planter only cost me about $6:

• Pickle bucket from Firehouse Subs: $2
• PVC pipe: $2
• Flex pipe: $1
• Plastic colander: $1

It took less than half an hour to build this, and would have taken even less time without trying to take pictures in the dark. Here's the build process!

Juniper (possibly a Sargent's)

I bought this juniper about 18 months ago from a Home Depot for only $8 or so. It was marked as a Sargent's juniper, and I picked it up in the hopes that it would be similar to a shimpaku. It's kept the needle foliage instead of the shimpaku-style scale foliage, but I think it's developed pretty nicely. I removed the trunk wiring from it a few months ago, and I'm planning to wire the finer branches in the spring.

Colorado Blue Spruce

I bought this Colorado blue spruce from Home Depot at the end of the spring, and got it for around $5. There was a 50% off sale on them, I think because they were leftover Christmas trees from the previous winter. This spruce has two trunks; I'm planning on chopping most of the length off of the thicker trunk, and wiring the second trunk down to a semi-cascade. I'll be waiting until spring to do any more work on it.

I didn't notice until I was raking the roots out, but this tree has a fantastic nebari!

You would think that writing a few fields to CSV and exporting it to another machine would be easy. Ionic and Cordova made it pretty simple simple... It was a breeze when testing on an Android VM! Unfortunately, iOS made it needlessly difficult and unintuitive.

In a nutshell, Android and iOS have different attitudes on sharing files between apps. The $cordovaFile plugin documentation shows how Android allows non-private directories for apps to store their files, where iOS does not: http://ngcordova.com/docs/plugins/file/.

This meant that I could write a CSV file to cordova.file.externalDataDirectory on Android, open the file with $cordovaFileOpener2, and it would be opened right in Excel. On iOS all of the cordova.file directories are private, which means $cordovaFileOpener2 cannot open any files in the app's private directory.

My nemesis: UIFileSharingEnabled

Ionic has several config.xml settings that automatically translate to the appropriate Android or iOS config values. DisallowOverscroll, Fullscreen, and Orientation are just a few examples. The full list can be found at https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/config_ref/. Unfortunately, iOS file sharing is not an Ionic config setting.

After some research, I found out that iOS requires the UIFileSharingEnabled value to be set to true in the app's Info.plist file. This is the "Application supports iTunes file sharing" setting in XCode. Yes, you read that right... The Apple Way™ requires you to use iTunes to download app files off your device. It doesn't make much sense to me, either.

Most threads I could find online about adding plist entries used a Cordova hook developed by Marco Carnazzo: https://gist.github.com/marcocarnazzo/6f01a57d390e8fe3071f. This hook allows you to add tags to the Ionic config.xml, and have them transformed to the appropriate Android or iOS config values. I ran into some errors while using the script, and couldn't make it work for me. Since I only needed iOS-specific config values written, I decided to take a less dynamic, low-tech approach.

PlistBuddy to the rescue

I came across the PlistBuddy utility from this StackOverflow thread: http://stackoverflow.com/a/31845828/152133. I ran into trouble with this hook as written, but I was able to modify it to suit my needs. I saved the following code in hooks/after_prepare/020_add_tags_to_plist.sh:

#!/bin/bash

PLIST=platforms/ios/*/*-Info.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :UIFileSharingEnabled bool YES" $PLIST

true

Retrieving your files in iTunes

First, click the device button in iTunes.

Next select the Apps menu item, and scroll down to File Sharing.

Select your app, and download the files you need!

Since the top half of the tree is getting chopped, I'm going to experiment with an air layer. The top part of the trunk doesn't have anything impressive for nebari, so I decided to try a tourniquet wire to thicken it up. I first found about about the tourniquet technique from a thread I posted on Bonsai Nut.

Everything I read online says to use copper wire for a tourniquet, but I ended up using 3mm aluminum wire. I think the recommendation for copper is to use a smaller gauge wire while still being strong enough dig into the trunk.

March: repot and pruning

I really wish I had stopped pruning here. I think the tree would have thrived much more in this state, than it did after the massive defoliation I inflicted on it.

This looked like a good final-ish shape for a shohin. I really should have been patient and trimmed it back this much after it had a growing season to recover.

After the damage was done, I had an impressive pile of needles. I tried rooting a few of the larger ones, but unfortunately none of them survived.

May: getting a lot of die-back 👎

Early June: even worse off 😡

Late June: kicked the bucket 😣