Arne Bahlo

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I built a NAS
Feb 7, 2026 · original
Without going too deep into it, in light of our late-stage surveillance capitalism and political escalations, I do not want to depend on tech companies for my personal data, especially those from the United States. In lieu of that, I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and build a NAS. Table of contents History (you can skip this one) Hardware System Security ZFS encryption Headscale SSL Backups Apps Conclusion History I’ve been hosting my own music since 2024, and I moved my personal data to a hosted NextCloud on Hetzner shortly after. Cryptomator helped me end-to-end encrypt my files on the Hetzner servers, and while I would recommend this, the workflow is a bit convoluted—for example, on macOS it mounts a volume that is harder to access. The biggest problem for me was photos—I was using iCloud photos, and even though something like Immich get’s really close to the functionali
Brené Brown on productivity and self-worth
Jul 21, 2025 · original
I’m currently reading Dare to Lead (Brown, 2018) and this made me think: When worthiness is a function of productivity, we lose the ability to pump the brakes. The idea of doing something that doesn’t add to the bottom line provokes stress and anxiety. It feels completely contrary to what we believe we want to achieve in life—we convince ourselves that downtime, like playing with our kids, hanging out with our partners, napping, tooling around in the garage, or going for a run is a waste of precious time. Why sleep when you can work? Although I’m not a workaholic, I do see myself in some of these points. I need to work on that.
Reclaiming my attention
Jul 5, 2025 · original
“Like fingers pointing to the moon, other diverse disciplines from anthropology to education, behavioral economics to family counseling, similarly suggest that the skillful management of attention is the sine qua non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience.” — Winifred Gallagher Our attention is being stolen. We’re slowly losing the ability to concentrate, not only because of TikTok, but also because we constantly have access to easy consumption. It’s digital fast food. When I started to notice this on myself, I started with the naïve approach and deleted all time sink 1 apps like YouTube or Instagram. This worked for a day or two until I either got bored or found another reason to re-install. Then I moved to Apple Screen Time. This works for a bit, but that “15 minutes more” button starts to become muscle memory very quickly. Even apps like on
My favorite things of 2024
Dec 22, 2024 · original
Here are my favorite things, digital and physical, of 2024! Music I Love You So F***ing Much by Glass Animals : One of my favorite bands, every single album is amazing. and this is no exception. Clancy by Twenty One Pilots : There’s artists with unique story telling and then there’s Twenty One Pilots. I really like this album. From Zero by Linkin Park : This sounds like Hybrid Theory reloaded—which is a good thing—and I love that they’re back. Older (and Wiser) : This is the music you want to hear on long train rides through the country side and on long winter evenings. Books These links go to my reviews (no spoilers): Piranesi by Susanna Clarke : One of the best books I’ve ever read. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir : Loved the book and told everyone about it after reading it. The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey : 7 books plus a few novellas. Couldn’t stop reading! Useful Not True by
Jujutsu in practice
Oct 21, 2024 · original
This post is not about the Japanese martial arts Jiu-jitsu , it’s about a new VCS, or version control system. There are some great tutorials and introductions for Jujutsu , short jj , so I want to give some insight in how I use it day to day for this website. Initialize a repository You can initialize jj in an existing git repository like this: $ jj git init -- git-repo . This will create a .jj directory next to .git . You can now use both git and jj , although I wouldn’t recommend it. There’s a work-in-progress native storage backend, but since all my projects are git repositories anyway, this works great for me. Note that this is non-destructive; if you want to go back to git , all it takes is a rm -r .jj . Get an overview Running jj log in the repository for this very website gives this output: $ jj log @ qzsvtxpv hey@arne.me 2024-10-21 09:58:06 e18f7532 │ Add blog/jj-in-practice │ ○
We need more zero config tools
Oct 1, 2024 · original
It just works. — Steve Jobs If you follow this blog, you’ll know that I’m doing a series called “Emacs Config From Scratch” 1 . Emacs is an editor operating system, where you can configure and customize literally everything. I like that you can truly make it yours, but it’s a lot of work to get there. Recently, I’ve become fond of (command line) tools that just work , out of the box 2 . This blogpost is an ode to them. Fish Julia Evans recently posted Reasons I still love the fish shell , and the first point she makes is “no configuration”. Things that require plugins and lots of code in shells like ZSH, like autosuggestions, are included and configured by default in fish. At the time of writing this, my fish config has less than 31 loc, most of which are abbreviations. I have two fish plugins configured: z for jumping to a directory, and hydro as my shell prompt. Neither need configurat
Emacs Config From Scratch, Part 3: LSP & Tree-sitter
May 11, 2024 · original
This is Part 3 of my series, Emacs Config From Scratch 1 , where I create my perfect editor using Emacs. In this post, I’ll do some housekeeping, set up LSP 2 , language modes for Rust, Go, TypeScript and Zig, and add search. Table Of Contents Housekeeping LSP Tree-sitter Language support Search Wrapping up Housekeeping The first thing I want to do is make the UI titlebar match the Emacs theme and hide the file icon: ( use-package emacs :init ( add - to - list 'default - frame - alist ' ( ns - transparent - titlebar . t ) ) ( add - to - list 'default - frame - alist ' ( ns - appearance . light ) ) ( setq ns - use - proxy - icon nil ) ( setq frame - title - format nil ) ) The next thing is automatically loading $PATH from my shell using exec-path-from-shell —this is important so Emacs can find our installed binaries, e.g. for language servers: ( use-package exec - path - from - shell :ini
Writing an SDK in Zig
May 9, 2024 · original
The first project I used Zig for was a rewrite of a custom static site generator for the Fire Chicken Webring , you can read that post here: Thoughts on Zig . Writing a small application is a lot easier than writing a library, especially if you’re hacking it together like I was. Let’s do something harder. And because I work at Axiom (partner link), we’re going to write an SDK for the public API . In this first part I’ll set up the library and add a single getDatasets fn to fetch all datasets the token has access to. We’re using Zig 0.12. It might not work with a different version. Bootstrap the SDK First, we create a directory called axiom-zig and run zig init : info: created build.zig info: created build.zig.zon info: created src/main.zig info: created src/root.zig info: see ` zig build -- help ` for a menu of options We also want to create a .gitignore to ignore the following folders:
Thoughts on Zig
May 1, 2024 · original
Zig is a programming language designed by Andrew Kelley. The official website lists three principles of the language: No hidden control flow. No hidden memory allocations. No preprocessor, no macros. For someone like me coming mostly from Rust, Go and TypeScript, this is different—and different is interesting, so I wanted to know what it feels like to write code in it. Here are my thoughts after 3 nights of using Zig to rewrite the static site generator 1 I use for the Fire Chicken Webring . Note that this is a limited use case and only scratches the surface of the language. Explicit allocation This is one of the biggest differentiators of Zig. Go doesn’t force you to think at all, Rust forces you to think about ownership and Zig forces you to think about allocations. If you want to allocate memory, you need to pass an allocator to it and remember to free it afterwards. One thing that I
DIY Music Streaming with NixOS, Jellyfin and Manet
Apr 1, 2024 · original
In this post, I describe how I’m hosting my own music streaming service with NixOS, Jellyfin and Manet on Hetzner for €6 / month. If you know your way around servers, this is neither a novel nor a complicated setup—quite the opposite; the beauty of this configuration lies in its simplicity. Table of Contents Set up a VM with NixOS Install and configure packages Configure Jellyfin Apps Conclusion Set up a VM with NixOS The smallest (and cheapest) VM on Hetzner Cloud, CX11 with 1 VCPU and 2 GB RAM, is more than enough 1 . Because my music collection is still pretty small, I’ve decided to go with Hetzner volumes. If you have more than 100 GB of music, I’d recommend looking into a different storage solution in combination with rclone , see the storage section of an earlier post . Hetzner doesn’t have a one-click NixOS image, so I chose any image and followed the “traditional” ISO installatio
I Lived 7 Days without a Smartphone
Jan 29, 2024 · original
I’m addicted to my phone. You are probably too. And I’m trying to fix this: I don’t have TikTok 1 or Instagram, I only use YouTube in Safari with Shorts blocked , and I use one-sec for apps that I don’t want to waste my time on. But still, time-sinks keep creeping in after a week or two. So, I did what I wanted to do for years: I put my iPhone at my desk and left it there for 7 days 2 . Here’s how it went. The setup Here’s all the things I can do reasonably effective with my Apple Watch Ultra 2: Inspect and create calendar events Manage my tasks with the OmniFocus 4 watch app Send and receive texts with a swipe-capable on-screen keyboard or voice input Make and receive phone calls Track my hydration using Waterminder Track medication Check the weather with Carrot Weather Record workouts with Gentler Streak Record voice notes with Just Press Record Navigate to and in places with Maps List
My Favorite Articles of 2023
Dec 31, 2023 · original
This year I’ve read over 500 articles for my newsletter, Arne’s Weekly . For this post, I’ve distilled them down to the ones I liked the most and/or that had the biggest impact on my life. Here they are, in no particular order: “I’m On It” : Mike Fisher writes about their favorite response when given a task. The science of why you have great ideas in the shower : Stacey Colino has the neurological explanation for the reasons you get great ideas in the shower or find bug fixes when on a walk: The default mode network in your brain. Bricks of Love: create purpose and engagement with weekly updates : João Alves about purpose, motivation, and the magic of weekly updates. Visual design rules you can safely follow every time : Anthony Hobday has a list of design rules that you should remember. The Most Valuable Programmer : Arend van Beelen jr. writes about the feature that make someone an MVP
Emacs Config From Scratch, Part Two: Projects and Keybindings
Dec 28, 2023 · original
This is the second post in my Emacs From Scratch series. In Part 1 , we’ve set up the UI and evil mode. Today we’ll set up a way to manage projects, quickly find files, set up custom keybindings, interact with Git and open a terminal inside Emacs. Table of Contents Project manager Custom keybindings Fuzzy finding Git integration Terminal Small tweaks Make Ctrl-u work like in Vim Comment lines Optimizing the garbage collector Don’t use ESC as a modifier Conclusion Project manager Vim is usually terminal-first; you navigate to a directory and open Vim. Emacs is the other way around; you start Emacs, open a project and maybe a terminal buffer (see Terminal further down). Let’s set up Projectile to manage our projects and quickly find files. ( use-package projectile :demand :init ( projectile - mode + 1 ) ) You can now run M-x (a.k.a. Opt-x on macOS) and type projectile-add-known-project to
Yearly Themes 2024
Dec 27, 2023 · original
Instead of setting a fixed goal as my New Year’s resolution, only to then not even make it through January, I’m setting Yearly Themes. CGP Grey has a great video on them , here’s a quote: For some things, precision matters, for others, it doesn’t and when trying to build yourself into a better version of yourself, exact data points don’t matter. All that matters, is the trend line. Yearly Themes act as a signpost to give your year a direction—the idea is to keep them in mind when making decisions, no matter how small. Looking back at 2023 My 2023 started with two themes: Year of Business In the past, most of my side projects were open-source and/or non-profit. I wanted to dive into figuring out if side projects with actual revenue was something I wanted to pursue. Year of Adventure I have a desk job and work from home and while I enjoy watching outdoor media, I have very little actual ex
Emacs Config From Scratch, Part 1: Foundations
Dec 22, 2023 · original
Welcome to my new series Emacs From Scratch . I’m far from an Emacs expert, so join me in my quest to figure out how to create a useful Emacs setup from nothing 1 . In this part, we’ll install Emacs, set up sane defaults, packaging and do some basic UI tweaks to build a solid foundation. Table of Contents Install Emacs Remove UI elements Configure the package manager Set sane defaults Become evil Set font and theme Add a nicer modeline Conclusion Install Emacs On macOS, everyone recommends Emacs Plus . For other systems, check out Doom’s Emacs & dependencies documentation. We’re running this command: brew reinstall emacs-plus \ -- with-savchenkovaleriy-big-sur-icon \ -- with-native-comp And this is what it looks like when we start Emacs for the first time: Remove UI elements We want to remove everything but the text. To do so, we first create a file in $HOME/.emacs.d/init.el . ( tool - b
30 Bits of Advice for 30 Years
Nov 17, 2023 · original
I’m turning 30 this year. Inspired by Kevin Kelly’s incredible 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice 1 , I collected bits of advice I’ve picked up over the years—mostly by people wiser than me. Here they are, in no particular order: Communication is your most important skill, get good at it. Be kind first, be right later. 2 Don’t make your problems other people’s problems. Read more books. Help others succeed, and they’ll help you succeed in the long term. It’s only awkward if you make it awkward. When giving presents, the perceived value counts, not the actual value (this goes in both directions). Your vacation starts when you leave your house and ends when you’re back in your house. People care more about stories than facts. Find someone outside your bubble that you can talk to and make sure you’re both able to understand where the other comes from. Think of yourself as the person you want to
We Need to Bring Back Webrings
Nov 14, 2023 · original
The year is 1996. You feed your Tamagotchi, get a Squeezit and turn on the home computer. You’ve told your family they can’t do phone calls for the next hour. The dial-up modem makes beeping sounds 1 . You’re online. Yesterday you found this fly website about amateur radio, and you want to explore more—but how can you find related websites? Yahoo is slow and not really showing you what you’re looking for. Then you notice that this website is part of the “Amateur Radio Webring”. You click the arrow to the right and dive into another website about amateur radio. You wake up. The year is 2023. You can no longer get a Squeezit anywhere, you live under surveillance capitalism and the enshittification is ruining the web. You found this goofy personal website, and you’d like to browse similar ones. What do you do? Find the person on socials, look at who they’re following and check if they have
Archive Your Old Projects
Nov 12, 2023 · original
Yesterday, while looking through a folder called old things lol glhf , I fell into a rabbit hole of old abandoned projects—mostly websites and graphic design, but I also found one or two Flash 1 projects and compiled .exe files 2 . And, while it was really fun remembering projects I’ve long forgotten, there was no structure, and it was often difficult to figure out what a project did and what it looked like—some even missed crucial data. This made me think about how I want to archive my projects going forward. Here is my new strategy: Leave it online If the project is on the web, doesn’t require maintenance and doesn’t cost you money, leave it online. Occasionally, you’ll need to move to a different domain, for example when re-doing a website. When talking to Ollie about this, he told me that some people leave their old websites online at year.domain and I love that idea 3 . You can look
My App Defaults
Nov 5, 2023 · original
In episode 097 of the Hemispheric Views podcast, the hosts discuss their app defaults, which has inspired some people to share their own 1 . These are mine: Mail Client HEY Mail Server HEY & Fastmail 2 Notes Tot & Obsidian To-Do Things iPhone Photo Shooting Camera.app Photo Management Photos.app Calendar Calendar.app synced with iCloud Cloud File Storage iCloud Drive RSS Reeder synced with Feedbin Contacts Contacts.app synced with iCloud Browser Safari Chat iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal Bookmarks Safari Read It Later n/a Word Processing Pages.app Spreadsheets Numbers.app Presentations Keynote.app Shopping Lists Grocery Meal Planning n/a Budgeting and Personal Finance YNAB News Lage der Nation 3 , New York Times Music Apple Music Podcasts Overcast Password Management 1Password Now there are a few categories I want to add myself: Weather CARROT TV Show Tracker CouchTimes Terminal Emulator iTe
Why You Should Write Your Own Static Site Generator
Nov 3, 2023 · original
I’ve used a lot of static site generators in the past, and they all have their own features and quirks, but most importantly, you have to architect your website to match what the framework expects. Since yesterday, this website has been powered by my own SSG 1 . It’s not meant to be reusable, it’s just normal code—parsing and generating files for this specific website. And oh boy do I love it. Why?? When Vercel released Next.js 14 recently, some friends I’ve talked to were still on Next.js 12 and really felt the pressure to upgrade to not fall behind even more. This made me think about the longevity and robustness of my website, and so I decided I don’t want to depend on other people’s decisions and run after version upgrades I don’t care about. And even if your content is Markdown and media, almost everything around it needs to be updated when switching frameworks—sometimes even when up

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