Happy Bytes

Sharing what I learn and do

linux

Ubuntu Server Monitoring

I have a small Ubuntu server running at home. I use it as a NAS and to host lightweight applications like a photo gallery tool. Since its resources are quite limited, I would like to know how the RAM and CPU are fairing over time. After a short disucssion with an LLM, it looks like netdata is a promising tool. Let’ s see how to install and use it. The installation is actually straightforward. All I need was to follow the instructions on this page. It tooks some time, but finished without error. A quick sudo systemctl status netdata show some red errors. However, doing sudo journalctl -u netdata -f shows that the service ultimately started properly. Since I am on the same local network, I can leave the dashboard’s port open and access it directly via my browser: http://<server ip>:19999 . The home page opens, inviting me to sign…

science

Three Buiding Blocks for Human Belief Systems

I was watching an interview on Youtube called “Religion Explained through Evolution“. They had a couple of interesting points I had not heard before. What I had heard before was that “religion is universal”. What I did not know waas in which form. When I hear “religion” I tend to think of organized entities, with priests, dogma, etc. Those are actually very much cultural and not at all universal. What is, indeed, universal, are beliefs of invisible entities, able to act on our physical world, with which it is possible to interact. From there, one can wonder what makes it so universal? It seems that three psychological traits are mainly responsible for it. Each of those traits are independantly useful for our survival. The beliefs describe above are an emergent property. It is not itself a survival advantage, but is the inevitable consequence of: And there we have it. One…

tech

How To Pick a Laptop?

That was it. The battery died after 10 minutes of use only. The screen split after one too many trips to the library. The keyboard never recovered from its unexpected early morning coffee shower…it’s time for a new laptop. You open your favorite tech store website, and you start browsing. Some things, you understand. For example, the size of the screen. 14’’, 15’’, etc.A bigger screen means a higher price (everything else being equal. Which, let’s be honest, it never is) and a heavier weight. The choice is pretty straightforward and depends mostly on how bulky of a machine you can accept. Then some more numbers…sometimes not as clear. For example, the “RAM”. 8, 16, 32 GB. Here you have to pick 16GB or higher. Every. single. bit of modern technology is hungry for this precious RAM. so, 16GB it is. Sometimes you see “DDR whatever”. Don’t worry about it.

This is my first post!

…On this website. So far I was using blogger, but I was not a very pleasant experience. I did get the number of views out of the box, which is useful. Some of the articles I have written got several thousands of views, which is crazy. I am now giving Publii a try. I wanted something that would let me focus on writing. So far I am very happy with it. Let’s see how it goes. Anyway, welcome to my small corner of the web, and I hope you have a good day! Christophe

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