I have a recurring problem: I learn something, solve a problem, find a solution, and three months later I can’t remember how I got there.
I’ve lost count of how many times I reopened a server and stared at a configuration thinking: “Who did this?” It was me. Except I hadn’t left any notes.
Writing to remember and understand
Writing is a form of external memory. A text about a project is a way to talk to my future self, the one who will need to work on it again without remembering exactly how it was done.
But writing has an even better effect: it forces me to truly understand. It’s possible to make something work without fully understanding how it works. Explaining is a different story. When I try to put an experience into words, the gaps in my reasoning show up.
Giving back what I learned
Much of what I know today came from someone who took the trouble to write. An obscure post on an abandoned blog. A detailed answer on a forum. A README that explained not just how to do it, but also why to do it that way.
None of those people knew me. Even so, many of them already saved my weekends.
This site is a way to give that back.
I want knowledge to keep circulating. What I learned might save someone a few hours, help someone understand a problem, or simply serve as a starting point for a new attempt.
What you’ll find here
Technical things: homelab, automation, self-hosting, infrastructure and whatever I’m building at the moment. Workshop things: wood, metal, electronics. And reflections, when an experience calls for more than a step-by-step.
I don’t want to split these into two sites. The person who solders a board is the same one who configures a reverse proxy. The tools are different, but many of the lessons are similar: patience, organization, experimentation and the importance of understanding before doing.
About publishing before being sure
My biggest challenge as a builder is hyperfocus. I can study a subject for weeks before writing the first line, refining a plan that hasn’t survived contact with reality yet.
That’s why I adopted a rule: every text here declares its maturity stage. Draft, in progress, tested, or settled.
In practice, a text marked as draft might be wrong. A text marked as tested worked here, on my machine and under my conditions. None of them is absolute truth. They’re just honest records of where I was when I wrote them.
I prefer to publish early and correct later. Failing small is infinitely better than planning forever.
An imperfect text published teaches more than a perfect text that never leaves the drafts folder.
What I hope for
I don’t expect an audience. I hope that, in a few years, there’s a collection here that shows how I thought, what I built, what I learned and how I changed my mind.
And if, along the way, someone opens one of these pages at two in the morning trying to solve the same problem I solved and manages to, then every paragraph was worth it.
When one teaches, two learn.