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Data, donuts, and detours

A picture of the front monitor panel of my Sol-Ark inverter, showing a graphical representation of the basic real-time values it monitors and maintains: incoming grid power, solar generation, battery charge levels, and outgoing grid electricity.

Fully Offline Solar Monitoring

Took two months and a LOT of head-banging
personal
homelab
solar
inverter
converter
cabling
modbus
A few weeks ago I had a Doctor Frankenstein “IT’S ALIIIIIIIIVE” moment when a Raspberry Pi I’d hard-wired to a bizarre USB-to-RJ45 converter and plugged directly into my…
April 8, 2026
Shannon Quinn
Adrian Tchaikovsky's newest book in the _Children of Time_ series, _Children of Strife_. Shows a hardcover book in the same style as the other books in the series, though the planet is a sickly green.

My long COVID experience

Sorry, ‘post-viral symptoms’
personal
news
birthday
covid
long covid
I’m not an artist or a designer like Giorgia Lupi; I’m nowhere near the caliber of writer as my wife or Dr. Hicks. But the more voices we have talking about their long COVID…
March 22, 2026
Shannon Quinn
A screenshot from _Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment_ showing Zelda and the Knight Construct walking into battle under a blood moon.

State of the Homelab

Less a new recurring post and more a gimmick to return to blogging
personal
self hosting
homelab
k3s
kubernetes
unraid
nas
I had a whole joke ready when I started writing this post…six months ago. Yeah, it’s been a busy year. Yeah, I know I’ve written other posts in that time; see previous…
February 11, 2026
Shannon Quinn
A pair of trees that turn a brilliant yellow every fall for about two weeks before dropping their leaves. Gorgeous in the fall sunlight.

You don’t have to go home

But you can’t stay here
personal
professional
new years
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” –Margaret Mead
January 3, 2026
Shannon Quinn
A gorgeous photo of the Athens sunset around 5pm in the late fall.

Not with a bang…

…but some serious bullsh*t
personal
covid
health
covid-19
Let me just throw this up right here:
December 29, 2025
Shannon Quinn
A classic coffee mug from McSweeney's, which has the text: 'It's decorate gourd season, motherfuckers.'

It’s decorative gourd season

A bipolar Festivus treatise
personal
festivus
holidays
It was only in reading Mark Remy’s (aka the Dumb Runner) latest email digest yesterday evening that the realization suddenly hit full force: “holy eff, today is Festivus! Whe…
December 24, 2025
Shannon Quinn
My UGA nameplate, which hung outside my Boyd office. It says School of Computing, University of Georgia. Shannon Quinn, PhD. Associate Professor.

An Ode to UGA

And to leaving the academy
professional
academia
research
teaching
mentoring
I still remember it vividly. I was in Cleveland, Ohio, driving to or from something wedding related, as it was April 4, 2014—the day before Cathryn and I got married. I had…
October 1, 2025
Shannon Quinn
The sun rising from the Athens Firefly trail.

“We’ll do our best.”

Kids say the darndest Sanderson-esque things.
personal
professional
I’m on track this calendar to read only a single Brandon Sanderson book—Secret Project 5, aka Isles of the Emberdark (and it was wonderful)—but with everything that has been…
September 12, 2025
Shannon Quinn
A Playground-generated image of a portal that very closely resembles an artificial wormhole from Stargate but is sufficiently different.

Nothing Is Certain

On an unrelated note, I really enjoyed the newest Mission Impossible
personal
professional
…except death and taxes. Yeah, I know the quote. I just wish I knew what came next.
June 25, 2025
Shannon Quinn
A Playground-generated image of a walking path flanked by old-timey lights leading into what appears to be a castle (aka, the destination).

From the ground up with self-hosting

Fifty steps back, one step forward
personal
self hosting
kubernetes
k3s
mastodon
unraid
On the evening of Thursday, January 16, I shut down all my self-hosted servers and services in preparation for one final home renovation project (which, thankfully, would…
April 6, 2025
Shannon Quinn
Clouds forming an incredible pattern with what looks like a crevasse down the middle, through which sun rays can be seen.

Agency

2024 in review
personal
professional
new years
Content warning: language, discussion of mental health struggles, and pet death.
January 4, 2025
Shannon Quinn
Picture of our black cat Zippy sitting in a chair intended for our 4yo, looking like she's the most relaxed any cat has ever been.

December Adventure: That’s a wrap!

Didn’t I just start this thing?
personal
december adventure
magic the gathering
reverse proxy
Welp.
January 1, 2025
Shannon Quinn
Picture of our white bunny Clover enjoying a rare snowfall, from back in 2018. She was our little snowshoe hare.

December Adventure: Oh that’s how DNS works

Day 20. How did I get here?
personal
december adventure
traefik
dns
Ok, I’ve been barking up the wrong tree.
December 20, 2024
Shannon Quinn
Meme showing a haiku: 'It's not DNS / There's no way it's DNS / It was DNS.' Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/6qhih0/its_always_dns/

December Adventure: How does DNS work

How could something so simple be so complicated
personal
december adventure
reverse proxy
traefik
dns
I always feel like I have the dumbest questions, mostly because I cannot seem to find answers on the internet.
December 17, 2024
Shannon Quinn
Two-paned meme image of Mark Hamill, with the first pane normal and the second pane showing indented blocks of Mark Hamill with the undertitle 'Mark Yaml'. Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/hwxsgi/ah_yes_mark_yaml/

December Adventure: Exploring YAML

It’s full of whitespace
personal
december adventure
yaml
reverse proxy
traefik
vs code
Whew, that week went by in a flash. I’ve actually been working on this #DecemberAdventure project these past few days and have made some strides; I just kept running out of…
December 13, 2024
Shannon Quinn
Meme image of Obi-Wan Kenobi in a fighter from the Star Wars prequel trilogy, stating that he has a bad feeling about this.

December Adventure: I have a bad feeling about this

Messing with what works never works
personal
december adventure
yaml
helm chart
reverse proxy
traefik
Back from the weekend. In general I suspect weekends will be consistent blank spots in my #DecemberAdventure-ing, as activities and parenting and napping make it challenging…
December 9, 2024
Shannon Quinn
AI-generated image of a Python snake breaking out of a monitor that was previously showing broken Python code.

December Adventure: Y yaml tho

Day 6 bites like a snake
personal
december adventure
yaml
helm chart
reverse proxy
traefik
Today was also a pretty minor update, but what felt like a necessary one to making forward progress (and which reveals just how much of a kubernetes neophyte I am, despite…
December 6, 2024
Shannon Quinn
Artist rendition of the MtG planeswalker Ajani Goldmane. https://magic-the-gathring-lore.fandom.com/wiki/Ajani_Goldmane

December Adventure: Ajani Goldmane

Day 2…ish
personal
december adventure
magic the gathering
Not much of an update today: work was busy, and we’re still putting the house back together after having contractors here for the better part of the last three weeks.
December 5, 2024
Shannon Quinn
AI-generated image of a snow-covered pine forest with a pathway of footprints leading into the distance, suggesting an adventure ahead.

December Adventure, 2024 edition

Day 1, 4th attempt, of ???
personal
december adventure
magic the gathering
homelab
Geez but I have a backlog of posts to write. Yeah, I’m back. Been a bit! I’m sorry for the radio silence over here these past nearly-six months; it’s been anything but dull…
December 4, 2024
Shannon Quinn
An adorable senior white bunny with dark shading on her ears enjoying a treat while sitting in human Mama's lap.

Desolation

personal
professional
Content warning: discussion of mental health struggles, burglary, and profanity.
June 13, 2024
Shannon Quinn

BERJAYA

WeblogPoMo2024, Day 23: Nearing the Finish

All [good?] things must come to an end
personal
writing
weblogpomo
We’re at day 23 of #WeblogPoMo2024, and this is post number 7 for me—one every three-ish days, give or take. And in today’s post, I’m here to say: I’m not sure how many more…
May 23, 2024
Shannon Quinn
 

WeblogPoMo2024, Day 16: Python Profiling Rocks

Lack of profiling is the root of all evil
professional
writing
weblogpomo
programming
python
Today I was digging through some code written by somebody else and trying to establish benchmarks against some new data we had just received. In doing so, I noticed the…
May 16, 2024
Shannon Quinn

BERJAYA

WeblogPoMo2024, Day 13: Return to Hiigara

May the burden remain
personal
writing
weblogpomo
gaming
Today, Homeworld 3 went live. I’ve actually been playing the game since Friday, May 10, when backers of its original kickstarter got early access.
May 13, 2024
Shannon Quinn
 

WeblogPoMo2024, Day 10: Homelab extravaganza

Run ALL the apps!
personal
writing
weblogpomo
homelab
For today’s #WeblogPomo2024, I wanted to delve a little more into my current Homelab setup, which I’ve only alluded to previously. The series of blog posts I wrote over a…
May 10, 2024
Shannon Quinn
 

WeblogPoMo2024, Day 7: The importance of personal projects

Pay no attention to the wasteland of unfinished endeavors
personal
writing
weblogpomo
I don’t think I’m alone in having a menagerie of personal projects. The constituents of said menagerie morph (some slowly, some quickly) as time passes, but it’s never…
May 7, 2024
Shannon Quinn
 

WeblogPoMo2024, Day 3: mutter

Who knew a hitching command line could be so irritating?
personal
writing
weblogpomo
open source
Today, as I was getting back up to speed on work (just in time for the weekend, lol) following travel in the first half of the week, I noticed…something.
May 3, 2024
Shannon Quinn
A flatscreen TV showing the words 'Welcome, Shannon' with a flowery background.

WeblogPoMo2024: BEGIN!

Daily blogging is a high bar to clear
personal
writing
weblogpomo
It’s been two months (to the day!) since I last posted here. Not a long stretch, relatively speaking, but a respectable one. It’s been a busy couple of months to be sure…
May 1, 2024
Shannon Quinn
Landscape photo of stringy cirrus clouds near sunset.

Burnout Marathon

The least fun race you’ll ever run
personal
burnout
This post contains references to recent events at the University of Georgia involving the deaths of two undergraduate students.
March 1, 2024
Shannon Quinn
A picture of the Ubuntu landing screen for logged in users, on an ultrawide screen monitor set on a small desk.

The Legend of Makar

The mostly long and some short of building your own desktop
personal
professional
news
makar
I built my first desktop from components when I was 15, a sophomore in high school. With the exception of my college workstation (laptops hadnt’t quite reached ubiquity…
January 25, 2024
Shannon Quinn
A picture of a forested landscape at sunset, the sun coming through the bare tree branches.

2023: A year of extremes

Unmixed Gaussians but very mixed emotions
personal
professional
news
new year
Where 2022 tried its hardest to kill me, 2023 merely put that killer instinct in neutral. A vast improvement to be sure, but it requires substantial context to fully…
January 5, 2024
Shannon Quinn
A gritty image from behind a small group of heroes, facing down a massive robotic army, in a shattered land that looks a lot like Mordor (generated by DALL-E).

Advent of Adventure

The Venn diagram of life, job, and hobbies is three nonoverlapping circles
personal
professional
advent of code
december adventure
rae
retropie
dall-e
This past Monday evening, from a tiny cabin in Dahlonega, GA, I turned to my wife and said: “What a week, huh?”
December 8, 2023
Shannon Quinn
A photo of me crossing the finish line at Ath Half 2023 this past October, holding up my arms in exhausted triumph.

Rebuilding

Nowhere to go but up
personal
covid
running
weightlifting
food
health
Content warning: discussions of body image, eating habits, diet culture, and long COVID. Also, language.
November 9, 2023
Shannon Quinn
An in-game picture of Link from _Tears of the Kingdom_ with pink hair and dark lipstick, and wearing the Cece hat. Picture from this Polygon article: https://www.polygon.com/legend-zelda-tears-kingdom/23725926/tears-of-the-kingdom-totk-best-hat-outfit-cece-mushroom-hat-how-to-get-slay .

The Hero Of Everything

Apparently it’s not enough to merely save the world
personal
video games
zelda
tears of the kingdom
This is the first of two Tears of the Kingdom related blog posts I’ll be making. Don’t worry—there won’t be any story spoilers in either one. But my wife did just beat the…
July 30, 2023
Shannon Quinn
My home office desk, with the GamersNexus rubber mat, along with all the hardware materials for the cluster upgrade, including: a stack of PoE HAT boxes, a Netgear 8-port PoE switch, a small power brick from Anker with two 2-port USB-to-outlet adapters, and my laptop.

Upgrading the Raspberry Pi Cluster

Nothing bad has ever happened in the history of planned upgrades.
personal
raspberry pi
kubernetes
k3s
mastodon
hardware
As I write this up, I’m sitting in my SciPy hotel room. It’s a nice way to relax and unwind after a long day of travel and tutorials, but I also apologize for any timezone…
July 10, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Midjourney-generated image of an art easel with a picture of a raging fire, anthropomorphized with a giant smile on its face. Meant to convey a ham-fisted 'this is fine' metaphor.

This post is about burnout

Metaphor is a tool best left to those trained to use it
personal
professional
burnout
movies
books
…but before I get to that, I want to talk about a movie I saw recently and a book I read recently.
June 6, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Official Nintendo poster for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

My thoughts ahead of Tears of the Kingdom

Not to be mistaken for cheap facsimilies of ‘truth’ or ‘facts’
personal
gaming
zelda
totk
tears of the kingdom
For those who aren’t following the increasingly unhinged ravings of my countdown bot on Mastodon, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is coming out on Friday, May 12.
May 9, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Head-on view of the middle of Forsyth Park in Savannah, GA, including the fountain in the middle and trees along both sides of the main walkway.

Three years later

The Savannah Women’s Half Marathon
personal
running
covid
pandemic
getaway
travel
Oh by the way, I have a second blog.
April 4, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Aerial view of an ancient but advanced civilization, an island-nation (generated by Midjourney).

Mastodon: Conclusions, musings, ramblings, ravings

The beauty!pain!beauty of open source
personal
raspberry pi
k3s
mastodon
This article is part of a series about installing and configuring a Mastodon instance on a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers running k3s. To go back to previous articles in…
February 28, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Close-up of two Mastodon-like sailors on the deck of a ship at sea (generated by Midjourney).

Mastodon, Part V: Installing and configuring Mastodon

Sorry, I blacked out, what are we doing again?
personal
raspberry pi
k3s
mastodon
This article is part of a series about installing and configuring a Mastodon instance on a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers running k3s. To go back to previous articles in…
February 24, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Sean Bean LOTR meme, stating: 'One does not simply use HTTPS when it doesn't work' (obtained from imgflip).

Mastodon, Part IV: SSL with Let’s Encrypt

DNS is the cause of, and solution to, all our networking problems
personal
raspberry pi
k3s
mastodon
ssl
dns
This article is part of a series about installing and configuring a Mastodon instance on a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers running k3s. To go back to previous articles in…
February 16, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Midjourney-generated image of a rabbit in a nightvision style, as if pictured by an infrared camera at night (generated by Midjourney).

Setting up a wildlife camera

It’s almost like the corporate solutions are on to something
personal
raspberry pi
wildlife
ir
camera
video processing
For years, I’ve been wanting to set up an outdoor wildlife camera. Somewhere in the PyImageSearch forums1 there’s a post from 2017-me remarking on how excited I am to have…
February 15, 2023
Shannon Quinn
XKCD comic #1579, Tech Loops

Mastodon, Part III: Configuring and installing the prerequisites

Welcome to dependency hell, we have recursion
personal
raspberry pi
k3s
mastodon
dependencies
This article is part of a series about installing and configuring a Mastodon instance on a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers running k3s. To go back to previous articles in…
February 9, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Dramatic image of a galleon sailing on stormy seas (generated by Midjourney).

Mastodon, Part II: The Mastodon Helm chart

A package manager for people who enjoy pain I guess
personal
raspberry pi
k3s
mastodon
helm
This article is part of a series about installing and configuring a Mastodon instance on a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers running k3s. To go back to previous articles in…
January 25, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Horrific jumble of networking wires and equipment stylized like Cthulu (generated by Midjourney).

Mastodon, Part I: My home network topology

DNS. It’s always DNS. Except when it’s not.
personal
raspberry pi
k3s
mastodon
networking
This article is part of a series about installing and configuring a Mastodon instance on a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers running k3s. To go back to previous articles in…
January 23, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Rear view of a sitting elephant gazing at mountains in the distance (generated by Midjourney).

Running your own Mastodon instance on a Raspberry Pi k3s cluster

Now you too can unwittingly become an unpaid sysadmin!
personal
raspberry pi
k3s
mastodon
As I mentioned in my previous post, I spent the last month of last year spinning up my own Mastodon instance (which you can check out!) I’ve had a Raspberry Pi cluster of 5x…
January 20, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Close-up of a broken sword lying amidst ruins (generated by Midjourney).

2022: A year in review

Last year doesn’t deserve a rhyming couplet
personal
professional
news
There’s going to be language in this post. Consider skipping if you prefer your blog posts merely warmed and with cream; this one is straight out of the pourover.
January 17, 2023
Shannon Quinn
Our bunny Clover.

Pardon de dust (2)

Migrating blog backends is hard
personal
professional
news
Why hello there. You may have noticed that things look a little bit different around here.
December 13, 2022
Shannon Quinn
Generated with the text: `4K, wide angle, hyper detailed, starfield, nighttime sky, crescent moons, stars, nebulae, cosmic` by MidjourneyAI.

Fiddling with generative art models

personal
professional
ai
generative modeling
deep learning
raspberry pi
legal disclaimer
zelda
family
Much like a lot of the internet over the past couple months, I’ve been tinkering with some AI art generators, mainly Midjourney (if only because I’m waitlisted on DALL-E 2).
August 3, 2022
Shannon Quinn
Our white bunny, Clover, sitting on the couch, looking beautiful.

What the f*@$ is this s%#& (2022 ed.)

personal
professional
clover the bun
z
covid-19
running
professor
university
quansight
travel
holidays
year in review
I’m not sure where I should even start. How does one sum up a year that felt more like a decade? How does one reflect on a year that eschewed reflection in favor of mere…
January 5, 2022
Shannon Quinn
Facepalm gif meme from The Office.

Back in Action

personal
blogging
python
pelican
dependency hell
It’s been a day/week/month/year/decade, this 2021.
December 30, 2021
Shannon Quinn
Festivus for the Restivus sign.

Festivus for the Restivus

personal
festivus
fuck 2020
fuck that shit
airing of grievances
Content warning: rough language ahead. You’ve been warned.
December 30, 2020
Shannon Quinn
A stick figure standing in front of a Wheel of Fortune style wheel, where each possible option is something regrettable, and the person's thought bubble says 'Ooh! Wonder what it's going to be today?'

At home during COVID-19

personal
professional
covid-19
sars-cov-2
work from home
zelda
pandemic
furbabies
zippy the cat
clover the bun
Well, this has certainly been a unique past couple of months. I had a lot of things in mind for the spring 2020 semester and beyond, but I can safely say it’s all been…
May 20, 2020
Shannon Quinn
Link from Breath of the Wild overlooking the scenery from the vantage point of Lake Hylia.

Breath of Fresh (albeit, indoor) Air

personal
breath of the wild
zelda
running
gaming
nerds
the lady
injury
This is a divergence that is simultaneously strange and entirely predictable.
August 12, 2019
Shannon Quinn
The Gap of Dunloe in Killarney, Ireland.

Quinnwitz in Ireland

personal
travel
ireland
The Lady and I just returned from a 12-day trip to Ireland (with a stop at the very start in Kent, England, to visit some dear friends and their 6-month old twins!).
June 3, 2019
Shannon Quinn
A meme image of the Frozen song, with the words instead indicating 'Do you want to play Starcraft?'

StarCraft II Questions

personal
gaming
video games
I’ve been sick the past couple of days. In between drinking way too much tea, passing out cold, and actually getting the occasional bit of work done, I’ve been (re-)playing…
January 31, 2019
Shannon Quinn
A diagram of Einstein summations. Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26089893/understanding-numpys-einsum .

An einsum use-case

professional
python
Recently I’ve been working with some of my students on a paper for the SciPy Conference related to our OrNet project. Part of this involved designing our own Gaussian…
June 19, 2018
Shannon Quinn
Looking downscope of a sniper rifle in Jedi Outcast 2 zoomed in hilariously right on a friend's avatar's face.

Jedi Outcast: Echoes of a bygone gaming era

personal
gaming
star wars
fps
communities
I should start by issuing fair warning: this is a post I’ve been meaning to write in some form or another for the better part of the last 15 years.
April 26, 2018
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

Resolutions for 2018

personal
professional
new year
blog
writing
side projects
research
A solid three weeks late on the new year’s resolutions, but still a marked improvement over last year.
January 21, 2018
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

New year, new blog layout

personal
new year
blog
Happy 2018!
January 6, 2018
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

Summer of Data Science 2017

professional
personal
data science
python
computer vision
imaging
machine learning
deep learning
nvidia
gpu
teaching
education
bioimaging
A few days ago, while I was still in Portland, OR enjoying the last few days of PyCon 2017, Renee (@BecomingDataSci) mentioned on Twitter that she might bring back the…
May 31, 2017
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

So, you want to conduct research with me?

professional
phd
graduate school
research
mentoring
computer science
graduate student
Deviation #1: This is wholly separate from the “should I get a Ph.D.” question. For that I would recommend one of numerous guides that ask all the right questions.
March 16, 2017
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

Game-ify Your Raspberry Pi

personal
raspberry pi
gaming
video games
nvidia
steam
My project over the 2016 holiday season was to take the Raspberry Pi 3 I’ve had sitting around the house idling for the previous nine months and turn it into a RetroPie-ified…
January 6, 2017
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

Open Science in Big Data (OSBD) Workshop

professional
workshop
big data
ieee
open science
Back in May of this year, some of the other computer science professors and I put together a proposal for a workshop. The workshop would be in conjunction with the December…
September 26, 2016
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

A twitterbot for posting weekly running stats

personal
python
strava
running
oauth
tweepy
twitter
pybot
We runners (we’re a crazy bunch), for the most part, like our stats. How many miles do you log each week? Each month? How are your average race paces trending? Are your long…
May 16, 2016
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

Reviewing a reviewed grant’s reviews

professional
academia
grants
feedback
rejection
Rejection in any context sucks. As a new faculty trying to prove himself (to himself, but most importantly, to his tenure committee), I particularly hate rejections in the…
February 2, 2016
Shannon Quinn
BERJAYA

Introductions

personal
pelican
python
github
jupyter
Well, this seems to be working. Kinda.
November 7, 2015
Shannon Quinn
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