Raspberry Pi Imager - Secret Menu
The v1.6 update for the Raspberry Pi Imager added a new shortcut (CTRL + Shift + X) that allows enabling SSH, configuring WiFi, setting hostname, and more.
I'm on Hackaday!
Hackaday posted an article about my Raspberry Pi 1U Server project.
ssh-keygen -R hostname
I’ve been manually removing the line from .known_hosts when I saw this message:
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the ECDSA key sent by the remote host is
SHA256:<key>.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /Users/<user>/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending ECDSA key in /Users/<user>/.ssh/known_hosts:85
ECDSA host key for <ip> has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.
Today I found out about this command to remove entries from known_hosts: ssh-keygen -R hostname
Raspberry Pi 1U Server
I’ve been working on a power efficient 1U server made with Raspberry Pi’s to take advantage of cheap server colocation options: 
More details: Github
Python - Automatic Type Hinting With Monkeytype
I’ve been poking around with adding type hints to Python code automatically. Here’s my process so far:
Python - setup.py project_urls
I saw the attrs project has a link to their changelog on pypi: 
It turns out that’s controlled by the project_urls section of the setup.py.
More details: Python Docs
Python - virtualenv & Dockerfiles
I recently saw a Dockerfile based on the official docker Debian image that was installing dependencies into a virtualenv.
I’m pretty sure using a virtualenv in an official Debian-based Dockerfile is unnecessary, because there’s no system Python to isolate from:
$ docker run -it debian /bin/bash
root@21ca17310079:/# python
bash: python: command not found
git pickaxe
I learned about the “git pickaxe” this week, and I used it to find the first commit with a line of code that had been moved between a few different files.
More details: https://remireuvekamp.nl/blog/the-git-pickaxe.html
apt-get install --no-install-recommends
Updated 2026-07-16: expanded into a full example with the apt-config default.
I reach for --no-install-recommends in a lot of Dockerfiles now. Debian and Ubuntu packages have hard dependencies plus a set of “recommended” packages, and apt-get install pulls in the recommends by default. That is fine on a desktop, but it is bloat you rarely want in an image.
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
curl \
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
Ubuntu measured a 60% image size reduction from this flag on their own images.
To make it the default for every install in an image instead of repeating the flag, set it in an apt config:
RUN echo 'APT::Install-Recommends "false";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99norecommends
The one gotcha: once in a while a recommended package is actually one you need, and something breaks in a non-obvious way without it. When that happens, install it explicitly by name alongside the rest rather than dropping the flag.
WLED
Today I learned about the amazing WLED project: https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED
All you need to do is flash their binary to an ESP32 and it will bring up a WIFI access point that allows you to control the LEDs through an app or web page.
