I finally got around to making a quick write-up of my DVDgotchi project, where I made a Tamagotchi clone out of DVD menus. You can read it here: blog.koenvh.nl/dvd-menus-an...

I just updated my blog to make it slightly more obvious that there is an RSS feed that contains the blog posts in full, in case you don't want to leave your RSS feed reader. It can be found here: blog.koenvh.nl/rss.xml

I've been trying to find out how realistic it would be to make my own 300 baud* dial-up software. Step one: generating audio and reading it back in (with added background noise). So far it seems to work, surprisingly. DFT feels like magic. * 300 bps should be enough for everyone :-)

I know far more about rsync know than I reasonably should, so I figured I would make a write-up on all the things you technically could do with rsync, but you probably shouldn't. blog.koenvh.nl/what-you-can...

I use Hashnode for my blog, and recently they changed the styling which wasn't to my liking. Luckily they also offer a way to make your own front-end (using Vercel), and after a bit of tinkering it is now working: blog.koenvh.nl Frankly I think it's an improvement over what it was like before.

Happy New Year to everyone: to those now catching their breath after a time of fun festivities, as well as to those who - like me - are glad things are going back to normal again.

DVDgotchi is now available on DVD. Ironically I did not have any writeable DVDs left over in a cupboard, so I had to order new ones, along with some DVD labels and sleeves. I think this basically completes what I wanted to do with DVDgotchi :-)

With my newfound of DVD programming I had to create something, and it now actually works: Introducing the DVDgotchi. A tamagotchi clone implemented entirely using DVD menus. Works on any DVD player (and VLC). Source code and ISO available on github.com/Koenvh1/DVDg...

Since 2019 I have made custom Christmas cards. This year was no exception. I decided to "write" a blog about them: blog.koenvh.nl/christmas-ca...

Recently I've been looking into how DVD menus actually work, it's quite fascinating. A DVD player effectively runs a small VM where there are 16 16-bit registers that can hold variables. Buttons can set/read those variables. The standard library consists of only random number generator.

One of the things rsync does filter out are all the control characters before 0x20 except for \n and \r (when they appear at the end). This sadly means I can't use ANSI escape sequences to clear the screen. I did manage to play an ASCII version of Bad Apple!!, albeit slightly flickery at times.

In further toying around with the rsync protocol, I have now managed to make it display more or less arbitrary text. Of course I quickly had to recreate the famous scene from The Matrix. (And for the DNS people, this means I can likely make the DNS over rsync output compatible with dig)

Because I felt bad for all the DNS people having to miss out on the joy of working with rsync, I started on a DNS resolver over rsync. It should be mostly functional already. Feel free to try it out. The records appear as files, and the time is set to when the TTL will expire.

I published a new blog post about my Stream Deck adventures and how I turned it into a video streaming device. It now also has volume controls! (It also contains some lovely AVIF animations that took far too long to render.) blog.koenvh.nl/streaming-on...

Assetto Corsa Rally Pacenote Pal has now been published for about ten days, and already five people have made or are making custom co-driver voices for it. That's awesome. It's quickly turning into an advanced custom pacenote system :-)

Woohoo! ScreenDeck is now available on the Elgato Marketplace. Now you can easily use your Stream Deck as a video player: marketplace.elgato.com/product/scre...

Een ideetje dat kwam tijdens de lunch: een klok die de tijd HH:mm omzet naar een jaartal HHmm en vervolgens een gebeurtenis laat zien uit dat jaar. Niet heel praktisch, wel leuk. koenvh.nl/playground/h... (Werkt niet na 20:25, uiteraard :-P)

I published my Assetto Corsa Rally Pacenote Pal app, and within a day someone had already made a Hungarian version – awesome! www.overtake.gg/downloads/ac...

Het Rijkspodcastregister is nu ook beschikbaar als Atom-feed: rijkspodcast.koenvh.nl/feed.xml

The game might only be out for two days, but I already have a working prototype of my custom pacenotes application for #ACRally, enabling both custom voices and editing the pacenotes. It is still very rough around the edges though. www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3xe...

Recently I've been playing The Farmer Was Replaced. There is something quite satisfying about seeing your algorithms come to life, especially as normally I'm too lazy to make a decent visualisation. In the open source philosophy, here's my final script: gist.github.com/Koenvh1/a8ca...

Alle updates van de podcasts in het Rijkspodcastregister staan op GitHub. Als bijvangst kan ik nu zien wanneer bijvoorbeeld een spelfout in een aflevering verbeterd is of dat een aflevering is toegevoegd of verwijderd. Misschien komt die dataset nog een keer van pas :-) github.com/koenvh1/rijk...

My Stream Deck plugin "ScreenDeck" (to use my Stream Deck as video player) is now available on GitHub! github.com/Koenvh1/Scre...

The roadbooks I made for Dakar 18 and Dakar Desert Rally now end up on the first page if you Google "Dakar roadbook". As a consequence people have been emailing me thinking they are the roadbooks for the real 2020/2021/2022 Dakar seasons. Mission failed successfully I guess :-)

Some time ago I bought a Stream Deck (I also wrote a blog about it), but I could never actually stream anything to it. That had to change. Recently I've been working on a plugin to stream live video to the Stream Deck. It works remarkably well:

After 12 years of loyal service, my dashboard for Raceroom has stopped working. It was time for something new, which gave me something to tinker with again. I also just now caught up with all the added functionality from the last 12 years, like showing the current flag.

One last addition to my PC (which had to arrive from China): two LED spotlights. Both because I like the look, and because I can more easily see that my PC is still on — it's so quiet most of the time I sometimes forget it is still running.

Because some people requested it: I have now written a longer article about the why and how of building the custom HUD for Dakar Desert Rally on my blog. blog.koenvh.nl/building-a-c...

I have the uncanny ability to find really niche things to develop for. This weekend: a dashboard for Dakar Desert Rally. It only shows the speed, but that's all I need. Plus I learnt a thing or two about reverse engineering Unreal Engine and extracting values from running processes.

Last week a parcel by @alexfursuitmaker.bsky.social arrived and I'm chuffed to bits with it - world, say hello to Rakoen (pronounced as Raccoon).

I built a new pc after not changing anything for 8+ years. I decided to document my experience, which you can read here: blog.koenvh.nl/lets-finally...

13 jaar geleden publiceerde ik WIDM Exam. Hoewel ik al lang opgehouden ben met ontwikkelen daarvan, wordt het tot op de dag van vandaag nog steeds gebruikt - dat had ik van tevoren nooit verwacht.

De afgelopen weken ben ik bezig geweest met het opzetten van het Rijkspodcastregister. Aangezien het waarom, wat, en hoe te lang is om hier te plaatsen, heb ik het hier opgeschreven: blog.koenvh.nl/het-verhaal-...

Met hulp van vele anderen is het aantal podcasts in het Rijkspodcastregister (een overzicht van alle podcasts geproduceerd door of in opdracht van de Rijksoverheid) nu 141. Ongeveer 25% is exclusief op Spotify beschikbaar en niet via RSS. rijkspodcast.koenvh.nl

My love-hate relationship with backups continues, though this time it seems like I finally found something that ticks most of the boxes. tl;dr: it's restic with Backrest. Read the full version here: blog.koenvh.nl/the-tale-of-...

De Rijksoverheid produceert een tal van podcasts. Vele daarvan zijn helaas niet of nauwelijks vindbaar. Ik vond het tijd om daar verandering in te brengen, en ben begonnen met het maken van een Rijkspodcastregister. De eerste versie staat vandaag online: rijkspodcast.koenvh.nl

Sometimes the simplest programming projects bring the greatest joy, like this button on my Stream Deck that allows me to turn the fan behind my simracing setup on and off (using a smart plug). It's really nice, especially with summer around the corner.

As many people probably already know, I fly a rainbow flag outside my house. Not just during pride month, but pretty much year round. I hope that one day LGBTQ+ acceptance will be as self-evident as women's voting rights, but until that day there is still something to fight for.

Good morning!

Good morning! Last weekend I made a clock where it's always 11 AM, just the timezone changes, so I can always say good morning. See it for yourself here: koenvh.nl/playground/1...

After over two months we resume the cookie experiment at the University of Twente, this time using stroopwafels. Admittedly at this point I've stopped tracking the data.

Gisteren was er een ontbijtsessie "Wet Open Overheid", waar ook de transparantieprijs werd uitgereikt. Van de 4 nominaties was van 2 de strekking "probeert de wettelijke termijn te halen". Volgens mij is dit een teken dat er nog winst te behalen valt. ibestuur.nl/artikel/open...

Even though it is now over a month ago I was busy this April Fools. I made a summary of the things I did; if you're interested, you can read about it here: blog.koenvh.nl/april-fools-...

What do you get when you combine typesetting, printing, and automation? A car full of cardboard boxes. Read all about it in my post about how I made 252 rally pacenote booklets: blog.koenvh.nl/how-i-made-a...

Recently I had to look into backup solutions again, and because of that I decided to write about my backup journey and gripes with most backup software. You can read the full piece here: blog.koenvh.nl/a-tale-of-ba...

This weekend's project: PedalPal, an application that allows someone else to control your pedals in any racing game. I'm still tweaking with it, but it works very well so far.

Some people have asked me "why does the Phone Book of the Internet" not support IPv6? The simple reason is that it just does not fit:

As a small hobby project, I made booklets with the pacenotes for each stage in EA WRC. They are also available as PDF online if you want to print them yourself: koenvh.nl/wrc

The Phone Book of the Internet is now a physical book! 1.5 kg and 600 pages of popular domain names and their IP address listed in alphabetical order.

All good things must come to an end, and #SIGBOVIK 2025 is no exception. For those who missed my recorded presentation, you can watch it back on YouTube: youtu.be/_vgXi80y7Us