Personal on isoul.uk

I Finished Storm Front. I Loved Dresden, But Getting There Was a Slog

Sat, 07 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Spoiler notice: The first part avoids the central mystery. A clearly marked section below discusses the culprit and the ending of Storm Front.

It took me weeks to finish Storm Front. That feels like an odd thing to say about a book featuring a wizard who gets hit with a baseball bat, visits a vampire and cannot even have a date without a demon turning up. There was plenty here that made me laugh, and the final stretch was genuinely fun. But getting there was a slog.

Why I Name My Computers

Mon, 02 Nov 2026 19:14:39 +0000

Previously on isoul.uk: Why I Started Wanting My Data Back — two decades of online accounts accumulate quietly until an account stops feeling like an account and starts feeling like infrastructure.

Some people name servers after their function.

docker01.

nas01.

backup02.

That is sensible.

I name my machines after spaceships from stories I love.

This is less sensible.

I recommend it.

A homelab is already unnecessary enough
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Most of what I run at home could be replaced with hosted services.

Why I Started Wanting My Data Back

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 15:54:11 +0000

Previously on isoul.uk: From Veoh and Justin.tv to Self-Hosting My Own Media — streaming solved the convenience problem, but it did not solve the ownership problem.

For a long time I treated online accounts as permanent.

Why wouldn’t I?

I had used the same main account for roughly two decades. Over that kind of period an account stops feeling like an account and starts feeling like infrastructure.

Email goes there.

From Veoh and Justin.tv to Self-Hosting My Own Media

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:34:04 +0000

Previously on isoul.uk: Why I Self-Host — a technical curiosity became a practical choice about ownership, privacy, learning and keeping data in systems I control.

It is slightly ridiculous that one line can connect watching anime on Veoh around 2007 with running Docker containers on a mini PC in my house today.

But there is a line.

Back then, I was interested in one thing: finding something I wanted to watch.

Why I Self-Host

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 15:14:26 +0000

Previously on isoul.uk: The Internet Used to Feel Different — forums had addresses, communities had places and discovery was active before feeds took over.

There are much easier ways to use technology than self-hosting.

If I want photo storage, somebody will sell it to me.

If I need file sync, there are dozens of services.

If I want media streaming, I can pay a subscription and install an app.

Instead, I have ended up with NASes, Docker hosts, virtual machines, DNS servers, monitoring, backups and enough cables to make the “easy” option look extremely sensible.

Deathly Hallows Brings the Whole Journey Home

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Previously on iSoul: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — The Magic Grows Up — the full-cast audiobook brought out the story’s humour, relationships and gathering darkness before the final journey.

Seven books later, I’ve finally finished Harry Potter.

Listening to the full-cast audiobook of Deathly Hallows made the end of the journey feel very different from the wonder of Philosopher’s Stone. The ordinary school days, lessons, feasts and Quidditch matches are mostly gone. Harry, Ron and Hermione are no longer children discovering magic. They’re trying to finish the task Dumbledore left behind while the world they know falls apart around them.

The Internet Used to Feel Different

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 18:40:27 +0000

Previously on isoul.uk: Discovering Anime on the Wild Internet of 2007 — the internet stopped being a reference tool and became the place we went to find what to watch next.

I don’t think the old internet was necessarily better.

It was slower, less reliable, full of broken links and often much harder to use.

But it did feel different.

The easiest way I can describe it is that I used to feel as though I was moving through the internet. Today it often feels as though the internet moves through a handful of feeds towards me.

Discovering Anime on the Wild Internet of 2007

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:48:02 +0000

Previously on isoul.uk: How Toonami Changed What I Watched — television opened the door before the internet showed me how much anime existed beyond the British schedules.

That next phase began with Naruto.

Toonami had taught me to recognise anime as something distinct, but Naruto was the point when somebody effectively said to me, “This is anime. Watch this.”

That somebody was my brother. We started watching it online, beyond whatever British television happened to schedule, and I fell in properly.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — The Magic Grows Up

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Major spoilers for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with references to later Harry Potter instalments, follow.

Previous: Order of the Phoenix Is About the Life Around the Story

I’ve finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I’m not ready to rank it. It’s still lingering in my head.

I fell in love with the original sense of magic: discovering Hogwarts, meeting its ghosts, learning about strange lessons and hidden passages, and watching three children find their place in an extraordinary world. I still love the smaller details — Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday Party, Peeves creating chaos, Filch secretly trying to learn magic, and all those little corners of Hogwarts the films never had time to explore.

Order of the Phoenix Is About the Life Around the Story

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Previous: Goblet of Fire Is Where Harry Potter’s World Opens Up

The life around the main story
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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix follows Harry through his fifth year at Hogwarts after Voldemort’s return. Much of the wizarding world does not want to believe him. The Ministry begins interfering heavily with Hogwarts, Harry becomes increasingly isolated and angry, and the school year turns into a mixture of exams, politics, friendships, rumours, punishment and resistance. At the same time, strange dreams and visions seem to connect him more closely to Voldemort.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) — Big Potatoes, Small Potatoes

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Another Spider-Man film, another miserable time for Peter Parker. Some things never change.

Major spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day follow.

Peter keeps going
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Spider-Man: Brand New Day finds Peter living with the consequences of losing everyone closest to him. Aunt May is gone, while MJ and Ned no longer remember who he is. He carries on being Spider-Man, but he’s clearly struggling to move forward. That’s the Peter Parker I’ve always known: capable of saving everyone else, yet rarely able to sort his own life out.

How Toonami Changed What I Watched

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Previously on isoul.uk: When Renting a Movie Was an Event — the ritual, artwork and scarcity of rented VHS tapes made individual films matter in a way that streaming has made difficult to remember.

I watched anime before I really knew what anime was.

Like a lot of children growing up in the 1990s, Pokémon was simply a cartoon on television. Sailor Moon was another show. I wasn’t thinking about where they came from, how they were produced or whether they belonged to a separate medium.

Goblet of Fire Is Where Harry Potter's World Opens Up

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Major spoilers for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire follow.

Previous: It Only Took Me Twenty-Odd Years to Listen to Harry Potter

I have finished the full-cast audiobook of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and this might be the book where I finally understood how much the films had to leave behind.

I knew the main story, of course. The Triwizard Tournament, the graveyard, Voldemort’s return: none of that was new to me. What surprised me was how much life exists between those events. There are more conversations, more side stories and much more time inside Harry’s head. Hogwarts feels busy in a way it rarely does on screen.

Mushoku Tensei Season 3, Part 1: The World Keeps Moving Beyond Rudeus

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Major spoilers for Mushoku Tensei Season 3, Part 1 follow.

Mushoku Tensei has trained me to fear two words: Turning Point.

The moment they appear, I know something has changed. The consequences may not arrive immediately, and I may not understand what has shifted until much later, but Rudeus’s life will not continue in quite the same direction.

Season 3’s first part might be the strongest example of that so far, partly because it spends so much time on quieter lives before showing how badly they can be broken.

Why Reacher's Formula Still Works for Me

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Spoilers for Reacher Season 4 follow.

One criticism I keep seeing about Reacher is that it is formulaic, and that is fair. Reacher turns up somewhere new, realises something is wrong and gets involved with a group of strangers. Before long, he has uncovered something much bigger than anyone expected and has to deal with it through investigation, instinct and the fact that he is considerably larger than almost everyone else.

When Renting a Movie Was an Event

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Previously on isoul.uk: It Only Took Me Twenty-Odd Years to Listen to Harry Potter — a Year 6 recommendation I ignored finally found me through audiobooks more than twenty years later.

There was a time when watching a particular film began with somebody leaving the house.

My brothers would go to Blockbuster or one of the local video shops and return carrying whatever the household would be watching. I was younger and not always part of the choice, but that only made their return more interesting. A film did not simply appear in a menu. It arrived through the front door.

The Quiet Work Behind Owning Your Media

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Installing a media server is the easy part.

It may not feel easy the first time. There are unfamiliar settings, folders that refuse to appear and devices that behave differently for no obvious reason. Eventually, though, the application starts. A film plays on the television. An album appears on a phone. The small thrill of having built something useful is real.

For a while, that can feel like the finished project.

It Only Took Me Twenty-Odd Years to Listen to Harry Potter

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sometime in the late 1990s, my Year 6 teacher recommended that our class read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

I ignored her.

It wasn’t a protest against Harry Potter. I wasn’t taking a principled stand against wizards, boarding schools or popular books. I simply wasn’t a reader. A teacher telling the class that a book was worth reading was not enough to make eleven-year-old me pick it up.

More than twenty years later, I have just finished listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Growing Up in a House Where the TV Was Always On

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I grew up in a house where the television always seemed to be on.

There were a lot of us at home: older siblings, a younger brother, my parents, and me somewhere in the middle of all of it. Looking back, that probably explains why so many of my memories are tied to screens. There was nearly always somebody watching something, playing something, recording something or arguing over what was going on next.

I Grew Up a Trekkie Before I Really Knew Star Wars