Travel

My boat on a lake in Stockholm

I live on a boat, and have been cruising around the Baltic and North Sea for a couple of years. Do you want to join?

Previously, I have travelled by bicycle. In 2013, I travelled by bike and boat from Mexico to Colombia. I attached a solar panel to the bike and made a charger for my laptop so I could write even when away from civilisation for a while. I left with the idea of going to Patagonia, but I wanted to do something else by the time I got to Colombia. I would like to go back to South America sometime. I called the trip Cycle Who. I've written an Introduction, an FAQ, and blog posts tagged Cycle Who.

In Winter 2011-2012 I went to the Canary Islands to try and hitch a lift in a boat to South America. I didn't get there but I discovered the Canary Islands. Blog posts covering this adventure are tagged "serbla".

See also photos on flickr, and my twitter account for updates.

Work

I occasionally take on freelance software development jobs. Previously I have worked as a software engineer at internet startups on distributed systems, machine learning, and both front and back end web development. I have built a product all the way from the business model, through UX design, and front and backend development, to automated deployment and hosting network architecture.

I am available to hire now.

Radio

Sometimes I do some amateur radio, callsign MM0HAI. Most recently this has been on the boat, where I have a Baofeng handheld (probably the most useful), an Icom T8E, and a Yaesu FT-857. The last of these would be more useful if I installed an autotuner and insulated backstay, but for now I pull a wire up the mast if I feel like experimenting. I've not used it in earnest at sea.

Previously I have participated in SOTA (carrying radios up hills).

See the radio section of the site if interested.

Bloviations from the Phrontistery

» Polycrisis
» x230 Upgrades: AX210 and coreboot
» Humidifier Cat Hacking
» Time setting for Raspberry Pi on a Boat
» Hacker Questions, Human Questions
» Residual Self Image in The Transgender Matrix
» Change: There is no normal
» Hippies and Punks: A model of change
» Book: The Coming Economic Collapse
» Holy Water and The Infrastructure Feeling
» Corporations are Demons
» Book: Saved - Tony Bullimore
» PGP Updates, Web Key Directory
» NorthernRST
» Book Review: A Captain's Duty by Richard Phillips, Bantam Books, 2010
» The Forest is in trouble
» Book Review: 177 Days Adrift
» The Matrix
» Hacks on the Beach
» Vegan in Ukraine
» Sailing the River Eider
» Trustroots
» .cat
» Gulaschprogrammiernacht 18
» Bonn
» IndieWeb Camp Düsseldorf
» Laptop Backups
» The Hermitage of Boat
» Boat Life
» Year in Review: 2017
» Brygge
» Reïmplementing PirateBox
» Winter
» Pirate Box
» Mi cueva!
» Caves, not concrete
» How to use Las Palmas de Gran Canaria City Bikes "ByBike"
» ssh-agent on Ubuntu Xenial
» Hællæ
» 2 Cats 1 Boat
» Only in Norway
» Imbolc at Roslin
» IndieWebCamp Edinburgh
» Don't use the PGP Keyservers
» Hammocks for Cycle Touring
» Oiling Thinkpad X61 fans
» Nacimiento de un río
» Cycles Closing in Colombia
» Sailing San Blas
» Panama
» Vipassana
» Mother Aya, Aunt Jurema
» Dreads
» Honduras
» El Salvador
» Utila
» Minimising Water Usage when Travelling
» USA Calling
» Belize
» An emotional day
» Chino
» Bella
» The Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) Cave
» Guatemala
» An unpleasant day
» Some Recent Karma
» Babylon by Bus
» Wind and Fire
» Oaxaca Healing Rainbow
» gibt es einen buddhistischen Tempel in der Nähe?
» San Cristobal de las Casas
» Getting into the Bathtub
» PEMEX
» Finally Moving
» The Bike is Important
» The Palenque Rainbow Gathering
» Intimate Shitting
» Gods
» A Great Flood and a Rainbow
» Going to the Palenque Rainbow Gathering
» First Test of Solar Charger
» Cancun
» Fruit is not Allowed
» First day in Mexico
» Leaving Edinburgh
» Cycle Who
» .self
» Limiting Exposures
» Making a Solar Panel Mount for a Bike
» Teardown: (Probably fake) Griffin USB Car Charger (FAIL)
» Streetmachine Gte and Bacchetta Bella test ride
» How to sound like a Dalek using Pure Data
» Bolts for Bikes
» River Song - Music Hack Day Scotland
» The Forest of London
» Free Food
» Living and Travelling without Money
» Servicing a Thinkpad x60s Fan and cooling system
» Love and Light as a Service
» Coderace, and trying an Android phone for navigation
» Constant Current Load
» Ebay MC34063 based USB car PSU
» How to kill a MOSFET
» Make a bicycle parking brake with inner tube
» Testing a Maplin Solar Briefcase and Maximum Power Point
» Cheap but not rubbish multimeters available in the UK
» Fire Slackline
» Vegan Crunk Night
» Vegan
» Nyan cat, Psytrance, Meditation, Programming
» Teardown: Vivitar Charger for Canon NB2L Battery
» The Bulgarian
» Welcome to Serendipitous Blaggagio
» Native Mobile App Development with HTML5
» Living in a Secret Volcano Base
» Torchwood Spinning Triangle
» Visualisation with Area and Circles
» List Comprehensions in Haskell
» Ways of Living
» Relaxing with beer on the CouchDB
» I accidentally the MongoDB
» Learning Haskell - Part 1
» Deleting Code
» SGC SG-211 Mini Smartuner Teardown
» Learning Visualisation: Tools, Books, Notes
» My introduction to the Arduino platform
» Python Edinburgh Mini Conference
» HF Bicycle Mobile Experiment - Part 3 - Illustration
» HF Bicycle Mobile Experiment - Part 2
» HF Bicycle Mobile Experiment - Part 1
» Github Punchcard - Visualising Commit Times
» Rewriting git commit message history across multiple branches
» Frist Post

River is a humanoid based on the planet Earth (pictured above). It likes electronics, computering, and adventures through time and space.

Would you care for a tickybox?

The last article I wrote was Polycrisis.

The last event I replied to was Chaos Communication Camp 2023.

Recent notes:

My congress ticket clicking was too slow. Hopefully will get one in next round.

I’ve recently started work on a radio mesh networking project for boats which I’m calling NYAN - the Nearby Yacht Area Network. It will use LoRa to pass text messages and telemetry such as weather data. It is an open source project and I welcome collaboration. There is no code yet, but specs, design notes, etc, on the wiki: https://mews.river.cat/

I found A Website: https://christinedemerchant.com

Topics include boat building, gardening, cats, Catnip for Humans?, What’s inside a microwave?, and How to Make a Witch or Wizard Hat.

Recent photos:
Flashing x230 firmware
Flashing x230 firmware. Using a pi to program the SPI flash chips in a Thinkpad x230.

Using a pi to program the SPI flash chips in a Thinkpad x230.

Ultrasonic Humidifier Transducer
Ultrasonic Humidifier Transducer. Water goes in this side.

Water goes in this side.

Ultrasonic Humidifier Transducer
Ultrasonic Humidifier Transducer