8.4 Months of Daily Driving GrapheneOS
I've been running GrapheneOS on my Pixel Fold for over half a year now and can finally provide some experience on what it's like. Also, the official hardware partnership was announced!
The Backup and Restore Experience On GrapheneOS
Backing up on GrapheneOS has gotten _much_ better and worked well for me in my time of need.
Hello Walter! Learning Rust on ESP32
The Walter is an ESP32-S3 module with LTE-M, and GPS. Literally perfect for my BeaconDB wardriving experiments. I now have Embassy all set up on it.
I Almost Had a Good Support Experience With Google
Google support is unwell. In fact, it never really has been good. The staff in their physical store in Boston was great, but the rest of support really dropped the ball when my Pixel 9 Pro Fold died.
Braunshittification
When the OEM shaver heads on the Series 7 are just as poor as counterfeits.
Trying out Thunderbird Appointment While I Patiently Wait For An Invite
OK, I'm actually a little impatient to use the new open source schedule booking tool by the Thunderbird team that will be a part of Thunderbird Pro.
Polygenic Risk Score for Coronary Artery Disease "At Home"
Way back in the day I used 23andMe. So lets do some analysis with plink and PRSice-2 to calculate a polygenic risk score for coronary artery disease.
CGMs Part 2 - Using xdrip+ with Stelo
A Stelo CGM I had was expiring so I decided to try out xDrip+. In this part of the series I talk about my actual experience with the app.
CGMs Part 1 - Great FOSS tools for an OK Quality Consumer CGM
A Stelo CGM I had was expiring so I decided to try out xDrip+. One of those two things works really well. In this part I talk about CGMs in general.
It's Ploopin' Time
As in the new Ploopy Trackpad that is. I got my hands on the full kit finally and had time to give it a whirl. So far so good with both KDE on NixOS and MacOS. Also, I learn about open hardware licenses.
Review of HackerBox 0122 - Ouroboros
This month's box includes a OVcam based camera board and ECG measurement board! Also, I got a lot of nice new tools from the holidays that help me out with the build.
I Read a Couple of Books in 2025
You should read books too. Turns out they are actually pretty good. In 2025 I covered a lot of ground: Cal Newport, Triathlon training material, Cory Doctorow and a book on solar power.
I Listened to a Couple of Books In 2025
Not only is reading books great, but did you know you can listen to them too? I listened to a nice mix of fiction and non-fiction in 2025: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Brandon Sanderson and some commodity history books.
(My) Second Year of the Linux Desktop (For Gaming)
A look back at what it took for me to reach 0% Steam play time on Windows, even though I've been using Linux since I was a kid. Spoilers: Valve and the FOSS community are what made this possible.
Review of HackerBox 0121 - MCU Lab 2025
An Ultimate Pico RP2040, ESP-WROOM-32, STM32F401CCU6 and NRF52840 SuperMini, oh my! This month's HackerBox is a cornucopia of MCU experiments.
NeurIPS 2025 Retrospective
The conference is over. I had a chance to go explore San Diego, relax and return here. The daily posts are pretty terse, so I've collected my thoughts about NeurIPS 2025 here.
NeurIPS 2025 - Friday Notes
Today at NeurIPS 2025 was a bit of a late start. This is common as conference go on. I saw some interesting medical data set talks, and posters... so many posters.
NeurIPS 2025 - Thursday Notes
On Thursday at NeurIPS 2025 I focused less on technical talks and more on some philosophical talks. There was a really good pool of sessions to attend. They dealt with democratization of AI, regulation, and our understanding of intelligence.
NeurIPS 2025 - Wednesday Notes
I'm back at another conference. This times NeurIPS 2025 in San Diego. I took lots of notes again to summarize and share.
Installing Jellyfin Tizen On Your Inlaw's Samsung TV In Just N Simple Steps
No. It was not simple. I like to self host Jellyfin. I like to use it when I travel. How hard could it be to install Jellyfin on a Samsung TV?
Finally Actually (Hopefully) Learning Rust
I have started and stop learning Rust more times than I care to admit. This time, I'm actually being more thoughtful about how I approach learning it: exercise and project based books like Rustlings and Command-line Rust for deliberate practice.
Using Self-hosting Language Models So You Can Evaluate Claude Code
Because why would I pay Anthropic when I could do this myself with Qwen3-coder, Ollama, and LiteLLM on NixOS. Especially if I just want to try the tool out and see if its worth using.
Assembling and Testing the SmartSpin2k On A Schwinn IC4
After much printing and procrastinating, I finally put all of the parts together for my SmartSpin2k and go for a test ride.
An ESP32 based beaconDB Scanner Prototype
I'm prototyping a design using the Tiny Yeti Locator for scanning for WiFi APs, and BLE Beacons. The goal is to make a small embedded device for contributing to beaconDB.
Review of HackerBox 0120 - Current Affairs
In this month's HackerBox, I haphazardly tear apart an extension cable and measuring current. Sadly, I did not wire into the mains on my apartment, since I do not own the place.
Testing Out BLE Beacons With beaconDB
A sub-project of a sub-project. I needed to better understand BLE Beacons and how beaconDB uses them.
I never thought I could be a Maker
Times are changing and now I want to be one more than ever. Not just taking apart or putting together, but making something wholly new.
Review of HackerBox 0119 - Geopositioning
Wherein I am extremely lucky and this month's box teaches me about the exact hardware I wanted to learn about: GPS, WiFi and BLE with an ESP32.
On Practicing Writing
I grew up disliking writing, but now find myself drawn in and wanting more. Thank goodness blogs are still around.
3D Printing the Smartspin 2k with an Ender 3 v2
Also, I was tired of bed leveling by hand, so I got a CR touch.
Review of HackerBox 0118 - More Human
"We do what we must, because we can." A some-what AI themed electronics kit where I use Raspberry Pi Pico 2W as an Arduino.
Pocket Casts, You Altered The Deal, So I Will Alter Your App
After all you made your apps open source, so I can remove your ads.