It’s OK to break your computer
It’s Friday and I’ve been busy all week, so here’s a short note to computer users of every skill level: don’t be afraid to break things. Sometimes you should even try to break things. The point of this is so that you can have a better understanding of how things work by figuring out why […]
TMO Project Log – Introduction
I’d like to introduce my current project called TMO. TMO is (or rather, will be) a handheld electronic game system. It features a 16×16 dot-matrix LED screen, very simple sound (beeps and such), and input via a wheel controller and several buttons. I’m still working on finalizing the design, but this gives the general idea. […]
Shortcut to mount SSHFS drives using bash functions
SSHFS is a super handy tool, but the one-liner necessary to mount a remote drive is lengthy and can be a pain to remember. If you use SSHFS regularly, you probably have a few machines that you routinely connect to and thus can benefit from taking a shortcut. On Linux (assuming you use bash) you […]
Synchronizing game saves across PCs with Dropbox
I’m not always at home when I want to do some odd-hours dungeon crawling, and it’s a pain to not be making progress because my main save file is on my desktop instead of my laptop. You’ve probably experienced a similar annoyance, and thankfully for Linux and Mac users there is a simple solution. We […]
Counting in base [any]
If you’re reading this, you probably learned how to count using your fingers going from one to ten. It is a convenient and intuitive system given that humans generally have 10 fingers. This is the decimal counting system that is also referred to as base ten because it is based on powers of ten (who […]
Lapping your CPU: a handy guide
Lapping a CPU heat spreader is generally one of those activities reserved for hardcore overclocking enthusiasts. Not because it’s particularly difficult, but because your average consumer probably doesn’t want to rub their brand new expensive processor against a sheet of sandpaper for a few extra megahertz. Though for those of us who are willing to […]
Forget FOIL, multiply with rectangles!
We’re going to take a quick trip down elementary-high-school-algebra lane, and explore an alternative to the commonly taught method of multiplying two binomials known as FOIL. This is the kind of expression I’m talking about: (x – 2)(x + 6) This expression can be easily simplified using FOIL, provided you remember what the acronym stands […]
Homebrew rackmount tube guitar preamp
I play guitar, and I have wanted a tube amplifier for quite some time. However tube amps are expensive and complete amp DIY builds can be tricky if it’s your first time. So I decided to do the next best thing by building a standalone preamp. This takes advantage of the fact that I already […]
Build a blinking safety light for your bicycle
I needed a blinking light device to attach to my bike in the spirit of “Dear cars, please don’t hit me”. I could’ve just purchased one for less than the cost of building one, but that’s not as much fun. Fun is really the main reason I do these things. So I built my own, […]