My very first Defcon was Defcon 2, back in 1994. A friend said, “hey do you want to go to this underground computer/hacker thing in Vegas? I read about it on Usenet.” I like Vegas and I liked thinking of myself as a hacker at the time, so I…
In reply to Sandra U Bishop. I’m so glad this was useful in your research. I’m happy to chat a little bit here and there about my experience, but I feel like I’m still an “advanced beginner” in this whole thing. There are certainly more exp…
So glad I discovered your blog! I’m working on disaster preparedness in Eugene at the neighborhood level via a citywide group called NLC (Neighborhood Leaders Council) – independent of the City of Eugene I might add! Might contact you for h…
There’s been a technology video about solar and renewable power going around that gets a little spicy after the credits. IYKYK. This led to a personal realization. Although I generally know The US Constitution and can name most of the 10 Bi…
A hot topic on “Teh Socials” over the past six months has been Meshtastic. Just this past week, I’ve had four separate conversations about Meshtastic, Meshcore, and the small mesh radios that power these networks. The background for a lot o…
Hello, dear reader. My name is Brian Enigma (@BrianEnigma) and I live in Portland, Oregon. I enjoy interesting technology, a good drink, and a good story. Sometimes I pretend I am a writer or reporter and compose nonfiction text on such sub…
Okay, okay. I admit. This isn’t the minimum viable Arduino project. It’s the minimum viable USEFUL Arduino project. It’s an Aeropress Timer. I found I had to transcode m4a files when copying them to the Tangara media player, so I wrote a sc…
Okay, okay. I admit. This isn’t the minimum viable Arduino project. That’s the blinkey-light demo. But this comes pretty close. It’s the minimum viable Arduino project that is actually useful. This project stems from two things: First, thes…
Last year I helped crowd-fund the Tangara media player. It is a re-imagining of the iPod, using modern hardware, with everything Open Source. All the design files and source code are public. Alas, when I ordered it, I hadn’t made the connec…
If you are in certain internet circles, you may have seen people getting excited by the recent announcement that the Unfiction forum archive is now online. (You can find the forums back at forums.unfiction.com after all these years.) When A…
Last year, I redid my nightstand. It’s still a bit of a mess, but at least this one has drawers and tiered shelves to help things be a bit more tidy. The one problem I ran into was that there isn’t a great place for a tissue box. I ended up…
Who This Is For There may be a time, especially in the upcoming presidency, when you find yourself wanting to use online resources but not leaving any sort of digital “paper trail” behind. People in China do this to read news on websites th…