The lyrics to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer Had a very shiny nose And if you ever saw it You might even say it glows And all of the other reindeer Used to laugh and call him names They never let poor Rudolph Join in any reindeer games Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to...

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Why you (and I) are definitely living in a computer simulation, what it means about our parent reality, and what we can do about it.

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My side-project for a "bedside" alarm clock with home controls.

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I’ve decided to move my site from Jekyll to Hugo. I apologize to any RSS readers who just got spammed by all of my old posts. I tried to keep the dates/URLs as stable as possible! My old website was built very much the way I used to do things...

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As I get older, I am starting to realize more and more the importance of belief. I’ve found this word means different things to different people. To some, it means a belief in God or Gods. To others, it means a belief in humanity, and the goodness of others. Some...

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It goes without saying that the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a problem. Average temperatures are expected to increase across the globe by a modest amount, potentially leading to climate destabilization. More imminently, there are phenomena currently being observed today that are causing actual problems...

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In my last post about DIY smart appliances, I wrote about thermostats. Chipotherm has been running for over a year now at the arcade, and it’s still working great! Armed with enthusiasm for my DIY smart thermostat, and having just moved into a new house that came with a...

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“The Blockchain” has become a real buzzword in computing these days, but often without a coherent justification. I think it’s because there are a lot of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who are trying to remain really tuned in to the “next big thing” in technology. I personally cringe every time...

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Star Trek is a world renowned television series and media franchise that’s been running for over fifty years. It has one of the largest, most widespread and most passionate fan bases of any obsession in the world. Certainly one of the largest for a television show, with dedicated websites,...

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Around last year, we started encountering a frequent problem at XION. The winters can get somewhat chilly in San Francisco, and thanks to “Karl The Fog”, it can be pretty chilly during the summer as well. Fortunately, we have a heater installed at the arcade, but it suffers from...

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Last month I attended my eleventh annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. I’ve been going to CES every year since my first year of college, in 2009. In fact, it was the first reason I ever left my home state! The show is free to attend, but...

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I am deeply obsessed with hacker culture. In my movie watching preferences, this obsession manifests as a deep affinity for hacker movies. Some of my favorite movies of all time are directly influenced by hacker culture such as The Matrix (1999) or Hackers (1995). In the 1990’s and early 2000’s,...

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My own personal screen locker for Linux

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