State of the Blog - Abandoning the Format

My time has been mainly focused on my Youtube Channel and the iPod project, so I haven't been posting. But to all two people who probably read this blog, I'm still alive. Having this blog to keep me busy through college paid off in a multitude of ways, but I think the regular posts - even the once per month posts - are not sustainable given my current throughput on the projects relevant to this blog.

The Coronavirus's Toll On This Blog

I just wanted to pen a quick update about why I've been so slow and quiet on this blog. Sure, my interests have turned elsewhere (if you're not subscribed to my YouTube channel, you should be), but even progress over there has been slow. I blame the virus. Which is silly, because I haven't even been sick.

Replacing the Nand Chip on an iPod Nano 3G

I wanted to know if it was possible to replace the NAND chip on an iPod Nano 3G similar to how you can replace the hard drive in a bigger iPod. Turns out it's more complicated than that. I'm making a video about it, I'll post it here as well as more details soon.

Can You Video Edit Using The Cloud As Your Disk?

I've recently started using Davinci Resolve for my editing software. Something I found interesting about it was that it saved all of its project data in a Postgres Database instead of project files. This gives you the option of saving things to a remote work server so you can work on it from several computers. Video projects can generate a lot of raw footage and data, and keeping files and such locally can be a logistical nightmare. But the cloud is basically infinite. So can we edit video using the cloud as our storage? Probably not, but it's worth a shot!

Cooking on CPU While Folding Proteins

I made a video recently about using the heat generated from CPUs to cook some food. It actually went better than I expected. Check it out!

Better Firmware For A First Gen Polar3D Printer

I was given a Polar3D printer. You know, the old one with a serial number lower than 1000. Polar was offering an upgrade to a new printer for the price of the old printer and $400 extra dollars. That's definitely not worth it to me. I figured I could abandon the Polar Cloud altogether because they don't seem to support the old printer anymore (not shocking) and I can't slice things differently with the onboard software. So let's install and configure OctoPrint on here so I can actually use it in future projects!

The Future of the Native App (in my uneducated opinion)

As the world of software progresses, all of us have probably noticed a shift in how we interact with our computers. We find ourselves interacting with our phones more than our computers, the internet more than our software, and we've increasingly demanded access to everything always. As such, important concepts like "Web 2.0", "The Cloud", and "Convergence" have been developed to facilitate such a transition. But, with the advent of all of these concepts, is the art of the native application on its last legs?

Stream Raymarine's Multifunction Displays Anywhere

Raymarine's electronics are not very secure. This is no secret, but there really isn't a drive to reverse engineer or hack them. But the way they're selling their high end solutions for a large amount of money is ridiculous. What even is "SeaTalk"? It's a serial connection. They could have done the same thing with ethernet or just a few wires. It's all a market cornering money grab. So I decided to try and imitate what (I think) is one of their more expensive features: viewing the MFD on a TV screen.

Making a Computer Monitor out of an iPad

People want to upgrade their iPhones and iPads when the new versions are released. This happens pretty much every year. Where do the old devices go? Recycled or resold, often. Much recycled e-waste ends up shipped somewhere it's not disposed of properly. So whenever I can make something useful out of something that isn't useful and reduce the burden on e-waste dumps, I jump at the opportunity. So when I saw that I could make a display out of an iPad, I was excited, because I knew that there'd be quite a few of these available in the condition I needed them in.