Does RGB Make Any PC Look Cool?

In today's episode of "I just want this crap out of my room so let's build you a computer," we'll be looking at building my friend a gaming computer that would have been an amazing system to have back in 2006. My friend already has a decent laptop that's more than capable of playing modern games, but some games don't really work on newer software frameworks or on backwards-incompatible hardware. As we saw in my very similar build for that incomplete-and-stagnant game console project, sometimes you need older hardware and software to play older games. That's fine, I have parts laying around my room that can make a whole computer and if he wants a computer out of them then by all means, it works for me.

Did I mention it'll also feature RGB LEDs? Not everything has to be 2000-and-late.

Irons in the Fire

Hey there. It's me. I don't have a second project this month. Things with school have been busy and whatnot - I just haven't had much time to make any meaningful progress on anything. It's sad, I know, but I'm fairly close on several projects. I just wanted to write an update about all of my concurrent projects going on and write where I am on them - perhaps more for me than for you.

A File System Using Google Docs As The Disk

In today's episode of "Why the hell would you even want to do this?", I'd like to show off a software-only file system I wrote in Google Apps Script that uses a Google Doc as its disk. That's right. This is one of those "because I was bored and because I can" type projects. It has no real purpose and probably isn't a good file system implementation. But what can I say? I'm not a file system engineer and making a file system to be written to a Google Doc is stupid.

Reverse Engineering a DJI Phantom 3 Standard Gimbal

My dad owns a DJI Phantom 3 Standard. For some reason (probably the multiple crashes into trees), the fragile gimbal got the worst of it. Something in it is broken. When you turn the drone on, the gimbal stabilizes, goes weird, and then goes limp. So something isn't right. But I'm not going to try and fix this. I'm going to try and reverse engineer it. I'm fairly certain that this is a single board computer. So let's take it apart, power it up, and see if we can communicate with it.

Designing and Building a File Vault

Actually, make that two file vaults. I'm making a large file vault for myself and a smaller one for my parents. The specs of the machines will be similar, but the biggest difference is the amount of storage each will have. The best part: they'll both go into an almost identical case to the almost complete Game Console (I should really figure out what I need to do to finish that...). The only difference is that these are a little shorter. But I'll still use the power buttons and lights, I'll still remove the display boards (assuming they're still separate from the main logic boards) and I'll do everything very similarly. That's why this probably will be one long post instead of broken up into several posts like it was initially.

Making a Smart Speaker - Part 4

In this exciting episode of "Making a Smart Speaker", we'll work on the AI that will do our bidding. We're already using some massive neural networks and pretrained models just do do voice recognition, but here is where we get to be creative about our AI. What do we want it to do? How freeform should we allow input? And, most importantly... how the hell are we going to do hotword detection?

A Futile Attempt At Bending a DVR To My Will

One of my favorite places in the world is Gateway Electronics in St. Louis. They're an electronic part and surplus store that never fails to delight with their collection of old electronics. The last time I went, however, I found something newish. It was a DirecTV HR23-700 HD DVR box. I looked at the back and it had several really interesting ports: HDMI, eSATA, and two ethernet ports just to name a few. At $10, it was too good to pass up, so I bought it to see what I could do with it. I don't have any immediate plans for this right now mainly because I don't know what's inside. But we're about to find out.