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.

GoPro Karma Stabilizer Teardown

I crashed my drone. Really bad. It literally snapped the Gimbal arm in half. So I had to order another one because I was stupid and I didn't get the extended warranty because I didn't think I'd ever fly that close to low hanging trees. Sinking this much money into a GoPro drone is worth it, though, because I've had nothing but good experiences with their products (although they're not great at figuring out what to do when upside down on the pavement. But, like my dad says, there are two kinds of remote pilots: those who have crashed and those who are going to crash. I guess technically I'm in both categories now. The point is is that I have a broken gimbal and I can take it apart now because there is a less than 0% chance I can fix it and I already have another one.

State of the Blog - Year 2

It has been exactly two years since I started this blog. In the past two years it's become something completely different than what I expected it would be, and I'm not upset about that at all. It's actually been a big source of growth and distraction for me, and I really like that.