I’ve been learning a lot of random things recently. The other week, I signed up for an electronics course on Ohmify and bought a bunch of components and tools so that I could follow along. I’m having a lot of fun trying out the different activities on that website. I just started so I’ve only made simple circuits, so I have a lot of learning to do! I also need to get a drawer for all these components that I got online because it’s a bit of a mess right now.
Not quite clear on what my end goal is with learning electronics, but I’d like to learn how to tinker more with computer hardware so I’m starting with the basics. Semi-related: I got an open source hardware trackball called Ploopy! I didn’t get the DIY kit so I didn’t build it myself, but I’ve been learning how to customize the firmware. Just last night I got to map one mouse button to CTRL+TAB and then another one to CTRL+SHIFT+TAB. It feels like AutoHotkey, but built-in to the device!
A picture of Ploopy mouse that I have at home.
My experiments with Figma and AutoHotkey.
I’ve also been playing some DOOM II! I initially installed it on the Raspberry Pi 400 for fun (I wanted to see how well it ran), but I ended up getting hooked. I definitely didn’t expect DOOM II from 1994 to hold a candle to the latest iterations like DOOM Eternal.
A screenshot of DOOM II on the Raspberry Pi 400.
I bought the game on GOG, extracted it using innoextract, then I ran the WAD file on LZDOOM. It worked like a charm.
I’ve been going back to kettlebell class at my gym as well. It’s been a while since I last went, so my stamina isn’t as good as it used to. I’m still struggling in class, but I feel like I’m slowly improving at least. The summer heat isn’t helping either.
Finally, I’ve been continuing to read CAPS LOCK which is a book about how design is tightly intertwined with capitalism (so far I’ve learned: building trust in the government [design of documents and money], nudging people to spend more [design of credit cards and apps], and standards for increasing efficiency [bar codes])
A picture of my copy of CAPS LOCK.
📮 Email: hi@jagtalon.com
