During lockdown last winter, in between figuring out 12v boat electrics and learning to keep the stove going overnight, I managed to play more with my Raspberry Pi 4. My goal is to build a small hybrid as-open-as-possible computer/tablet, in which I controll the hardware and the OS.
In the process I got completely lost in r/unixporn, r/cyberdeck and watching HexDSL and DistroTube videos. The Ideal Cyberdeck in my head got
I’ve thought and dreamed about this for three years, and finally, on September 3rd, bought it. Meet Boston Belle, 60 feet or 18 meters long, 2 meters wide narrow boat. Built in 1992, it’s a Traditional Stern model. The boat is currently moored in Reading, England, and I’m going to attempt to drive it to London in the end of the month [screaming_face_emoji].
I’m a huge fan of Harry Potter since I was like 11, I grew up with the books. In school I even organized a Club of Harry Potter Fans, which later morphed into a book club “Magic”.
Last year I went to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in New York. I’ve mentioned the book before on the blog, it left me with some mixed feelings. But the play puts everything in its place (which makes sense, because the book is just a published script for the play.
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This weekend I attended Indie Web Camp in Baltimore. It’s a fun gathering of people who believe we should own our online
A breif personal indie web history. I’ve been blogging and building websites and CMSes for as long as I can remember. When I was 12 living between Kursk, Russia and Imatra, Finland, I published an online zine called “Superfun”. I had some strong web design and writing skills:
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My talk about Uppy, the file uploader I’ve been working on. It’s got sleek UI, fetches files from local disk, as well as remote Google Drives and Instagrams, or you can snap selfies with a camera, preview and edit metadata, and upload files to the final destination, optionally processing/encoding on the way.
ReadMy movie about the two-month journey across Europe continues.
Part 2: Berlin with friends, Transloadit team meetup, train to Zürich, boat ride and swimming in the lake, lookout tower, glazer and camping in the mountains, Moscow and some Saint-Petersburg.
Subtitles available in English, don’t forget to turn them on. Thank you!
Part I
Part II
My movie about a two-month summer journey across Europe and Russia by hitchhiking, trains and cars.
Part I: Paris, couchsurfing, French cheese talk, hitchhiking to Luxmbourg, exciting road stories, some more couchsurfing, hitchhiking to Berlin.
Subtitles available in English. Part II coming soon.
Part I
Part II
Ever since my friends Anna and Sergey gave me an Arduino Starter Kit for my birthday, I’ve been experimenting with hardware: programming microcontrollers and connecting sensors to build a small home automation system. Prior to that I was a software-only person, with neither experience nor interest in hardware whatsoever.
I thought I’d try that kit maybe once, since I had it anyway. I connected a thermistor to the controller and saw my home temperature displayed in the console in Celsius, Fahrenheit and Kelvin! Seeing programs come to life, making things happen in real world and reacting to it got me excited for real. Turns out, those boring topics from school physics and math lessons have actual practical application. And I can be a part of it, with my own projects!
So here’s what I’ve been up to.
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I moved to Berlin for the month of August to explore hidden beaches and a swimming pool on a river, tepee village, bike lanes, Back to the Future from a gentrification point of view, abandoned airport and a farm on a parking lot.
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Happy Tuesday, friends! Here’s Artur Paikin, founder of Baguette, designer and robot maker: