Chris Schammert
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πŸ“ 01-24

January 1, 2024

SMD for honoring memories


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Squeak squeak.



Finally ordered SMD soldering stuff. Not sure if my late Uncle was into soldering, but the majority of my interest in technology, and circuits came from him. To be fair, the πŸ”—KinT controller I’m putting together is for my work keyboard. Currently using πŸ”—Xmodmap to speed up text editing by using Caps Lock for layer switching. New side hustle requires Windows, so hardware keyboard mapping via πŸ”—QMK just makes more sense.

The man soldered a television from a kit. Radioshack > Toys’R’Us

Probably won’t rebase the website off HTML5.

Something something cringe yo

Turns out the Japanese version of the album I wrote of in a previous blog post does not contain the instrumentals. Such is life eh?

The South Korean version does tho (also the 2 disc Japanese version)

My story is like a red flag for ’normies’, so I stopped caring a long time ago. Which is why there’s a fingerboard gif on this page. The best I can hope for is that the work I do speaks for itself, and that people can look past my awkward quirkiness.

Yea

2023 was an awesome year, and I know 2024 will be even better.

Hope you all enjoy the New Year’s funtivities!


January 4, 2024

Nothing Left To Fight For


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The Arch Linux environment I used to create πŸ”—SpamDM IIRC



Roughly eleven years ago I felt so lost. No work. So I started a Linux experiment. Let’s try πŸ”—Linux Mint, what could go wrong? Within 30 minutes I had a πŸ”—LM: 14 Nadia πŸ”—iso booted, now what? I broke it. Blank screen, no mouse or keyboard input. AWESOME! Up until that moment, I had used some form of Microsoft since 1987. Other than the random virus from πŸ”—file sharing applications or a botched πŸ”—registry tweak, I had never broken an operating system. I loved that about Linux.

FREEDOM!!!!!

The freedom this operating system provided was intoxicating. This was before I learned of course that what I was actually referring to was a operating system πŸ”—kernel, and not necessarily the entire operating system. Well, technically the operating system was Linux Mint, so I guess I was technically correct. Which is the best kind of correct.

Futurama.exe complete

This was during an era of my life before reading manuals. I learned to πŸ”—RTFM.

I prefer to be redundant. Obfuscation impedes progress imo

Anyway, I have some strong πŸ”—CTC Assam to make before doing a bunch of other stuff. Thought I’d refresh my Linux memories a bit before properly starting the year. First look at πŸ”—Ventoy kicked my mind gears up a notch as well.

Better than a Spice Weasel tbh


January 6, 2024

Long Live PineTime


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I’ve been a watch person for a while now (MMMM DROP!)



After several attempts to update the firmware of my 2020 PineTime from 13 to 14 I believe it’s time to switch back to my Casio F-91W. It was a fun ride and I wish all the maintainers well (and god(s) speed).

So many resolved πŸ”—Github issues too!

Failed firmware updates has something to do with an Android 14 bug or something like that. From what I understand the πŸ”—issue is nearly resolved. Unfortunately, I’ve nearly broken through the glass at this point. As a teenager I broke the band of at least one G-Shock watch (oh he’s hard on watches this one).

2001: My hand nearly slipped in between the seat and the table top of a picnic table while I was using the table … just as it was made to be used of course, and the watch band popped off. I never lie you know ;)

In other news, people can totally live in the center of the Earth. Sure, that’s where diamonds were formed (or nearby), so living in the center of the Earth is totally possible. All you have to do is mine the pressure. You know, mine on and whatnot.

Whatnot. </storytime> *shrugs*


January 11, 2024

Fine Cinema


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ONLY THE BEST!



Some of my first campy memories are of watching πŸ”—Tales from the Crypt from a Jacksonville, FL hotel (1989). Dad fell asleep, and I couldn’t pull my eyes from the screen. Flying from Bermuda to Florida type jet lag. Probably avoided the πŸ”—Triangle, but still–that’s a long dual flight trip (Bermuda > South Carolina > North Florida).

I’m partial to the πŸ”—methane theory tbh

It’s definitely inherited, whatever it is that compels me to watch πŸ”—MST3K and movies that should be featured in future episodes (Toho Godzilla 🀞)

In the meantime I have a πŸ”—1995 Turkey Day Marathon to watch (complete with commercials!)

In other ’news’, I finished the πŸ”—KinT controller after two years of dragging my feet. Actually, it’s been so long that there’s a new Kinesis Advantage πŸ”—keyboard. Not my style tbh


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Super professional setup and the hotplate was plugged into a GFCI outlet (that I installed years ago) just in case


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Not sure if I cooked the components, but the board works.. so.. success? (neoprene pad on the keyboard hides the LEDs anyway)


I’ll have a hotplate with temperature sensor for when I put together the backup controller. And since the Teensy 3.6 is πŸ”—no longer manufactured I placed a 4.1 in the same DigiKey πŸ”—BOM I used for the first KinT controller. It took a few minutes for the solder to liquify using the LED strip hot plate (I also had to remove two of the screws)–slight anxst tbh

ANXST.

Once the second build is finished I’ll add it to the device/keyboard category of this website.

COMING SOON! 2030!


January 11, 2024

Financially Young


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Reddit | r/unixp0rn | [i3-gaps] A hint of lemon (08-14-2018)



After three weeks of divine solitude work on a video game video recording side project, I was pushed away from my goal by a group of high-school sophomores. I was only partially at my goal (70 hours, or 2,500 out of the ~10K bound quest items needed). The game shrunk to a point in which these high-schoolers took it upon themselves to target anyone that moved–especially those with a goal. I found the most efficient way to achieve my goal, and that really bugged them for some reason.

So it goes

Which brought me to an interesting thought. I keep running into this issue while in hobbyist realms. And it wasn’t until I dialed in my ADHD symptoms that I got a clear picture of what I was dealing with. Young people assuming I am young too because of my financial situation/ADHD symptoms, and behaving as they would towards a poor peer. Especially poor ‘peers’ that are organized and hyper focused on a goal.

Still working on the ADHD symptoms tbh

Stopping me from the goal at that point in time effectively pushed me out of the game. I left on a polite high note, kept all my gear and accounts, and uninstalled the game (never to return again). I don’t have time for sophomore games. I didn’t have time for them in the 10th grade, and I certainly don’t have time for those type of games 20 something years later.

🎡 No-no time for games, she’s full grown 🎡

Anyway, I won’t mention the game by name at this point in time as it’s not a safe place for like minded individuals to just go about their business. Shrunk population, and most of the positive minded individuals left years ago. Which is why I removed all mention of the game from this blog, and all of my social media accounts. I avoided global chats to avoid them and for whatever reason they got bored enough to show up in the zone I was working out of anyway. Grinding a few hours a day helped me focus on a single thing for a few hours. I can rarely do that effectively. What I saw and experienced was the type of unsafe that leads some to πŸ”—Dial 988. They don’t even understand how they’re projecting all over the place, and it’s dangerous.

I can probably say that I think like an engineer at this point right?

Anyway, so the point I’m getting at is that Florida’s/FDA’s decision to πŸ”—import medicine directly from Canada is a step in the right direction. I don’t qualify for government assistance; I haven’t since November 2012, but maybe it’ll help those that need it more.

Such things as πŸ”—Aspiration Bars never brushed my mind until I was in my late 30s tbh (good stuff)

And if any of them are actually grown and step on the porch of this house I’m typing from, I hope they are prepared to take a nap. I may be an optimist, have a goofy face, and joke around a bunch, but I will lose all sense of self to protect my family. Just a friendly warning. I’ve had a few of those naps when I was younger, and those naps are less fun than a nap on a couch–I can say that much.

Obviously, I’m avoiding all multi-player games moving forward. Skyrim AE is a better investment imo. Had to pull a few things out my mind to move forward via this blog post. Apologies for the personal clutter

Plus there are a lot of social norms I missed out on that the average suburbanite observes without leaving their realm of safety. That may have been another piece of the puzzle that I was missing out on.

Awkward-ing all over the place is my specialty tbh. No tact. Only wit and guile, but I’m working on it


January 21, 2024

Dangerous Aliexpress


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TMW: Looking for silicone thermal pads and you get the age verification pop-up <’(-_-)'>



Sacrificial APC surge protectors. ALL OF THEM

#forever #socereal #cringist #potatomanspeakith

Seriously though, I’ve never been so stoked to see these πŸ”—mini consoles. From what I can tell the screens are driven by mini Arduino based chips. I’m not sure how many users are aware that they own the cutest web servers, because that’s the function of Model #NZ1237. You access the itty bitty server via web portal. That’s just to configure the customizable display options. If it can display an image, it can display an itty bitty custom webpage. Well, that’s my theory anyway.

Firmware? idk

Watch out for the Aliexpress coins thing tho. Definitely some time gotchas built-in to the app

Bejeweled. Gottem.


January 29, 2024

Thy Spooky Self


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Imgur description from 2019: “The Andorian First Officer that never was …”



That was how I was living five years ago. I don’t really feel like typing out all the specifications. What chair, how many parts of the chair still functioned, what my bed situation was like, etc. There are people living in the same city, state, country, and planet that would LOVE to have the setup shown in the picture.

Well, maybe not in the planet. That’s not how that works

Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve any of it. I’m this technological fraud because nothing on this website belongs to me. I use an AI generated image because I’m too lazy to create my own, and this website was created from a Hugo template because I don’t want to teleport myself back to 1999, which was when I learned how write HTML pages and how to implement πŸ”—applets or web forums. Also the living situation, which I myself and I would have scoffed at eleven years ago. I feel I don’t deserve that either. But here I am, dealing with it, by crawling under the house and stuff.

APPLETS! Web forums! The collapse of the Dot.Com bubble! Crawling under the hwhat?

I recently finished reading R.L. Stine’s biography πŸ”—“It Came From Ohio: My Life As A Writer”. While yes the book was written for children, there’s a lot of interesting mile markers along the way. Also, I was a child when the book was written. So, uh, nostalgia? Right, for one mile marker, R.L. Stine mentions that he spent so much time as an awkward observer rather than a participant, that it was natural for him to continue doing so to research and flesh out his characters. I mean, he is a father, and he did mention he watched a lot of TV. When I was reading Goosebumps books as a kid (most likely all of 1-50 at least once), I was reading from the perspective of this mythical middle class lifestyle I knew nothing about, and that forbidden knowledge helped shape who I am now. So naturally, I appreciates all that research.

I’m not sure what editors would say about these pages.

“These words … " *twitchy jestures*

Anyway, I’m going to make an honest attempt to scoop up all the songs in the music blog and create a YouTube playlist. Might include one video with my CVS shift Supervisor / announcer voice. I’ll probably be doing something with my hands too. Jazz hands or something–I’ll figure that out later. Job entry exam first, then jazz hands.

Jazz hands or something