Here’s a bit of what’s on my mind.
Winning by Warming Up
What do all-star athletes, Grammy-winning musicians, and automobiles in the dead of winter in Wisconsin have in common? Their success (or failure) on any given day hinges greatly upon warming up. Obviously a warm-up is not the whole story, but it’s a very important and often overlooked aspect of almost any undertaking. Warming up is psychologically where your desires and goals start to manifest themselves in reality, so it’s a great subject to focus on when starting with any new venture....
Dead Simple Piezo Mic Preamp for Acoustic Guitar (in progress)
If you’ve ever owned an acoustic guitar that you love, but want to add electronics to it for live performances or recording applications, you will have noticed a booming industry full of rather expensive products. Having a very limited grasp on electrical circuits and the technologies used in these products, I am convinced that they are criminally overpriced, so I decided to experiment. I am actively documenting this project as it evolves, so let’s start at the beginning....
Using FFmpeg to Trim Long YouTube Videos Lightning Fast
I won’t bore you with the details, but after several frustrating sessions of professional video editing, I discovered many of the repetitive tasks a video editor faces can be automated with FFmpeg. I have written a handful of shell scripts which I might share later, but FFmpeg came in clutch once again today for some mindless video processing. The Situation For the second week in a row, I was emailed a list of YouTube URL’s and timestamps of video clips to pull from these hour-long live stream recordings....
Building a Better Mousetrap: DIY Keyboards
Having struggled with Rheumatoid Arthritis pains for the past decade, my browsing history is full of ergonomic gadgets to make working from a computer all day just an ounce more comfortable. I have tried the trackball mouse, variations of cheap ergonomic keyboards, 60% mechanical keyboards and about anything else you could think of. Somehow this search history led me to some GitHub pages for fully DIY keyboards built with Arduinos. The clouds parted, and I knew immediately I would be building one of these for myself....