2026-08-07 22:00:00
Shortly after Apple launched the budget MacBook Neo, Dell announced their response, a new low-end XPS 13.
Matching the Neo's current pricing, it starts at $699, or $599 with an educational discount. That discount is currently set to expire on November 2, and with the current component pricing insanity, I'd be surprised if we don't see a price increase on both laptops by next year.
I ran the XPS 13 through my gauntlet of benchmarks, and published a review on my YouTube channel:
2026-08-06 00:50:00
Proxmox today announced their Proxmox Virtual Environment is now available for 64-bit ARM.
I tested it on my Ampere Altra Dev Platform—the same machine on which I've booted Windows on Arm the first time, messed with multiple GPUs, and most recently tested Houdini's native arm64 support.
Install was easy, as the Ampere Altra uses UEFI / ACPI for its hardware, meaning Proxmox didn't have to tailor its ISO to specific platforms, like you have to do with Raspberry Pis and most SBCs using a Device Tree setup.
2026-07-31 22:00:00
I've been using the built-in 10 Gigabit Ethernet on my Mac Studio for a few years. It works fine: I can edit 4K video straight off my NAS over the network, and run backups at around 1 GB/sec.
But... I want more. I upgraded my rack and my NAS to 25 GbE a couple years ago, and wanted to upgrade my main workstation, too.
2026-07-24 05:00:00
AKA "Spectrum has gone down two weeks in a row and I'm sick of it".
I've been borrowing a portable 5G gateway from my Dad for a few weeks, for testing... and two weeks in a row, I've used it as a backup Internet option, since my Spectrum Business cable Internet has gone down.
And yes, I'd get AT&T Fiber if I had the option, sadly they don't yet provide service at my studio. So I'm stuck with only one high speed wired provider. I may add on my own 5G backup Internet connection in the future, but we're getting off track.
2026-07-22 22:00:00
In the midst of our AI slop revolution, traveling to the West coast for Open Sauce this past weekend was the perfect antiseptic for rising costs, summer heat, and online divisiveness.
It's ironic, then, that I used Claude to vibe code my Tufty GPS Time Badge.
Partly due to time constraints, and partly because I wanted to see if I could complete a personal project end-to-end, without editing a line of code, I throw my requirements at Claude and ultimately came up with this 2141-line MicroPython app for Pimoroni's Badgeware ecosystem.
2026-07-10 22:00:00
The QuadRF (pictured above) a phased-array radio built around a Raspberry Pi 5 and an FPGA board with picosecond-level timing. It does advanced signal processing and beamforming.
It can see WiFi through walls and track drones in flight.
If the open source community can come up with something like this, just imagine what governments are capable of.
When you plug a computer into a network, tools like Wireshark can show all the hidden traffic you might not even know is there. WiFi packets are the same, but those travel through the air, allowing snooping without physical access.
