In October, my Dad and I got to go behind the scenes at two St. Louis Blues (NHL hockey) games, and observe the massive team effort involved in putting together a modern digital sports broadcast. I wanted to explore the timing and digital side of a modern SMPTE 2110 mobile uni … | Continue reading
Ever since the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 was introduced, I wondered why nobody built a decent laptop chassis around it. You could swap out a low spec CM5 for a higher spec, and get an instant computer upgrade. Or, assuming a CM6 comes out someday in the same form factor, t … | Continue reading
Recently this post from @Merocle caught my eye: I'm fixing my iFixit soldering station. I haven't used it for a long time and the battery has gone overdischarge. I hope it will come back to life. Unfortunately, there are no replacements available for sale at the moment. Devi … | Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I started hearing a slight crackle at the loudest parts of whenever sound was playing through my PreSonus Eris E3.5 speakers. It was very faint, but quite annoying, especially when editing my YouTube videos. For a few days I thought it could be a hearing probl … | Continue reading
After 16 years on the LAMP stack, I finished migrating this website from Drupal to Hugo a few weeks ago. What's old is new, as this blog was originally built with Thingamablog, a Java-based Static Site Generator (SSG) I ran on my Mac to generate HTML and FTP it up to my first web … | Continue reading
Today Raspberry Pi launched their new $130 AI HAT+ 2 which includes a Hailo 10H and 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM. With that, the Hailo 10H is capable of running LLMs entirely standalone, freeing the Pi's CPU and system RAM for other tasks. The chip runs at a maximum of 3W, with 40 TOPS of … | Continue reading
I wanted to have the most accurate timepiece possible mounted in my mini rack. Therefore I built this: This is a GPS-based clock running on a Raspberry Pi Pico in a custom 1U 10" rack faceplate. The clock displays time based on a GPS input, and will not display time until a GP … | Continue reading
For the past decade, I've used Mailhog for local email debugging. Besides working on web applications that deal with email, I've long used email as the primary notification system for comments on the blog. I built an Ansible role for Mailhog, and it was one of the main features o … | Continue reading
Almost a year ago, I found that N100 Mini PCs were cheaper than a decked-out Raspberry Pi 5. So comparing systems with: 16GB of RAM 512GB NVMe SSD Including case, cooler, and power adapter Back in March last year, a GMKtec Mini PC was $159, and a similar-spec Pi 5 was $208. Tod … | Continue reading
Since 2009, this website has run on Drupal. Starting with Drupal 6, and progressing through major site upgrades and migrations to 7, 8, 9, and 10, I used the site as a way to dogfood the same CMS (Content Management System) I used in my day job for over a decade. But as time p … | Continue reading
Last month, the stars aligned for me to bring the Mono Gateway (a 10 Gbps router that YouTuber Tomaž Zaman and his team at Mono built from scratch) on a trip to Phoenix, and test it with one of the most OP network test boxes I've ever seen, at the ServeTheHome HQ. In this video, … | Continue reading
Testing the Mono Gateway, a custom-built 10 Gbps Router Last month, the stars aligned for me to bring the Mono Gateway (a 10 Gbps router that YouTuber Tomaž Zaman and his team at Mono built from scratch) on a trip to Phoenix, and test it with one of the most OP net … | Continue reading
Dell sent me two of their GB10 mini workstations to test: In this blog post, I'll cover the base system, just one of the two nodes. Cluster testing is ongoing, and I'll cover things like AI model training and networking more in depth next year, likely with comparisons to the F … | Continue reading
Dell's version of the DGX Spark fixes pain points Dell sent me two of their GB10 mini workstations to test: In this blog post, I'll cover the base system, just one of the two nodes. Cluster testing is ongoing, and I'll cover things like AI model training and netwo … | Continue reading
If you were 5 microseconds late today, blame it on NIST. Their facility in Boulder Colorado just had its power cut for multiple days. After a backup generator failed, their main ensemble clock lost track of UTC, or Universal Time Coordinated. But even if you used the NTP timing s … | Continue reading
NIST was 5 μs off UTC after last week's power cut If you were 5 microseconds late today, blame it on NIST. Their facility in Boulder Colorado just had its power cut for multiple days. After a backup generator failed, their main ensemble clock lost track of UTC, or U … | Continue reading
Ever since I got AMD, Intel, and Nvidia graphics cards to run on a Raspberry Pi, I had a nagging question: What's the point? The Raspberry Pi only has 1 lane of PCIe Gen 3 bandwidth available for a connection to an eGPU. That's not much. Especially considering a modern desktop ha … | Continue reading
Big GPUs don't need big PCs Ever since I got AMD, Intel, and Nvidia graphics cards to run on a Raspberry Pi, I had a nagging question: What's the point? The Raspberry Pi only has 1 lane of PCIe Gen 3 bandwidth available for a connection to an eGPU. That's not muc … | Continue reading
Apple gave me access to this Mac Studio cluster to test RDMA over Thunderbolt, a new feature in macOS 26.2. The easiest way to test it is with Exo 1.0, an open source private AI clustering tool. RDMA lets the Macs all act like they have one giant pool of RAM, which speeds up thin … | Continue reading
1.5 TB of VRAM on Mac Studio - RDMA over Thunderbolt 5 Apple gave me access to this Mac Studio cluster to test RDMA over Thunderbolt, a new feature in macOS 26.2. The easiest way to test it is with Exo 1.0, an open source private AI clustering tool. RDMA lets the M … | Continue reading
This little postage stamp is actually a full Raspberry Pi Zero 2, complete with eMMC storage and WiFi. But you can't get one. Well, not unless you buy the CM0NANO development board from EDAtec, or you live in China. This little guy doesn't have an HDMI port, Ethernet, or even USB … | Continue reading
CM0 - a new Raspberry Pi you can't buy This little postage stamp is actually a full Raspberry Pi Zero 2, complete with eMMC storage and WiFi. But you can't get one. Well, not unless you buy the CM0NANO development board from EDAtec, or you live in China. This lit … | Continue reading
Now that Nvidia GPUs run on the Raspberry Pi, I've been putting all the ones I own through their paces. Many people have an older Nvidia card (like a 3060) laying around from an upgrade. So could a Pi be suitable for GPU-accelerated video transcoding, either standalone for conver … | Continue reading
Benchmarking NVENC video transcoding on the Pi Now that Nvidia GPUs run on the Raspberry Pi, I've been putting all the ones I own through their paces. Many people have an older Nvidia card (like a 3060) laying around from an upgrade. So could a Pi be suitable for … | Continue reading
Inside this Framework 13 laptop is a special mainboard developed by DeepComputing in collaboration with Framework. It has an 8-core RISC-V processor, the ESWIN 7702X—not your typical AMD, Intel, or even Arm SoC. The full laptop version I tested costs $1119 and gets you about the … | Continue reading
The DC-ROMA II is the fastest RISC-V laptop and is odd Inside this Framework 13 laptop is a special mainboard developed by DeepComputing in collaboration with Framework. It has an 8-core RISC-V processor, the ESWIN 7702X—not your typical AMD, Intel, or even Arm SoC … | Continue reading
The RAM Shortage Comes for Us All Memory price inflation comes for us all, and if you're not affected yet, just wait. I was building a new PC last month using some parts I had bought earlier this year. The 64 Gigabyte T-Create DDR5 memory kit I used cost $209 then. … | Continue reading
Memory price inflation comes for us all, and if you're not affected yet, just wait. I was building a new PC last month using some parts I had bought earlier this year. The 64 Gigabyte T-Create DDR5 memory kit I used cost $209 then. Today? The same kit costs $650! Just in the past … | Continue reading
Why doesn't Apple make a standalone Touch ID? I finally upgraded to a mechanical keyboard. But because Apple's so protective of their Touch ID hardware, there aren't any mechanical keyboards with that feature built in. But there is a way to hack it. It's incredibl … | Continue reading
I finally upgraded to a mechanical keyboard. But because Apple's so protective of their Touch ID hardware, there aren't any mechanical keyboards with that feature built in. But there is a way to hack it. It's incredibly wasteful, and takes a bit more patience than I think most … | Continue reading
Nvidia Graphics Cards work on Pi 5 and Rockchip A few months ago, GitHub user @yanghaku dropped a 15 line patch to fix GPU support for practically all AMD GPUs on the Raspberry Pi (and demoed a 3080 running on the Pi with a separate, unreleased patch. This week, GitH … | Continue reading
A few months ago, GitHub user @yanghaku dropped a 15 line patch to fix GPU support for practically all AMD GPUs on the Raspberry Pi (and demoed a 3080 running on the Pi with a separate, unreleased patch). This week, GitHub user @mariobalanica dropped this (larger) patch which doe … | Continue reading
Air Lab is the Flipper Zero of air quality monitors This air quality monitor costs $250. It's called the Air Lab, and I've been using it to measure the air in my car, home, studio, and a few events over the past few months. And in using it over the course of a road … | Continue reading
This air quality monitor costs $250. It's called the Air Lab, and I've been using it to measure the air in my car, home, studio, and a few events over the past few months. And in using it over the course of a road trip I learned to not run recirculate in my car quite as often—mor … | Continue reading
How to silence the fan on a CM5 after shutdown Out of the box, if you buy a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, install it on the official CM5 IO Board, and install a fan on it (e.g. my current favorite, the EDAtec CM5 Active Cooler), you'll notice the fan ramps up to 100 … | Continue reading
Out of the box, if you buy a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, install it on the official CM5 IO Board, and install a fan on it (e.g. my current favorite, the EDAtec CM5 Active Cooler), you'll notice the fan ramps up to 100% speed after you shut down the Pi. That's not fun, since … | Continue reading
Using AMD GPUs on Raspberry Pi without recompiling Linux I'm working on a more in-depth test of some newer AMD GPUs on the Raspberry Pi, now that the 15 line kernel patch is (IMO) nearly ready for upstreaming. But this blog post shows how to quickly get almost any … | Continue reading
I'm working on a more in-depth test of some newer AMD GPUs on the Raspberry Pi, now that the 15 line kernel patch is (IMO) nearly ready for upstreaming. But this blog post shows how to quickly get almost any modern AMD GPU running on a Raspberry Pi 5, CM5, or Pi 500+, thanks t … | Continue reading
All Intel GPUs run on Raspberry Pi and RISC-V We finally have Intel Arc GPUs working on the Pi somewhat stably—it required overcoming many small hurdles, but it looks like support could land in Raspberry Pi OS if we can get a simple patch upstreamed1. If that happe … | Continue reading
We finally have Intel Arc GPUs working on the Pi somewhat stably—it required overcoming many small hurdles, but it looks like support could land in Raspberry Pi OS if we can get a simple patch upstreamed1. If that happens, all you'd need to do to use an Intel card on a Pi is inst … | Continue reading
Minisforum stuffs an entire Arm Homelab in the MS-R1 The Minisforum MS-R1 uses the same Cix CD8180 Arm SoC as the Orion O6 I reviewed earlier this year. But everything else about this thing is different. What this thing should be, is a box that runs Linux and can … | Continue reading
The Minisforum MS-R1 uses the same Cix CD8180 Arm SoC as the Orion O6 I reviewed earlier this year. But everything else about this thing is different. What this thing should be, is a box that runs Linux and can compete with at least an Apple M1 Mac mini, or a mid-range Mini PC. B … | Continue reading
Converting hot dog plasma video to sound with OpenCV When you ground a hot dog to an AM radio tower, it generates plasma. Your browser does not support the video tag. While the hot dog's flesh is getting vaporized, a tiny plasma arc moves the air around it … | Continue reading
When you ground a hot dog to an AM radio tower, it generates plasma. Your browser does not support the video tag. While the hot dog's flesh is getting vaporized, a tiny plasma arc moves the air around it back and forth. And because this tower is an AM tower, it uses Amplit … | Continue reading
It's not that hard to stop a Trane Six years ago, I replaced the old HVAC system that came with our house, a central forced air system installed in 19951. The new system is a Trane XR AC paired with an S9V2 96% efficiency forced-air gas furnace. And it ran great! Be … | Continue reading
Six years ago, I replaced the old HVAC system that came with our house, a central forced air system installed in 19951. The new system is a Trane XR AC paired with an S9V2 96% efficiency forced-air gas furnace. And it ran great! Better efficiency, quieter, multiple fan speeds so … | Continue reading
The Arduino Uno Q is a weird hybrid SBC The Arduino Uno Q is... a weird board. It's the first product born out of Qualcomm's buyout of Arduino. It's like if you married an Intel CPU, and a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller—oh wait, Radxa's X4 did that. Arduino … | Continue reading
The Arduino Uno Q is... a weird board. It's the first product born out of Qualcomm's buyout of Arduino. It's like if you married an Intel CPU, and a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller—oh wait, Radxa's X4 did that. Arduino even tried it before with their old Yún board, which had … | Continue reading