The other day I was thinking about the first communities I found online and, perhaps tangentially, to what degree they influenced the amount of therapy I now require to function normally as an adult. Our family's second computer came from Sam's Club. It was a 386DX with Windows 3.0 …

Back in Part 1, I emptied my soul laid out the rough qualifications for a somewhat minimalist solar-powered ham radio station. Today, I'd like to walk you through my process for selecting the solar panels for this lash-up of geekery.

I thought picking out solar panels for …

There are many things you can do in ham radio and one of the things I like doing is contests. In a contest, you get on the air and try to rack up as many contacts are you can. A "contact" is essentially just getting …

(Disclaimer: No AIs were used in the writing of this article. My intelligence has been frequently questioned, but has thus far never been accused of being less than natural.)

At this point, it's fair to say most tech-oriented cyberspace denizens have at least a passing familiarity with the basic concepts …

Internet Mail, or email, or whatever kids these days call it, was one of those things that terrified me very early on when I was a strapping young System Administrator. Everything else that I was doing at the time seemed comparitively easy: Linux/BSD installs, system setup, automation, and such …

I'm able to get a good grasp on big-picture stuff relatively easily. However, I don't have a great memory for technical details, even stuff that I do almost every day. I imagine my co-workers are freqently amazed that I can even remember how to put on pants in the morning …

So I have this motorcycle.

It's a lot of fun.

I could talk at length about the general awesomeness of the late 70's to early 80's Suzuki GS muscle bikes. But! We only have so much time until the heat death of the universe. So to keep it brief, I …

Sometimes, the simplest questions take you on exciting journies. This was, in fact, the most powerful and motivating force that got me into doing computery things from a very young age. I would ask a question, how do …

Let's begin--as they say--at the beginning. As one who primarily self-identifies as an introverted computer nerd, it did not seem likely in retrospect that woodworking would end up being one of my major hobbies. Now, understand that I'm the kind of person who likes to have nice things but who …

Remember the good old days when neighbors knew each other, cars had chrome bumpers, and nobody had any idea how much electricity they were using until a bill came in the mail? Well, a few years back, my local power company started offering a mobile app that customers could use …