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Sabbatical

Released on: 2023-08-22

About 2 years ago, I quit my job to take some time to rest and follow my passions.

While those were the primary goals, I was also trying to make my projects my full time income. I haven’t succeeded yet and there are some outside factors limiting how much more time I can put in for now, but I have done some really cool stuff along the way. So it’s time to have a look at some highlights.

Table of contents

handWavey

If you look at nothing else; this is the one to look at.

TL;DR: A more intuitive/usable way to control your computer using a leapmotion/ultraleap controller.

There have been several implementations of this idea over the years. But I have yet to see one that I’d be happy to use on a daily basis. That’s what this project was for. I actually got it running so well that by the end of the project, I was actually faster with handWavey than I was with a mouse. To hit that home a little further, that’s comparing 4 months of usage to >30 years of usage.

I later did some informal ergonomics testing compared to a mouse, which involved not using it for a while. Coming back to it; I’m a little out of practice, and there are some things that I want to improve, but this is so fricken cool, that I’m really looking forward to doing more with it.

A shot from the video where I'm demoing handWavey, with some graphics to give it a certain movie feel.
Above: A shot from the video where I’m demoing handWavey, with some graphics to give it a certain movie feel.

Resolution deep dive

TL;DR: A series of deep dives into how much resolution on your phone’s display you can actually make use of.

This was way more satisfying than I expected. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to get anything conclusive out of it, but the project just kept on giving. I hope to release more of what I found when time allows.

To help quantify various observations, I wrote an Android app.

An animated series of macro photos of my test patterns on a Pentile display.
Above: An animated series of macro photos of my test patterns on a Pentile display.

Storage deep dive

TL;DR: An old scam has just gone mainstream, and people are going to lose their data.

I’ve always considered Amazon to be one of the reasonably safer online markets, and reasonably on-top of the scams. After seeing way too many of those too-good-to-be-true listings for USB storage on Amazon, I wanted to do some of my own testing to see if the market really had advanced that quickly, or if the scammers were getting through more easily now.

This was a win-win for me:

  • If the product was legitimate; I had some use-cases that would greatly benefit from cheap storage.
  • If not; I’d have some interesting content to post.

A listing that has been removed, and since replaced many times over.
Above: A listing that has been removed, and since replaced many times over.

Home office

TL;DR Setting up my office to work for me.

One of the first things I did was re-do my office. It won’t be for everyone, but I love it.

I use a couple of 4k projectors mounted to an overhead bar as my main display and have everything I need close to hand, but out of the way.

There have been a lot of changes since this post because I’ve continued to evolve the design. One of the most important changes is some strategically placed shielding so that I have have the window open during the day time without getting glare on the display. I’ve also added a whole heap of sound dampening.

The result is a home office where I can attain levels of productivity that I have never gotten close to in any form of shared office space.

A photo stitch of my office.
Above: A photo stitch of my office.

This post references

2022-03-07
The RandomKSandom series is the spiritual successor to FunnyHacks. Here, you can find all of the posts about it.

This post is referenced by

My CV had gained so much weight that it was hard to do anything with it any more, and it was hard to read. So I did something about it...
Control your computer using a Leap Motion controller, but with an every-day-quality implementation.
If you want to share stable diffusion on your network without exposing any information to the outside world. This is one way to do it.
There's a trick for getting a big speed boost on old hardware that's so easy that I'm surprised I haven't heard people talking about it.
What began as 3 tripods on a hill, and hours per photo, ended with way better results in seconds, hand held.
I accidentally automated Javelining a plane into the ground. And I learnt a huge amount along the way.
Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about whether you can make use of the full resolution on a phone with a 4K display. Let's dig in and actually understand this.
2022-11-17
Group of posts about the Astro Slide 5G.
4 easy phone hacks to make your phone more useful and fun
My dream office.

Posts using the same tags

My CV had gained so much weight that it was hard to do anything with it any more, and it was hard to read. So I did something about it...
Control your computer using a Leap Motion controller, but with an every-day-quality implementation.
If you want to share stable diffusion on your network without exposing any information to the outside world. This is one way to do it.
There's a trick for getting a big speed boost on old hardware that's so easy that I'm surprised I haven't heard people talking about it.
What began as 3 tripods on a hill, and hours per photo, ended with way better results in seconds, hand held.
2023-08-22
After 4 non-stop intensely challenging years, it was time for a change. This is what I did.
I accidentally automated Javelining a plane into the ground. And I learnt a huge amount along the way.
Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about whether you can make use of the full resolution on a phone with a 4K display. Let's dig in and actually understand this.
2022-11-17
Group of posts about the Astro Slide 5G.
I'm stopping my Patreon activity for now. Let's dive a little deeper into why.
4 easy phone hacks to make your phone more useful and fun
2022-03-07
The RandomKSandom series is the spiritual successor to FunnyHacks. Here, you can find all of the posts about it.
My dream office.
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