Tech, music, and other transmissions from a GenX systems guy in Denver.
// recent posts //
- [ jd303 ]pixie_technologist spent the week of July 27-31, 2026 at Silicon STEM Academy's Circuits & Sensors: Smart Device Lab camp. This one's hers, written herself, no interview this time.[ pixie_technologist ]
What are you reading this on? Your phone? Computer? Inside of that small device is a series of complex soldered bread computer chips, wires, buttons, and more. Do you know how to make a computer? Most likely, your answer is no.1 But, I do. This summer, I went to a camp that taught me how to make a game-boy, a device similar to what you're reading this on right now. Using the same techniques used to make the modern phone and computer we all know and love, I made an electronic that's commonly known. Let's dive in.
[ read more ][ jd303 ]The pixie_technologist post was about a kid who could show you a scoreboard: a robot, a science fair display, judges, a ribbon, tangible artifacts that all came with a result attached.
yummy_artisan doesn't operate that way.
About six months ago he announced he wanted to learn drums, with no explanation beyond simply wanting to. I didn't buy him a kit or sign him up for lessons. Instead, I printed out 12 practice patterns and told him he had 2 weeks to learn them. I wasn't going to remind him or ask twice. If he learned them, he could take lessons.
[ read more ][ jd303 ]I love real data. A thousand actual responses beat one VC's keynote pitch every time. There's some hype baked into a self-selected survey, sure, but it's still real people describing real problems, how they think, how they're actually using these tools, day to day.
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[ jd303 ]This is a data dump post. This is the post with the most. There is lots of miscellanea, this is what we saved for later. This is the stuff that got cut, this is the overflow glut, for time and space and the recaps, here's what fell through all the gaps. Four keynotes deep and nothing's lost: Fable, Sonar, DeepMind, and cost, Dreaming, DSPy, and the code that's secure, robots still standing, still not quite mature.
[ read more ][ jd303 ]Somebody in AIWF scheduling has a sense of humor, intentional or not. Thariq Shihipar opened Day 3 at 9:05, followed twenty minutes later by Tariq Shaukat, who actually acknowledged the coincidence on stage himself. Two Tariqs, back to back, and I couldn't tell you if that was deliberate booking or just how this industry works now. Fun way to kick off the day, but it's not what actually stuck with me.
[ read more ][ jd303 ]Denver is a city that goes to sleep at 10pm on weeknights. Some weekend evenings, it might be up till 1 or 2am with the bars and clubs letting people out, concerts ending, the Nuggets or Avs fans grabbing a pint after extra time in the game, maybe a bacon wrapped sausage scarfed down as you're heading back to your home. But on a Sunday night? Maybe a few service industry folks, and that's it. San Francisco? It's much more awake. Bike couriers with boomboxes playing techno with shiny bright LEDs flashing, drunk girls spilling drinks over the floor of my hotel, tech bros bouncing around outside, it was still pretty lively when I got to my hotel.
[ read more ][ jd303 ]Monarch (his actual handle) is a good friend of mine, and he has good technical instincts. He's the kind of guy who spots a problem before it becomes a fire. We had dinner at Rougarou before heading to the Mr. Bill show at Cervantes - him, his partner, me, and my wife. Rougarou is a cocktail and wine bar with southern American food. Good room.
Somewhere in the evening, Monarch mentioned my website had accessibility issues for visually impaired users.
[ read more ][ jd303 ]Static sites don't have comments. That's the deal you make. There's no database, no runtime, no attack surface, and thus, no comment box. That seemed fine until the site was actually running and I started thinking about whether anyone who read something wanted somewhere to put a thought.
The obvious answer is Disqus. Hugo even has it built in - one template call and you're done. But Disqus is ad-supported, has a history of injecting trackers, and makes your readers create an account on a platform that exists to monetize their behavior. No thank you.
[ read more ][ jd303 ]Now that you've read how to set up Claude Code, let's look at some useful things you can do with it.
Somewhere around the fifth time I missed a school "you need to send your kid to school with this esoteric 2 week backorder costume today" because the email was buried under a fundraising blast and a Bloomz notification about something I definitely did not care about, I decided I needed to fix my "add this thing to my calendar" workflow. I didn't want a "build an integration" solution. I also didn't want a "set up a Zapier workflow and pray it still works in six months" solution. Instead, I just decided to tell Claude to go read my email and tell me what I missed.
[ read more ][ jd303 ]There's a lot you can do with Claude or any other Large Language Model (LLM) through their web interface, but if you want to go deeper, Claude Code is the way to get there. With Claude, you don't need to know how to program (but it definitely helps). You do, however, need a Windows machine (or macOS with terminal), some patience, the willingness to type commands into a box rather than click buttons (using Linux or macOS terminal), and at least the Pro account, but at $20/month, it's a steal. The payoff: you build real things iteratively - describe what you want, review what you get, refine. It's worth the setup.
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