https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/Recent posts from CONSPICUOUS TECHNOLOGISTHugoen-usjd303https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/09/homelab-samba/Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/09/homelab-samba/ [ jd303 ] Greetings, fellow network hoarders. Today we're setting up Samba on the pi - SMB shares accessible from Windows, Mac, and Linux without installing anything on the client side. Your pi becomes a NAS. This is part 4 of the CTLab Homelab series.
These detailed instructions are for the sysadmins that want to know what's actually happening on the wire. If you're a lamer and just want the files, head to warez and let the bootstrap handle it.
raspberry-pisambasmbnetworkingfile-sharingself-hostingconsultinghttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/09/homelab-claude-code/Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/09/homelab-claude-code/ [ jd303 ] Greetings, fellow silicon soldiers. Today we're installing Claude Code on the Pi we set up in part 1 so it runs as a persistent session you can SSH into from anywhere. Your dev environment, always on, always where you left it. This is part 3 of the CTLab Homelab series.
Again, these are detailed instructions on how to do this for the wannabe wizards. If you want to be a lame voodoo programmer you can also just skip to the warez section and use the bootstrap to get this all running immediately.
raspberry-piclaude-codeaiself-hostingsshconsultinghttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/08/homelab-pihole/Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/08/homelab-pihole/ [ jd303 ] Greetings, fellow packet rats! Today we're adding Pi-hole to the stack: local DNS, ad blocking, and custom hostnames for every service on the network. This is part 2 of the CTLab Homelab series. Part 1 covers OS setup, Docker, and nginx.
Don't forget, these are detailed instructions on how to do this for real h4x0rZ that want to know how things work. If you want to fail at your Guru Meditation you can also just skip to the warez section and use the bootstrap to get this all running immediately.
raspberry-pidockerpiholednsself-hostingconsultinghttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/08/homelab-local-webserver/Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/08/homelab-local-webserver/ [ jd303 ] Greetings, fellow baud bandits! Running a home lab is something every 31337 h@ck3r needs to do. Today we'll be learning how to run a local web server on a Raspberry Pi 5 using nginx and Docker Compose. In future installments of this series, we'll install Pi-hole for local DNS (and ad-blocking) so everything gets a real hostname on your network, create a local Certificate Authority for secure connections, set up Home Assistant, and lots of other interesting things!
raspberry-pidockernginxself-hostingconsultinghttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/08/raising-hackers-pixie-circuits/Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/08/raising-hackers-pixie-circuits/ [ 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.
raising-hackerscircuitsarduinosolderingelectronicshttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/08/raising-hackers-yummy-artisan/Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/08/raising-hackers-yummy-artisan/ [ 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.
raising-hackersdrumspianomusicmusescoredrawingpaintingarthttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/07/aiwf-state-of-ai-engineering-survey/Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/07/aiwf-state-of-ai-engineering-survey/ [ 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.
aiwf-2026https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/07/aiwf-conference-miscellanea/Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/07/aiwf-conference-miscellanea/ [ 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.
aiwf-2026claudeanthropicsonarai-agentsroboticssecuritydeepmindhttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/07/aiwf-day-3-4-recap/Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/07/aiwf-day-3-4-recap/ [ 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.
aiwf-2026clauderoboticsanthropicsonarai-agentshttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/07/aiwf-day-1-2-recap/Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/07/aiwf-day-1-2-recap/ [ 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.
aiwf-2026ai-agentsclaudeatlassianawsdatadoghttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/too-much-signal-interference/Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/too-much-signal-interference/ [ 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.
accessibilityadacssclaudelegalsmall-businessconsultinghttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/adding-comments-giscus/Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/adding-comments-giscus/ [ 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.
hugogiscusgithubcommentsmetahttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/claude-reads-my-email/Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/claude-reads-my-email/ [ 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.
claudegmailgoogle-calendarautomationconsultinghttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/claude-code-getting-started/Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/claude-code-getting-started/ [ 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.
claude-codewslwindowslinuxaigetting-startedbeginnersconsultinghttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/ethics-autonomous-vehicles-part-3/Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/06/ethics-autonomous-vehicles-part-3/ [ jd303 ] If you made it to part 3, congratulations, you're an ethics or philosophy nerd! This part gets technical about ethical frameworks and might not be for everyone. Still, it's important to understand what you're signing up for ethically if you get into a self-driving car. [ the paper ] Frameworks for Ethical Testing While validating that an autonomous vehicle performs ethically is a complex topic, researchers have proposed new and existing frameworks as guidance. Fleetwood believes that the Code of Ethics for Public Health, a widely cited framework for public health ethics, can provide a starting point for health advocates to advocate for the rights of individuals while also protecting public health with public input (2017). Public health officials can also ensure that communities can make informed decisions on if and how autonomous vehicles work on their roads, making sure manufacturers obtain community consent on their operation (Fleetwood, 2017).
autonomous-vehiclesethicswaymoresearchaihttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/dps-phone-ban/Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/dps-phone-ban/
[ 5th grade email ] 5th Grade Families,
To help us maintain a fully engaged and distraction-free learning environment, we are writing to clarify our policy regarding smartwatches. Recently, we have seen an increase in students using the communication and messaging features on their watches during instructional time.
Starting immediately, all smartwatches and phones must be powered off and kept securely inside students' backpacks for the entire school day. If a student is seen using their device, or has it out of their backpack during school hours, the device will be taken to the front office. If this happens, parents will be contacted and required to come to the school to pick it up.
dpsphonesschoolsraising-hackersresearchpolicyhttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/ethics-autonomous-vehicles-part-2/Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/ethics-autonomous-vehicles-part-2/ [ jd303 ] Aaaaand now, the moment you have all been waiting for... the segment pseudo-philosophers squawk about, the cliché corner of the Autonomous Vehicle debate, yet probably the most complex and important... THE TROLLEY PROBLEM!!! [ the paper ] The Trolley Problem and Accident Algorithms Many ethical, legal, and liability concerns with autonomous vehicles stem from how accident algorithms solve the trolley problem. Philosopher Philippa Foot, who originally conceived of the trolley problem, describes it as a situation where five men are working on a train track and one man is working on another section of track, with a runaway tram heading toward the five men (1967). The train operator or another observer must make a choice to either throw a switch to move the tram to the other track, killing only one person, or take no action and allow the train to kill the five men (Foot, 1967). Similar situations can arise with various ethical consequences, with Foot providing examples of a judge framing an innocent man when the guilty party is unknown, preventing rioters from violently attacking a community if they do not see justice for a crime, or a pilot making the choice to crash land a failing aircraft to a less populated area (1967). With self-driving cars, there are many potential trolley problems, and accident algorithms will need some type of ethical examination for determining who might live or die.
autonomous-vehiclesethicswaymoresearchaihttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/ethics-autonomous-vehicles/Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/ethics-autonomous-vehicles/ [ jd303 ] A few weeks ago I was sitting at a stoplight in my Escape, about eight blocks from my house, and a Waymo rolled up next to me. It took me a second to register what I was looking at. The spinning sensor array on top is the tell. I told the kids to look. They looked. I mentioned there was nobody inside. They said "cool," asked a couple questions, and by the time we got home it was already yesterday's news.
autonomous-vehiclesethicswaymoresearchaihttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/raising-hackers-pixie-technologist/Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/raising-hackers-pixie-technologist/ [ jd303 ] This is the first post in a series called Raising Hackers, written by a 90s hacker turned professional who understands both the genuinely impressive things technology makes possible and the ways it'll work against you if you're not paying attention.
Our family's parenting style is not "here's a YouTube playlist, don't bug me, I'm working." Far from it. We are not iPad parents. We'd rather our kids understand: here's what this thing is, here's how to use it, here's what the companies that make it want from you (money), and here's how to protect yourself. A real example of this is that most kid stars on YouTube are not real (not the way they appear, anyway). We show that with behind-the-scenes research with them.
raising-hackersroboticsscratchscience-fairmbot2vexpythonhttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/google-search-console/Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/05/google-search-console/ [ jd303 ] Okay, now that the site is up, I've got some posts scheduled, why is there low traffic? Oh, nobody knows about it. Time to fix that. The first step is getting it onto Google. Is this something you may have also forgotten to do for YOUR site? [ claude ] What you need:
Access to your domain's DNS panel (DreamHost in this case) A Google accounthugodreamhostmetaseohttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/04/oblique-strategies/Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/04/oblique-strategies/ [ jd303 ] Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt published a card deck in 1975 called Oblique Strategies. Each card has a single action on it - sometimes a question, sometimes a directive, sometimes something that sounds like an esoteric fortune cookie.
"Ghost echoes" "Bridges -build -burn" "Give way to your worst impulse" "Idiot glee (?)" What the hell do these mean? Who knows. They're not instructions so much as interruptions. You're stuck, so you draw a card, and it breaks whatever loop you're in. It's supposed to help you move past your block.
oblique-strategiesmusicclaudetoolsenohttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/04/synth-patch-generator/Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/04/synth-patch-generator/ [ jd303 ] Part 1 covered getting the actual patch data right: correcting .ins files, cataloguing 2,172 patches across 6 synths, and building a reference library. That part was mostly Claude doing data extraction and reconciliation work.
Once the library existed, the next problem was obvious: browsing a markdown file is not a workflow. I wanted something that could generate a starting patch combination for a track based on feel, let me pick which synth covers which role, and export directly into Reaper. So that's what we built.
claudesynthesizersmusictoolsjavascriptreaperhttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/04/synth-patch-library/Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/04/synth-patch-library/ [ jd303 ] I have six hardware synthesizers. Each one has its own patch library, its own quirks, its own way of organizing sounds. Some of them have printed manuals. Some have handwritten notes taped to the wall. Some have .ins files that are supposed to tell my DAW what patches exist and where, except those files were wrong. Like, completely wrong.
The practical problem is this: when I sit down to write a track, I don't want to dig through menus on six different pieces of hardware trying to remember where I saved that acid bass patch or which synth has the pad I'm thinking of. I wanted a way to browse across everything, filter by feel, and get to work. That didn't exist, so I built it.
claudesynthesizersmusictoolsmidihttps://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/04/bootstrapping-this-site/Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.conspicuoustechnologist.com/2026/04/bootstrapping-this-site/ [ jd303 ] I've been meaning to put something up at this domain for a while. Not a blog in the "please subscribe and smash that like button" sense. Just a place to write about stuff I'm actually doing. Tech, music, tools, the occasional rant. The usual.
The question was always what to build it on. The obvious answer is WordPress because it's the obvious answer, and that's exactly why I didn't want it. I already manage too much infrastructure at work. I'm not spending my free time chasing plugin updates and PHP vulnerabilities for a personal site. Ghost was the next candidate, cleaner than WordPress, decent API, but it's still a server you have to babysit. I wanted something I could git push and walk away from.
hugodreamhostclaudemeta