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202513

An image of the Tidal Cycles logo with a colorful waveform background.
Tidal Cy­cles
10 23 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
Notes and resources on Haskell and the Tidal Cycles REPL, and integrating it with Neovim....
16
codemedia art
An image of the popular Benchy 3D model, often used for testing 3D printers.
3D Print­ing
10 20 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
Notes and resources on 3D printing, including various printing technologies, popular printers, slicing software, and tips for successful prints....
5
codeDIY
Pixelated black and white image of a diagram with a hand inserting filament into the hotend of a Creality Ender 3 Pro.
En­der 3 Pro
10 20 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
Notes, tips, and tricks for using, maintaining, and upgrading the Creality Ender 3 Pro 3D printer....
12
codeDIY
A spinner flips around a circle of the logos of Linux distributions. The Mac OS logo peaks out from a corner.
Dis­tro Hop­ping
07 24 2025blogDaniel Tompkins
As a kid, Windows and macOS were the only consumer-ready operating systems that I knew existed. I started on Windows 95, and didn't have an understanding about ...
12
codeLinux
Elekta's megneto-enchephalography (MEG) machine— a large crescent-shaped chair capable of recording the electromagnetic impulses of an organic brain.
Cod­ing with Vibes
04 03 2025blogDaniel Tompkins
Dictating is often a lot faster than typing, especially with sophisticated transcription tools. Because of its logical structure, code is a lot harder to dictat...
101
codeculture
A window into a recording studio with a lit sign above it that reads "LIVE" in glowing neon red letters. Through the window, you can see a person wearing headphones. They are speaking into a microphone.
Stream­ing
03 31 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
Knowledge about streaming tools, techniques, and software....
cultureInternet
A window into a recording studio with a lit sign above it that reads "LIVE" in glowing neon red letters. Through the window, you can see a person wearing headphones. They are speaking into a microphone.
OBS
03 31 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
Tutorials and usage guides for creating content with the Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)....
2
cultureInternet
A vintage ADM-3A terminal— image taken from the manual.
From QED to Neovim
03 09 2025blogDaniel Tompkins
From QED to Neovim, this blog post unveils the history and evolution of the digital text editor. Modern systems require a method to precisely select, input, and...
31
codeculture
Screenshot of code in a terminal with a grainy look— like a picture of a CRT
Ter­mi­nals
02 03 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
This documents some of the most popular terminal emulators— commenting on the speed and features of Ghostty, Alacritty, WezTerm, and more....
3
codesysadmin
The Ghostty terminal logo on a gradient background
Ghost­ty
07 27 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
Ghostty is a terminal emulator written in Zig, designed for speed and modern features like ligatures, undercurl, and image support....
12
codesysadmin
Next logo centered over a background of formatted code
Next.js
02 01 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
In this page I share my experience using Next without Vercel hosting— and its associated costs ($$$), instead hosting on a generic VPS....
4
codesysadmin
Neovim
Neovim
01 04 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
Drop your IDE and make Neovim your programming daily driver. Explore the incredible features of this modernized fork of Vim— including asynchronous events and L...
1
codesysadmin
The Docker symbol— a blue ship, similar to a whale, with shipping containers atop.
Dock­er
02 18 2025kbDaniel Tompkins
Notes on Docker (and Docker Compose)— the popular containerization platform for building portable application images and containers....
codeLinux

20241

Lines of gibberish text overlaid atop a background of multicolored vertical stripes.
LLM
12 21 2024kbDaniel Tompkins
Large language models (LLMs) have proven to be powerful way to interact with digital information in a conversational manner....
1
codesysadmin

20213

Gif of me clicking the middle and right switches on a black foot-pedal with 3 switches total
Vim Clutch
05 21 2021blogDaniel Tompkins
Hacking together a Vim Clutch from the foot-pedal control of a dictation machine. Learn how to make a Raspberry Pi 0 be recognized across operating syste...
10
DIYelectronics
Example of lead-acid battery post corrosion
Cars and Fish
04 19 2021blogDaniel Tompkins
Far too many of us have been in the same gut-wrenching situation. You're late. The doors slam as you rush into your car. Then you turn the key, and ... nothi...
1
DIYculture
Screenshot of desktop windows arranged with i3 (window manager) and the Regolith distro
Re­golith Lin­ux
02 04 2021blogDaniel Tompkins
When did you first use a computer? I remember sitting at the corner desk in my childhood bedroom playing Descent II. It was probably the first video game I had ...
1
WindowsLinux

202011

Screenshot of the "Regolith" Linux distro running graphically through the X windowing system on WSL2 on Windows 10.
WSL2
11 21 2020blogDaniel Tompkins
In 2001, Microsoft's former CEO— Steve Ballmer— was quoted by the online tech news publication, The Register, saying: Linux is a...
Linuxcode
Animated GIF of the bench being pressure-washed in the yard.
Mi­cro­fac­to­ry 02
10 14 2020blogDaniel Tompkins
During my undergrad in architecture, one of the things that most excited me was the opportunity to work in a fabrication shop. At the time, my school had a mode...
DIYfabrication
Meme of anime character asking if something is something which it is not. Loosed blog: people reading it: is this justification for spending way too much time working on a personal website?
The Hug of Death
08 27 2020blogDaniel Tompkins
When people are actually reading your blog, it might crash! Over the span of a couple days, this website got 8000+ unique visitors to the Signs of Life post— I ...
3
sysadminLinux
The Vim and Neovim logos juxtaposed together against a Matrix-y style / glitch-art background.
Vim
08 19 2020kbDaniel Tompkins
From Vi to Vim to Neovim, here are some useful tips for shortcut enthusiasts, terminal geeks, and serious software engineers alike....
codesysadmin
A close-up photograph of a silicon chip. It's a microcontroller with jumper cables and header sockets.
Mi­cro­con­trollers
08 07 2020kbDaniel Tompkins
Some microcontrollers are used together to form single-board computers (SBCs). These are computers on a single chip!...
3
codeelectronics
Colorful shipping containers being stacked in a grid by yellow cranes.
De­vOps
07 07 2020kbDaniel Tompkins
Developer operations (DevOps) is an important aspect of software engineering. Here are some of my notes and other useful DevOps tips....
3
codeLinux
Screenshot of grasshopper
Mi­cro­fac­to­ry 01
06 16 2020blogDaniel Tompkins
In high school, there was no shop class. Sometimes I'd work on a project in the garage with my dad. Most of his tools are older, corded, and often uncooperative...
1
DIYrobotics
Two screens on a desk, featuring cyberpunk terminals in an anime illustration style.
En­vi­ron­ments
06 07 2020kbDaniel Tompkins
As a software engineer or systems administrator, you'll want to know how to set up a BASH environment and configure an editor like Vim....
codeLinux
A loose overlap of two grids of lines. Some lines start to wriggle free of the grid and forge together like roots or bundles of wire.
In­tro­duc­tion
05 07 2020kbDaniel Tompkins
More and more accounts of people (often programmers) using the KB structure to store frequently referenced information led me to begin building my own....
1
codeculture
Screenshots of the warTOR app on a mobile device, all running from the Toshiba FlashAir WiFi SD card.
warTOR
05 06 2020blogDaniel Tompkins
Oddly, I don't remember when or how I got my hands on the Toshiba FlashAir card. These WiFi-enabled SD cards are made to transfer photos from a digital camera t...
21
media artDIY
Collection of emblems
Freego
01 12 2020blogDaniel Tompkins
The Boston Freedom Trail is a major tourist attraction for exploring many of the important monuments and sites of our nation's early history. My collaborators (...
media artelectronics

20199

Rosie the Roomba Remix
Rosie, the Room­ba Remix
12 20 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
You've probabaly seen the incredible kinetic artwork of Theo Jansen. In 2007, a TED video was released featuring the Dutch artist's Strandbeest— ...
1
electronicsrobotics
Animated gif rotating through images of the Inhabiting an Other chamber and thesis presentation.
In­hab­it­ing an Oth­er
11 20 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
Empathy… involves a lot of respect towards others… a tolerance to otherness without the projection of our feelings onto others, without stealing t...
media art
Pope flicking holy water from an aspergillum
Hot Tub Phone Re­pair
10 15 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
You shouldn't be allowed to have nice things when you forget your phone in your swimsuit pocket— not once, but twice! The first time was a Motorola Razr....
electronicsDIY
Gif of Abstractions conference swag, conference map, and Centipede highscore.
Ab­strac­tions II
10 08 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
Abstractions is a kickass Web developement conference started in Pittsburgh. This was only the second Abstractions ever!...
codedesign
Gif of politicians.
Bernie's Bills
10 08 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
Love Bernie's platform of student loan forgiveness? How could he actually achieve something like this?? Take a look at his bill....
1
politics
Gif of politicians.
De­mo­c­ra­t­ic De­bates
10 08 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
Livestream and discussion as we follow candidates through the Democratic Debates....
politics
Gif of screenshots from featured blogs
What the Blog?
07 02 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
Blogs?? That's right. You haven't time-traveled. We're 19 years past the turn of the millenium. People are giving up their writing to Medium, leaving ...
culture
Screenshot of the original CorrelatePro homepage (no longer active).
Killing a Start­up
06 09 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
Together with Sam Piecz, I co-founded a web application for visualizing personal financial data and test-building portfolios. Since 2016, I worked as a designer...
codebusiness
Animated gif rotating through photos of the Signs of Life exhibit. There's a photo of the thin tripod structure and projector, a photo of the GOES image, and an image of classmates trying on their headphones.
Signs of Life
01 18 2019blogDaniel Tompkins
FM radio headphones were given out at the door. Each set was tuned beforehand to receive a broadcast from my programmed station. Visitors were then invited to w...
3
media artelectronics

20188

A network of people, information, and culture visualized as a faceted tapestry.
Pub­lic In­ter­net
05 02 2018blogDaniel Tompkins
Nearly a decade ago, Facebook pioneered the concept of social media. However, it wasn’t until recently— as the platform boasts 2.1 billion users&...
Internetpolitics
A network of people, information, and culture visualized as a faceted tapestry.
Pub­lic Do­main
04 27 2018blogDaniel Tompkins
In the previous post, I took a quick look at Cass Sunstein's #republic— particularly, at the mechanisms of online polarization. I'm also empathet...
culturemedia art
A council of people sitting in a chamber, visualized through the pages of a book as a frame.
A Re­pub­lic, If You Can Keep It
04 25 2018blogDaniel Tompkins
Nicco's class Media and Journalism in the Digital Age is centered on what we're forced to loosely refer to as "news", or perhaps "news media". We talke...
Internetpolitics
Screenshot of desktop windows arranged with i3 (window manager) and the Regolith distro
The New News
04 11 2018blogDaniel Tompkins
Last year I wrote a first draft of a paper, The Internet of Anxiety, which essentially documented the growing pains of the universe of information and ...
politicsInternet
Image of Reagon pointing with the caption, "Tear down this wall!"
Mr. Ba­quet, Tear Down this Wall
03 28 2018blogDaniel Tompkins
In 2014, The New York Times released an internal innovation report (since leaked to the public) on how a shifting— increasingly mobile and social...
Internetpolitics
A collection of leather shoes.
Shoe-Leather Pol­i­tics
03 11 2018blogDaniel Tompkins
In The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, the closed curtains typically shrouding the inner-workings of campaigns are drawn op...
Internetpolitics
A person's illustrated cartoon, distorted portrait morphed and warped and distorted into a pie chart which displays various data about the person. This civic data graphic artistically shows unique information about a person.
Whole Cit­i­zens
02 18 2018blogDaniel Tompkins
In the previous article, I took a look at David Karpf's Analytic Activism— examining how political campaigns have reacted to a hybrid me...
1
Internetpolitics
An illustrated person inside of a bubble, on their cell phone. There are words coming out and bouncing back at the person.
Pub­lic Cit­i­zens
01 31 2018blogDaniel Tompkins
At times, public domain renders itself as a physical environment— perhaps a park, or plaza. Conceptually, though, it has no explicit point of ref...
1
Internetpolitics