Loosed Design & Technology Blog

Tidal Cycles

Notes and resources on Haskell and the Tidal Cycles REPL, and integrating it with Neovim.

3D Printing

Notes and resources on 3D printing, including various printing technologies, popular printers, slicing software, and tips for successful prints.

Ender 3 Pro

Notes, tips, and tricks for using, maintaining, and upgrading the Creality Ender 3 Pro 3D printer.

Distro Hopping

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 the underlying differences in kernels, filesystems, and user interfaces. I started playing with Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu and discovered...

Coding with Vibes

Dictating is often a lot faster than typing, especially with sophisticated transcription tools. Because of its logical structure, code is a lot harder to dictate than normal speech. LLMs, however, are perfect for translating natural language into code. I never thought I'd consider vibe coding— conversational programming— a viable work method. Although, after setting up my own AI-assisted programming environment, I'm becoming enthusiastic about the possibilities it offers.

Streaming

Knowledge about streaming tools, techniques, and software.

OBS

Tutorials and usage guides for creating content with the Open Broadcaster Software (OBS).

From QED to Neovim

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 arrage text. It's natural that this tool should become indispensable.

Terminals

This documents some of the most popular terminal emulators— commenting on the speed and features of Ghostty, Alacritty, WezTerm, and more.

Ghostty

Ghostty is a terminal emulator written in Zig, designed for speed and modern features like ligatures, undercurl, and image support.

Next.js

In this page I share my experience using Next without Vercel hosting— and its associated costs ($$$), instead hosting on a generic VPS.

Neovim

Drop your IDE and make Neovim your programming daily driver. Explore the incredible features of this modernized fork of Vim— including asynchronous events and Lua scripting.

Graph

A force-directed graph of nodes and edges which visualizes the relationships between articles (blog posts and knowledge base) and their tags.

LLM

Large language models (LLMs) have proven to be powerful way to interact with digital information in a conversational manner.

Terms and Conditions

These are the terms and conditions for interacting with the l-o-o-s-e-d website.

Privacy Policy

This is the privacy policy page for l-o-o-s-e-d.net

Live

Live page

What I Use

Check out my gear and let me know in the comments what you're using!

About

What is l-o-o-s-e-d.net? Learn more about Dan Tompkins, the architecture school graduate developing and writing for this private lifestyle/tech blog.

Knowledge Base

The index of the Dan Tompkins' personal knowledge base, zettelkasten, or wiki. Discover the rare curiosities of the Loosed knowledge base here.

Vim Clutch

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 systems as a plug-and-play Human-Interface Device (HID), or keyboard. See me struggle with Python and solder some really tiny leads.

Cars and Fish

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 ... nothing. If you're less unlucky, you might still hear a click— or see the flash of a dash icon...

Regolith Linux

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 ever played. The keyboard controlled the...

WSL2

In 2001, Microsoft's former CEO— Steve Ballmer— was quoted by the online tech news publication, The Register, saying: Linux is a

Microfactory 02

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 modest metal shop and a slightly more expansive wood shop. They also provided students with two 3-axis CNTMotion CNC mills— each with a 5x10' bed. I've used these machines professionally as well, and (while they cost as much as a new Porsche) they're really well-built tools.

The Hug of Death

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 was "hugged" when I shared it on Hacker News.

Vim

From Vi to Vim to Neovim, here are some useful tips for shortcut enthusiasts, terminal geeks, and serious software engineers alike.

Microcontrollers

Some microcontrollers are used together to form single-board computers (SBCs). These are computers on a single chip!

DevOps

Developer operations (DevOps) is an important aspect of software engineering. Here are some of my notes and other useful DevOps tips.

Docker

Notes on Docker (and Docker Compose)— the popular containerization platform for building portable application images and containers.

Microfactory 01

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. I remember using saw-horses that wobbled— and a slightly rusted Skilsaw— to cut down ply for a Boy Scouts derby car. It had a hand-brake and a rope for steering. My dad seemed to stub his fingers and rake all the splinters into his hands anytime we worked with wood or tools. There was always a lot of cursing and frustration; and sometimes I hated being out there with him. Now, more or less, I look on those memories fondly...

Environments

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.

Bookmarks Dump

Exactly what the title says! I'll try to keep this page going with an updated dump of my bookmarks. You can export yours too— the tutorial's screenshots are outdated, but it still gets you to the right place. I used a couple simple Javascript functions to pull in the downloaded JSON file from Firefox, parse through it, and then styled the list with some basic CSS.

Introduction

More and more accounts of people (often programmers) using the KB structure to store frequently referenced information led me to begin building my own.

warTOR

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 to a

Freego

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 (Alicia Valencia, Hüma Şahin, Mallory Nezam) and I were tasked to address this historical pilgrimage— to observe and reflect on these sites in their past and present contexts.

Rosie, the Roomba Remix

You've probabaly seen the incredible kinetic artwork of Theo Jansen. In 2007, a TED video was released featuring the Dutch artist's Strandbeest— a skeletal-looking, beach crawler. Jansen's unique mechanical design allows the "beest" to walk across the sand, propelled by the wind.

Inhabiting an Other

Empathy… involves a lot of respect towards others… a tolerance to otherness without the projection of our feelings onto others, without stealing their voice and narrative. There is total acceptance of the difference in the other's (object's) feelings. Empathy is the way to understand another human being's spirit and mind, not only his feelings. In a confrontation with the other, and in respect for his experience, we can compare our lives and relfect on our morality and values. Empathy with another person helps us to know ourselves. Knowledge of another human being is therefore a way of self-reflection.

Hot Tub Phone Repair

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. I was swimming at my grandma's condo and came out of the pool with a dripping flip phone...

Bernie's Bills

Love Bernie's platform of student loan forgiveness? How could he actually achieve something like this?? Take a look at his bill.

Democratic Debates

Livestream and discussion as we follow candidates through the Democratic Debates.

Abstractions II

Abstractions is a kickass Web developement conference started in Pittsburgh. This was only the second Abstractions ever!

What the Blog?

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 Facebook (not MySpace), and YTMND is disappearing...

Killing a Startup

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 and— eventually— as the go-to Javascript (JS) coder, for...

Reading List

If you're interested in a decentralized Internet, if you wonder how technology infiltrates politics (for better or worse), or if you're simply itching for a good read— take a look at one of the titles below. You'll find a mix of the pleasurable and the scholarly; but undoubtably something interesting.

Signs of Life

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 walk around the room, contemplating the artifacts of the exhibit.

Public Internet

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— that the full consequences of such an ubiquitous network have burst into the public eye. Now, Zuckerberg’s famed motto, “move fast and break things,” may have in fact contributed to a broken democracy. In his recent testimony before Congress, it also became evident that our elected representatives' lack of digital literacy only serves to exacerbate the situation.

Public Domain

In the previous post, I took a quick look at Cass Sunstein's #republic— particularly, at the mechanisms of online polarization. I'm also empathetic to Sunstein's hopes for a dedicated online Commons. Here, I wanted to write some observations on the quality of designed spaces for shared experience— looking especially at the application of public art. Sunstein calls for a public domain, designated to popular deliberation— a kind of incubator of social progress. I wonder how we might compare a sidewalk and a park in this capacity— or better yet, an old public house to a digital forum? In what way does art function in this space to provoke or curate shared experience? To approach these questions, I'd like to tell a story about an artist, David Powers.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

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 talked about print news, which I feel (with the admitted naivety of a Millennial) conjures the most powerful image of News— or the ideals of a journalistic practice. No doubt The Post (the recent film) has sought to reinforce that feeling. It had Spielberg's classic cinematic affect, but a healthy optimism for ethics in journalism— especially in parallel with the "fake news" crysis. In class, we did touch upon the physical speed at which printed news (despite those incredible machines!) lags behind digital; but, I'm curious about printed books as well...

The New News

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 communication technologies (ICTs) from radio to the Internet. The present media ecosystem seems to be the result of a "coming of age" of the past 30 years of technological innovation. Though it can hardly be said to be a moment of rest, there is a sense that we are experiencing fewer paradigm-shifting changes in technology.

Mr. Baquet, Tear Down this Wall

In 2014, The New York Times released an internal innovation report (since leaked to the public) on how a shifting— increasingly mobile and social— media ecology is demanding the need for an agile business model to support their already exemplary foundations in journalism. The restructuring of their organization prompts a debate on how the typically walled-off newsroom is expected to interact with the commercial side of business— advertising, promotional outreach, R&D, and audience acquisition— all the while maintaining the valued integrity of its writing.

Shoe-Leather Politics

In The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, the closed curtains typically shrouding the inner-workings of campaigns are drawn open, providing an insider's view on voter acquisition and the organizational topographies that feed these intense mobilization efforts. With some exceptional first-person accounts from leading figures in political science and campaign management, Sasha Issenberg details an intimate narrative of how these election machines have evolved. What is particularly interesting is how political veterans are adapting old "shoe-leather politics" to incorporate modern and interdisciplinary strategies in data analytics, voter microtargeting, and predictive algorithmic modeling.

Whole Citizens

In the previous article, I took a look at David Karpf's Analytic Activism— examining how political campaigns have reacted to a hybrid media environment. In that article, I also imagined a public citizen, a parrhesiastes, to participate in the establishment of a digital public domain for vibrant political speech and discussion beyond social media's "echo chambers"— disparate information bubblees filtered of ideologically oppositional content. Karpf's collective analysis of how media and analytics function within the modern political arena is incredibly insightful and engaging — but how did we get here? Additionally, how can past political campaigns function as models for the strategic implementation of emerging technologies in future races and activist movements?

Public Citizens

At times, public domain renders itself as a physical environment— perhaps a park, or plaza. Conceptually, though, it has no explicit point of reference. The public domain is built on events— the intimate exchange of strangers. The French philosopher, Michel Foucault, implies in his text— Fearless Speech— that the public domain is the engagement of space and dialogue.