3,186 karma · joined April 14, 2009
Now I run Thinkamingo where we build fun educational mobile apps.
I'm helping build BioscanR where we're applying modern sensor technology and analysis in the healthcare space.
I help run Tampa Hackerspace where I mostly get to watch other people build neat stuff while I focus on building the hackerspace. But I get to dabble in electronics, microcontrollers, art, 3D printing, etc. when I can.
I coach FIRST robotics, teaching high school kids to build and program competitive robots.
We had a big thriving Microsoft focused community here with multiple Meetup groups and multiple events every month but that died down as they laid off developer evangelists and then closed the local Microsoft office about 2 years ago.
There is a big, broad tech Meetup group here that's kind of thriving but their biggest draw events are "anything mentioning AI" meh. It's hard for them to find places to meet that can accommodate 50-100 visitors.
They're all but out of the launch business now but claim to be continuing research on it. There are a lot of skeptics that it would ever work (at actual orbital velocity).
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/spinlaunch-yes-the-cen...
Also the one where Wally insists his towel gets cleaner every time he uses it: https://br.omega.com/dilbert/311.html
There's one somewhere where they're eating lunch and I think Wally asks Dilbert if he has any extra napkins and Dilbert says he won't know until he's done eating.
The whole thing just makes sense as a software dev. There's an input standard, output standard, and I guess a processing rate expectation (or not - that was probably the second biggest issue we faced was some slow contraptions that would back up). (The first biggest issue was a contraption that "pinged" the balls through the air to a landing container and would sometimes send them off randomly or kids would try to catch them.)
This is partly from LEGO fans previous work on railroad, town, space base, etc. modular builds where they have a spec for where each unit should connect and people bring in their own creations and link them all up.
I've always wanted to do something like the great ball contraption in general at makerfaires but open to all kinds of build materials, techniques, power, etc.
If they had to divert, St. Pete Clearwater is right there and big. They probably flew right over it. Orlando and Sarasota are also much closer than Ft. Lauderdale. Maybe they didn't want St. Pete/Clearwater or Sarasota because of weather or Southwest doesn't use them, but Orlando gets plenty of Southwest traffic.
Currently main a 16" M1 Pro MacBook Pro. About half the time it's connected to a Thunderbolt dock, 27" monitor (and sometimes a second monitor), keyboard + mouse/trackpad, ethernet, external SSD(s) at least for Time Machine, webcam, good mic on a shock mount arm, speakers, etc. I very rarely push the thermal limits or ram. It's incredibly useful to me, at least psychologically, to be able to pick up my main machine, with everything already on it, and move somewhere else in the house or get out of the house.
I do own some desktops but mostly use an older small gaming rig that can double as a dev machine but except for the GPU and SSD space it's weaker than my MacBook. It's actually small enough to throw in a large laptop bag with kb+mouse and a travel monitor but I rarely do that.