I have struggled a little to collect my thoughts around the Steam Deck. The Linux geek in me is astonished that I sat on an aeroplane and played Halo on an Arch powered gaming system. Given that people in my life are not necessarily that same type of geek, I am going to break this review into three sections: Is this a fun gaming device? Is it an excellent portable Linux system? I am not a tinkering gamer; should I buy one? ...
My generator was an island of mystery in my home data pool. The Overview When we moved to Northern Michigan, loosing power was not an option. While I was not working from home as much back then, my wonderful Wife made it very clear that she would not be going cold in the great artic winters we have. “Duly noted,” I said, and when our home was built, I ensured that we buried the power lines up our winding driveway and installed a 22kw Generac generator. I dusted off my hands and called it a day. Success! ...
One of our design philosophies at Blueprint Power is that you don’t spend too much time optimising code early on but instead focus on writing maintainable code with maintainable languages. More often than not, I have watched teams concentrate on picking the fastest language or improving the processing by some percentage instead of defining a solid data model and design pattern for the code. This hunch has served me well throughout the years. More often than not, by the time the performance bottleneck impacts you if your teams have been writing documented code in a readable language, it is easy enough to profile and optimise those areas that need it. For every performance landmine you find, there are at least a hundred you missed by focusing on this philosophy. ...
I have had the fantastic opportunity the past few years to learn the energy space inside and out at Blueprint Power. Everything from regulatory frameworks to how low-level ERT frames function on smart meters. I always started my elevator pitch with “My background is not in energy…” which isn’t entirely accurate in the more abstract sense. I wanted to share this because our industry is blossoming, with many brilliant people wishing to be part of the energy transition. A question that I often get is how to get a foot in the door of what is currently still a pretty small ecosystem. ...
My Father was stationed at Comiso Air Station when I was around two years old and was our home until kindergarten. The air station has since closed, but it holds a special place in my heart as I fell in love with computers and technology there. Our home was across the runway from the Base Exchange (BX), and we would ride our bikes across the base going to and from school, pick up my little brother, etc. For my younger self, though, that meant a visit to the BX where there was a computer section! I would dart to that section and instantly find one of the open systems. Without fail, my parents knew where to find me when they were ready to leave. ...