RF is More Magic Than Science: Exploring Meshtastic

My dad was a ham radio operator, so I spent a good chunk of my childhood tearing down rigs and building antennas with him. By the time I was old enough to break things on my own, I was compiling Linux kernels with AX.25 support just to mess around with packet radio. Truth is, RF is more magic than science. You can do the math all day, but physics always gets a vote in the end. ...

February 24, 2026 · 2 min · Nick Schmidt (oneguynick)

The Geek’s Guide to Bio-Telemetry: Validating the Gummy 🐻 Protocol

The breakthrough came when I stopped treating the wearable as a “coach” and started treating it as a sensor. Strategic Summary The Risk: Blindly following “black box” AI health advice. The Solution: Custom data wrangling and multi-year trend analysis. Status: Mission success confirmed by raw data, not app badges. I’ve been a health data geek since the Nike+ shoe sensor era. What started as curiosity evolved into a full-scale surveillance mission on my own biology. By leveraging AI to parse a decade of movement and heart rate trends, I’ve extracted actionable intelligence that not a single health professional has ever asked to see. It’s a strange tactical oversight: we have the telemetry, but it remains siloed from the people managing our care. ...

February 19, 2026 · 3 min · Nick Schmidt (oneguynick)

Artisanal Code, AI, and the Right to Repair the Future 🛠️ 📟 💾

I am a sucker for good design and character. In a world of mass produced replicas, there is something genuine about the feel of an error. It is that slight non perfection that proves a human hand was at work. For the majority of my kit, I want the perfect version, but the definition of perfection is shifting. Coding with AI currently occupies a curious mental space. I recognise the future and I accept the new methodology is upon us. Yet, I wonder if we are headed toward a world of Artisanal Code or Boutique Hand Written software, much like the resurgence of vinyl or analogue horology. ...

February 15, 2026 · 3 min · Nick Schmidt (oneguynick)