16 Mar 2017
Early this afternoon I received an email out of the blue from a Qualtrics recruiter. This came as a surprise to me, not only because it was unsolicited, but because the last time I interacted with Qualtrics their smarmy cuss of a recruiter wouldn’t even look at my resume because I hadn’t taken a very specific computer science class. It’s also very uncommon for me to get hit up by recruiters, since I’m not that big of a deal, and I also don’t have a linkedIn profile. Keeping with the company’s apparent love for the “brogramming” culture, the email was equal parts hysterical, sad, and insulting. Going against my better judgment, I decided to post the full content of the email with comments explaining how I felt about it. Hi David, A colleague of mine passed your resume to me today as she thought that you could be a great...
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29 Dec 2016
As an electronics hobbiest and software developer, I’m often approached by acquaintances with various ideas for apps, websites, or electronics. What’s interesting is that often people take very serious ownership of their ideas, as if they have some kind of inherit value. In reality, ideas are worthless. This post was not written in response to any specific experience I’ve had, but rather it’s just something I’ve been thinking about lately. About a year ago, I received an email from an old coworker. He put me in touch with a few students who were looking for a “hardware guy” to help them develop a commodity electronics project they had an idea for. I eagerly accepted their invitation to meet up and discuss it further, as I’m always interested and eager to help people out with hardware stuff and just to get to know people. Their idea was pretty simple really, it...
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15 Nov 2016
Disclaimer: PCBWay gave me a $25 credit for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. They did not influence my opinions in any way. Since getting into printed circuit boards (PCBs) about two years ago, I’ve had boards made at three different companies: OSHPark, Dirty PCBs, and PCBWay. I think all are very good options for beginners, so this blog post will be discussing the pros and cons of them. Hopefully it will aid budding hardware hackers in their quest to get boards made! It should be noted that all three of these services are considered “PCB prototype” services. Meaning, if you want to make 100,000 boards, you may be better off going somewhere else. OSHPark I’ll be honest up front: this is my least favorite of the 3. Before you go grabbing your pitchforks, please hear me out. OSHPark is a PCB fabrication house based in the...
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14 Oct 2016
A coworker recently asked me how I liked my Oneplus 3. I had to answer honestly and say I didn’t like it that much. I think Android in general is just not appealing to me anymore, and Google is not committed to anything so it’s hard to buy into their phones. The conversation shifted to the possibility of moving to an iPhone, so I thought I’d make a pros and cons list of an iPhone. This is specific to my uses, but I hope others will find it interesting as well. If anything on this list is incorrect, please let me know in the comments. I’ve never used an iPhone and have very little experience with them. iPhone Pros: Break free of Google Voice but still send texts from my computer (iMessage) No more worrying about google killing google voice/hangouts/whatever iMessage is actually really good Consistency Knowing I’ll be supported...
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06 Oct 2016
I’ve been working with the very talented KeFF for the past few weeks to come up with some artwork for my shop and online identity catskull. I couldn’t be more pleased with the results! I thought I’d throw them up on here for everyone to see. Going forward, you will be seeing this artwork in all of my endeavors. Stickers would be super cool!
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