james ainooson

How I failed to build a game console. Part II

Posted on 8th February 2023 under Making

In my previous post, I started discussing a failed attempt to build a fantasy game console. Since I didn’t provide enough technical details on my design and why it failed, you can consider this to be a postmortem report (of some sort) on the effort. But solely classifying this as a postmortem makes it sound like the project is dead, and that's actually not the case. While writing these posts, I've had a lot of time to think through the issues I faced, and I've developed a few ideas on what my next steps in reviving this project could be.

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How I failed to build a game console. Part I

Posted on 12th November 2022 under Making

Lately, I have been getting my hands dirty with the Raspberry Pi PICO and its RP2040 chip. Like most people who get into embedded systems—at least, as far as the bubble I fell into was making me think—I started off with some kind of portable hand held game console. It was meant to be a fantasy console named "AGORO".

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Progress Report: On Raspberry Pis — Meet the gumbox

Posted on 11th May 2022 under Making

Late last year I made a resolution to find uses for all the single board computers in my collection (see On Raspberry Pis). This decision was influenced by my wasteful addiction to single board computers. I say wasteful because I keep buying these devices, and I really never use them for anything. This, of course, is a huge waste, and to curb this waste, I have actively prevented myself from buying any new boards until I’ve made meaningful use of those in my collection.

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A quick fix for the Mazda 3's blower fun

Posted on 1st January 2022 under Cars

I currently live in a country where meaningful public transit is virtually non-existent. So, to get around, I rely on a 2005 Mazda 3 hatchback. It’s a simple car equipped with a 2.3L engine that is coupled to a 5 speed manual transmission. I’ve owned this car since 2017 and I love it so much. I’m pretty sure I’ll be driving it till it dies, and even when it dies someday, I’m convinced I will attempt an EV conversion.

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On Raspberry Pis

Posted on 1st November 2021 under Making

I bought my first Raspberry Pi in 2016, when the Model 3B was released. Although shipping this tiny board to Ghana cost me a pretty penny, I really thought it was worth it. After all I had several wonderful projects planned; projects that were going to give me a lot of fulfillment, even if they didn't generate any financial rewards. But the keyword in my statement here is “planned”, given that’s the state in which all the projects have remained. Since I never realized any of my projects, the tiny little computer board has remained in my drawer ever since.

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On Mechanical Keyboards

Posted on 14th October 2021 under Thrifting

For much of 2020, my youtube feed was saturated with content about mechanical keyboards. In every other video, there was someone either reviewing a mechanical keyboard or just typing on one. When I considered why I may have been inundated with these videos, I realized I may have strongly influenced the situation by positively engaging with this content whenever it was thrown at me. Through my actions, the youtube algorithm became well fed and delivered what—it maybe felt—I wanted. Somehow, the algorithm was right. Through the continuous exposure, I had become smitten, and I kept consuming the content. With time, this near-constant content consumption had a other effects on me: I started yearning to own a mechanical keyboard.

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