It's just a garage door, right? It's just a switch, right? How hard can it be to automate it? In this article, I explore the connections between a number of projects which I've been working on for quite some time, now.

Clearly I haven't written in a while. I've been busy with all manner of projects, of late. However, since this will be mostly video and image posting, I thought it couldn't hurt to get a quick article up.

Computers are so intricate, complex, and finely tuned that it can be scary for young folks to spend any significant time getting their hands on the hardware, and really exploring. What's more, it's not common for people to really understand what parts make up a computer, and how they can be used.

I was very happy to participate in the Idaho 4-H "Know Your Government" (KYG) Conference in Boise this past weekend. Let me tell you, it was an absolute blast! I loved it! And what's more, I think the youth loved it, too.

I've often written about the various bits of project work pertaining to my Engineering Capstones. I'm proud to say that they've made some really impressive steps, and for that I'm both thankful and very proud. But until now, it's been a bit of a mess trying to put all that information in one place. Now, I'm getting better about that!

If you're a nerd like me, you can probably think of your favorite self-hosted application right now. Better yet, you can probably think of all the reasons you love it. You know, one of the staples of a great self-hosted application is its ability to make the configuration your own and do so easily! I've been working on a number of little applications lately and they all need configuration, so I've started setting this up with the help of Python and TOML!

Somehow, I've managed to build quite a few random Python package, and contribute to others. I've recently been working towards converting all of the Python projects I manage to the new pyproject.toml standards for packaging, and I've recently had to work through an interesting little challenge for some of the projects which only contain a sigle Python file. No module folder, no __init__.py. Just a single file.

We know that I'm something of an audio buff. I love having music around me all the time. But isn't that becoming more of a staple in the American home, anyway? I certainly think so. There's lots of folks who are also listening to music all the time. I have my own personal preferences, though. (Shocker, I know.) The thing is, I want my audio system to tie nicely into my home. I want play/pause buttons scattered around, and well... I've got more demands.

I'm ready to manage my audio "wiring" a bit more virtually, these days, and I'm ready to do that with some of the cool new tools available in Linux. Luckily for me, Pipewire has some command-line applications that make doing that an absolute cinch! And what's better, I can do it from Python, and make it a little more automagic. Now THAT's what I'm talking about!

So, I've got an old (1992) Ford pickup, and it's got a newer-ish stereo. I love keeping my favorite tunes on a USB stick that I can play everything from, but I HATE it when the volume changes from one song to the next. I go from barely being able to hear the music to having my eardrums blown out in 0.5 seconds. So, I've come to the conclusion that I need to fix that. With PYTHON!