Posts

Self-replicating programs Let’s talk about self-replicating programs: A self-printing program, or quine, is a program that, when executed, prints it’s own source code. Why is this relevant? Think about DNA, humans or the RepRap movement. One can find many quines after a quick Google. However, most of them seem rather obfuscated and difficult to understand as if the author had tried to obscure them to brag about their skills. They appeal the programmer’s ego but do not provide much insight about how a sane human mind might have found them. ...

Introduction This project started with a simple question: How difficult would it be to get machine learning running locally on my FPV drone? After several iterations, I managed to run object detection on the video feed captured by my drone with a latency high enough not to introduce lag in the flying experience. At this point I must take a pause. I know what you’re wondering: are you building smart killer drones? Definitely not! The models that I’m using or I could use with my hardware are too simple and faulty to be of any practical use! These weapons exist, but still remain far away from what you can build at your home. ...

What happens when you reduce a ML framework all the way to its bare bones? - You get teenygrad. In this post, I want to dive into the source code of teenygrad to illustrate the software architecture behind some important concepts of ML-engines like backpropagation and computational graphs. It’s true that you can go read the code directly (it’s not that difficult) but… why not take a guided tour first? If you enjoyed Karpathy’s micrograd, you’ll like teenygrad. ...

What is it? A command-line tool to interact with a 28c256 256KB EEPROM, which is the one used in Ben Eater’s 6502 pc. Allows reading contents from the EEPROM and writing data to it. Note: The command used to drive the EEPROM isnuensis. It is named after the Amanuensis monks, which provided services as scribes. Check the project on Github to make your own! ...

What is it? A camera-controlled cat feeder that only exposes the food when a certain pet is around. Motivation I have two cats: one is black and slim and the other is white and chubby. The black one is called Lilo. The white one, Coco. The problem is that Coco eats Lilo’s wet food. I’ve built an automatic pet feeder that only exposes the food when Lilo approaches, thus stopping Coco from eating it. ...

It’s November 18th. Winter is already making an appearance here in Scandinavia. My hands start to get cold when I bike home, the few leaves that remain in the trees are falling, and the darkness arrives before the workday is over. Recently, I quit my job because it didn’t fullfil me and, for once, I’ve decided not to rush-into-the-next-thing. I’ve decided that, for the next 4 months, I will encourage my own creativity and see where it brings me. I’ll try to build my next thing. I’ve called this period… the Winter of Output (inspired by Andy Kong’s Year of Output). ...