Latest Articles from Max Omdal (dizzard.net)
This blog post is based on a presentation I recently gave to our engineering team at my day job. I wanted to share more broadly, so I used Gemini to do the slides → blog post translation, then I heavily edited it to make it my own voice and strip it of anything specific to my company. Much of this is specifically about Claude Code. Using LLMs to Investigate And Reproduce Complex Bugs With…
I've been working on a new Open Source project: Exhibit . It's a personal library for self-contained web artifacts — the kind generated by [INSERT YOUR AI TOOL HERE]. It is heavily inspired by Simon Willison's tools aggregator , and Matt Webb's excellent blog post titled "We need RSS for sharing abundant vibe-coded apps" . Simon also recently authored a plugin called datasette-apps which fills a…
Via the information Indeed, two recent xAI employees estimated that well over half of Grok’s overall traffic was driven by pornographic images and videos, adult role-play chats or other NSFW activity. On forums for Grok users, many of the most popular posts are porn. Users can generate visuals in several ways, including picking the video models through the consumer app or tapping them through…
A while ago I watched this talk from Lucas Meijer on how he develops with Pi . Although I haven't really used Pi for anything, something I did take away from this video was the terminal emulator he was using. It's called [Supacode](https://supacode.sh). I really was intrigued by it's operating paradigm. Supacode (gosh, I really don't like the name though. So cheesy!) Is built around worktrees.…
When I helped open Sequoia Fabrica Makerspace in 2023, there was an ever-expanding list of tasks split across 3 Board Members and the Community. Literally everything had to be made from scratch. I was context-switching between building a workbench for our woodshop , programming our website , running member orientations-the list goes on and on. It was an invigorating time, and I'm so happy to see…
Introducing diz.flow ! I made this in an afternoon this weekend using Claude Code, mostly from my phone. It solves a very specific problem, that might only irk me. Trying to add arrows to diagrams drives me NUTS! Excalidraw is an absolutely fantastic tool, and I love using it during meetings to explain concepts, or creating small diagrams to drop into impl docs to explain stuff to a small group. I…
I did a quick refresh of my website. I did some changes to the formatting, and I was also curious about how SVG noise works, so I added some texture to the background. I kind of like it, although I think there is more tweaking required. I'm trying to go for this paper-y feel, as if it were e-ink, or well, actually paper. I really enjoy skeumorphic design in digital media. While I was looking for…
Thoughts on Teaching Others These are some incantations I tell myself when I feel like I'm not good enough to teach others how to do something. You don't need to know all the answers, you just need to be one step ahead. You don't need to be an expert. Be honest when you don't know something, and try to figure it out together. You will learn as much from students as the students learn from you.…
Chest of Drawers 2 Refinishing another chest of drawers left on the street in the neighborhood I've got a thing for street treasure. I wrote up a similar post last year about a chest of drawers I found on the street in a sorry condition. Well, it happened again. I went down the restoration rabbit hole last week. I think it’s the last time. I appreciate that other people are skilled enough to take…
Oh Blogging, What a Bother! Sometimes, I'm not so certain if I enjoy blogging, or if I enjoy the idea of blogging. I know I like making things, both physical and digital, I know I like reading blogs, so why would I not enjoy blogging? I'm not sure, but I'm starting to question it. Maybe what I really need is time away from screens after a day job spent in front of them. It's also been an awfully…
I Made a Sign I made a sign! It has LED lighting inside it, I haven't figured out how to power it safely while it's outside though. That might have to wait until I can seek help from a professional. ]]>
I was inspired by other bloggers to share my answers to the bear blog questions ( Adapted by Kev ). So here are my responses. Why did you start blogging in the first place? I started my website in my last year of college as a way to place all my work from university and my brief stint in research in one place, so I can look back at and remember what I did. Here are some examples . I don't do as…
10 Minute Mini Corkboard Enamel Pin Display I was waiting for paint to dry, so to keep my hands busy I made this little cork board to display some of my and my partner's pins (yeah I know, it's pretty empty as-is). It's just cork adhered to a hardboard backing. I cut it out on the bandsaw. Some related links I found: Cork, by all accounts I have found from 5 minutes of searching, is a pretty…
A Sneap Peak at a Sign I've been working on an entrance sign for Sequoia Fabrica , and here is an early preview. There's some internals to this sign that will make the final project sing, but it's not quite ready yet. I think I'll do a full write up about it once it is complete. ]]>
Using Style Transfer to CNC Produce Printblocks In college, I wrote a final paper about Generative Adversarial Nets for Artistic Image-to-Image Translation where I explored how GANs can be used for image style transfer. In my experiments, I never got great results. That college paper was much more down in the dirt with the model than what I've tried recently. For an event, I needed to create a…
Syncing and Backups with Rsync and Borg I have a relatively simple self-hosting setup at home. My biggest and most important service is Nextcloud . For quite some time, I've been running this with basically no backup, which is super risky, and I was starting to fear the day when the SSD fails. So to save myself from worrying, and save my previous photos and documents at some future date of…
My Favorite Things of 2024 Every year, the Tested network publishes a series of videos with the staff about their favorite things of the year. Here's all the ones from 2024: Norm Josh Adam Kayte Sean Joey I really enjoy these videos. I'm a bit of a tool nerd, so it's a real treat seeing professionals describe some of the tools that have been the most satisfying and productive to use. I think the…
New Year's Resolutions For the past few years, I've written up some resolutions for myself. Last years resolutions and reflections: Exercise more . I did pick up biking, which was a step in the right direction, but I walk less and seem to spend less time outside in general. I guess opening a makerspace takes up a lot of free time. Join the 100 days to offload challenge . I blogged 8/100 times.…
AI For Development I occasionally tinker on my computer after work hours on personal projects, albeit infrequently, especially when compared to the magnificent work done by some of the engineers I follow. Most of my time currently is wrapped in building a community makerspace , but there are some quiet evenings I find myself writing small utilities, or working on this blog. Since the time I have…
Finished a Workbench I just finished constructing a workbench for Sequoia Fabrica's woodshop. I'm fairly happy with it, it's one of my first large-scale projects. The table top was a challenge to assemble because it was all construction lumber. Working around knots and laminating all the boards together was really tough, but I'm happy with how it turned out. Design The workbench is designed to…
Boquets to Art at the De Young Museum This past weekend, my partner and I went to San Francisco's De Young Museum to see the exhibition annual "Boquets to Art". It was a fun event that takes over the entire museum, pairing artwork to flower arrangements in whimsical and creative ways. Here are some pictures from the event. ]]>
Refinishing a Chest of Drawers Found on the Street Recently, while walking to the neighborhood library, I found a chest of drawers, or dresser in an alley with a free sticker on it. It was in rough shape. The paint was falling off, it was scratched, and the drawers' tracks were worn thin. San Francisco for whatever reason seems to be the land of setting stuff on the street and hoping someone takes…
Building A New Workshop in San Francisco San Francisco will soon be getting a new community workshop. As a part of an organization, myself and others are building Sequoia Fabrica . It will be a non-profit community workshop with the mission to provide access to tools and knowledge without the barriers to entry at many for-profit organizations. Since opening our doors in March, we've also…
Homemade Laundry Detergent for Lazy People 2 parts Borax (400g) 2 parts Washing Soda (400g) 1 parts Fels-Naptha Soap (200g) Steps Grind 200g of Fels-Naptha soap with an old coffee grinder. Anything works really as long as you can get it down to powder. Add 400g of Washin Soda, and 400g of Borax to a plastic container Seal the container and shake to mix Use about 2 tablespoons per load Notes I’ve…
This Blog is now available via RSS! I took some time this weekend to add an RSS feed to this blog. I will eventually add a visible link, but for now, you can find it at dizzard.net/rss . It may have some kinks to work out, but the solution was quick and dirty. I implemented it using Feedgen . Like most of my personal projects these days, ChatGPT sped up the process significantly. ]]>
Beeswax Candles (Dip) For Sequoia Fabrica , I'm running a candlestick making class. I'm not an expert at this, but like most things in life, you just need to be one page ahead in the book to explain to others what is going on. These are my notes on candlestick making. Prerequisites You will need: A burner (induction for portability) Large boiler 4 Deep jars (alternatively, a double boiler and 2…
I’ve worn an Apple Watch on and off since the Series 2, which came out in 2016. I’ve owned two watches. One disappeared one day. I have no idea where it went. For a while, I wore two family members’ watches because they never used them. Then I bought my own. Buying that watch was a really stupid move. I don’t think the Apple Watch is totally stupid, but I think for the vast majority of users, it’s…
Principles of Operating a Shared Workshop These are some of the thoughts I have compiled over the last year volunteering my time helping maintain a wood-shop at my local hackerspace, Noisebridge . Noisebridge is a very unique space in that it operates as an anarchist space with one guiding principle: Be excellent to each other . There can often be conflict between passionate people at the space…
The Green Imperative By Victor Papanek The book focuses much more around Design than I initially expected. It's not very in your face about what I thought would be the immediate demand to put the environment first. Papanek instead meanders around the influence of design on consumption, with a particularly strong distaste for Mid-Century Modern design and the Bauhaus movement. The connection he…
How to capture code snippets from Obsidian and add to Alfred Snippets At work, I'm often looking through my Obsidian notes looking for a certain code snippet to run to update a build version, deploy my server, or some other mundane task I can't be bothered to memorize. And it's nice having obsidian because then not only do I have a home for these little snippets of code, but I can also provide…
Writing a Discord bot with Python and aiocron I wanted to write a Discord bot to provide simple scheduled alerts for the hackerspace I am a part of. We have a channel for the woodshop, and every so often, we need to empty the dust collector and scrap bins. After some basic research, I found it was pretty straightforward how to set up a bot in the discord developer portal, so I'm not going to go…
Automated Blog Publishing Previously, I wrote a blog post about deploying my blog with Github Pages. Now, I want to be able to write blog posts from my phone and publish them without touch git. So I thought it would be neat if I could edit the files on my iPhone by connecting to one of my always-on raspberry pi's, and automate the deployment of the blog from the raspberry pi. If this works, I'll…
Earth 🪐 to Localhost... This is the first note I've written on my locally-hosted network attached storage setup. This is currently running on the Apple Filing Protocol . This is possible thanks to the reimplementation of the AFP protocol by the Netatalk project, which is a "free and open source AFP fileserver." AFP I guess is deprecated on Mac's, so they cannot serve data via AFP, but they can…
Some Interesting Blogs I've Stumbled Upon I will update this from time to time as I find more people I want to share. These are mostly technology focused. MacOS App Developers Ryan Hansen maker of rectangle.app Evan Travers makes some interesting apps for productivity Digital Gardens Andy Matuschak Nikita Voloboev Double Loop Rach Smith Jackie Zhao Bloggers Derek Kay Jeff Atwood founder of stack…
I'm Counting Goats! Queue “I’ll be watching you” by The Police, because I’m now spying on all the viewers of this blog! Just kidding. Well, sort of. I wanted to have some metric of how many people are viewing my blog, not because I’m going to sell ad space, or leverage that information for some other malicious reason. I just wanted to know if anyone reads it! And like I said, to respect my…
Thoughts on Hackerspaces What is a hackerspace to me? It's a free place for a community of individuals to gather, share knowledge and resources, and build the things they want to see in the world. It makes me think of co-housing in a lot of ways. Although there is no required financial obligation, there is a requirement that you treat others well and share your knowledge and skills when you can.…
Deploy Github Pages with Jinja and GH Actions This blog, like many others is hosted on Github Pages . Github Pages is a great (and free) way to post small static sites like personal websites. The annoying thing is that you have to push build code that would usually be included in your .gitignore file. So if you don't want to have to build your site locally, and include the build files in your…
Migrating from Tmux to Kitty So sitting at my workdesk waiting for my local changes to compile and deploy, I often find my mind wandering towards the world of Unix ricing . Some people do it for beauty, others do it for maximizing their productivity. Regardless of the reason, before I go into any of this, let me preface the article by saying that all this is completely unnecessary. Pretty much any…
Path Planning : Bat Guy Vs. The Clown Max Omdal This Path Planning project is an interactive simulation with several interactive parts. Primarily a superhero and supervillain play a game of cat and mouse. Batma... err.. "Bat Guy" and "The Clown" are caught in this battle. As Bat Guy, you have the ability to control bats by dropping signaling devices that they will navigate their way through a maze…
Particle Simulation and Flocking: Scarecrows Maxwell Omdal This is an implementation of a particle system and boids algorithm. The focus of my implementation was to provide the user with a system for configuring causal interation. This was done by accounting for collisions and providing an outlet class to resond to such collisions. Each particle system can have its own CollisionTrigger that acts…
3D SPH Fluid Simulation for Painterly Effects A Project By Maxwell Omdal Download Source Download Paper Controls To orbit the camera, use the arrow keys. To interact with the painting, click and drag particles around the canvas To pause and view the painting, press SPACEBAR Demo ]]>
Cloth Simulation Using Numerical Integration: Fans A Project By Maxwell Omdal & David Kinney With this project, we implement a cloth simulation using the midpoint integration technique. The cloth is first defined using a series of springs connected in a grid, and then using Hooke's law and numerical integration, we update the position and velocity of the cloth at each time step. However, in a…