Kaze's personal website serving as a museum of devices he collected over time
Aura is the latest addition to our cat family! We got her from the local shelter after a long 3-months journey being left alone. She got captured while being pregnant. According to the shelter, she's about 4 years old but that's all we know about her past life. It's clearly the most spicy cat I had, as we have to be careful when interacting with her. She communicate when she had…
Status: Given to my partner (he then exchanged it for a Pixel 9a) I acquired the Google Pixel 6 in somewhat of a rush. I was using the OnePlus 5t as a daily driver and I was enjoying it quite much, but my mother had a Nexus 5x that stopped booting. I found the phone used on Facebook Marketplace for cheap, and I figured out it would be an excellent first smartphone for her. Problem is, I…
Ahhh the mighty Microsoft Zune! While the Zune 30gb and the Zune HD was never sold in Canada, both the Zune 4gb/8gb/16gb and the Zune 80gb/120gb were! I recall being at the high school at the time, looking the "Future Shop" website (anyone remember Future Shop?) to verify the Zune stocks at my nearby store. On launch day, after school, I went straight to the store and got myself a…
Status: Broken and disposed of The OnePlus 3 was my first phone from this brand and my first departure from Google Nexus. I ordered it through OnePlus's website and the process went smoothly. The delivery was very quick too! The device feels very sturdy in hand, with it's metal back. It really has that premium HTC feeling. The fingerprint sensor is located in the front of the device, at…
Status: Daily Driver I purchased the Google Pixel 10a to replace my Asus Zenfone 10 . I ended up having a few issues with it, namely the battery started to be unable to do a full day charge, but also connectivity through the mobile network had serious issues. More than often, it would not be able to load a single page, no matter the signal strength. After months of growing frustrations, my partner…
Status: Broken and disposed of Specs CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (4 cores @ 2.3Ghz) RAM: 2GB Storage: Initial Android version: 4.4 Latest Android version: 6.0 Headphone jack
Spring I'm a northern lion, I prefer colder weathers and snow (maybe I should have picked a snow leopard sona🤔) but towards the end of winter, the fun is gone. The snow is no longer this clean and pure canvas, as it slowly melt and turn grey. It's no longer fluffly, but turns to crunchy mix of snow and ice where snowshoeing is no longer this peaceful activity that I like so much. This…
Cosmo is our new cat, born in late 2025. We got him from a reputable Maine Coon breeder outside of the Montreal area at roughly the age of 5 months. A 'small' kitten full of curiosity and energy, wandering at utlra high-speed in every corners of the house. I say "small", because he's only 5 months old and is already the same size as our senior cat Toupie. Speaking of Toupie, Cosmo…
Toupie is a 18 (almost 19!) year old long-hair blue cat. This cat always sports its grumpy face despite being (I presume) pretty happy. That's even the first thing my father said when he saw the cat for the first time. I got Toupie from a local refuge, during the crazy day of the 1st of July (if you live in Québec, you know why!), at the age of 8. The first weeks were a disaster! Toupie was…
Related to one of my recent entries, I have just found what was missing to restart my Gemini journey. I found an inspiring community! I have started journaling on an instance called The Orbital Outpost (gemini://orbitaloutpost.club). This Gemini capsule, little space on that vast web, will be different than this blog. I won't talk about philosophy, or old computers. Okay maybe I…
I've been going back to Gemini lately, simply browsing on other's capsules. Every time I do so, I am shocked by it. Everything is so snappy, pages are loading instantly, and they all focus on their content. No need to worry about trackers too, as the protocol does not support running code on browsers. If you don't know gemini, let me set the table... The ever-growing web Have you…
Winter In order to understand this one, you'll have to close your eyes and come on a journey with me. That is, unless you already lived a Canadian winter! Now close your eyes. Hear the wind (kaze 😋) blowing. Its breath is coming from far away, unobstructed by the usual leafs covering the trees. It knocks at your doors and windows. You don't need to feel it, just by the higher pitch, you…
What started for me as a catchy song by deadmau5, quickly turned into something else. At first the song had a certain beat that, while not being really special had parts of it that stick in the head. Second, well it talks a bit about lions, that's a little something that always work for me (can't figure out why 😅). Then I started to really focus on the lyrics. I was trying to find the…
You might need a little bit of context on this one. I am a Linux user. I've been one since I left college back in 2013. I use Linux on my personal computers, I used Linux as my operating system at work too. And I'm not talking about using it as a server OS (I do that too), but as a developer workstation. One thing that never changed, is the desktop environment I'm using. On Linux,…
That's a question I have been asking myself a lot lately. Around the month of April 2025, I decided to take a leap of faith, and leave my comfortable career as tech lead to go to a smaller company. When doing the interviews, the engineers mentioned working with a monolithic piece of software, but directors and VPs denied having such thing in the code. That was intriguing to me, but I believed…
Christmas is approaching fast, in fact in only 2-3 days, and I'm still here writing my christmas songs. Truth be told, I haven't felt that "Christmas magic" for a long time now sadly, and I'm not saying that these songs will help you achieve it either. Or maybe it will help, so let's get singing! In this list, you'll find both English and French songs, because most of my…
The honeymoon The Creative Zen V was my first Portable Media Player. I received the white and orange Zen V as a christmas present. Ahh the memories! I had a good 30+ minute commute in the school bus so this would become really handy! The Zen V lineup was composed of two variants, the V and the V+. The V+ had black shell, while the V had the white one. It was not the only difference of course, the…
Shocking statement ahead: I own an iPod Classic. I know, I know, what a shame. I'm not too proud of it, but I swear, I had a good reason! Why I got an iPod!? Jokes aside, people who know me knows how much I dislike Apple products. Anyway, I had to acquire a portable media player in a rush after my Microsoft Zune died one week before leaving my comfortable home to go live an incredible…
Status: Cleaned up - Waiting for a purpose One of the last small smartphones, the Asus Zenfone 10 is a 5.9 inch Android phone featuring two SIM slot, an headphone jack and a finger print sensor. A really surprising mix in a small package! Acquiring such a phone in Canada That was way easier said than done. The Zenfone 10 was never sold in Canada. I had to create a PO box in the US and wait for the…
No no, don't start "Fallen leaves" from Billy Talent, it's not part of this playlist! Autumn Canada is beautiful during autumn, with the falling leaves, the predominant orangy-yellow colors and the colder weather. Warm days are slowly going away, leaving place to colder winds. It's the season of shorter days, when everything just slow down, trying to follow Nature's pace,…
All I can say now, is that this machine is really frustrating to work with... when it is now an Apple Operating System running on it. My plans for it is to create the ultimate Unix workstation, powered by a BSD of some sort but everything gets in the way. Stay tuned! The 2026 update I recently turned on the computer after a long time being tossed aside. It currently runs on Mac OS 10.5.9 Leopard.…
Games Owned Digimon Story: Time Stranger Personal History I was looking for a broken current gen console for quite a while, either PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series. In fact, I was more looking for a PS5, but my partner insisted that an Xbox would been a better choice, since I have a collection of Xbox One games that could work with. So one day, I stumbled across a broken Xbox Series X for 170 Canadian…
Status: Sold (Winter 2013) I ordered the Nexus Four to replace my Google Nexus One. The main motivation behind that was to be able to program on Android 4, since it was a major update from Android 2 (Android 3 was a tablet-only release, bringing a lot of innovation). The phone had a pleasing build quality, with a back glass and plastic rails. The CPU and RAM was a big upgrade, going from a…
Status: Dormant in a drawer Ahh the Google Nexus One! My absolute first Android Phone! I remember ordering it through the Google Store. That device was so charming with its super small size, and the tiny trackball doing double-duty as the notification led. The trackball was even RGB! It was the phone I used during college, while learning programming. And yes, I even used it for Android…
Status: Being worked on The PostmarketOS rabbit hole Specs CPU: Qualcomm MSM8998 Snapdragon 835 (8 cores @ 2.45Ghz/1.9Ghz) RAM: 8gb Storage: 128gb Initial Android version: 7.1.1 Latest Android version: 10 (OxygenOS 10) Headphone jack
I got myself a Raspberry Pi 5 for a project I had for a long time. I wanted to perform a fresh Irix install on my SGI O2, using a project called Reanimator. This piece of software creates a bunch of old network servers (TFTP, Bootp, NFS, ...) in order to perform a remote install. I got my Pi with the official power adapter and the official cooling solution. I really appreciate the inclusion of a…
Specs CPU: MediaTek MT6769 8-Cores ARM (v8.2a) CPU RAM: 8GB Storage: 256Gb OS: Android 14 Rear camera: 4MP Front camera: 5MP Display: 600x800 Black & White E-Ink display The Experience This phone was part of an Indiegogo campaign I financed because I can't control myself I really love and believe in E-Ink technology... Yes but also because I started to realize how much time I was spending on…
High as a freaking kite And I'm not taking about drugs or alcohol! From the moment I took the bus, from my late evening bath, I feel great, and in control of my thoughts. On the bus, I was aware of my anxiety, but was and to rationalize it. I felt guilt, but instead of shaming myself, I made me realize what was going on, and how to avoid it next time. You know? Like a freaky fully developed…
Starting somewhere My first entry of blogging in the adulthood! Why today? I don't know. I have sapre time I suppose. What else could I be doing? After surfing on some other Gemlog (namely senders.io), it gave me the little push I needed to start writing something down. I'm not in a particuliar good mood today, got pretty burned out by work in the last couple of days. Human relations are…
This Raspberry Pi 4 is used as the main controller of my USB4VC. This is a modular project to convert USB/Bluetooth controllers into peripherals that old computer could understand. To do that, the USB4VC is made into 3 part, the main board that contains buttons and a tiny oled screen, the controller (a Raspberry Pi connected through the GPIO port) and the interface module. The magic happens…
Games Owned Fable Fusion Frenzy Halo Personal History The first Xbox! During this console generation, I was too young to have money to buy one, so I stayed with my first Playstation. But my best friend had one, and it was a modded one at that! We spent a lot of time finding games online, or renting games just to copy them over the hard drive. It's the console that made me love Forza…
Games Owned Gears of War Gears of War 2 GTA IV Fable Anniversary Fable II Fable III Forza Motorsport 2 Forza Motorsport 3 Forza Motorsport 4 Fallout 3 Fallout New Vegas Kinect Adventures Unreal Tournament 3 Superman Returns NHL 14 Call of Duty Black Ops Tomb Raider Personal History I got my first brand new console, the Xbox 360, at the age of roughly 16. It was a christmas present from my father…
Games Owned Grand Theft Auto 5 Red Dead Redemtion 2 NHL 16 Fallout 4 Kaze and the Wild Masks Tom Clancy's The Division Friday The 13th Farcry Primal Watch Dogs Legion Personal History The Xbox One is the first console that I bought new. I mainly got it because my friends were playing GTA 5 Online and I wanted to join them. It was the 'VHS' model, without the Kinect accessory.…
Games Owned Zelda: A Link to the Past Super Mario World Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Top Gear Illusion of Gaia Mario Paint The Great Circus Mystery starring Mickey & Minnie Tetris 2 Personal History This is the first console that I interacted with, as a kid. My father still had his gamer spirit at that time and while he was the one playing (namely Super Mario World 2) I certainly…
The world of thin clients This computer falls under the category named 'thin clients'. This is not a novelty, as its concept dates back to the dumb-terminal era. Those terminals were not able to operate without a mainframe, or some kind of master server. Thin clients are the modern incarnation of dumb-terminals. These are small, low-power, low-value and low-maintenance computers deployed…
After almost a decade, I'm back with AMD for this build. As an additional challenge, I decided to build this computer using a Mini ITX case, something I never worked with before. The case that got my attention was the Fractal Design Ridge, due to its sleek appearance and its well-though design. (Boy Fractal Design are making so great looking cases!). And challenges I've got! First one…
Personal history This is the latest PC I've built for myself, to replace my aging AMD Phenom II build. I waited for the lunch of the Skylake platform before pulling the trigger. I got it like I wanted, a small and portable case, a fully-featured mATX motherboard, completed with an AIO cooler. Installing Linux Of course I installed Linux on it (Arch linux btw)! And... humm it wasn't…
I've been looking for an SGI machine for a long long time and there is it, the mighty SGI O2! Background on the machine This machine came from a Facebook Marketplace listing. I had to go to Montreal (2 hours and a half drive) in order to get my paws on it. The last owner told me this machine was located in a cinema school, mostly used for video montage. The machine came with a huge operation…
Photos
The hardware This novelty computer aims to reproduce (to a certain degree) the form factor of the Tandy TRS-80 Series 100. It's a portable computer that lay flat, with the keyboard and screen on the same side. There's no hinge, and the screen has a special aspect ratio. Aesthetically, this thing looks retro and very nice. It is selling an exciting experience, on which everything seems…
Nothing to see here
The mighty Sun Ultra 40. I picked it up for cheap when I got my Sun Ultra 20. Contrary to its smaller sibling, the Sun Ultra 40 is a proper workstation featuring a 1000 watts power supply to feed the dual AMD Opteron CPUs. THe AMD Opteron CPU lineup was a equivalent of the Intel Xeon, they were intended for servers and large workstations. Alas, no Sparc processor in this machine, as this was…
Games Owned The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Ring Fit Adventure Boxing Fitness Paper Mario: The Origami King Overcooked 2 FAST RMX Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Pokemon Shield Super Mario Party The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Animal Crossing: New Horizons The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Metroid Prime Remastered Personal History The Switch is my first…
It's the console I grew up with, the mighty Sony Playstation. I got two of them, the first one had the parallel port in the back, the second one didn't. My first Playstation I got it as a Christmas present from my parents. This PSX had the parallel port un the back and I had two Dual-shock controllers and one memory card. It's hard to keep track of the games I owned because at the…
I was thrifting in my secret place in Black Lake, and I stumbled on a weird looking device buried with CD players. There was this strange mini-din connector in the front and that got me interested. I took the unit to check the back. That's when I noticed the video output. No regular CD player should have a video output! So I took a good look at the front and wow, this had the CD-Interactive…
This is my first "computer" sporting a RISC-V core. I'm really excited with this new architecture, as it holds great promises in term of open-sourceness, but also in term of efficiency. It's also my first SBC that is not in the mainline Linux kernel tree, so installing any distribution is really difficult. The official documentation recommend flashing SDCards with a special tool called…
Specs Intel Pentium Pro 200Mhz 128Mb of RAM Adaptec SCSI card 40Gb ATA Maxtor hard drive Creative Audigy 2ZS Matrox Millenium PCI video card Personal History This computer has been sitting on a shelf in my elementary school for a good while. Just a year ago, they were in-use in one of the computer lab. They were running on Windows 98 and even at that time, Windows XP has been released for a couple…