The personal blog of Rick Carlino, a software tinkerer.
Happy 2026! I'm continuing my yearly tradition of reflecting on the past year. 2025 was quiet, but it certainly was not uneventful. Much of my time was spent supporting family through health issues and caring for my dog, who sadly passed away this year. I also stepped into a new role at work, which kept me busy. Despite all that, there were still bright spots: travel, running, and a handful of…
Year in Review 2024 It’s already February of 2025, and I am running behind schedule on writing this article! Since I’ve been writing year-in-review posts for so many years, I figured I’d rather write this quickly and keep the streak going rather than break it. Here goes! A Great Year with Family and Travel It was a good year! I spent lots of time with my family, and I also managed to go on a…
I recently discovered a decentralized chat app called Simplex . I found it while reading a Hacker News article about privacy-focused tools. Actually, it was the one about hiding your phone in a tub of lentils, anyway, after giving it a try, I believe Simplex is one of the best decentralized messaging apps I've encountered in a long time. Delightfully Usable One of the standout features of Simplex,…
There is a new spaced repetition algorithm generating a lot of buzz in the SRS community in 2024: The Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler . Last weekend, I began the process of migrating my personal spaced repetition project, KoalaSRS , off of SM-2 and onto FSRS. The first step was to implement the algorithm, and in doing so, I decided to share the results as an NPM package that lives outside of the…
Background Hacker News user Apocryphon recently asked about alternatives to the pomodoro technique . I decided to give the entire thread a look and summarize the best parts. I hope you find it useful! Productivity Techniques and Philosophies Flowmodoro/Flowtime : A refinement of the Pomodoro technique. Instead of counting down from 25 minutes and having fixed break periods like in the Pomodoro…
Happy New Year! Welcome to the 6th annual RickCarlino.com Year in Review. Despite currently recovering from a mild COVID infection and writing this post from bed rest, I'm excited to share the highlights of the past year with you. Professionally, it's almost two years since I joined Qualia, and I recently transitioned to a new team, marking a fresh chapter in my career. Marathon running has always…
A Simple 50-mile Ultra-Marathon Packing List This is a clean, simple packing list I used during the Des Plaines River 50-Mile Ultra . The list is free of email capture forms, annoying offer pop-ups and cookie consent banners. If you wish to support my writing efforts, consider purchasing the linked items. All items are the actual product I used on race day. I earn a commision on every purchase.…
I gave a talk in August of 2023 discussing how developers can leverage the new functions feature in the OpenAI API. Special thanks to Bob Snodgrass for recording the session. The talk is available on YouTube
OpenSCAD is usually used for 3D modeling. But it also supports a 2D subsystem for two dimensional drawings (stuff like circle and square ). This article teaches you how to make stencils and templates that will match your target measurements exactly. For example, you could make a stencil for a painted sign or guideline for a wood project that uses a jigsaw. What You Need: A ruler that uses the same…
Looking Back 2022 was a calm year and my first normal-ish year after COVID disruptions. My year was defined by a significant career change and reduced public engagement. I spent most of my time outside of work running and only entertained a small number of projects. Career Changes After working on FarmBot for almost nine years, I felt it was time to move on to new things. I sent my resignation…
Looking Back 2021 was a better year than 2020, but it was certainly not a normal year for anyone. From a professional perspective, most of my energy was spent on continuing education for embedded systems, particularly with regards to embedded Linux and the Raspberry Pi ecosystem. I hope to continue this focus into 2022. On the personal side of things, I took on a new pottery hobby, began weight…
Intro In this tutorial, I'll show you how to adjust your Cura settings to get your printer up and running and thereby avoid using DaVinci software. Most likely, you are reading this because you use Linux. Brace yourself, because you'll need to tear a hole in the side of your machine to access the SD card. I know it sounds crazy, and I wish I was kidding, but this is the reality of proprietary 3D…
It's no secret that I prefer audio over text. This weekend I wrote a quick script that converts gemini:// sites to audio . I hope that it helps people who prefer audio as well as those with reading difficulties. Feedback is appreciated.
UPDATE: /u/tmrob4 has created an updated, more playable fork of the game here . The game Cosmic Conquest was published in the December 1982 issue of BYTE Magazine as a Forth program that readers could type into their Apple II computers. Despite its role as one of the first-ever real-time strategy games, there were no playable demos or even a screenshot available of the game online. Although the…
I recently had the pleasure of serving as the technical editor for a ReactJS book authored by my colleague Chris Minnick. It will be published by Wiley Publication in March of 2022. It's a one-stop source of information that covers everything you need to know when building ReactJS apps. Be sure to check it out! Link to purchase page on Wiley.com
GOAL: Build a lightweight, bootable *.img file that you can flash onto a Raspberry Pi SD card. This will be the shortest, fastest Buildroot tutorial you read, and the tutorial is optimized for speed and simplicity. For a deep dive, see the Buildroot manual . INTENDED AUDIENCE: Raspberry Pi hobbyists. Software developers with minimal embedded systems experience. I will assume that you know how to…
Intended Audience: Software developers with a novice-level understanding of Forth . Goal: Understand what retro-document is and why it is an integral part of the RetroForth ecosystem. RetroForth Glossaries When I first learned RetroForth I encountered a situation familiar to many language learners. Although I read the documentation and understood the syntax, I still did not know the commonly used…
NOTE: RetroForth allows the execution of Markdown files as code. The code below is written in the literate style and can be directly run via retro . A copy/paste-able version can be found here . Singly Linked List This snippet provides a generic implementation of a singly linked list. Each value in the list points forward to the next item. Currently only supports one list per VM, which is…
NOTE: This is a literate program. A runnable version can be found here . dump - A Memory Inspector for RetroForth Two words are provided below: a regular dump word, plus a dump-s word for dealing with strings. Example output: > #16 [ 'Hello,_world! s:put nl ] dump 3C4C: 0x801 3C4D: 0xE97 3C4E: H 3C4F: e 3C50: l 3C51: l 3C52: o 3C53: , 3C54: 3C55: w 3C56: o 3C57: r 3C58: l 3C59: d 3C5A: ! 3C5B: 0x0…
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Forth and RetroForth novices. A basic understanding of how to define words and how Forth dictionaries work is assumed. GOAL: Understand how to use hook , set-hook , and unhook in RetroForth. Briefly cover the use of DEFER in standard Forth systems. What Are Hooks? The term hook is used generically in many software development ecosystems. It typically refers to a callback in a…