rawmeat.org

Dogear - My Cricut Woes

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 11:00:00 +0000

My Dogear project is software that I use to create one-of-a-kind generative art bookmarks. You can read about the whole project at Dogear Bookmarks

The project centered around the Cricut where I used it as a pen plotter, and a precise drag knife to cut my algorithmic designs. I wrote software to generate 130 unique bookmarks.

The hardware seems well made, and conceptually it’s a fantastic tool that was central to my ability to carry out the project. However, the software that comes with it is terrible, and treats you like a revenue stream. I’d like to tell you about all the ways I found that the Cricut Design Studio is bad.

Dogear - The Algorithmic Bookmark Project

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000

My Dogear project is software that I use to create one-of-a-kind generative art bookmarks. Every edition of a book gets its own unique design, like a fingerprint. The bookmark belongs to the book as much as the book belongs to you.

Front and back of two bookmarks as an example:

I absolutely love how this project has turned out, but along the way I learned to dislike the Cricut Design Studio software greatly - and you can read about my Cricut Woes in a companion post to this one.

AHT20 update, and my open source experience

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 12:53:00 +0000

It’s been more than two years since I released my AHT20-driver (a Rust driver for a temperature and humidity sensor). I’ve had a lot of support and friendly interactions as a result, and I’d like to highlight what a pleasant experience it’s been.

The AHT20 sensor is a temperature and humidity sensor by the company Asair. I used the Adafruit AHT20 board during development. The driver is written in Rust, which I’ve come to really enjoy programming in.

AHT20 thermometer driver

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:39:00 +0000

I wrote a new driver for the AHT20 temperature and humidity sensor in Rust. This is a continuation of my Barometer build article, where I re-use the lps25_pressure_sensor_demo project to add a temperature sensor on the with_aht20_sensor branch.

I’m a complete novice at Rust and embedded programming. These projects are my attempts to learn more about both while having fun and making something useful.

You can find the driver at:

Barometer build

Sun, 26 Dec 2021 21:00:00 +0000

I put together a barometer, built around Adafruit’s LPS25 breakout board, the Blue Pill microcontroller, and a small 16x2 character LCD panel. It was a learning project, and all of it was written in Rust.

The finished project is a tangle of wires on a breadboard, and the error handling is minimal, but I definitely have a barometer with an LCD readout.

You can get the code in my lps25_pressure_sensor_demo github repo.

Ear defender headphone build

Sat, 07 Sep 2019 20:07:55 +0100

I work in a very noisy open plan office, which makes it hard to focus. To solve the problem, and still let me listen to some music, I made these noise blocking headphones. They’re built from heavy-duty Peltor ear defenders, usually worn in industrial settings to block harmful noise levels from damaging your hearing.

I’d like to show you how I made them, so that you can do the same. Here’s a picture of what they look like:

Exponential smoothing in Python

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 20:38:00 +0000

The problem

While measuring temperature using my Arduino and a TMP36, I found that the temperature reading fluctuated wildly. After reading up a little, it became clear that since the Arduino’s analog pin measures discrete values of 0-1023, and the voltage varies between 0-5V, the smallest difference that can be detected is ca. 4.9mV. For the TMP36, a temperature change of 1°C triggers a voltage change of 10mV, so the smallest temperature increment that can be registered is ±0.5°C. For additional fun, the sensor is only accurate to ±2°C, so plenty of opportunities for sensor fluctuations.

Networking monitoring with a RaspberryPI

Sat, 29 Jun 2013 10:20:00 +0000

A while back my house mates and I found that our internet connection was terribly slow in the evenings.

I decided to use my newly arrived Raspberry Pi to write some monitoring tools to see what the pattern was and how bad it was. This way we would also have something to give to Virgin Media to show there was a problem. At the same time, I had been wanting to write some software to push data into the graphing system Graphite, so this seemed like a good time to do that.

Coffeebot Heroine

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:00:00 +0100

Coffeebot Heroine

This body is a hotel and a shrine. You can have it when I die.

Hoxton separatists with Romanian AK-47s and grenades, probably bought wholesale somewhere south of the river in a little place you’ve never heard of. My trousers were uncomfortably soaked in petrol as I was pinned down by small arms fire, hiding behind a black cab.

I’d explain, but I’m jonesing for my next double macchiato. My muscles are hurting and I’m sweating rivers. I’ve been here an hour, and the retro coffee house on the corner won’t bring me even a long black on account of the tossers in camouflage cardigans. I’ve called them a dozen times to ask, but they won’t relent. Last I called, I suggested they tape the lid on tight and use a belt to slingshot it to me. They suggested I keep my head down.