WRITING & PROJECTS
Articles
Technical guides, experiments, and adventures.
2025-09-02
Petroglyphs at Fremont Island
In a previous post, I traveled across the Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island to Fremont Island, running through a mucky slosh to see the cross of Kit Carson on Castle Rock. On…
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2025-06-27
WSL Terminals Won't Start in VSCode version 1.101 - "C:\WINDOWS\System32\bash.exe '-d', 'Debian'" terminated with exit code: 2
After updating VSCode to May 2025 (v1.101) on Windows, I found that any WSL terminals failed to open. Somehow VSCode was now trying to use "C:\WINDOWS\System32\bash.exe" to run…
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2025-04-01
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel - Easter
The story of Mary Magdalene reflects a future day for all of us individually. Mary had found herself in Jesus Christ. He brought out the best in her and showed her her own divine…
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2024-11-26
The Murder Ballad of Bishop Henri / Piispa Henrikin Surmavirsi
The Murder of Henri the Elder Project Introduction The Murder Ballad of Bishop Henri details the supposed start of Christianity in Finland. The origin of the story has its roots…
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2024-07-18
How to get GPX Files from the Strava API - strava2gpx (Python)
The current Strava API does not allow for users to request activities in the form of a gpx file. The strava2gpx package for Python uses the Strava API to pull data streams which…
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2024-05-05
Holmes Cabin - Kaysville, UT
Holme's Cabin is a lesser known cabin located about halfway up the mountains East of Kaysville. It is accessible starting from the Kaysville East Wilderness Park trailhead and…
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2024-04-21
Custom ESP8266 Home Media Control (w/ Alexa, IR, RF, and Wifi) Pt. 2
Part One Github In this second part, we will be going over the programming and network information for this project to control and automate home media devices using Alexa and…
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2024-02-12
Thinkpad T440p USB C Charging Mod
The Thinkpad T440P comes with the old Lenovo Slim USB charging port. In my experience, it has only been a source of annoyance as it seems every charger for it stops working after…
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2024-01-03
Custom ESP8266 Home Media Control (w/ Alexa, IR, RF, and Wifi) Pt. 1
In this series of articles I will be going over my efforts to create a home media control system using a couple ESP8266's. The end result will be a fully automated theater setup…
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2023-09-19
Fremont Island: A run across the lake
A bit of history Despite being a relatively sparse wasteland, Fremont Island has a decently interesting history. Located 6 miles northwest from the far more popular Antelope…
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2023-03-20
Replace Damaged USB Port - ThinkPad L15 Gen 2
Last year I was able to snatch a refurbished Thinkpad l15 Gen 2 from Lenovo for $200. Recently I noticed that the USB port on the right didn't actually work. Upon further…
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2023-03-10
Cheaply Acquiring a GoPro (How to Fix Hero 8 Lens)
Now the first thing you want to do, is find a GoPro stand not out in the open. Take a thin strip of metal and stick it into the crack between the glass and... Research GoPro…
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2023-02-07
Installing Garmin SDK in Ubuntu 22.04
The steps to setting up a development for Garmin IQ in the past for Ubuntu 20+ have had some issues with library dependencies, but these seem to have been cleared up in the recent…
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2023-02-06
Garmin: Custom Watchfaces
There are a couple of methods for creating custom watchfaces for Garmin watches, but most are not great. In this post, we will quickly review three methods, focusing at the end on…
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2023-01-04
Guide to the Scheme Interpreter Project (BYU CS 111) Part 3
Part 1 Part 2 We are finally to the last part of building our interpreter for Scheme in Python. In Part 3 we will implement our special form functions so that we can interpret…
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2022-12-10
Guide to the Scheme Interpreter Project (BYU CS 111) Part 2
Part 1 if you missed it In part 2 we will be implementing the code for procedures. By the end of this, you will be able to interpret user-defined functions, lambda functions, and…
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2022-12-04
Guide to the Scheme Interpreter Project (BYU CS 111) Part 1
part 2 The Scheme Interpreter project is the most daunting and if you're me, by far the longest assignment (14 hours) in CS 111. In the project, you program bits and pieces of an…
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