we already have nostalgia at home

2026-05-11 by N. Ron Hubbard

Awhile back, Commoodore announced the C64 Ultimate, an FPGA reboot of the Commodore 64, now with USB and HDMI and ethernet ports. The C64 has a long history of reboots and implementations, mostly geared towards the retrogaming crowd. More recently there's been an appetite for a full system version. Various projects have eaten around the edges, which have all culminated in an officially-branded Commodore release.

Good on them, and I hope they're successful.

When I first saw the announcement, my lizard brain shouted "WANT SHINY" as it usually does when presented with new tech. It also poked the part of my frontal lobe that's suspiciously susceptible to nostalgia, which a great many industries and a few political movements also like to do. I thought about the original Commodore 64 that is currently sitting on my workbench, in need of a few minor repairs, but otherwise a better avatar of nostalgia. Pretty sure I got it for the same reasons at the time. Then I wondered to myself: why am I not just fixing the unit I have, and salivating for something I don't have with features I don't really want? Read more…

in&out my hovel

2024-11-02 by Enron Hubbard

The past year has been wild. I found my dream house and moved into it. Starting to clear away land to build a growing dome for food production, settling in to the sleepy little town I've found myself choosing as the place to spend the rest of my life. It's quaint and idyllic here, the kind of place that's a close community without being exclusive or unwelcoming. I found my place here, and I'm quite content with it.

Part of this has meant spending a lot of time adjusting to homeownership and less time tinkering with projects on the bench, though the past month or so has presented a gradual shift to the latter. As winter approaches, I find myself subconsciously preparing for days with less sky and more screen. While the earth tucks itself into her deep slumber, I'll be spending my time honing contraptions and creating things that make me smile.

Looking over this site, there are some updates I should probably make. Not so much out of obligation, but more to keep myself occupied and continuing to make the things I want to see in the world. I've abandoned my feelings of guilt over being "not productive" just because I'm not constantly publishing or hitting milestones on the things I do. It occurred to me that I can just do what I want to, when I want to, and tinkering doesn't have to be some kind of surrogate hustle. Read more…

What We Lost In The Move

2023-11-13 by Enron

When I was a young'un, there was a record store near my high school that had a bargain bin of $1 CDs. This was in the mid-nineties, before records gained their retro charm and Vinyl Guys hadn't begun their full onslaught into the pop culture consciousness. Blank cassettes were still available at the corner store, and trading mix tapes remained the best way for us to Express Ourselves and our never-before-felt feelings. But if you wanted it fresh and piping hot from the studios, CDs were the most plentiful and preferred option. Read more…

100 Days to Offload

2023-08-03 by sysop

Consistently posting bloviations is often difficult to keep up. So many blogs that are empty shells of good intentions that fade out in a lack of follow-through. This happens with all kinds of things, like monthly challenges (yeah sure I'll make a song every day for a month) or wild art projects. So, of course, I'll try yet another one: it's called 100 Days To Offload. Read more…

Blog Trope #4,976,231

2023-07-19 by Enron Hubbard

And so it arrived. The "Oh Jeez I Haven't Posted In Awhile" post. A timeless antiquity, a relic as ancient as the blagotubes themselves. Many a starved blog has made this death knell: abandoned project pages with the best of intentions that were smothered by, one can only assume, Life. Read more…