Infiltrated Code

This was a big year for Tech Reclaimers. Janet, Becah and I presented a panel on our year of progress, with Becah hosting. I'm glad we were able to recognize Ali's involvement and contributions in our launch. I know she'd be really proud of what we've achieved so far. We miss her – I miss her. I am also profoundly grateful to Becah for stepping in as Treasurer. She has been absolutely instrumental in keeping us moving. Her efforts in fundraising with The Gibson has built a launch pad for our programs for the coming 6-12 months. Our panel was recorded and will be released on YouTube by DEF CON (and also on our PeerTube channel) when it is ready.

We also gave three presentations in the hackers.town community village. While none of these were recorded, we'll be making videos of these, including demos, and making them available on our PeerTube channel. We also recognize we need a YouTube channel to improve our reach. While I think it's fair to say none of us are thrilled about feeding the YouTube monster, we recognize that we need to meet people where they are – and to do that we need to actually reach them. You can expect deluxe versions of Janet's presentation "Fun with alternative smartphones with The Tech Reclaimers!", Patrick's presentation "Take Back Your Memories" on storing photos, and my presentation on "Liberating Your Music".

Also, a huge thank you to Patrick for running demos for Jellyfin and self-hosted Ente Photos in the village. He also organized an incredible DJ set and video wall for the very fun 10th birthday party for hackers.town itself.

As for Tech Reclaimers, expect to see more guides including portable music players, using Calyx, more basics, a new campaign about rewilding the world wide web, and our first explorations into local in-person Tech Reclaimers groups. I'm very excited to see where this all goes, thrilled to be working with talented folks like Becah, Janet and Patrick, as well as watching our community grow both in size and ability. Seeing members help each other directly is hugely rewarding and shows that our model works.

Let's reclaim our tech together!

Apparently I don't have nearly enough half-finished projects on the go. Nevertheless, and inspired by many of the cool hackers, tinkerers, and makers I know (c0debabe, LambdaCalculus, The Wrew and The Gibson – looking at you) I decided I wanted to hack together my first Cyberdeck. Timing was characteristically terrible: right before DEF CON when I was already up to my optical sensors with prepping a talk for Tech Reclaimers on the community stage, setting up Hackers Trivia for the hackers.town village, plus modding (i.e. breaking) music players as research for a talk I'm giving on liberating your music – also in the hackers.town village. None of this is a good idea, but I seem to thrive on this kind of chaos. Even if it's self-created.

So here I am. With no plan, no expertise, just fumbling my way through trying to make a Cyberdeck. I'm putting the punk into cyber here, and it's going to be a slow-burn project. I'm determined to enjoy the process this time (especially the learning) rather than my usual defect of being too invested in the outcome. I'll keep iterating. What I make is probably going to suck - it will be flimsy, unreliable, look bad, crash, overheat, and probably smell funny. Then I'll fix it somehow, and maybe it will improve, or maybe I'll fuck it up in new and unique ways... but dammit I'm going to iterate, learn and have fun.

My goals are broadly:

• Clamshell case (somehow)
• Terminal use cases primarily
• 80's Cyberpunk cold/war aesthetic
• Maybe something with meshcore
• Usable without going blind or getting wrist cramps

My skillset: competent programmer comfortable down at system level. I tend to break things when I open them up – consequently I learn how to fix them after. I've replaced MacBook batteries. I've soldered exactly once. Oh did I mention I don't own a 3D printer and know next to nothing about that either? I'm close to both a Micro Center and several Central Computers.

So far I've gathered the following hardware:

• Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB)
• 10.1-inch Capacitive Touch Screen LCD (B) with Case, 1280×800, IPS Screen
• Raspberry Pi Pico 2 for the keyboard controller with CircuitPython firmware

I was able to bench test all of that. So far so good.

My next challenge will be choosing switches and keycaps. I'm going with Kailh Choc v1 switches and low profile keycaps. The sampler arrived over the weekend... how do I even choose amongst all these awesome switches? I like clicky but that's probably annoying for field (read coffee shop) usage.

I'll pick this back up after DEF CON, probably after I've re-soldered a new battery into an old Creative Zen Mozaic player and re-assembled my modded iPod 5th Gen – guess who broke the screen on that?

Make something, break something. Rip the system.