Why I Got Into Building Gunpla

I got into building Gunpla after watching Gundam and following some Gunpla YouTubers. My favorite Gundam show is Iron-Blooded Orphans (IBO for short). I love it for the message it carries and the brutal honesty of its story. It’s a dark anime about child soldiers, and it really stuck with me.

My very first kit was the Barbatos Lupus Rex, followed by the Kimarus Vidar. Since then, I’ve built over ten kits—and I even have a backlog (though nothing compared to my friend’s backlog of over 40 kits!). For me, Gunpla is a creative outlet. I build, paint, and even add LEDs whenever I can.

Why I’m Stepping Away from NixOS (For Now)

I love NixOS. It’s one of the most unique and powerful Linux distributions out there. The idea of a fully declarative system—where everything is managed in a single configuration file—is amazing. It gives me confidence and clarity. I always know what’s on my machine, where things are configured, and how to recreate it exactly on another system.

But ironically, the same thing I love about NixOS is also why I’m stepping away from it—for now.

Why Productivity Is Snake Oil

The definition of productivity (such as time, labor, or materials) is to produce a desired outcome, output, or result. But why do I say it’s snake oil?

It’s unmeasured and undefined. What most people call productivity is really just busywork. We measure it in quantity before quality—and there’s a big difference.

There’s a quote: “Bite off more than you can chew.” That’s what people are doing in the pursuit of productivity. So we end up turning in half-hearted work, which we sometimes have to redo, just to say we got more done. It’s not attainable—there’s always more to do. So we rush, repeat, and burn out.

Why You Don’t Want Too Many Wireless Signals in Your Home

Wi-Fi is one of the best inventions of the modern era. It connects almost everything in our lives today. But Wi-Fi isn’t the only wireless signal in your home. There are many different wireless protocols, and when too many are active, they can interfere with each other. This can slow your network down — sometimes even to a snail’s pace.

Even the Wi-Fi from your neighbors can interfere with your own. And if you have a smart home, you’ve probably heard of protocols like Thread or Zigbee, which add even more signals into the mix.

Why You Should Handwrite Your Notes

In a digital environment, it is easy to go faster. In the age of AI, things go even faster. But that speed does you no good if you don’t know what you are doing, because you end up copying and pasting the information. You don’t know what you just said, and you will forget it in a few hours. I think people should write more and practice. According to Science Daily, workers were 25% faster on paper than on an electronic device (“Study Shows Stronger Brain Activity”). The article says that a notebook is not uniform in pen strokes, has limited space, and is a physical item to keep track of. Digital notes are infinite in spacing and easily closed, so when you close the app, it is out of sight, out of mind. This reminds me of a quote that I once heard: “ To go faster, you first need to slow down,” which means to step back and look at it objectively, but with the digital tool, you don’t step back and see it differently. I know the convenience of the available digital tools, and you have them anywhere via the cloud. A notebook is not easily searchable, and they are bulky to carry, especially if you go bigger than an A5-size notebook. In contrast, a notebook enables faster deep understanding than a digital app.

an I Still Happy with my Big Monitor

Yes and no — I love the big monitor. I even took the smaller monitor off the side of my desk for it. But I don’t like it as much as I thought I would. It’s large, and while that’s great in some ways, many of its features would honestly work better if they were split into separate devices for a variety of reasons.


KVM

To start with, the KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch setup is a bit of a hassle. It requires a USB and a display cable for each connected device, and there’s no easy way to manage those cables cleanly. Power is on one side of the monitor, while data and video inputs are on the other, making cable management awkward. Also, if one of your systems is powered off or sleeping, the USB ports on the monitor won’t stay active — so you can’t use them to wake the system up.

cool tech in q3 of 2025 less than $50

cool tech in q3 of 2025 less than $50

August 8, 2025 :: Casey Robinson

#tech


Sometimes it’s the little things that make life easier. Here are a few small purchases I’ve made recently that have been surprisingly useful in my day-to-day.


🚗 ESR MagSafe Car Mount – $27

I’ve been looking for a simple, reliable way to keep my phone in place in my 2008 car, and this ESR MagSafe mount nails it. I’ve always loved the Apple MagSafe system—even though I use an Android phone with a MagSafe case. (No, it doesn’t mean I dislike Apple or the iPhone. I just stick with what I know.) The mount holds my phone securely and makes navigation so much more convenient. Image description

High School DxD manga review


Overview

High School DxD is a manga adaptation of the popular anime series. To my knowledge, it doesn’t fully complete the first season’s story arc, but it still makes for a pretty enjoyable read.

The series follows the anime closely in the beginning but tapers off slightly toward the end. Thankfully, the changes aren’t major, so it doesn’t feel jarring if you’re reading the manga after watching the anime.

people are building smart homes wrong

people are building smart homes wrong

August 17, 2025 :: Casey Robinson

#Productivity


Intro

people are making there smart home wrong because we gave them the wrong ideas. why i say that it is because we have marked it as a smart speaker that dose it all. that we will have a JARVIS that will make it all work like what we see in iron man. that idea is not bad but we are doing something that is not going to work for the long jevery but fast and not a hastel. but i shoud be clear that i am not a expert in a smart home but i do know that we see it as wee speak to a google home or a Alexa. with that is not the ancer becasuse of 2 reations.

Why i have a smart home

I have a smart home for a few reasons, but they mainly come down to creativity and being hands-off.

To be honest, I don’t see someone owning an Alexa or another smart speaker as truly having a smart home—that’s just a fancy light switch. And apps aren’t the full answer either.


Being Creative

  • I enjoy building cool automation, like having my lights change to random colors or using a web-hook from my notes app to start my kettle.
  • It’s fun for me as a consumer to buy interesting gadgets that give me new possibilities for automation.

Being Hands-Off

  • Improving efficiency so the human element doesn’t forget: for example, my AC automatically switches from 64°F at night to 72°F when I open the door in the morning.
  • Eliminating unnecessary context switching—I don’t have to stop what I’m doing to handle small tasks.
  • Improving family living by having lights turn on automatically so people can see where they’re going and avoid touching light switches, which also reduces germ spread.

Conclusion

Do I need a smart home? No—plenty of people live without one.
But as a nerd who values productivity and the ease of walking into a room without doing anything, I’m a power user. I self-host my own system with Home Assistant, which makes my setup both hands-off in daily use and hands-on when it comes to building and maintaining it.