I gotta get to blogging this year. Just one of my many projects from the holiday break – this obviously isn’t done but it’s a pretty neat stack using Protobuf, RF24 (Arduino to Arduino) to serial on macOS with SwiftUI+SceneKit. pic.twitter.com/P62KpM69Z2
— Tanner Stokes (@TannerStokes) January 6, 2022
Author: Tanner
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Watch your tabs!
Yay computers!
Because I missed a tab in a Python script, my home Docker box has been running with a higher-than-necessary CPU utilization and spiky temperatures for five months. 😬
Tab has now been tabbed. 🐍


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Snake Eyes + Servos
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Carve Different

I’ve seen a lot of these little “fake notch” apps pop up since Apple’s new MacBooks were announced, but I didn’t see a lot of source code – so of course I was nerd sniped.
Here’s a basic example of making one using AppKit and SwiftUI!

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Joining Automattic
I’m thrilled to be joining the fine folks at Automattic this month as a mobile software engineer. Though I’ll miss all of my wonderful Clemson coworkers immensely, I’m excited for the road ahead. 🚀
I saw flip dots (also called flip discs) last year for the first time and instantly knew I needed some in my life. If you’re not familiar with them, check out how they work!
The particular model I have is the ALFAZETA XY5, which may be the easiest way to get up and running, but certainly not the least expensive.
After getting the board, all you need is:
- 24V power supply
- Something that talks over RS485 (in my case I used an ESP8266 connected to a MAX3485 board)
- Their documentation that defines the controller data protocol
I plan to write in more detail how it all works, but for this demo the stack is:
- SwiftUI app that runs SwiftGFXWrapper (which is mainly Adafruit’s GFX Library under the hood)
- The app sends the entire pixel buffer over UDP to the ESP8266
- The ESP8266 sends data to the XY5 over RS485 using their controller’s protocol
For even easier prototyping, I’ve added Swift Playground support to my SwiftGFXWrapper project!
