Packed lunches are a great way to save money, but being limited to foods palatable at room temperature (or colder) can be a little discouraging. In most American workplaces, a microwave oven is readily available in the breakroom, making it easy to reheat a home-cooked meal. However, after leaving a desk-bound white-collar job for one that often takes me into the field, that's only occasionally an option. So I DIY'd a device for warming up food that's portable and usable in almost any situation.

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This blog post is about a GNU/Linux rabbit hole I fell down in the belief I was chasing a mighty adventure. It was not nearly as adventurous as I had hoped, but I am nonetheless posting about it in case this information is helpful to someone else. My story begins with a purchase of four wireless gamepads from 8BitDo. I had done little research outside of scrolling past a few positive comments about their products on the Fediverse and viewing enough of their marketing materials to see that the controller I was interested in was supported by SteamOS. That was enough to encourage me to put in an order, so I did, and patiently awaited their arrival. When they were finally in my hands, I plugged two of them into my media center, hoping to play some Mario Kart with Oli. They were clearly working in some capacity because RetroArch pops up a toast when it detects that a controller has been plugged in, but something was wrong. I twiddled the analog sticks and I mashed the buttons. Nothing seemed to happen.

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My Flipper Zero arrived in the mail a few weeks ago, ending a nearly two-year wait for its arrival. For the uninitiated, it's a "multi-tool device for geeks": a development board for radio, IR, and GPIO in a Tamagotchi-like form-factor. It combines the capability of the GoodWatch with the cuteness of the Pwnagotchi. Part of the appeal, to me, is the ability to hack on the free (as in freedom) firmware. As capable as it was out of the box, providing plenty of amusement when my brother and I took it for a spin through some parking garages, there are still features I'd like to add to it. The problem is that I've been too pampered by Rust as of late to want to do my firmware hacks in C.

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The background for this project is a lesson in avoiding dishonest vendors. Two years ago, I was looking to purchase a smart watch with sleep tracking capabilities; I've always had difficulty sleeping and wanted a way of finally quantifying that difficulty. One of my requirements was the ability to pull data off of the watch without the use of proprietary software, so the only options I was seriously considering were those on Gadgetbridge's "supported devices" list. At the time, I was still in high school, and still awed by the affordability of consumer electronics on websites such as AliExpress (woefully unaware of the ethical implications of supporting a totalitarian state's economy). Moreover, I was somewhat capable of reading and writing 汉语, so the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 fit the bill. I took to Ebay to purchase one, finding a listing for 10.99 USD with free shipping. I ordered it, and things were okay. That is, until the package arrived.

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