Doug Mejia

Once again, I had the pleasure of attending a marching band competition. Like previous times, I was amazed by the talent these high school students display. Not only are they exceptional musicians playing some of the best music you’ll ever hear, but they also possess a level of coordination and synchronization that’s second to none.

Even though today was the first competition of the year, they’ve been working tirelessly for months, perfecting their craft. Their dedication and relentless drive is a characteristic I wish I saw in more people.

If these are our leaders of tomorrow, our future looks bright!

Below is a tiny glimpse of what you can expect to see at one of these competitions. I strongly recommend you check one out at some point in your life. You won’t be disappointed.

… a credit-card-sized board can power serious ideas, from home automation to robotics and AI.

The Raspberry Pi is one of my favorite tech products out there. The board itself is impressive, but what makes it truly amazing is the vibrant open source community and the projects they support. When I first started with Raspberry Pis, I kept things simple: I installed Raspbian and used it as a low-power desktop computer. I’d throw it in my bag and take it everywhere, whether on vacation or to client support visits, and it served its purpose perfectly.

Some of my favorite projects include

Pi-hole

DNS server with additional ad and tracker blocking.

Volumio

Combined with a DAC hat on the Pi itself, I connect it to my aound system at home and I stream music from my phone or tablet to enjoy great sounding audio.

OctoPrint

Connected to my 3D printer, I can load up a file to print, send it over the network, and have it print out on my printer in another part of the house.

Home Assistant

I have aquite a few IoT devices around the house, like lights and outlets that can all be controlled via the local Home Assistant controller. So, ti doe snot matter that I have internet or not because things just work and they work quickly too. More importantly, it is intuitive enough for the entire family to use.

I’ve even used Raspberry Pi Zero to create portable hotspots for ham radio. All of these projects are well-supported and work great.

If you’re interested in getting started with Raspberry Pi, check out BGR’s article title 10 Best Raspberry Pi Projects To Check Out In 2025 for some more ideas.

Whether you’re looking for a brilliant Pocket substitute or are new to the read-it-later game, these iOS apps will serve your reading needs well.

Now that Pocket, the popular read-it-later service, has shut down, Macworld published a helpful article covering some alternatives. Of all the options they listed, my favorite is by far GoodLinks.

It’s super simple to use. GoodLinks is a universal app that works seamlessly across my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. You don’t even need to create an account to start using it because everything syncs across your devices using iCloud.

The interface is simple and intuitive, keeping the focus squarely on the article itself. The readability is amazing: clear, clean, and just a pleasure to use.

Once I’ve saved articles to read later, I can organize them into different categories. If I decide to keep an article, I can highlight the parts I’m most interested in and add notes. GoodLinks then shows me just the highlights and notes for each article, making it easy to review key information. It’s fantastic.

The app also offers customization options for light mode, dark mode, and even a sepia theme. While I haven’t explored this yet, it also provides Siri shortcuts, which I plan to check out soon.

If you subscribe to certain publications that have a paywall, you can log into those sites through GoodLinks, so you don’t lose access to the premium content you’re already paying for.

I love that it doesn’t require an account. By design, it’s completely private, meaning GoodLinks doesn’t track which articles you’re reading or collect any of the data that other services typically gather.

Finally, my favorite feature is the fully accessible voiceover support. I can load up an article and have it read to me, which is perfect for multitasking. I love this app and highly recommend it.

‘Project Hail Mary’: Release date, plot, cast, and everything we know about Ryan Gosling’s mission to save the world

“Project Hail Mary” is the next major Hollywood blockbuster to be adapted from the works of ‘The Martian’ author Andy Weir, and this time it’s Ryan Gosling’s turn to “science the s**t” out of another cosmic conundrum.

I remember listening to The Martian by Andy Weir and absolutely loved it. The movie was okay, but I preferred the audio book. Then I heard Steve Gibson talking about how good Project Hail Mary was, on a Security Now podcast, so I picked up that audiobook as well. I’m so glad I did because the story was fantastic on its own, but the audiobook had some extra sound effects that made the story come to life even more. Hearing that the movie is now imminent, I can’t wait to see it. It makes me want to listen to the audiobook once more before then. Maybe I’ll carve out some time to do just that.

No matter how you feel about Steve Jobs, he was clearly an intelligent and focused individual. While he admitted he wasn’t great at everything, he excelled at two things: telling it like it was and delivering on what he set out to do.

Here’s the good news: we can do this too. It starts with focus and knowing when to ask for help.

It’s officially been fall for a few days now, but today is the first day it actually feels like Fall around here. We started decorating for Halloween and wanted something cool, so we 3D-printed this ghost. I think it turned out pretty awesome.

The rest of the house is now filled with pumpkins and little lights, plus a mix of spiders and other Halloween and fall decorations. It makes things more fun around here. I love it, and so does the rest of the family.

The beloved ice bream shop served Miami for 20 years. Now, it’s closing.

Wall’s is known not only for its sundaes and seasonal flavors like eggnog and mango but also its homemade fudge. It’s also the place where legions of ice cream lovers took the Great Wall challenge, stuffing down the Great Wall, with 12 scoops of ice cream, brownies, bananas, four toppings and whipped cream. Photos of the proud few who finish made the Wall of Fame.

Today feels like we are saying goodbye to an old friend. It’s always sad to see your favorite places close down after decades of service. My family and I will definitely miss Walls Old-Fashioned Ice Cream shop. We would visit The Big Cheese for some great pizza and football fun, then cross the street for the best ice cream in town at Walls.

My wife and I first started going to Walls during our college days and continued after graduating and starting our careers. We passed on the tradition to our kids, who are also saddened to see Walls close their doors. We definitely had lots of fun and made great memories there. We wish them the best.

Luckily, my wife stopped by today, their last day at their original location, and took a picture to help us remember it.

Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee

I gave the world wide web away for free because I thought that it would only work if it worked for everyone. Today, I believe that to be truer than ever. Regulation and global governance are technically feasible, but reliant on political willpower. If we are able to muster it, we have the chance to restore the web as a tool for collaboration, creativity and compassion across cultural borders. We can re-empower individuals, and take the web back. It’s not too late.

Tim Berners-Lee had a vision of interconnecting information through links. He persistently championed this idea until his bosses at CERN allowed him to pursue it. He realized that if people could publish anything on the web, they could publish everything on the web. To make that possible, he had to keep it free or no one would use it and his idea would die on the vine. So he convinced his bosses to relinquish their intellectual property rights and give away the World Wide Web.

Then companies moved in, and something that was free transformed into silos they controlled and eventually monetized. This is what Cory Doctorow describes and labels as the “enshittification” of the web.

First, they offer things for free and draw the consumer in. Then they start selling your data to companies and advertisers. Once those companies become dependent, they turn on them as well. It’s a lose-lose situation for everyone except the big players and platform owners.

Now, with AI vacuuming up everything on the web, these resources are being consolidated, potentially making things even worse for Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision. I hope he’s right when he says we still have time to avoid making the same mistake again and prevent AI from further degrading the web with “AI slop”.

A few years ago, I started learning about sketchnoting. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos, bought a book on it, and used it for a while. I even collaborated with my local art teacher and passed on our knowledge to quite a few people. I admit, I’m not a very good artist, but the sketches were more than adequate to achieve my goal: to record information and have it make sense to me at a future date. Although I slowed down in using sketchnoting, I still use some remnants of it today. Then, I saw this quick little video on sketchnoting, and now I want to get back into it using my iPad and GoodNotes.

If you’re interested, take a look yourself. It’s a very short video, but very concise and informative.