The What

Back in 2012, I had plans. I was unemployed, bored, and had just embarked on an interesting hardware project to help organize my music collection. It gave me something to talk about, so I started a blog called Macdweller. For much of 2012 I posted various random things, including my ramblings about TuneConsole.

And then I got a job, and promptly stopped.

The Why

I was never happy with Macdweller for a lot of reasons. Firstly, it was originally intended as a place for Mac-oriented tech stuff, and that didn’t really happen. Much to my surprise, I found that I was much more interested in writing about hardware hacking and any other random thing that came to mind.

On top of that, I hated the visual theme. It was ugly. Not only that, but it was poorly done. I never spent the time to do a thorough job of it; I just wanted to write, and I didn’t much care about what it looked like. That was a mistake.

Fast forward to 2016, and while some things haven’t changed, others have.

The How

I still have the same interests. I love hardware hacking. Unfortunately, a severe lack of space where I was living at the time hampered those efforts; it’s a miracle that I managed to complete just the one project! Having to set up and tear down my entire workspace every time I wanted to tinker with something was annoying, and less than motivating.

Now, though, I’ve moved into a much nicer place (with much more room) in the vicinity of Austin, Texas. I can keep my lab set up full time. My workstation isn’t crammed into a tiny corner at an uncomfortable desk. I can set everything up the way I want it and still have room to spare.

I still have that job, though. Ultimate freedom still eludes me…

My attention span is also still just as short as ever. Sometimes I get deeply into something for weeks or even months on end, often getting distracted from it before finishing whatever it is. Other times I can’t keep my mind on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. I’m all over the map.

And that… led to this.

The… Who?

For those who don’t know: in electronics, you might read in a datasheet that an unused pin should or should not be “left floating.” A floating pin (“IO”) is a pin that isn’t connected to anything, or otherwise purposely drawn to any specific state. If you test the state of that pin, your results will depend on everything from the state of the rest of the circuit to the phase of the moon. You can’t easily predict the state of a floating pin, let alone when that state will change.

Kinda like my attention span.

Floating.io is my platform to ramble on about whatever happens to be on my mind on any given day. It’s also meant as a location for project logs (and I do have a few projects in mind, including a new version of the TuneConsole). And this time around, I actually spent the time to put it together properly, so I’m much happier with the result.

There are still a few bugs, but that’s to be expected.

If you’re still here, just sit back and enjoy the ride. I have no idea how often I’ll post, or even any clue what I’ll post about. My only goal is to be more consistent than I was with the last effort — and hopefully give you something to read that either interests or amuses you.

I hope.

And if anyone knows of really good blog editors for the Mac, please let me know. The ones I’ve tried are all buggy, ugly, or lacking in features, and I hate writing in textboxen on the web…