Damon Kohler

<p>A whole campaign — its maps, its monsters, its months of session history — fits in a folder of plain Markdown files.

<p>A whole-house automation setup lives or dies on how it’s organized, not on how clever any single automation is.

<p>The house runs itself the same way every morning.

<h1 id="recommendations">Recommendations<a role="anchor" aria-hidden tabindex="-1" data-no-popover href="#recommendations" class="internal"><svg width="18" height="18" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="…

<h1 id="recommendations">Recommendations<a role="anchor" aria-hidden tabindex="-1" data-no-popover href="#recommendations" class="internal"><svg width="18" height="18" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="…

<h1 id="recommendations">Recommendations<a role="anchor" aria-hidden tabindex="-1" data-no-popover href="#recommendations" class="internal"><svg width="18" height="18" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="…

<p>Everything runs headless on one always-on Linux machine.

<p>The Mac had been offline for a while.

<p>A few months ago I had a passing thought about how MQTT QoS levels actually behave in practice.

<p>For the past five or six months, every code change I ship has gone through one of two pipelines, and a routing heuristic picks which.

<p>Back in May I put four posts online in quick succession — a Claude Code workflow built on a ten-step SDLC pipeline, my AI-native homelab, the Home Assistant architecture underneath it, and a rig for running Dungeons and Dragons out of Obsidian.

<p>I counted the other day.

<p>The interactive AI conversation — the one where you sit at a chat window and ask things — is the part everyone talks about.

<p>I have microphones outside that listen for birds.

<blockquote class="callout note" data-callout="note"> <div class="callout-title"> <div class="callout-icon"></div> <div class="callout-title-inner"><p>A snapshot from May 2026.

<blockquote class="callout note" data-callout="note"> <div class="callout-title"> <div class="callout-icon"></div> <div class="callout-title-inner"><p>A snapshot from May 2026.

<blockquote class="callout note" data-callout="note"> <div class="callout-title"> <div class="callout-icon"></div> <div class="callout-title-inner"><p>A snapshot from May 2026.

<blockquote class="callout note" data-callout="note"> <div class="callout-title"> <div class="callout-icon"></div> <div class="callout-title-inner"><p>A snapshot from May 2026.

<p>I’m a software engineer in Munich.

<p>Yesterday, a project at Google that I’ve been putting a lot of work into launched!

<p>Kalman filters are notoriously difficult to comprehend.

<p>If your Roomba is getting slow in its old age, try cleaning the forward IR sensors.

<p>For the past few months, I’ve been working on a new ROS SLAM package called google_mapping.

<p>I gave another talk about cloud robotics at Devoxx 2012 in Antwerp last month.

<p>I gave a talk about cloud robotics this week at the <a href="http://parlab.eecs.berkeley.edu/" class="external">Berkeley Par Lab<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" style="max-width:0.8em;max-height:0.8em" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M320 0…

<p>I just got back from my trip to the inaugural ROSCon.

<p><a href="http://www.unblock-us.com/" class="external">Unblock Us<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" style="max-width:0.8em;max-height:0.8em" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M320 0H288V64h32 82.7L201.4 265.4 178.7 288 224 333.3l22.6-22.6L448 10…

<p>I have a Logitech diNovo Edge Bluetooth keyboard.

<p>I was surprised to find out that plugging a DVI to HDMI cable into my Lenovo X220 docking station allowed me to use the audio channel of the HDMI connection.

<p>I’ve used my beloved Kinesis Advantage keyboard for over half a decade.

<p>I found existing tutorials on how to do this to be a bit complicated.

<p>On the second day of <a href="http://www.google.com/events/io/2011/" class="external">Google I/O 2011<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" style="max-width:0.8em;max-height:0.8em" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M320 0H288V64h32 82.7L201.4 265.4…

<p>23 AIs found.

<p><em>Damon says</em>: Fallout: New Vegas is definitely the most fun I’ve had wasting away in front of the Xbox for days at a time.

<p><strong>Update</strong>: as pointed out in the comments below, instructions are available on the <a href="http://www.ros.org/wiki/cturtle/Installation/Ubuntu/SVN" class="external">ROS wiki<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" style="max-width:0…

<p><em>Damon says</em>: Fable III is the most disappointing sequel since <em>The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</em>.

<p>I received a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Parrot-AR-Drone-Quadricopter-Controlled-iPhone/dp/B003ZVSHB0?

<p>Flashing the Lego NXT brick on Ubuntu is pretty straight forward:</p> <ul> <li>Download the <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/support/files/default.aspx#Firmware" class="external">latest firmware<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" sty…

<p>Laura made me this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recurring_characters_in_Futurama#Brain_Slugs" class="external">Brain Slug<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" style="max-width:0.8em;max-height:0.8em" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path…

<p>In our house we celebrate all through December.

<p>This is my Android-powered, automated cat feeder:</p> <p><img src="..

<p>The <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-diNovo-Edge-Keyboard-Black/dp/B000J43HJ8?

<p>There is a <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/make_projects_-_easy_3d_models_with.html" class="external">similar tutorial<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" style="max-width:0.8em;max-height:0.8em" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d…

<p>Installing and running SketchUp 7 under Wine works quite well with Ubuntu Lucid.

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_JPEG" class="external">MJPEG<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" style="max-width:0.8em;max-height:0.8em" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M320 0H288V64h32 82.7L201.4 265.4 178.7 288 224 333.3l22.6-22…

<p>I’ve been experimenting with different configurations for controlling my HTPC.

<p>We’d like to introduce our cats to the interwebs.

<p>In the summer of 2010, I built a MakerBot Cupcake CNC from a deluxe kit (batch 15).

<p>This evening, Laura and I listened to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Free-Fallin/dp/B000WOWR00?

<p>The <a href="http://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/Sensor.html#TYPE_ORIENTATION" class="external">orientation sensor<svg aria-hidden="true" class="external-icon" style="max-width:0.8em;max-height:0.8em" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="…