by dv35z | 2026-03-09 05:35:46+00:00
(1) PROJECT "AFFIRMATOR" - Start each day out right with chill jazz wake-up music, then life-success wisdom (Earl Nightingale, Tony Robbins, etc). In the evening, fun latin cooking music plays, and then lo-fi chill tunes. At night, your personalized vocalized affirmations & goals plays, and then drift to sleep with meditation music.

Tech details:
I found that used, small form-factor Dell Optiplexes are great for product protoytyping. I'm in Medellin Colombia, and found that you can buy these for about $200 USD - they are often former Point of Sale (POS) or office computers, from about 10 years ago. They have SSDs, run quiet, and are very reliable.

For project Affirmator, I installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). Using Cron and Mpv to shuffle-play activity-specific folders of MP3s at the same time each day. For example, for the chill jazz music - I've got a folder of 40+ song MP3s. Cron plays those at 06:30. So it's like a calm, upbeat alarm clock. I'm not a morning person, so this is a "friendly" way for me to wake myself up!

For the vocal affirmation part - I built a Python tool that reads 200+ text affirmations from a markdown/text file. It then uses AWS Polly text-to-speech API to vocalize the affirmations into MP3s. Next, I use `ffmpeg` to add a variable silent spacer gap to the ends of all the MP3s. This allows your to hear a voice affirmation ("I am fit, athletic, and strong!", "I am a confident piano player."), and then there is silent space for you to say it out loud, or repeat in your head.

This project incorporates ideas & routines from: The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale, Tony Robbins Personal Power II, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and Atomic Habits by James Clear

https://codeberg.org/jro/Affirmator-app

(2) PROJECT "LINGOFREQ" - Language learning tool. Uses language-specific high-frequency word lists. Generates example sentences according to a theme/topic. Translates the word & example phrases to English / Spanish / Chinese. Uses Text-to-speech to vocalize the phrases into each language. These phrases are ordered by frequency. When you want to improve your language skills, you set a "window" range of frequency you want to practice, and Lingofreq will play audio files in this range. You can learn Chinese & Spanish while doing the dishes, at the gym, or before going to bed!

Code: https://codeberg.org/jro/LingoFreq-app/src/branch/main/apps

(3) Medellin COMMUNITY MAKER-SPACE / CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR LAB
I'm at Medellin Colombia - my mission is to create the best maker-space. I was a member of ASMBLY Maker-space in Austin Texas (great space!) and worked at Pivotal Labs (agile product prototyping / software lab) - so I'm aiming to combine the best ideas from those.

BACK-BURNER projects:

Documenting my Knowledge as "Public Knowledge Base"
- https://codeberg.org/jro/Knowledge - Here are my notes on Python, Git
- I'm bouncing between Obsidian Sync / Publish / Markdown (currently easiest way), and some sort of open-source knowledge base website (VSCodium + Markdown + FOAM + MkDocs + RClone). I haven't found a solution I'm happy with yet...

Open-source CNC router tech stack:
- I have a CNC router (robotic drill which can carve 3D shapes into wood). Last year I challenged myself to operate it completely through an open-source tech stack. This took me on a journey of learning Inkscape (2d vector design tool, SVG), FreeCAD (3D product design / CAD / CAM tool), G-code (format of text instructions which tell CNC tools where to move and what to do), Universal G-Code Sender (a tool which imports CAM - computer aided manufacturing - designs, connects to the CNC router tool, and actually operates machine. It's quite exciting to play with! Used Kiri-moto (web-based CAD / CAM tool) to convert 2D/SVG designs into 3D shapes). Used OBS (screen recording/streaming tool) and a bunch of web-cams to live-stream tool usage to PeerTube Live (similar to YouTube).

Being "principled" about using open-source tools can be so challenging, but its quite rewarding on the long run.

LEARNING SPANISH
- What's working for me... trying to read spanish books before bed. Handwriting a few paragraphs from a book into journal. Highlighting words I don't know. Looking them up later. Reading a book while listening to its audio book at the same time.

If anyone's interesting in contributing to these projects, I would warmly welcome that. Design, product, sales, project management, engineering/coding, marketing - need tons of help in all these areas.

Gracias! // JRO