Ryan Palmer

A brick, restored. I brought it back to running and driving, and my dad took over to finish the job — which is the most Volvo way a project can end: it stays in the family, and it's never really finished.

I followed 3D printing from the beginning but knew to wait for "good," not "good enough." Between three kids, a crafty wife, and multi-color printing arriving in spades, it was only a matter of time. I'm pretty much always printing something — usually parts for the printer itself, or organizers for tools, games, and anything else that holds still long enough.

Home automation is finally really good, and open-source software is the reason. The fun part isn't turning on lights with your phone — it's designing automations that make sense in a specific situation, so nobody has to think about them at all.

I've always been into radio. In college I built and tuned my own CW transceiver and did a pile of signal processing work, so SDR sits exactly at the intersection of my EE past and my software present. Ham license is in progress — soon I'll be able to talk with people all over the world. Probably about ham radio.

I collect technology that lost: LaserDiscs, vinyl records, vintage video games. Someone has to keep this stuff spinning.