iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 23/08/2026

When my son asked for a #minecraft themed scavenger hand for his birthday, I knew that this would be right up my alley. But I did ot expect things to escalate so quickly...

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 26/04/2026

I just pushed an update for my Android app α-Remote to allow focus bracketing on Sony Cameras with Bluetooth but without a native focus bracketing feature. α-Remote is free and open source. Just search for "alpharemote" on F-Droid or Google Play.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 12/12/2025

This year's CNC'ed tree ornaments are #mario themed.

A wooden Mario figure dangling from a Christmas tree.

A wooden Mario star dangling from a Christmas tree.

A wooden Mario turtle shell dangling from a Christmas tree.

A wooden Yoshi figure dangling from a Christmas tree.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 19/08/2025

Kudos to whoever relabeled our elevator call buttons.

Detail shot of a metal control panel for calling an elevator. From top to bottom there is a warning sign about not using the elevator during a fire, followed by the call button to go up, the call button to go down and a written form about not using the elevator during a fire (in German). The call buttons for up and down have been covered by a well fitted printout replacing the original up/down arrows with lower-case script versions of the letter "a" with an accent circonflexe above. The upper of the two new labels also has a dagger symbol as a superscript. (For those who would get the joke but can not follow the typographic description: It is the raising and lowering operators as used in quantum mechanics.)

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 21/07/2025

This is the #GameBoy Photo Booth for my cousin's wedding. It records from a Game Boy Camera and lets the guests print a souvenir on a Game Boy Printer. Blog: there.oughta.be/a/game-boy-p... (Yes, another cousin, another photo/video booth.)

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 20/04/2025

I finally have a use for the GB Interceptor's extension board.

The photo shows a laptop, a Game Boy Pocket and a Game Boy Camera on a table. The Game Boy Camera is held up by a hand and connected to the Game Boy Pocket through a long ribbon cable. The top of a GB Interceptor board is sticking out from the Game Boy Pocket, which is connected to the Laptop through a USB cable. The Game Boy Pocket and the laptop both show the same image of the Game Boy Camera's view of me smiling at the camera.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 12/04/2025

It's talking to me. That's a good start.

The photo shows the screen of a digital oscilloscope. On the screen three three signals are visible, labelled CLK, MOSI and MISO. Alls show digital patterns with a peak to peak voltage of about 5V and in 8 bit groups that last about 1 millisecond each. Below the signals is the result of SPI decoding, showing hex values for the MISO and MOSI signals. MOSI data is 0x88 0x33 0x0f 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0f 0x00 0x00 0x00. MISO data is 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x81 0x00.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 09/04/2025

Just spent a day debugging an OpenGL performance issue in phyphox to eventually find that it is caused by my Pixel 6 overheating atypically in any GPU-heavy application (see benchmark). Anyone ever experienced something like this? Not sure if it's time for some "exploratory surgery" or an upgrade.

This is a screenshot from a benchmark app, showing a total score of 3029 for my Pixel 6. It also shows a histogram of how many other Pixel 6 devices have achieved which scores, most of which score in the range of 5000 to 7000. It also shows that my score is better than only 2% of the recorded Pixel 6 scores.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 10/01/2025

My Game Boy Slideshow ROM Generator is now available at there.oughta.be/a/game-boy-s... #gameboy #retrogaming

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 04/01/2025

My Game Boy slideshow generator is almost complete. Just drag and drop some images into it and download a ROM for your Game Boys without installing anything. It runs locally in any modern browser. Give me a few days to wrap it up and make a little YT video. #gameboy #retrogaming

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 20/12/2024

This was just supposed to be a present for my parents and then things got out of hand... Happy holidays everyone :)

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 07/12/2024

I finally released my Bluetooth remote app for #SonyAlpha cameras. It just pops up whenever you turn on your camera without the usual hassle of setting up the Wifi remote. It's #FOSS, so get it for free on F-Droid or Google Play (Android 12+). Links on my blog at there.oughta.be/a/bluetooth-...

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 06/11/2024

Anyone with a Bluetooth-enabled Sony camera interested in testing my new remote control app? So far I have only tried my a6400... minil.in/k/remote

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 17/05/2024

Our peach tree seems to believe that gravity is something that happens to other plants.

Photo of the top-most branch of a peach tree with a still small peach growing upwards at the very top. (Details: Two larger branches are visible that have been cut off and the visible part has very few leafs. The tree has been sick for several years now and is actually beginning to grow peaches and a somewhat dense leafage again.)

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 07/05/2024

My 3yo just showed me his banana peeling machine. Banana goes in at the top, peeled banana comes out at the front. I am so proud of his overengineering skills!

Photo of a Lego contraption with a lego banana sticking out of the top and another banana sticking out at the front.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 28/04/2024

Go home Google, you're drunk!

Screenshot of Google Maps showing an automatically added parking location in Kazakhstan.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 14/01/2024

That #raspberrypi 2 was my LED cube which I eventually turned into an artificial fire. The ash was probably blown back through the chimney on windy days. (Looks more convincing when it is darker and in motion.)

Photo of LED panels showing a fire in a wood stove.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 14/01/2024

Did not expect that much ash. But that relentless little #raspberrypi 2 did its job without complaining. Want to guess what that job is?

Photo of a Raspberry Pi 2 attached with a few cables to additional electronics. Everything is covered in a thick layer of ash.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 05/01/2024

Huh? Is it because of the unusual resolution? An aspect ratio of 10:9 is perfectly normal, isn't it? So, my #samsung TV and an obscure Android App are currently the only two things I know to be incompatible with the GB Interceptor. (Also, I find your lack of space after the period disturbing.)

Photo of an error message on the screen of a TV. The message reads:

GB Interceptor

The device is not currently supported. The supported cameras are Logitech C920, C922, C925, C930, StreamCam, Samsung SC-FD100B, Samsung SlimFit Cam, etc. For more information, search for your TV USB Camera model at samsung.com/support and refer to the USB camera manual in the product manual list.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 05/01/2024

If anyone wants to play with the JPEG compression demo (the discrete cosine transform) from my #37c3 talk: I have uploaded it to my site at dct.oughta.be/easy/

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 03/01/2024

Someone just pointed out that iPadOS supports external webcams since version 17. And sure enough, the GB Interceptor works nicely on an iPad Pro.

Photo of a hands holding a Game Boy Color and playing Tennis on it. The game cartridge is not directly plugged into the Game Boy, but through the GB Interceptor adapter, which in turn is connected to an iPad Pro that shows the exact scene from the Game Boy Color.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 30/12/2023

In case you missed it: My #37c3 talk is now online: media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11928... Thank you all for the warm welcome and all the fun discussions before and after the talk!

Screenshot from the talk recording, showing a slide and the speaker to the right. The slide shows a Game Boy along with a live image from a Game Boy.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 12/11/2023

OBS Studio 30.0.0 has been released! That's the one with support for the GB Interceptor's new 60fps grayscale MJPEG mode. Just tried it on Linux and Windows and it seems to work perfectly (the MacOS version already accepted grayscale MJPEG before).

Screenshot of OBS Studio, showing a preview of the video stream from the GB Interceptor, which shows its standby screen with the warning that it is running in 60fps mode.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 03/11/2023

Time to reveal my wooden Game Boy, which I CNCed out of walnut wood. How do you like it? More details, footage and project files (under CC-BY license) can be found at Youtube: youtu.be/rECMivhOat4 My blog: there.oughta.be/a/wooden-gam... #cnc #gameboy #retrogaming

Photo of the dark brown wooden Game Boy with white buttons and white screen bezel ist standing on a white surface with a dark blurred backdrop. It shows the title screen of Tetris. To the left and right are wooden Game Boy cartridges. The left one has the same color as the Game Boy and has a carved label reading "Pokemon Walnut version". The other one is made of brighter wood and reads "Pokemon Oak version".

Detail shot of the power switch at the top of the wooden Game Boy. The shot also shows the white screen bezel and the detailed decorative lines that are part of the recognizable design of the original Game Boy.

Photo of the dark brown wooden Game Boy with white buttons and white screen bezel standing next to an original Game Boy with a light gray injection mold case, a gray screen bezel, black D-pad and red A and B buttons.

Photo of the CNC machining process. A block of wood on the wooden bed of a CNC router is already showing the recognizable design of the backside of a Game Boy. A spinning fine end mill is drilling into a part of the battery compartment. The wood is noticably brighter than the finished Game Boy as it has not yet been oiled.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 22/10/2023

A little miscalculation while working on some details for the video on my wood Game Boy mod. I am surprised that most of those 300µm parts actually remained to hold the logo.

A hand holds two Game Boy cartridges to the camera. Instead of the typical plastics they are made of oak and walnut wood. They feature carved labels reading "Pokemon Oak Version" and "Pokemon Walnut Version", respectively. Unfortunately, the measures were off and the back of the label was only 0.3 mm, so the wood frayed and you can look through the label in some parts.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 02/10/2023

Minor issues: Took away a layer too much at the top, which I will have to fix with the top half. That mistake also affect the screw near the power button, but I will probably glue the case anyway as I don't entirely trust the screws in the pre-drilled holes. 2/2

Side view of the back half of a Game Boy case made from walnut wood. Detail view of the volume dial and the link cable connector sticking through the cutouts on the side of the Game Boy. Lins from the machining paths are visible on the curved part of the case.

Top view of the back half of a Game Boy case made from walnut wood. Detail view of the power switch in on position. The latch that secures game cartridges while the Game Boy is turned on is visible on the lower end of the case as it should be. One can also notice the the case is a bit higher on the right side of the power switch than on the left side, where a mistake took away too much material.

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Sebastian Staacks @there.oughta.be · 02/10/2023

Oiled and equipped with a main board from an original Game Boy. It fits almost perfectly along with the (non-original) power switch and battery contacts. Now I need some spare time for the top half. 1/2