AR Family History Project

My great grandmother on my mom’s side was an early collector of arts and artifacts from native people in North America. In the 1930s she moved to Berkeley, Calif., and began traveling around the West to indigenous communities, where she acquired Navajo blankets, Alaskan Inuit masks, and a wonderful collection of California native baskets.

80 years later, those baskets are still around the family well preserved and I’ve decided to tackle a fun digital project to archive them as 3D objects using a technique I learned a few years ago called Photogrammetry. The process enables you to photograph an object from all angles and assemble those into a 3D model with a textured surface and a high-resolution outer skin that makes it look like a real live object when viewed on an iPhone.

Below is an example, shown in a series of screenshots from my iPhone:

15,000 Copies Sold: The Economics of a Hobby Book Author

Curious about the economics of book publishing? I wrote about my experience as a small-time author in the niche category of woodworking trade books. Spoiler alert: Don’t quit your day job.

If you are an aspiring book author or have ever wondered how the economics of book publishing works I’d like to share my experience with you. I’ve been lucky enough to have two books published in the popular niche category of woodworking how-to trade books, a small but devoted corner of your local book store.

Voting in the USA: An illustrated breakdown of the electorate

Did you know that it takes less than 1/4 of the US population to win the presidency?

That’s not typically how we think about it. You often hear pundits and fanatics claim “Half the country voted for…” But that’s not true at all. When you count up all the people in our country — 331 million of them — the winner of the US Presidential Election typically only receives a vote from less than 25 percent of the population.

The Resilient Redwood

An illustration from my book “The Handmade Teardrop Trailer” depicts a young Redwood forest in the coastal mountains of Carmel, Calif. by Matt Berger

Life lessons from the 2,000-year-old Sequoia sempervirens

The giant Redwood trees that grow along the forested California coast are known to survive as long as 2,000 years and grow to heights among the tallest trees in the world. “Majestic,” “towering,” and “mighty” are just a few common adjectives used to describe these trees by anyone who’s camped beneath them, and walked among them (or through them).

12 Years on WordPress!

The future of blogging is the past

12 years ago today, when RSS readers were all the rage, I launched this WordPress.com blog to document the adventures of the “Weekndr Family,” aka me and @accidentaltechie To commemorate, I’ve assembled some of my favorite posts: