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(Dad hobbies)
October 07, 2020

I've been engaged in what I think of as Dad hobbies, which I'm sure is an
idiosyncrasy.  I remember my father spending hours on the computer doing
computer things for the sake of computer things. I mean, he'd always be
defragging the harddrive on the IBM XT, or running virus scans for pretty
much no reason. I didn't understand it at the time, but I think I do now
that I have my own brand of Dad computing. I think it's a Zen activity,
like raking patterns in sand, or doing Tai Chi.

I'm currently engaged in making an overly embellished KVM. It's less zen
and more hotrodding, but without the flash, but arguably as pointless as
running defrag every other day. I'm setting up a server cabinet, and I
have 3 computers I want to be be able to switch between: A small server,
my desktop, and my work laptop. The sensible way to do it is just to buy
an off the shelf kvm that has HDMI and whatever USB 3.0 ports I need.

But instead I thought it'd be cooler to buy a redriving industrial USB-C
switch, and do it all with one cable. This switch is used for testing
USB-C connections, so it needs to be controlled by a separate computer,
which will be an OrangePi, the RaspberryPi's low-rent cousin. And I want
it to be an API, so I can control it with different devices... because.
And then I need a device to control the KVM, so I'll use a Raspberry Pi
with a small IPS screen, and a tiny 40% mechanical keyboard, hitting that
API via Flask served webpage. Help.