Milwaukee Makerspace Wiki

Why hello there! I'm Ross O. Professionally, I'm sort of a jack-of-all trades IT guy. I'm mostly a *nix system administrator, but my work experience covers networks, systems programming, applications programming, technical writing, distributed computing, AI, printer repair [!], and so on. In my spare time, I mess around with electronics and I make music with guitars, synthesizers, tape machines, and whatever I can think of. You can hear some unpolished work on Soundcloud. I'm also a recording engineer with a portable 16 channel studio and a lot of decent mics. I record free jazz shows, rock shows, do concert bootlegs, stuff for my friends, and volunteer for the annual Woodland Pattern Music Marathon.

The best way to contact me is Email.

• Mathematics - I have a degree in it, what can I say? Math is really cool. Screw the haters.
• Photography - 35mm and digital. Check out my Flickr Page, which I haven't updated in over a year!
• Analog Electronics - Way more interesting than microcontrollers. not to say that I dislike microcontrollers, but I like analog stuff, especially for audio.
• Synthesizers - I really like synths from the late 70's through mid 80's, but also from the last decade. None of that 90's crap for me. I have a lot of these.
• Guitars - I have a Fender Stratocaster 60th Anniversary Hwy 1 model, a Martin D1, and a lot of pedals. Guitar is fun.
• “Experimental Music” - as if it's really that serious. :) I love music and love to record stuff and really, just mess around.
• Recording engineering - microphones, mixers, ADC's, preamps, compressors, equalizers, effects processors, acoustics, blah blah blah
• Circuit Bending, to some extent
• Modifying cassette players to do new and interesting things
• OSes, servers, and other systems stuff. - My favorite OS is FreeBSD, but I mostly use Debian and OS X.
• Networks - No, I don't have a CCNA [certifications are pointless], but I know how to deal with BGP, spanning tree, VRRP/OpenCARP, anycasting, and lots of other things.
• Perl - The best scripting language ever. People that complain about Perl don't know what they're talking about ;)
• C - An awesome language that changed computing forever.
• Beer - I want to learn how to brew.
• Cooking - I like food and people tell me I'm a good cook.
• Cycling - I can do basic bicycle repairs, but want to learn more about it and build my own bike out of junk.
• Experimental Fiction - reading it, not writing it. :) David Foster Wallace, Jeffrey DeShell, Walter Abish, Jean Cocteau, William S. Burroughs, Jorge Borges, and so on.

• Getting tweets, SMS messages, and access control status (Who just unlocked the door?) onto a BetaBrite sign. - still in progress… stalled because of laziness, really.
• Building synthesizers out of Commodore 64's - SID2SID/MSSIAH, SID2SID/Cynthcart, and MIDIBox SID.
• Repairing a broken Roland SH-2000 that some shyster on eBay lied about.
• Upgrading my Roland Juno-60 with the Minerva Kit - Just waiting for it to arrive in the mail.
• Reading AofE and Small Signal Audio Design.
• Designing homebrew modules for my PAiA 9700S modular synth.
• Working with the Synchroton Media Research Laboratory on analog video synthesis and computer music.
• Learning enough woodworking to build BFM speaker cabinets with JackD.
• I will eventually find a way to make the Makerspace's Internet connection suck less…!

• Set up this Wiki!
• I helped with our cute little Jacob's Ladder - Photonicinduction would call us wimps
• Built a Doorbell for the space with Brant.
• The BetaBrite sign - in progress - see above.
• Our zoneminder computer - needs a lot of work right now…..