D'ESTAING

portfolio · nocturne labs · oregon
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Online
Index

Systems built

Every card lists what it runs on, where it stands, and what it taught me. Retired projects stay on the list because the lesson is the useful part.

Bedside Raspberry Pi touchscreen showing the Iris clock face
bedside pi · iris clock face
IrisIn service

A voice assistant that lives in my house. A loft Pi listens and speaks, a bedside Pi shows her dashboard, and the desktop does the thinking. She runs my morning brief, timers, lists, print status and the overnight render chain.

raspberry pi 4b · faster-whisper · ollama · kokoro tts · sqlite-vec · systemd · tailscale · ntfy
LessonRoute each tool to the cheapest model that works. Log the misses, promote only what fails.
Seastead rendersNightly

A scheduled job writes a short scene script, turns it into Blender build steps, and renders it in the 05:00–09:00 window. Every morning there is one new animated scene waiting. "Seastead" and "Man Down" came out of it.

blender · python · scheduled agent · windows task chain
LessonOne scene a night people want to watch beats a hundred random clips.
AutoVidRetired

A PowerShell batch pipeline that drove ComfyUI overnight on the RTX 3080 to generate, assemble and queue short-form video, with posting gated behind my approval.

powershell · comfyui · wan 2.2 · ltx · qwen image edit
Lesson700+ clips, most of them nobody wanted. Automation multiplies the idea, so the idea comes first.
Baymax soft robotIn design

A 40–50 cm Baymax fan build, done the way the film implies: a rigid carbon-fiber PETG skeleton inside a soft white body that a small blower keeps inflated. v1 stands on wide feet, turns his head and moves both arms. No walking, no dynamic balance.

cf-petg on prusa core one · raspberry pi 4b · pca9685 · 5× metal-gear servos · ripstop nylon · 50 mm blower
Design callStability comes from wide feet and a low center of mass, not from air. Air pockets are too slow to balance anything.
A failed print turned to spaghetti on the Prusa CORE One bed
why the 5% ping exists
Print benchRunning

Prusa CORE One tuned in PrusaSlicer expert mode with organic supports. Iris reports progress, temperature and ETA on request, and pings me at 5%, 50% and done.

prusa core one · prusaslicer · iris print monitor
LessonHear about a failed print at 5%, not at hour six.
Mask print on the bed, still wrapped in organic tree supportsThe finished black mask print on its stand
off the bed · finished
Mask printPrinted

A full-size Spider-Man mask fan print, done as a display piece on the CORE One. The fabric texture and web lines are in the model; organic tree supports carried every overhang around the face.

prusa core one · prusaslicer organic supports
LessonOrganic supports touch less of the surface, so the texture survives removal.
Back of the bedside display: Raspberry Pi in a clear case and a ribbon cable behind the bare panel
current state · the enclosure replaces this
Pi display enclosureIn design

A printed housing for the bedside dashboard: a Pi 4B behind a 7" DSI touchscreen. Mounting holes measured and confirmed at 154.9 × 92.0 mm spacing, Ø3.0 mm.

pi 4b · hosyond 7" dsi · vc4-kms-dsi-generic
LessonGet the display working in software before modeling the case around it.
Dell OptiPlex 3050 server next to an Asustor NAS and the gateway
optiplex 3050 · asustor nas
Home server & networkOnline

A Dell OptiPlex 3050 turned headless media and game server, wired next to the router. Pi-hole handles DNS ad blocking, and a private tailnet links my PC, laptop, phone and Pis.

optiplex 3050 · jellyfin · pi-hole · tailscale
LessonOwn the box your data sits on.
Open parts-bin PC with a GTX 1070 and a tower cooler
parts-bin build · gtx 1070
WorkstationsIn use

An AM5 daily driver, an AM4 render box running an RTX 3080 pulled from a dismantled AORUS Gaming Box, and a parts-bin build assembled from several old gaming rigs on a stripped frame.

7800x3d · rtx 5070 · 5700x · rtx 3080 · 64 gb ddr4
LessonA GPU dock is just a GPU in a box. Open it.
Multi-site file networkIn service

Remote file access for a small law office: an Asustor NAS reachable from several locations over Tailscale, so staff open shared files from anywhere without a VPN appliance.

asustor nas · tailscale
LessonFor a small office, the best network is the one nobody thinks about.
CaseSystemBuilt

A local, portable matter-management app for a law office. Create, search, open and archive matters, each with its own folder and readable summary, backed by a single CSV.

powershell · winforms · csv
LessonPlain files outlive the app. If the program breaks, the records still open in Notepad.
Yours Truly stackLive

The web and back office for the legal-services business I founded: the website, a contact form, a matter system, and a content studio where every social post waits until a person approves it.

cloudflare pages · resend · powershell · google workspace
LessonAutomate the drafting. Keep a human on the publish button.
Cockpit launcher tiles for the Iris desktop tools
cockpit · iris surfaces
Desktop toolsIn use

The small tools around the bench, all on one house theme: Cockpit for launching and docking, Render Deck for the pipeline, Triptych for multi-monitor wallpaper, DupeScope for duplicate files.

powershell · html surfaces · one shared theme sheet
LessonOne stylesheet, every surface. A hardcoded colour is a bug.
CyberdeckPlanned

A portable computer in a printed shell that doubles as a pocket server and network ad blocker. Paired with a 3D-printed rack frame for the home server.

raspberry pi · pi-hole · printed chassis
StatusParked until the robotics work lands.
PDP theoryDeveloping

Personality Development Program Theory: a way to give an AI agent a personality that grows from experience, using memory files, surprise-driven writes and a nightly maintenance pass.

memory files · write-on-surprise · nightly sleep
LessonMemory that never forgets anything is just a log.
d-estaing.com · rev 2026.11 built on the iris house theme