This week we had the pleasure of going on our first field trip! We went over to Abstraction Spirits in Paducah, KY and visited with Patrick, who gave us a tour of the facility.We get to see some of the tech that happens behind the scenes, from the still to the bottling line. That being said, some of the coolest parts of the process are the manual actions that they do, without the need for too many fancy gadgets.Abstraction believes in creating pieces of art with every barrel. They have literal artwork that they have found for their labels and gallery, but they also have the art that is in the bottles themselves. We were highly impressed by everything we sampled and we know you will be too!Abstraction Spirits can be found at 407 Jefferson St, Paducah, KY 42001. Stop in and say hello, grab a drink, and find an experience.https://www.abstractionspirits.com/

Put on your hoodie, grab your cuddle buddy, and find a good seat with a good drink: It's time to get comfortable!

Comfort means a lot of things to a lot of people, but we jump into the psychology behind tech that makes us comfortable.

With part one, we break out the Hot Toddies to talk about tech that makes us physically comfortable. Think of things that "bio-hack" your body into a comfortable state, like a Hot Toddy does in winter months.

Part two is all about passive comfort, that technostalgia we get when using our "old reliable" tech. And because we are who we are, we're bringing out our old reliable drink: an Old Fashioned.

To wrap it all up in part three, we have to explore the tech that gives us a Peace of Mind kind of comfort. What better way to do that than with a cocktail that Joey is calling Still Waters?

Hot Toddy

2 oz Bourbon or Rye Whiskey

.5 oz Lemon Juice

.5 oz Honey

Hot Water

Old Fashioned

Come on, you know this one by now! If not, go watch S1E1.

Still Waters

2 oz Bourbon

.5 oz Honey

.25 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

2-3 Dashes Aromatic Bitters

1-2 Fresh Sage Leaves

Life is nothing, if not a party.

We're bringing the party to you with some awesome (and some questionable) tech that you can use in your home bar. Whether you're looking for an automatic cocktail maker or a new sound system for your home, we're talking all kinds of examples of tech that you'll want to save your birthday money for.

And because a party isn't complete without drinks, we're breaking out the beer and wine...but we're using them party style:

Raspberry Beer Punch

6 oz Beer (Light Lager)

.5 oz Vodka

1 oz Raspberry Liqueur

1 oz Sour Mix

.5 oz Simple Syrup

White Sangria

3.5 oz White Wine (Pinot Grigio)

1 oz Pineapple Juice

1 oz Orange Juice

.5 oz Peach Liqueur

Red Sangria

3.5 oz Red Wine (Merlot)

.5 oz Cherry Liqueur

1 oz Orange Juice

1 oz Cranberry Juice

It's that time of year again where you have broken out the pencils and scribbled in your best guesses, your lucky feelings, your gut instincts, and your this-makes-no-sense-but-I'm-doing-it-anyways upsets. You've got that bracket filled out and by this point you have either given up on winning, you're glad you got half your games right, or you are getting really anxious about maybe (just maybe) winning that jackpot between you and your friends.

We're busting that bracket this week and talking about technology both inside the stadium on the court and technology that is used outside of the crowded stands.

And what better way to celebrate the journey to and from the Sweet 16 than by drinking 16-oz beers?!

This week we're honoring the Academy Awards by discussing movie cocktails and in-home media servers!

We start with 007's favorite drink (shaken, not stirred) and talk hardware and software options for how to have your very own media server inside your house.

From there we bring in Scarface's Cuba Libre to assist us in actually building a media server out of an old machine that we bring back to life with Linux.

Interested in doing something similar at home? Here's how we did it!

Follow along with the video to see the step by step instructions, but here's a lot of the commands for you to paste into your CLI. Be sure to read them prior to pasting to confirm there isn't a specific variable or detail you need to change for your machine.

To see your new IP address:

ip addr show

To run updates:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade -y

Go to another computer in your home and ssh into the Linux box for the rest of this.

To SSH:

ssh username@ipaddress (change these variables accordingly)

Install Docker Pre-reqs:

sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release

Add Docker's GPG Key:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

Set up Repository (There should be a Angled Bracket [Shift + .] after docker.list):

echo \

"deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \

$(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list (angled bracket, see above) /dev/null

Install Docker:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose-plugin

Add user to docker group:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Verify Docker:

docker --version

Create home for Plex:

mkdir -p ~/docker/plex/config

mkdir -p ~/media/movies

mkdir -p ~/media/tv

Create YAML File:

nano ~/docker/plex/docker-compose.yml

YAML File:

services:

plex:

image: lscr.io/linuxserver/plex:latest

container_name: plex

network_mode: host

environment:

- PUID=1000

- PGID=1000

- TZ=Etc/UTC # Change to your timezone, e.g., America/New_York

- VERSION=docker

volumes:

- ~/docker/plex/config:/config

- ~/media/tv:/tv

- ~/media/movies:/movies

restart: unless-stopped

Launch Server:

cd ~/docker/plex

docker compose up -d

Claim Server in Web Browser:

http://IPAddress:32400/web

Set permissions:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER ~/media

Install Cockpit:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y cockpit

Enable Cockpit:

sudo systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket

Confirm Cockpit access in Web Browser:

https://IPAddress:9090

Keep PC from Going to sleep:

sudo systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

Create Volume for Portainer:

docker volume create portainer_dataRun Container:docker run -d \

-p 8000:8000 \

-p 9443:9443 \

--name portainer \

--restart=always \

-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \

-v portainer_data:/data \

portainer/portainer-ce:latest

Access Portainer via Web Browser:

https://IPAddress:9443

Add Tailscale VPN:

curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh

Bring Tailscale Connection Up:

sudo tailscale up

Find Tailscale IP address:

tailscale ip -4

Install Samba on Linux server:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install samba -y

Create Samba User:

sudo smbpasswd -a (insert user name here)

Setup Plex Group Permissions:

sudo groupadd plex

sudo usermod -aG plex (Insert username here)

sudo chown -R (insert username here):plex ~/media/movies

sudo chmod -R 775 ~/media/movies

Configure Share:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Paste block into bottom:

[Movies]

path = /home/joseph/media/movies

read only = no

browsable = yes

guest ok = no

Start Service:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

And there you go! Map your drive to your PC, move your digital files over, and go watch them on Plex!

If last week was the nuts and bolts of networking, this week we're discussing thread count and screw pitch.

We're diving into the deep end of how networking actually works.

First, we're going to tackle IP addresses and subnetting. And to help with the complexity, we're going simple with a nice Kentucky Mule. Bring that copper cup!

Next we're going to be talking ports and protocols (what are those things anyway?) and we're getting really simple. How much simpler can you get than bourbon, neat?

Lastly, we're addressing (see what I did there...) server-client architecture. And since we talked about CIDR early on, we're drinking cider to finish this thing out!

Sometimes complexity's best match is simplicity.

*AI Note: This episode contains pictures that were generated by Gemini AI.

This week we're breaking out the toolkit and exploring the nuts and bolts for how networking actually works. Joey explores the social networking aspect with three great new cocktails that bring people together while Joseph explains some of the key things you need to know about how computers actually talk to each other.

The cocktails this week all have three different aspects of what brings people together: rituals, stories, and experiences. You'll be glad you tuned in to hear them all!

And if you use a computer, you have probably wondered how information can even get from your house to the neighbors. We answer those questions as we look at hardware, the OSI model, IP addressing basics, and the Journey of a Click.

Let us know what your favorite part is!

Ritual - Jungle Juice

1 oz White Rum

.75 oz Peach Vodka or Liqueur

.75 oz Passionfruit Rum

1 oz Pineapple Juice

1 oz Orange Juice

.75 oz Lime Juice

1 oz Sprite (Don't shake this part!)

Story - Beast of the LBL

1.5 oz Aged Rum

.5 oz Blackberry Shrub

.5 oz Honey or Agave

.75 oz Lemon Juice

2 Drops Angostura Bitters

Top with Ginger Beer

Experience - Signal Fire

1.5 oz Dark Fired Bourbon

.5 oz Maple Syrup

.75 oz Lemon Juice

2 Drops Black Walnut Bitters

Egg White (Optional, but trust me you want this)

Dry Shake before adding ice to Shake again Garnish with Torched Rosemary Sprig

Last week we talked Artificial Intelligence and this week we're diving into AI a little bit deeper with Machine Learning and Deep Learning. This is a Tipsy Bird's Eye View of how ML and DL work as well as what it even has to do with AI.

Also, last week we had AI create our cocktails and since we humans are also good at deep learning, we learned that we needed to use some Joey-made creations instead of AI...AI doesn't have taste buds after all.

Step into the Tavern with us as we share some popular hits that Joey created just for their bar. Make them along with us; trust us you'll be glad you did!

Jesse James

1.5 oz Burton James Whiskey / Bourbon

1 oz Amaretto2 Drops Sassafras/Sorghum Bitters

Top it off with Freddie's Root Beer

Garnish with Dark Cherry

Joey's Velvet Revolver (Otherwise Untitled)

2 oz Casey Jones Amburana Aged Moonshine.5 oz Simple Syrup.5 oz Lemon Juice

1 Drop Aromatic / Angostura Bitters2 oz Strawberry Puree

Garnish with Orange Wedge

Red Brick Inn

1.5 oz Plantation 5-Year Rum

.5 oz Rosemary, Bay Leaf Simple Syrup

1 oz Slate Fork Moonshine

Pinch of Smoked (In a cocktail smoker) Pipe Tobacco