Welcome to Arcana Labs
The best puzzles are those not intended to be solved.
-- Unknown
Providing Software, Hardware, and other Amusements, Arcana Labs is a small, independant technology exploration and development hobby shop operating out of Atlantic Canada. My past work has focused on security and disaster recovery, with present work focusing on creating toys, games, books and puzzles, such as through my flagship project, PETI. I’ve organized my projects into a few categories: hardware, software, writing projects, how-to guides, and a blog.
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Latest Updates
(Burkhardt's) Alchemy, the Anathor, and the Zendo
2025-11-10 00:00:00 -0600
For arcane (hah) reasons known only to me and my browsing history, I’ve recently taken an interest in alchemy, and to that end, was tipped to Titus Burkhardt’s Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul. I’ve made no small amount of noise in the past that I generally try to take a syncretic view of the world, and as part of that general attitude, I’ve been interested in examining how some western mystical traditions relate to (and differ from) my own practices. I’ve always been the “chop wood, carry water” student of the mysteries of life — since long before I knew that particular phrase, I’ve always considered the weight of a practice against what it brings into The Work - and day to day living. So, now that I’ve finally finished digesting the text, I thought it would be good to opine a while on Burkhardt’s views of Alchemy, and where I think Alchemy fits quite nicely into the rest of The Work.
Internet Highlights - 2025-10-31
2025-10-31 00:00:00 -0500
As part of my mission to find, discover, and expose cool things, I’ve decided to start sharing the cool stuff I have found on the internet once a month with the rest of you. Unfortunately, in October, I had this idea rather late, so the pickings are a mite slim.
A Grab Bag of PETI Updates
2025-10-20 00:00:00 -0500
I’m usually the first to admit that the transition from late summer into autumn is one of my least productive periods of the year. This isn’t to say I’m doing nothing, but it’s a time when my thoughts tend toward gathering rather than producing. This is (after spring), the season for tidying, and laying in the “winter store” of inspirations and plans that will get me through what hopefully will be a minimally unpleasant time. That said, quite apart from what was said back in June, I have actually had odd time, in between workplace service calls or in the weird hours of the morning, to think through some problems with PETI and how you’d solve them if, for some reason, you wanted to keep going on a major project you’d left half-finished.
The Case for Internet Regression
2025-08-26 00:00:00 -0500
In a tale as old as time, it’s common among people in my rough age cohort - the Millennials and younger end of Gen X - to lament the pre-“social media” internet. I think the key problem with that is just a matter of phrasing, and a carried implication that the internet pre-social media wasn’t social - in fact, it very much was. While things like myspace and facebook pages, twitter feeds, and instagram accounts lowered the barrier for entry to having a presence on the internet from “must know a bare minimum of web design” to “has an email address”, that doesn’t change the fact that the internet before the rise of the “Five Sites” was a vibrant and highly social place.
The Case for A Lumberjack Flannel Rakusu
2025-06-12 00:00:00 -0500
There’s a genre of mastodon post that I occasionally enjoy recapitulating, and I call it my “tin cup sermon”. It’s never quite the same twice, but it usually goes as a lament that socially, our conception of what I’m going to call the “ease of zen” is exoticised. That is, when we picture zen surroundings or zen architecture or zen people, we picture the photos we have all seen of places like Antaiji or Sogenji. There is a temptation to best approve of Zen in what we perceive as its purest forms - the way it is practiced and the way that that practice looks at the great Japanese monasteries to which most North American teachers can still trace their dharma lineage today. I used to lean firmly in that direction, and it’s only been the more often I practice - the more experiences I have of finding zen at the bottom of a beat up tin camping cup - that I’ve come to change my mind about it.