BuildingWithJacob is my public engineering lab: a record of the systems I build, the failures I troubleshoot, and the lessons I carry forward.
> active_project: HONEYGOTCHI
> version: 0.1.1
> platform: Raspberry Pi 4
> state: LEARNING
> milestone: SYSTEM_AWARENESS
> status: ONLINE01 / CURRENT WORK
Every project here has a story: why it exists, how it failed, what changed, and what I learned.
A physical cybersecurity companion with a personality layer tied to real system awareness — growing toward deception, telemetry, threat scoring, and autonomous defensive behavior.
02
Planned research environment for ground-to-space security, telemetry protection, detection, and autonomous mitigation experiments.
03
Hands-on work across Linux, cloud, packet analysis, detection, troubleshooting, and defensive infrastructure.
02 / BUILD JOURNAL
I keep the ugly parts in the record too. Recovery is part of engineering.
Added a personality state engine, heartbeat counter, uptime, CPU temperature, and clock data. The moods are still prototype-driven; real event-driven states come next.
Moved Honeygotchi from a Windows provisioning hotspot onto the home LAN, restoring stable SSH access from multiple machines.
Flashed Raspberry Pi OS Lite, diagnosed partition confusion, established SSH, repaired package state, and verified a clean reboot.
03 / MISSION
I am building toward security systems that can observe, reason about, and respond to hostile behavior — first on the desk, later in more demanding environments.
The long road points toward autonomous cyber defense and ground-to-space security. The rule is simple: prove each layer before claiming the next one.
04 / ENGINEERING PRINCIPLES
A portfolio is stronger when it shows a method, not just a pile of finished screenshots.
Turn the idea into something real enough to fail.
Measure what the system is actually doing.
Keep the failures, fixes, decisions, and evidence.
Reduce assumptions, test boundaries, and improve resilience.
05 / ABOUT
I’m Jacob. My work sits where cybersecurity, systems, networking, Linux, AI, and hardware overlap. I care less about collecting buzzwords than understanding what the machine is actually doing — and being able to prove it. I’m building this path with my wife and family in mind, because the work matters more when it serves the life I’m trying to build with them.
WORKING STACK