A Brief Update on what happened while this blog was offline

Earlier this year, I took this blog offline for a variety of reasons - lack of time was one of them, and the cost factor also played a role. I wasn't sure whether it would come back, but I kept a backup either way. But in the meantime, some good progress was made on the build, and a few other things happened which both warrant articles to examine them in detail, and made me feel like I want to write about them.