i'd like to start a blog that tries to recapture the spirit of the old "acorn user" magazine [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_User], focused squarely on the hobbyist programmer, but not shying away from accessible write-ups of complex topics. a sampling of articles i remember off the top of my head:

1. pacman style game developed from scratch, with a discussion of sprite animation and techniques to make a monster chase your character through a maze

2. software + hardware guide to connecting a beep-when-you-whistle keychain (remember those?) to one of the input ports and make your computer do interesting stuff when you whistled

3. graph an arbitrary f(x, y) = 0 function via numerical methods (trace the intersection of z = f(x, y) with the xy plane)

4. basic text adventure with a discussion of representing a map via a graph, using an array to simulate pointers

5. an introduction to forth for basic programmers

the key point is that these were both complete projects, and jumping-off points to explore the topic in greater depth. as a kid i found it very inspiring, and learnt a lot from it.