general-chat

[delicate stream]

I remember when 1Mbps was amazing…

[late fulcrum]

My verizon DSL "falls back" to a slower speed every time there's noise on the line, so after a couple of weeks, it's like 3kbps. So I have to reboot the modem to get back to the 1-3Mbps it's (usually) capable of.

[umbral phoenix]

I remember the exceitment of upgrading to a 56k modem

[umbral phoenix]

I have mine set up to reboot automatically every night

[dusty citrus]

Some years ago I was think to get one of those directional antennas like yeti to steal public wifi, but the geography didn't consent it shesh

[late fulcrum]

I had ISDN before that, which was annoying in a wide variety of creative ways (including SPRint "slamming" the SPIDs as if they were real telephone numbers and then billing me for long distance I'd never asked for and couldn't use)

[late fulcrum]

How do you do that?

[umbral phoenix]

networked power strip with a bunch of capabilities

[delicate stream]

My DSL modem got rebooted every couple years, lol

[late fulcrum]

Ah. I knew my DSL router didn't offer anything like that, so I wondered if yours did or you applied an external solution (as you did)

[umbral phoenix]

ok, just got the n1tr0 pop-up

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/just-do-it-do-it-flames-fire-shia-labeouf-gif-17696690

[umbral phoenix]

I didn't recall that it happened during use of the desktop app before

[late fulcrum]

I haven't seen a pop-up, except when starting the app, but sometimes they'll set the "you have a direct message waiting" indication and it's really an ad.

[delicate stream]

I just get occasional popups for the higher tier because I have Classic

But only like, if I restart Discord

[umbral phoenix]

I used to have 2 DSL lines (back in the old days, when Netflix sessions were very short and it would use both effectively), both modems are from 2013, so I have a hot spare if the main one dies

all of the hotspot devices are in the attic, and everything comes into a multi-WAN router

[late fulcrum]

I never did figure out how to convince my automatic failover router to believe that DSL was actually up.

[umbral phoenix]

I never did figure out how to failover not b/c a link is dead, but b/c it has been throttled or is just super-slow or high-latency

[delicate stream]

My dad worked for Comcrap for a while, which gave us 25Mbps fiber while our Verizon DSL was 15Mbps. We kept the Verizon as backup. Eventually I just stopped using the Comcrap altogether because it CONSTANTLY failed…

25Mbps with a 20% uptime isn’t useful against 15Mbps with 5 9s

[late fulcrum]

I had no idea DSL could go that fast (mine can't). To my astonishment, comcrap silently upgraded my 25Mbps to 60Mbps.

[umbral phoenix]

it would be nice if there was internet that was fast and solid (and a good supplier corp), but otoh sometimes when I think aboiut how complex modern tech is I'm amazed that anything works at all

[delicate stream]

I think they had proprietary compression magic involved

[late fulcrum]

There's some 10Gbps available in Vermont, so it's possible. Then again, Vermont considers itself separate from the United States.

[raw jasper]

Wait, what do you folks have if not DSL?

[delicate stream]

10Gbps is available here but waaaay overpriced. 1Gbps is only like $150

[delicate stream]

Fiber

[raw jasper]

FTTH is not much of a thing over here

Most connections are VDSL AFAIK

[delicate stream]

Here it’s the ONLY thing. No POTS phone lines, no cable

[raw jasper]

I used to have POTS until a couple years ago

[delicate stream]

Either fiber or 5G or satellite

[raw jasper]

It's useful in a power outage

[delicate stream]

I think they took our POTS away in like 2012? Wasn’t happy about it…

[raw jasper]

Changed providers because it was cheaper, new provider is VoIP-only

[late fulcrum]

Other options include cable (expensive but I have it), point to point (not available here), cellular (not available here), satellite (expensive, slow, and unreliable), ISDN (slow, expensive), and dialup (:vomit:).

[umbral phoenix]

or 4G 😦

or cable

[delicate stream]

We get POTS over VoIP, so all the same phones we had, but they removed all telephone boxes in the area

[raw jasper]

Even though I know it, I'm always surprised when I hear you can get new 56k connections in the USA

[delicate stream]

Yeah, I should have said cable or diver or cellular or satellite, lol

[raw jasper]

...And that it's the only option for many people

Or was, until starlink came out

[delicate stream]

There’s a problem with how infrastructure exists

[umbral phoenix]

rural covers a lot of territory

[late fulcrum]

Happily, BPL died a deserved ignominious death.

[raw jasper]

ignominious
New word acquired!

[delicate stream]

That’s a company and a word I’ve never heard of

[umbral phoenix]

actually, I'm thankful for 4G... it doesn't require that the towers are as close as 5G

[raw jasper]

....And here I am, blaming the fact that English is my second language :P

[late fulcrum]

BPL wasn't a company, it was a technology ("broadband over power lines")

[delicate stream]

Ohhh

Yeah that’s a bad idea

[umbral phoenix]

yeah, b/c power delivery is so smooth

[raw jasper]

LOL

Did that even work?

[delicate stream]

Now define ignominious because I’m too lazy to google!

[late fulcrum]

It did "work", after a fashion, but caused massive radio interference (can you imagine, power lines make efficient antennæ?)

[delicate stream]

It CAN work. You can get PowerLine Ethernet adapters, and if your power isn’t too noisy, you can actually do networking via your power in your house

[raw jasper]

Whoever supplies the macOS dict says "deserving or causing public disgrace or shame"

[delicate stream]

That tracks, lol

Wait, MacOS has a dictionary?

[raw jasper]

I've actually heard this technology can cause your neighbor to be able to join your LAN

(in certain distribution configurations, in apartment buildings. No idea if it's true though)

[raw jasper]

Yeah, just "force click" (or whatever apple's fancy term for deep clicking with the touchpad) a word, and you get definitions for it

[delicate stream]

Potentially, yeah. It all depends on how clean power is, distances, and confirmation of the local grid. Definitely possible in apartment buildings without isolation between units; sometimes even within a house, two rooms might not be able to connect because of isolation. Usually going past the mains connection of a house/building isn’t possible because the grid interference totally overwhelms the signal

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/fascinating-mr-spock-henoch-star-trek-the-original-series-gif-23404763

[late fulcrum]

MacOS is full of hidden goodies. For example, I don't really know any Japanese, but using their Kotoeri input method, I can type 塊魂（Katamari Damacy) easily.

[raw jasper]

...which means clumped soul

[delicate stream]

Na naaa, na na na na na na, na na na na na na naaaaa

[raw jasper]

Fun fact: The characters look similar because their right radical is "demon" （鬼）

[spice moss]

https://tenor.com/view/yanyulikenobio-gif-25599635

[delicate stream]

I need to catch up on all the Star Wars shows

So many shows

[raw jasper]

kotoeri is awesome compared to all other IMEs I've used

No other IME I know of has live conversion

And being able to input mostly correct Japanese most of the time without having to go through each word with the spacebar a bunch of times during entry is great

[late fulcrum]

It certainly impresses me as usable by someone who's basically nearly illiterate in Japanese.

[brazen wyvern]

I can read Chinese, so I can read most Kanji.. on top of that there's Anime.

[delicate stream]

I have found the dumbest way to make FaceID not work… have a Peppermint Patty blocking your mouth

[late fulcrum]

I have Japanese versions of some games not released in the states, and I sometimes wonder what they're saying.

[raw jasper]

their virtualization framework, on the other hand, needs work (or at least seems to do so). I've been trying to setup a linux vm with rosetta, which requires me to go through Apple's virtualization framework, instead of the traditional QEMU usually used by UTM (the virt app I'm using), and the debian installer always seems to find a way to run into a kernel bug or segfault

[delicate stream]

I wish I could read not English

[late fulcrum]

I just use VMWare Fusion for virtualization on a Mac. The smooth, solid integration was totally worth the $79 to me.

[raw jasper]

I... don't think becoming illiterate would help anything

[raw jasper]

Can you get rosetta for linux working on that?

[late fulcrum]

I think she meant read (not English), not not (read English)

[raw jasper]

That's what I get for trying to chat with a budding migraine

[delicate stream]

Oof

[brazen wyvern]

I think learning language other than English is not worth the time, and it's impossible to truly learn a language without living in the environment.

[raw jasper]

I mean, I've never lived in an English-speaking country, and I seem to be able to communicate just fine

It's... not impossible if you essentially cannot do anything without knowing said language

....which is the case with English

[late fulcrum]

I learned most of the letter sounds of Cyrillic and Katakana, so I can sound out words that are borrowed, which is useful. In particular, Russian data sheets for surplus parts, as technical words are mostly borrowed.

[delicate stream]

Learning other languages is definitely not a waste of time, especially if you’re trying to learn deeply about the culture — some things really don’t translate well

[brazen wyvern]

cyber environment is also an environment

[late fulcrum]

I studied Latin in high school, which makes it possible to mostly figure out Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. However, I'm rubbish at Hungarian, Latvian, Polish, etc. This was driven home when I was writing the PDF generator for an international import/export forms generator.

[brazen wyvern]

as someone who try to stick my head in every field of STEM, I find myself out of time and out of brain... So languages are far behind the list.

[late fulcrum]

I think Finnish and Icelandic are beautiful languages, but I'm just not motivated enough to put in the time to learn them.

Although I have a few children's books in assorted languages, and it's fun to try to figure out the easy, illustrated text.

[delicate stream]

Not high on your priority list != not useful

Some benefit more from some things than others do, it doesn’t make those things more or less useful

[raw jasper]

Yeah, calling (a part of) non English-speaking cultures not useful is....... 😬

[delicate stream]

Also this…

[brazen wyvern]

I came from such culture

[cunning frost]

Speaking as a translator, I'm of the opinion that learning another language teaches you empathy. It's not something you can qualify until you actually apply it yourself.

[brazen wyvern]

and I never said non-english languages are useless, just not worthy of my time...

[delicate stream]

Not finding it worth your time is different. You said the time, which made it sound like you thought it was generally not worth time

[raw jasper]

Y' know what? You could also admit you've made a mistake, reconsider your position and move on

[brazen wyvern]

as non-native english speaker I'm still struggling with articles

[delicate stream]

English is hard

Even for native speakers, things like that happen, so try not to assume anything bad and hope it’s just a grammar issue

[dusty citrus]

Before getting an internet connection, English phonetically made no sense to me
But with actual usage, it is easy

[delicate stream]

Imagine if we could talk like dial-up modems to each other instead

[patent hemlock]

Hayes command set was too limited

[raw jasper]

This sentence made the handshake sounds play in my head

I am not sure whether this is a blessing or a curse

[brazen wyvern]

human languages are design for ultra low bandwidth, so the dictionary is large

[delicate stream]

Blursed reaction

[patent hemlock]

but regarding English - keep in mind most "native" speakers do not use correct grammar (example: "me and you" vs "you and I")

[raw jasper]

Isn't language a living thing, defined by its users and not by a bunch of dead tree books?

To be honest, of all the languages I know, English seems to be the most living one, insofar there does not seem to be an authoritative committee on how it "should" be used.

[rapid geode]

no, it is fixed and if you speak incorrectly you will be punnished

[patent hemlock]

my take is "yes and no" - formalized language is necessary for things like legal documents

[raw jasper]

I mean, yeah, but that's why you hire a lawyer

And we do not typically speak in contracts

[patent hemlock]

exactly

[rapid geode]

language just has to accurately communicate. in most cases, you csab mesd ipo all up and people still get it

[patent hemlock]

nice!

[rapid geode]

actually it amazes me how the brain corrects typos automagically

[raw jasper]

mesd ipo sounds like what a VC sees in their nightmares 😂

[rapid geode]

you can never really proof read your own work

[patent hemlock]

there's a ScienceChannel (US?) series called "Brain Games' (not the Disney version) that explored lots of the plasticity and outright lies your brain tells you

[rapid geode]

yeaH

most people dont realise even colour is "relative"

[raw jasper]

It's all Psychophysics!

[delicate stream]

https://youtu.be/2qT8ZYewYEY

[delicate stream]

Everything is made up!

[rapid geode]

well no

[delicate stream]

But also yes

[rapid geode]

but red can be percieved as white when it is next to something even more saturated red

[raw jasper]

Insert run-of-the-mill "cyberspace is a consensual hallucination" monologue from Generic Cyberpunk Piece Of Media

[rapid geode]

both of my eyes see different colours.

mostly in yellow

[patent hemlock]

wow!

[delicate stream]

My right eye is warmer than my left eye

[rapid geode]

one eye doesnt work obviously. haha. but its fascinating

my "bad" eye sees less yellow saturation

so... cooler?

kinda

[patent hemlock]

yeah

[rapid geode]

not quite

[delicate stream]

My eyes have the same saturation but are hue shifted

[raw jasper]

As I said, there's an entire field studying this stuff!

[patent hemlock]

dang! i "just" have glaucoma!

[rapid geode]

ha

[delicate stream]

I have Mac and cheese

[rapid geode]

i dont know the term for what i have. basically the nerves never develpoped fully for one eye. i can "see", it is "sharp". but the brain does not understand the information well. i cant read AT ALL with that eye

[raw jasper]

You can consult a neurologist, then

They should at least give you a term

[rapid geode]

oh that was done decades ago

ha

i just forget

[patent hemlock]

i certainly hope it's not Kraft

[rapid geode]

mmm kraft dinner

[raw jasper]

Funnily enough, I'm making pasta, too

[rapid geode]

i do my own mac n cheese now, but i have a soft spot for orange death.

haha

[delicate stream]

Your hopes are invalid, it’s my favorite

[raw jasper]

NO Artificial Food! (Contains pure air)

[rapid geode]

ha

[patent hemlock]

my wife's been watching cooking shows, so things like freeze-dried powdered cheese don't show up around here any more

[rapid geode]

cyanide is natural too... i hate labels like that cause they mean nothing

[delicate stream]

I watch a LOT of cooking shows, but I don’t have enough spoons to make Mac and cheese from scratch all the time

[rapid geode]

i use cheddar, gruyere and pecorino romano in my mac n cheese

mmm

[rapid geode]

its actually super easy. just a whisk

sauce gets made while pasta boils

mmm

now i want mac n cheese

[delicate stream]

Too much work when I’m out of spoons

[raw jasper]

You seem to be missing some context. Google "spoon metaphor"

[rapid geode]

no

i dont want to

im scared

[delicate stream]

I don’t have enough spoons to explain spoons and remember that the metaphor is lost when talking about food

[raw jasper]

It's not a 18+ thing, if you think that would be the case

[rapid geode]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PONvX6LmAPo

[raw jasper]

🤦

[rapid geode]

hehe

[delicate stream]

Classic. Wrong spoon, but classic.

[patent hemlock]

yeah, i know "spoons" (wife has PTSD and has used the concept)

[rapid geode]

classic? i remember when that was new!

:x

[delicate stream]

It’s so helpful to explain mental energy to folks

[raw jasper]

Sorry for having you google, but I'm not really in a position to dig up a good link for you right now

[delicate stream]

We’re old

[rapid geode]

mac n cheese

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[delicate stream]

That’s not mac and cheese anymore

That’s cheesy chicken pasta with broccoli

[rapid geode]

i need to make pizza dough. its supposed to be really nice out tomorrow to bbq

[rapid geode]

the ultimate version of mac n cheese

[delicate stream]

When modified it’s no longer just mac n cheese, lol

I make chili Mac and cheese

[rapid geode]

its funny. mac n cheese (boxed) is meant to be a side or a mixer with a meal. and then somehow we decided "nope, its enough on its own if i eat the whole box"

[raw jasper]

Interestingly (and probably entirely predictably) enough, the person behind this meme(? Would that even be the right term at the time it was made?) went on to make some fairly experimental films with the premise of a girl meeting her future clone

[rapid geode]

pretty sure he was already a pretty well established animator

it was long ago

in a land far away

like boring3d

[delicate stream]

Sometimes I wish I was a penguin

[raw jasper]

🐧

[rapid geode]

https://www.boring3d.com/

[raw jasper]

Fairly predictably, said film comes with... probably all the trigger warnings

[rapid geode]

ha

everything is a trigger warning

[delicate stream]

Life is a trigger warning

[rapid geode]

even rom coms now are 60% gore and violence

[delicate stream]

Life triggers me

[delicate stream]

What rom coms are you watching????

[rapid geode]

the ones i work on mostly

ha

actually, i dont think any are classed as that

[raw jasper]

Yeah, I doubt they would be classified as rom coms

[rapid geode]

i saw some clips of a bad on with kristen stewart. that was a gore action rom com

forget the name

it was dumb, so better to forget

[raw jasper]

For some reason, I feel this discussion is against the #code-of-conduct

[rapid geode]

ha

discussing the state of bad movies?

or mac n cheese

[raw jasper]

As far as I know, this forum is supposed to be safe for children.

[rapid geode]

children should know movies are bad for them

haha

shruug

[delicate stream]

FAMILY FRIENDLY FORUM

[patent hemlock]

you didn't explicitly go into descriptions of said gore and violence, so still on topic

[rapid geode]

yeah, i just read the parental warning

hehe

[delicate stream]

Yeah, acknowledging gore and violence in a thing is one thing. detailing is another. So I think we’re good?

[rapid geode]

i saw a movie once that s said "this movie is not suitable for anyone... at all"

[raw jasper]

I have no idea!

[patent hemlock]

we're good

[delicate stream]

Anyway the only romcoms I’ve seen with gore and violence have been like, zombie apocalypse movies with a romantic comedy plot

[rapid geode]

i did many zonbie movies. i with they would stop

[patent hemlock]

Free Guy is a shaggy-dog rom com

[raw jasper]

I just realized they have gendered zombie emoji

[rapid geode]

i made soem background zombies with teapots for heads

[raw jasper]

The man zombie is wearing a tie

[lusty fossil]

My HS film class film.

It has an MSDS

[rapid geode]

haha

[delicate stream]

They’ll never die

[raw jasper]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Utah_teapot_(solid).stl/640px-Utah_teapot_(solid).stl.png :D

[rapid geode]

yup. the good ol max teapot

its in everything i do, somewhre

ive put it as a distribution for grass in a field (lawn mowed into a teapot). i use it as a photoshop brush to paint dirt on props

zobie heads in RE3

hehe

most of the time you wont even see it if i pointed it out

i put a kitty litter sign in the back of catwoman, and they got mad.

:x

usually you get to do some silly things on signs and billboards, because none of them can be real ads

[late fulcrum]

The high def release of Who Framed Roger Rabbit has some goofy things in signs and background that you can see with freeze frames but probably weren't intended to be visible.

[rapid geode]

ha

[ebon dew]

Tell that to Idiocracy... Starbucks was not pleased.

[late fulcrum]

Whereas I'm guessing Taco Bell didn't mind Demolition Man

[delicate stream]

McDonald’s and Burger Sling missed out, lol

Apparently Pizza Hut won in Europe tho

I just love how Taco Bell got a special futuristic logo whereas Pizza Hut was basically the same but a different font

Apparently Pizza Hut had the same logo for a quarter of a century and tried 4 different things before going back to the same thing XD

Taco Bell has bad less changes

MCDONALDS WAS BBQ??????

[raw jasper]

O_O

TIL (1) McD's was around, in some form, during ww2.
(2) it was a bbq

[delicate stream]

https://www.mashed.com/860270/why-mcdonalds-closed-its-successful-bbq-operation/

[rapid geode]

it doesnt really count as mcdonalds befor 1953 or so.

[delicate stream]

It does, it’s the same corporate entity and they just renovated the restaurant and redid the menu

It’s not like they closed up shop and started a new business

[rapid geode]

and got a new owner. moved locations. it was basically an entriely different busienss

some say that the fries you buy today were originally cooked in 1953

:x

ha

[delicate stream]

Legally it’s the same business, lol

[rapid geode]

yes, but thats like saying legally toyota is a bank

[delicate stream]

Wha

[rapid geode]

same business

:x

anyhow

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/anime-confusion-what-gif-19368852

Anyway I sleepy

[umbral phoenix]

McDonald's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus?

[delicate stream]

essentially, lol. I guess most companies are like that — shifting and changing and growing and breaking down constantly, eventually being connected between past and present by a long chain of events

[rapid geode]

adafruit used to sell burgers in the 40s

i read it on the internet

[tidal flare]

TicketFruit is going places!

[rapid geode]

ha, i missed that. merge one of the most well loved companies with one of the least. Ill take 2!

[brittle bison]

Anyone know the difference between product 2267 and 2269? Both look like nRF51822 BLE sniffers.

[rapid geode]

firmware v2 vs v3?

[brittle bison]

I mean, I guess? One should assume v3 is better?

[fierce prawn]

Actually if ticket fruit was true

We would benefit from it

No more scalpers for raspberry pi 4

[late fulcrum]

Other than ticketmaster ($30 online fee, $40 service fee, $50 convenience fee)

[brittle bison]

Aha,

[crystal ore]

I already bought my Pi NFT, guaranteed redeemable for a real Pi in 6 months...

[fierce prawn]

Adafruit can remove that completely cz adafruit is now in control of ticketfruit

But that was a April fool's joke

[ebon dew]

I think that was suggested many times which is why the joke hit the right spot. They have no interest in becoming ticketmaster.

[rapid geode]

im going to buy up all the blank cdr's and scalp them for $45 each

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3-StlHhFDo

its alive!

[delicate stream]

I have about 2200 CD-Rs and I'll sell them to you for $100 each

[tardy badger]

Alllll righty

What a day

I am thoroughly sun burnt

[lusty fossil]

I have a new friend

[steady dove]

That’s adorbs!

[timid anvil]

Hello there people

That guy said he sun burnt that could be me later this week when its 80 for the first time of the year here. 40 50 to 80

[ebon dew]

People up north complaining about sun burn is like Floridians complaining about being freezing when it drops below 50.

https://tenor.com/view/burning-sun-hot-gif-14395130

[delicate stream]

I wish to outlaw temperatures above 50F

[static flare]

50C was not great

[delicate stream]

50C is certain death

[static flare]

Luckily it was only 30C inside

[delicate stream]

That’s just death

[late fulcrum]

Truth. I grew up in Florida, and we totally do that.

[timid anvil]

I wish to outlaw temps below 20 F

Last winter we had it -28 F idr the wind chill

[spice moss]

-40 is nice temp

[timid anvil]

What you smoking ?

Anyone who likes -40 is not an earthling

[sharp nexus]

Hey Gs, if any1 is willing to help a blind man find path, which NoCode can I build app like this in? I chose Adalo because of ADA Lovelace

[delicate stream]

-40 is a superior temperature because -40F == -40C

[sharp nexus]

its ugly so it can be easily built 😄

[spice moss]

even 100C is cool

[timid anvil]

You must not be blind if you posted a pic

[sharp nexus]

its a metaphorical saying (like I don't know which way to go 😄 )

[timid anvil]

Lol

[sharp nexus]

https://tenor.com/view/car-driving-blind-driver-cars-drive-gif-23660501

[spice moss]

the phone on top is verry not much contrast

[timid anvil]

Lol

What phone? What English you have

[spice moss]

barracuda have iphone 14 plus on that image

[timid anvil]

Oh im blind i didn't see that written i was looking for a pic of a phone

Or in your speak.. I blind I no see phone written looking 4 phone pic

[ebon dew]

@sharp nexus Adafruit's no-code solution is WipperSnapper which ties into AdafruitIO.

You can find help for WipperSnapper & AdafruitIO in the #help-with-wippersnapper-and-adafruitio channel.

AdafruitIO is Adafruit's online IOT web dashboard service. There is a free tier up to a certain amount of devices.

[timid anvil]

DJ you know how to diagnose smart phones?

[ebon dew]

not really

[timid anvil]

Oh ok

[ebon dew]

smart phones is a whole different branch of IT... which I honestly try to stay away from.

They're like printers... just unruly devices on a network that people complain aren't working right and there's really not much you can do.

[timid anvil]

Omg i hate printers

[ebon dew]

I'm not into phone technology. I still have an iphone 5 because i don't want to give up the headphone port.

[timid anvil]

I tried fixing my printer one time it ended up in parts

I just threw it in the trash at that point

[late fulcrum]

Heh, I just watched a youtube video explaining why printers are so bad (after they were initially so nice)

[timid anvil]

I also cant understand why apple got rid of the phone jack forever

[ebon dew]

so they could exclusively sell air pods and get lost easily which forces you to buy more. pretty sure my next phone will not be an apple.

[late fulcrum]

I don't understand what Apple has against physical keyboards

[timid anvil]

Only apple product i like was the color pc in the late 90s

[ebon dew]

apple thinks minimalism is the key to good design but sometimes less is just less

[late fulcrum]

I do like Apple desktops, but they've lost their way with phones.

[timid anvil]

I guess i lied

I like the ipod

[late fulcrum]

There are very few options for desktop computers with modern CPU architecture (I can think of two), and BSD is a very nice OS.

[timid anvil]

Idk much about apple computers

Always had a Dell

[ebon dew]

where the aux port should be in later iterations is just a chunk of plastic now, they didn't actually do anything with the saved space. so they gained nothing by removing it and in fact because of that decision they will eventually lose more... me as a customer.

[late fulcrum]

I'm guessing part of the reason had to do with water ingress, but I suspect making a waterproof 1/8" jack isn't that hard, for a company with Apple's engineering resources.

[ebon dew]

if they cared about making it waterproof they would ship it with a water proof case

[timid anvil]

Im surprised people still buy apple phones since they got rid of the phone jack

[ebon dew]

guess they don't care about people charging their phones now either because they don't even ship a charging adapter either...

[late fulcrum]

I always considered Dell to be non standard, cheaply built, quick to fail, and overpriced.

Even their $27k blade server was ... garbage

[ebon dew]

all OEM's have issues, there is no perfect device that suits everyone

[timid anvil]

Im just a average computer user. I dont do much on a PC anymore

[late fulcrum]

I would buy Sun computers for home use for years, they were great machines. Now SPARC and MIPS are dead, there are only two commercial PPC offerings, one ARM, and no RISC-V. Thin pickings indeed.

Although I was disenchanted when Sun moved from SunOS (which was BSD based) to Solaris (which was AT&T based)

[steady dove]

Did the hoppy bunny 🐰 bring anything good? 🙂

@delicate stream 👋

[sharp nexus]

iphone se in reality. I like how small this thing is

[sharp nexus]

WOW

And is it going to do all of that? 🙂

if so, I am going WoW once again! 🙂

[ebon dew]

@sharp nexus https://learn.adafruit.com/quickstart-adafruit-io-wippersnapper

[sharp nexus]

like all the functions?

[sharp nexus]

Wow! It can programm so many! 😄

[terse hearth]

random question: i'm trying to understand a bit more about RFID security. i'm trying to understand what's possible in terms of cloning RFID tags. I found some references in my searching that says that every single RFID "chip" has a unique tag ID which cannot be changed, so you can always use that to securely identify an RFID tag. is that accurate? if not, are there any types of RFID tags that cannot be cloned? and if so, how do they make that happen?

[elfin bridge]

RFID is just a transponder with a bit of storage. Some of those have hard coded values, others are re-programmable, but the type of tag does not necessarily change what the response will be when interrogated, meaning regular RFID tags are basically always cloneable.

Tap-to-pay, is a subset of NFC, which is a subset of RFID, and works a little different that run-of-the-mill RFID, in that the response is based on the request, and uses encryption, so while there is a unique value stored on the card, it is never transmitted, only used to calculate a response, similar to how proper password authentication works without passing the actual password.

That type of chip ranges from harder to impossible to clone with current technology, unless you have some expensive equipment and some quality time with the original chip.

TL;DR: Most RFID tags are basically fancy versions of barcodes, but some are fancier.

[tight copper]

what is adafruit's return policy? i think my thermal cam has a defective solder join

only works if a human hand tightly grips the cable (likely grounding it). The solder joints are massive and bulbous

[elfin bridge]

https://www.adafruit.com/shipping

You're likely looking for https://www.adafruit.com/contact_us or [e-mail] . I had good luck forwarding my order confirmation to [e-mail] with an explanation of the issue and some pictures when I found that the board had fallen out of the bag prior to shipping due to a packaging error by the manufacturer.

[tight copper]

thankyou

[terse hearth]

Thank you!

[night crescent]

Desk of Ladyada - USB Power Delivery and U2IF experiments https://youtu.be/yQea9IEmf28

[unborn furnace]

When can we expect a restock for the rasberry pi zero WH And the Inky Phat displays ??

[late fulcrum]

Update, Ampere enters the ARM desktop market, so now there are 2 ARM vendors. https://store.avantek.co.uk/ampere-emag-64bit-arm-workstation.html

[blissful roost]

Tempting, but I can think of better things to spend $5k+ on...

[raw jasper]

As low as $5125!

Even though I understand it is a wholly different (and more expandable!) beast, they manage to make Apple's offering seem reasonably priced in comparison

[jagged pewter]

My partner is protesting at Rutgers for better pay and I ended up using the Matrix Portal to help with her efforts. Thanks Adafruit!

[weary fiber]

Curious for some elaboration on this-- I love apple phones for their longevity & wide support

[tardy badger]

Ugh, my vacation was not long enough

[rapid geode]

Equal pay for equal work? But I want ALL the monies!

(for no work)

[patent hemlock]

and that's why you have no fish! 😁

[hard estuary]

The MacroPad uses CircuitPython. What do you mean that it's not connecting?

[thick wind]

It might not ship with circuitpython. Have you followed https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-macropad-rp2040/circuitpython and loaded up the proper uf2 file?

[hard estuary]

Ok - like Hem mentioned, maybe it needs to be reinstalled. If you follow the MacroPad link, it will show you to load it on the bootloader

[late fulcrum]

https://www.fastcompany.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-design-a-bad-name

[hard estuary]

great, glad to hear it!

[weary fiber]

I don't agree with a lot of their points, but I see where they're coming from.

This specifically...

A person well-versed in the gestural scheme can navigate faster, and more effortlessly than someone who isn't

the only gripe (and a valid one) is that it's not at-all obvious how it works

[late fulcrum]

I think their point is the way someone becomes well-versed is by (safely) trying things, and they've made that more difficult/dangerous.

[fair summit]

I would note that article is from 2015. Things might have gotten better, gotten worse, or you might have just gotten used to things. I still find a lot of the gesture stuff non-obvious, and I tell people "try this", and they're completely surprised.

[weary fiber]

there is one point I'm equally mad about though

the removal of "undo"

in the native notes app, you literally cannot undo without physically shaking the phone

which looks goofy in public

[fair summit]

#help-with-circuitpython is the place to ask

[raw jasper]

You can still triple-tap tap with three fingers, AFAIK

[weary fiber]

I'm usually an apple fanboy (only for mobile devices) but this alone makes me a lil exasperated lmao

it used to be just "touch & hold on the cursor" and undo was one of the options

now, touch&hold on an empty textbox ONLY offers "scan text" which nobody ever uses

[raw jasper]

When I had an iPhone, I made quite intensive use of the "scan text" feature

In any case, I am not the person who is going to defend any company

[late fulcrum]

I'm sort of an Apple fanboy for their desktops, which I consider a solid BSD OS with a nice usable GUI on top. But for phones, I'm on Android.

[raw jasper]

I use macOS as my daily driver, and, the only thing I dislike is that the system will kernel panic and force reboot if you manage to lock it up so hard the watchdog timer is engaged (it doesn't get a ping in some time)

I've managed to do this... exactly once

[dusty citrus]

Apple really nailed the design of the IIGS

[weary fiber]

if money is no issue, my tech setup is like...

• iphone
• ipad w/ paperlike cover for class notes
• non-pro airpods (the hard plastic fits my ears better)
• macbook pro for work
• windows main PC for games/CAD

[raw jasper]

I'm not very particular about my phone make and model these days, as long as it's running a reasonably stock OS without bloatware

As far as notes are concerned, strangely enough I prefer using a fountain pen and paper

[weary fiber]

I was extremely anti-digital-notes until I discovered GoodNotes & a paperlike screen cover

it allows me to exactly mirror how I take paper notes, adding features without losing any

[tardy badger]

I like the iPhone 14 Pro at least in terms of the equipment it has

The camera is pretty nice, but I really enjoy the LiDAR on it

Plus Apple has made AR experiences far better than on android. My friend works for a company that develops AR applications and she had told me that it’s miles ahead in terms of simplicity for development over android where they have to do a lot of back end magic to get a somewhat similar experience on android

[tropic urchin]

Meme I spent far too long making (out of CircuitPython love ❤️ ) for a lightning talk tomorrow on low level debugging.

[raw jasper]

This... is great :D

[old beacon]

sigh I have to go over i2c, busio, and spi, just to get a hint in learning how to port over a module form linux to Cp.

Idk if ill be able to do this with the limited time i have.

anyone wana help me out?

[half sun]

Hey guys

Anyone know how to downgrade the rpi bullseye from 6 to 5.10

[patent hemlock]

iirc, that's kind of a one-way street due to the package dependencies - back up the /home/user directory, reinstall, and restore the backup is likely to be the shortest route

[half sun]

Too late

I have done the hash script

So I went from 6.1 to 5.10

[grizzled raptor]

Well, shucks. Al Jaffe, the creator of the MAD Magazine fold-in, passed away. He was 102.

[karmic urchin]

legacy code is ****

[glossy knoll]

UGH, webpack

[karmic urchin]

vite for me

or even leptos

[brittle condor]

Someone recognises those 3 chips marked 22 52r? I think i burned two of those but i want to make sure it's not just missing an enable signal

[static flare]

those look like resistor packs

[brittle condor]

They are supposed to be buck regulators

The bottom one actually works and generates the 3.3v it's supposed to

[static flare]

oh then i don't know

[brittle condor]

But the other 2 don't seem to work

[late fulcrum]

I don't see the inductors usually present with buck regulators. I would guess the other chip (marked "CZ 32") near the inductor is the buck regulator and the 22-52R chips are something else (by the passives near them, I would guess op-amps, comparators, or the like).

[brittle condor]

They are on the back side

There are 3 inductors

I think that chip taks care of a 4th voltage rail

Tbh not sure why they need that many, it's just a router

My old asus only ran on 3.3v regulator

[late fulcrum]

Many routers include a CPU with a lower core voltage (like 1.8V), and a "higher" I/O voltage (like 3.3V). There may be an additional voltage for WiFi, serial, or other purposes as well.

If one's working and the others aren't, I'd (carefully) probe their voltages: since they're the same chip, you can leverage equivalence to see what the expected sorts of voltages/signals on their pins would be. Tracing everything is a pain, but there are only 8 pins, and 8-pin buck regulators all tend to have the same sorts of pin functions (in various arrangements, with various options).

At a minimum, you'll have a supply pin, a switch pin, a feedback pin, and a ground pin.

[some buck regulators have an internal feedback, but those are fixed voltage, and since these appear to be different voltages, they can be expected to have feedback pins to adjust said voltage]

[brittle condor]

Yea i thonk pin 3 is vin and pin 4 is vout

Cause, again, the bottom one seems to be working

My problem now would be sourcing replacement if those were simply the issue

[tardy badger]

I would make a circuit schematic of the part and connected passives and just compare it against regulators that are in a SOT23-8 package

[brittle condor]

Good idea

[tardy badger]

If you have a LC meter you can probably sus out some of the values of the capacitors

And the inductors

And then a volt meter to measure the resistors

[brittle condor]

Tbh at this point I'm wondering if that is the only thing that broke

I wish i knew the voltage of those rails so i could put the voltage in my self and see if it's worth even repairing

[warm raptor]

Hello there,

I'm pretty new in coding. I need help for a project. I'm working on a ESP32 D32 using Arduino IDE to run a sensor: AS7262x from Adafruit. I guess that to use the sensor correctly we need to calibrate it. But I can't find a explained solution for this. I read some codes but I can't understand the steps that they used. I know that there is function like "readCalibratedViolet()" but I don't undersatnd if this function is reading pre-set values or values that we measured. My idea is basicaly to calibrate the sensor by placing a led in front and to "say" this is blue or green ect... for the 6 channels. Is it possible ? Can someone help me on it ?

Thanks.

Hugo.

[late fulcrum]

My understanding is that the sensor comes with its calibration values already loaded, you can retrieve them with the readCalibratedValues() call

[warm raptor]

Ok, but I don't understand why do we have access to raw and calibrated value. And I don't know if there is a way that the sensor is right calibrated

[late fulcrum]

If my reading of the example code on the bottom of https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-as7262-6-channel-visible-light-sensor/arduino-wiring-test is correct, you are given access to the raw values, and the calibration factors (not values). The example code uses the map() call to scale the raw values into calibrated values, using the calibration factors to do so.

When you say "And I don't know if there is a way that the sensor is right calibrated", I think you're asking if the calibration is known to be correct? If so, the data sheet https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/052/623/original/AS7262_DS000486_2-00_(1).pdf?1522179774 explains "Lifetime-calibrated sensing". I'm guessing the sensor is calibrated at the factory with known sources, and the results written to the chip for use later. If you're asking how to calibrate the chip yourself, I'm guessing that takes special equipment. If you're asking if you can check the calibration, that should be possible if you have access to either calibrated light sources, or a calibrated light meter to use as a comparison reference.

[fresh vector]

Our Amaranth article might be of interest here.

April 2023 newsletter from Open Research Institute can be found here: https://mailchi.mp/db8a4ece023c/31zpq7fkuj-15084741

[stable vapor]

I have some 3v solar panels. I’d like to use them as an input device. Can I just connect them to analog input of an Esp32 like you would other analogue inputs? Anything special to working with them?

Solar cells*

[patent hemlock]

because I'm not an EE, why would you want to do that? that would seem to be "against spec" since solar cells are supposed to only be power sources?

[tardy badger]

Measure output

You might use it to determine if you want to enter a lower power setting for your controller based on the output of the solar cell

[patent hemlock]

I kind of read it as that's all he wanted to do...

[tardy badger]

Well, solar cells could also be used as daylight sensors if setup properly

So that’s another fun application

[patent hemlock]

oh, right!

[stable vapor]

A little bit of both. I plan on using them as an input of the sun rays for a an art project.

[late fulcrum]

Note that an individual cell gives up to about 0.5V open circuit. Arrays can give more, so you may have to condition the voltage so you don't damage your input.

[wanton thistle]

To expand even further: you can use a voltage divider as a way to sense the voltage and then also use them for charging. I've done it this way

[acoustic pawn]

A cheaper approach wpuld probably be photodiodes or phototransistors

Or even LDRs

You can even use a diode or an LED as a light sensor

[late fulcrum]

The CPC1822 was a dandy light sensor https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/9962

[patent hemlock]

really? that seems like a neat trick...

[acoustic pawn]

Steve mould has a video on the physics

And I saw the diode trick somewhere else

I think LEDs even work as crude color sensors

Clear diodes can sense infrared light

[patent hemlock]

oh! well, duh, now that it's right in my face 😏 (found a sparkfun video from about 6 years ago)

[acoustic pawn]

That's where I learned the trick lol

I now remember it was a sparkfun video

[late fulcrum]

I used an LED as a fast light sensor to measure the output of a Microflash

[magic talon]

Coool

[tardy badger]

Disney Labs made a high speed Visible Light transceiver with blue 5mm LEDs and published a paper on it

[magic talon]

Seen a guy use leds as a sensor for rail gun

I wanna build one so bad

[tardy badger]

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/808802

They wanted to use VLC in toys

[magic talon]

VLC?

[tardy badger]

Visible Light Communication

[magic talon]

Interesting

[tardy badger]

Allow toys to communicate via LEDs

[magic talon]

So the toys can plot against us

[tardy badger]

Exactly

[magic talon]

Huh

[acoustic pawn]

The hardware for that would be interesting…

[magic talon]

I still have a old crappy furby in my closet

It’s a crazy one with two personalities

Still creepy AF

[acoustic pawn]

You need some fast leds and photo sensors that can detect the rapid blinking and decode signals while also rejecting noise

And maybe some sort of dual wavelength system

But that’s only if you want lights to seem bright when they are actually being used to transfer data as well

If you’re fine with epilepsy lights, then the hardware is much simpler

[lusty fossil]

Flipper zero will become the revolutionary tool of the oppressed once the toys take over.

[acoustic pawn]

But there is an easy way to prevent the toys from plotting against you. Just cover them in a blanket

Or box or something

[tardy badger]

It’s a lot easier than you think

(I use to be head of hardware development for a visible light communication startup)

[acoustic pawn]

It just sounds kinda impractical for toys

Since you need line of sight

[tardy badger]

Nah, it’s pretty simple and much lower cost to implement than many wireless comms

[acoustic pawn]

Powerful leds can get around some of the line of sight issues

[tardy badger]

You need more of what I’d describe as “rough line of sight”

[acoustic pawn]

Yeah. That’s a better way of saying it

[tardy badger]

LEDs and photodiodes both have viewing angles so using something with 85-100° of leeway opens up a lot of possibilities

Toys wouldn’t need anything faster than 10-20kbps

Cheap op amp, maybe a comparator to extend range. Blue/green or even infrared LEDs

Protocol could be implemented on something as small as an attiny

[raw jasper]

What would be the advantages of using visible light, over the IR link some devices of yore used?

[tardy badger]

Higher bandwidth

Faster data rates

[raw jasper]

I think tamagotchis used IR too? As far as toys go

[tardy badger]

Yeah

Less power too

IR LEDs can use a bit of power

Some up to 100mA

You can achieve similar data rates with a smaller power budget

IR is great for short burst transmissions though

[raw jasper]

I mean, that makes sense, because higher frequency

But I had no idea about the power advantages

Is it more or less sensitive to the proverbial random speck of dust passing through the transceivers? :P

[crystal ore]

I'm not really sure about the power advantages. Visible and IR should be fairly comparable at the same effective brightness.

Ditto for bandwidth... fiber optics use IR and are happy running at terabits per second.

[tardy badger]

In fiber sure

But blue light have far faster transmission capabilities over free space than IR

IR is cheaper to implement

[crystal ore]

Can you justify that? Is it something subtle about the rise times of the different LEDs? It can't be the light frequency itself because we're waaaaay away from the Nyquist limit.

[acoustic pawn]

I don't see how blue light would be more effective

[tardy badger]

If IR was better over free space companies like LiFi would use IR instead of Blue LEDs

[acoustic pawn]

If anything, I think it would travel a shorter dstance

[crystal ore]

My understanding was that LiFi used visible light so they could modulate the output of lightbulbs for free transmit power, instead of needing a second invisible LED.

[raw jasper]

Welp, it's not like the toys' transceivers aren't going to be stuck next to one another while transferring data

[tardy badger]

LiFi uses blue interweave with white LEDs

Blue is used for transmission with white carrier

Or that’s the last design I saw anyway

[crystal ore]

Not really sure what you mean by "carrier".

[tardy badger]

White being the steady state received

[crystal ore]

Heh heh, I call that "background noise".

[tardy badger]

In other applications it would be

Anyway, there are applications where IR isn’t feasible for VLC

Like under water

[crystal ore]

I agree there. The wavelength matters a lot for water transmission.

[tardy badger]

Space too has limitations.

We use red and IR for orbital constellation comms right now

some companies are experimenting with lower power blue/green lasers

[crystal ore]

IR is pretty ubiquitous for space links, since you need pretty high power for the long distances, from fiber amplifiers, etc.

[karmic urchin]

how long is this?!

[crystal ore]

(Exceptions for short-range links like formation flying.)

[tardy badger]

Anyway, there’s lots of research into using blue/green for VLC right now because it has the lowest emission levels from the sun on the near and visible light spectrum

[crystal ore]

That's... a strange thing to say. The sun's spectrum peaks in the visible, which is why we evolved eyes to see those colors.

[tardy badger]

The sun produces less blue/green spectrum

There are stars that produce higher amounts of certain visible wavelengths

[crystal ore]

(I think the units are supposed to be W/m^2/nm, since otherwise the scale is off.)

That dip around 940nm is sometimes targeted to reduce sunlight background.

[tardy badger]

Our sun is a yellow sun, so most of the visible light is focused on that end of the spectrum of visible which is why green/blue spectrum is targeted for visible light

[crystal ore]

The disc of the sun looks yellow because the blue light is scattered into the rest of the sky, but on average sunlight is more white.

[tardy badger]

White light is just a combination of light wavelengths though, so that statement is kind of counterintuitive

[crystal ore]

I'm just saying that sunlight overall isn't yellow, it's only the sun's disc which is yellowish, but if you add the illumination of the blue sky (which also comes from sunlight), it averages out to be more white in color.

[raw jasper]

I think the distribution of intensity per light frequencies, post-atmosphere, looks fairly uniform-ish in the light blue-red range

[tardy badger]

Right, I’m talking about spectral density though

[crystal ore]

It's got a blackbody curve peaking in the visible.

[tardy badger]

Blue light even in space makes up less of the light emitted than other colors

[raw jasper]

Yeah, that's why I specified post-atmosphere. My knowledge on that is rusty though....

[ebon dew]

Twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder what your spectral density and galactic composites are.

[crystal ore]

Ah, sorry, I interpreted "post" the wrong way, thought you meant above the atmosphere.

[tardy badger]

Well, from our perspective of earth you’re not wrong lol

[tardy badger]

After sleeping on it, I concede to your in depth knowledge for free space spectral density and stuff. I’ll stick to water based optics where I have better working knowledge lol

And by better, I mean for me personally I have more knowledge of light traveling in water than I do of light traveling in free space

TLDR: I’ll stay in my lane 😬

[raw jasper]

Cut yourself some slack, it's not like you were arguing the earth is flat or something

[tardy badger]

Lol

The earth is squishy ball shaped

Like.. a more ball shaped version of those Japanese cloud pancakes

Absolutely delicious

[raw jasper]

The earth is geoid-shaped. Which is a fancy way to say that the earth is earth-shaped :D

[tardy badger]

The earth is shaped like a habitable planet

:3

[raw jasper]

...for now 😬

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/jurassic-world-dominion-65million-years-later-many-years-later-jurassic-world-jurassic-world3-gif-23905460

One space book my son got from the library said that in 200myrs the earth will probably be too hot to be inhabited my most creatures due to the sun getting hotter

[raw jasper]

There is a timeline

[tardy badger]

Good thing I’ll be dead before that happens

[raw jasper]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

[tardy badger]

I’m gonna register that trademark: “Good Thing I’ll Be Dead ™️ “

[raw jasper]

"Good Thing I'll Be Dead" has gotten us to the point where some of us will be alive to see some of the stuff people said that for

[tardy badger]

It is wild to try and think about 200myrs

[raw jasper]

I mean, humanity itself probably won't exist that far into the future

[ebon dew]

https://tenor.com/view/better-off-dead-mrw-reaction-reactions-sight-gif-5038105

[raw jasper]

But, the climate change chickens are coming home to roost

[tardy badger]

You think about how long a year feels and then multiply that by 200000000

[raw jasper]

And that'll probably be within our lifetimes

[tardy badger]

I think we’ll probably be a heavily consolidated species in the next 250 years

[raw jasper]

You mean range-wise

[tardy badger]

Yeah

Climate change will make many parts of the world unbearable

[raw jasper]

As long as we manage not to annihilate ourselves doing something stupid

[tardy badger]

There’s already areas where people are basically trapped and can’t leave because climate change took their jobs

And it’s so hot

[ebon dew]

https://tenor.com/view/go-that-way-really-fast-if-something-gets-in-your-way-turn-better-off-dead-good-advice-gif-25975364

[raw jasper]

Huh? I honestly haven't heard of this. Would you mind linking some citation?

[tardy badger]

I read an article a while ago about a area of Pakistan where people are rationing water and trying to get out because the summer heat gets above 120°F

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20062022/jacobabad-pakistan-heat-health/

Darn, site is paywalled

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88q4pg/jacobabad-climate-change-heat-wave-extreme-weather

Better nonpaywalled article

Anyway, Jacobabad is ground zero for humanity in climate change and global heating

[raw jasper]

Hoo boy

[ebon dew]

The greatest war this planet will ever know will be fought over water.

Didn't anyone watch Solar Babies?

[raw jasper]

Actually, no!

I had no idea a movie with this name existed!

[ebon dew]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjzrsiiajAk

[tardy badger]

Just one of the worst parts of climate change is swinging between extremes

[raw jasper]

I know!

(Hence the exclamation)

[tardy badger]

Yeah

It’s like what’s going on with the Colorado river basins

Yeah, we had a lot of snow this winter. But it’s not expected to be the norm

We still have to make significant cuts to preserve the river

[crystal ore]

Man, what an awesome community this is... Thanks, and no worries! Us optical-comms folks have to stick together, no matter whether we personally identify as infrared or visible, heh heh. 🫂

[umbral phoenix]

have to do my taxes today, ugh

[tardy badger]

Good luck, and may the tax deductions be ever in your favor

[tardy badger]

I tell ya, employment based trauma is no joke. Any time the requirements of my job shift to areas or situations that are very new, my brain panics and basically does the “aight, imma head out” SpongeBob meme

And it’s not like I work in a particularly stressful job or environment. My brain just does the panic

It’s getting better though so that’s good 🙂

I haven’t quit my job yet like I did in the past

Basically had the same job for going on 2 years now 🙂

[tough bridge]

Is Adafruit currently down for anyone else?

[tardy badger]

Not for me

[tough bridge]

ty, maybe was some DNS thing locally, seems to be working for me again now.

[old beacon]

my god i almost forgot it is the last week to do it..

[umbral phoenix]

Federal took 3 hours. I used to do it manually, pen and paper, but I finally succumbed to software a couple of years ago.

[urban arrow]

It's that time of year again,
when the tax man makes his calls.
We write our check, say "What the heck",
Cuz they've got us by the ears.

[old beacon]

its more than a nightmare like the tax man has become the tooth fairy that leaves a broken teeth. Yeah taxes isn't preety. :/

[static flare]

Our tax season is EOFY

[wanton thistle]

careful with this. I found a mistake on a website that almost had me owing $2000. To track it down I ended up doing it all by hand and looking at the forms anyway so I saved the filing fee and just filled out the IRS form directly.

but YMMV

I think it was "Free tax USA" that had the error

[umbral phoenix]

doing it by hand for so many years did attune me to the rules (which do change at times), but I keep good records and checklists of what I expect to need to do... tax software is not good, you still really have to know what you're doing... keep the 1040, forms, and IRS instructions handy

[raw jasper]

I'm curious why most people in the US do their taxes by themselves

[wanton thistle]

money.

[umbral phoenix]

b/c paying an accountant is expensive

[wanton thistle]

It costs another $60 or more for someone else to do it

[raw jasper]

Depending on the complexity of the system, and the consequences for making a mistake, this sounds fairly reasonable

[wanton thistle]

but it literally made me want to develop my own free and open source tax software. The code seems easy enough. But the problem is, Id end up writing it for the a specific group of people, ie Married Filing Jointly who have a house.

[raw jasper]

...compared to, say, being on the hook for 20k

[wanton thistle]

The IRS gets a bad rap but they do work with you on things. IIRC and correct me if I am wrong but most are CPAs or certified to some extent.
https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/enrolled-agents/enrolled-agent-information

but also tax software is supposed to protect you from mistakes

[umbral phoenix]

messing up is a risk with DIY or DIY-with-software, but sense-checking helps a lot... you make X, expect tax rate to be Y, handle all the exceptions and you should be in the ballpark

[wanton thistle]

💯

also theres tax tables to look up

[raw jasper]

I can only imagine the sort of disclaimers this software would have to ship with :D

[umbral phoenix]

they pretty much only make guarantees if you pay more for the human review

[wanton thistle]

Well that brings up a question: would the creator of said software be legally liable for any inaccuracies? Or fees?

[umbral phoenix]

but they don't know what you don't tell them... you could still miss out on some big deduction or credit

[wanton thistle]

and I think paid software comes with the same disclaimer

[raw jasper]

IANAL! GPL et al say no warranty to the extent permitted by law. What that means, is a mystery to me

[wanton thistle]

"Here be dragons. Good Luck and God Speed."

[raw jasper]

Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here

[umbral phoenix]

doing mine today, the software asked some questions, suggested a package at a price, but after some time I realized they weren't even showing me a whole category, so had to search it and buy into the next tier

[raw jasper]

How much did it cost?

[umbral phoenix]

the whole questionnaire format of most tax software leaves a lot of gaps

[wanton thistle]

FYI when I used TaxAct, it let me get so far into the return, and let me download the PDF (but you cant file it because it has a huge watermark) so I took that and basically used it as my benchmark. Then I put it all in manually on the IRS website lol

[umbral phoenix]

I don't remember, I had to add on state too (though I could have done that manually once I had the federal)

[raw jasper]

Next step: TaxGPT!

[wanton thistle]

So My State (CT) actually came up with their own version of tax software

and its free lol

[raw jasper]

(Please don't actually unleash this unto humanity)

[night crescent]

WE ARE LIVE! SHOW AND TELL! https://youtu.be/7Y4QplF17Ts

[night crescent]

WE ARE LIVE! ASK AN ENGINEER! https://youtu.be/iArChLcyRLw

10% discount code, code is: usbhost http://www.adafruit.com

[whole plover]

hanging in vc if anyone wants to for a bit

[tardy badger]

ah yeah. it's all coming together

[raw jasper]

So many traces

[tardy badger]

I need to finish adding the passives for the FPGA

and also finish the wiring. but the RP2040 is all wired up except the boot button

gotta.. meander it through the forest

[raw jasper]

Is this a rp2040 + fpga combo board?

[tardy badger]

yeah

[raw jasper]

Hmm.... At that point, I'd just instantiate a soft core. Give a sufficiently large FPGA, that is

[tardy badger]

you could put a decent soft RISC-V core on the FPGA

i'm intending a iCE40UP5K on this one

maybe have varying levels of FPGA logic cell count, 1k up to 5k

[raw jasper]

Does lattice do speed grades?

[tardy badger]

the iCE5LP1/2/4K only run up to 48MHz while the UP5K can run at 100MHz if I remember properly

[raw jasper]

Ah, so it's not like Xilinx who bin their silicon based on max switching speed etc

[tardy badger]

they might with higher end product lines

[tardy badger]

all routed

I need more layers for a continuous ground plane though

and labels

[glossy knoll]

The ol' Rield Programmable Gate Array

[ebon dew]

reprogrammable gate array?

Really packing the stuff in there good lord. 0402's? tiny little things.

crap, forgot to give skerr a shoutout during show & tell for helping me with the circuit on bleeding rainbow.

[glossy knoll]

Guess it's time to move to 01005

[crystal ore]

(I think the RPGA name is for RP2040 + FPGA.)

[glossy knoll]

We'll never know

[raw jasper]

Or the Raspberry Programmable Gate Array

[tardy badger]

Yes, RP2040 + FPGA

[raw jasper]

It's a neat idea to save on logic blocks from (not) instantiating a soft core

Also, you don't get to fight with AXI to interface with it! :P

[tardy badger]

Exactly lol

[raw jasper]

(Does Lattice use AXI? No idea)

AXI, Wishbone, whatever

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-pam-beesly-theyre-the-same-picture-the-same-picture-they-are-the-same-picture-gif-20830121

||they are not, but oh well :P||

[tardy badger]

The iCE40 typically use SPi for programming

[raw jasper]

Oh, I meant IP core-wise

Xilinx uses AXI for essentially everything, as far as their IP cores go

[tardy badger]

It has hardened I2C and SPI cores

No integrated CPU managed bus like wishbone or AXI

[raw jasper]

Wishbone/AXI are bus protocols, not ISAs or CPUs

Fun fact: AXI was an ARM invention to wire up their SoCs

[tardy badger]

I realize wishbone is a bus protocol but it’s implemented on a riscv core

[raw jasper]

Actually, it seems lattice is pretty big on implementing wishbone outside risc-v contexts in the IP cores they presumably bundle with their FPGA software

...It's probably for ease of wiring up to premade RISC-V cores though

[slate scarab]

Could someone possibly help me with trying to wire a Tft display to my mkr 1010wifi?

This is the tft display I am using. Everything I find online about hooking these up have differences in the pin outs and with the boards they use. Most use Arduino uni but for what I’m trying to do I need to use the 1010wifi. If anyone has any ideas please let me know

[ebon dew]

@slate scarab If you intend on using this with Arduino the best place to ask is in the #help-with-arduino channel.

[slate scarab]

Okay I am new to the discord, thank you!

[ebon dew]

@slate scarab Welcome to the Adafruit Discord. 🥳

[slate scarab]

Thank you! I am happy to be here

[raw jasper]

Welcome! 👋

[old beacon]

I was just wondering how is blinka awarded in this community?

But im still new to cir python..

i like a sticker though if i be given one

[hard estuary]

The helper roles have an icon assigned to them, for CircuitPython helpers, it's Blinka

You can always buy a sticker. 🙂 https://www.adafruit.com/product/3725

[old beacon]

thank you 🙂

what about the Blinka enamel Pin..

[small oasis]

got my first Oscilloscope. wish me luck hahahah...
GW Instek GDS-820C 150MHz ET25GS/s 2 Ch

[raw jasper]

Enjoy! Acquired any cool signals yet?

[late fulcrum]

My first oscilloscope was an RCA WO-56A. 500kHz (or 0.5MHz) bandwidth.

Wow, I've been ordering lots of wildly assorted things from DigiKey for many years, and I got the first error. An extra power supply I didn't order apparently landed in the box. I called them to let them know what happened, in case the other order ended up missing out. They were grateful for the information (including the order number the power supply was intended for), and said I was welcome to keep it. It's a fairly nice 9V 1.3A wall mount supply, similar to many I have ordered, so it will get put to good use.

[raw jasper]

Do you still have it? I imagine it must look very nice, even as a decorative item

[late fulcrum]

Alas, my sister threw it out years ago. But I found one on eBay (lower right) that I plan to get working.

[raw jasper]

I love vacuum tube oscilloscopes

[late fulcrum]

I'm transforming the WO-88 next to it into an art project, using an AdaFruit ItsyBitsy M4 to generate the waveforms

It had a couple of gassy tubes, which I replaced

[dusty citrus]

Has anyone ever virtualized s pic on a fpga? All I can find about is some article from 2012

[late fulcrum]

The original PIC-12 was a pretty simple CPU, but Microchip wasn't very forthcoming about its details (although it was available in a windowed package so it was easy to get a look at the die)

A quick search yields a bunch of hits, 2017, 2022, etc.

[dusty citrus]

Hm it may be just a better option getting one then...
It looks pretty bad though, apparently it's still popular for historical reasons I think

[late fulcrum]

If you're curious, here are a couple I found (I'm going to post them slowly, so I don't get flagged for spamming links) http://www.ece.uah.edu/~lacasa/pic18/pic.html

https://github.com/pawlex/hdl.verilog.ipcore.pic.risc16f84

[wanton thistle]

Depends on what your needs are. They have been better with stock. Ive been tacking on 6 or so to my orders, but now Im afraid I have too many lol.

[raw jasper]

Admittedly, I have no idea what a gassy tube is

[tardy badger]

If you want a CM4 Digi-Key apparently had a few: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/raspberry-pi/SC0673/13530936

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/raspberry-pi/SC0672/13530941

[raw jasper]

How many were there in stock? They seem to be gone in the jaw-dropping interval of ~30 minutes since this message was posted!

[tardy badger]

I saw 152 in stock when I shared it

[raw jasper]

wow

[tardy badger]

79 of the cheaper one

Shared as soon as I saw they had

[raw jasper]

I mean, wow

I'm actually amazed!

In any case, I hope people here managed to score some

[acoustic pawn]

Hopefully most of it wasn’t bots

[raw jasper]

I am now going to impart you with the mental image of the singularity coming by chatgpt-esque robots with a directive to scalp all raspberry pi products

Jokes aside, I remember reading about people using robots to price their products on amazon, and that backfiring to exorbitant prices due to the bots feedback-looping one another

[acoustic pawn]

There’s a Stand Up Maths video about that price feedback loop that made the world’s most overpriced book on Amazon

[late fulcrum]

Heh. I have a copy of that book!

[rough shuttle]

Would it be possible to have the site remember if you would like guides to be multi page or single page? Additionally, the “last updated” info, if at the top, would be a good hint as to if the guide is still current.

[old beacon]

So I wanted to get the Blinka enamel pin will adafruit release it again?

Theres only the sticker available.

[late fulcrum]

Since it's described as "limited edition", I'm guessing it won't be re-released.

[timid wave]

Hey guys, so i need to analyze a SPI bus on arduino nano but i dont have a logic analyzer.

I have raspberry pi pico lying around which have very high clock speeds, so i thought i could diy a logic analyzer with them. I searched and found his - https://hackaday.com/2022/03/02/need-a-logic-analyzer-use-your-pico/

but i couldnt make it since it is very complicated to understand , it involves building the app with source files and i dont know how to do that.

So does anyone have other alternatives ? or any other means by which I can analyze a SPI bus of arduino nano (maybe an image for raspberry pi zero 2 W ? )

any input is welcome

[late fulcrum]

Capturing the data is fairly easy, the app is just used to display the results. Normally for these data-capture tasks, I try to run all the signals I want to watch to pins that are on the same hardware port, so I can read all of them at once. Since onboard memory is at a premium, I'll generally have a trigger input telling it when to start (or stop) recording. Then when I've grabbed a buffer, just send it to the host computer using serial or whatever, and analyze it there. This gets you the basic pulse timing, decoding what it all means is a separate process: I normally start by doing it manually (which is great for learning the details), then automating the repetitive bits.

[timid wave]

Thank you for the input

I am currently looking to make it so that i can look at the bus

I am not by any means a very advanced microcontroller guy so i dont know how i would go about when making such a complex thing. So ill see what i can do/ code . and get back to you. In the meantime if you know any premade solution (even one involving a raspberry pi zero is fine) , please let me know

[thick wind]

If you have an android phone and a usb otg cable (or pico w,) scoppy is also a valid option. https://github.com/fhdm-dev/scoppy

[timid wave]

THANKSSS

This has capability to analyze SPI bus of arduino tho , right? bcoz i could only see it saying 25Msps which sounds a lot, but i have three pins - SCK , MOSI and MISO

[thick wind]

Logic analyzer looks to be 8 channels, 25MSPS per channel.

[timid wave]

Ohh , okay. Ig it should be fine then 🤔

[spice moss]

just your space nerds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvHcGmQPcsI

[turbid dock]

Hi guys. What's the general view on these sub 50usd spot welders? For some general 18650 welding are these up to snuff?

[raw jasper]

Ugh. I need to install ubuntu because I want a "supported OS" for vivado

CentOS is dead, almalinux is not officially supported

[patent hemlock]

you're running CentOS as a desktop/dev system? man, I thought i was old-school (linux user since 0.99)

[raw jasper]

I used to, then it took an arrow to the knee

I mainly use debian stable now

Not enough time in my life to keep up with distro upgrades

[patent hemlock]

yeah - i gave up "bleeding edge" when Fedora came around and just started using Linux instead of trying to be kewl and stuff

[raw jasper]

My current computer is a mac now

I wanted an ARM workstation

Got too tired of x86's thermal shenanigans on my laptopts

I'll migrate it to asahi linux once apple stops supporting it

(and it matures)

[patent hemlock]

i tried Pi4 as a desktop and it's ... ok (too slow for me)

[raw jasper]

Yeah, Apple's M1 is essentially the only option for ARM on the desktop

...Which is how I ended up with a mac :P

[patent hemlock]

(k)ubntu isn't bad as a desktop OS and all the deb stuff works, so i went the lazy route

[raw jasper]

I... am not really a fan of ubuntu. But I'll get an LTS release, so I won't have to deal with the dist-upgrade process for some time

[patent hemlock]

speaking of ARM, did you see #adafruit-blog-feed message

[raw jasper]

NX is cool

[unkempt hearth]

With the Adafruit Powerboost 1000 out of stock, does anyone have a suggestion for an alternative battery power supply that can reliably output to a RasPi and an attached small display? Looking to power off/charge a single 18650 cell with this setup.

[raw jasper]

In other news, I just updated the firmware on a thinkpad. The DOS boot image printed "Starting PC-DOS" on startup

Is PC-DOS still a thing that exists?!

(For the record, me typing PC-DOS and not MS-DOS is very much deliberate)

[patent hemlock]

odd indeed

actually, i can understand it for a firmware image

[raw jasper]

Yeah, it was a BIOS (actually UEFI) image, made towards the end of the last decade (2010s, for those playing along at home)

[patent hemlock]

all you really need is disk and hardware I/O, so why drag along an 💸 "windows lite" license

[raw jasper]

...And DOS is pretty much "finished" as far as software goes

I'm surprised they didn't use some kind of weird "EFI shell" solution

I guess it depends on the third-party tools available from whomever they bought the UEFI implementation from

[late fulcrum]

Well... #general-chat message

[late fulcrum]

A USB power brick is often the easiest way.

[raw jasper]

This is why I said "essentially".

On the other hand, apple's solution does not cost 5125 US Dollars for the base configuration

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, for that kind of scratch, things like the BarrelEye or Talos Raptor become viable too

[raw jasper]

Talos's still at it!?

There still exist modern POWER desktop chipsets?!

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, I think they're up to Power10 now? Power11?

[raw jasper]

o_o. I thought POWER was dead.

I guess they're still being used in some HPC platforms?

[late fulcrum]

Hardly. You can get Power VMs on Google Cloud

And of course IBM's servers

[raw jasper]

I thought IBM went all in on their Z arch

[late fulcrum]

I thought that was PowerZ?

[raw jasper]

I think Z is separate, from the mainframe era

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/Architecture

Yeah, its a separate thing

[unkempt hearth]

This is for a pigrrl project, if it were plugged into the wall that would be the obvious and easiest solution

[hasty urchin]

Hi Everyone, Can someone please help me? Im looking to display news on led matrix 64x32 on adafruit hat. Please could someone assist

[late fulcrum]

The learn guide should get you started https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-rgb-matrix-plus-real-time-clock-hat-for-raspberry-pi If there's something specific you want to ask about, we'll try to help

[hasty urchin]

Thank you

[nova palm]

my raspberry pi orders keep getting voided

anyone know why

[tardy badger]

Have you ordered one successfully recently?

Or since they started restricting it to one pi per person regardless of the kind they previously purchased?

They have a very strict policy right now of 1 pi per person regardless of the kind of pi you last purchased to ensure people can get their hands on at least one.

[raw jasper]

TIL there is a lifetime limit of pis (from adafruit) per person, and that limit is one.

[tardy badger]

There’s no rolling period for this so if you purchased one a few months ago through Adafruit you probably won’t be able to buy another until they remove the restrictions

[raw jasper]

Of course, I completely understand, but I thought "one pi per person" meant per shipment

[nova palm]

Oh wow

[tardy badger]

They’re hoping to remove it once the supply chain issues around Pi’s get better but I wouldn’t expect that any time soon since scalpers are still selling pi’s regularly for $$$

If you need it for a university project, you might be able to contact support otherwise you can try to go through any place listed on https://rpilocator.com

[nova palm]

i wonder how sclpers get them lol

if i cant even get one

i got one like 6 months ago maybe thats why

[tardy badger]

Through other vendors who don’t do order screening for scalpers

[nova palm]

ah

[tardy badger]

PiShop, Mouser, Digi-Key, etc..

I have an indefinite back order on a couple CM4 through mouser that will arrive when they arrive at this point. 🤷‍♂️

[raw jasper]

Given the lead times, are their backorders NCNR?

[tardy badger]

Probably

[sweet phoenix]

Has anyone had success getting the Pimoroni Inky wHAT red/black/white to do a monochrome update? Their product page says it's possible but when I try to do it with their library it just hangs

[late fulcrum]

I've heard supplies should start to recover third quarter of this year.

[tardy badger]

I’ve heard the same thing. But I had doubts cast when my mouser order got pushed to unknown shipping date from October 2nd

[dusty citrus]

Circumventing anti flipper blocks it's not that difficult
For sms verification you can get cheap sim cards from Poland, uk, or use services like smspva or other pretty sus/black market business;
Also I wouldn't be surprised if official vendors aren't keeping those by themselves and use third heads to resell them

[late fulcrum]

I'm just glad I bought a stack of Pi Zero boards when they were cheap and available.

[tardy badger]

Adafruit restricts to one per address so yeah…

Unless you’re paying for tons of P.O. Boxes

[raw jasper]

There is no reason to do all this stuff when you can buy hundreds of pis off, say, digikey

[tardy badger]

Yeah

[raw jasper]

(or all the other retailers who do not run such controls)

[dusty citrus]

Or use fake unhabited adresses or other business

[raw jasper]

Ah yes, because the customs officers will be very satisfied with Fraud

[tardy badger]

Adafruit does pretty good about stopping that though. A few still get through but it’s a very small amount compared to months ago when they didn’t limit orders

[raw jasper]

I mean, given how adafruit is relatively small-volume, and institutes checks, while other retailers offer much higher quantities, and don't require elaborate legally gray (to say the least) setups to order limitless amounts of units, there's literally no profit in doing all that

[dusty citrus]

If it's a profitable business, laws are pretty much paper; that said I wasn't able to flip any rasp or other embed related stuff for some reasons, as with console I couldn't find acquirents
I just stopped with GPUs

[raw jasper]

LOL. Confessions of a scalper, #general-chat edition?

[dusty citrus]

Ex Flippers of GPUs

[raw jasper]

I have to say it's not a good look, to say the least

[tardy badger]

I dislike scalpers or flippers in general who price normal users out of the market for a quick buck

I get times are tough, but it literally saps the joy and ability of others to enjoy products at a reasonable price.

Especially when things are already expensive enough

[raw jasper]

At least, thankfully, the FPGA devkit shortage seems to be better

[dusty citrus]

But now I am back at being broke. I was trying to get a stable job under someone else, so I can avoid networking which I am pretty bad at, but they are all scams, exploitation, piramidal schemes of sorts

[tardy badger]

Yeah 😮‍💨

I’m glad I can look up parts and see a few thousand in stock

I just wish I could get some CM4 💀

[dusty citrus]

I could help, I'm cheap 👉👈

[raw jasper]

What do you wanna do w/. it?

[tardy badger]

I’ve got a carrier board I’ve been waiting to build

25W carrier board for doing fun stuff

[raw jasper]

25W? Watt?

[tardy badger]

Yeah

[raw jasper]

Does a pi consume that much? O_O

[tardy badger]

It has a 5V/5A buck so you can do some high power applications like pairing with FPGA

Like some of the M.2 Xilinx boards

[raw jasper]

Does vivado standard even support those?

[tardy badger]

Yeah, a guy at the company I work for was running one on a beta compute blade

[raw jasper]

Which board?

Because I've seen some that need vivado licenses (which go ~$2k/yr I think)

[tardy badger]

Given the collection of FPGA this guy has, he probably has that license lol

[raw jasper]

(Beyond parts, the pro vivado I think also gates the ML features)

Correction: The so-called enterprise edition license does not expire, but has a version limit

[late fulcrum]

I still don't understand why FPGA vendors lock down their software. It seems to me their goal should be to sell FPGAs.

[raw jasper]

It's probably licensing

IP cores, third-party synthesis, P&R, simulation, etc, tools.
Plus good ol' profit

[late fulcrum]

It still seems like they're leaving money on the table that way (so, not profiting as much as they could)

[raw jasper]

Considering the cost of ASIC CAD software, vivado seems like peanuts by comparison

[late fulcrum]

A lot of companies more or less ignore or shut out the hobbyist market, thinking they're targeting the big corporations and their big orders. But a lot of hobbyists (myself included) work for big corporations and we will be significantly more likely to bring the big business to vendors we're fond of.

[raw jasper]

I agree with you.

[tardy badger]

I’d pay $500 for a single use license with expiration

Heck, I’d probably pay $1000+

[raw jasper]

You can get that with some of the more expensive devboards

[tardy badger]

I don’t even need all the “pro” features

[raw jasper]

Especially the big ones, targetted at datacenters

[tardy badger]

I just want the advanced synthesis options

[late fulcrum]

One company was going to standardize on Dell boxes for an industrial deployment, they'd already built a few prototypes. But they asked if there were perhaps something more power efficient available, and I pointed them to the little ARM boards by EmbeddedTS, and they're likely to switch. The cost ($1000 for the Dell box vs $300 for the TS one) barely matters, but the power consumption and my recommendation carry a lot of weight.

[tardy badger]

Low Power is tough for FPGA

Lattice seems to do a really good job

[raw jasper]

Like?

[late fulcrum]

That depends on how you look at it. A good chunk of my FPGA designs are to replace a board covered with chips, and the FPGA is easily more power efficient than the chips (in particular, all their I/O drivers to talk to each other)

[tardy badger]

I want to get my hands on the Avant chips and make something useful

[tardy badger]

AI P&R

[raw jasper]

https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/alveo/u50.html since you want to give good money, here's a link

[tardy badger]

Vivado freeware has a toothless version of it

[raw jasper]

It requires a server though because it is passively-cooled

[tardy badger]

Yeah

[raw jasper]

In other news, I took the plunge and am learning UVM

[tardy badger]

Nice nice

[late fulcrum]

ultraviolet massage? underwater vector math?

[raw jasper]

https://www.accellera.org/downloads/standards/uvm

[late fulcrum]

Ah, that has much more real-world utility than my silly guesses

[tardy badger]

Ultraviolet massage sounds futuristic

Maybe also canceristic

[late fulcrum]

At a meeting at work, one person was asking me if I had "HMI" experience. Yeah, I've done theater, I've worked with mercury-iodide lamps. Turns out they were looking for "human-machine interface". Oops.

[tardy badger]

Lol

[late fulcrum]

It turns out I'm not good at (or too good at) TLAs (three-letter acronyms), as well as ETLAs (extended three-letter acronyms, AKA four-letter acronyms)

[tardy badger]

My job involves multiletter acronyms

[late fulcrum]

I used to work with the military, and they lurve their acronyms and initialisms.

[tardy badger]

Acronyms are fun

I prefer ones like RP for Raspberry Pi

[late fulcrum]

I used to play the Acrophobia game online

[raw jasper]

I prefer RPi

[late fulcrum]

Not Rπ?

[tardy badger]

Lol

[raw jasper]

ラズパイ

(...is the Japanese equivalent to "raspi")

It's read razupai. I initially made a mistake and wrote rasupai. Conversion of English sounds to Japanese still gets me

......Among many other things in Japanese, that is :P

[tardy badger]

I was trying to rework a board I was assembling anddddd the solder wasn’t melting 💀

Ripped a few pads off

[raw jasper]

Wrong iron temp setting?

BTW, what do y'all do re: fume extraction?

[tardy badger]

Not iron, hot air. It was at 650°F, more than hot enough

It’s just this solder for whatever reason just takes sooo much heat to melt