general-chat

[raw jasper]

...and on random chance. Whether the dang thing mutates to metabolize the drug away or pump it off.

It's really awesome when it all works out though

[ebon dew]

most chemo will shrink even large cancerous masses but it's a stop gap measure

[tardy badger]

My dad did chemo pills + 5 days a week of radiation for 6 or 8 weeks

[ebon dew]

my neighbor had a tumor the size of a grapefruit and chemo did not work, she was like 300lbs and i watched chemo take her down to skin and bones. sometimes the chemo is worse than the tumor. she did not make it.

[raw jasper]

That sounds grueling. I'm glad he pulled through

[tardy badger]

He was really lucky to get one of the most treatable cancers you can get

[ebon dew]

when you have kids to take care of you'll take any shot at success for their sake.

even if it's "untreatable"

the problem is chemo can end up being the thing that kills you. opting out of chemo you might live a year... with chemo might live 3 months.

it's a tough decision

that's for very large untreatable malignant masses though.

[tardy badger]

There’s also a psychological component to cancer survival

Most people I know who passed away from cancer seemed to have accepted defeat upon diagnosis

[ebon dew]

Constant stress is a big factor for overall health too.

[tardy badger]

Yeah

I don’t blame people for feeling hopeless upon getting a cancer diagnosis

It’s scary

[ebon dew]

psychological stress can manifest as physical stress. the same can be said of plants. the more you stress plants the weaker they can become. i learned a lot about nature just from gardening.

[tardy badger]

Gardening is a great medium for life

It shows that with the right care, environment, and resources that anything can grow resilient

[sick apex]

imagine making a cluster of 6502s

would these be alright

for SD card reader things

[glad ruin]

https://images-ext-1.discordapp.net/external/Ocww-Xx0YoBkpG1kMIXHeVOWWZgIAUtt0uTXHGM2dG4/https/i.imgur.com/LJC6JN3.mp4

[fossil dawn]

i don't know. I just got some from adafruit.
I think things to look out for are:

1. SD-cards use 3.3V logic level. I think some breakout boards have level shifters making them only compatible with 5V boards like arduino uno.
2. If you want to use sd bus/sdio (in the future), not all breakout boards have all pins required for them. Some only have the pins required for SPI

[sick apex]

3.3V regulator circuit: LDO regulator output 3.3V for level conversion chip, Micro SD card supply.
Level conversion circuit: Micro SD card to signal the direction of converts 3.3V, MicroSD card interface to control the direction of the MISO signal is also converted to 3.3V, general AVR microcontroller systems can read the signal.```

[glad ruin]

Also, the ones with level translation are incompatible with SDIO.

[fossil dawn]

yes, that looks like only SPI

[sick apex]

im not very good with what hardware i need, i am much better at writing software / firmware

[fossil dawn]

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4682 I have this one

[sick apex]

is that bad?

what is SDIO?

i've never used that

before

[fossil dawn]

If you only want to use SPI or your microcontroller only supports spi (and no sd bus / sdio) anyway then it doesn't matter

I haven't used sdio either 😆

[sick apex]

i got Picos and ESP32s and ESP32-C3

idk if they have them

[fossil dawn]

@sick apex SDIO (or actually sd bus) is way faster than SPI but needs special hardware (and/or software) on the microcontroller and more wires

[sick apex]

i'll just stick to SPI

i dont need high speed connectivity

[fossil dawn]

pico can do sdio using its programmable io

[sick apex]

its literally just so i can store extra config and stuff

[glad ruin]

SDIO is the 'native' interface on SD cards (SPI is only a fallback). It is a bidirectional half-duplex parallel bus, and it is much faster.

[sick apex]

load scripts

wait, can i load my code onto the SD card

like the executable

there must be some way to do that

oh, also whilst im here

does anyone have any way i can make my breadboards stick together

currently when i connect them together

they curve

and its annoying asf

so i just removed a power rail and left them with a gap between the boards

but it makes it very difficult to transport

and move

[glad ruin]

Not usually on a microcontroller, although you can do some trickery with the bootloader and reset to make it happen.

[raw jasper]

I don't think they'll need level translation if they're using an esp32

[sick apex]

sounds fun

lmao

surely i could create an ESP version of a DLL

and make it include it from there?

[glad ruin]

Correct, the main reason I'm pointing it out is because I got bit by that once. Got the Adafruit microsd breakout, and couldn't use it due to the level shifter.

[raw jasper]

👍 ; Only reason I pointed it out was so that they'd know they probably won't be needing it :)

[glad ruin]

Not really. Libraries on microcontrollers use static linking pretty much universally. That's one of the reasons it's called firmware.

[sick apex]

i'll come up with some funky way of doing it

it might take me a long time

but i have determination

[glad ruin]

I'm not saying it's impossible, but there's a reason it generally isn't done.

[sick apex]

i mean it will cause timing issues

[fossil dawn]

I think you technically don't need an SD breakout board. Iirc I've seen someone solder the SPI wires directly to the contacts of a micro-SD to SD adapter that you always get free. 😆

but what are these components? 🤔 Capacitors. And those black things with many legs?

[sick apex]

SDIO / SPI SD card reader

[glad ruin]

Resistors

[fossil dawn]

ahhh thanks

[sick apex]

that was edited

after i replied

[raw jasper]

Yeah, your signal with that solution bodge is probably going to look quite bad

(Sorry mods, I forgot about the censor)

[fossil dawn]

I already knew that the big silver thing (and the entire PCB) is a SD reader 😝

[sick apex]

[fossil dawn]

fast enough for SPI maybe 😆

[glad ruin]

Wrong. it is in fact a microSD card socket.

[fossil dawn]

https://tenor.com/view/sad-crying-penguin-onion-からめる-gif-19805940

[raw jasper]

I guess you could turn it into an SD socket if you have the right kind of completely cursed adapter

:P

[sick apex]

i really dont think 4 MB of flash to store the executable is going to be enough

[glad ruin]

Those probably exist, unfortunately.

[sick apex]

imma order these SD card things and then figure somehting out

[fossil dawn]

https://www.roboter-bausatz.de/p/tf-micro-sd-auf-sd-karte-adapter

[raw jasper]

ah yes, ein Bausatz für Roboter 😂

[fossil dawn]

Oh ja!

[glad ruin]

Actually I think what you want is a NAND (or NOR) flash chip. It might be possible to wire it in parallel and disable the one on the board.

[raw jasper]

My first instinct was to look in aliexpress. I was not disappointed
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004124859525.html

[sick apex]

this is what confuses me about hardware

because i know NAND is a type of memory

i also know its an operation

[fossil dawn]

60cm wire length 😂

[raw jasper]

I'd love for somebody to get the 60cm one and probe it with an oscilloscope

Gotta see the eye diagram on that one 😂

[sick apex]

why not 60 cm wire width

😎

[fossil dawn]

500000 wire parallel port using ribbon cable or what? 😝

[glad ruin]

NAND flash is what almost all flash memory is now.

[sick apex]

you'd need a nuclear power station to send 5 v down there

[sick apex]

yes

[raw jasper]

again, you are probably not using 5V

[sick apex]

it was a joke

[raw jasper]

Well, induction, more chances of your thing accidentally becoming an antenna and picking up all kinds of EMI, and other stuff other people here probably know better than me ;)

[tardy badger]

NAND or NOR depending on the manufacturer

[glad ruin]

You don't need a lot of power, you just need to regulate it properly.

[tardy badger]

The flash used on the RPi Pico is NOR flash

[sick apex]

oh yeah i know

[raw jasper]

My apologies, I thought it was a genuine question.

[glacial wigeon]

and the pi4 calls the chip an eeprom, but what tech is it actually using?

[glad ruin]

NAND is much higher density, but slower.

[raw jasper]

Well, if it's a real EEPROM, then just EEPROM ;)

[glad ruin]

EEPROM is the predecessor to flash. The difference is that it is byte-erasable.

[sick apex]

QLC is better but slower TLC is alright and SLC is fast but cant store as much

boom

mind blown

[glacial wigeon]

but this chip isnt byte erasable, so that name is a lie?

[raw jasper]

Flash is byte-erasable

EEPROMs aren't

[glacial wigeon]

ah

this one has erase blocks, i forget the exact size

[tardy badger]

Despite being 2MB, I really like the size of this Winbond flash https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/W25Q16JVUXIQ TR/15182017

It comes in handy for smöl fpga boards

[glad ruin]

Flash can be erased in blocks.

EEPROM can erase single bytes (or words).

[raw jasper]

Oh.

Thanks for the correction

[tardy badger]

So smöl

[glacial wigeon]

i think the pi4 was using a W25X40CL, double-checking...

[raw jasper]

The funny thing is that I have worked with EEPROMs and have an EEPROM programmer, and I thought that you had to erase the whole thing. LOL.

I also thought flash blocks were a software abstraction.

[tardy badger]

-10 life points EEPROM

[glacial wigeon]

ah yes, SMD codes make it unclear!

[glad ruin]

The big difference is again in density. Since flash can only be erased (and written) in larger blocks, much higher density is possible.

[glacial wigeon]

but that does match the codes in the 2nd-last page of the W25X40CL datasheet, 512kbyte

[raw jasper]

Thanks again for the correction

[glacial wigeon]

256 byte, 4kb erase blocks on this chip, i think

[tardy badger]

Is that the Pi 4 you said?

[glacial wigeon]

yeah

[raw jasper]

I need an explanation for that joke :P

[glacial wigeon]

there is a 512kbyte "eeprom" on the board, which holds bootcode.bin, bootmain.elf, a few graphics(the rpi logo and a qrcode), and the ddr4 firmware

[glad ruin]

512kbit or kbyte?

[glacial wigeon]

512kbyte

4mbit

[glad ruin]

Also EEPROM can usually handle more write cycles than flash (1-2 million is typical for discrete EEPROM). Unmanaged flash can't handle anywhere near that.

[glacial wigeon]

the datasheet claims – More than 100,000 erase/write cycles

and the official reflashing software (recovery.bin) will diff the .bin and eeprom
and only erase/program the blocks that differ

the filesystem also has padding entries, to align constants to an erase block, so the diff is minimal

[glad ruin]

SSDs last as long as they do through advanced wear leveling algorithms plus a large table of extra blocks that are used to replace bad ones.

That's all handled by the flash controller on the drive.

[glacial wigeon]

ive heard SD cards also have a lot of wear leveling, and ive seen research papers where the wear leveling tables got corrupted

[glad ruin]

SD cards have a very simplistic (and not very good) flash controller.

[glacial wigeon]

depends on the quality of the SD card?

[glad ruin]

Somewhat yes, but the reality is that SD cards have severe space and power constraints.

[glacial wigeon]

and micro-sd even more

roughly from memory, when the maskrom of the pi4/pi400 is booting from spi
it will just send an 0x03 out the SPI port(read data command), and then an infinite stream of 0x00's

it will then look for a 32bit magic# in the reply, with a ~1-5 byte wiggle room on where the magic is in the reply

to account for the eeprom having 1/2/3/4 byte address arg, after the 0x03

so it can boot from a wide range of SPI flash

[glad ruin]

Ok, that's... an absolute hack.

I kinda like it, but I'm also cringing right now because of it.

[glacial wigeon]

after the magic#, is a 32bit length, and then $length bytes of bootcode.bin

the whole file is loaded into the L2 cache (max of 128kbyte), and the hmac/rsa sig is checked (depending on OTP config in the SoC)

and then its executed

bootcode.bin is responsible for bringing dram online, and the dram firmware is also on the SPI flash

but bootcode.bin properly queries the SPI ident info, and will reject any chips with the wrong size

the filesystem is in the form of: 32bit magic, 32bit length, payload

and aligned to i think 16 bytes or something?

[raw jasper]

DRAM.... firmware?

[glacial wigeon]

yes

[raw jasper]

I'd have thought the pi SoC would have an onboard "hard" DRAM controller

[glacial wigeon]

the ddr4 controller needs 8 files, of 14kbyte each, plus another 3kbyte file

-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users 3.1K May 17  2020 mcb.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users  14K May 17  2020 memsys00.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users  12K May 17  2020 memsys01.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users  14K May 17  2020 memsys02.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users  14K May 17  2020 memsys03.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users  14K May 17  2020 memsys04.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users  14K May 17  2020 memsys05.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users  14K May 17  2020 memsys06.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 clever users  13K May 17  2020 memsys07.bin

[raw jasper]

Oh. Do they describe the timings etc of the RAM, or are they literal code?

[glacial wigeon]

all of these are involved in the ddr4 controller init

[raw jasper]

(Is that even known?)

[glacial wigeon]

ascii strings are present in those files

[raw jasper]

Is their dram controller a tiny micro? :P

[glad ruin]

External DDR memory always needs to be configured before use.

[glacial wigeon]

k LD
ILLEGAL LOAD/STORE EXCEPTION PC:
 EPC:
Dram Timing 
STUB_SHMOO mode. Bypassing core functionality
DPFE FW hph1_lpddr4 
2.19.0.0

some examples of the strings found in memsys00.bin

[raw jasper]

I "know" that (not with too many details), but I thought it had to do with training the controller's timings

[glad ruin]

It does.

[glacial wigeon]

if it was just timing numbers, it wouldnt need strings like:

Shmoo completed with errors
Shmoo completed OK
PHY ZQ Calibration Start

this file is also shoved into a FIFO, 32 bits at a time

and due to LE vs BE clashing, the byte order gets swapped as you run it into that FIFO

[glad ruin]

But there's usually additional initialization code, plus setting up the memory map so that the system can actually use the memory.

[glacial wigeon]

so, the strings actually look like this in the original bin

ELLI LAGDAOLOTS/E ERPECXNOIT:CP PE 
:CarD
iT mgnim
 BUTSMHS_m OO.edopyB issac gn erocnufnoittila

every 32bit block, is swapped around

[tardy badger]

Heads up, Pi Shop Us has pi 4 4GB models

[late fulcrum]

One blogger made a dandy loop antenna out of ribbon cable

[tardy badger]

https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-4gb/

[glacial wigeon]

it feels like the ddr4 controller, is reading the FIFO, and writing each 32bit int to internal ram, in BE order

but the VPU was reading the blob in LE order

[glad ruin]

You can make an antenna out of pretty much anything conductive.

[glacial wigeon]

so the mismatch swaps all of the bytes around

[raw jasper]

I'd like to read more about the DDR init/bringup procedure now.

[glad ruin]

It's chip dependent, and usually highly proprietary.

[glacial wigeon]

and to simplify the init, the .bin in "eeprom" is pre-scrambled

[glacial wigeon]

the lpddr2 on the pi0-pi3 range is far simpler:
https://github.com/librerpi/rpi-open-firmware/blob/master/firmware/sdram.c

just ~900 lines of c, and its online

no blobs needed

[tardy badger]

Anything is an antenna has the same energy as “anything’s a smoke machine if you use it wrong enough”

[glad ruin]

DDR4 is complicated. DDR5 is... even more so.

[raw jasper]

Is that 580 LoC? I actually have a hope of understanding that! Thanks 😆

[tardy badger]

DDR4L, atrocious

[glad ruin]

https://tenor.com/view/exactly-correct-yup-thats-right-dr-emmett-brown-gif-16500686

[tardy badger]

Imagine trying to go fast AND save power

[glacial wigeon]

https://spritesmods.com/?art=avrfmtx
the bloody traces inside a cpu, between an internal PLL and the internal core, are a transmitter!

[late fulcrum]

The ribbon cable gave the ability to make a lot of turns in a hurry by offsetting the joint by one wire.

[glacial wigeon]

by overclocking it to 24mhs, the *4 PLL gives you a 96mhz carrier wave

by using the calibration registers, you can wiggle that overclock

[tardy badger]

Muahahaha

[glacial wigeon]

boom, fm transmitter

[raw jasper]

fun tangentially related thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_effect

[glacial wigeon]

https://spritesmods.com/avrfmtx/schematic.png

and here is the schematic for an FM transmitter

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/atlantis-vinny-funny-gif-4747343

Meanwhile I’m planning on making a very interesting Ethernet feedback loop on a smöl fpga

[glacial wigeon]

lately, ive been working on dwc2 usb-host drivers for the rpi

so i can get network and usb boot in the open firmware

[raw jasper]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Null_modem.jpg

[late fulcrum]

I heard of one person build a circuit that depended on the inductance of bond wires in a transistor package to work. When the transistor supplier changed the die (and thus, the bond wires), it stopped working.

[tardy badger]

lol

I'm planning on exploring this Crosslink-NX FPGA https://www.digikey.com/short/hbf4nv18

[glad ruin]

This ribbon cable is capable of 14Gbps per wire.

(each "wire" there is actually a coax cable)

[late fulcrum]

I remember coax IDC connectors, they're amusing

[tardy badger]

a nice QFN package with a small thermal pad like everyone wanted from the iCE40

[raw jasper]

i clicked the link. now digikey thinks I'm in your social network! :P

[tardy badger]

lol

[late fulcrum]

I'm kind of impressed when low core voltage chips like that still dissipate a bunch of heat

[glad ruin]

This is what the video SERDES chips I work on use.

[tardy badger]

😮

that tracks

[raw jasper]

ooh 17k logic cells

[tardy badger]

the MIPI interface is super nice on it

and the CSI interface too

plus fast fabric

[glad ruin]

We're using eDP.

[tardy badger]

still, the 1.5G fabric is nice

[glad ruin]

(though the camera chips support MIPI)

[raw jasper]

is it a hard interface block?

[tardy badger]

I believe it's hard IP

[raw jasper]

hah, that's cool

[tardy badger]

you can use the verilog IP for free in iceCube2 but you have to pay for it in the newer lattice design tool

which is funny

[raw jasper]

For "free", or for 🏴‍☠️ ?

[glacial wigeon]

@glad ruin how much do you know about how the rpi soc can boot?

[raw jasper]

(Unless you're directly interacting with the hard IP lock, in which case it's probably not 🦜 )

[tardy badger]

well, what I mean is you get a free license with icecube2

[raw jasper]

block, not lock 🤦

ah

I thought icecube2 was some sort of oss / 3rd party tool

Not very familiar with lattice's ecosystem

So, icecube2 is lattice's ISE?

[tardy badger]

it's their old one

they want people to use the newer one though

I think it's called Radiant?

[glad ruin]

Not a huge amount, but I used to do early boot code at Intel. You don't want to know how much of a disaster it is.

[glacial wigeon]

ah, nice

https://github.com/librerpi/rpi-open-firmware/blob/master/docs/rom.txt#L11-L33

the boot rom on the pi0-pi3 lineup, can load bootcode.bin from 8 different sources

[glad ruin]

To clarify: that cable is not related to my work. I just have it because it was $3 at Tektronix.

[glacial wigeon]

1/2/4 are all a bootcode.bin file on fat32 on an SD card, but over different sd controllers, in 4 or 8bit modes

3 is raw parallel nand flash

[late fulcrum]

I'm impressed you can get anything for $3 from Tektronix!

[glacial wigeon]

5 is spi

6 is usb, for the pi0-pi2, device only
pi3 adds usb-host, MSD and tftp via the onboard usb NIC

7 is i2c slave, you just write a header and bootcode.bin directly to the soc

but on any rpi hardware, only the SD and usb are enabled

[glad ruin]

They have this building on their Beaverton campus called RAMS (Recycling And Material Salvage). Every few weeks it is opened to the public.

[raw jasper]

that sounds rather silly; why disable hw that's already on your soc?

[late fulcrum]

Ah, the local university has something like that. All sorts of random stuff for random prices. They had a drum memory the size of a locomotive once.

[glacial wigeon]

nand flash mode, would drive random gpio pins during boot, potentially causing relays on your board to go nuts

[raw jasper]

ooh

[glacial wigeon]

i2c-slave mode has no timeout/failure, if its enabled, and the host is missing, the board is bricked

[raw jasper]

I see

nod nod nod

[glacial wigeon]

spi mode would also drive pins and do unknown things to relays

8bit sd mode wont work when you only have a 4bit sd card present

[raw jasper]

ah, nvm that's for reading bootcode

[glacial wigeon]

yeah

[raw jasper]

I thought it was parameters in early bootcode for enabling or disabling onboard controllers

[glacial wigeon]

nope

[raw jasper]

lol sorry glanced at the chat

and drew wrong conclusion

[glacial wigeon]

and the official bootcode.bin only has software to drive sd/usb modes

so even if you could load it via another path, the boot wouldnt be able to continue down that path

the pi4/pi400 rom stripped it back massively, it only supports sd/spi/usb-device

and the sd method now calls it recovery.bin

but they also included an spi chip onboard by default

and that contains firmware to enable ethernet/usb-host booting

and unlike the pi3, that is rw, so bugs can be fixed in the field

and more features added after release

[glacial wigeon]

but, there is a compiler that targets the VPU, and several projects for running custom code on there

https://github.com/librerpi/lk-overlay for example, is a baremetal kernel
it can compile into 4 different targets
bootcode.bin runs on the pi0-pi3, directly after the rom, and dram isnt online yet

start.elf runs on the pi0-pi3, and something else has to bring ram online and load it

recovery.bin runs on the pi4(00), and ram isnt online yet

start4.elf runs on the pi4(00) and ram is online

[tardy badger]

not me over here realizing that icecube2 comes with a license for modelsim, lattice fpga edition

I've used it for 2 years now and just realized this xD

[raw jasper]

time to play around with real verification features ;)

[tardy badger]

I need to get iceCube2 working again

it stopped working a while ago and I was a bit miffed as to why. probably a windows update or something.

[raw jasper]

no linux version?

[tardy badger]

it has a linux version

i just don't have linux outside of WSL2 and my raspberry pis

[raw jasper]

I only use linux & mac, so I can't help you with that :)

[umbral phoenix]

@sick apex re: ESP32 Wi-Fi monitor mode ("promiscuous") sniffer: I think this is where I started the Arduino version from https://github.com/ESP-EOS/ESP32-WiFi-Sniffer about four years ago, may need updating. There's a link there to the original project, with a lot of documentation on data structures. Also websearch will bring up various similar projects. You can use Arduino IDE framework and include Espressif ESP-IDF code. Espressif has IDF sniffer examples posted. CircuitPython background and basic example here https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/pull/5537#issuecomment-966671975.

[sick apex]

thank you

[raw jasper]

I just saw "ladder logic" for the first time in my life

[late fulcrum]

Time to fire up the MC14500B!

[raw jasper]

heh

[glad ruin]

Run.

[raw jasper]

Ah, no worries, I just came across it on a random article on the web. I am not mad enough to apply to such a position, let alone get hired

Appreciate the ping! 😅

[glad ruin]

https://tenor.com/view/indiana-jones-how-dare-you-ping-slap-gif-3936129079566400948

^ usual reaction to pings

[raw jasper]

Is there a way to turn off pinging somebody w/. a reply by default without having to click the "@ON" button every time?

[glad ruin]

No

[raw jasper]

wow

discord is... a gem :P

[ebon dew]

I didn't even know that was a thing. Thank you.

[raw jasper]

np! ^_^

[cunning frost]

You can. Shift + click the reply button

[raw jasper]

Oooh thanks!

[cunning frost]

It's not default but you can get used to it

[ebon dew]

oh more options, interesting

[umbral phoenix]

a third choice beyond mention and reply?

[rapid geode]

you know your cnc is old when the controller doesnt even have a monitor.

even funnier when it is such good clean condition.

i cant imagine where this was being used the last 40 year

[late fulcrum]

I love a cool looking front panel

[rapid geode]

$1600 and it's yours (whole machine). its actually really nice, but borderline useless without buying all new electronics and motors

1600 is basicaly scrap value i guess (it is at a surplus supplier)

[late fulcrum]

I suspect the motors are fine, I'm used to replacing electronics

[tardy badger]

Part of me wants to be a mad genius and combine a RP2040 with a USB to Ethernet adapter and implement the USB over PIO using the usbpio library

[rapid geode]

fine as in functional yes, but they will be 1970s brushed models.

[late fulcrum]

Grunty!

Easy to control!

Ozone!

[rapid geode]

its one of those diminishging returns things. brand new ones with drives are $400

[late fulcrum]

I just like the look of front panels

[rapid geode]

vs having to buy an analogue control board for $400 and still haveing very poor performance

ah

i wonder if there is a threshold where it goes from being e waster to colectable

haha

[late fulcrum]

I bought these just because they looked cool

[raw jasper]

Ah yes, cursed embedded: PIO -> USB -> Ethernet -> ??? -> Profit?

I suspect that there won't be much space left to actually speak with the adapter after flashing usbpio in

[raw jasper]

kitty is inspecting too! :3

[rapid geode]

i have thius in the shed. 1996. not very interesting.

[fossil dawn]

@umbral phoenix There is also the silent mention

[umbral phoenix]

oh I don't know about that one

[raw jasper]

What sorcery is this?!

[umbral phoenix]

just leave off the "@"?

[fossil dawn]

@silent at the start of the message. I think people you mention get a red notification blob and it shows up in their inbox in the top right (does anyone use that?) but there is no sound. @umbral phoenix @raw jasper

[rapid geode]

sister machine to that first one. early-mid 80s.

bit boring

[raw jasper]

@fossil dawn test

[rapid geode]

less twiddly

[raw jasper]

hah

[fossil dawn]

yes, message is higlighted orange but no ping sound

[raw jasper]

I see...

[rapid geode]

haha. reel to reel punch tape. high tech

[tardy badger]

The PIO implementation shouldn’t be that hard

[umbral phoenix]

I'm not sure about this silent mention... by now people know how to manage notifications on their devices, and making silent kind of breaks the recipient's notification structure, assumes they wouldn't want sound but maybe they do

[raw jasper]

It's still cursed :P -- Would probably make more sense to speak to a discrete ethernet controller directly

[fossil dawn]

just use a second pico!
pico0 -> spi -> pico2 -> pio -> USB -> ethernet -> profit 😆

[umbral phoenix]

why not just use a Pico+eth board, or, better... a Pico W + Ethernet hat 😄

[raw jasper]

Ah yes, the Shenzhen I/O solution :P

[raw jasper]

(pretty sure that'd ruin your throughput)

[fossil dawn]

maybe if you're talking about someone? Like
"How can I do X?"
"@silent @ someone wrote about it here<link>" 🤔

[raw jasper]

Yeah, but that's the sane solution ;)

That's the main application I can think of

They'd still know they were mentioned, but wouldn't get a ping

[tardy badger]

Because using PIO usb to talk to a usb to eth controller would be cursed and comical

[sick apex]

where can i get a bunch of 4 - 8 GB sd cards without paying an arm and a leg

[raw jasper]

hah

[sick apex]

i can buy a 960 GB sandisc one for like £20

meanwhile 5 16 GB ones is like £30

its weird

[raw jasper]

I... doubt it'll really be 960GB. Or sandisk, for that matter :P

[umbral phoenix]

I get it, I do some tech things that make little sense, but like climbing a mountain, did it because it was there

[tardy badger]

I dislike silent pings because usually I’ll get a reply when I’m in the lab and i don’t see my phone for hours at a time

[sick apex]

it is, its on their official amazon store

[rapid geode]

i used to see the small ones for $5. but i guess they dont really make them anymore

960gb sd cars are hundreds of dollars. anything that isnt is fake

[fossil dawn]

The Pico can also be a USB host on its 1.1 port. So with 2 USB->ethernet adapters with a pico W you could make a router 🤔 😂 bet it doesn't have enough ram though 😭

[sick apex]

i just ordered 5 SD card cases by accident

then i cancelled them

[rapid geode]

ha

[fossil dawn]

Amazon has been know multiple times in the past to sell fake SD cards

[sick apex]

i can buy 2 x 64 GB cards for £8.80

that should do right

[fossil dawn]

even "sold by amazon" can be fake because they mix "their" inventory with the inventory of random "sold by lashzdf, fulfilled by amazon" sellers

[rapid geode]

i expect those are fake too

[sick apex]

i just want like 6 x 8 GB ones but they're so mf expensive

i dont see how

or why

i have 1 x 16 GB one

[raw jasper]

Ha, you actually made the seller names believable

LASH ZDF. the brand for your knockoff mascara and electronics needs

[rapid geode]

$16 for a 64gb sandisk ultra (slow) card.

[sick apex]

its gunna be used over SPI

its not going to get any good speed anyways

[rapid geode]

sure, but what im saying is the prices you are saying point to being fake cards

[sick apex]

fair

i just need some that aren't stupidly expensive

small ones

[rapid geode]

why small, software limit?

[sick apex]

no

i just dont need that much storage

if i can get big ones for cheaper

[rapid geode]

well sure, but if the big one is cheap, then just buy that

[sick apex]

i'll take them

yes but i need multiple

smaller ones

well just multiple in general

[rapid geode]

just checked, and things under "sandisk store" are from random unreliable sellers

not official by any stretch

[sick apex]

then nevermind

[rapid geode]

i would not buy from amazon really

[sick apex]

i just need them next day

[rapid geode]

oh, do they have to be sd. microsd is often cheaper

ahh ok

[sick apex]

oh i meant Micro SD

[fair summit]

did you say you were in the UK?

[sick apex]

yes i am

[fair summit]

Tesco lists a bunch, are they even in the store? Or maybe you can get quick delivery. Here I would say go to Best Buy, Micro Center, etc. Some brick & mortar store with a reputation to hold up

[sick apex]

tesco is a pile of crap

it used to be alright

[fair summit]

yeah but they sell SanDisk

[sick apex]

then it just became very very expensive

it doesn't have to be sandisk

[rapid geode]

in canada they sell them at the drug store, but they are a little overpriced

[sick apex]

i just need something that is capable of storing like 256 megabytes of data

[fair summit]

I am more familiar with alternatives to Tesco in Ireland: Dunn's, etc

[sick apex]

i mean i could try Currys

[fair summit]

maybe a mobile store

[rapid geode]

steal one from you moms old phone? 😛

[sick apex]

but then i have to drive and i haven't renewed my insurance

so it would still be expensive

cause i'd have to renew my insurance

[rapid geode]

all this fuss for a $5 memory card

[sick apex]

exactly

[fair summit]

I can't help you with that 🙂 I hope you can still get groceries

[sick apex]

well im 19, i live with my parents still whilst im in uni so my mum handles that i just pay her x amount per week to assist

i get paid in like 2 days then i can renew my insurance

then everything will be fine

but im very inpatient

[rapid geode]

my local seller has nothing under 64gb now. i guess thats the minimum

[fair summit]

well if you can't walk or bike or bus to some such store... does RS still exist?

[sick apex]

i just ordered 3 from amazon

i have prime and they'll refund me if they're bad

[rapid geode]

ah thats ok

[sick apex]

amazon always accepts my returns

i've returned loads of things

that are shot

or bad

even after opening them

they dont care

[fair summit]

they probably don't even ask you to return them, just refund you

[sick apex]

they make enough money to just accept it

[rapid geode]

amazon sent me a broken induction cooktion. that was... entertaining

[sick apex]

they refund youi before getting the item

they refunded me for something i ordered 10 months ago

i didn't even ask for a refund

i just got a notification from my bank saying that i had received £24.99 from amazon

i was confused

but hey

cant argue with £25 for nothing

[rapid geode]

man thats cheap. (local store). i remember paying $500 for a 4gb card

[sick apex]

lmao fr

i got these, i doubt they'll be any good

im gunna benchmark them

[rapid geode]

oh you got no name. good luck

id never trust them to be real

[sick apex]

lmao amazon returns are alright

[rapid geode]

but ya never know

[sick apex]

i'll benchmark them

if they're any good i'll bookmark them

i mean what's the bandwidth over spi?

[rapid geode]

not just benchmark. what they often do is say its 32gb but its really 4. and it overwrites

[sick apex]

yeah i know i'll put a 32 gb file on one of them

[rapid geode]

so gotta make sure it is a real 32gb

[sick apex]

see if it gets corrupted

[rapid geode]

k

[sick apex]

like a video

then play the video at 10x speed

see if any of it gets screwed

[rapid geode]

people used to do that with mechanical hard drives. thinking they found magical extra space the "man" didnt want ytou to know about

sigh

hehe

[sick apex]

lmfao

what about downloading ram

[rapid geode]

well that was a more proper virus phisihng scam

[sick apex]

unless you're a linux user

[rapid geode]

im talking about people doing it to themselves

[sick apex]

then you can download a swap file which will give you more ram

[rapid geode]

thats not ram

[sick apex]

i know, you know what i meant though

[rapid geode]

thats a basic feature windows has had since 1991

hehe

swap files are horrible though

just buy more real ram

😛

its cheap(ish(

points up

[fossil dawn]

I'm too slow

[rapid geode]

ha

🙂

how come 128gb ram isnt $11.99 now

[fossil dawn]

https://www.heise.de/download/product/h2testw-50539 sorry, no english link but this tool does that storage size check for you

[rapid geode]

it also instals mosre ram

i want a machine with 1PB ram

just cause

[fossil dawn]

tell that to the cheap android phone manufacturers that advertise "6GB of hybrid ram" or stuff like that and then in the spec sheet it says 2GB RAM and 4GB swap file :/

[rapid geode]

ew

[sick apex]

imagine if linus tech tips used the petabyte project as a swap file

[rapid geode]

no

their machines are weak

[sick apex]

how

😟

[rapid geode]

id fill up a pb in like 4 days

[sick apex]

with what

[rapid geode]

cat pictures

[sick apex]

in what resolution

128K

[rapid geode]

gigapizel cats

[sick apex]

yes

[rapid geode]

so, math tells me that 1PB would be used up by 1 episode of halo. ha

sad

waste of space

render passes and simuilations taking up most of the space

some of it gets deleted at the end. but most stays.

and then we buy a new server!

and do it agian

hehe

anyhow

[raw jasper]

I think there's an equivalent linux tool these days

https://github.com/AltraMayor/f3 I think?

Never tested it, so obviously can't vouch for it

I only buy flash media from reputable manufacturers that are sold in reputable brick and mortar stores because of all this stuff

(And also because when I need a flash medium I need it right now and fast)

[raw jasper]

new server? Not new disks? :P

[rapid geode]

nah. cause it all has to stay online

[half plank]

How can I completely drain a lithium ion battery

[tardy badger]

Why

Usually there’s a cut off for Lithium Ion batteries because it can be dangerous to operate batteries outside their rated range

[half plank]

Because I am going on a trip and don’t want any lithium ion batteries to catch fire

I have one that the leads broke off of so I am worried mostly about it

[tardy badger]

It’s generally advised to not discharge lithium ion batteries below around 3V

If you’re worried about the safety of the batteries, it’s best to not travel with them at all

[half plank]

I am leaving then at me house

Them

[tardy badger]

They’ll be fine more than likely as long as they are in a safe environment like a desk with no objects near it’s terminals

[half plank]

What is the best option to cover the terminals with

[tardy badger]

Kapton tape

[half plank]

I did electrical then kapton

[tardy badger]

That’s probably fine

@raw jasper I asked in the 1bit squared discord, I am not the only person with icecube2 not working 😥

Even the Linux version is having issues

[raw jasper]

centos vm time

:P

[raw jasper]

Ah yes, it needs to check ethernet mac for licensing, doesn't it?

[tardy badger]

Yeah

I should check to see what my interfaces are called

Maybe make an alias if it’s not right

[raw jasper]

Don't forget the custom libpng11 build! 💀

[half plank]

Can I just cover 9v with blue painters tape

[tardy badger]

9V are fine being stored with terminals exposed

[raw jasper]

Well, if it's, say, 9V 110A, I wouldn't say so :)

@half plank what current?

[tardy badger]

I’m assuming it’s a standard 9V

[half plank]

Normal 9v you would buy at Walmart

[raw jasper]

ah

ok

haha

[half plank]

If a lithium ion from the Adafruit shop got its terminal wires ripped off, is it OK to just put electrical tape, caps on tape, blue tape on top of it. I am just paranoid.

[glacial wigeon]

i once discovered something hot in my pocket

turns out, i had a 9v battery, and some coins

[raw jasper]

if a lithium ion anything, dispose of it in the proper and safe way

those are different beasts

[half plank]

If I don’t have a place to dispose of them properly, where should I do it at?

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/swag-fire-on-ohyeah-pants-on-fire-gif-7172641

[glacial wigeon]

wasnt that bad, lol

[glacial wigeon]

ive seen a bin for used batteries at staples

[half plank]

Ok

[tranquil swallow]

Why aren't you harvesting the lithium

[half plank]

Because I don’t want to end up like the gif

I don’t have time to dispose of it so what do I do

The terminal are just and pads with solder on them

[rapid geode]

keycap 3d prints ordered. eep. no way back now. haha. anyone want a key cap with a cat on it? 😛

[late fulcrum]

Good companion to https://www.adafruit.com/product/4972

[rapid geode]

meow

im gonna go get some fancy woods next week.

need to find some snakewood

maybe the ones with cats should be made of box wood :x

[rapid geode]

grumble. they rejected some of my models cause they are multiple parts. but i can put them individually or they will cost 30x the price.

hmmm

[half sun]

Testing out the power source

[rapid geode]

what a pain. had to revise most of my models so they would print. seems to be off now.

[peak ridge]

Haiiii :3

[sick apex]

running this rn

its taken 1 min 20 s to write 1.5 GB

24 minutes remaining

[fossil dawn]

Discharge to as close to 0V as possible, then I just put them (with taped contacts) in the battery recycling box at the supermarket. Not sure if that's the best way.

Of course only discharge if you have a way to do it safely. Maybe do it outside on a nonflammable surface if you're worried

[half plank]

Ok

[south light]

Do not do this

[fossil dawn]

?

[south light]

Taking it down to 0 is itself increasing danger not decreasing

[fossil dawn]

For the FPV drone lipos that's generally the recommended thing

[south light]

There's a lot in the FPV community which is documentarily terrible to do to batteries, like those guys intentionally heating the packs up to 40+ Celsius pre flight "to precondition them"

[fossil dawn]

The lower the voltage, the lower the energy that's stored in the battery. At close to 0V it's as safe as it gets. HOWEVER DO NOT CHARGE IT AGAIN! Taking a Lipo to 0V permanently damages it!

[south light]

At low voltages dendrite formation begins

[fossil dawn]

Attempting to charge it again can be dangerous but afaik it's safest to just keep it at close to 0V

[south light]

Which will cause the battery to internally short. Potentially resulting in it discharging all remaining energy, which even down at half a volt can be enough for a fire

The fire at that point is usually the electrolyte itself and equally intense regardless of a full or empty battery

3.7V while being the nominal voltage is also where they're most chemically stable long term

Dendrite formation can also occur at high voltage

Or in absence of other disposal facilities I have destroyed my own batteries

[fossil dawn]

interesting

at least people don't recommend the "dump it in salt water" thing anymore 😆

[fossil dawn]

i've never done that but why is that bad? I thought that was just because of performance because LiPos have worse performance if they're too cold. But 40°C feels just way too hot to me 😆

[south light]

It's the dendrite formation that tends to result in a battery that is being stored at high charge levels turning spicy pillow just sat on your shelf. Hence why so many RC chargers have a storage (dis)charge setting

[fossil dawn]

i know that

always store at storage 😆

[south light]

The problem with preheating batteries that drastically is that in service the battery also warms

And if you're starting out that much hotter

Doesn't take much to then hit self ignition temperatures

Add in increased wear

[fossil dawn]

got it

[south light]

Most lipo is happiest around 25c, and chances are even on a cold day in operation will exceed that

[fossil dawn]

ah yeah. 40°C definitely seems too hot

[south light]

There is an argument for hey I live in Alaska and it's middle of winter and my battery has frost on it, yeah, should probably warm that sucker up gently before use

But 15-25c is fine

[fossil dawn]

ah got it, thanks! 😄

[south light]

And I still see folk taking them intentionally far far far beyond that

And you will see heaters in batteries in non RC applications, but again they're for the "oh I am legitimately way too cold" scenario

Energy storage in the home, RV, boat or similar application where mid winter depending on where the battery is it may get dangerously cold

Or EVs tend to have similar

[fossil dawn]

yes. Though I would argue that "legitimately way too cold" is slightly higher if you want to pull as many amps as possible 😆 But then again, those RVs and home batteries probably want to pull as many Watt hours as possible

Definitely interesting how wide-spread that "discharge to 0V before disposing" is... Like most LiPo chargers for RC now have dedicated "disposal to 0V" modes, there are even dedicated small 0V dischargers 😂

[south light]

Again though, ideal is not actually very warm and the temp the battery may naturally attain in flight will likely exceed the sweet spot in first place without pre condition. Lipos conveniently like similar operating temperatures to a human

My main RC packs at this point are LFP though

[fossil dawn]

btw what do you RC fly/drive? 😄

[south light]

Got a modified 1/10th SC truck

Is slayer a blocked word

No

Weird

Okay, so it was a traxxas slayer, which is a combustion engined truck running a fuel blocked by the automod

Why on earth that word is blocked I don't know

Still has the transmission and brake from its glow engine days

But now a 1/8th scale brushless motor instead of a glow engine

[fossil dawn]

oohhh nice

[south light]

Being the original slayer not a slayer pro. Same body, wheels and general dimensions as a slash

But weighs over twice as much XD

And of course 1/8th scale motor in a 1/10th scale truck

[fossil dawn]

oh wow 3,5kg 😮

[south light]

I weighed it in at over 4kg without battery

[raw jasper]

ah, lol. It's because many scam bots use the word for the discord subscription service in order to attract people to click a link promising free access to it

[fossil dawn]

Ohhhh yeah that makes sense

[south light]

I think the transmission is now wrecked though, it has a lot of shifting problems, so some point need to figure out how to convert it to a direct drive setup as on most RCs

The transmission also has a 1 way clutch in it, so I've had to disable reverse on the motor and retain the brake servo

And retain the shifter servo for the reverse gear in the transmission

[fossil dawn]

the combustion engine needed a transmition, but the electric motor doesn't actually need it, right? (I have basically no idea about RC cars 😆 )

[south light]

Most RC cars and full size EVs are single speed

Just a fixed gear ratio, go

[fossil dawn]

I see

[south light]

Peak torque on a motor is at 0rpm and tapers off from there, so really, as long as it has enough torque at target speed, no need for gears

It's not that there's never a benefit to gears on a motor, they can benefit. But it's rare the benefit outweighs the drawbacks

As it is, in production EVs, the taycan and it's relatives are currently the only ones with a multi speed transmission, and even then, it's only the rear motor that does and only 2 speeds

Front motor is single speed (as again, AWD EVs tend to just use a separate motor at each end of the car)

In my case in an RC, the motor tends to hit the highest gear right away and move about fine. But the gearbox is delrin

I think I've snapped bits off as it's having trouble going into gears and staying there, glow engines are actually pretty weak in terms of torque and power output versus even 1/10th scale brushless kit

[fossil dawn]

wow I didn't know that. 😮

[raw jasper]

I had no idea what "glow engines" were before hearing about them here. So, I looked them up on Wikipedia:

The lubrication system is a "total loss" type, meaning that the oil is expelled from the exhaust after circulating through the engine
Oof, this must smell

[south light]

That bit of Wikipedia isn't strictly true

Glow engines as used in RC typically are total loss

But not all are

Really glow engines are kinda just an assisted compression ignition (think diesel)

They have a hot wire in the chamber to ignite the fuel

And with a little modification you can get them to run pure compression ignition on certain fuels just like a diesel would. And an automotive diesel also has glow plugs for cold starting, so a large overlap

[fossil dawn]

so THAT gives them the "glow" in the name "glow engine"

[south light]

But as used in RC, they're the very simple 2 stroke design as used in gasoline chainsaws and weedwhackers which require total loss lubrication too

If you swapped the glow plug for a spark plug and added a magneto then you'd have a typical spark ignited engine like gasoline

But there aren't many fuels that burn well in an engine that small

And most of those which do, burn fine with a glow plug

Though there are a few motors out there with a spark plug running on glow fuel

And a few on the larger end of RC that hit the point where spark+magneto+standard pump gasoline+2 stroke oil works

And just a tiny tiny handful of 4 stroke gasoline and or glow fuel engines, and an even tinier handful of engines more designed for display purposes that have an actual oil sump+pump rather than total loss lubrication

It gets crazy what folk have built. But this car as with just about all combustion RC cars under 1/5th scale. From factory would have been a 2 stroke glow engine with glow fuel more commonly known by the same name as the discord premium subscription

No they aren't turbocharged but I didn't have a better engine related emoji besides maybe

Speaking of I should place some feelers out and see if I can get spare parts for my Subaru air conditioning today

High of 17c expected for today so hardly worst day to go driving about with no AC, the pulley for the tensioner exited the chat

[raw jasper]

https://i.redd.it/ht8ldg4495631.jpg

[valid marsh]

Good luck. I have a dead 2001 forester sitting out back I keep meaning to get running again (was just too expensive to run sadly. Fuel prices are sky higher here), and the aircon was a serious problem to fix.

Mind you the aircon in my mazda3 that I got to replace the fozzy is also a serious pain. Nobody wants to work on them cos of emissions rules on aircon gasses plus it’s not clear why it’s broke.

I think it’s the clutch plate that engages it is rusted shut and/or a sensor is dead cos it won’t turn on even tho it’s been recharged etc and is holding pressure. That or the compressor is screwed but they don’t usually die

[late fulcrum]

Remote trap vehicle

[south light]

Both the sensor and clutch are pretty easy diagnosis on the EJ platform

[valid marsh]

I meant on my Mazda

[spice moss]

looks like that ghost trap from ghostbusters afterlife

[valid marsh]

The aircon on the forester was due to a bad compressor but the problem was finding one

[south light]

Oh the compressors are pretty abundant here

[valid marsh]

And getting to it. They really made it a pain to do aircon on the ‘01 foresters

[south light]

It's on top of the motor though?

[valid marsh]

Partially;

The piping isn’t tho.

[south light]

Just fixed the tensioner on mine

[valid marsh]

My Mazda tho

It’s underneath

Buried.

[south light]

Ew

[valid marsh]

Like remove wheels buried

It’s honestly probably a 2 min fix with a hammer and some wire wool to remove the rust on the plate and it’ll be fine but getting to that has been more effort than I’ve been bothered with. I’ve got a joystick to build here lol

Speaking of, I managed to get the leds that will illuminate the HAT/pov switch on my joystick working.

Unfortunately the actual mini-joystick I’m using for the hat switch itself is a total PITA and didn’t like being soldered.

The first one melted as I tried to heat solder paste. The second one here I put solder on it’s pads, then put solder on the board pads, then heated the pads with my smaller solder nib and it STILL melted a bit.

[late fulcrum]

Exactly. I'm also building the matching transmitter

[solar kindle]

Now, this is what I call image stabilization...https://images-ext-2.discordapp.net/external/6QVWyKDgG2UoiHCo8JNqoux56fts-qdzxlPx5Al-e3o/https/i.imgur.com/1mxqJW9.mp4

[raw jasper]

is this real?

[solar kindle]

Birds have roughly 3x the visual processing speed of humans. I've held a bird (a parrot) and moved them around like that. Her head remained incredibly stable. Whether the video they're showing here is from the chickencam or not, though, is another story. It looks like someone pieced together a joke video from some real footage. Might be worthwhile digging that up.

[raw jasper]

It looks like someone pieced together a joke video from some real footage
Yeah, that's what I figured too.

Also, thanks for the trivia, I didn't know!

[spice moss]

https://tenor.com/view/funny-animals-gif-9627778

[solar kindle]

Found the original footage. It's from an LG commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTXjaCvNSqc

[glad ruin]

Wait so is it real?

[raw jasper]

I... doubt it :P

[glacial wigeon]

look at the last 10 seconds of that comercial above

[patent hemlock]

kind of? watch a pigeon walk - the way i remember a tv show explaining (and heavily paraphrased) it is their brains are literally stopping head movement to "take a photograph" and process the surroundings - there's short-circuits in there for the fright-and-flight reaction

[sick apex]

thoes Micro SD cards are actually real

well i only tested 1 of them because it took like an hour and i had to teach a couple of classes

but the one i tested came back clean

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B084R9PM6M?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

here is the link if you need some micro SD cards for cheap

i mean it does lie about the read speed

i can only get 20 read and write

[late fulcrum]

But you might get the (sort of) real ones, or you might get complete garbage, due to amazon's "equivalent merchandise" policy.

[sick apex]

i mean they're alright

i ran crystal disk mark on them and that came back and said they were good

at like 25 MB/s

[raw jasper]

They're probably good enough for your micro project

But I wouldn't recommend using them for anything of consequence

SD cards are flaky enough as it is

[solar kindle]

The video appears to be remixed from this LG ad. So, fake in that sense, but birds really do have incredible motion stabilization. I had a pet parrot and, yes, turning her this way and that, and bobbing her up and down, she could keep her head perfectly still. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTXjaCvNSqc

[quaint marsh]

Prior art from 2010: https://youtu.be/UytSNlHw8J8

[dusty citrus]

That may finally explain why this is a thing on AliExpress

[raw jasper]

o_o

[peak ridge]

I need to make a purchus, for science of course!!!

[tranquil swallow]

I'm running a an x11 dependent program via SSH, if my sessions terminates for reason how can I make sure the program doesn't crash, as i need it running constsntly

[glacial wigeon]

spin up an isolated X server, such as Xvnc, and then connect that client to it

the vncserever shell script can spin up a new Xvnc server with a window manager already going

[tranquil swallow]

Thx

[tranquil swallow]

Got it working 🙏

[tardy badger]

I had a moment of clarity the other day looking at implementing Ethernet on an fpga

There’s the VLC cape for the beagle bone black from a research group in Portugal called OpenVLC. They use Manchester encoding for the signal. I had wondered for a while “why” and looking at Manchester encoding on fpga, I realized that one pin of the openvlc cape was for clock, the other for data, and when combined it’s Manchester encoded.

[glacial wigeon]

https://www.fpga4fun.com/10BASE-T.html is phy-less ethernet on an fpga, but only 10mbit

gives you a good understanding of the basics

[tardy badger]

I’ve already looked at that

[glacial wigeon]

ive also looked at how rgmii works (gigabit phy's), and i understand enough that i could attempt to implement it, but no clue on my success rate

[tardy badger]

I’m just talking about a realization related the VLC

[glacial wigeon]

its 125mhz DDR, lol

[tardy badger]

Just some dot connecting

[glacial wigeon]

ah

gigabit ethernet is crazy to encode/decode though

i think its all QAM at that speed

[tardy badger]

Some things kind of made sense back when I was working on a VLC startup company, makes more sense now

[glacial wigeon]

and the every pair is bi-directional

the receiver can only make sense of the signal, by subtracting what the tx end has added

[tardy badger]

Yeah, gbase-t is all qam

[glacial wigeon]

ive seen some defcon talks on sniffing gigbit

and because of that bi-directional qam mess, you cant have a passive sniffer

but, you can just wire 2 PHY's together, and jam them in the middle

[tardy badger]

Anyway, now I’m a bit inspired to make a new VLC transceiver board

[glacial wigeon]

i'm assuming thats unrelated to the vlc video player?

[tardy badger]

I saw a cool development for LiFi

VLC is visible light communication

You might know it better by FSO free space optics

Or LiFi

[glacial wigeon]

ahh

so a tv remote counts as VLC

as does IrDa

i tried messing with something similar with gnuradio and just a regular old speaker&mic before, but couldnt get anything useful

[tardy badger]

Technically yeah, tv remotes are the longest living VLC example

[raw jasper]

heh, LiFi is the new trend

It... seems impractical to me 😅

You probably have to be at least in the same room as the router

or have transmitters in every room you want to use the internet in

[tardy badger]

LiFi is probably fine for desk computers

[raw jasper]

I think I'd rather keep using ethernet for those ;)

[glacial wigeon]

wifi is already unreliable enough, i just hard-wire everything i can

[raw jasper]

Speaking of, it really bothers me that newer laptops tend to omit the ethernet port to save thickness

[glacial wigeon]

my laptop still has ethernet and vga! lol

[raw jasper]

WiFi: For when you want that trans-country speed and latency on local SSH

[tardy badger]

I use USB-C to ETH adapter for my MacBook Pro

[raw jasper]

(I'm saying that as I'm SSH'd into my laptop which is on WiFi from my desktop machine)

[tardy badger]

My desktop is hardwired in

[raw jasper]

Yeah, the dongles are a pain though TBH

[raw jasper]

Lemme guess, old thinkpad? :)

[glacial wigeon]

system76 kudu

model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz

[short pulsar]

I’ve been watching for the ESP32-P4 but don’t know much about MIPI DSI. Seems like this would enable reuse of a lot of screens if it works. I can’t find much info. Any suggestions on where to read up about MIPI?

https://www.espressif.com/en/news/ESP32-P4

[glacial wigeon]

from what ive heard, dsi is a PITA to init, and you need the NDA'd datasheets for the screen to do it

[raw jasper]

Sadly, the MIPI DSI spec is locked to member organizations

[glacial wigeon]

that too

[raw jasper]

You can get FPGAs which have hard or soft (but still encrypted) IP for MIPI interfacing, like the one @tardy badger is referring to ; Those'll be encrypted, but you'll be able to interface with the protocol

[glacial wigeon]

but youll still need the magic init sequence for your screen

which is either commands in the dsi stream, or i2c, plus video timing params

bbl

[raw jasper]

Such is life

[tardy badger]

There are a handful of generic MIPI commands that generally work across most screens but you won’t get the performance you want.

[raw jasper]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[crystal ore]

You could also check some of the higher-end STM32 chips. They can include DSI output, so you could see what the reference manual says about their implementation.

[tardy badger]

I’m curious if MIPI DSI will be openly available in the ESP-IDF

[raw jasper]

They've been surprisingly maker-friendly...

[tardy badger]

There’s a comment about CCP influence but then I realized that Espressif being so consumer friendly might actually go against CCP principles related to capitalism. It’s kind of a weird situation..

I’m not really sure how to slice it

Either way, I love their chips

Especially with circuitpython 🤩

And I’m particularly interested in the P4

I have thoughts about making an Ethernet connected display

Seems like a fun idea, tons of sensors and stuff

Maybe a camera

[raw jasper]

Not really familiar with the situation, but I think most Chinese companies' strict control of their IP is more related to fear of being cloned, rather than some official government policy

[tardy badger]

I’m more or less referring to the CCP tightening regulations that led to Chinese companies becoming more western like

Not really a detailed discussion for this discord

[raw jasper]

I know, hence my very hand-wavey reply :P

[tardy badger]

😬

Either way, I’m happy to buy Espressif chips

Espressif goes leaps further in user experience than other wireless chip manufacturers

Nordic is pretty nice but it can feel daunting getting started

[raw jasper]

As far as I am concerned, any vendor with a clear software supply chain (aka anything that is not "download this random rar file we'll send you / lives in a Baidu/Google/Whatever cloud folder somewhere") is fine

[tardy badger]

Lol

Yeah, esp idf being on GitHub is super nice

[late fulcrum]

I'll also disallow vendors that don't support non-windoze operating systems.

[raw jasper]

Ah yeah, that's a problem too

I don't have anything against windows users, but, since I do most of my work on UNIX systems, having to fire up a windows systems to develop for one part can be a problem

[raw jasper]

TBH, you could skip the "wireless" there and still be right

[tardy badger]

Yeah, fair

They currently only sell wireless chips which is why I said wireless 😬

[raw jasper]

As far as I am concerned, they are microcontrollers with a wireless peripheral haha

[tardy badger]

The non-wireless chips aren’t quite out yet lol

Yeah true, you don’t have to use the wireless capability

[raw jasper]

Can I DM?

[tardy badger]

Sure

[sick apex]

does anyone know how i can write black text using SSD1306

well disable the pixels where the text would be

or however it works

cause the screen is only one colour but i need to be able to show that something is selected so im thinking invert at that particular spot

but i think you can only invert the whole display

wait i might have an idea

[sharp nexus]

Hey guys, i need a bipolar LM334, ANY IDEA? 🙂

[late fulcrum]

Current sensing resistor in the feedback loop of an op-amp?

https://www.ti.com/lit/an/snoaa46/snoaa46.pdf

https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/tech-articles/variations-among-currentsinksource-circuits-with-a-single-op-amp.pdf

[rapid geode]

so where do all the cool kids get websites hosted these days? need to make one for my keycaps

[raw jasper]

gh pages is an option

if you want to do all the html yourself and not care for ddos protection and stuff

no idea if they allow business use

....you can also use..........squarespace (oh Gods, I feel like a zombie for saying this)

[sick apex]

i have spent 12 hours on and off coding

and i just compiled

only 1 compile error

im so proud of myself right now

[fossil dawn]

use offer code PenPengu to get a suspiciously high amount off SquareNord Shadow-VPN 😝

[sick apex]

usually i get like atleast 10

[raw jasper]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuhBCXeXcAgx8Cb.png

Other than that, congratulations! :D

[raw jasper]

LOL

It's funny how google is working against sponsor segues by having the "people frequently skipped to there" histogram over the seek bar.

[sick apex]

the only error was because i forgot to put extern infront of something

[raw jasper]

(fyi, don't worry, most of us have had to spend hours of our lives on coding, especially if near a deadline or demo day....)

[sick apex]

felt

[rapid geode]

yet putting double ads every 2 minutes to make videos unwatchable

[late fulcrum]

I'm impressed how much money people splash out subjecting other people to ads that demonstrably don't work. The ad creators and ad sellers are making a lot of money on speculation and wasted time. There is some money injected into the system, but most of that money comes from scammers (ever wonder why scam ads are not removed?)

[ebon dew]

It's no better than TV which is why people flocked from TV to youtube to begin with. Originally it had no commercials, and slowly introduced advertising with banner ads at the bottom, then went full blown TV advertising regardless if a YouTuber has a sponsored segment buried in the video or not.

[raw jasper]

To be honest, I only recommendedmentioned squarespace because I've seen people host their resume/portfolio websites with them

Mentioning them still felt "dirty" because of all the "this video is sponsored by squarespace!" segues

[late fulcrum]

When they introduced unskippable preroll ads, that's when people started installing ad blockers in droves. Until then I just put up with ads, but that was a bridge too far for me. The sudden proliferation of ad blockers hit Google right in the wallet, and they put up a bunch of feeble protests, saying that maybe we could at least whitelist their services. Now they're toying with blocking ad blockers on youtube, and a couple of major ad blocker companies have stood up and had the utter temerity to BUY ADS explaining that their blockers will continue to work, and they'll work to counter Google's efforts. popcorn gif

Ultimately, many of the popular youtube sponsors have been revealed as scams.

[raw jasper]

Ah yeah, definitely

[late fulcrum]

Honestly, I'd just go ahead and pay for youtube premium if they made the cost within a sane distance of what they make from me on ads, but they're just too greedy.

I'm irked that services that I do pay good money for (I'm looking at you, HBO/MAX) sold off their expensive content to ad supported services.

[ebon dew]

A service that you pay for should be illegal to host advertising content... just my opinion.

[late fulcrum]

And that is why I have avoided Hulu since forever

[ebon dew]

Which goes all the way back to TV and radio subscriptions dating back like the 1970's

[late fulcrum]

I hadn't seen any television advertising in years, and was visiting a friend who still watched over the air TV. I was staggered at the density of ads, like 5 solid minutes at a time. I had heard European people boggling at the ads on TV in the United States, and now I see why. Ads grate on me severely, so I have trouble imagining how people put up with this.

[ebon dew]

Yup, it's commercials with a side of content now not vice versa.

Maybe if the commercials were good wouldn't mind as much... you know like armor hotdogs.

https://tenor.com/view/demolition-man-three-seashells-sylvester-stallone-sandra-bullock-rob-schneider-gif-16565400

[late fulcrum]

I had similar annoyance when a legal DVD I would pay for had unskippable ads on it. I have some DVDs from long ago that feature ads for companies that haven't existed in years. So I didn't feel guilty buying a DVD player that can skip anything.

[dusty citrus]

Eh other not google like ads can be considered as scams
Like you pay 200$ for a pair of shoe because you need to also pay sponsor bs
The design is also "original"

[ebon dew]

VCR's started that with upcoming movies

but actual advertising on dvd's? sad.

[late fulcrum]

That's price gouging, not a scam. Those products deliver what they claim. It's not for me, but I don't have any basic objection to fancy brand name products where you're paying for the advertising.

[ebon dew]

I'm all for Adafruit, for example, advertising their OTHER products or even products by sparkfun, renesas, stm, etc.. on their website and in youtube segments because it's not just relevant but also highly informative. That's not even in the same ballpark as what TV and youtube does.

I guess the keyword should be intrusive advertising.

I'll regular watch certain segments to help fall asleep but on youtube there's a couple jarring commercials with people screaming that will wake me up. You cannot fall asleep watching youtube videos anymore.

[dusty citrus]

Anyhow I don't see the problem to be a domain of google. Most advertising official or not, could be considered borderline scamming

Although I find issuing, about how limited you are to pick sponsoring platform, like either google, tv/gov stuff,

[late fulcrum]

Also just random ads. If I'm watching a video on the history of mercury rectifiers, I'm not sure why I'd get ads for investment firms, cars, or shopping services.

[rapid geode]

it is far worse than tv. with tv ads are structures. 3 mins of ads every 15 with the show breaking. on youtube its like random 30 second ads every 2 mins during a 3 minute song. not helpful.

[ebon dew]

I disabled targeted advertising people it became too creepy. I don't have schizophrenia but I could see how targeted advertising could actually mentally scar someone with paranoid schizophrenia.

[dusty citrus]

What I personally find super annoying, are 10 minutes or more long videos, for stuff that could be said in 2 minutes

Tbh I don't bother pay subscription, if the illigitimate way, provides way more benefits

[sick apex]

as if it actually works

I'm shocked

lmao

[ebon dew]

ah the yellow and blue ssd1306.

[late fulcrum]

I'm ambivalent about targeted advertising. I got one banner ad showing a camera and a hot plate, two things I was considering buying. That's actually useful to me in some sense. Whereas most ads are a waste of my time and screen space, and the advertiser's money. I'd accept targeted ads if they went all the way and just didn't show me ads when I wasn't in the mood for ads!

[sick apex]

yes, I'm gunna get a 16bit colour one when I have a few quid spare but for now this will suffice

[ebon dew]

i wouldn't mind the yellow and blue if it wasn't hardcoded. first time i got one i though you could do yellow and blue dual color anywhere... nope. it's the top row only.

[late fulcrum]

I also have a ritual where I laugh and point at the FBI warnings, as it has been conclusively shown the FBI has zero interest in pursuing theft of movie content (when presented with solid proof of theft, they sat back and did nothing)

[rapid geode]

i just click off a lot of videos. you get 30 secs ad up front. 2 mins of video. another ad. and then a sponsor segment followed by 30secs more ads. and if you scrub, you get 30 secs more ads. i give up. not watching

[late fulcrum]

Same. I have plenty of other things to do.

[ebon dew]

exactly, it just wastes your time

[late fulcrum]

If youtube goes ahead with (and is successful at) thwarting ad blockers, and they do not bring their subscription prices in line with reality, I'll just ditch youtube.

[rapid geode]

i have youtube on my smart tv. thoughgt it would be nice to watch. nope. 100% unwatchable. pointless feature

also i noticed youtube is putting ads in front of my own videos. i dont see any money.

and my videos are like 1 min long

[ebon dew]

and YOUR time on this earth is actually your real currency, you have a limited amount, by taking up your time they're stealing seconds from your life.

[rapid geode]

it is a dying platform.

[dusty citrus]

I use revanced an then manually search using their crappy filters for videos under 4 minutes or recently uploaded (and so likely less public/sponsor crap)

[rapid geode]

last ditch effort by them to get any sort of money before they shut it down

[late fulcrum]

I found out my smart TV's manufacturer has decided to add ads and subscription features. So I removed internet access (I have a STB to stream content). I had not intended to give the TV internet access in the first place, but a house sitter did so when they did not understand there was an STB available.

[dusty citrus]

Classic search is crap too
First all sponsor crap
Then all book long no sense crap

[rapid geode]

yeah. i got the tv for free cause it was broken. i fixed (firmware) and then it was just all ads. now it borke again and i dont care. i only really want it as a 4k ref monitor.

[ebon dew]

watching adafruit live streams has been one of the most educational and rewarding things to watch on youtube, in that regard. highly informative, makes you smarter, creativity galore, it's a beautiful thing.

[rapid geode]

oh yeah. i search "pies" and i get 47 unrelated videos and 2 pies

google search is bad too. on a phone all you see is sponsored ads untill you scroll down like 4 "pages"

[dusty citrus]

Or the history of the pie, about how their personally history and yadda yadda
I just want to cook and eat something

[rapid geode]

also magically i get fed a lot of topics i have specifically blocked. like mr beast (no issue with him, just not interested, but they keep forcing it on me

[ebon dew]

if you want receipes then use "pie receipes" and you'll get tons of youtube videos for that... probably 99% of them have youtube commercials but you'll still get receipes.

[short pulsar]

https://www.st.com/resource/en/application_note/an4860-introduction-to-dsi-host-on-stm32-mcus-and-mpus-stmicroelectronics.pdf. Will take a look. Thanks for the suggestion.

[rapid geode]

dj, thats not what i mean. what i means is on PURPOSE 70% of the resultsd are not what you searched for. all ads

[sick apex]

probably the best UI I can realistically make right?

with 3 colours

[rapid geode]

i also noticed it can vary by device and login. not every person has the same experience

on my tablet with no account i get one 5 sec ad in front of every other video.

[late fulcrum]

Youtube's recommender is known to serve up stuff that is expected to rile you up. I get a lot of suggestions for videos where I vehemently disagree with the entire mindset. While I don't want to live in an echo chamber, I also don't want to listen to frothing, badly-argued drivel supporting a position I have no interest in either.

[ebon dew]

same, i block pretty much anything political but on youtube's home page they ignore your preferences. and shorts... ugh, no scrubber, forced ads, and immediately plays the next thing fueling ADHD in every viewer. they have to realize it's doing mental health damage with that short format.

[rapid geode]

also, it seems many or most of the ads i get in a video are scam ads (fake games etc)

[late fulcrum]

But this discussion has motivated me to actually choose a Mastodon server and request an invite so yay that?

[rapid geode]

ha

im surprised discord isnt all ads yet

but in fairness to MS, they always seemed less inclined to do that

[late fulcrum]

We should all buy subscription services on Discord so they don't feel the need to blast us with ads?

[ebon dew]

they do have ads, for their own services... which is fine it's their platform. as soon as they start with 3rd party ads it'll kill it.

[rapid geode]

no, we should just hope ms has a bit more knowledge on how to make profits

internet forums are getting bad too. but at least those are passive ads

[late fulcrum]

Bill Gates is the modern day Thomas Edison. Some technical chops, but excellent marketing skills, and a useful lack of scruples.

[rapid geode]

and often at least relevant

[ebon dew]

with ms your data is their product now. same as apple or google. why else would they release an operating system you always had to pay for in the past... for free now.

[late fulcrum]

The other reason is MS has elected to quietly concede on the OS/apps front, as they could never win in the long term, and the bulk of their money now comes from their hosting services/data mining.

[rapid geode]

because noone was paying anyway. but also because it springboards into more lucrative purchases like xbox etc

[ebon dew]

the ms app store has improved compared to when it first launched but by no means is it anywhere close to apple or google app platform.

[late fulcrum]

They realized there was no practical way to "fix" windoze, so they're quietly replacing the innards with Linux. This is a big win for gamers.

[ebon dew]

being able to install WSL on windows was quite an eye opening experience.

[late fulcrum]

This is also a big win for people who want to run software that's putatively only available for windoze, as it will soon run on Linux.

[ebon dew]

no virtualbox type of system needed, Ubuntu just works with WSL, for the most part.

[late fulcrum]

On the bad news side, Red Hat (now a division of IBM) has decided to take RHEL closed source. On the good news side, Suse and others have stepped up to fork an open source one going forward.

[ebon dew]

i did run into an issue with MYSYS2 not being able to run TIO correctly but that's about it.

[rapid geode]

anyhow. back to figuring out where to host a website. hmmm. i used to do this all the time, but its all changed a lot. so many cheap as free services with deal breaker missing features (like one email address).

and then aws or google which are 100x overkill

[ebon dew]

technically you can host a small website in circuit python now. 😛

[rapid geode]

ha

i used to have my own servers. technically i was an ISP. but now i just have a slow fibre connection with no fixed ip

[ebon dew]

yeah i did the whole colo then vps thing for a while. it's just easier having the physical server at your house but unless you're a security pro it's a never ending hassle.

[rapid geode]

ah yea. we got hacked a couple times back then. this was around 2001 ish.

[ebon dew]

then there's also Ubiquiti's network that allows you to act as an ISP but it's all still under their umbrella.

[raw jasper]

I've disabled youtube's personalized recommendations (could be an EU-only thing?) -- Now all I'm getting is videos related to the one I'm watching

[rapid geode]

i cant find ways of disabling anything

[ebon dew]

Germany's GDPR should be mandatory across the globe. would solve a lot of issues overnight.

[late fulcrum]

I haven't cast around for a hosting service in a while, but a while back, my friends were recommending dreamhost and dotster. I don't know if those are currently viable or not.

[raw jasper]

(FYI, the GDPR is EU-wide, it's not a Germany-specific thing)

[ebon dew]

didn't know that, thought it was only germany... that's good progress.

[raw jasper]

It was actually drafted at the EU level, hence the name Regulation

[ebon dew]

it used to be only Germany especially when Google maps started recording every street.

[late fulcrum]

As for GDPR, browsers should treat opt-in like form filling and automate it instead of having to figure out the proper set of sliders for all 28 different versions of stackoverflow, and 14 more for stack exchange, and one for every little site and journal in the universe.

[raw jasper]

Ah, those were Germany-specific privacy laws

Which were pretty strong before GDPR

[ebon dew]

yes

strolling around germany on street view is a lot of blurring. from a security perspective the US could definitely use it. thieves don't even have to case places anymore they just pull up street view.

[rapid geode]

ha

[late fulcrum]

There was one German site where the list of sliders was so long, the "save settings" button was off the bottom of the screen (and the scroll bar was disabled), so the only apparent option was "accept all".

[raw jasper]

(FWIW, SO, and an increasing number of sites, now have a "necessary only" button -- Screenshot is from SO)