general-chat

[zealous ermine]

that's a good question

[dusty citrus]

(I'm working on a similar use case and haven't decided how to do this without adding more display digit hardware, maybe in a second row)

[zealous ermine]

the control board will have an IO port so you could add more displays

[dusty citrus]

The Heathkit microprocessor 'lab' kit in the late 1970's had only one digit iirc.

[zealous ermine]

one digit.....

[dusty citrus]

yeah I think.

I have 96x8 pixels to work with (a Lumex RGB about 11" wide)

Has its own STM32 daughtercard that takes ascii input in a Hayes command set. ;) So it's a simple USART output proposition to update it.

[zealous ermine]

very cool

[dusty citrus]

It'll report an 'ok' type condition which I ignore.

[polar bloom]

For a 4-bit CPU one digit should be enough, eh?

[dusty citrus]

address and data means 2 digits minimum.

[zealous ermine]

lol, for now it works

[dusty citrus]

You don't want to have to do math in your head for every keystroke or .. instruction I Guess.

[zealous ermine]

true

that's not fun

[dusty citrus]

I want a 32 bit address and 32 bits of data (a full register) ideally. Maybe more.

[zealous ermine]

woah

thats a lot

[dusty citrus]

Well the 96x8 could be used as a bit display too.

If I allow 2 rows blank separation vertically thats

  row displayed
  2 rows dark
  row displayed
  2 rows dark

and I still have two rows left.

[zealous ermine]

oh very cool!

After I finish with testing the 4 bit CPU some more and after the control card and memory card, I'm donating it to a computer museum in WA

Then its 8 bit CPU time

[dusty citrus]

also that's 96 pixels wide. ;)

If you're young - keep it for 5 years anyway.

You'll get ideas.

[zealous ermine]

👌 gotcha

[dusty citrus]

Steve (microship.com) build an old school one in the 70's.

I still model some of my thinking on what he did. And the Altair as well.

[zealous ermine]

Woah

Is he in this server?

[dusty citrus]

I know I'm going to dislike flipping toggle switches on the front panel. ;)

No he's on facelessbook lately unless he moved again.

[zealous ermine]

👌

[dusty citrus]

He built a ship with a massive console for communications and systems ops. ;)

[zealous ermine]

a few days ago, I got to talk to an engineer who worked with DECLAB in the 80's. it was very cool

[dusty citrus]

65 foot steel hulled ship. ;)

[polar bloom]

I saw someone on Twitter recently who bought some old, broken semiconductor machines from eBay and who is now producing his own 70s-tech-level ICs.

[dusty citrus]

(didn't buid the ship, just the console)

[zealous ermine]

i need it....

the possibilities are endless

[dusty citrus]

Well Chuck Moore (Forth inventor) did a lot of chip foundry work - probably contracting out the physical production. He designed chips.

[zealous ermine]

ASICs are cool

[dusty citrus]

More importantly he designed chip-design software.

He presently has 144 processors on a small sub-thumbnail sized chip.

[zealous ermine]

👀

[dusty citrus]

They're (all 144 of them) very simple machines.

[zealous ermine]

still impressive

[dusty citrus]

But he knows how to program them to work together.

[polar bloom]

I've been reading about MOS technologies and the early days of Commodore when chip design was done completely by hand. That must have been awesome (and slow).

[dusty citrus]

green arrays its called.

[zealous ermine]

i'll look into it!

[dusty citrus]

They have a partner where you can get a carrier board (like an Adafruit breakout) that a smart school age person (age 14 or so) can achieve success with, without prior soldering experience.

It's listed on their 'budget' page.

http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/g144apps.html

then 'breadboarding on a budget'

The eval board is expensive.

[zealous ermine]

wow

very cool!

[dusty citrus]

Here's the pinout:
http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/bee/G144A12-poster-A1.pdf
PDF

(also lists the instruction set - I take it that list is complete?)

[zealous ermine]

wow, very basic instruction set

[dusty citrus]

red, green .. all that .. it's in ColorForth ;)

Colors have meanings.

(like syntax)

[zealous ermine]

yep

[dusty citrus]

The editor you use supports that directly.

Every code page has a mirror 'documentation' page that is stored with it.

You can run ColorForth on an old 80386 type CPU and a floppy diskette.

I saw it had USART (serial comm) in it and have been meaning to use it.

I'm also thinking about a bank of switching relays (electromechanical at the contact level) instead of what new users of Adafruit stuff think about (hanging a bunch of i2c devices on a single bus). To route USART TX and RX pins to various peripherals, when needed.

Generally doing one thing at a time. On a very human time scale (think minutes not milliseconds between routing those lines).

So for example, when I need to upload source code (ascii plaintext) to the Forth interpreter, throw a front panel toggle switch to route to the device that uploads code (in my case, another Linux machine just for that use).

When I only need a display terminal (where ssh input is fine for interactive) I route to a Raspberry Pi that acts as a glorified video card.

Turns out the software running on the Pi (9front.org, a plan9 from Bell Labs variant) .. does not directly support 'ascii-xfr' slow uploads (with long pauses between code lines, to allow Forth time to compile - Forth compiles after every space character (ascii 0x20, 32 decimal).

That's the parser.

So (in the short term) rather than write a slow uploader native to 9front (plan9) I opted to 'cheat' and leverage a Linux box on the USART, to talk to the forth interpreter (only for code upload after a good chunk of code has been debugged, but not yet commited to long-term storage (that survives a power reset) on the MCU (STM32F407 Discovery board, $20ish).

Right now I'm running a split USART: half goes to the Raspberry Pi; another half to AMD64 based Linux (through CP2104, USART to USB bridge chip).

When I want to type, CP2104. When I want a report based on what I commanded (by typing) it's RPi running 9front as the 'video display' (RPi native USART).

The split happens at STM32F407 port pin pair. ;)

Since there's no acknowledge/handshaking of any sort, this works fine.

[zealous ermine]

👀

complex

[dusty citrus]

(System is robust enough not to need confirmation of a sent message to 'know' it got sent)

[zealous ermine]

that's good

[dusty citrus]

(basically by coding for zero possibility of a buffer overrun.)

It's all silly by today's standards but not by the standards of my childhood - at all. ;)

[zealous ermine]

loll

[dusty citrus]

I'm limited to 64 kB RAM and no ROM at all so there are real limits.

[zealous ermine]

what was the first computer you used?

[dusty citrus]

I think that's big enough to rewrite the system in its own language, on that chip.

Technically it was a teletype connected to a 'time share' in 1974.

We played Lunar Lander on it. Typed mechanically (teleprinter).

[zealous ermine]

classic!

[dusty citrus]

Punched tape was still very much around, then.

In the Air Force we had a computer with a punched tape reader on the front panel.

It was fanfold mylar - high end.

A little tray on the 19" relay rack form factor of that computer - only what 6 inches tall (2U or 3U).

[zealous ermine]

my first computer was macintosh II from 1987

it was a brick of a computer

[dusty citrus]

The tray held the mylar fanfold punched tape (5 position punches)

mac II was a pancake mac?

[zealous ermine]

nope

[dusty citrus]

Yeah I had a clone of one in that era (can't remember the name) that also had an ISA bus so you could use IBM PC world ethernet cards with it.

But it was MacOS.

[zealous ermine]

very cool!

I got it from my dad. It got him through college

[dusty citrus]

Around 1985 I had a 'Pocket PC' from Radio Shack - and my Dad had a Leading Edge Model M at 4.77 MHz dual floppy.

The Pocket PC was my first personally owned computer but I had already had use of my Dad's.

Bought a 300 baud modem for it and called Volcano California (Turbo Pascal BBS).

He was not happy. ;) (long distance calls from Connecticut)

The phone number for it was in a book I bought on Turbo Pascal.

(which was current at that time)

They had source code on that BBS so I was able to construct XMODEM from the code.

[zealous ermine]

I used to have this ridiculous 'calculator' thing

[dusty citrus]

That enabled my first binary download over the telephone network. ;)

[zealous ermine]

HP i think? It has a docking station with a printer

it was so cool

[dusty citrus]

Yeah I have owned about 24 calculators. ;)

[zealous ermine]

impressive! i only have 3 at this moment

TI 84+ CE, TI 83, TI 81

[dusty citrus]

We still had the kind of wristwatch that you have to press a button to display the time in red LED digits, when I was in the miltary.

[zealous ermine]

OHHH

those are so cool!

[dusty citrus]

They weren't very expensive either.

a stopwatch and countdown timer on your wrist was a pretty big deal, then.

Once (only once) my watch beeped during an important military ceremony. ;)

[zealous ermine]

LED lights, right?

[dusty citrus]

The one with the countdown wasn't LED I don't think. I don't remember what display tech it used.

[zealous ermine]

was it called the Pulsar watch?

[dusty citrus]

The red LED one I think was just a time keeper and maybe an alarm.

I want to say Casio but I just don't remember anymore.

[zealous ermine]

hmm

[dusty citrus]

My boss (1989) had a full calculator keypad on his Casio.

[zealous ermine]

how to show you have money in the late 80's

[dusty citrus]

Well his big thing was when he was given a telephone number he'd tap it into his desk calculator and pat himself on the back. ;)

[zealous ermine]

oh wow

[dusty citrus]

(as a one-line scratch pad)

That gave him enough time (terrible short term memory) to use it.

[zealous ermine]

that's great!

[dusty citrus]

Because cheap portable desk calculators were still very new.

1974 my Dad brought home a 'Bowmar' small handheld calculator. We'd never seen anything like it.

Red LED digits on that one.

[zealous ermine]

I gotta go, A lecture is starting

[dusty citrus]

A few years later any consumer owned one.

;)

[zealous ermine]

i'll be back in a few hours

[dusty citrus]

Nice chatting with you. ;)

[zealous ermine]

yeah!

[dusty citrus]

obtw I want to do more with shift registers as they're so easy to interface to

[polar bloom]

The 8-bit guy just did a video on those Pocket PCs.

[dusty citrus]

@polar bloom These were made by Sharp who went on to make a 'Zaurus' I never got around to acquiring.

Had PEEK and POKE in ROM BASIC so I wrote my first assembler program on mine..

I wanted the Radio Shack Model 100 ... badly.

Got one in trade about 3 years after they came out.

I also got a GRiD Compass 1101 (iirc) from that same guy.

[polar bloom]

I find it interesting that in the 1970s there was a "calculator war" between TI and other companies, especially Japanese companies.

[dusty citrus]

We kind of thought of TI back then as the calculator people ..them and Hewlett Packard.

[polar bloom]

My first "computer" was a cardboard cutout from Donald Duck Magazine that I never understood how it worked (I think it demonstrated some basic logic gates).

Before they made computers, Commodore was also relatively big in the calculator market. TI decided to no longer sell them chips, so Commodore bought MOS who just had released the 6502. Was a smart move, because now Commodore also made money from all the other microcomputer companies who used 6502s, such as Apple.

[dusty citrus]

cardboard computer!

There's a theory you can make a 'computer' from running water using gravity.

(think steampunk, British canal system with locks)

(scale that down so you have 'gates' that 'do operations' based on the gravitational flow of water, downhill)

[polar bloom]

Yeah anything that can switch like a relay will work.

[dusty citrus]

The TI-99/A was the first personal computer I saw in person, around 1982 or so.

Thomas Edison inadvertently invented ROM when he invented the diode (trying to invent the light bulb that lasts longer).

(or people near the time of Edison did, anyway) (I think).

I made a 7-segment single digit 'video board' out of an array of 1N34A signal diodes.

[polar bloom]

People have had the technology to build electromechanical computers since the time of the telegraph but no one really came up with the idea until the 1930s.

[dusty citrus]

You selected the digit by moving one jumper wire to 'light up' that path through the diodes.

Segments unevenly lit though due to voltage drops of all those diodes in series.

[polar bloom]

Heh that's interesting.

[dusty citrus]

Using that same signal path to drive transistors, you could have evenly lit segments without changing the scheme much.

But it proved the point: a diode matrix is, in fact, a ROM, if you configure it just so.

So you can 'store programs' by breadboarding signal diodes (no other components except a power source and hookup wires).

For character generation ROMs this is a pretty good deal, complexity wise.

@dusty citrus

term% grep -v '^\#' bin/rc/riostart | sed '/^$/d'

window -r 1 1 1900 200 -scroll vt -x  -l /usr/glenda/session-a.log ssh them@192.168.0.1

window -r 186 70 1740 960 -scroll vt -x -b  -l /usr/glenda/session-b.log ssh their@192.168.22.7

That shows the non-comment lines of a file riostart.

(Comment lines in that file begin with # just like in Linux shell scripts)

The window lines start new shells when you boot the system, so you can get some work done as soon as you reboot.

They both ssh to another server.

In 9front the windowing system isn't x.org or X11 .. it's called rio (yeah like the city in S America).

window is one of a few aliases for rio that does a specific thing.

http://man.9front.org/1/rio

Those 'man' pages (manual pages) are stock in trade for all Unix variants.

They're more reference than tutorial.

[zealous ermine]

PSA! DON'T use cheap chinese adjustable power supplies on important projects!

Don't make the mistake I just did

[arctic peak]

I learned that the hard way too.

[grave crest]

@zealous ermine Although I understand your sentiment and the situation you've just gone through, the country of origin isn't something we should attribute to things like this.

There are cheap power supplies made in many countries, and good ones can also be made in those same countries. The product itself was just that...cheap. The country itself had nothing to do with it.

[zealous ermine]

Chinese power supply != cheap Chinese power supply

[honest jolt]

In machine learning, I think there is this law that states that after one point, training won't yield any significant results. If the law exists, does anyone know what it's called?

[stone orbit]

Diminishing returns?

[honest jolt]

Ah ha yes thank you!

[stone orbit]

In my machine learning projects, I've calculated the RMS error of the model against the training data and when the error for each run stops going down by some threshold, then stop training. Determining the threshold is, of course, somewhat arbitrary.

[tardy badger]

The um. Stock market is kind of crazy right now

[zealous ermine]

[limber jackal]

That's why I prefer bouillon, or occasionally, when I want to splurge, broth.

[jovial swift]

lol 👆

[late fulcrum]

Apparently a bunch of folks on Reddit decided to put the squeeze on people who shorted GameStop and drove the price from $20 a share to $140 in a few weeks.

[stoic mesa]

current price is over $340

[ocean sigil]

Wow! I just "discovered" the "inbox" icon in Discord!!! What a nice tool.

[pearl vigil]

Not just GameStop, also Nokia and Blackberry are caught up in it

I made $40 from a few Nokia stocks I owned beforehand 😆

[zealous ermine]

what?!

[ocean sigil]

the icon next to the search window --- looks like an RJ-45 socket 😉

[zealous ermine]

woah

thank you for telling me this!

[limber jackal]

Now I can't unsee the ethernet port! Thanks for that!! 🙂

[sonic prism]

that's a button for er... networking with people, that's why 😬

[zealous ermine]

👏

[zealous ermine]

I was just challenged by my IEEE buddies to get my 4-bit CPU to play the national anthem

i'm not sure if it's even fast enough to do that

[limber jackal]

Did they specify a rendition @zealous ermine? I'm thinking maybe the one by "Bleeding Gums Murphy" in that episode of The Simpsons

[zealous ermine]

i only have 1k of rom and 255 bytes of ram to work with

I don't think that rendition would work too well 😆

[limber jackal]

I was thinking more of the pace than the overall duration, but yeah, good point!

pace == tempo, I think?

[zealous ermine]

yeah

i think

[limber jackal]

I'm more familiar with musical terms like "Chunk-a chunk-a chunk" and "Yaggerdang"

[zealous ermine]

😆

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

skip to 5:40

i'll try my best to make it sound like that (if I don't max out memory usage)

[limber jackal]

Ok, let me hit that FFwd button on the cassette player!

[zealous ermine]

it's so neat how computers used to store information on cassettes

[limber jackal]

If you think about it, it's just another form of magnetic media

[zealous ermine]

true!

[limber jackal]

Now, I wonder, if you could cut the inner media from an old floppy drive, lay it end to end, and read it with a magnetic cassette head, would it sound like that? 🤔

[zealous ermine]

OK I NEED TO TRY THIS NOW

[limber jackal]

lol

Got some old 3.5, 5.25, 8" or other media around?

And an old Realistic boombox and/or walkman?

[zealous ermine]

yes to both

[limber jackal]

Dangit, I said it jokingluy, but now, I wonder too... Me and my crazy hair-brained ideas that sound not so dumb in hindsight

[zealous ermine]

well, a better thing to do that woulden't involve cutting up the disc is to wire in an op-amp or something to the read head of a disk drive

and just manually step through all the tracks

[limber jackal]

True

[zealous ermine]

I should have an old disk drive somewhere, let me check

found it

[limber jackal]

It would be a neat counterpart to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbIVRjYf78M&feature=emb_logo

nice!

[zealous ermine]

it's almost a reverse version of that!

[limber jackal]

Exactly!

[zealous ermine]

I used to play my C64's data cassettes in a cassette player, so i wonder how different the floppy would sound

[limber jackal]

Same here, except we had the Coleco Adam

[zealous ermine]

i have never heard of that computer before

[limber jackal]

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

[zealous ermine]

thats clean looking!

[limber jackal]

What was REALLY cool is that it could also accept Coleco game cartridges

[zealous ermine]

woah, yeah that's a big bonus

[limber jackal]

So you could do your math homework on GW-Basic off a cassette in only 3-4x the amount of time it would take to do it by hand, play some Coleco games, and when the tape was rewound, play some "Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century" or whatever it was called until it overheated and the display went black

Since it has that separate controller/number pad deal

[zealous ermine]

welcome to the 80's

I never used my c64 for anything useful. I just made simple basic programs. I still have the first cassette that I ever used which is pretty cool

[limber jackal]

Had to get out of the 80s somehow - electronics or Boy George. I stand by my decision

[zealous ermine]

lol

[zealous ermine]

okay, after some thought, I think i will be able to pull off sound generation using the processor

i might have to bump the clock speed up it it's not fast enough. i think it should be fine at 1Mhz

[zealous ermine]

The CPU doesn't support interrupts, so I'll have to do some weird work around. My idea is to use a 16-bit timer, one for each voice, and a 32 bit timer for note duration

Once the times hit a value stored somewhere in RAM, the timer will be reset, and a bit on the output register will be flipped

So changing the stored value will change the frequency produced

If i have extra clock cycles to work with, I'll see what I can do with adding more voices! I really want to see if I can get it to generate 3 square waves so I can play more complex music

https://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/4020e167eb1dca12eb22bd50b8c1e4f2/

I'm not sure how the mapping of the value in RAM would correlate to the output frequency. I never really ran any testing on how long the instructions take. Some instructions also take longer depending on the value of the number it has to work with. Lots of trial and error will be used for this.

[dusty citrus]

If you had two timers you could use one for tone and the other for duration.

No idea how hard it would be to scale to human sensible timescale.

You could probably build trills the same way as you'd build morse code elements from simpler ones.

I would do the morse project completely first, to get an idea of how to code for music.

[zealous ermine]

i really wish I had hardware timers. that would make this 1000% easier

but i'm doing it all in software 🙃

[zealous ermine]

74181 with heatsink

Waiting for the thermal epoxy to cure is not going to be fun

[sick adder]

Extremel Accrate OCR of this PDF file, thanks ddg

[limber jackal]

I can't stop seeing "Incinerate" in the title. Not a feature I particularly seek out in my boards!

[tardy badger]

lol

[round hazel]

You may summon a demon if you read that aloud.

[zealous ermine]

I did some annotating

[dusty citrus]

That's a big bank o' chips for the Instruction Decoder section of the mainboard. @zealous ermine

[zealous ermine]

Yeah, It's not the most efficient design, but it allows for new instructions to be added really easily

[dusty citrus]

@zealous ermine Dr Ting recently re-implemented a JavaScript version of eForth that seems to have very (very) few instructions in the core.

It's crazy simple.

https://github.com/flagxor/jeforth/blob/main/jeforth_403.js#L67

 function exec(cmd) {                   // : quit begin token exec again ;
    tib=cmd;ntib=0;rstack=[];wp=0;ip=0;w=0;compiling=false;execute(0);}

Understanding the quit word is critical to understanding eForth. ;)

[zealous ermine]

I'll be sure to check it out!

[dusty citrus]

It'll run in chrome web browser - just load the .html.

Then paste in forth source code to the provided window in the web browser (you have to press ENTER as well).

output is lower window.

5 3 * . 15 < >ok

-99 -98 -97 < -99 -98 -97 >ok
5 3 < -99 -98 -97 5 3 >ok
* . 15 < -99 -98 -97 >ok

So he reports the stack elements every time - no separate .S (dot-S) word.

[hidden bluff]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zbhvaac68Y

[real falcon]

niiiice

[hasty quarry]

I'm taking a college algebra course, and I'm doing my first homework assignment

This is stressful

Hahaha

I mean, I did it, but jeez

Oh, great, they're making me use the quadratic formula. My day is going fantastic, thanks for asking

[tardy badger]

Now imagine doing the quadratic equation to get Euler compatible values

[zealous ermine]

wack

[zealous ermine]

i think i might have covid

[tardy badger]

Not wack

[stoic mesa]

@hasty quarry you actually don't need to use the quadratic formula for it.
Since you are given (b-1/5)^2, you can find b-1/5 itslef by taking the square root.
Since the right-hand side is negative, the square root will be purely imaginary, i.e. contain i. So you get
b-1/5= ± i √(83/25)= ±i (√83)/5
That's it

[tardy badger]

Ugh I made a typo in a tweet for my company and didn’t realize it

It was the worst typo you could miss 😓

[polar bloom]

This will now become your most popular tweet ever.

[tardy badger]

It’s deleted now but i feel stupid for not catching it

I meant to say fun days ahead talking about building boards I got from OshPark

But it changed to fine <censored word> ahead

[polar bloom]

hahaha yes, I always mistype "count" with one letter left out

[tardy badger]

I shouldn’t ever fast type and fat finger tweets at 10:30pm

Yeah, typos are the worst

Drew from OshPark messaged and asked if the tweet we right. And I died a little inside

[polar bloom]

People are used to autocorrect messing up things, so if anyone was upset by your tweet I'm sure they'll understand.

[tardy badger]

Yeah, autocorrect is both a spelling savior and devil

[stoic mesa]

@tardy badger 🙂
I don't think anyone really was offended by it. It was clearly a typo, and people reading you are grown-ups who - hopefully - wouldn't take too much notice of a stupid typo. It is not like you are writing for 1st grade kids.

[tardy badger]

Yeah lol

It’s better to be safe than sorry though

It is impossible to know how all persons react to typos, especially potentially offensive typos. So maybe it’s siding too much on the err of caution.. but again better to be sensitive to potential harm than dismissing it.

And lesson learned for me, don’t fat finger posts in excitement at 10:30pm 🙂

Not without some proofreading first

[stoic mesa]

There are stories abound how in Stalin's time in USSR journalists and newspaper editors were arrested for such typos.
Fortunately this is a different time and different place.

[burnt tendon]

I hear that as the 1950s got going, when he wasn't making public appearances anymore and everybody knew his days were numbered, a lot of folks carefully stopped working on their projects in the hopes that whoever succeeded him would be more lenient.

They called it Stalin for Time.

[sonic prism]

hmmmm that hurt

[wispy solstice]

Anyone else eating lots of memberberries on the Intellivision Amico?

[sick adder]

If you don't mind a UK keyboard layout, there are 8 "pi 400s" in stock as of 2 minutes ago .. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/raspberry-pi/SC0372/13282412

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Frpishop.cz%2Fimg%2Fcms%2Fproducts%2FRaspberryPi%2F400%2FRPi-400-layout-UK.jpg&f=1&nofb=1 [note the position & size of enter and backslash keys, though there are other differences from a US layout too]

[velvet pelican]

I have one with that layout and im always hitting other keys when i go to hit enter

[zealous ermine]

I just got my Fluke electrical measurement certification!

Today is a good day

[sick adder]

Yeah I decided the grief of an unusual layout wasn't worth just being able to "get one"..

[mint trellis]

!help

[boreal flower]

<:adabot:342384086473637891> **Adafruit Commands**

➜ Commands
▸ !deletetag (name) - Delete a tag
▸ !help - Command list
▸ !newtag (name) (tag) - Create a tag
▸ !ping - Response time
▸ !product (id) - Get a product
▸ !random - Get a random product
▸ !search (name) - Search for a product

[mint trellis]

!product 318

[boreal flower]

Out Of Stock: 2-pin JST SM In-line power wire connector (female)

Price: $0.75 USD
In Stock: -3
ID: 318

[orchid zephyr]

Wikihow’s top method for discharging a capacitor...

[pearl vigil]

That is the technically correct way to do it, with a CAT rated screw driver

Which are typically red and yellow

[orchid zephyr]

Yeah but on that massive of a cap, and holding it in your other hand

[pearl vigil]

Luckily the cap is DC, sure it certainly isnt recommended but electricity always takes the shortest path to ground, just dont put your nibbins near the metal

Unless its a high voltage cap, then just dont touch if it has a charge

I guess if you dont know what you are doing, that is very bad advice yeah

[real falcon]

i'd use something with resistance I guess

just clip to leads and leave it, draining away

bonus if can use led light so know when its out

[dusty citrus]

Work only with one hand. Wear electrical safety shoes. Stand only on an approved flooring.

That's how you survive high voltage environments and equipment, in part.

Linemen get some very intensive training before they're allowed to work on > 1kv stuff

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, there's a lot of kill in the kilovolts.

[hasty quarry]

Are animals technically machines?

And natural selection our designer

Or does that not really fit the definition of a machine? We’re incredibly complex chemical and mechanical systems

[dusty citrus]

I mean it does depend how you use machines

for a long time in human history, when the structure of humans wasent quite understood yet, people considered the human body to be "the most complex machine ever made"

That being said, in like the 1950-80, animals were also considered biochemical machines coded by their DNA, and that argument was used to test things on animals, since technically it would be as morally repugnant to kick a stuffed animal than to kick a rabbit (since they were "machines", unable to feel pain as we did)

[dusty citrus]

so yeah, does depend how you'd utilize the word i guess!

[dusty citrus]

No, animals are animals and machines are machines.

Since we know perfectly well what each of those are, it's fine to keep on using the original words.

You can say 'a machine is like an animal in that it ... ' and you can also say say 'an animal is like a machine in that it .. ' but as soon as you say 'an animal is a kind of machine' or 'a machine is a kind of animal' you lose your job writing for the New York Times (the Post will take you, though).

Just because well known public figures lie does not give license to do so, generally.

afaik 'locomotion' is used to describe how an animal gets about. ;)

I sincerely think you're taking this waaaaaaaay too black and white here, because there are tons of interesting examples to think about

[dusty citrus]

also im not sure why you mention this, since legit no one mentioned it whatsoever

so lets take synthetic biology, for example, who's goal is to make it possible to construct living beings, such as microorganisms or plants, using engineering methods. Do you think these would be machines or animals @dusty citrus?

Robot's a machine.

is a humanly made animal made from synthetic materials a machine?

If you make one I bet we'll call it an animal, then.

But only if it's alive.

'animated'

right, but yet we're engineering them and constructing them, similarly to a machine we create

If you make a living machine that looks more like a refrigerator than a dog, even though it's alive and reproduces the way mammals do it, we'd likely still call it a box and a machine.

Lt. Data is the crux of this argument. It's a machine that looks just like a man.

that might lead to some interesting ethics problems

like if your refrigerator dog can feel pain, is it still just a machine?

Data gets special status because we believe he is either 'alive' or that he is 'sentient' or both.

Feeling pain is a low threshold for any test.

Dawkins spoke about what things feel pain and how to think about it.

well the goal of avoiding pain is like basically what our entire legal system was created for

If you think something feels pain (regardless of if it does) and you inflict that pain, there's something wrong with you, usually.

thats true

Common sense works out well, there. We teach children about these things all the time.

but like if we're speaking in terms of whats a machine or an animal, you could see how the borders could get blurry

I'm pretty sure if a child acted 'fiercely' against an obviously artificial toy ('stuffed') animal that'd still be cause for some concern.

You figure that's a proxy.

wait im confused, what point are you addressing?

i feel like we're diverging from the machine vs animal subject

I'll just say that in the future if the line between machine and either alive, sentient, or otherwise 'animal' becomes truly blurred, it'll be a thing to think about a lot.

Meanwhile the personhood of great apes might be a better place to focus energy.

Likewise, a Lt. Cmdr Data in the fact, would be an extremely dangerous weapon.

And an 'it'.

But the script writers gave him the lines and the role .. of Pinnochio.

There's a supposed hybrid case, too: an empty shell (a 'blank mind' Lt. Cmdr Data) with an 'upload' of a (previously entirely human) 'consciousness' (with its memories and experiences trasnsfered into the machine).

What is it? Who are they now? Is there a 'who' inside the box? Why?

Consider: some people -- many people -- won't find this a bit whimsical. Like, at all.

Like, enough that you, having built the thing, will need to go into hiding. ;)

[crystal ore]

I have a book on my shelf that I unfortunately haven't gotten around to reading yet, "The Age of Em", which is an examination of all of the issues around the future world where uploaded / emulated human beings become feasible.

[dusty citrus]

;)

I think I heard about 'uploads' via Bostrom or someone who was strongly associated with Bostrom.

[dusty citrus]

The most likely visitor from another star would be an intelligent machine that had locomotion.

It would be a replica built enroute from there to here, of maybe dozens of such replicas, the old ones having become non-functional on an unintended basis.

That'd be a flotilla the size of all of Texas. ;)

[crystal ore]

Given the trend toward electronics miniaturization and the energy cost of sending mass at interstellar velocities, it would probably be quite small. Just enough to bootstrap once it gets to a destination.

[dusty citrus]

Michael Crichton (1942-2008) partially 'solves' the problem of how you send a signal across space, and have it received on the other end.

I've forgotten (entirely) the details, but I think he was 'working on' a 'transporter' class problem in his novel. ;)

But if you don't have the catcher (you only have the pitcher) then the ball just keeps going past the backstop, rolling after it hits the ground, then comes to a halt.

Most expeditions, though, carry everything they'll need, as there are no hotels or gas stations or rest stops along the way.

[hasty quarry]

Weird question

Is blood black or red

When we see it, it's typically in open air, through bleeding or so, so it's red because it reacts with the oxygen

But inside us, blood with no oxygen is black

What's blood's natural form? Oxygenated or not?

Red, or black?

[sonic prism]

are you lips black ?

[tardy badger]

Occasionally I humor fast food restaurants claims of spicy food.

[sonic prism]

blood is not black inside the body

(and it does contain oxygen, that's kind of the point)

it's more blue when it comes back and there's less oxygen

[tardy badger]

I tried McDonalds Spicy nuggies for the lulz. Definitely highly disappointing in the spicy sector. Good overall nugget flavor but not spicy by any means

[sonic prism]

I love spicy food, but my body told me to stop at some point, and it's very stubborn 😦

[tardy badger]

I enjoy torturing myself

[hasty quarry]

Nera, I vaguely remember once, I got my blood drawn

And through the tube

It was jet black

Seriously. I saw a completely black color

[sonic prism]

nah it's just dark because it's not very transparent

[hasty quarry]

But the tube was transparent

And the blood looked jet black

And the lights were on. I don't get it

[sonic prism]

just lighting

[hasty quarry]

Oh, wait, I get what you're saying, kinda

But if it's not very transparent, you're saying it absorbs more light. What color absorbs more light?

[sonic prism]

unless you're an alien lizard

[hasty quarry]

Or am I going crazy

[sonic prism]

look at milk, it's opaque

[hasty quarry]

Yes

[limber jackal]

"Wendy's Ghost Pepper Cheese Fries" a few years ago. "Ghost Pepper" = "A few slivers of pickles Jalapenos"

[umbral phoenix]

blood inside your body is black since there is no light to reflect and create a perception of color 😉

[sonic prism]

I mean, if we are talking endoscopy 😬

[umbral phoenix]

but theoretically, it should range from bright red to dark red, depending on oxygenation

[dusty citrus]

It's red, just as black coffee is red.

(But keep those two distinct, please)

I know we've been living in a public information space that likes to assert that 2 + 2 equals something besides 4 but that's called disinformation.

Things are just what they are

True story: I once complained to my mother that I could see a 'sausage' third finger section if I held my two index fingers together, and looked at the juncture a bit cross-eyed.

(I just checked .. it's still there! Like Cream of Wheat, floating in bowl, over my head, no matter where I travel!)

Conflating perception with reality is a Category error.

[hasty quarry]

Color is subjective though

I could call black what you see as just a dark dark red

[short bone]

That depends on the light conditions

[dusty citrus]

No. ;)

Black and White aren't colors.

red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet

There's no magenta (at all).

Magenta is human vision artifact from combining red with blue (sourced from opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum)

Infrared and ultraviolet bracket the (human) vision spectrum.

White would be several frequencies all at once. Black would be (lot more simply) the absence of any spectrum.

Just as magenta is blue and red at the same time; white is blue red and whatever (I don't know; green maybe).

Feynman gives a good description of human vision.

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_35.html

[stable gulch]

"Black and White aren't colors". I disagree, I worked in textiles for 45 years and we had literally hundreds of shades of black and white! If there is no magenta, how can we see it?

[dusty citrus]

;)

Color has a corresponding frequency. See also achromatic <foo>.

Magenta is better described as a human visual sensation - a response to stimulus that itself isn't 'magenta' ( a single frequency of light or narrow, contiguous range of such frequencies).

In that sense 'color' doesn't exist as we experience it.

Prior to Newton, all we had on color theory is the kind of thing you use to settle a bar bet. ;)

Newton separated spectra into color bands using a prism.

And then described stuff about that.

He wasn't just a Gravity theorist. ;)

I wonder if Google's got one on putting a magenta light source through a prism - what would happen?

[stable gulch]

Achromatic means "without colour"

[dusty citrus]

when he combined red and blue light from his prisms, Newton observed a colored light, magenta, that was not found in the natural visible spectrum. Newton organized his findings in a color wheel showing the three "primary colors" -- red, green, and blue -- separated by the three "secondary colors" -- yellow, cyan, and magenta. Since magenta was a non-spectral color of light, its origins posed a mystery.

http://web.mit.edu/22.51/www/Extras/color_theory/color.html

Makes you wonder how often magenta was seen back then, and under what circumstances.

[stable gulch]

You spelled Colour wrong 🙂

[stone orbit]

Color can be a single wavelength (monochromatic ) or a mixture of wavelengths. By inspection of the CIE 1931 color space one can see that two monochromatic LEDs can be added to produce "white" and with some variations, different color temperatures of white as perceived by the human eye. White is a color.

[burnt tendon]

As someone who is actually quite mediocre at paints, studied computer graphics a bunch in college, does art projects with LEDs, and has spent a lot of time photographing stuff... the big picture of color is pretty darn ridiculous.

Pretty much every way that the individual disciplines of color-using-people look at color is a different abstraction.

At least there are some painters, generally ex-engineers doing an art career, who understand that the traditional red-yellow-blue model is straight out a lie.

[late fulcrum]

But magenta-yellow-cyan is valid

[sick adder]

Playing with https://bellard.org/textsynth/ and comparing it to some 1960s(!) conversational computer program. Bold is the prompt, the rest is the generated text.. draw your own conclusions. Also, I didn't realize someone had recreated SHRDLU in Java in the 2000s https://web.archive.org/web/20171117063022/http://www.semaphorecorp.com/misc/shrdlu.html

**SHRDLU was an early natural language understanding computer program, developed by Terry Winograd at MIT in 1968–1970. In the program, the user carries on a conversation with the computer, moving objects, naming collections and querying the state of a simplified "blocks world", essentially a virtual box filled with different blocks.

Person: What does the box contain?
Computer: THE BLUE PYRAMID AND THE BLUE BLOCK.
Person: What is the pyramid supported by?
Computer: THE BOX.
Person: How many blocks are not in the box?
Computer:** ONE PYRAMADIC CIRCLE NODE.
Person: How many objects are in the box?
Computer: EACH ONE.
Person: How many numbers are in the box?
Computer: A NUMBER.
Person: How many shapes are in the box?
Computer: TWO SIDES.
Person: How many edges are in the box?

[tardy badger]

Hmm interesting

[dusty citrus]

I found another Forth that seems to boot STM32F407 Discovery and looks like it'll port well to STM32F405 Express by modifying which USART the forth interpreter talks to (the design now is for PA2 and PA3 which aren't available for this on the Express board).

I think they reused some or a lot of mecrisp-stellaris but I just glanced at it last night.

https://github.com/tabemann/zeptoforth/

Seems to be authored entirely in gas (GNU assembler) and compiles so fast you're not sure it 'did anything' ;)

Would make an excellent code base example for someone wanting to program the Express only in assembly language.

Just specify a different PLATFORM= when you make to get the other variants provided for.

Tons of branches in the repo so you can have a very good look at development beyond the first iteration (which seems complete, and earlier than the STM32F4x ports) (from early 2020).

[limber jackal]

So I just received a piece of mail via USPS, with no return address, and no postmark. The only indications it likely came via USPS is a) It has a first-class postage paid imprint where the stamp would go b) it came in my mailbox, and c) it has the POSTNET for the recipient zip code.

I did some googling with bing, and I can't find a way to identify to which business or entity a postage paid imprint license belongs. And all that was in the envelope was a single sticker, and neither my memory nor image searching turns up a hit. Anyone have any ideas on either?

[tardy badger]

Code shark?

[real falcon]

any result with image search?

https://twitter.com/digitalocean/status/1329517398265884676

DigitalOcean (@digitalocean)

🗣️ Developers! We want to hear your thoughts on open source. Share with us in our Currents survey & get an exclusive limited-edition Sammy sticker🦈 – or contribute a tree to our DigitalOcean Forest🌲! https://t.co/uZqayQ2usB

Twitter · Nov 19, 2020, 8:10 PM

[tardy badger]

You know.. that makes sense

[limber jackal]

Welp, your image-search-fu is better than my mobile-phone-made image-search-fu

Thanks @real falcon

Is it wrong that part of me was terrified it was something related to "Baby shark doo doo doo doo"?

[tardy badger]

😂

[real falcon]

lol

no problem

[limber jackal]

Just tried to Google it with Google, and it googled it right away. 🤦 Maybe next time, I'll try 2 search engines???

Nahhhh, posting on the internet counts as a search engine!

[burnt tendon]

DEAR HUGO. SEND US MONEY OR WE WILL SEND THE BABY SHARKNADO.

LOVE, THE CRIMINALS

[limber jackal]

lol

[tardy badger]

The most recent episode of WandaVisiom 🤯

[limber jackal]

I've heard a bit about that show (as in heard the name bandied about). Maybe I should have a look? Also, because whenever I hear the name "Wanda", I think of Wanda Sykes. Does she have any involvement with the show, or have I just so engrained my association of the name "Wanda" with a single specific Wanda?

[late fulcrum]

I don't think she's involved. "Wanda" is the first name of the Marvel character also known as "Scarlet Witch". It's an intriguing show.

[burnt tendon]

I have invoked my "Well, if everybody is still excited about it after it ends, maybe I'll promise myself to watch it even though honestly I'll probably never get around to it" rule.

[dusty citrus]

I watch things five years from now, that were out, now. ;)

There's been a few exceptions, but not a lot of them.

[limber jackal]

I'm so far behind on so many shows and movies, it's nearly surreal. Things that were out ~10+ years ago, I've barely watched

Let alone "contemporary"

[velvet pelican]

The only show ive kept up on is the mandalorian

Mostly I don’t watch tv or movies

[dusty citrus]

I watch reruns since I know where they are and what's in them. ;)

YouTube too involved.

I set a timer when I go into YouTube on the Roku.

When the timer's expired, I leave.

[sonic prism]

what ? but then how can you "watch until the end, number 10 will surprise you" ?

[dusty citrus]

Well everything's an attention trap, last n years.

'free' is relative.

Triliions in GDP potential consumed with jaw agape. (checked #topic)

I try to accurately picture who else is watching this

Do I want to be included in that cohort?

People used to play vinyl LP's backwards listening for 'messages' dotcom ;)

Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock warned us directly.

[late fulcrum]

I don't care what cohort I'm in ("In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"), but I have little patience for wasting my time.

[pearl vigil]

Lmao, thats my video game bind בשוק סמייא צווחין לעווירא סגי נהור

[limber jackal]

In reply to @hasty quarry from the discussion in #general-tech (#general-tech message)

What about the buffalo sentence? "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

[hasty quarry]

Ah, yes

Do you understand it?

I love it

Buffalo from buffalo, whom buffalo from Buffalo buffallo, buffalo buffalo from Buffalo

@limber jackal Do Police police Police police police police Police police?

Just wondering 🤔

[limber jackal]

🤷

lol

[hasty quarry]

Because if Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, then perhaps it's possible that Police police Police police police police Police police as well

[limber jackal]

If I were a linguist, I'd take up potato farming instead!

[sonic prism]

all I know is that badger badger badger badger badger badger, but that's not a sentence, juste an old meme

I love too that the wiki page has a diagram with sets

[hasty quarry]

Yes

It was tricky for me to get

[velvet pelican]

Ive never seen a badger so all i got to go on is this

[hasty quarry]

You know

I find it amazing sometimes when I can’t see

If it’s too dark

And all I have to do is touch my surroundings

And it’s like my mind maps it out for me

Just with touch

I feel like I can see without seeing. Does anyone know what I mean? If you see a place, and then move around it with your eyes closed, your brain just simulates sight using your other senses for context. And pretty accurately, too

[round hazel]

@hasty quarry, you would like The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks.

[zealous ermine]

i just had a print fail so hard that it delaminated the build plate material

how does this even happen....

[late fulcrum]

There's a kind of glass treatment done by glueing the glass to something and pulling it off, the glue pulls little bits out of the glass.

[zealous ermine]

woah, what's it called?

[late fulcrum]

Something like "glue chipped glass". https://www.richelieuglazingsupplies.com/ca/en/category/glass-mirror-polycarbonate-and-acrylic-sheets/glass/patterned-texture-glass/patterned-texture-glass/glue-chip-textured-glass/1191182/sku-PT3M60084GLU

[sterile phoenix]

hi

[dusty citrus]

Hi

[limber jackal]

Hi @sterile phoenix and @dusty citrus 👋

[hasty quarry]

Can someone help me factor annoying trinomials?

I need some kind of trick to do this quickly

In my assignment, I just got 24x^2 + 8x - 912 = 0

[umbral phoenix]

first step is to simplify the coefficients, makes inspection and math easier. Then, if it doesn't lend itself to solving it by inspection, use .Quadratic Formula.

[hasty quarry]

3x^2 + x - 116 = 0 is equivalent

[umbral phoenix]

114

[hasty quarry]

Oops

I also got b^2 + 8b - 560

Can't simplify it down more, and it's so big

The factors are -20 and 28, but I had to use a calculator

There's gotta be some trick to make those big numbers easier to think of

[umbral phoenix]

I don't know what this is: "b^2 + 8b - 560"

[hasty quarry]

Sorry, = 0

I have to factor it

[umbral phoenix]

the factors are not -20 and -28

[hasty quarry]

-20 and 28

[umbral phoenix]

oh, different problem? sorry

[hasty quarry]

Yeah, I got stuck on that one, I had to use a calculator

But I can't process 560

[umbral phoenix]

there may be other ways, but if not inspection... quadratic formula

[hasty quarry]

Hm

[umbral phoenix]

inspection works best if the coefficients on the 2nd degree and 1st degree terms aren't very large or don't have many factors... makes it easier to narrow down, like in the first example:

3x^2 + x - 114 = 0
so

±Ax + ± 3Bx = x```
and
```±A * ±B = 114```

2. ```while not factored:```
        🧠

3. ```(x - 6)(3x + 19)```
Profit!

but I usually jump straight to quadratic formula if inspection doesn't look simple

[umbral phoenix]

there are some factoring tactics here https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/factoring-quadratics.html and another method, "completing the square" here https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/factoring-quadratics.html

[weary fiber]

Working my way towards an EE degree!

[dusty citrus]

I wanted to do the same but I can't remember all the high school math by the time I get to exams :(

Congrats though!

I have tried 3 times to finish my grade 11 University level math but always fall flat on my face... yet I keep trying

I've basically given up on formal education and just started tinkering with electronics because even though I have time and money for a formal education, my brain doesn't work as well as it did in my teens or 20s

[tardy badger]

Moving to a new place at the end of the month so I figured I get some beefy network gear 🙂

Also adding a CCTV system to the network so the 24 port switch will be valuable for that

I’m a big fan of ubiquiti gear

[stray wind]

@tardy badger Ubiquiti is what we're running.

[burnt tendon]

I... think I hate all network gear.

[tardy badger]

It’s very intuitive and straight forward to manage

Plus you don’t pay to unlock additional services on their devices like a lot of other network gear

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, I worked at Cisco for a period and they were like "HERE, EMPLOYEE DEAL ON MERAKI" and I was like "Eh, no, not even at that discount"

I forget if it was free or just heavily discounted. 😄

[tardy badger]

I’ve installed probably $10K worth of Ubiquiti products and it’s a very nice experience

Currently running their consumer products where I am at. Leaving it with my sister

[burnt tendon]

Then, next job after that, it was a startup so network gear fell to me and the CTO and we were like "forget it, let's just buy Meraki because the fee is less than the time it's costing us to screw with it" and instead the maniac windows admin handed us a pile of excess Ubiquiti gear and it was mostly OK.

[tardy badger]

Idk, it was rough using initially from what I found on the forums. But it’s much better, even since I’ve started using it 3 years ago

[burnt tendon]

The maniac windows admin incident happened right around when it was discovered that they had bundled a 20 year old insecure version of PHP.

I'm kinda vaguely itching to do some home networking stuff and I might try out some of their gear just because I hate all network gear.

[tardy badger]

I’ve setup everything from basic LAN service to security cameras, point to point delivery network for outdoor events. Fun stuff

If you want something decent on the user features while being mostly plug and play, try out their consumer brand stuff

I’ve got it run up with cat6 all over the place and things and really nice

[dusty citrus]

right now I'm trying to build a mining rig but I can't find a darned video card other than scalpers ouff

[tardy badger]

You can set up multiple routers in wired backbone mode so you get a mesh without the bandwidth loss

I use whimsical names for my network.

[burnt tendon]

I do have some unrequited desire to have pulled off some grand larceny when a past startup shut down the office because I'd have loved to grab the Ubiquiti router, switch, and the 2U rackmount machine with a GPGPU card that they'd never give the love that I would.

(although, to be fair, I probably wouldn't give a Tesla GPGPU card much love either)

[limber jackal]

I recently updated my home routers, because the old one couldn't maintain a reasonable connection to the internet. correction It maintained the connection, it simply wouldn't ROUTE anything out. Went from prosumer-ish to a consumer lever device. Not a good choice!

[burnt tendon]

One thing I did discover was that if you happen to have a few extra Ubiquiti wifi thingies and set stuff up right, you can get some pretty wicked bandwidth using closely-spaced APs.

[tardy badger]

Oh yeah, it’s pretty sweet

Whenever I buy a house with some land, I’m either trenching fiber or I’m going to use the Ubiquiti building to building link that uses 60GHz band radio

Basically air fiber

https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-routing-switching/products/unifi-building-to-building-bridge

I’ve used their standard P2P Nanostation M2/M5 and they are pretty sweet

[umbral phoenix]

Internet speed is my bottleneck, so I don't get too excited about higher wifi bandwidth (it's already far better than internet).

There's no fiber or cable here, so I have a hodge-podge of DSL and mobile, with wired ethernet to as many places in the house as possible and good wifi covers the rest (like the fleet of Adafruit microcontrollers with wifi).

Still, when the planets align, I can get over 100Mbps download, even though no single WAN gets more than a couple dozen Mbps. 4K is the most demanding thing and that requires 25Mbps, so I can't even imagine what to do with gigabit or anything close.

[tardy badger]

I currently have 400mbps internet

Not sure what I can get with centurylink or xfinity

[umbral phoenix]

I've thought about putting a router at someone else's house, connecting multiple WANs between here and there, and exiting from there for better internet bandwidth.

[tardy badger]

Lol

Maybe I’ll pay for two connections and aggregate them

[umbral phoenix]

I already have multi-WAN routers

so putting a companion router somewhere else with gigabit, they wouldn't even notice my usage 😉

[tardy badger]

😂

[hasty quarry]

Can someone explain to me why x^(2/3) = cbrt x^2

[umbral phoenix]

denominator in a power is a root

[hasty quarry]

I need to wrap my head around that a bit more

[umbral phoenix]

x^(1/3) == cube root

[hasty quarry]

x^((2/1) * (1/3))?

Is that what's going on here?

[umbral phoenix]

yes

[hasty quarry]

I see

Thanks

[dusty citrus]

Samsung Galaxy S10
Android 10
TWRP
Rooted with Magisk

I just put my phone in ultra power saving mode, but unfortunately i cant unlock the lockscreen because i disabled samsung keyboard and now there is no keyboard where i can type in my password, and since i am in power saving mode it also disabled my other keyboards
So i tried removing the screenlock by deleting the locksetting files in /data/sys/, but since my phone is encrypted i can only see nonsensical filenames, so i dont know which files to delete
[04:32]
Can i safely delete every file there ?
[04:34]
I dont want to factory reset my device because i have a lot of important data on it
I already tried to remove the lock using https://findmymobile.samsung.com/, but it says that that function is disabled on my phone
I have no physical keyboard that i can plugin in into my phone
[04:36]
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/remove-bypass-lockscreen-with-recovery.3530008/
Can i safely delete the other files too ?
Because i dont know which encrypted filenames correlate to the files that i have to delete

[velvet pelican]

@tardy badger that 500m is that miles or meters?

Im guessing meters but man if thats miles im gonna buy one and help a buddy pay for internet lol

[dusty citrus]

i feel like the easiest/best option is getting a keyboard that you can connect physically; maybe go to a phone store or repair place and ask if you could just borrow one or something idk

[limber jackal]

I would guess meters as well, but if we can get the signal to follow along the curvature of the earth, or get the emitter and receiver high enough.... OOooooh yeah!

[honest jolt]

a bluetooth keyboard also works too, but since power saving mode is on, ig it won't let u turn bluetooth on

[velvet pelican]

I have a friend that gets a gig up/down for 60 a month. Im sure he wouldnt mind only paying 30 a month 😂

[sick adder]

This morning I've been slightly geektrapped by this: (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26076128)

This reminds me of a problem that was on the entrance examination to the University of Tokyo in 2003: “Prove that the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is greater than 3.05.” The problem was believed to have been posed as a protest against the dumbing down of the government-mandated curriculum, as elementary school children in Japan were being taught to use 3 as a substitute for pi in some calculations
How close can you come to 3.05? For me, the most "obvious" proof gets ||~3.106 as the lower bound and the 2nd most obvious gets ~3.061||
||The circumference of a circle is bigger than the perimeter of any inscribed regular n-gon. The perimeter of the unit regular hexagon is 6 (equilateral triangles). Now construct the 12-gon and use the Pythagorean theorem to find the length of the 12gon's sides, you have enough information. This is 6.211... You can do the same constructing an octagon from a square, giving 6.122... but I think the hexagon/12gon is prettier. If you could construct the 7-gon, it's too small, 6.07...||

vonadz

Pi from High School Maths

Hacker News · Feb 9, 2021, 11:11 AM

I assume that the proof should be without use of pi, sin, cos, tan, etc

[river temple]

I sometimes forget that understanding math is very difficult for a lot of people interested in mecha

Many robotics kits dont explain even electronics math and algebra concerning specific scaling of prototypes conponants.

Im helpful with math in python and regular expressions to filter and analyze log files in Linux using bash/regex statement scripting.

Essential skills that I can teach people

I goes along with fundamentals of pretty much everything in electronics and mechatronix

I passed math converting algebra and calculus formulas using languages like python to solve for x for example. I learned math that way

I don't think everyone can learn math with programming right away.

[polar bloom]

Math and programming are really two different things, and numerical programming is different again from either. 😄

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, I've met people who were good at math, told they'd love computer science, and then rapidly discovered that it was absolutely not the subject for them.

[hasty quarry]

I am incredibly frustrated

First exam in my dual credit algebra class, I fail with a 65

[dusty citrus]

In high school algebra, one of the more skilled students called out 'the answer' before I could get to it, so I lost interest in trying.

[sick adder]

https://lwn.net/Articles/845522/rss

[dusty citrus]

@zealous ermine https://jupiterdeuce.blogspot.com/

[zealous ermine]

👀

[dusty citrus]

Here's the github:
https://github.com/flypie/Ace-2019

[zealous ermine]

👌 thanks!!

[dusty citrus]

;)

[dusty citrus]

So I got the um .. what's it called. BBC thing.

micro:Bit.

It's v1.5 but there's a new v2.0 out.

(I felt ridiculous ordering the allowable one rp2-pico RP2040 target for $4 so I sprang for a $15 micro:Bit too)

[sonic prism]

it's a really cute little piece of electronics

[dusty citrus]

Lower left corner of the back of the box, above FCC-ID is where it says it.

@sonic prism It's very slick - I was impressed!

my quarters must be bigger than the real ones because I always scale it wrong from a photo

It's also my only official mbed MCU I think.

[sonic prism]

the version number is on the back bottom right of the board too

[dusty citrus]

and it'll do close work radio! wow.

[sonic prism]

I got a 1.5 and a 2.0 and made them select random images and send them to each other to play around with makecode

[dusty citrus]

What kind of distance are you getting .. all the way out to 25 feet or so?

[sonic prism]

ah I didn't test the distance

[dusty citrus]

My best bluetooth stuff does about 30 feet.

I had a weird headset from Jabra that was good to more like 75'.

I wonder if anybody's ever hog-tied a drone and flew it on a 3 foot tether it tries to escape but cannot

or if the autopilot can be taught to fly within those constraints

[velvet pelican]

I like my new headset for my pc it will go around 70 feet through walls n such

[zealous ermine]

pointing a camera at a DLP projector is so cool, the rolling shutter allows you to see the color wheel effects

[burnt tendon]

Best way to visualize what's going on, bar none

[sick adder]

trying out my new pi 400 and .. discord web page is a bit laggy. I'm guessing there's not an installable version either

[tardy badger]

Someone should make a discord CLI service LOL

[honest jolt]

What are the chances of malware not being detected but infecting other executable and then having those executable marked as malware? Windows Defender just marked 2 of my program binaries (which I developed and built myself) as malware. I feel offended 😅

[honest jolt]

On Discord's download page, (https://discord.com/download) there is an option to download for Linux for .deb or .tar.gz. probably not for ARM

[stoic mesa]

@tardy badger I would assume Emacs has discord mode built-in.
It has modes for just about everything

[burnt tendon]

If it doesn't, it'll eventually be replaced by a text editor that does.

[stoic mesa]

someone should really make a KiCad plugin for emacs, so that real fans of Emacs can design PCBs without leaving their favorite editor

[limber jackal]

What if we're all living in a simulation, that is simply another Emacs mode where someone got a tad too clever?

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/mind-blown-head-explode-amazing-shocking-wow-gif-19681784

[thick iron]

@limber jackal It doesn't matter. Simulation or not. To be or not to be, that's the question. 😆

[limber jackal]

So, you're asking, am I a 1 or a 0? Or am I an Emacs mode of my own?

[thick iron]

Help→Emacs Psychotherapist

[stoic mesa]

oh yes, the venerable Eliza, one of the first chatbots ever written

[limber jackal]

Tell me more about the venerable Eliza, one of the first chatbots ever written

[dusty citrus]

The main difference in a Simulation is you can have the Easter Bunny but keep all the laws of physics intact.

Wednesday is anything-can-happen Day

Even in a dream, you still defend what there is to defend, there.

I doubt a machine can 'care' about anything, ever, for all time. ;)

Not like we do.

True 'agency' would be difficult to cause to come into being, from not.

[thick iron]

The concept of “machine " exists only in our heads. What it can do and how it behaves. Maybe your "all time care" is the work of the machine. Think about it

[dusty citrus]

where do you get stuff like that from. ;)

[fading turtle]

Hi all. I asked a question in the Live Chat earlier that has been itching away at me for a while. I've thought about the question a bit more, and have a better way to word it..... At this point, where is the line drawn between "hobbiest" and "industrial"? I recognize "industrial" often means things are optically isolated or isolated from noise. But aside from that, what else is different?

Could an argument not be made that a hobbiest item could be used in an industrial product or environment?

[umbral phoenix]

hobbyist is a pretty general term and could encompass anything accessible to individual makers

I'm not aware of any particular rigor to the term "industrial" either but it implies a level of robustness

(or at least people tend to infer a level of robustness)

industrial would tend to be business-to-business goods, but companies like clearly sell many of the same products to companies and hobbyists

[arctic peak]

The question is less "could this work" but more "Who ends up with the winning the lawsuit when things go wrong"

[fading turtle]

I get pushback from colleagues who don't even want to think about selling a product with a "hobby" board in it.

Lawsuits have never even been brought up.

[arctic peak]

Technically a UL/CSA/CE/CCC certified product is no more advanced than anything you buy off tindie. Those stamps just mean that the vendor's things do the things they say they do according to whatever standards are applied.

[fading turtle]

To me, it seems purely psycologicial.

Well, there can be testing involved with CE.

[arctic peak]

We built our first 400k USD in (product) sales on Adafruit products.

[fading turtle]

I sell products to people who them get CE certs.

Do you worry that because it has a "hobby" part in it, that something may go wrong?

Sounds like a lot of product

[arctic peak]

In our application? No. We just needed a processor & screen to run our software on.

We just RMA'd it at the first sign of trouble and it was fine.

[fading turtle]

When I started playing with "hobby" electronics 20 years ago, we never had breakout boards.

Now, I see them as building blocks.

[arctic peak]

Totally.

[fading turtle]

And, if you only sell 100-1000 of something a year, its a feasible path.

Obviously more, and you should just make a board, right. But, a full on $5 QTpy can do a LOT of stuff.

I feel like I'm having a get off my lawm moment.

[arctic peak]

Yeah, it all depends on your requirements. I can name some other vendors that are just dev-kits in a custom branded box.

Slap a bit of SW in it and you have yourself a product.

[fading turtle]

That's kinda the point. It's all about teh software.

What form carries the software should not matter.

If size is okay, and function is okay, and PROFIT is okay, then it should be okay. But... it's not okay.

Cause it's a "hobby" board.

I think I feel better now. Thanks! 🙂

[arctic peak]

Good to hear

[fading turtle]

In a more upbeat note.... I brought home a test stand to measure free play of something that a Chinese colleague designed and built. The whole line was moved to Mexico, where this tester then failed to work, or stopped working after some time. It was shipped to me to fix. I just opened it up, cause I couldn't wait until the morning to see what was inside. Turns out, he pretty much did it EXACTLY how I would have done it. This also made me feel very very good.

[supple surge]

How NOT to add insulation to your project 🙃😛

[thick iron]

🙄😬🙄

[burnt tendon]

I'm not going to wax estatic about that idea.

[limber jackal]

"Unfortunately, Daniel was not as effective as Mr. Miyagi at explaining the 'Wax on, wax off' method of training"

[trim grail]

Has anyone here with knowledge and experience on using logic analyzers ever worked with the Kingst LA2016 analyzers? They seem pretty good for the price, you get 200MHz sampling rate through all 16 channels at once, -4v to 4v threshhold, 1Gbit of internal sampling memory, has compression sampling, and it's software is essentially a Saleae Logic clone

All for roughly $100? That sounds fantastic on paper! But just that, on paper, so I'm trying to find some feedback on them to see if it's worth picking up

[zealous ermine]

Does it have any customer reviews?

the -4v to 4v rating also seems a little weird

[hasty quarry]

Little thought experiment. If I magically snapped my fingers right now, and all languages disappeared, making the whole world just speak English, but let cultures say intact

How long would it take for the regions to root into practically new languages again

[dusty citrus]

@hasty quarry Just isolate them and see. ;)

Same reason the squirrels at the bottom of the Grand Canyon are different from those up on the rim.

(big hole in Arizona carved by the Colorado River)

we occasionally get black squirrels here, but not every year, and the south part of town always gets them first, indicating they travel up the river valley, maybe.

I thought you were going to finish the question's sentence with 'what would happen if they had no language at all - what 'language' would they 'think in'.

[hasty quarry]

That is also a good question

But I feel like thought is raw

When we know a language, and think, I believe we don’t think in the language. Our brain is just so used to forming internal thought into words that it just does it without thinking about it, along side the raw thinking

Without a language, we could still process environmental inputs and form outputs from them

[umbral phoenix]

lack of "language" is probably one of the reasons we don't remember being babies

[dusty citrus]

@hasty quarry when I was near drowning, inverted in a kayak in whitewater, that first time, the 'thought' that saved my life didn't seem to be in any way verbal.

It was more like a video camera aimed at my hand grasping the release of the neoprene skirt.

Which is what I did as soon as I had that visual in my head.

There was no obi-wan whispering 'use the force Luke'

After ten such events it's more like muscle memory and limb use memory.

I can stand under a light bulb and reach up and unthread it without looking -- every time.

muscle memory.

[hasty quarry]

That's what I'm saying. Thought isn't as sectioned or organized as language

It's just "thought". It's raw. If we hear voices in our head while thinking, it's just to organize our thoughts a bit better occasionally

Language is just something we think about so often, our mind treats it like thought's right hand man

I bet those don't know a language make associations nonetheless. To sounds, to tastes

But, about what anec said, that's a good thought. You know how learning is far facilitated through mnemonics?

I bet that's related

Could be why memories are made so much easier with a language to sort of...shape memories into. If you witness a car accident, you have a way to "compress" that into a format that can be stored way easier

"Car accident". It's serialized into your memory as that, with connections like adjectives describing it, the time it happened. Probably much more organized than raw thought would store it

Jeez...data abstraction is everywhere

[dusty citrus]

@hasty quarry We learned to throw projectiles to hunt.

Conversion of function, vision.

We see in saccades.

Apparently those mechanisms (or some of thems) are the basis of all language.

Maybe William Calvin on this .. I don't remember the source.

This is the one I read from him:
http://www.williamcalvin.com/bk5/bk5pref.htm

Could have been Daniel C Dennet's Consciousness Explained too. Or both. ;)

[sterile phoenix]

Hi

[sterile phoenix]

That's true.... No words to describe out childhood from 0to4years maybe..... But even the proper development of the brain and the body may be the reason

[light ice]

Opinions wanted for my GIF project:

https://twitter.com/fast_code_r_us/status/1360622415844409350?s=20

The Performance Whisperer (@fast_code_r_us)

Since GIF isn't going away, how much interest is there in augmenting the GIF standard to include PNG-style filters? Benefits:

• Similar compression ratios to PNG, yet simpler than FLATE
• Still runs on MCUs with >= 32K RAM
• Reduces internet bandwidth and CPU usage worldwide

Twitter · Feb 13, 2021, 4:10 PM

[dusty citrus]

Dudes
What are some ciphers that are as simple and work like a stream cipher, but dont have the drawback that you arent allowed to use the same key more than once ?
@me

[late fulcrum]

@dusty citrus Many stream ciphers simple create a stream of bits that are XORed with the data to be encrypted. Because of this, you can use all sorts of bitstreams that way. One simple one is a pseudo-random number generator, just seed it with your key. Restrictions on using keys more than once are generally not part of the cipher itself, but some framework that uses the cipher.

[zealous ermine]

I had a dream where my laptop had a fingerprint scanner on it

I woke up and opened my laptop... most disappointed I've been in a while

[dusty citrus]

I once had a dream where I had blue eyes. I was startled when I looked in the real mirror after waking up and they weren't blue. ;)

Very surprised by the carry-over.

Sam Harris has a recent podcast on split brain that goes into this quite a bit.

Basically the left hemisphere will make up stories. ;)

#234 - The Divided Mind
A Conversation with Iain McGilchrist
https://samharris.org/podcasts/234-divided-mind/

McGilchrist is some sort of theologian btw.

Like Isaac Newton before him, he appears to know when he's doing science, and when he is not.

[pearl vigil]

Are there cases in the wild (In the scope of microcontrollers) where stripped ELF files are loaded directly into program memory, so that the bootloader can properly load multiple binaries which may have been updated?

[dusty citrus]

If you flash code to a micro you'll usually find the flashROM undisturbed except in the region you wrote to.

So if you flash CircuitPython (pretty much guaranteed to take up most of the on-chip flashROM) and then reflash with something smaller, you can browse the undisturbed part of Circuit Python left behind from the earlier flash procedure.

Usually you have to erase and then write flash, so if you need to retain any of it, you have to provide a means to do so (like holding a vase in one hand to lift it so you can wipe the table top it was resting on, with a cleaning cloth).

The low end is often written in 16 kb chunks.

The higher end in much larger chunks.

ST-LINK (for ST micros) will image your entire flash over a wire to your PC and you can reload it back to the target board over the same wire (USB).

In eForth I've managed to modify SRAM, write it to flashROM, then image the flashROM, then modify it on the host PC, then flash it back to the MCU's flash and it ran exactly as before. ;)

[pearl vigil]

Yeah I understand this concept fine, but I need to be able to load a set of binaries from the bootloader, and elf+multiboot seemed like the perfect way to provide a flexable ABI.

The actual updating isnt really related to my question, I just imagine elf must be common in updatable systems

[sick adder]

today our house is trying to maintain an 81°F (45°C) temperature differential with the outside.

[tardy badger]

Oh that sounds interesting

How negative are the temps?

[sick adder]

-13°F (-25°C)

we're weaklings I'm a weakling so we leave the thermostat at 68

[tardy badger]

68 isn’t too bad

[sick adder]

I'm sure my spouse would happily suffer at 62

[tardy badger]

I usually like it around 64-66°F

[sick adder]

68°F is the set point on the main level, but I work in the basement so it's more like 64-65°F if I don't turn on my space heater too.

and I am not happy with those temps

actually haven't measured it during this time because I don't want to know. It's probably lower than that.

[tardy badger]

The house I am in currently has not central HVAC. It’s 200 years old and very drafty. My office space is usually in the low 50s in the mornings here

I run a space heater to get it manageable to do my day job

Can’t be too wild as it’s only a 15A circuit

No common ground either

[limber jackal]

I'd be ok with low-mid 60s in the house, but "I ain't from 'round here" as I've heard it said about me. So instead, we're asking a Texas HVAC system to keep the house at 69F when it's 8F outside. With rolling blackouts happening (not affected yet). We've got a fun 3 days ahead of us here. sigh

[sick adder]

I haven't checked in with my friend in Sherman TX (1h north of Dallas on a good day) yet. He lived in Nebraska (here where I am) for 25 years so he's prepared for cold, snow & ice but the infra in Texas is NOT.

[arctic peak]

I live in the north in a very old house. Setting the temp to 55*F is a financial decision for me.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/02/heating-people-not-spaces.html

That article helped me to be very comfortable regardless. I've got heated blankets in strategic low-activity spots and when I'm doing something active I find 55 is perfectly comfortable with a sweatshirt.

[velvet pelican]

just string a copper wire to the grounding pin of the plug and put a stake flower pot in the room... proper grounding acheaved 🤣

[limber jackal]

No, no it isn't! I'm in Dallas, so I have a good idea where Sherman is. Right on the OK border, and enjoying the extra meteorological fun that the Red River might bring

[limber jackal]

Make sure the flower pot isn't on a stand, it must stay on the ground!

[sick adder]

You mean, I'm too optimistic about the drive time? or something else?

and yeah his house pipes are frozen geez 😦

[limber jackal]

No, drive time seems right. My "no" was about the infrastructure. Not setup for it at all.

Oh man, hope he gets them thawed before they burst.

[sick adder]

oh well, the household has 4 cats to act as mini-space-heaters

[limber jackal]

I've had coworkers in the are affected by the rolling blackouts multiple times already since 6am. It's barely 9am now.

[velvet pelican]

rolling blackouts from what? too many people running heaters?

[sick adder]

@velvet pelican yeah basically

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-weather/article/Rolling-power-outages-reported-in-Houston-area-15951584.php

[velvet pelican]

ahh yeah yall dont get cold weather often down there

that 100 car pileup was a sad scene of people that dont understand how to drive in the cold.... i feel like that should be a pass or fail question on the driving tests about how fast you should go in different condition or maybe a what to do to know how fast you should go

[limber jackal]

Yeah, that pileup was nuts. People already tailgate crazy close on good days, so when black ice and stuff like that happens, welp, you get a Friday-like situation

And yeah, rolling power outages in the North Texas area too, from power demand. From what I've heard and read, it's state-wide since it's requested by ERCOT, the "Electric Reliability Council Of Texas" which, from what I gather, manage generation and distribution.

[velvet pelican]

Yeah that fedex semi was going way way too fast... the video i saw didn’t have any of the other cars speeds just that single semi barreling down the interstate

[dusty citrus]

This one I really like:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3791
but
this one's now in stock:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3718

Both are valuable to me. ;)

(circuit board holders)

I use 3791 to hold a perma-proto for the main target board, and 3718 to hold its companion CP2104 Friend (target: RP2040) back quiet.

I stick a small breadboard with the adhesive backing onto one of those small perfboards in the 10-pack, and clamp that into the 3718.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2670 perfboard 10 pk

[limber jackal]

Signs you've been doing too much Python in your off-time: trying to use the keyword self instead of this in C# 🤦

[ocean sigil]

Understanding that is a sign you you spend too much time programming.... 😉

[sick adder]

if it were C++ you could #define self this but I dunno how you fix it in C#

[limber jackal]

:%s/\Wself\./this./g

[limber jackal]

How can it be too much time? I try to keep it to less than 170 hours/week

Or maybe it's less than 0x100 hours. I lose track

[polar bloom]

It just means you need to switch to Objective-C.

[tardy badger]

Me: •explains to friend that power failures in the south is because the massive load heating put on the system rather than green energy sucking•
Them: •proclaims love for coal and disdain for green energy•

Me:

https://tenor.com/view/facepalm-really-stressed-mad-angry-gif-16109475

[limber jackal]

https://giphy.com/gifs/firefly-drawing-motivation-UvwI1X7XkbXq0

[umbral phoenix]

Up here (Chicago), a lot of the heat is gas, never had a disruption with that (and winter heating bills are much lower than summer A/C bills). There are pockets of wind once you get into the rural areas. Solar is just starting to make inroads.

[tardy badger]

Well the argument of their meme was that green energy sources can’t operate in the cold (categorically false) and I just tried to scientifically reason it out to them.

[limber jackal]

Some neighborhoods have gas around Dallas. Partially depends on age, partially depends on whether the developer wanted to spend the extra money go get gas lines plumbed into the neighborhood.

I'd LOVE to have gas for heating and cooking, alas..... However, apparently nearby neighborhoods also had their gas off today 🤷

[tardy badger]

Gas lines in the south can freeze because they are poorly insulated

Also, gas lines can freeze in the dead of summer.

Lol

[limber jackal]

Yeah, green energy in deep cold sucks... See how it doesn't work in Antarctica?
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/antarctic-operations/stations/amenities-and-operations/renewable-energy/wind-power/

Oh wait, dang. I meant the opposite! 😁

[tardy badger]

I’m not dissing fossil fuels, just a little annoying when people think it’s the only good power source and use horrible memes of horrible misinformation

I worked for a time in the oil and gas industry, made a penny or two from it. But I definitely like the portability of solar

[pearl vigil]

In normal operation, this is quite true, in fact solar panels efficiency increases drastically, enough so that it can work to offset the lack of sun a bit and allow them to remain economical

[tardy badger]

That was my point that I was making to my friend

[pearl vigil]

Source: Germany's grid

[tardy badger]

But they grew up in a coal town in Wyoming so they might be horribly biased

[pearl vigil]

Yeah, same issue here in the applilation mountain range

[tardy badger]

Yeah, definitely get that. I’m in western NC

Not as much coal here but the mindset persists

[stone orbit]

One of the reasons Germany has solar power that is "economical" is because fossil fuels are so heavily taxed. That isn't quite true in the States but we'll get there.

Taxes can force price parity.

[pearl vigil]

I did the math for my area, Im quite far north and in the US, if I cared to keep a house for ~20 years, its economical for me to have a big install

Which, I will someday, and that includes sale, 32 years if not

[tardy badger]

I have plans to install solar whenever I buy a house

[pearl vigil]

Im young and wish to someday have a house, makes sense to me

[tardy badger]

Hopefully I can get some land too and put up a decent array

[real falcon]

i do want here to have solar but eh dunno

[pearl vigil]

And I think skerr earlier was referring to the disinformation from energy companies, it gets really messed up when it intersects with black lung issues in case anyone is not familiar, big issue where we are

[tardy badger]

Exactly

[stone orbit]

Because solar is not too reliable in the winter which is when we tend to have power failures, I think a natural gas backup generator is better first purchase here.

[tardy badger]

Solar is theoretically and in practice more efficient in cold weather which was the point I was making.

Not withstanding snow storms

Thermal runaway is the thief of solar electrical efficiency

[pearl vigil]

Its all a balancing act, the nice thing about fossil fuels is you can just spin it up on demand (Excluding coal) so you can use it to supplement and still dramatically reduce emissions

[stone orbit]

It takes a lot of solar to run heat and a refrigerator in an overcast winter day if the electrical grid is down. More than I can fit on my roof.

[tardy badger]

Also true, which is why I don’t necessarily dis fossil fuels. They have a place and use case.

I just dislike unnecessarily dishing on a technology during a weather event that could even cripple fossil fuel systems

[stone orbit]

Fossil fuels don't help if the power grid is down due to ice bringing down trees on the lines unless one has on site power generation.

[tardy badger]

Which is why this discord is great because meaningful discussion can be had

Those line arcs were kind of cool to watch

[stone orbit]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against solar. I designed, manufactured and shipped over 4000 electrical control systems for solar charged battery backed up roadside message signs. I've been through the insolation calculations many times. But eventually, solar runs down if there isn't enough sun in the winter.

[pearl vigil]

Then dont do laundry if you had a solar panel so you have enough to heat your home, idk really what to say, a lot of people with gas require the grid to be up to, its all about the specific situation

[stone orbit]

And you can't charge an electric vehicle with any reasonable home solar system.

[real falcon]

runs down?

as in it wears?

[stone orbit]

@real falcon runs down = dead battery

[pearl vigil]

You would be amazed how many super efficient non-pilot boilers are deployed. And why are you about to drive in the snow storm anyways?

[real falcon]

ah ok though usually more windy in winter, so wind power could help keep it up

[pearl vigil]

And there are solar boilers which are common where I live to provide efficient heat

[stone orbit]

Wait until there is no snow storm and the electrical grid has been out for 3 days.

[pearl vigil]

I havnt left my house in 3 days, doing just fine

And if I had solar, I would have power

Get starlink and you can watch netflix too

I just know people with solar installs who live in the middle of no where with solar boilers, and heat pumps, they can go weeks without power and they are just fine

[stone orbit]

I think you are missing the point. If you run the calculations, which I have, and you have reliable natural gas, then a better purchase might be a natural gas back up power system.

Solar is not a universal answer,

[tardy badger]

Mixed source systems are better solutions in my opinion

[real falcon]

theres no such thing as universal answer on power generation

[stone orbit]

Agreed

[pearl vigil]

Yes, but its not a impossible problem even if you want to go solar

All about $$$

Always has been

[tardy badger]

Anyone who thinks fossil fuels will be completely gone don’t understand the logistical and physical impossibility of powering using alternative means

So actively reducing it where we can is a more practical solution than attempting to completely eliminate it

[stone orbit]

@pearl vigil No, it isn't if you have to cut down 20-30 trees because you live on a heavily wooded lot. That isn't about $$$ thats about preserving the planet.

[pearl vigil]

VS making a gas pipeline?

[tardy badger]

Vs mining for coal vs drilling for oil

[stone orbit]

I agree. I also agree that we need to invest more in manufacturing high efficiency solar cells in the States to reduce the cost/kw.

[tardy badger]

Agreed

I’m not a big fan of wind energy due to end of life logistics being a complete mess

Also dead birds

And bats

[pearl vigil]

I also think this is the sort of thing tax breaks for companies were made for, though sadly I cannot suggest that because so far tax breaks are not exactly a tool of the people

[stone orbit]

They have specifically failed when trying to promote efficient solar cell manufacturing.

[pearl vigil]

Yep

[stone orbit]

I suspect we will spend more money transporting oil from Canada by rail and truck than is saved by canceling the Keystone pipeline because we will need that oil long before we find a replacement for it.

[tardy badger]

TransCanada Corp sells a bulk of their oil overseas

It doesn’t really support domestic energy prominence

[stone orbit]

"I suspect " I offer no proof at this time.

[pearl vigil]

Fun fact, we have already pumped enough oil out of the ground to literally make the planet uninhabitable, just in reserves.

There is actually no reason to get more

Transporting is another topic

But, the oil ship has sailed

[tardy badger]

It would be more efficient oil wise to use smaller refineries closer to the source than pipe it thousands of miles to a refinery

It would also reduce total ecological impact of pipelines

[stone orbit]

That makes sense.

[real falcon]

pipes means leak soon

its very corrosive and companies always try cheap out

[tardy badger]

It could probably also reduce localized costs and make pricing more consistent nation wide

Also imagine powering a refinery off solar lol

[real falcon]

they already have solar at oil pumping stations at ocean

[pearl vigil]

Thats... almost tragically funny.

[real falcon]

yeah

[tardy badger]

Interesting enough most well sites in oil and gas fields are solar powered

Too expensive to run power to individual sites

[stone orbit]

We have solar almost anywhere that it is cheaper than getting electrical power to the location. Like the electrical companies using solar monitoring on the grid where it is cheaper to use solar than put in an expensive step down transformer for a small load.

[tardy badger]

Yeah

[stone orbit]

Many electrical companies don't trust solar with battery back-up unless they have high insolation.

Cyberduck was already taken?

[limber jackal]

From my understanding, trademarks is what Adafruit uses to protect their products. So nobody else can call their identical product "Cyberdeck". Just like if someone took the schematics to the CPX and made their own, they couldn't call it "Circuit Playground Express"

Trademarks help protect your brand

[tardy badger]

@sterile walrus I doubt the Adafruit team would really do anything about it, mostly because of the intent is different then say someone trying to rip off Adafruit customers or any activities that could negatively affect the brand/business

[stone orbit]

https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/texas-electric-grid-operator-says-frozen-wind-turbines-are-hampering-states-power-output-report

[tardy badger]

12GW of energy crazy

Not a big fan of wind

[stone orbit]

@sterile walrus Did you read the article above?

[tardy badger]

The end of life logistics are terrible for wind too

They can’t recycle the blades so they burry them.

Well, they probably could but it would highly cost prohibitive

[stone orbit]

The people in Texas who are sitting in the dark may not be too keen on wind right now.

[dusty citrus]

I'm a longtime member of both the cyberdeck and Adafruit discord servers.

I'm more than a little concerned about a decades-old term getting registered by anyone

[limber jackal]

My guess would be carbon fiber, but that's purely 100% know-nothing guess

[pearl vigil]

Wind has a lot of issues, same here

Unless in some very niche cases

[limber jackal]

In trying to think through what would lock up the wind turbines from the cold, I wonder if it isn't down to lubrication. I suspect the lubricants are probably more geared towards warm (aka SWELTERING) weather conditions, than they are sub-zero (Centigrade)

[pearl vigil]

My state put a lot of money into off shore wind, turns out the salt in the wind is like sandpaper

[stone orbit]

More or less, solar panels and wind turbines both require rare earths. Those should be re-recyclable. And we need to do that anyway before China stops supplying rare earth elements.

They already use all of that they can get in Kansas.

[pearl vigil]

I think the next big step for humans is asteroid mining, and it will remain a issue until we can reliably do that, which wont be for a very long time.

The ability to source materials from another body puts us in another class of civilization

[stone orbit]

Maybe we should re-think clean, safe nuclear energy.

[pearl vigil]

I was watching some videos on micro reactors, interesting stuff

[real falcon]

except we dont actually build and use em,

usa goverment mandated it, and nuclear centers all said "sure sure" and didnt do it

stored em at warehouses