general-chat

[quartz rune]

Even if it was just used to give hte human calculators a break

[tardy badger]

Lol

[velvet pelican]

the other day i was watching water heater explosions from watts... a video from the 50s

[tardy badger]

The history of hot water heaters is fascinating

[velvet pelican]

that steam is a volatile thing

[quartz rune]

I've seen pictures of boiler disasters from before the ASME existed, truly terrifying

[velvet pelican]

yeah

just a regular electric water heater can do alot of damage

if the failsafes arent there that is

[tardy badger]

Back when water heaters were wood burning, lots of water explosions and death happened

[quartz rune]

aint progress grand

[tardy badger]

Indeed it is

[velvet pelican]

actually last year in a town south of me someone plugged off the relief due to it dripping and his water heater room and bedroom wall went away... i dont remember how far the tank was away but it was quite a distance

[dusty citrus]

This lecture looks good to me:

Light Years Ahead | The 1969 Apollo Guidance Computer
Feb 4, 2020
https://youtu.be/B1J2RMorJXM

[velvet pelican]

ever since getting into plumbing it makes me realize how important basic education into safety devices is and makes me question why arent those things taught in schools

[quartz rune]

I spoken to teachers about stuff like this before. It's room in the curriculum and funding

[dusty citrus]

I had one of those cartoon/three stooges moments with an attempt at plumbing repair.

[quartz rune]

they only have kids for so long and a lot of other people want stuff taught too

[dusty citrus]

I got soaked. ;)

[velvet pelican]

what were ya repeairing?

[dusty citrus]

Just a toilet.

I hadn't figured out the nut needed tightening to make it seal.

At some point I had vertical water. Probably just 2 quarts on the floor.

[velvet pelican]

yeah i dont see why they couldnt take out something less needed like civics... seems it would do more good to teach basic safety

[dusty citrus]

So that's when I gave the shutoff valve such a hard twist I thought it'd break (it's fine; still there even today).

[quartz rune]

Some people might say civics is important 🙂 But that's offtopicofftopic

[velvet pelican]

ahh yeah toilets.. making that wax ring seal is always fun... gotta ride the bowl down then tighten it

[dusty citrus]

The shutoff packing nut had worked loose and it was dripping.

But in the process of repairing the auto float valve that broke permanently.

I had it shut down and no leaks, but needed a plumber to do the install.

I could do it now, since I watched what he did. ;)

[velvet pelican]

yeah

do you have multiturn stop valves or are they 1/4 turn?

[dusty citrus]

I'm going to go with 2.5 rotations but I dare not touch it to verify. ;)

[velvet pelican]

yeah those are multiturn

[dusty citrus]

Maybe it's 2.5 semi-rotations (180 degrees times 2.5)

[velvet pelican]

if you buy a brass craft one then you can replace the guts of them and have basically a brand new valve

[dusty citrus]

450 degrees if that's right. ;)

[velvet pelican]

just in case ya ever have one fail on ya... cuz they commonly do

especially on the hot side

[dusty citrus]

180 180 90 450

[velvet pelican]

yup

[dusty citrus]

The basement shutoff was too sketchy to risk touching.

That left me with the one right at the toilet.

[velvet pelican]

copper piping?

[dusty citrus]

Yeah I would say, not PVC.

[velvet pelican]

yeah cpvc is the worst next to a grey pipe called quest

[dusty citrus]

Once I put a wrench on the packing nut of the toilet shutoff my life got much simpler. ;)

They should really do greywater recovery plumbing in new buildings.

[velvet pelican]

yeah if you shut off your wter pull that packing nut and spin the valve out you can replace the guts and have brand new parts that way if a packing nut wont stop dripping

[dusty citrus]

Water that's not unsanitary enough or full of suspended detrius to justify sending it back to the water treatment plant.

[velvet pelican]

they are starting to do some water reclamation stuff

like dish water ive seen get filtered and then water a garden

[dusty citrus]

I think fresh clean water will not be in enough supply for the number of people wanting it.

[velvet pelican]

they only filter heavy debris

[dusty citrus]

I kind of liked it that they 'ponly' filter. ;)

[velvet pelican]

some of the filtering systems are pretty amazing these days... they just cost a fair bit

lol it filters out the ponies

[dusty citrus]

The reservoir nearby was constructed in 1912 for triple the capacity they required.

Now it's at full capacity. Or not quite keeping up with demand.

We don't yet have mandatory restrictions on water use.

That's got to be very near on the horizon though.

When they built that reservoir, they also built another one in a different watershed .. solely to replace the water power stolen by the first reservoir.

Literally they named it the 'Compensating Reservoir' lol.

The land clearly does not support the population currently resident on it. ;)

The reservoirs were built at a time when land use was much (much) less than now.

[limber jackal]

Since Apollo 11 was mentioned earlier, reminded me of something that was mentioned on the "Smarter Every Day" Youtube channel, called "Apollo in Real Time"
https://www.apolloinrealtime.org/

It's a deeeeeeeeep rabbit hole!
🐇

[dusty citrus]

Yeah we were hopping up and down excited when they went to the moon.

That was some serious science fiction turned reality. Still blows my mind.

[velvet pelican]

@dusty citrus what state are you in? it seems they always drill wells in a do towers when resivours cant keep up

[dusty citrus]

Connecticut.

[velvet pelican]

hmm i never realized there was that many population wise in connecticut

[dusty citrus]

we gots new york nearby. ;)

[velvet pelican]

for some reason my brain went that state is less inhabited lol

and yeah new york is completly overstuffed

[dusty citrus]

The entire New England coastal corridor is full of people.

[velvet pelican]

yeah the original colonies

it makes sense as to why

[dusty citrus]

In Maine you go very far inland there's no cellular. Cellular follows the Interstate highways. ;)

[velvet pelican]

ive never been all the way to the east coast

been to georgia and michigan and thats about the furthest east ive been

wanted to go to the east coast till covid hit.... then i was like nah ill wait

[dusty citrus]

Yeah I'm the opposite - tagged up in Tucson AZ and a few places of similar longitude but never went the last 400 miles to the Pacific.

[velvet pelican]

yup arizona is just too hot

[finite monolith]

good place to stop, nothing good west of us 😉

[dusty citrus]

I was threatening to visit Paris France till this thing happened. ;)

[velvet pelican]

i would like to visit norway and switzerland

[finite monolith]

I've been as far east as Corpus Christi & South Padre Island, TX, in July. SO MUCH HUMIDITY

[velvet pelican]

when i went through texas it was just hot with low humidity

[dusty citrus]

I invented #general-chat right here:

<#help-with-projects message>

Definitely give props to @abstract violet for their #random suggestion. ;)

[velvet pelican]

still one of my favorite channels as ive always been a little bit random in what i chat with people about

[dusty citrus]

Topicality never matters until it suddenly matters a lot. ;)

I'm more of a random walk when it comes to topics.

I try to stay out of channels where they're doing focused work.

I held back a detailed composed post to a channel for eight minutes because someone else was having a discussion I didn't want to interrupt.

Having discord-canary helps .. can switch over to that window.

[dusty citrus]

https://preview.tinyurl.com/nis-makes-offtopic

With 'preview' the original can be reaped then posted as a link.

Otherwise it wants a webbed discord login.

I have no idea where to acquire the first discord canary which currently I have discord-canary-0.0.119.deb for.

Once you have it, it auto-updates.

[slim shard]

what are common uses of those huge 10 ohm resistors?

[haughty tiger]

from what i understand, and probably just physics... it can handle larger amounts of energy

it's hard to resist a bazooka if you're only in a hyundai

[slim shard]

at 10 ohms, not sure it is trying to resist anything bigger than a kitten

[haughty tiger]

probably a time domain function

expected behavior with certain capacitors perhaps?

oscillators rely on those quite a bit, but how large are you talking here?

[slim shard]

just those odd white rectangular ones....
https://www.parts-express.com/SSP Applications/PartsExpress@SuiteCentric/SCA 2019.1/img/016-10_HR_0.default.jpg

[haughty tiger]

got pics or urls or datasheets at all?

[slim shard]

often stated as 10W?

[haughty tiger]

i don't think i've seen those before, and never seen "W" as an indicator either

[velvet pelican]

Looks like a reed switch

[fathom relic]

power resistor

[slim shard]

I think those are usually glass tubes

[haughty tiger]

is that technically a resistor?

[velvet pelican]

The ones I have are plastic

[short bone]

Yes, its a ceramic power resistor

[velvet pelican]

Just not white plastic

[slim shard]

applications half way down
https://eepower.com/resistor-guide/resistor-applications/power-resistor/#

[haughty tiger]

mine are all open

oh so they probably do list watt ratings, 10W

[slim shard]

so mostly for dumping energy

[haughty tiger]

resisting it at least, i am curious about efficiency and heat dissipation tho

... and why are people resisting 10 watts...

[slim shard]

for dumping energy, it's efficiency as a heater is as good as anything else I suspect

[haughty tiger]

technically my AC ceramic heater here is 100% efficient

[slim shard]

I was about to argue light and sound would mark inefficiency, alas those are a side effect of successful heat

[haughty tiger]

lol i love these discussions

[slim shard]

you're welcome :-)

my guess is the light resistance helps spreading load across multiple resistors, making dumping more energy more feasable?

[haughty tiger]

i can't imagine light interfering to that energy level

[slim shard]

I just recall when I've seen heating elements glow, I suppose bright light could also have a radiative heating effect, so just fancy presentation

[haughty tiger]

possibly more the fact that it's resisting huge amounts of power and just trying to encapsulate?

[slim shard]

I'd figure a higher resistance would claim more of the voltage drop / encapsulable energy

I could imagine using a 10 ohm resistor on it's own would often make the power source the primary load

but I'm still learning my ABDs here

[tardy badger]

Soon..

[slim shard]

soon to not be imaginary

[tardy badger]

Well, moving from gray legal area to a more definitive legal status for my business

https://oakdev.tech

[limber jackal]

Nice!

So is "Oak Development Technologies" one of such holdings, @tardy badger?

[tardy badger]

yup! 🙂

[limber jackal]

Cool beans good sir, and congrats!

[tardy badger]

it's going to be a fun and long process

[limber jackal]

The "fun" helps with the "long" part of it

[tardy badger]

i'm taking around $1600-$1700 to do the filing and get accounts set up for the business

[limber jackal]

Wow

[tardy badger]

I wish i was making the big bucks (like $100k+ per year) with my job so I could put more in

for now, i'll just use some of my stimulus/tax return to make the formal launch

[limber jackal]

I hear ya. But at the same time, with the income from the business, will help you get there 🙂

[tardy badger]

yeah, and the initial $1000 to start the bank accounts should be a good buffer to start developing more boards.

[limber jackal]

That's awesome

[tardy badger]

and the initial investment should help with getting a few things for bettering production

like an oven for cooking the forbidden frosting

[limber jackal]

Oven + Frosting? Must've missed part of the context, or vernacular

[quartz rune]

solder paste!

[tardy badger]

solder paste is correct 🙂

[tardy badger]

catching up on website updates including adding some coming soon product pages

better pictures for some products coming soon, just using some placeholders for now

[limber jackal]

Ah, paste. Gotcha

[tardy badger]

BoycottAmazon is trending on twitter

[velvet pelican]

Sounds like people are jealous of amazons success

[tardy badger]

no, it's to support amazon workers trying to unionize

but... Amazon's reach is so vast... not purchasing anything from amazon for a week won't really do anything

Especially if people are still watching netflix, using twitter, watching ESPN, booking travel on Expedia, etc..

i support people's choice to unionize, but idk... i don't order often off Amazon but when i do, it's usually because I need it

[velvet pelican]

From what I understand Amazon treats employees pretty well

Have a buddy that works there and they give shares to their stocks to their workers as bonuses

Their stock pays dividends too

[tardy badger]

I didn't think they did employ stock compensation after they raised their minimum wage to $15

maybe they do again

[velvet pelican]

From what I understand by giving stocks it helps them not pay taxes by giving them write offs

One thing about unions is they aren’t all that they are cracked up to be anymore... at least in my state

They used to be the best way to go

But these days the dues are so much at least in the plumbing side it puts you down to around 25 dollars an hour where if you are non union your at 36 or so

[tardy badger]

in some places it makes sense, but i would argue that unions are a major reason why manufacturing went offshore.

there is a balance in union labor and keeping manufacturing costs down. unfortunately, to keep a few union jobs at the rates, many had to disappear

I'm not sure how the Amazon boycott will play out, but i hope in some level it helps alleviate some of the stress that a lot of amazon warehouse and delivery workers deal with.

I worked in a warehouse for Lowe's Home Improvement, and it was a difficult job. $9/hr with the ability to make up to $15 with performance based wages.. I think I hit... $12/hr one paycheck but usually averaged 10.50-11/hr

but that job beat the snot out of me. It set back two years of recovery for back problems... but it was all i could get at the time that wasn't retail. which would be probably the same experience

[velvet pelican]

I can see both sides of the story

And know there are benefits and downsides to both ways

[neon phoenix]

The electrical union in my area is kinda useless. every union sparky I know has been unemployed all winter while the non-union guys have been working without stop.

[velvet pelican]

Yup thats the way union stuff goes

That and having only a 4 year apprenticeship program is partly why i went non union

Union apprenticeship is a five year program for the same info

[zealous ermine]

one of my friends is moving offices right now, so the company is getting rid of a lot of stuff. I was contacted to see if I was willing to take what they are throwing out. turns out it's like $1,500 worth of electronics

i havent been this exited in a while. i'm not sure exactly what i'm getting but i know it includes around a hundred STmicro boards

[velvet pelican]

Ooo I have no idea what that means 😂

But it sounds good

[zealous ermine]

@velvet pelican

[velvet pelican]

Nice!

When i get my house completed i have some projects i want to do that will require some boards to hook to each other via wireless signal

[zealous ermine]

ooo home automation?

[velvet pelican]

Kind of

Automated flood protection

[zealous ermine]

oh smart

[velvet pelican]

Cant tell ya how many homes ive gone too that flooded and costs the owners 50,000 dollars or more to fix... granted insurance pays the majority of it but they dont catch everything

[zealous ermine]

Youtube thumbnails make me laugh

[dusty citrus]

@ocean sigil https://github.com/wa1tnr/camelforth-rp2040-b-MS-U

Drop-in UF2 on the prebuilt directory.

Decent flash storage support (one 4096 byte block at 0x10040000 per the C/C++ SDK flash write example).

Basically it loads forth source code in ascii plaintext from the resident QSPI flashROM. ;)

reading populates an SRAM buffer with the forth source code to be imaged into flash.
ESC ends that process and reading then returns to the ok prompt.
Deposits the address of the buffer onto TOS.

buf2flash then writes this SRAM block to flash.

reading is usually populated by an ASCII upload from the host PC with a forth program in ascii plaintext.

(used similarly to how an xmodem-download word would work)

[dusty citrus]

Looks like a call to COLD without a call to rewind just prior ends up running COLD without uploaded forth source code.

I may not fix it as I think I like this behavior - wasn't planned!

first boot (power off boot): COLD runs the modified abort word (Tflabort as a THREAD).

rewind resets the flash pointer. If this is not done, the next time COLD is called a the keyboard/interpreter interface, it tries to load a flashROM program from too high of an address, finds junk there, and quits early.
Effectively uses the old COLD behavior (abort not Tflabort).

I should probably enforce this by writing specific junk past the end of the flashROM buffer, but it's usually 0xff which is fine for this purpose (either that, or 0x00 if it's part of a block of SRAM imaged over to flash).

(Both 0x00 and 0xff (when found in flashROM) equally end reading bytes from flashROM, since the Forth interpreter expects printable ASCII as input).

[ocean sigil]

@dusty citrus Thanks -- so much FORTH ... so little time. 😉 Got sidetracked with Circuitpython on the Blackpill -- added the 2Mbyte Flash chip -- have not tried eForth yet. Hope to get back to it tomorrow...

[dusty citrus]

@ocean sigil Nice!

[tardy badger]

Raceway for Ethernet cable

My wife apparently doesn’t think Ethernet cable draping from the ceiling is “decorations”

Lol

[umbral phoenix]

it's an artistic statement

[tardy badger]

I need more so gotta wait till Wednesday to finish up

[umbral phoenix]

or: "what's ethernet?" https://twitter.com/banalplay/status/1368026533307224065

Lena (@banalplay)

reject modernity

Retweets

1724

Likes

24173

Twitter · Mar 6, 2021, 2:31 AM

[real falcon]

lol

"next one will be about water and how its wetness can help you do some things!"

[quartz rune]

hey there's a whole bunch of folks who grew up on tablets and apps and wifi, makes sense they wouldn't know. IDK about anyone born before about 1998 though

[tardy badger]

Anyone be serious about gaming or computers in general love Ethernet

[umbral phoenix]

I use wi-fi only when there's no alternative

(which of course turns out to be increasingly common with newer devices)

[quartz rune]

yeah my laptop doesn't have an ethernet port. I'm sure a dongle exists though

[limber jackal]

What if you hung christmas or other ornamental lights from it?

[tardy badger]

See, my point exactly

[burnt tendon]

I guess your wife doesn't like the idea of being a twisted pair.

[tardy badger]

😂

[limber jackal]

They even come in those tiny little packets

[velvet pelican]

i went under the carpet in my apartment lol

[tardy badger]

Lol I wouldn’t be able to do that

[velvet pelican]

got wood flooring?

[tardy badger]

I have linoleum

[velvet pelican]

ahh

yeah under the linoleum doesnt look as nice

[tardy badger]

Might also make management a wee bit upset lol

[velvet pelican]

what was funny is i was in good with the management so when they layed new carpet they put in the cable i bought under the carper for me

[limber jackal]

What if you made criss-crossing patterns with ethernet cable on the floor? Say 3D plaid is the new linoleum or something?

[tardy badger]

Lol

[limber jackal]

For what it's worth, I've tried the "I'm the Jackson Pollock of [wiring/cabling/cat6]", but no dice

Some people just can't see the artistic sense of the chaos

or something

[velvet pelican]

i bought a cat4 5 and 6 crimper and man that makes a big difference

[limber jackal]

Yeah, quality tools help a great deal

[velvet pelican]

spendy tho

but still cheaper than buying premade cables

[limber jackal]

Especially when you accidentally break the retaining clip

That's where cable boots earn their keep though

[quartz rune]

I found a 60 ft ethernet cable outside a building, been using it ever since.

[burnt tendon]

Bad tools really put a crimp on your style

[dusty citrus]

Me, years ago, about the PC ATX power supply (retasked as a general purpose DC supply):

... Now I am leaning towards a theory: the reason we have all those same-colored wires is to distribute the load in parallel. So, the motherboard, for instance, wants several small-gauge black wires as the ground-return, rather than one large black wire.

It is a redundancy on the ampere/load level, but electrically (neglecting the sizes of the wires) you only have five 'wires' leading out of a given DC computer supply; red, yellow, white, blue and black:

   red    = +5VDC @ 20.0A
   yellow = +12VDC @ 8.0A
   white  = -5VDC @ 0.3A (0.5A on another unit)
   blue   = -12VDC @ 0.3A (0.5A on another unit)
   black  = ground

(a paragraph or two earlier, I'd said):

To my surprise, all same-colored wires exiting one of the units (on the DC supply side) were wired to the same busses on the inside! All black wires went to the same foil trace on the power supply circuit board, as did all red and yellow wires -- each went to a single connected foil trace. Likewise, white and blue were each single wires that led to separate pads.

[dusty citrus]

@spare ridge
Typical age ten scenario:

Mom: CHRIS topher!

Me: WHAT topher?

called at a distance. ;)

[weary fiber]

question for y'all, what would be the best way to design a house such that data/networking is the most robust & futureproofed?

just have shielded fibre lines to every room?

not a super-serious question, but I'm curious

[limber jackal]

I think that no matter what physical media you use, fiber, copper wires, etc, what you really want (or maybe it's just me) are channels where you can run more, or replace, the media for even newer stuff, replace defective ones, etc.

[dusty citrus]

Since fibre inside the house isn't widely deployed, the standards used when it becomes common may not be much like today.

So you may want to provide for RJ45 jacks and maybe something super common for fibre terminations.

[limber jackal]

As an example (on the cheap), PVC piping in the walls and any other inaccessible space, with a permanent line you can use to pull new stuff with, without the need to run a fish first5

[dusty citrus]

Somebody told me you can't have like 18 inches of dead space under floors on multi-story homes.

They said the cost was way to high.

[tardy badger]

Another order 🥰

[umbral phoenix]

Smooth bends on the piping too, I found out the hard way one of my pipes had a small 90° followed by another small 90°. Also good to have pipes to, and between, any unfinished spaces (including attics, crawlspaces).

[stoic mesa]

selecting a logo for my tindie shop.
What do you guys think of this?

[lost pond]

That looks really cool! The inner part of the gear kinda looks like the sun is setting. Maybe you could take advantage of that to add a bit more color if you would like, but I’m no expert in logos.

[stoic mesa]

Yes, I am thinking about colors...
I am no expert myself, but this was done for me by a friend who is a pro

[quartz rune]

or a rainbow!

[stoic mesa]

like that?

[tardy badger]

Ignore my tweet about your logo, this is much better

[quartz rune]

love it

makes me think of guava smoothies

[stoic mesa]

never tried guava smoothies
DO they normally put gears in them?

[quartz rune]

I mean, idk, I'm not secretly a robot learning about humans or something crazy like that

[limber jackal]

I bet you say that to all the humans you're observing!

[quartz rune]

BLEEP BLOOP

I mean of course not

[limber jackal]

I just got my Feather RP2040s in ( 🎉 ), and I've been wondering - are the pink baggies 1) ESD safe, and 2) recyclable?

[lost pond]

Oh wow that looks so good!

[fathom relic]

On running cables in a room, look at running them at ground level along the walls, and possibly hiding them behind molding. If there is an exterior door in the route, you may be able to fish it under the door sill Interior doorways, if there is a threshold, you might be able to go under it, if you can take it out and cut a groove, or replace it with a new piece with a groove cut in it.

[tardy badger]

I live in an apartment. Basically I run under doors, up the side of door frames and near the ceiling. Mostly for my wife and to keep as much of the cable out of reach of my young kids

[burnt tendon]

Don't let your children grow up to be wireheads.

[tardy badger]

Exactly

[limber jackal]

Crown moulding can be really good to conceal cables to run along the joint of the wall and ceiling. Too bad it's mostly fallen out of favour :/

[dusty citrus]

I use cup hooks in the woodwork.

[stone orbit]

@stoic mesa One thing about logos. Even though they are designed in color, they often are copied in black and white. You may want to print or copy your logo in B/W to see if it is still readable.

[stoic mesa]

@stone orbit thanks - that was certainly a requirement that the logo stay readable in BW

[zealous ermine]

new project!

guess what it is 😉

[short bone]

Its a plane wing profile, so i guess model plane

[zealous ermine]

think bigger.....

[short bone]

real plane then 🤔

[zealous ermine]

yep! i'm working on designing an ultralight with a few buddies

i pitched the idea when I saw some people in ultralights flying over my house

[short bone]

Thats a very ambitious project, good luck 👍

[zealous ermine]

yea it's going to be a big project for sure

the great thing about ultralights is they don't require a license to fly!

so nothing's really stopping you from building one and flying it

[quartz rune]

Wear a helmet!

[limber jackal]

Except maybe not having someone to get you up to altitude first. Unless you live near a high enough cliff! 🙂

[zealous ermine]

you can put an engine on ultralights, it just needs to be below a specified power

[limber jackal]

Ah, cool. Good to know!

[tardy badger]

Complete

Just need some command strip to get the AP solid against the wall

[stray wind]

Looks very similar to my wall at home 😄

[tardy badger]

Lots of walls and WiFi interference from neighbors?

Oh wait lol

[stray wind]

Hah, for once, no. At least not at the house. But we have the same AP 🙂

[tardy badger]

I love the Ubiquiti gear

I’ve got it set up with a dream machine pro, 2 APs, a Netgear readyNAS

Soon to be a server, an additional 16 or 24 port switch, some security cameras

[stray wind]

Nice. We have a mishmash of a lot of products at the house.

[tardy badger]

I’m trying to understand how a large 47lb box that started in California which was just going 2 states away... ended up in Oklahoma...

Thankfully Amazon is refunding me for the package being lost for almost a week

[velvet pelican]

Someone really wanted that box

[tardy badger]

It’s apparently supposed to be here Monday, a whole week after it was supposed to be here

It should taken like... a day max to get from CA —> UT

[limber jackal]

Not when it takes the scenic route!

[tardy badger]

“You’ve chosen ‘scenic cross country adventure’ for your shipping option”

[spark raven]

My local microcenter had a bunch of old adaboxes in the clearance section that depsite the pricetags were actually only $9.99 each. Picked a bunch up to do projects with my niece/nephews.

[dusty citrus]

Nice find.

[grave crest]

That's a stellar deal

[limber jackal]

Woah! I need to go drop in my MicroCenter - assuming it's a different one 😉

[tardy badger]

Woah! I should check my Microc... wait.. there isn’t a MicroCenter near by 😭

[tardy badger]

Low res image

But this is basically my new company logo

[spark raven]

Make sure to have them price check for you. All the boxes had $30-50 price tags and the only reason I figured out they were only 9.99 was because I bought one

[quartz rune]

Breaking in a new keyboard is just the worst, especially if you got used to a specific key feel

[limber jackal]

That looks fantastic!

[limber jackal]

Noted, thanks for the heads up!

[tardy badger]

Just waiting on taxes and that stimi to hit the bank

[real falcon]

nice

[zealous ermine]

interference patterns can make some weird looking art

[real falcon]

nice

[zealous ermine]

clean logo man!

i should make one as well

[tardy badger]

Hey all! Today through Sunday i'm throwing in a free extra in with orders from my store over at https://oakdev.tech if you are interested 🙂 Just as a way to say thank you 🙂

[quartz rune]

Almost everyone I know is getting vaccinated except me and I'm starting to take it personally.

[limber jackal]

Are you on the/a list?

[quartz rune]

Yeah

Low priority

At least we can hang out outside with less worrying from me now

[stoic mesa]

i just scheduled my vaccination for end of April

got lucky - it is rather hard to get a spot inNY, even if you are eligible

[quartz rune]

My friend just went to a 3AM call and got theirs at 8 am

[stoic mesa]

in NY it is by appointment only

[quartz rune]

Late for work but with good reason

[stoic mesa]

appointments done online, and available spots are taken within 2.5 secojds

[quartz rune]

Someone wrote a script i bet

[stoic mesa]

oh, i am sure

I'm too lazy for that

[quartz rune]

I'd feel bad.

[tardy badger]

Stonks

This is gains over the last.. 14 months

[limber jackal]

💸

[tardy badger]

Interesting thing.. most of this is VIAC which has surged over 600% over the last year

Spectacular hodl on my part lol

Especially since I dislike Viacom

Also, I only put like... $20 of my own money in that account

Aside from the JetBlue share I own on that account, all free stonks I got from Webull hahahaha

It totally could have been delivered Today

[burnt tendon]

Oddly my best investment so far was a green industry ETF

[limber jackal]

For those (me) not familiar with the TLA "ETF"?

[burnt tendon]

Exchange Traded Fund = a stock that owns a basket of other stocks

[umbral phoenix]

It's like a mutual fund, but traded like a stock

[limber jackal]

Ah, I see. I thought it was an "Electronic <something> <something>". Forgot I was in #general-chat for a moment I guess!

[quartz rune]

what are reasons to use the jan 1 1970 epoch and reasons to use jan 1 2000? I've seen both

For example adafruit io seems to use the 1970 epoch, but some MCUs seem to use 2000?

[umbral phoenix]

Jan 1 1970 is traditional UNIX time, chosen somewhat arbitrarily. Jan 1 2000 I think is to keep the seconds within a 32-bit integer for some time into the future. And to make things more confusing, NTP uses Jan 1 1900.

[real falcon]

people going for long term should start using unix long time

because well 2038

[quartz rune]

the 32 bit integer is related to the 2038 problem right? Also, unrelated can you remember what the solution to testing if a magtag is connected is? I can't find it in the logs

[real falcon]

rollover yeah

[umbral phoenix]

this one? https://circuitpython.readthedocs.io/en/latest/shared-bindings/supervisor/index.html#supervisor.Runtime.serial_connected

[quartz rune]

Oh sorry. connected to wifi

[umbral phoenix]

oh... IP address

[quartz rune]

ahhh right so if you can connect to an IP?

[umbral phoenix]

https://circuitpython.readthedocs.io/en/latest/shared-bindings/wifi/index.html#wifi.Radio.ipv4_address

more like if the DHCP server has assigned an IP address to the MagTag

that's what the core CP software considers to be "connected"

[quartz rune]

Ahhhh I remember now

[tardy badger]

So I guess UPS is just gonna hold my package and not deliver it until Monday 😒

It’s been in my region hub since Thursday and it hasn’t moved...

This is just really depressing

[umbral phoenix]

It's right behind that other one. They'll find it.

[tardy badger]

apparently it takes the whole weekend to classify the package so it can be delivered monday..

[limber jackal]

In this phase of UPS's social experiment: "He's waited this long already. How long before he cracks from it being so close?"

[dusty citrus]

My Saturday UPS deliveries are always much later in the day.

Would prefer to receive them on the following Monday.

[tardy badger]

I did it, I pulled the trigger on forming my LLC 🙂

[limber jackal]

Your patience far exceeds mine!

[limber jackal]

Stimi come in early, or just couldn't wait?

[tardy badger]

Couldn’t wait

Lol

I even filed for a DBA at the same time lol

[limber jackal]

lol

Understandable tho

[dusty citrus]

@limber jackal My patience (on Saturdays) runs out around 1:45 pm and the one circulator driver they put on for a Saturday's doesn't until well after three. :)

[limber jackal]

Might be his subtle non-verbal way to request tips?

[dusty citrus]

Eww.

I have never even considered tipping a UPS driver.

(I tip my pizza guy six bux, up one or two from pre-pandemic).

[zealous ermine]

alrighty, so after the office was cleaned up, here's my take:

x17 STM32F3 nucleo-144 boards

x4 stm32 discovery boards

x11 waveshare coreXR boards

x7 6 axis MEMS gyro + accel

x1 National Instruments NI-USB4621

[tardy badger]

Nice

Temporary setup while I wait for my desk to come Monday

Might end up being permanent

[burnt tendon]

I mean, my electronics-specific workbench is a rolling TV cart that I roll up next to my desk.

It's not great. Too easy to knock stuff off and there was a $5 IC sitting in my carpet for months.,

[real falcon]

nothing as perment as temp solution

[limber jackal]

No concerns about bumping the 3d printer or shelving while whiteboarding?

[tardy badger]

Not particularly

[real falcon]

i read that as waterboarding for a min

[tardy badger]

Hahaha

[limber jackal]

Yeah, I can see how those letters might jumble together to form that word!

[dusty citrus]

The brain sees w and boarding and matches the first likely term it knows.

also te are in the right spots, sequentally (between w and board) in both terms.

(who's got time to read all the letters? ;)

[limber jackal]

Brains are weird... Yuo cna porbalby raed tihs esaliy desptie teh msispeillgns.

[dusty citrus]

Worse, I wasn't annoyed and understood it well.

It didn't trigger a 'you are lazy' response it triggered a 'you are being humorous' response.

I've seen some doozies and they could not control it at all.

[limber jackal]

For sure. It's worse though, when their doing it on propurse 😉

[dusty citrus]

By the way that's quite a talent you got there. ;)

I have to think this one through every time:

All wiyht! Rho sritched mg kegtops awound!

[limber jackal]

I bet was that pesky Dvorak fellow

[dusty citrus]

I went from QWERTY to Dvorak and back again, resulting in about three experiences of each.

QWERTY won only because I thought it more important to be able to use other people's computers, easily.

The Dvorak periods were marked by my brothers' kids taking one look at the laptop keyboard and walking away, thus freeing it for my own uses. ;)

Each transition took at least three weeks to get back to speed.

[limber jackal]

You could split the difference, and go half-way(ish) with Colemak

[dusty citrus]

I just want to be able to use random QWERTY equipped stuff, that's why I finally gave up on Dvorak.

There's no real gain using Dvorak.

Certainly not worth becoming QWERTY illiterate (again). Some people can switch easily between both systems, pretty much several times each week if required.

To me it was like swimming in molasses, mentally, each time I switched over.

It was so hard to 'think on paper'.

[limber jackal]

Not very refreshing, but nourishing when you were hungry?

[dusty citrus]

I couldn't even imagine.

I looked up the history of window glass today. ;)

Turns out our kind of windows are quite recent.

[burnt tendon]

I tried to switch to dvorak and realized that I'd then never be able to use anybody else's keyboard.

[dusty citrus]

Right. That's the deal.

The best you can do is go into their settings and change it to Dvorak then change it back when you're done.

[burnt tendon]

Or, you know, get yourself a customized little 40% keyboard with a zillion layers and just carry your keyboard eveywhere with you

[dusty citrus]

(or you can get a hardware Dvorak board and carry it with you; the software will treat it as QWERTY and everything still comes out correctly)

[limber jackal]

But in an office setting, when you use a Dvorak, nobody will ask to use your computer, thus avoiding they're shedding of there germs on your space!

[dusty citrus]

Here's a Fentek Dvorak board:

https://www.fentek-ind.com/kbdvorak2ub.htm#.YE1cHXXngrg

[limber jackal]

The CODE keyboard by WASD has DIP switches where you can select from a few layouts, including Dvorak if memory serves. Can also disable/reassign CAPS LOCK

[dusty citrus]

I just want a copy of this logitech wireless that functions the way this very keyboard is supposed to, but falls short of. ;)

I don't need design change; I need design implementation detail. ;)

The keyswitches on this are just plain awful.

🛩️

I went into my usual 'you are a robot' routine when the telemarketer called today.

They finally decided I wasn't going to bite, so they picked up the receiver and spoke to me with their own voice (different gender from the robot).

Before I knew what was happening we were in a conversation and they were telling me their troubles.

I'd like to think it was a more or less honest conversation.

But they did tell me they had a TBI and were shifting between jobs, to let me know this is the best they could do under the circumstances.

that's a bit catfishy

[limber jackal]

What's a "TBI"?

[dusty citrus]

brain injury

[limber jackal]

ah

TBH, I'm not so good with TLAs

[quartz rune]

Don't work for the feds 😉

[limber jackal]

though to be pedantic, that was a TLI

[quartz rune]

Thanks for knowing the difference, it's a minor peeve of mine. Not enough to be a pet, just a regular peeve

[dusty citrus]

it was a euphemism but they did use the term in that conversation

[limber jackal]

So more of a feral peeve?

[quartz rune]

Like a neighbor's peeve

[limber jackal]

Just don't feed it then, or it will become yours

[quartz rune]

I have enough peeves atm I'll make sure not to

[zealous ermine]

has anyone here ever used / is familiar with National instruments USB IO devices?

[quartz rune]

How do you know when your variable is too long?

self.pm_25_env_fifteen_min_avg_list = []

[zealous ermine]

👀

[quartz rune]

to differentiate it from

self.pm_100_env_fifteen_min_avg_list = []

[supple surge]

Happy “leap forward” day, my fellow hackers 😛 No better time to demonstrate that technology can be accessible to anyone ☺️ Thanks for being awesome! 😎

[zealous ermine]

The oven one is true,,,

[tardy badger]

Try changing the time on a hvac controller

[stoic mesa]

move it one house to the left?

[real falcon]

yeah not remotely right

[quartz rune]

557 lines, one comment. I'm the one maintaining it so it's fine right?

tbf half of that is just label.Label()s

[limber jackal]

The developer in me wants to say "Sorry, that's a hardware problem"

But then I look at which server I'm on... 🤦

[tardy badger]

😂

The stove and microwave are pretty easy to change the time one

The coffee maker takes some finesse and patience

[quartz rune]

I refuse to look up how to change my microwave since the last power outage. It can just be wrong.

There's no clock button!

[velvet pelican]

I just shut mine off lol. There is a clock on the stove why would i need one on the micro hood

[limber jackal]

So... after coffee you're saying

[tardy badger]

Yes

Ordering large quantities of parts from Digi-Key on a Friday might not always be my best move. Usually ends up taking a few days to get the order fulfilled

[limber jackal]

Tsk tsk tsk

[tardy badger]

But to be fair, I’m just ordering 500 LEDs and 50 LiPo chargers that are back ordered

The 500 LEDs are 250 low current green and 250 low current amber

0603 of course 🙂

[limber jackal]

I think I have 1-2 of those LEDs around here. But I'd have to crack open my various electronics and devices to see which manufacturer used which!

[tardy badger]

One brand is Inolux I believe

Inolux and Lite-on

[limber jackal]

I don't know what brand it is. I just know that there's one in my refrigerator to tell me to change the water filter. And then whatever's a 2.4Ghz home phone that makes it blink when there's a VM

[tardy badger]

Also realized that the 0603 size LEDs actually are 0402

Whoops

Oh well, I’ll find a use

[limber jackal]

Nothing a bit of sandpaper can't fix

[tardy badger]

Lol sandpaper to make them invisible?

[limber jackal]

"They're LEDs outside the range of light visible by human beings!"

There's nothing that a lie from marketing can't make worse 🙂

[tardy badger]

🙂

Marketing is one of those fields that’s basically street magic

Some people do it but are terrible at it

Others are so good it’s practically real magic

[limber jackal]

Awesome analogy

[wet elbow]

Anyone have any experience using Cesium?

I see that I seem to need a Google API key which is understandable if I'm making requests for map data, but I can't seem to import cesiumpy without throwing the Google API error

or if anyone has a recommendation for visualization frameworks for location data that would be great!

[limber jackal]

I had no idea what that is (aside from the element), so did a quick search. By the 2nd result, I knew I was way out of my zone of knowledge. However, with the number of folks on this server, and the multitude of talents and knowledge, I'm sure something will come up!

[velvet pelican]

Are yall ready to time travel at two o clock in the morning?

[hasty quarry]

Is lightning visible because the air’s electrical resistance dissipates a chunk of the electrons into other energies in midair?

[velvet pelican]

Is heat light or is light a direct result of energy creating heat?

[dusty citrus]

Infrared frequency radiation from a woodstove

Feynman's Lectures describes lightning

[hasty quarry]

Heat and light are both energy. Something that is creating heat is also creating light

I think

This is why things get "red hot". As the energy increases, the light with the heat gets into higher frequencies. From infrared to a clearly visible red

Though I'm not sure it's that simple

[velvet pelican]

Im not sure if it has been scientifically proven or not as to what causes which

I remember having a conversation about it not too long ago

[tardy badger]

Technically light and heat are just energy at different electron excitement levels

They are inherently produced at the same time

Mostly because it’s just energy

But where that energy initially comes in

[late fulcrum]

My view (which may well be wrong) is that heat is atomic/molecular motion, and light is a weird confluence of electron motion, EM fields, and particles (photons).

I agree that it's all just energy

It gets even more interesting in things like semiconductor laser crystals, which can do energy band jumps with both molecular motion (phonons) and electron motion (photons).

[tardy badger]

Yeah, EM physics is an interesting topic. I feel I would have done better if I would have had a better professor but it’s still a pretty tough subject to wrap your head around

[burnt tendon]

It's a subject that I can definitely see the attraction of.

[umbral phoenix]

Studying it makes you brighter.

[limber jackal]

So many knowledgeable people to shed light on the subject.

Maybe one day I'll be as enlightened, but it's a difficult subject to come into cold

[tardy badger]

Living that no support structure life

I’m thinking I’ll be streaming around 2 or 3pm MST today

[dusty citrus]

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_39.html
Kinetic Theory of Gases

[dapper hatch]

@tardy badger Supports, what are they 😄

[dusty citrus]

Two common situations around the home:

a) The gas expands inside the tube and 'refrigeration' is realized.

b) The microwave radiation in that oven heats water, to near the boiling point.

So both seem to involve 'heat' but only one of them is obviously dependent upon pressure of a gas.

The other one seems a lot more concerned with the effects of radiation on matter.

That's for @hasty quarry

This is pretty good, too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation

The science behind the (electronic parts and accessories) heat sink is informative as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation

Simple question: should your transistor heat sink be black or silver and why? ;)

And if the audio amplifier is situated near the corner of a room, should the walls of the room there be silver or black, and why?

[zealous ermine]

I got it to work!

[dapper hatch]

I was told that black will radiate heat better. But I am not so sure. Never bothered to check. I let the HW guys do that. I just wring the code. 😉

[dusty citrus]

All normal (baryonic) matter emits electromagnetic radiation when it has a temperature above absolute zero. The radiation represents a conversion of a body's internal energy into electromagnetic energy, and is therefore called thermal radiation. It is a spontaneous process of radiative distribution of entropy.

[dapper hatch]

But why does the colour matter?

[quartz rune]

emmissivity of the surface IIRC

[dapper hatch]

So maybe the colour makes it easy for the electrons to change energy level and release the radiation?

[quartz rune]

That's deeper than I ever learned tbh, I can't say

[dapper hatch]

I watch a lot of youTube. 😄

So probably wrong. Been shielding for a year now

[dusty citrus]

You can look at the emission lines in a star's spectrum to see what the elements are.

[dapper hatch]

But why does the colour affect the emission rate? That is, a black thing will cool of quicker? (if it does)

[quartz rune]

So I think from googling that color is a bit of a red herring and not actually directly related?

[dapper hatch]

I've been down six rabbit holes already today. Ok, challenge accepted. 😄 Gut feeling it's one of them things we're told and just believe. But could either be wrong or so minimal that it don't matter. But there is a reason Ford made all their vans white.

[quartz rune]

looks like in the visual spectrum black absorbs more than white, but not in other spectrums

[dapper hatch]

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/if-a-black-object-warms-faster-during-the-day-does-it-cool-faster-at-night.413244/

Since light-colored objects absorb less than 100% of incident radiation, it follows that they must also emit less.

Also, when they say black body, they don't mean the colour we see.

Another person said as I did, often the colour is of minimal affect and so not worth worrying about. So house hold radiators can be white to look nice. Making them black will have little effect on their performance.

Ok, back out of that rabbit hole, I'm now reading about the RA8875 chip.

[dusty citrus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity#Emissivities_of_common_surfaces

[last quiver]

@dusty citrus at this point in time I’m happy to just sit back and wait and see if the issue crops up for others. If it does, it’ll sort itself out. If it doesn’t then I’ll find renewed motivation knowing this issue is definitely on me

[quartz rune]

re-watching community, it really holds up.

[supple surge]

Happy Pi Day 😛

[brisk spire]

Thought id share this spectacular failiure from another discord

Never seen a chip just kinda cleave like that

[tardy badger]

Wow

[limber jackal]

*checks data sheet*
Yeah, that behaviour is not covered in here

[short pulsar]

A short circuit will provide a lot of energy in a short time in the semiconductor. Only way out is through explosive decompression.

[velvet pelican]

I cant say that black heats any faster but it definitely gets hotter

[short pulsar]

Your code has been rated at -0.42/10 (previous run: -0.83/10, +0.42)

Take time to celebrate the small successes!

[velvet pelican]

Thats good cleanup right there

[tardy badger]

Lol

[limber jackal]

That's not half as bad as it could be!

[dusty citrus]

@last quiver Once a few of them get into end-users' hands it'll resolve quickly.

sounds to me like heat sink color matters when it matters, and professional designers take it into account then.

Obviously if you spread black coal dust on an iceberg it melts a lot faster. ;) Or wear black clothes in the desert - will feel much warmer then.

airflow makes a huge difference as does a convection path.

[last quiver]

yeah I watched a few more videos and my (very limited) understanding is that RPi foundation kind of dropped the ball with the generic flash boot configuration in the pico-sdk - it works fine for the chip on the pico but doesn't work without customization for other chips on the market. That the Pico-sdk was intended to be 'plug-and-play' for RP2040 chip boards, but it isn't right now.

but I'm not sure - it's pretty above my head

[dusty citrus]

I think it'd be not very 'custom' at all, just a tweak. If true, a bit surprising the vendor(s) aren't resolving this as they roll out new boards.

Can't be very difficult to get it right, if the cost of not getting it right is delayed or low sales.

[last quiver]

it sounds like lots of people are working on it

and yeah as far as I understand the fix is to make the generic flash chip configuration file in the pico sdk work on more vendors flash chips by making more conservative assumptions

I'm still not 100% sure this is my issue 😛 but it's my best guess

[last quiver]

poor-mans logic analyzer with the RPi Pico - pretty cool to chip to be learning all this stuff with

https://www.hackster.io/markkomus/using-a-raspberry-pi-pico-as-a-logic-analyzer-with-pulseview-e12543

[tardy badger]

So I’m glad Amazon refunded me on the desk I ordered

Finally got it a week late and it was missing a baggie of screws because the box was beat to the point it basically wasn’t really doing much to hold the desk in

[last quiver]

I’ve always had good return experience with Amazon

[tardy badger]

Thankfully there was enough to put together the desk and the screws are for the back tool hanger panel

[limber jackal]

Hopefully the missing screws weren't specialty enough to make it impossible for you to use the tool hanger?

[tardy badger]

They were

But it’s a common size

M6 x40mm

Could just order some off Amazon 😂

[limber jackal]

/gif Spongebob-3-weeks-later.png

[tardy badger]

Slowly coming together

Also funny story

So the blue hot plate, I’ve had for basically a year and I’ve never out it above 100°C because I was certain the instructions said not to

Well, turns out it actually can go up to 350°C for short periods

And my solder melts at 138°C which means I don’t have to hot air it 😅

Well, not for initial reflow

[stone orbit]

@tardy badger I have one of those hot plates and I checked the temperature with a Fluke thermocouple meter. It was about 40 degrees off.

[tardy badger]

I’ve read similar comments on reviews

Most people saying it probably has a timed feedback loop

I set it around 150° and seems to be okay

I don’t plan to run it any hotter than that

It will at least for the time being hold me over until I can get a proper oven

[last quiver]

My wife bought that exact desk for her home office

It’s really nice, I’m thinking of getting one too

[tardy badger]

I have that one and the L shaped one. I’m delighted with the sturdiness for the price

$120 for this is pretty decent

[dusty citrus]

I ended up with Lorell 'Activity Table' (p/n .. SKUish # 99899) legs at $70 a set.

I got them for a Mahjong table that I wanted as low as I could fit my knees under, sitting comfortably in my usual chair.

Significantly under 'standard' desk height - elbows fully clear the table during play.

Fairly wide range of adjustable height on them.

Amazon sold me a work surface for $3 that lists for $60 ;)

Marketed as 36" x 36" table top, reversible in two finishes (mahogany and black).

A little dinged up but by facing the dinged side to the wall I never see it.

If I had a four-way Mahjong game going, of course, the person sitting there may notice it a little.

I have that table stowed vertically; unlike a folding card table, I have to account for the permanent part of the legs sticking out some, into the room. ;)

[silent ginkgo]

Can I ask where you got this thing with the big blue drawers? I think I want!

[tardy badger]

Funny enough, I got it from Aldi

[wild temple]

wait, arent those for drills and screws? 🤔

[silent ginkgo]

Hah ok thanks. And yeah they do look like something you might find in a hardware store. I’ll have to do some looking.

[tardy badger]

Technically for screws but they work great for components

[wild temple]

they do look good for that stuff 🤔

[velvet pelican]

I personally like the dewalt trays

Keeps things clean and dustless

[hasty quarry]

I’m a tiny bit confused, “any” is singular, correct?

And “every” is plural

[wild temple]

those are "uncountable" words, according to the rules in https://www.ef.com/wwen/english-resources/english-grammar/countable-and-uncountable-nouns/

they are neither plural nor singular

[dusty citrus]

Any means the speaker doesn't care which specific ones.

Do you have any left to sell to me? << doesn't care which ones, any will do.

Any one of you could see that.

But not every one of you. ;)

So there in that idiomatic usage, 'any' means 'a healthy representative sample' rather than every last one.

[burnt wave]

😉 https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#any and https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#all (every)

[wild temple]

https://tenor.com/view/confused-what-really-no-words-huh-gif-4487358

[dusty citrus]

I had someone offer me a cooked yellow vegetable, still on the cob.

They said:

Would you like a corn?

(acceptable words to offer the same thing might be)

Would you like some corn?

or

Would you like an ear of corn?

My Dad was a writer, and an English major in college - so we were tasked with getting our language skills pretty darned correct, for children. ;)

[wild temple]

which one's the correct one?

i know the correct answer, and it is "yes, thank you", but dont know the correct question :/

[burnt wave]

"Would you like some corn?"

or, alternatively, "Would you like some corn-on-the-cob?"

[wild temple]

🤔

i have to remember that

[limber jackal]

"Corn's back there if you want some."

[wild temple]

"Corn's back there if you want some." <-- fixed

[late fulcrum]

When I first starting dating my sweetie, their parents would swoop in and feed me. As time went on, it became "you know where the kitchen is." That's when I knew I had become family.

[wild temple]

and now you're at the "bring me a beer too" point? 🤔

[quartz rune]

"Ear, have some corn."

[limber jackal]

Awww, shucks

[wild temple]

this channel is getting really corn-y :x

[limber jackal]

There's a kernel of truth to what you say, but no need to be salty about it!

[wild temple]

🤔 good one, good one

[polar bloom]

amaizing

[wild temple]

you lost me on that one 🤔

[velvet pelican]

Who wants corn tortillas

[wild temple]

never had one 😮

[limber jackal]

"Maize" is another word for corn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize

[short pulsar]

Corn tortillas are great, no lye.

[wild temple]

i know, and there's "maze", which is just another word for "labyrinth", where you can get lost

[short pulsar]

Making corn tortillas can start out as a hobby, but when you start making a lot you should plan to go into masa production.

[limber jackal]

I think we need wrap this up, lest we field comments which pop up, to which we can't respond "I'm nacho what you're referring to"

[dusty citrus]

NCIS did a corn episode recently.

Apparently (in their fictional universe) there are 'corn trucks' that feature cooked corn on a food truck vending format.

Large one - with a big serving window.

(The kind of truck that might (instead) feature hamburgers).

@hasty quarry 'any' often refers to expected inventory (of a stockist).

"Do you have any ten-penny nails?"

"No, we're all out." [come back next week]

Can mean you're asking your friend if they have a frequently-held item that they may have fully depleted their supply of.

"Got any matches?" while helping your friend by starting the wood burning stove 'for' them as a gesture of assistance.

Means you suspect they have matches, but since matches are consumables, they may not have any left.

(also they are small and are often not easily found by the visitor, on their own, just by looking around)

For a stockist (whom the speaker asking the question expects to have periodic inventory on a desired item) ..

.. the asked-for item may be in short supply.

So they may not have any ten-penny nails ... today.

The penny unit is specific to (a carpenter's) nails.

A 20D (twenty penny) nail is a big nail! (102 mm USA: 4")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(fastener)#United_States_penny_sizes

Much bigger than that is a 'spike' iirc.

[hasty quarry]

I wonder if 100% water would hurt you

Like, drinking perfect water

Maybe I'm not understanding, but wouldn't the osmosis cause some trouble?

[polar bloom]

If you only drink distilled water, it will create mineral imbalances in your body.

[stoic mesa]

There are some truly unique units in use (or were in use).
Like "line" (as in unit of length):
The line was not recognized by any statute of the English Parliament but was usually understood as ​1⁄4 of a barleycorn : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(unit)
Remarkably, this unit made its way even into Russian. A popular rifle of early 20th century was called трехлинейка - literally a three-line one because it's caliber was 3*0.1"=0.3"=7.62mm - a number familiar to anyone who knows something about guns; in particular, it is also the caliber of Kalashnikov.

[zealous ermine]

The forbidden land

[dusty citrus]

@stoic mesa Basque berets are measured in their own system (which was probably applicable to a much larger domain at some point).

I want to say pilgata but I just don't remember.

[grave crest]

I'm looking for an entry-level geiger counter, sub $200. Something portable, reasonably decent for diagnosing household items -- things like old camera lenses, pottery/dishes, etc. I don't need to separate the beta & gamma readings, just an overall "spicymeter".

The one that keeps showing up in my research is The GQ GMC-300E Plus. Anyone have suggestions that I should also consider?

[dusty citrus]

Here it is, pulgada (0.9142 inches):

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

Castilian system of units

@grave crest Adafruit had a third party kit for that I think.

PID 483 still in stock 100 bux to you

[grave crest]

It's a nice kit -- MightyOhm makes some good gear, but I'm looking for something more....user friendly with an LCD screen.

[velvet pelican]

Lookin for them radioactive bowls?

They can cook your food right on the spot! 😂

[grave crest]

Haha, more like ID'ing anything that might be spicy -- old orange bowls that may have uranium as a source of coloring, old camera lenses that have a thorium oxide coating, etc.

[burnt tendon]

Hey, a little heavy metal doesn't hurt no one

[limber jackal]

Some say heavy metal may have lead to the downfall of the music industry, but I don't think that was the Pb.

[dusty citrus]

My friend Charlie was a jazz player born in the late 1920's .. he said 'rock and roll ruined everything' for them.

[polar bloom]

You knew Charlie Parker?

[dusty citrus]

No, that wasn't the Charlie I knew. Charlie was a bass player. Said he played with Krupa (drummer) (probably briefly).

I did know a guy calling himself Joe Pass.

Plausible. Never did get proof.

[polar bloom]

Charlie Mingus then 😄

[dusty citrus]

I wasn't then (am not now) well schooled in who played in jazz.

My dad knew all about Joe Pass - I had no clue at all when we met, and he never played for me.

He was very (very) intelligent.

[polar bloom]

I think jazz musicians were much more accessible than rock stars or pop stars. They were mostly working musicians, not making much money from recordings, only from gigs.

[dusty citrus]

Yeah it was employment for sure.

He said they would musically exclude the new person in the band if they didn't like them.

Said they'd steer the music past what the new person could keep up with.

Apparently, where the bass goes the pianist must follow.

Between the two the rest of the band has to also keep up with what they decide to do.

At any small gig (30-50 people in the room, maybe less) it was easy to 'get in good' with the band.

Just listen and pay attention - you may be the only audience member who does. ;)

[polar bloom]

I think it also wasn't that hard to get these people to come over to your house and play and hang out.

[dusty citrus]

Charlie said he didn't like the audience and was playing for the rest of the band, only. He'd turn his back on the room. ;) lol

[polar bloom]

All those people talking through your music... 😉

[dusty citrus]

I think he said he didn't like them dancing to the band's music.

He also said you had to play very loud (no amplification).

[polar bloom]

Keith Jarrett is known for passing out cough drops before the concert starts because he hates it when people make noise.

[dusty citrus]

;)

Except for himself. ;)

Him and Glenn Gould .. vocalized along with the piano.

[polar bloom]

Well, I can understand it. He improvises the entire concert so it's annoying to have your concentration broken by coughing people or cell phones.

Yeah a lot of jazz players do that.

[dusty citrus]

My brother and I both have perfect pitch; he says his daughter does, too.

Mine's untrained except for the dial tone of the telephone.

[velvet pelican]

Now are we talking standard jazz or swing jazz?

[polar bloom]

Perfect pitch can be great as a musician but it can also be a hindrance.

[dusty citrus]

I'd have to call it more standard.

I read an article that said your pitch drifts and I think that's correct.

You're just hearing the pitch in your mind as you'd hear it in the real world.

Relative pitch I think means you can hear intervals but your absolute reference isn't the same as p.p. is.

[polar bloom]

My gf can sing a song that she hasn't heard in years and not only remembers all the words but also gets the pitch right.

[dusty citrus]

;)

That's probably perfect pitch.

It doesn't go away but I believe it when they say it does drift (not much! just a little).

[polar bloom]

I don't have perfect pitch but it also means I can transpose things into different keys without getting annoyed that "it doesn't sound right".

[dusty citrus]

Yeah I do get annoyed when a famous player plays their own well-known music in a different key in some other recording of it.

[velvet pelican]

Now the question is can you shatter crystal with your voice

[dusty citrus]

I assumed I had relative pitch for years.

I tested my pitch against my guitar tuner. Turns out I can hit the calibrated notes easily.

I wouldn't say it's great, though. Feels 'untrained' subjectively.

I have a significant depth perception deficit, and also I'm colorblind (purple plates with the embedded numbers, I can't see).

[polar bloom]

Detecting pitch is hard for me but it gets easier with practice. I often find that my fingers go to the correct fret automatically (but if I think about it, I always get the note wrong).

[dusty citrus]

I almost was in a panic when I found out during an Air Force induction examination.

I made two people prove it to me. I was really upset about the depth perception thing.

I thought I don't know not that they were lying but that something was very wrong.

@polar bloom That's probably muscle memory?

Saw a woman guitarist on YouTube who used her thumb all the time while forming chords.

That is amazing to me.

[polar bloom]

Yeah I've wondered about this: if you're lacking certain inputs, how would you know that this is unique to you unless someone pointed out that they do get those inputs...

Apparently some people don't have an inner voice, who knew.

[dusty citrus]

Well they had a clear bar - lucite - whatever it's called - and had five washers embedded in it.

One of the washers is displaced; the others are on a plane. Something like that.

Everyone else could see it correctly.

I was a little freaked out that I saw it differently.

I use the knowledge to avoid collisions in the street, apparently my judgement of distance is based on a different adaptation than the rest of you. ;)

And some very close tasks are hard to do (like threading a needle though that's not one of them)

Due to those deficits they said I could never fly for the USAF. ;)

But electronics was okay! ;)

[polar bloom]

Yeah seems like that would be a problem in a jet.

[dusty citrus]

And they cost a lot of money. ;)

The chances of me flying were zero going in but that clinched it for any day dreaming.

[velvet pelican]

Do you have one one eye that is weaker than the other?

My wifes left eye takes a stronger contact lense and she has issues with depth perception due to that

[polar bloom]

I think the chances of the average person ending up as a jet pilot round down to zero too.

[velvet pelican]

Yeah they have to have lightning reflexes and be able to do true multitasking... most people cant talk on the phone and walk at the same time

[dusty citrus]

ck I have no idea what 'eye weakness' is.

I have astigmatism in one eye only, pretty much.

[velvet pelican]

Thatl do it

My wife is nearsighted and has astigmatism

[dusty citrus]

Well I did read somewhere that you learn to improve depth perception (if compromised) with experience and that seems to be the case.

[velvet pelican]

Ohh yeah adapting to circumstances is a must for lots of things

[dusty citrus]

I think I took a State exam for driver's license, after the Air Force, and passed their depth perception test (totally different technology; seemingly, used to test it).

I have no problem at all with bicycles in traffic (riding them) (including using mirrors).

[velvet pelican]

And from what ive experienced people if they listen can learn alot from people that have had challenges like that. I know I have

Are bikes fairly common on the roads put there nis?

[dusty citrus]

Not really sure what that question asks. Lots of slow riders here, not trained, old bicycles.

[velvet pelican]

I know in Portland they are everywhere but Portland likes to be referred to as the bike friendly town

[dusty citrus]

It's hilly so you don't see them except in the flats.

[velvet pelican]

Ahh so not super common but you see them on occasion

[dusty citrus]

We have zero infrastructure for bikes except in the larger cities where there are now bike lanes and stuff.

Also New England winding roads so kind of narrow and dangerous if you don't know how to deal with that.

(take the lane!)

The trick is to time it so you don't yeild too early.

If you go down because of debris on the shoulder of the road you endanger the motorist more (nobody wants to get a ticket for hitting a cyclist).

[velvet pelican]

Thats just like the outskirts here. Biggest issue is the outer roads are 55 mph and alot of people do 70 around the corners. So biking on cornered roads is pertty dangerous here considering the ditch is the only shoulder on most roads in the country

[dusty citrus]

so, always take about 3.5 feet from the unridable part of the edge of the road, except for that last moment when they are near you, overtaking. Then, you should be slower and safe to yeild another 1.5 feet to them (or so).

I will ride against traffic, but only at barely above walking speed.

(usually only uphill)

That way if it's a wide sweep to the right as I go up the hill, I'm most visible.

Downhill I .. well a lot of times I pedal faster. ;)

[velvet pelican]

Lol i try and go traffic speeds but that near impossible for me these days

[dusty citrus]

I try real hard to get all my riding in way before traffic peaks.

But because of the sun angle I usually hit the morning rush hour - first part of it, anyway.

I don't contend when it's rough.

I used to. ;)

Many (most?) motorists rely on the steering wheel instead of the brake pedal (or just letting up off the gas pedal).

When they see a bike they're supposed to drop their speed - slowly.

But they don't.

What's weird is around here that costs them a danger: the center of the road has those 'wake up' depressions in them that only used to be on the shoulder.

So it makes a huge noise when they cross the center of the road, especially going 50 MPH.

All they have to do is drop it to 35-40 and watch carefully as they pass me - nobody coming in the other direction, almost always, so they can hug the center without hitting the bumps.

Instead they keep the gas pedal down and veer over the center and make that awful sound with their tires. Every one of them. ;)

In their defense: the aggregate effect of this is they've successfully bullied almost all cyclists off that road.

So they have very little experience in overtaking the few who remain.

If I see two cyclists on that road during a given ride it's a red-letter day.

[hasty quarry]

Does caffeine force your body to use more energy at the moment it circulates? Is that why you crash, because your body needs compensation for that?

I can't help but wonder how this happens, but it might be some intricate chemical reaction it causes

Ohoho! Caffeine and adenosine have very similar chemical structures, which allows caffeine to stimulate the brain

[velvet pelican]

Yeah you can’t go to Portland without seeing a cyclist

[hasty quarry]

Alright, for anyone interested: throughout the day, adenosine is produced in the body, and it functions as a central nervous system depressant. It works to make you drowsy by sticking to brain cells and inhibiting them more and more throughout the day. Caffeine molecules are so similar to adenosine that they can stick to the exact same receptors, while not inhibiting the work of the cells they stick to, and not allowing adenosine to replace them

This also explains why caffeine is as addictive as it is. Since caffeine effectively suppresses the brain's suppressor, it works to also prevent the production of dopamine from slowing down, and even makes dopamine receptors more sensitive to stimulation

So, obviously, your brain is going to understand this connection between caffeine and more pleasure

[dusty citrus]

Well that's good news. ;)

CO poisoning works by occupying the places you're supposed to have O2 in, I think.

BTW trips and falls, and poisonings are the two most common cause of accidental death.

Avoid them and you get way out of the statistics. ;)

(I think modern use of doctor prescribed is the source of the increase in poisonings) (read those labels!)

[velvet pelican]

Yeah ive seen the effects of a doctor just pushing perscription after perscription... grandpa in law was having seizures from too many medications from a bad doctor... sad to see that happening to anyone

[dusty citrus]

with correct self-defense you can do very well utilizing what the AMA style medical model has to offer.

I read everything, including the markings on meds.

Every time.

And I've learned not to interpret. ;)

[velvet pelican]

Yup you definitely are your own best defense and advocate for medical stuff. Finding a good doctor is part of that. Ive definitely had a few good ones and some bad ones. But either way i dont figure that profession is easy. And it makes it worse when people go into looking to get rich rather than going into it because they actually care and want to help. I feel like that should be a prerequisite for becoming a doctor

[dusty citrus]

My <relative> wants to help and also wants to get rich. Set their mind to it at age eight. ;)

I've only known a few people who knew what they would be doing for vocation at that age.

We had a manager at J.C. Penney who was like 19 going on 35. ;)

[velvet pelican]

😆 aren’t they all tho?

[dusty citrus]

haha fair enough

I was so much older then; I'm younger than that, now. -Bob Dylan

https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/my-back-pages/

[sick adder]

http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/2021/03/20/demoscene-accepted-as-unesco-cultural-heritage-in-germany/

[quartz rune]

cyberpunk as heck!

[spice moss]

assemblyTV on twitch have showed some demoscene in finland too

[zealous ermine]

I'm building a new electronics workshop!

I'm going to be buying a table in a few days

I already have most of the stuff i'm going to be using

im so exited

[velvet pelican]

Should go get pallets and make your own table

Then you can customize it to fit your exact needs

[languid ore]

.

[short bone]

https://twitter.com/mifune/status/1373564866443759617

Pim de Groot (@mifune)

I’ve made a Cursed USB-C 2.0 device. It behaves differently based on the orientation of the plug. https://t.co/8Ko66wPuV2

Retweets

1188

Likes

5690

▶ Play video

Twitter · Mar 21, 2021, 9:19 AM

[zealous ermine]

that sounds cool!

do you have an example?

[stoic mesa]

@zealous ermine I made my own worktable using variation of this manual: https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/how-to-build-a-workbench-super-simple-50-bench/

worked quite well

[grave crest]

The price of lumber is.....astronomical lately.

Between the home construction & renovation push of Covid, devastating fires on the west coast, the devastating hurricanes in the south, the devastating winter storms across Texas..... the prices aren't going to drop anytime soon.

[velvet pelican]

It really depends on what kind of tools you have available. For pallets it’s often difficult to pull the nails so i cut them right at the edge of the boards the make a frame from the larger lumber and nail down the smaller pieces to it. My suggestion is to take a bit of time to consider your needs and design around that. Tools you would need at a minimum are a skill saw and a hammer. The experience of building is both fun and worth ut and you can usually find pallets for free

[sick adder]

Why did milk have pictures of missing kids on it, in the 80s (90s?)

[grave crest]

Not 100% sure, but guessing visibility. Most folks drank milk/used it for cereal -- a consumable that everyone got at some point. So in the days before cell phones, internet, and reliable TV -- it was a way to get the message out quickly.

Also, I'd bet it was a great tax writeoff for milk producers -- public service, etc. Or maybe part of the rules for federal/state farm subsidies. Probably a good story to investigate 🙂

[burnt tendon]

My parents got rid of my dad's old workbench when they moved the most recent time, which is sad because it was a workbench from the Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine plant, which probably means it had juices of ancient jet engines still soaked into it.

[zealous ermine]

juices of ancient jet engines

sounds.... tasty!

[sick adder]

wikipedia has an article on it, surprise surprise.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing-children_milk_carton

"stranger danger", racism, and corporate tax-breaks ahoy.

[ocean sigil]

I remember the milk carton pictures. At the time, it seemed to me to be very effective at raising awareness.

[sick adder]

I don't remember having a particular reaction to them as a kid, which is what I was in the 80s..

[velvet pelican]

@zealous ermine if you make your own table be sure to gusset the legs to make em strong. Or box them into a corner and put 4 fasteners in it

[zealous ermine]

👌 Yes!

[inner escarp]

u know what is the worst

when u searching up something to do with an injury

and then out of nowhere it shows a bunch of disgusting images

:(

[wild temple]

yeah, when all you want is the text

[dusty citrus]

People who seed search engines with random text.

I'd like to see the we mean business planet of the apes, apes, look after them.

the ones you don't want chasing you .. ever

[hasty quarry]

In the sentence "I hate that so much". I and that are subjects, hate is the predicate, what are "so", and "much"?

Or if it's its own concept, what is "so much" (Though I don't think so, because "that much", "this much" and "not much" would work)

[dusty citrus]

sooooo is a modifier of some kind

It's so early.

How can you be so surprised?

What's so funny?

so is a topper.

mine is better.

It's more interesting when it's used by itself:

He loved her so.

"It is so."

"Is that so?"

wrt verity.

Used similary to thus:

And so, they had no choice but to go on.

vs

Thus, they had precious little choice but to move forward.

Follows some 'gotcha' or another. ;)

If you read through all those it begins to sound sometimes like truly and othertimes like very which makes me think useage of very was once closer to verity.

People use the words they know!

[umbral phoenix]

it's an adverb in the usage likeso much; adverbs modify adjectives, adverbs, and other grammatical bits

[hasty quarry]

Ah, an adverb I see

[upbeat cave]

Does someone have an example of a resistance to voltage circuit?

or just an explanation how it works and what is needed to make such circuit

[dusty citrus]

@upbeat cave What does such a circuit do?

[crystal ore]

The simplest sort of circuit like that would be a resistor divider. Those are typically used when reading out a resistive sensor. "Wheatstone bridge" is another configuration.

[dusty citrus]

clamp

@upbeat cave Without a dialogue, there is no answer to the question.

(Is like asking what resistance to altitude is and for an example of it)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamper_(electronics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_diode
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_(electronics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatstone_bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_divider

[dusty citrus]

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

That's a short catalog of ideas that might spring from the notion 'resistance to voltage' and doesn't cover all the bases. ;)

[dusty citrus]

I meant to look into this Zener person to see what was going on there.

[velvet pelican]

Could also just need a resistor to lower voltage

[dusty citrus]

The voltage drop across a resistor is the supply voltage.

So you need a minimum of two. ;)

They call it an I * R drop sometimes in some contexts.

If R_total is held constant (for some arbitrary reason) then I_total is also held constant.

But R1 and R2 can vary (in proportion) to get different voltage drops across each.

That's why a 200k (in R_total) voltage divider, using two 100k Ohm resistors, gives E/2 at the tap, exactly as two 10k resistors would. I_total would be very different in the two dividers.

(In practice the two x 100k resistors might extend the life of your LiPo cell's charge, if the purpose of the divider is to sense)

[velvet pelican]

I mean the point being another possible implication of the original question

So many routs that can go or mean

[dusty citrus]

;) yeah.

I'm sure it was an early question in electronics.

The fire went out. Which way did it go? North? South? East? West?

[velvet pelican]

Its the exact reason my coding discord has a vague bot command

[dusty citrus]

.. is an example of a seemingly reasonable question.

[velvet pelican]

It pulls up a nice writeup of the reason to be precise

[dusty citrus]

;)

Many questions are formed/asked in such a way to presuppose the possible set of answers.

[hasty quarry]

I don't understand how pendulums work

Isn't it just a swinging object on a rope....

How does it keep going and going

[crystal ore]

Do you mean like a pendulum clock? There's a spring that you periodically wind up that keeps giving the pendulum a little bit of energy to counteract friction.

[hasty quarry]

Ah

Also a pendulum like you'd see in a museum

Those that knock the little tiles on the floor

And swing side to side

[crystal ore]

Foucault's pendulum, I presume. They're just very heavy and relatively slow, so air doesn't slow them down that much.

[hasty quarry]

Oh

It's just that simple

Interesting

[crystal ore]

It's not impossible that some installations have an electromagnet under the floor to keep them going without maintenance, but I don't think that would be necessary in most cases.

[dusty citrus]

A pendulum is an object that falls in a gravitational well, constrained by a tether.

Due to air resistance (alone) it loses energy with each swing.

Eventually coming to rest.

Pretty sure Newton put a box of feathers and a box of rocks (or something 'heavy') on a pendulum and compared them by weight alone.

He probably correctly reasoned that the box determined the aerodynamics and that an equal weight of feathers and of (say) rocks had the same characteristics.

Nice homage here:
Learning about Scientific Methodology and the “Big Picture” of Science: The Contribution of Pendulum Motion Studies Michael R. Matthews University of New South Wales
https://educationjournal.web.illinois.edu/archive/index.php/pes/article/view/1893.pdf

.. to measure the time of free-fall, which, he said, “we shall obtain from the marvellous property of the pendulum, which is that it makes all its vibrations, large or small, in equal times.”

[fathom relic]

The reason pendulums are used in clocks is that if a pendulum takes for example 1 second to swing, it doesn't matter how big the swing is, every swing takes 1 second. Big swings when you first release it are fast big 1 second swings. even hours later if it's still swinging, it's just making smaller, slower motion, still at 1 second per swing.

[crystal ore]

Technically that's true only in the small-angle limit... there's a trigonometric correction that applies once the sine goes nonlinear.

[stoic mesa]

but there is this design, called "cycloidal pendulum", where period is truly independent of amplitude:

is not really used in practice, alas

[crystal ore]

Heh, neat!

[spice moss]

the supply chain issues get heightened with the frreight ship in stuck at SuezCanal for sure

[dusty citrus]

That's pretty cool about the pendulums.

In a pendulum clock, the counterweight pulls on something using gravity.

That adds new energy to the system.

Probably gives the pendulum a bit of a push on each cycle to keep it near full amplitude on the swing.

[Mechanical escapement] wristwatches don't use gravity (or as much anyway?)

Typically you wound a spring using a pull-out fob fixed to the watch, to add energy (periodically).

My parents had a nice pendulum clock in the kitchen, maybe 17" from the center of the clock face to the bottom of the pendulum.

There were one or two square key holes on the face; you'd put the winding key into the square key hole and turn it clockwise to wind the spring tighter than it was the day before.

Pretty easy to overshoot and wind it too tight.

[slim ledge]

^ my parents have one of these too. always startles the guests when it goes BONGGG every half hour 🙂

[dusty citrus]

Had a little knurled knob (a 'nut') on the end of the pendulum to adjust its effective length.

@slim ledge I think theirs knew not to bong past a given evening hour but I'm not sure.

(the bong-er was the second spring I think)

You could hear it release something like more than 20 seconds before it bong'd.

[slim ledge]

ah yeah i'm remembering that too now that you mention it 🙂

[dusty citrus]

I don't remember if it did the (tedious) bong-once-per-hour-logged thing or not.

(twelve bongs at noon, for example; but only three of them at 3:00 pm)

[slim ledge]

oh yeah, ours def did, 12 bongs at noon plus one more bonus every half hour 😛

[dusty citrus]

On this one you opened the door protecting the entire clock to wind it. Key was on the bottom shelf inside the clock.

Yeah I'm not sure about the 30 minute mark on ours (ours had no moon clock or any of that stuff)

Nobody in the entire family had one of those large floor-standing 'grandfather' clocks. I had my own kuckoo clock as a kid.