general-chat

[late fulcrum]

I repurposed one of the lenses for an LED projector

[delicate stream]

Hehe

[static flare]

:O

[ancient kindle]

Projectors are fascinating

[ancient kindle]

ugh, usps is usually so good for me

now they did the thing where they scan a package is delivered long before they actually deliver it

so I get the email but it's not in my mailbox

[static flare]

Doctor is torturing me with cursed PCB design ideas please help

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/nothing-to-see-here-explosion-explode-bomb-fire-gif-4923610

[static flare]

:(

[delicate stream]

I mean, I warned you my ideas were insane, lol

[late fulcrum]

Welcome to the world of insane PCB designs

[static flare]

that's actually not too insane compared to mounting a chip vertically

[late fulcrum]

Or mounting an entire board vertically?

[delicate stream]

Yeah, she wanted to make a skinnier RP2040 based board, I said about doing a vertical carrier board, lol

[static flare]

I don't need it thinner! it would be nice, but the RP2040 won't let me get it the requisite 0.2" I need

[delicate stream]

lol

[dusty citrus]

I want to give a TED talk just so I can say 'Rugby' when you're supposed to say R.G.B.

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/gross-disgust-gran-torino-clint-eastwood-gif-3880005

[static flare]

visibly recoils

[polar bloom]

Does anyone actually say that?

[ancient kindle]

the box for this altoids tin is adorable

[delicate stream]

Aww, I wish I had gotten a box...

[ancient kindle]

probably gonna get a 12 pack of actual altoids eventually

[static flare]

I wonder what altoids taste like

[delicate stream]

Delicious

[ancient kindle]

mint

[static flare]

are they strong mints? are they sweet?

[delicate stream]

Peppermint, spearmint, cinnamon, other flavors

VERY strong

Not sweet

[ancient kindle]

normal flavor is mint

breath fresheners, not candy lol

[static flare]

ooh cinnamon!

[delicate stream]

I think spearmint was first? Or was it peppermint?

WARNING: Cinnamon is like 50x stronger than pure cinnamon

[static flare]

oh so like eclipse?

[delicate stream]

Kinda?

[static flare]

huh

[ancient kindle]

so I just got a second teensy 4.1

gonna try making an oscilloscope

[static flare]

nice

[ancient kindle]

I just want to verify this component is a crystal

should be 27 MHz

oscilloscopes are spensive

[static flare]

i just heard someone say boiled water, and clarify and it reminded me of something i saw, where an optometrist was telling someone to pour boiled water in their eyes

[ancient kindle]

bruh

that is not okey dokey

[static flare]

boiled, not boiling

you let the water cool first

[ancient kindle]

could just get some distilled water too

you only need to boil if you're concerned about microbes in the water

which shouldn't be in your tap water

[dusty citrus]

we used to buy 'eye wash' at the pharmacy!

(that was a thing)

it was like a blue cup on the bottle

I haven't sought such a thing out in my entire adult life, though. ;)

[polar bloom]

They still sell that

[dusty citrus]

This was before contact lenses existed. ;)

It's probably got a nice chemistry to it.

[late fulcrum]

It's not hard to build a crystal oscillator out of a logic gate and feedback resistor

[dusty citrus]

'soothing eye wash' 'eye relief' and some have pictures of dogs not humans on the package

"Can I use the dog one"

[late fulcrum]

I tried dog anti-skunk shampoo once in an attempt to get stinkbug odor out of my hair.

[dusty citrus]

I was thinking about using agriculture (livestock) meds for something or other, once (long ago).

Probably they were supposed to be less expensive for 'the same thing'.

[delicate stream]

I fear that one day I'll get sprayed by a skunk or something, not realize, and kill someone with the scent

[polar bloom]

How would you not realize?

[delicate stream]

I can't smell skunk, or most things

[polar bloom]

Ah, my grandmother had that. She was always burning the food.

[delicate stream]

Oof

[polar bloom]

Well, not always. But it happened more than once 😄

[delicate stream]

Lol

[polar bloom]

Whenever I smell celery I have to think of my grandmother because she always used it in the soup they'd eat as an appetizer before dinner.

[ancient kindle]

I don't need to make a crystal, I just want to verify that this crystal is what I think it is

[late fulcrum]

Right. My usual approach with unknown crystals is to pop them in an oscillator and see if they oscillate and if so, at what frequency

[ancient kindle]

oh no I have a really bad idea now

overclocking wii by replacing crystals

[late fulcrum]

Heh, my old machine used the same clock for everything: changing it would have made the video signal out of it invalid.

[ancient kindle]

I think that's the case here too sadly

can't find a second crystal

huh I think they soldered a cap right on a via

that's strange

oooo I have an idea

if interrupts can go at the CPU frequency on a teensy 4.1

I can use that to measure it

[jovial path]

I forgot to say: I am very happy that a brazillian song helped you to get over a hard situation :)

[jovial path]

What is skunk?

[jovial path]

That is true, TV signals depend a lot on frequencies...

[late fulcrum]

It's not really that as much as all the frequencies in the system are derived from a single clock. So if you speed up the CPU, you also speed up the pixel clock, the colorburst frequency, everything.

[jovial path]

But the protocol of TV signals depend upon specific frequencies

To start comunication

Define the resolution

...

Actually I know this from HDMI monitors, but I think HDMI TV's are the same.

[jovial swift]

only difference between a monitor and a TV is that a TV has a tuner.

[jovial path]

And very specific frequencies, periods...

The signal...

[jovial swift]

BTW, this is a skunk

[jovial path]

I see.

[jovial swift]

very smelly creature

[jovial path]

When I had COVID I couldn't smell anything.

[jovial path]

When I was a kid I saw movies with them, always was curious if it was that smelly.

[jovial swift]

glad you are better, but you might have smelled him 😉

[jovial path]

This animal doesn't exist here in Brazil, even in Amazon...

[jovial path]

I am way better :)

[jovial path]

What does it smells like?

The skunk.

Trash?

[ancient kindle]

nowadays TVs are just monitors with a smartphone built in

[lapis bluff]

Have you ever smelled a gas leak? That smell was modeled after the skunk.

[jovial swift]

hard to say, it is bad and unlike any other bad smell you ever smelled

@ancient kindle yes modern TVs are basically Android computers with a nice screen attached 🙂

[ancient kindle]

more like phones since they also have insane amounts of ads built in

[jovial swift]

lol

[lapis bluff]

You can, of course, see more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk (which says they do inhabit S. America).

[jovial path]

Cool, Americas share the same smelly animal 😆

[jovial swift]

"Skunk Works", on the other hand, is where UFOs are invented 😉

[ancient kindle]

ugh so I need an oscilloscope for literally 1 thing but they're so expensive for how little use I'd get out of it

need to measure 1 potentially 27MHz crystal

the cheap CRT deals have dried up

[jovial path]

You can buy a small cheap osciloscope

<100 dollars...

But it's has not all that fancy functions...

[ancient kindle]

can't get good enough sample rate at that price

[jovial path]

:/

It's very bad when you want to do engineering and doesn't have the proper resources...

Actually you deserve every resouces you need...

It's engineering!

[lapis bluff]

There's https://www.adafruit.com/product/468 for a lower price scope.

[ancient kindle]

I'd rather spend my money on a hot air station that I'd use daily than a oscilloscope I use monthly y'know

[jovial path]

Yep I was talking about something like this.

[ancient kindle]

also OOS

1 mega sample/second, not enough for 27MHz

there just isn't a good middle ground between these cheap things and a real siglent for example

[jovial path]

Can't you use the one at your university?

Or it is closed

Because or COVID

[ancient kindle]

it's the summer

[lapis bluff]

Oops, I hadn't noticed that. There are some small scopes that will do the speed needed, just not curated by Ladyada.

[ancient kindle]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XZML6RD

something like this was what I was gonna get

[jovial path]

:/

[jovial path]

Wow... "Amazon's choice" :)

[ancient kindle]

it's a great scope for the price

but I'd be wasting it likely

[static flare]

heyo all

[ancient kindle]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EID23J6 this is what I was about to get

[lapis bluff]

The Siglent was well beyond the about $100 price range. I know there are some really cheap options that are basically just sampling and then hook up to your PC for the actual display/control. But I don't do Windows and these all required that, so I only know of the existence, and not specs.

[jovial path]

What is this?

[ancient kindle]

hot air station

[delicate stream]

It's like a stinky cat, black with white stripes, they spray stink juice at threats

[jovial path]

The one I'll get for Christmans is 50mhz.

[jovial path]

For solderig?

[ancient kindle]

yep

[lapis bluff]

And also useful for rework. It can help in low quantity soldering of very small boards with lots of SMD.

[jovial path]

I see....

[ancient kindle]

yep, that's what I want to do

also I want to desolder a rather large BGA chip

[lapis bluff]

That falls under "rework" in my taxonomy.

[ancient kindle]

idk if it's gonna work

about 26mmx26mm

might need a board preheater

and gallons of flux

[lapis bluff]

This (https://www.adafruit.com/product/4948) might help.

[ancient kindle]

perhaps

it's kinda small tho

[lapis bluff]

Well your chip is only 26mmx26mm which would fit, although there might be some fiddling needed to hold the eight part of the board in the right spot.

[ancient kindle]

the board is rather large

the 26mmx26mm one is the big silver at the right

[lapis bluff]

I was thinking some thing like https://www.adafruit.com/product/2474 to hold the board. I have one and it should be good at that.

[ancient kindle]

I was thinking maybe one of these guys https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKBQ717/

clamps in to place

I can dremel the board to fit that, but not the mini plate

it's cheaper too

[zealous ermine]

i put an AM radio next to my CPU when it was generating random numbers

it sounded very strange

[late fulcrum]

Computers have all sorts of fast edges at various frequencies and spray lots of interesting RF and harmonics

[ancient kindle]

GPUs are super noisy components

Run furmark and listen

[lapis bluff]

I remember a time when an AM radio tuned to an empty spot on the dial was a standard debugging tool.

The first computer I ever got close enough to touch while programming was 385kHz (a PDP-8/E).

[slim shard]

I thought those were core memory machines, wouldn't have imagined them going that fast (starts googling)

hmm, core memory was the limit (or maybe wasn't), but it did go that fast, huh...

[limber jacinth]

I had a laptop that had that kind of interference on the analog out. When it was plugged into external speakers, I could hear the GPU whenever I scrolled. It sounded like I was like sliding the page on carpet...

[lapis bluff]

Yes, and the architecture made good use of the fact that core memory basically did a read by writing all zeros and sensing whether the original data was a 1 or 0 by how much it took to write the zero. It remembered what it had read out and by default would write that back, but the CPU could update that data first. For example, there were a set of memory locations that incremented each time you used them (may have been only some uses, it's been 50ish years since I did any hard core PDP8 hacking, but I have two in my collection and occasionally sit in front of them and toggle in programs).

[hasty quarry]

How big of a diamond could come from all the carbon in one person’s body

Very strange question, but I just started wondering about it

[static flare]

It depends mostly on the carbon density of diamonds, and how much carbon is in a human

[delicate stream]

Well, Googling "diamond from human carbon" informed me that apparently you can have your ashes turned into a diamond, and humans are 18% carbon... and in another forum I found these maths

[late fulcrum]

I'm pretty dubious about those "cremains into a diamond" vendors. Normal cremation temperatures would burn all the carbon, and it would go up the chimney in the form of carbon dioxide.

[delicate stream]

Yeah, that's what someone in that thread said. They also said those companies usually use a portion of the ashes and put them into carbon to make the diamond

[dusty citrus]

I found a way to use a GEDCOM file in 'gramps' to generate PNG or SVG (I forget which) and the final format is PNG.

They're huge files; was able to edit one in the GIMP.

And that's how I can share portions of my geneology database and not worry about what I shared that was private.

(The missing people removed from the PNG leave good sized otherwise unexplained gaps in the render of the tree, though)

Generally, just leave out living persons - that's the right place to draw the line. ;)

[supple surge]

2040s, esp32s, and RadioWings - oh, my! Now I just have to * gulp * hook it all together 😅 with an led screen cherry on top so it can say hi to me 🥳

[dusty citrus]

That's a good kit of loot you got there

[quartz wren]

Well I just started undertaking a project I may end up regretting but actually not because as difficult and grueling as it may end up being ill learn a lot from it... Designing a game that incorporates nuclear physics, chemistry, electronics simulation (limited to digital circuits for technical reasons, analog circuits will be limited in complexity and will simulate in-game)

And a few other things I intend to throw in there for funsies

But I'm completely rewriting the physics of the universe to make implementation easier and to make it memory efficient

[hasty quarry]

I really hate the phact that “tough” is pronounced the way it is

[quartz wren]

Yeah... Tough, rough, enough... All strange spelling/pronunciation relationships

[dusty citrus]

ghoti

That's a way to spell fish

[quartz wren]

Ah yes I love ghotiing

[dusty citrus]

I still can't parse it, even though I learned how to spell it. ;)

[quartz wren]

Gh like enough o like women ti like partial

[dusty citrus]

aha.

nice.

[quartz wren]

My dad loves word games so I learned a lot of ways to manipulate language :D

Sometimes I talk to myself aloud in a language that would be annoying to parse for a third party lol

And it is very inconsistent

But I'm at least getting my point across to the person who's trying to understand it better in a way they can understand. Target audience: me.

[dusty citrus]

@dry belfry Were you in an Oberon or BlueBottle discussion group?

[hasty quarry]

Too, roo, enoo

Tuff, ruff, enuff

Toe, roe, enoe

[tardy badger]

Though

🙂

[dusty citrus]

roe buck

[polar bloom]

Oberon the programming language?

[zenith wolf]

once you start playing with UV cure resin for keycaps there is no end to the things you will want to cast.

[quartz wren]

pretty

I have some UV resin I need to use up

it's got some chunks in it from improper filtering before return to the container so I'm not quite sure what to do with it since I don't really have a safe place to even work with it in the first place

[hazy inlet]

That's amazing.

[wary herald]

I got ST4! I've been playing with text editors for a while, then I discovered ST because of Scott.

[wary herald]

Wow! Loot Box

I'm jealous 🤑

[wary herald]

What's your project?

[delicate stream]

Imagine if Adafruit orders came in electronic loot boxes over a certain amount

[dusty citrus]

@polar bloom Oberon was available on a single diskette - it's an entire operating system as well.

https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/Oberon/index.html

that link may not be current. First google hit. 'oberon eth zurich'

https://web.archive.org/web/20191011164646/http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch:80/sitemap.html

[polar bloom]

Yeah I have Wirth's book on building compilers 🙂

[dusty citrus]

The download page looked like this when it was live:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191019135743/http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/download.html

I'm combing Peter Easthope's web at the moment looking for curring standing of BlueBottle.
http://easthope.ca/Peter.html

(reason):
http://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2016/008653.html

This seems current to me:
http://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2021/date.html

This looks like one current take on the idea to me:
https://github.com/andreaspirklbauer/Oberon-extended

Very diaspora. ;)

http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~fld/UnixAos/

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oberon/A2

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oberon#System_Variants

I have BlueBottle here running on Debian amd64. Nothing special about the Linux platform it's run on.

To boot Native Oberon on bare metal (x86 machines) this looks likely:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/nativeoberon/files/nativeoberon/
Requires floppy diskette (unless things have changed).

I used to run one on an old laptop - took about 5 seconds to boot it. ;)

[dusty citrus]

aos has a web browser! No https I think.

Runs up my load average - unacceptable (cpu cooling fan comes on full speed).

That's likely why I barely remember aos/a2 ;)

[supple surge]

It’s gonna end up as some sort of “smart” / iot capable audio output device - while I’m floored at how drenched in features the esp32 is (it can probably do most of what I’m thinking of) with those 2040s now priced at just $1, definitely want one of those in the mix doing some juggling too 😁 also fascinated at the possibility of packet radio to coordinate multiple units or do things like say when to blink the lights or send simple state change messages, to swerve the limitations of wifi and Bluetooth

[supple surge]

That’s super cool!! I heard an episode of the Real Python podcast that said that making a game is one of the best ways to learn code and development, because there’s a finite end product that you can also easily share with other people 😁

[quartz wren]

Yeah it seems to be the easiest way of getting myself to code something worth showing to people

[quartz wren]

I decided to simplify the chemistry / nuclear physics model to 15 elements

means I can define an isotope with only 1 byte

then I need another 2 bytes to represent electrons and their energies (energy being tied to place value) for the ionic description

then I can train a neural network model on how I want the decay chains to behave and only need 256 output nodes, much more feasible than the 1 billion I was looking at for a more complex model

[late fulcrum]

That makes sense. I'm building a net with an intermediate layer of 1280 nodes that then drives a dense layer with 6 output nodes. Early testing is encouraging.

[quartz wren]

pretty sure I should be able to get away with 3 input nodes and 258 output nodes. the 3 inputs would be the nucleus in question, described by 4 bits for protons, 4 for neutrons and then one byte for free neutron density, and one for free electron density (since that can affect some nuclear systems in the case of inverse beta decay for example) then 256 output nodes indexed by the bit configuration they correspond to (that is, one output node for every possible input nucleus) which are then weighted values representing the likelihood to decay into a given nucleus then 2 more for free electrons and neutrons coming out

no clue on intermediate nodes, will need to test things

[dusty citrus]

is there a development board for the Xilinx XC3S50?

[ancient kindle]

You mean like this one? https://www.ebay.com/itm/261136090140

[stoic mesa]

1280 is a lot for a layer...
what will your net classify?

[late fulcrum]

It's one of the pretrained image recognition networks from TensorFlow Hub: it comes with all those output nodes out of the box. I'm building a food recommender. Originally I was going to go from images to dishes (such as "daal" or "hot dog") and from there to qualities. But then I decided to try going straight to qualities (sweet/salty/acid/bitter/fat/spicy)

I have another project to recognize Lego bricks, but it's pretty ordinary: vgg16 into a couple of layers and one-hot encoding for various brick types. That one trains up nicely.

[dusty citrus]

this is perfect, thank you

[jovial path]

Maybe in the future I'll send my curriculum to work as an engineer at LEGO.

[stoic mesa]

The problem with recognizing LEGO bricks is that there are about 10,000 different lego parts if not more
I tried to build a nice storage for LEGO collection, with different bins for different pieces, but realized I will never have enough bins to do that

[ancient kindle]

you'll never have enough money to fill all of that too lol

[delicate stream]

Lian Li Strimer is 100% NeoPixel compatible :D

[ancient kindle]

arr gee bee cables

uy

[delicate stream]

I'm glad I didn't waste $80, lol

These are PCIe extensions, and the 1st gen Strimers, which I didn't know that the 1st gen PCIe Strimers needed the 24 pin to connect the PCIe one to the RGB controller... the 2nd gen [which is fully addressable], the PCIe ones don't need to connect to the 24 pin

But now I can just connect them to a Pico, lol

Should a Pico survive living in a potentially hot PC?

[obtuse harness]

If it’s getting to the point of damaging the pico I think your computer will have much larger problems.

[spice moss]

by the way doctor that thermaltake coolant what they are experimenting as it have being hold since pandemic started so it features that coolant dont clog what is magic of it

[delicate stream]

Coolant that never degrades would indeed be magic

[delicate stream]

And that's what I was thinking XD

[obtuse harness]

It will probably give you exact values in the data sheet but I can’t see any reason why it would be an issue.

[delicate stream]

true true...

[limber jackal]

Never discount the DIY route!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZUOazRFLaA

[delicate stream]

Imagine being 0.01% as cool as Adam

Me: playing with NeoPixels, comments out a line, saves
Pico: freeze
Me: Wait y u no work? fiddles, re-flashes CP, tries again
Pico: darkness
Me: WHY looks deeply at code Oh.... wait... comments are #, not //...

[tardy badger]

😂

[delicate stream]

I swear I have a brain that can do things

[stoic mesa]

this will teach you to never use comments!

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/jaiden-animation-gif-18484706

[delicate stream]

I NEED AN ADULT

[static flare]

literally every programming teacher I've ever had would be rolling in their graves if any of them were dead

[wild temple]

actually, shurik is right

[delicate stream]

MONSTERS BOTH OF YOU

[wild temple]

you can skip writting comments if you write your code so cleanly that comments are unnecessary

[delicate stream]

... You haven't written a program with tens of thousands of lines of code, have you?

[static flare]

In experience, even the cleanest code will become nonsense given time

[wild temple]

oh, yes i have

[static flare]

"What was this for?" "Why did I do that?" "What was I thinking?!"

[wild temple]

also, commenting leads to writting bad comments

and useless fodder

[delicate stream]

Was it all linear stuff? 'cuz I've always had programs that when they get into 10k+ lines across multiple files, you need to comment things

[wild temple]

yes, but you don't comment the code, you comment on why you wrote the code the way it is

[delicate stream]

I'm confused... comments are to write why you did a thing [and I use them for troubleshooting instead of cutting/deleting something I want to turn of temporarily]

[wild temple]

yes

they aren't to write what the code does

here's a bad comment

different language, but my code

[delicate stream]

It's good practice to explain what a thing does for when it isn't obvious

I mean, some stuff is obvious, but some really complex things get too convoluted to really make sense to an outsider, and even yourself later, and if you forget how it works, how can you modify or fix it if you didn't comment it?

[wild temple]

this is a good-ish comment

and yes, i censured it in paint

[delicate stream]

The only bad comments are old comments, but you really should be maintaining comments the same as you maintain the rest of the code

[wild temple]

i mean, it doesn't make sense to keep comments that no longer apply

[delicate stream]

Yeah, so old comments should be erased when they're not valid, but it's never bad to explain what a thing does for any eyes in the future

[stoic mesa]

No comments

😆

[delicate stream]

#Today we learned that shurik is a monster```

[wild temple]

if what it is doing isn't explicit, then something isn't right

but, if you're talking about the typical "this part is responsable for this thing"

[delicate stream]

Sometimes you just gotta get complicated, man

[wild temple]

then yeah, i guess i could live with those

sometimes, maybe

i don't like to complicate

[delicate stream]

Good code should need a minimum of comments, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have comments

[wild temple]

does the comment add any value at all?

[delicate stream]

I mean... that's why comments exist

[honest jolt]

*sweats as I don't use comments at all unless for TODOs or leaving links to the StackOverflow post I got the solution from 😂

[static flare]

A good reason is if someone else was faced with your code for the first time, to see what it does, even if it's obvious to you it might not be to someone else reading it

[stoic mesa]

I was not quite serious, obviously... never thought it would start the long discussion

[wild temple]

i do this too, it's like giving credit to who wrote that chunk

[delicate stream]

Monstrous jokes are dangerous, my friend... You should know better :P

[wild temple]

i can write comments that add absolutely no value at all, that do explain the code and are useless at the same time

[honest jolt]

Also writing good comments is just as much work as writing documentation

[delicate stream]

I mean, you shouldn't be commenting EVERY LINE... that's just insane. But there's nothing wrong with extra comments, it's better to have more comments than necessary than not enough

[wild temple]

that's scaringly accurate

[static flare]

that's what i see comments in code as, a form of documentation

[delicate stream]

Comments ARE documentation

Just not use documentation like you want to have for the final product

[wild temple]

i see comments as a way to explain whatever insanity my dumb brain wrote when i should be sleeping

[stoic mesa]

jokes are dangerous...

[delicate stream]

Indeed

[wild temple]

i was just commenting about comments :/

[delicate stream]

Scary comments

[honest jolt]

👀 that's VS Code

also I can't stand how bright it is 😂 how do you stand light mode

[wild temple]

it's actually visual studio 2017

and easy: dark theme bad, light theme good

[honest jolt]

NooOOOoOoOOOO

[delicate stream]

Further conformation that you're a monster

[wild temple]

i just prefer light theme, on editors

[honest jolt]

WHY

[delicate stream]

How does searing bright light not hurt you

[honest jolt]

It looks like the sun

[static flare]

I mean, nothing I ever write is "final product" stuff

[wild temple]

on discord, i MUST use the light theme with dark sidebar

[honest jolt]

WKLLIBAUWFHLIUSAHEFwefOIHFLWESOHFiluHILubhlILH

[wild temple]

the dark theme gives me headaches

[honest jolt]

Literally the first thing I do with every program I download is to switch it to dark mode

[wild temple]

the light theme gives me strong headaches

[delicate stream]

You're a strange creature

[wild temple]

a mix of both is perfect

[delicate stream]

Light is pain

[honest jolt]

*confused screaming*

I'll even use high-contrast mode on an editor if there is no dark mode available

[delicate stream]

Dark mode > high-contrast > light

[wild temple]

this is how i MUST use discord

this is unusable

[honest jolt]

AHHHHHH
YOU'RE BURNING MY EYES 😂

[delicate stream]

Please stop trying to blind us

[wild temple]

this is horrible for me

[honest jolt]

If my screen was an OLED it would be using double amount of power to show those screenshots

[honest jolt]

This is beautiful

[wild temple]

i cant use it

[delicate stream]

The closer to everything looking like this, the better

[honest jolt]

This is killing me

[wild temple]

nice dark square you got there 😮

[delicate stream]

Command Prompt

Full scren

[honest jolt]

Command prompt copy and paste kills me

[delicate stream]

?

[honest jolt]

This is beauty

[wild temple]

i offer you "headache in a can"

[honest jolt]

The spoiler didn't work 🤣

[wild temple]

the spoiler is useless...

[delicate stream]

why are you a monster

[honest jolt]

We are also scretching the limits of #general-chat right now 😂

[delicate stream]

There are no limits

This is how I actually command prompt now

[honest jolt]

You have to use Ctrl + C and Ctrl + P for copy and paste unlike literally every other terminal emulator ever in the existance of mankind

[delicate stream]

CTRL+C and CTRL+P is the oldest keyboard combo

[wild temple]

im not a monster, i just don't do well with dark backgrounds :/

[honest jolt]

CTRL + C IS FOR SIGTERM AKWEHFILUAHWEFILUHWILUFLUI
(it's sigterm right? i forgot)

[wild temple]

ctrl+c is the "DIE NOW" combination

[delicate stream]

On newer things

[honest jolt]

Actually I believe Ctrl + Break will send SIG something that instata terminate it

[wild temple]

never tried that

[delicate stream]

Ctrl+C for not copy functions is newer than being used for copy, so anything that uses it for not copy is the weird thing, not the thing that uses it for copy

[wild temple]

how did it work in the dos days?

[delicate stream]

Ctrl+C was copy in DOS

A lot of things in the modern command prompt are actually identical to the early DOS days

[wild temple]

🤔

[honest jolt]

You can always catch it:

>>> def hold_forever():
...     try:
...         while True: 
...             pass
...     except KeyboardInterrupt:
...         hold_forever()

Well, until a stack overflow (above also untested, just in theory)

[delicate stream]

Ctrl+T makes more sense because TERMINATE

[wild temple]

well, it still tells to die

[honest jolt]

Yea but the program doesn't have to listen

[wild temple]

yup

[honest jolt]

It's instructing the program to bury itself

[wild temple]

politely asking it, yes

[wild temple]

how about linux and unix?

[honest jolt]

https://linuxhandbook.com/content/images/2020/06/dont-sigkill.jpeg

(found https://linuxhandbook.com/sigterm-vs-sigkill/)

[delicate stream]

Honestly I can't remember, but that came later

I don't usually copy/paste in the terminal

[delicate stream]

What kind of SIG is it when you just turn the power off?

[wild temple]

windows, linux or macos?

[delicate stream]

yes

[honest jolt]

Mass extinction

[delicate stream]

lol

[wild temple]

on windows, it gives you a "kernel power" event when you turn it on

[delicate stream]

it was a joke question

[wild temple]

on linux and mac, it probably does a check

OH

[delicate stream]

lol

[wild temple]

im just dumb

[delicate stream]

derp

[wild temple]

me and humor, best frenemies

[delicate stream]

lol

[honest jolt]

me and intelligence/simple reasoning, best enemies

[wild temple]

we always never understand eachother

[delicate stream]

lelz

I am cat

knocks glass off table

[wild temple]

hi cat, im ἔρως#2937

[wild temple]

why? 🤔

[delicate stream]

listens to all the versions of Ievan polkka

[wild temple]

what's that?

[delicate stream]

... surely you jest

[wild temple]

jest?

[delicate stream]

joke

[wild temple]

me? no

im bad at that

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/faint-monster-inc-sulley-ugh-pass-out-gif-3927133

This is like... one of the most used meme songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck

[wild temple]

that's pretty fun

[delicate stream]

It's one of my favorite songs, I listen to it at least several times a year

Haven't missed a year since it was fresh and new, lol

[wild temple]

when was it fresh and new?

[delicate stream]

2008 >~>

Here's a video from late last year that features vibe cat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUYvbT6vTPs still popular

[wild temple]

oh, that's where it came from

[honest jolt]

Because I do not feature the mental capacity of such things. I need a hardware upgrade 😆

[delicate stream]

Lol, that last one came 12 years later.... Ievan Polkka is very old

[wild temple]

well, i just dont have good knowledge on those things

where stuff started and all

[delicate stream]

I said the first one was 13 years ago and the second one was last year XD

[wild temple]

yeah, and im saying i didn't knew and suck as learning this type of stuff

[wild temple]

you're not the only one needing an hardware upgrade, trust me

[delicate stream]

watch moar memes

absorbe all

[wild temple]

now-a-days, anything is a meme

[delicate stream]

Life is the ultimate meme

[wild temple]

true ... true ...

[static flare]

I want it

[wary herald]

I like it 🙂

[delicate stream]

https://github.com/EktoHunter/ApertureTerminal/

[tardy badger]

So… I tried the Beyond Meat burger they sell at the grocery store

Is not for me

[delicate stream]

Yeah, they're not "perfect" yet... Impossible is closer

I think you have to cook them right, too -- Impossible I cooked at home doesn't taste quite the same as Impossible I got from restaurants

I mean like, just right to get the best flavor

[tardy badger]

I cooked them on a cast iron like I would a burger and how they instructed

It just was a subtly sweet but then bitter yeasty flavor

[delicate stream]

Hmm

[tardy badger]

I’m a fan of bean burgers

Probably my favorite meat replacement

[delicate stream]

Maybe it's the whole package that makes it taste different in a restaurant... shrug They taste good enough that I'd consider Impossible as a some of the time replacement, but they tend to be more expensive than beef burgers now

I like meat, lol

[tardy badger]

I don’t mine meat but too much can wreck havoc of digestion for my wife and I

I feel really old saying that

I’m only 28

[delicate stream]

Lol... I have no known digestive weaknesses

Don't worry, I'm older than you

Unrelated: copper key!

[static flare]

send it to me in like a week

[honest jolt]

I'm waiting for Elon Musk to create enhanced brains

[honest jolt]

r/Memes 🙂
If you want it clean, then I'd suggest Memeade for robot voice-over and Limenade for human voice-over on YouTube

[delicate stream]

I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave...

[static flare]

I can't eat red meat, so my fiancee and I usually stick to more vegan stuff and chicken

[static flare]

But I'm away from my computer for a week

[delicate stream]

Save in browser until then, just remember it's there

Or search "ApertureTerminal" in a week

[steel river]

i desperately want to show off my furb collection

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/stevenuniverse-star-gif-4782048

[steel river]

My plan is to mod them and run MyCroft on them. Then mail them out to my friends

[delicate stream]

Hehehehe, I love it

[stoic mesa]

so you order them from digikey and mouser? 😂

[steel river]

Ebay. I got each for under 20 bucks!

[wary herald]

I love Mycroft! I currently have a RPI4 that I have nicknamed "JARVIS"

[steel river]

we're currently training a model for "Hay Russell"

[wary herald]

Also... do any of you have experience with Bluefish?

https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/J.A.R.V.I.S.

[steel river]

Russell is our discord bot. my friends wanted to give him a furby body and i said, "I can do that"

[wary herald]

Oh, I see now

[steel river]

what's bluefish?

[wary herald]

A Python editor

http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html

I use it mainly for RPIs

[wary herald]

I just wanted to say thanks for the IO+ year free @viscid folio . You are AWESOME 🙂

[storm musk]

please check out my project (very offtopic but I do use adafruit in other projects) https://gbaldraw.fun/ (written in Crystal with Amber framework) (not open source atm but will be eventually) (originally written in Ruby on Rails) it's a collaboration tool for artists and coders

featuring artistic collab canvas, collab notepad editor, video chat, and chat room with a 3 way bridge between an irc channel (#gbaldraw on rizon) and a discord room and a websocket chat on the site. the chat is an html chat and supports images and links and colors. 🙂

[quartz wren]

if anyone needs to ask for my help or opinion, highlight me. I'll be hiding in my depression cave.

[jovial path]

Does anyone know where the colors for positive and negative in electronics come from?

It was also Benjamin Franklin who choosed the colors?

[quartz wren]

that's a loaded question since there are many different combinations of colors one can use and still conform to some standard

basically what I've seen in a lot of stuff I've taken apart is cheaper electronics will be manufactured to use what's on hand and as long as the positive is lighter than the negative, they don't have qualms about mixing and matching

not sure who picked red and black, but it makes sense because red is the color of blood so is automatically associated as dangerous in the brain, ground is not going to cause any pain, so it can be a nice non-committal color (generally black)

but I've seen green, red, blue, white, orange, light purple, pink, yellow, and a few others as positive, and green, black, blue, dark purple, gray, and a few others used for ground

now, if you want to get into multi-voltage systems (for instance a PC PSU) you'll have different colors depending on voltage all in the same system, but with black denoting ground

likely none of this is relevant to the original question, sorry for the useless wall of text

[dusty citrus]

Telephone wire is red green black yellow

[ancient kindle]

green is usually earth cause like grass color n stuff

[dusty citrus]

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-RVs-u\
se-black-and-white-polarity-black-\
white-as-in-AC-house-wiring-but-in\
-12-volt-DC-systems-where-black-is\
-typically-negative-I-have-blown-m\
ultiple-fuses-inadvertantly-connec\
ting-positive-black-wires-to

I don't know how to hide that. A friend says url shorteners aren't secure.

quora itself generated this one as the link to the above:
https://qr.ae/pGYmtA

[ancient kindle]

how to hide what

[dusty citrus]

a very long URI such as the quora one above

It's inappropriate to post it as a hot link in my view. ;)

[stray wind]

What do folks have for gaming mice? I have a Mac, and so Razer might be out because it's been 3 years or something and there's still no support for their latest software for MacOS. I do have a VM, but I'm finding dubious answers as to whether that's a viable option for configuring anything and having the configuration work on-board the mouse (e.g. apparently LED config won't stick on-board, and I am turning those off first thing, so..... I don't need perma-rainbow).

[quartz wren]

I just use whatever mouse I can find but that's because I've never had the option of anything better 😛

seems to suit me just fine to have basic movement + 3 button clicking

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[stray wind]

You're not the only one. Many of my friends are the same. One is using a mouse from like 1999.

The one I have isn't compatible with the software anymore, so I can't reconfigure the side buttons, and I bump them against my keyboard regularly and they do whatever they're default supposed to do, but it's so annoying.

bump "Oh, new webpage!"

[quartz wren]

yeah, the only must for me is that it's a laser mouse

I even have a PS/2 mouse that I use sometimes because it's a laser mouse

[supple surge]

I’ll ask around some of my gaming pals 🙃 I was just appreciating my fancy new magnetometer I’m super xcited about and noticed your sig on it ☺️ THE COMPASS ROSE IS GENIUS i never remember axises (axes? Axies? I’m hopeless 😅) - I’ll try to track down mice 🐁 😝

[quartz wren]

axes is correct

[supple surge]

Thank you! I was leaning that way but then I thought of axe 🪓 throwing too much and moved on haha

[stray wind]

😊 Yeap, that's one of mine!

[quartz wren]

I mean, technically "axes" can mean either the plural of axis or the plural of axe...

[dusty citrus]

The old trackballs were quite good, some of them. I've forgotten the brand name.

Consumer grade low-priced pointing devices reflect what you paid for them.

[quartz wren]

just depends on pronunciation. when using plural of axis, it's pronounced "ax-ease" and when talking about an ax it's "ax-ehs"

[dusty citrus]

I've become used to a track pad that doesn't even twitch the mouse pointer when my hand isn't near the trackpad.

[quartz wren]

what's funny is the $5 amazon basics mouse works pretty well...until it fails completely

takes about 2 months

[dusty citrus]

I've forgotten the name of the vendor I liked (way back).

Those trackballs were way bigger than a ping pong ball.

Like not much smaller than a billiard ball.

Kensington maybe.

[quartz wren]

I used to have a trackball that connected to a serial port

that thing actually worked really well

[dusty citrus]

Yeah I never did own a good one - sat at other people's computer for like half an hour, and would say 'this is a great trackball!' and then not go out and buy one.

[fair summit]

I like the Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse a lot: inexpensive, comfortable, and the wheel does not make a lot of noise. There is a screw under the lower sticker, so you can take it apart to clean it as necessary. Logitech wheels are too noisy.

[quartz wren]

I like the positive click that logitech wheels give, especially while playing minecraft when you need precision on what hotbar item you're selecting

but that's just me

[stray wind]

I think this is what a friend of mine is using except whatever Microsoft was making in the late 90s.

[quartz wren]

I had a microsoft laser PS/2 mouse I used to use exclusively because it worked so well, but it eventually failed at the scroll wheel because one of the pegs snapped off, then I had to find a replacement laser PS/2 mouse and it looks exactly the same form factor but it's branded differently so I'm not sure if the internals are the same

[dusty citrus]

I did like my old PS/2 LogiTech marble something or other.

Looked like a baseball mit meets a fried egg sunny side up ;)

Looked almost like this one, except no wheel embedded in the middle button:

https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/30911431213.jpg

Took some getting used to, but I liked it a lot after that.

[quartz wren]

used to have one of these suckers

used it for a few years, actually

I think I only stopped using it when I was introduced to an optical mouse

[dusty citrus]

That trackball looks good. The rest of it looks like a desk hog.

[quartz wren]

yeah, well I didn't have a desk at the time

sat on the floor with my computer in the bottom of a crib mattress sized bunk bed

[dusty citrus]

I use my actual lap for this keyboard and I don't even feel it anymore.

Somewhere along the way I learned to tune out the fact I have an object resting on my legs.

[quartz wren]

I like to sit in weird positions in my chair and having a keyboard in my lap isn't conducive to that unless it's wireless

lol

[dusty citrus]

Weighs 405 grams and is wireless.

[quartz wren]

I had a wired keyboard I liked but here's a reminder of what happens when you're not mindful of where your soldering iron is https://i.imgur.com/Z09woso.jpg

this thing worked fine on my lap as it was small and light and had a really long cable

but the one I have to use now is uh...well it's a hefty boi

[dusty citrus]

Well you know that IBM Model M was the thing to have, at some point in the past. ;)

I used to call on clients, carrying my own keyboard, so I wouldn't have to deal with whatever keyboard layout they had on their machine.

Kind of worked in my favor, socially, too .. usually got noticed.

I would have rather they didn't notice at all. ;)

Yeah that was a full five years before the first ISP accounts were offered, so there was no Internet to leverage.

You went to their business and worked directly at their keyboard and display.

[late fulcrum]

I got a fancy Logitech MX Master 3, but it refuses to pair with my Mac. Or, it does pair, then waits two seconds, then there's a spinning icon, then it unpairs. I could use it with the dongle, but that means I'd have to buy another USB hub and I don't want to.

[quartz wren]

I feel like I was born 3 decades too late...

too late for any of my tech discoveries to be novel, and too early to explore space on the cheap...

juuuuuust at the right time to be one of the people who has to deal with climate issues that have been compounding to dangerous levels from choices made before I even existed, and certainly long before I could even make the choice of what pants to wear

at least there's cool toys to play with while the world burns ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[late fulcrum]

In the 1980s, I had the notion of what I called a "synthetic synapse", and that an array of them would be able to learn things. I used my Atari 800 to write prototype code and train arrays like this, it basically worked and it occurred to me that with a more powerful computer and more time and data, it might be able to do some fairly interesting things. Fast forward 40 years and now "neural nets" are all the thing. Granted, my research at the time, while original, was not novel, and I didn't pursue it much.

[quartz wren]

every time I come up with an original thought of something mind blowing I could explore, I look into it to see what research there is on the subject and it turns out to either be a solved problem or an unsolvable problem

and in no instances I can remember have I found an original idea that was actually novel

[late fulcrum]

I keep realizing that an apparently trivial thought I had in the past would have been novel at the time, and the "mind blowing" stuff, like yours, kept turning out to be unworkable.

[quartz wren]

but I have noticed a trend of figuring out stuff on my own that turns out to be the solution the experts have come to

[late fulcrum]

I was working on one project using energy harvesting. We eventually got a patent out of it, but it wasn't the fancy energy harvesting stuff, it was something I threw together to save a few parts and basically forgot about until the patent attorney noticed it might be useful.

[quartz wren]

which makes me feel a little better

sometimes it's the little things that turn out to be revolutionary

I mean, an axle is much smaller than a car, but it's revolutionary all the same

[late fulcrum]

I see what you did there!

[quartz wren]

puts himself in pun time out

[late fulcrum]

There's a great quote along the lines of "The phrase most associated with the progress of science isn't "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."

[dusty citrus]

%

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
                -- Isaac Asimov

%

[tardy badger]

Hehe

[dusty citrus]

Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!"

[quartz wren]

as someone who used to do a lot of parkour

yes

rekt

[rocky forge]

@dusty citrus no problem 🙂

[dusty citrus]

cool.

[rocky forge]

but they are ugly 🙂

[dusty citrus]

Basically #general-chat was meant as a spillover for stuff remotely related to the other channels.

[rocky forge]

yeah, I understand

[dusty citrus]

Was never meant for stuff that doesn't even belong on this server at all. ;)

But what you're into is of keen interest to SBC and Arduino and CircuitPython people. ;)

[rocky forge]

only way I see I can use it is only hack into it, remount some parts, and re-use the display....

[dusty citrus]

heha I know.

[rocky forge]

basically only way I see why to do it like this is as you said, they are underpriced

[dusty citrus]

I've thought about it for years and years.

[rocky forge]

and some people already did it

[dusty citrus]

I don't want to provide for that many wires for anything I do.

So I'd rather figure out how to repurpose something.

[rocky forge]

https://www.element14.com/community/thread/60695/l/using-a-kindle-epaper-screen-with-raspberry-pi

like this I guess

[dusty citrus]

I have had a Linux bash shell prompt on a Kindle DXG. It works fine but is slow.

In ham radio it was the same thing: someone hacks together a project, provides a BOM and all that - like five people on the planet actually build a copy of it.

It sells magazines.

Think of it as a talk show where they are selling a book.

The whole entire point is to get you to pay $15.79 for a book.

Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

Doesn't mean you can't do it, but think of the luck of the person who did it first.

Education and opportunity and random lucky meet-ups with great minds.

That all adds up to the person who does do these things.

It's a big filter: the one who does do them .. the news of that reaches you.

The ones who don't do it, you don't hear from them.

It's a filter that presents a distorted view of the world.

[rocky forge]

ugh... to hard to understnad.... 🙂

I don't need mental support and philosophy, I want to build a working device

[dusty citrus]

Stick around. Lots of people here.

I gotta go - thunderstorm brewing (literally).

[rocky forge]

So, are there a lots of people ? 🙂

[tardy badger]

https://people.com/food/loki-charms-marvel-limited-edition-cereal/?fbclid=IwAR1L9-AU6s2et6Yazp71xsAMRinJHatZ1AxPcvTT_KwHMke5y00juRnVUp4

This is pretty cool

[zealous ermine]

Power outage yay!

Tine is to shut down the servers

[tardy badger]

😂

[burnt tendon]

Putting the UPS in oops.

[late fulcrum]

Just got this today (not UPS but still oops)

[tardy badger]

Wow mangled

[supple surge]

😳😳 dang yo did they stack a sofa on it?!

Ok, so…. If I learn how to solder every single component onto the PCB ruler, 📏 does it fire up and blink out some sort of “Wonka-esque” Golden Ticket 🎫 kind of code for a tour of Adafruit? 🤔 🤣 * do not attempt! * also, if there’s not a Great Glass Elevator installed yet, is that going in once the Disney building gets finished? 😂

[burnt tendon]

... are you asking if it makes you the Ruler of Adafruit?

[supple surge]

I just wanna see Limor do the cartwheel tumble down the red carpet 🤣

[supple surge]

With a neat LED top hat 🎩 😝

I mean, this DOES sound like the beginning of a quest 🤣 although I suppose that knowing how to do that many SMT packages is a “golden ticket” of its own 😆

[ancient kindle]

doesnt even have a 01005

so does it really count

[quartz wren]

if it contains chained flipflops it counts

apologies for bad joke

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/this-is-fine-its-fine-everything-is-fine-burning-house-happy-dog-gif-21646319

This GIF also applicable to me at work today

[late fulcrum]

Hopefully that's not most days

[delicate stream]

Recently it has been DX

Yesterday we had 448 calls, 248 of which were password resets... Normally we get like 200 calls on a busy day and about 50 password resets

I have decided to take time to not be working on something right now and give Minecraft in 4K HDR with ray tracing a shot

[delicate stream]

Also... banjolele https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrOSBHqy0aY

[lapis bluff]

My preferred cover of Space Oddity is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygrdAvmr-MA which is redone using only the Ten Hundred most common words and is titled Space Weird Thing .

[jovial path]

Hey

Did you guys think of any project involving COVID?

[jovial path]

I have it, it is one of the best objects that I have.

[late fulcrum]

There is a #covid-19-engineering channel, but alas, it doesn't have a lot of traffic.

[jovial path]

Yes I noticed.

So I am calling other departaments for help.

[rocky forge]

And did you hacked it with rpi zero ? =)

[storm musk]

hey guys check out my project https://gbaldraw.fun

[dusk oracle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJcsL7vyrk

[slim shard]

the connection? they all exist as things or concepts in this universe!

[jovial path]

How? Did you?

[slim shard]

so
x = lmap(r, x) { return r * x * (1 - x) }
I think

[hard mica]

When do we get to meet the askan engineer?

[zealous ermine]

i think i might of found the problem with the random crashes

I never cleaned the flux off the PCB after soldering

and flux is slightly conductive (which explains why it works fine at low speeds)

but not at above 50% full clock rate

[ancient kindle]

Clean your flux bro

Even noclean needs cleaning unless you get the real noclean

[zealous ermine]

yeah i wish i did

i dont have any IPA at the moment, so its gonna have to wait

[ancient kindle]

Yikes

[zealous ermine]

yeahh

[limber jackal]

And neither a lager or stout or some other type of beer will do? 😄

[zealous ermine]

LOL

[terse lion]

International Phonetic Alphabet? you cant physically own it (a joke lol)

[zealous ermine]

I didn't even think of that one

[late fulcrum]

I don't have any IPA, but I do have this.

[hard mica]

Guess I shouldn't have spent my life savings on the IPA NFT 🙁 .

[late fulcrum]

I ended up using a good chunk of my flux remover getting a sticky mistake off the floor before my sweetie saw it.

I was using some automotive clear color spray to make some light bulbs red, but it soaked through the newspaper I put underneath the bulbs to catch the drips. The bulbs came out nice, but that bloody looking stain on the floor had to go!

[dusty citrus]

SOLAR ECLIPSE on horizon East.

Peak is about 12 minutes from now, according to xephem, for Connecticut.

The moon's disc perimeter is just touching the very center of the sun's disc at the moment.

[dusty citrus]

The other limb of the moon is now crossint the centre of the sun's disc.

[jovial path]

What this is for? Create PCB manually?

[late fulcrum]

It's for removing soldering flux.

[stone orbit]

The advantage of IPA is you can clean your 3D printer bed with it.
I wouldn't try to clean it with flux remover.

[late fulcrum]

True. Although I do occasionally "activate" my 3D printer bed with acetone.

[stone orbit]

I don't do that with PEI but it may work for other things like FR4.
It turns out that Dawn detergent and very hot water seems to work great for PEI so I mostly do that. And use opposite sides of the sheet for PLA and PETG as the seems to each deposit oils that the other doesn't like.

[limber jackal]

Kind of pretty random, but figured I'd ask - does anyone work with SOAP messaging, and use a tool for testing? Something like SoapUI/ReadyAPI, but not that product?

Trying to find potential alternatives for some work projects.

[burnt tendon]

Isopropyl alcohol is generally handy for all kinds of things, really. It also dissolves the binder for wax-based colored pencils so you can blend them.

[jovial path]

It's so funny when you know robotics and you make something and people think you made everything, including all the sensors and the motors... etc...

[rocky forge]

no, but that was what were we talking about 🙂

I was asking about working with 6" touch screen display and raspberry pi

and since it was not easy at all, the other guy asked, if hacking E-Book reader isn't easier

I guess it's not

[late fulcrum]

I've done some work with SOAP and allied technologies (like SAML). My usual approach is to get the WSDL for the site and run it through JAX-RS Metro to automatically generate the Java code to implement the interface. I've done it by hand too, but it's tedious.

[polar bloom]

I've found the only sane (but indeed tedious) way to work with SOAP is to construct the XML by hand.

[late fulcrum]

Because sanity is optional, when I need to generate a lot of XML (like, for instance to produce fop input), I'll generally use XSLT to crank through the repetitive bits.

[stoic mesa]

I quite agree. Sanity is definitely optional, and not only in XML 🙂

[honest jolt]

You guys have sanity? /j

[tardy badger]

Lol

[ancient kindle]

so for a mod I'm doing I need to do a twisted pair for a clock line to keep the signal integrity

if I mismatched the gauges is that fine?

like say 22AWG insulated for ground and 38AWG magnet wire for clock?

[hasty quarry]

Oh my god

Pfizer 2 is going to kill me

Everything hurts

[steel river]

mwahahaha i'm using the 10+ bulk discount for the first time!

[ancient kindle]

orders 10 single rp2040s instead of 1 10 pack like a boss

[dusty citrus]

@ancient kindle If there's a large difference - possibly a problem - never heard that one before. ;)

I'm going to go with: try it if it's not too much investment.

The shielding comes from the fact the pairs are twisted.

[ancient kindle]

I'm just gonna get that giant thing of wire wrap wire

or maybe 30 gauge magnet wire...

that stuff is so useful

[quartz wren]

you know, a lot of old microwave transformers use copper on both coils (new ones use aluminium on the primary winding iirc)

but uh

don't take apart a microwave unless you know what you're doing

it's very dangerous

turns out it's about the same danger level of working on CRTs though, which people here do so I guess y'all know what's up

[ancient kindle]

Those transformers often have a coating around all the coils

So it’s difficult to harvest

And I am a professional idiot so I’ll be fine :DDD

[quartz wren]

I'm surprised that word didn't trip the filter

lol

the older ones tend to just be bound in hot snot or wax, so if you heat it gently in a reflow oven or the like with a catch tray you can get rid of most of it

newer ones are often shellac insulated wire that's wound and then dipped again in either shellac or some kind of resin so they're a bit more annoying

but usually those have aluminium primaries anyway

I actually have some shellac flakes...I should get back into home PCB fabrication

used to just do them without a solder mask but it could be fun to try and do one

heh...when you accidentally forget to flip your etching mask before printing...

https://i.imgur.com/eg15N1V.jpg

had to redo it

if anyone's curious, this is done by printing onto a torn out magazine page with a laserjet, ironing it onto a cleaned copperclad board, gently rinsing off the paper under warm (but not hot) water with gentle rubbing, then etching using chemical etchant

in this case I used ferric chloride, but the same thing can be accomplished by salt + vinegar + 3% hydrogen peroxide (or an O2 bubbler)

the salt isn't strictly necessary, but it puts ions into the solution that I've heard helps dislodge the copper into ionic form

and by experience it does help (especially if put directly onto the copperclad surface)

and if you're wondering how I intend to do a solder mask: I can paint 😉

was gonna show another board I did but I'm a bit embarrassed about the soldering on it lol

know what screw it, it's good to look back on your previous attempts at things and see how far you've come

https://i.imgur.com/bYns2Tt.jpg

this was an experimental RAM module I was working on back when I was learning boolean logic

those SMD packages are NOR gates

and by "experimental" I mean I had absolutely no idea what I was doing as far as circuit design and it didn't work LOL

[sick adder]

function makejax() {
    try { return new XMLHttpRequest(); } catch(e) {}
    try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e) {}
    return null;
}```just found this "workaround" in some webapp I wrote.  how long since all browsers supported XMLHttpRequest?!  how long has XMLHttpRequest itself been totally passé?  reasons why I'm not a web-dev

[late fulcrum]

NOR gates? Like the Apollo Guidance Computer? Nifty!

[quartz wren]

yeah, it would have been if it worked, but I didn't know about ground planes or voltage busses at the time

forgot to connect several power and / or ground lines, don't remember which

I think it had something to do with how I had the transistors connected

(transistors are on the other side of the board)

[jovial path]

So cool a RAM Module, when I had digital electronics, my professor didn't covered this part of book and didn't asked for projects about. We learnt about registers.

I had to learn about RAM by myself...

You're so lucky.

[quartz wren]

everything electronics I've taught myself.

via books and internet searches

and then testing things

it helped that I inherited a crapton of salvaged electronics components from my dad

lol

only thing I really had to pay for was etchant, a few specific components, and copperclad

[jovial path]

What is your degree?

[quartz wren]

none

I mean, I have a GED, does that count? 😉

I passed every area with honors even

I don't really get along with classrooms

[jovial path]

You do this very well :)

[quartz wren]

thank you, this was after many many failures and learning to finesse the technique...

I first started with SMD breakout modules

[jovial path]

I talked to Stephen Wolfram recently

He's the CEO of Wolfram Alpha

He told me that he didn't watch lectures at university

[quartz wren]

oh I'm well aware of who he is

he's one of my idols and I'm honestly kind of jealous 😛

(that you've had the honor of talking to him)

that's like really cool

[jovial path]

Maybe you're very smart like him.

So classes are too slow for you.

[quartz wren]

sometimes I'm smart. my bipolar gets the better of me other times.

if you're curious, this is the kind of PCBs I started with https://i.imgur.com/XlHWDKv.jpg

this one took some 10 tries

well, not 10 completions of the whole process, but being set back about that many times with about 3 complete restarts

cause uh

turns out ironing toner onto a piece of copperclad is hard and takes finesse

took me several tries to get it to transfer properly for each restart, and there are 2 things you can do if it doesn't. you can take a dish scratch pad (or light steel wool) and remove the previous attempt, or you can touch it up with a sharpie. then I had to do the actual etching process...first attempt I left it in all night because I forgot about it and woke up to a sad empty board. second attempt I tried to use the touch up technique but I used a thin sharpie which doesn't put enough of a coating so it still ended up etching away the pieces I touched up, third attempt went...okay, so I decided to do a fourth attempt just to make sure I had the process down

though this was 2015 or so, which means I might be remembering wrong and / or filling in details from subsequent projects

and yes, I'm aware of the solder bridge in the picture, if I remember correctly taking the picture actually made me aware of it and I fixed it

and don't get me wrong, it isn't like I just went and got my GED and said screw school, I tried and tried and it didn't work out for me.

I got bored...purposely got F's through middle school in everything but the classes I got to choose, then aced all the standardized tests because apparently I thrive in a fast paced high pressure environment for short durations at a time

ODD is real and it's something that isn't addressed readily enough.

only reason I managed to do the tests is because I can't help but solve a tantalizing puzzle. I couldn't care less what my grade was, that's what authority told me I should care about so I ended up caring about solving puzzles for the enjoyment of the puzzle itself

anyway, if there's a way to do something technical on a budget and I have a hankering to solve something, you betcha I'll find that way

and by "on a budget" I mean usually a budget of less than $10

almost always have to find stuff free, which I have a particular knack for

apparently people are more willing to go out of their way to bring you the old computers after upgrading at their office if you let them know they'll be used for education as opposed to resale

once got 22 computers in one day

several different people answered the same craigslist wanted ad and space was...tight for a bit...

didn't even have to go pick them up

[late fulcrum]

My early PCBs were pretty primitive

I had ... poor results with toner transfer

[quartz wren]

that's about what my early ones looked like haha

the second pic, that is

just smears of toner and paper that's stuck

I learned thinner, short chain fiber paper with a coating is your best friend

hence magazine pages

soon as it gets wet it starts disintegrating

so you iron it on and get really good adhesion, and use a piece of parchment paper between to make the iron slide without moving the paper

then you rinse that

[late fulcrum]

I got the hang of etching them, but drilling all those holes was really tedious. These days, I just have boards made.

[quartz wren]

I'll get it made if it's too complex of a project and I happen to have money but if it's just a quick design or mostly SMD with relatively wide pitch, I keep copperclad on hand for it

though my supply is running short

[late fulcrum]

I have considered photoetching SMD boards but haven't attempted it yet.

[quartz wren]

as in using photoresist or using photons for the etching itself?

because laser etching should be possible in theory though in practice you need a really short focal length so you don't explode your substrate

[late fulcrum]

Using photoresist

I have also played with the idea of milling a board (which would possibly also let me drill holes)

[quartz wren]

I'm considering building a PCB etcher with 3D printer components and a dremel

[zealous ermine]

Im getting my first motorcycle Monday!

Im very exited

[burnt tendon]

Just make sure you don't let it fall over. Those things are always two tired.

[zealous ermine]

Ah, very good

Im picking up a 1973 honda cb125s

[hexed rose]

If you haven't already, taking the MSF (or equivalent for your area) is a good way to learn.

[zealous ermine]

Im going to very soon!

[hexed rose]

Good plan, think most insurance companies will give you a discount on your insurance for it too, but it's been a while for me, as I got my license back in 2005.

[zealous ermine]

Yeah i think that's how it works

I also wanted a small bike because lower insurance

So a 125cc it is

[hexed rose]

Small bikes can be fun. You can push them to the limits without breaking the speed limit in some places.

Just be safe and keep the shiny side up.

[zealous ermine]

Yeah I'll be careful!

I found this one on Facebook marketplace. It has 3.9k miles. The owner replaced the tires, carb, and battery

So i think I'm making a good purchase

[hexed rose]

I don't know much about that specific bike, but in general, check the brakes and brake lines, clutch cable, and such.

[zealous ermine]

Thats very important

[hexed rose]

but with that low mileage the brakes probably are fine, but its no fun to try to replace a broken clutch cable on the side of the road.

[zealous ermine]

Yeah that doesnt sound fun

The cable is probably cheap though

The bike is a refurbished barn find so i am expecting to find some small issues

[hexed rose]

They generally are, and mostly universal.

BikeBandit was my go-to for parts, not sure if that's still the case anymore.

[zealous ermine]

I'll be sure to do a proper inspection once i drive out to pick it up

[hexed rose]

Yeah, enjoy the new wheels.

[zealous ermine]

Thanks!

[burnt tendon]

I mean, same thing as a bicycle. Keep yo tools handy.

[dusty citrus]

(keep a couple of spare bicycle handy, too ;)

I can't count the number of times I've started to take a bike out, only to notice that won't do and switched to a second bike.

[late fulcrum]

I had wanted a nice miniature torque wrench for smaller projects and found, unsurprisingly, that the nice tools made for the bicycle market included just what I wanted.

[spice moss]

cool madbodger

euro2020 could be one of the way to get nice project like those earlier thing of sports

[jovial path]

I discovered today that I am the master of RLC circuit calculations.

Both for v(t) and i(t)

lol

It's so cool to calculate it :)

I bet I can find a problem with RLC circuits on the Internetional Physics Olympiad tests from the past.

[jovial path]

There is not... University level I think :(

[dusty citrus]

99 percent of the time I use the smaller Park Tool torque wrench. Very rarely the big one (usually to torque axle nuts).

Most things get about 8 units (Newton-Meters? I don't remember).

I'll go up to 11 on a few things, and very rarely a bit more than that.

(I'll use the higher range to undo torqued fasteners, to test to see about where they were torqued to, though.)

Maybe up to 13-15 range.

[late fulcrum]

Mine's a Venzo, seems like a decent unit, but I haven't tested it for calibration.

[dusty citrus]

Current version:
https://www.parktool.com/product/ratcheting-click-type-torque-wrench-tw-5-2

I have the older one.

Mine's break-over at set point.

I habitually reset it to zero with every use as I don't really know what's required. ;)

The handle is so short there's room for applying force in the wrong spot so I don't view it as calibrated very well. Good enough for bike work.

[late fulcrum]

I recently acquired a random bike, now I'm trying to figure out how the specifications work for tricycle adapters so I can make it into something I can use.

[dusty citrus]

@late fulcrum Not sure I know what that means.

I have a trike.

Two in the front or two in the back?

Low or high?

Some trikes are super low to the ground.

(also the speed of operation may be a factor - if you want to go very fast things change up some)

[late fulcrum]

Two in the back. There are assemblies available to replace the rear wheel in an ordinary bike with a two-wheel arrangement. However, they have a whole bunch of parameters I don't fully understand because I don't know much about bikes (yet).

[dusty citrus]

Um depends I suppose on what's bolted on.

Standard modern mountain bikes get 135mm spacing between the dropouts (where the lug nuts tighten the axle to the frame).

Tandems (fairly rare) are round 175 mm there.

[late fulcrum]

This sort of thing https://www.ebay.com/itm/254855386110

[dusty citrus]

Much older bicycles go narrower.

So you have a sprocket there that is operated by the pedals up front.

[late fulcrum]

I didn't even know such things existed until I watched one of Mustie1's yard sale videos and he got a converted bike like that and explained how it had been modified.

[dusty citrus]

It drives the rear axle.

Those tabs up front are a bit of a mystery.

[late fulcrum]

Yes, I understand the basic mechanics, but I don't know how the various dimensional parameters are measured to choose one that will fit the bike I have.

[dusty citrus]

I'm just not sure how that device mounts to an existing diamond frame.

I'm looking here:
https://thea.com/Other-Conversion-Kit/

Which seems to be an eBay index. ;<

[late fulcrum]

Heh, me either. The section of the video where the conversion is described is here: https://youtu.be/HZvQr-Mo5H4?t=1195

[dusty citrus]

I don't have audio and the video doesn't show that kit. ;)

Just someone in a garage pointing at things. Moves on to some other powered equipment shortly after.

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, it's mostly him talking about the bikes he found and how they've been modified

[dusty citrus]

Seems pretty clear the intent isn't to get out a hacksaw or do any welding. Remove rear wheel, both that contraption on 'somehow' and ride.

[late fulcrum]

When he mentioned the trike conversion kit, I perked up, as I have a bike available and would like to put it to use (my other plan was to have at it with the plasma cutter and welder and make it into a kinetic sculpture)

[dusty citrus]

Bicycle frames weren't intended to be loaded off-axis like a tricycle does.

[late fulcrum]

Right. So I'd like to get one of those contraptions and do exactly that, but I need to figure out how to choose the correct one that will fit and work properly.

[dusty citrus]

It'll twist the daylights out of the frame.

[late fulcrum]

I don't understand where the off-axis force comes from: it would appear to be symmetrical and balance, but perhaps I'm missing something.

[dusty citrus]

You're not just resting on a super long axle; you're constantly loading it.

Your body weight goes straight to the contact patch of a single wheel.

So the stress on a 2-wheel frame is much (much) lower.

Imagine bolting on a lever to the frame, and trying to use it to twist the frame.

[late fulcrum]

You lost me. I can see how there would be bowing stress on the adapter, but not how that would twist the existing frame.

[dusty citrus]

The existing frame transmits directly to a single wheel. The wheel itself takes that twisting load.

There are large sideways forces.

[late fulcrum]

The two situations are not analagous, sorry.

[dusty citrus]

If you stood on a giant wheel's axle and held onto the top of the wheel and tried to bend it on purpose, that's the general idea.

The weight only bears on an axis that passes through the axle and the contact patch when the wheel is bolt upright.

[late fulcrum]

Again, that's not on the frame. This isn't like a sidecar.

[dusty citrus]

The frame leans in turns. A lot.

Bolting this on, you're now trying to lean and the contraption isn't letting you.

That's why correct trike design accounts for this fact.

[late fulcrum]

Ah, I wasn't thinking about leaning. Hrm. Perhaps I'll just make one out of 2x4s.

[dusty citrus]

On my trike I can easily input enough load to lift the inside wheel in a sharp turn.

[late fulcrum]

I had been looking at purpose designed tadpole style recumbent trikes, but they're expensive and the specialty dealers for them are an inconvenient distance away.

[dusty citrus]

I can't remember if it's the inside or outside; pretty sure it's the inside wheel that lifts up.

(entirely off the ground)

[late fulcrum]

I'll just drive in straight lines and corner gently.

[dusty citrus]

Yeah if I steer really hard to the right, I turn right and I tip over in a controlled way.

That's what I meant about speed.

But I don't know that's a lot of repetitive stress on a 135 mm span between the axle nuts.

If the seat stays and the chain stays were much much further apart at the rear axle, I'd have fewer misgivings about this idea.

The rear dropout has two stays welded to it: seat stay and chain stay.

The chain stay is welded at the other end to the bottom bracket shell (where the pedal axle is).

The seat stay is welded to the seat tube just below the seat.

They're lightweight because the rear wheel takes most of the sideway stresses.

Spoked wheels load very unevenly per spoke.

That's why they get so much tension - so that when they are unloaded, the wheel retains its overall shape.

So in some situations, maybe five spokes are so unloaded they are almost slack.

This author seems to call it correctly wrt the wheel and spoke tensions:
https://www.wheelfanatyk.com/blog/extreme-side-wheel-forces/

[jovial path]

I want to make a project (like a toy) for my 4 years old sister. Do you have any suggestion?

[dusty citrus]

https://web.archive.org/web/20090412130149/http://www.lightfootcycles.com:80/TCX.htm

[jovial path]

I made a LED Matrix 16x16 that shows different figures, but I want something better to her.

[quartz wren]

what kind of resolution are you looking for?

would one of these be enough, you think? https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/TFT/

not sure if they're still in production or what the status is on the module, but I've seen a lot of clones out there for ~$15-$20

though for that price you might as well spend another few dollars and just get one of the 2.8" TFTs from Adafruit with touch input

[jovial path]

No, I do not want something like a screen, I want a better toy for her.

[jovial path]

Not like a screen, a different toy.

[quartz wren]

oic

how about a 3D theramin

[jovial path]

Good idea.

[jovial path]

Is there integrated circuits that are not harmfull to the environment?

A few semesters ago I tought in visiting the chemistry departament or the material science departament to talk to some professors there about this.

But I didn't 💩

I surelly think it will appear someone with new components that are not harmfull to the environment.

I am so happy already that most of the energy in my country is renewable.

Saving Amazon!

😻

[jovial path]

Also we have a fuel that is made from sugar cane, that is extremelly popular here.

[jovial path]

Just waiting... :)

It will be nice to see Adafruit selling green Raspberry Pi's

[delicate stream]

By "not harmful to the environment", do you mean no environmental impact in production?

[jovial path]

Yes.

[delicate stream]

Hmm... I don't think there's any with no harm... not sure if any ICs are really highly harmful either

[crystal ore]

Well, I mean, you have to mine the metals if nothing else, so it's hard to do that with zero impact. The etching chemicals for chips and PCBs aren't benign either, so those have to be properly dealt with. Factories use electricity, which has to come from somewhere. So, it just depends on what level of environmental impact you're okay with, as part of an industrial society.

[jovial path]

I read in high school that Intel's firt chips were very nocive to workers

Specially because they didn't know it was bad

[delicate stream]

Ohh yeah, production in the early days was WAY more bad than it is today, for sure. But that's how it goes with a lot of things -- it usually takes a while after someone starts using a thing to realize "oh, wait, this is not good for humans to be near or consume or touch"

But they certainly are a lot better about containing the bad stuff now

[sick adder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_known_prime_number huh I didn't realize that (with the exception of numbers in special forms, like Mersenne numbers) there was a huge gap between what we can prove is prime (tens of thousands of digits) or just conjecture to be prime (millions or tens of millions of digits).

With current computers, a multi-million digit Mersenne-like number can be proven prime, but only multi-thousand digit other numbers can be proven prime. Probable primes, such as repunit R8177207, pass probabilistic primality tests but are not truly proven prime.
(the range where composite numbers of the form n=p×q can be factored is much smaller, and this fact is at the foundation of the original public-key cryptographic systems)

[stoic mesa]

remarkably, it is a rather recent discovery (2002) that primality testing can be done in polynomial time

[sick adder]

I guess the algorithm (AKS) is still not "competitive" with the best other algorithms, at the range of digit sizes where we might run it. Despite being of a "lower" computational complexity https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2299375/why-everybody-thinks-aks-primarity-test-is-a-great-thing

[stoic mesa]

it seems to be so (I am not an expert). Still, from the point of view of number theory and theoretical computer science, existence of polynomial time algorithm is a big deal

[jovial path]

Why does this "n=pxn" makes me remember "p vs np"...

[dusty citrus]

@late fulcrum This bracing on the LightFoot TCX (Trike Cargo Extension, same basic technology - using diamond frame bike as the substrate):

https://web.archive.org/web/20101124184932im_/http://lightfootcycles.com/Images-2/TCXrml.jpg

I do know they recommend a 'stout' mountain bike frame as the basis.

The bracing in the pic doesn't look all that useful to prevent twisting but that's what they went with.

They basically tie in below the seat post with a second set of seat stays.

(only on archive.org):
http://www.lightfootcycles.com/TCX.htm

This image clearly shows the rear dropouts' relationship to the trike-cargo extension:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100921131226im_/http://lightfootcycles.com/Images-2/tcxbales.jpg

Oh I see exactly what they did!

They took their standard bike trailer, and added a vertical member to its frame that goes in between the mountain bike dropouts - the dropouts bolt to a cross-axle permanently welded there, for the purpose.

The extra seat-post stays are there (not shown in that last photo) to severely limit the possibility of the diamond frame leaning in any turn. Forces it into a bolt-upright relationship to the trike cargo trailer.

That would dramatically limit twisting forces at the rear dropout.

(restricting travel in a twisting motion/axis).

[delicate stream]

So I was playing with OxyClean trying to darken some of my copper tape, wanted to see if I could create a patina... Also threw an aluminium strip in an OxyClean bath, and it's acting as a battery :O

It also seems as if the strips are attracted to each other