general-chat

[delicate stream]

I need my gravity!

[quartz wren]

Lol

I can spin

I'm an acrobat

[delicate stream]

Lol

[delicate stream]

Waiting for a replacement NeoTrellis to arrive, debating if I should put the rest together or just do a 2x3 and add the other two when it gets here

And play with the 2x3, lol

Or just do the rows and wait to put them all together

[lusty fossil]

This is being stored in the room my office is in, I keep jump scaring myself

[delicate stream]

Oh, hey, replacement NeoTrellis is here! Hopefully all good now

[delicate stream]

It's alive! Yay!

[lusty fossil]

woooo

[quartz wren]

Just have to cut some sheet metal and I can panel the back wall of my lab :D

(added studs today because it turns out some of the metal is only 2 feet wide instead of the spacing we measured for)

[delicate stream]

Yay wall!

[quartz wren]

Oh yeah might have forgotten to mention it the roof is mostly on

It's coming together! 😄

[delicate stream]

Progress!

[quartz wren]

Decided to pressure wash it all at once from the inside after it's paneled

Where did that finger come from

[lusty fossil]

your hand. Your wrist, or even your shoulder, technically

[quartz wren]

Lol

What I meant was I didn't notice it when reviewing the pic lol

It came from my mama

Lol

[quartz wren]

Good news

I'm up 8lb

Was at 119lb less than a week ago and I just weighed in at 127lb after...removing all loose weight that could throw off the readings, if you catch my drift.

My healthy weight is 130lb-140lb so I have a bit to go and I have to manage to keep it on but I'm almost there

Anyway just thought I'd share because I was worrying about how under weight I was and may have also worried others, and wanted to allay that worry

[delicate stream]

At least you're not too terribly far from your healthy weight

[quartz wren]

Indeed and if the trend continues I'll be right back in the middle of it by next week

Just going to need to make sure to regulate the liquid meal supplements once I hit that because they taste soooo goooood lol

[delicate stream]

Balance hard

[lusty fossil]

Soylent? I'm a fan of the chocolate variety

[quartz wren]

Just ensure and the equate version

Just for the calories really

[lusty fossil]

it's much easier to drink hi calorie stuff than to eat it

[quartz wren]

Because I eat other stuff my body just seems to not want to do solid food in the morning

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/soylentgreen-people-cannibalism-soylent-food-gif-5486936

[quartz wren]

Have wanted to try soylent for a while though, is that something that can be bought in stores or just online?

[delicate stream]

I think just online?

[lusty fossil]

They sell it at the target near me

Also a handful of gas stations

They have a store locator on their site

It's cheapest in powder form, but either they have powerful mixers or they use a decent emulsifier in the bottled drinks, because they taste way better and are not chalky at all

I've also been considering a product called Huel (I think human-fuel?) that looks tasty

[quartz wren]

They probably have an anti caking agent in the powder that isn't present in the liquid one

(for long duration powder storage)

[lusty fossil]

yeah could be any number of reasons, they might even make the two versions totally differently, I know nothing about food science except the yellow dye in Mountain Dew doesn't harm fertility.

[quartz wren]

Well I know if a lot of powdered food items don't have an anti caking agent they turn clumpy

[delicate stream]

Oop, I worked my way into an Arduino project by accident

[quartz wren]

Heh

[delicate stream]

And I said I was done with Arduino

[quartz wren]

You're never done with Arduino

[delicate stream]

Thankfully it should be upload and go XD

[quartz wren]

Until Arduino is done with you

[delicate stream]

lol

[pearl rover]

there’s also silica packets that can help with absorbing some stray moisture but yeah a lot of mainly carbohydrate powders would very easily clump without an anticaking component

[quartz wren]

Often they'll just use powdered silicon dioxide from what I've seen on ingredients lists for things like powdered milk

Or for parmasean cheese they'll use cellulose powder

(which is usually just food grade saw dust)

[pearl rover]

cellulose, it keeps our cheese loose, and our lettuce crunchy

also makes our paper and plant fibres

[crystal ore]

Mmmm... food-grade sawdust... 😋

[quartz wren]

It's inert and clean...

[pearl rover]

I guess food grade sawdust is technically true but it is just cellulose powdered and fit to eat

(considering sawdust is mainly cellulose as is most wood)

[hasty quarry]

Where does the integral symbol come from?

When I learned about integration a bit ago, I noticed the integral of a velocity over time function kinda took the shape of the integral symbol

I thought that was funny

[wooden schooner]

" The symbol was based on the ſ (long s) character and was chosen because Leibniz thought of the integral as an infinite sum of infinitesimal summands. "

[quartz wren]

pretty sure a lot of it is actually wood-based hence "food grade sawdust"

[pearl rover]

aye, though at the point it’s processed and put into food I think it’s essentially like rayon where it’s technically organic in source but chemically distant (without the oils extraneous substances, and pigments in normal wood)

[hasty quarry]

Oh makes sense

But isn’t that kinda funny?

The example I saw to learn how integrals work made an antiderivative which made the shape of the integral symbol

[quartz wren]

gotcha, so basically they've put it through a food safe pulping process

[pearl rover]

yes, and extracted near all the stuff that isn’t cellulose

[quartz wren]

I wonder if you could make paper from powdered parmasean

[lusty fossil]

savory paper, new from Dunder Mifflin-Sabre.

[quartz wren]

that reaction is literally what that did to me

had to wipe at least 3 tears

[lusty fossil]

I've heard tell if people eating notes to hide evidence, important people even. This could be a game changer in the spy game

[quartz wren]

oh man...get smart meets the office

[lusty fossil]

lolololol

[pearl rover]

get rid of the proteins, lactose, acids, leave just the cellulose; problem I think is that the cellulose is not in fibres like wood pulp, but you could try making celluloids (read: do not try this) and having custom table tennis balls

[delicate stream]

4x2 NeoTrellis panel works, yay!... unless powered via USB, then it crashes XD

[topaz juniper]

Should I ping a community mod to get the circuitpythonista role? I don't want to annoy anyone, but I want to get involved in the weekly event

[delicate stream]

I'd wait for a mod to be active and ask them directly, since it's not urgent

[topaz juniper]

Ok, thanks!

[delicate stream]

No problem :D

[delicate stream]

I did not program this behavior

[wooden schooner]

Wanna bet?

[delicate stream]

I did not INTENTIONALLY program this behavior XD

It's supposed to light up blue when pressed and go red when released instantly

[wooden schooner]

I thought it was supposed to be a snake game

[delicate stream]

Lol, no, just a major delay on the lights after pressing... so I pressed a bunch and let go

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/but-why-why-scream-mad-annoyed-gif-15498922

Any guesses about Adabox 020??

I've got nothin'

[delicate stream]

CircuitPython is bae

[delicate stream]

Something spoopy

[quartz wren]

By default on my game console, unread messages will show in cyan and read messages will show in... Well... Red...

Because cyan is unred

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/monkey-badum-tss-drum-joke-unimpressed-gif-7770998

[quartz wren]

For real though the main color scheme will be this by default (with user selectability) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-4O2BIoY8owvVyYoBGpyUA9I_lQMo0xr/view?usp=drivesdk

Just because why not I like how it looks

[delicate stream]

I like red, black, blue, silver

applies to life

[quartz wren]

this sounds like the colors of a knife fight...

[delicate stream]

No knife fights! Just knife fidget toys! please don't use knives as a fidget toy but I want this https://youtu.be/_pHAXS8ZJ2w

[quartz wren]

oh look someone is noticing me on the linkedin account I never use

an "Executive Director in the Restaurants industry" apparently

meh

[delicate stream]

hmm

[delicate stream]

I was recommended to get my A+ and Security+ certs... Security+ recommends Network+... It's almost $1000 for all

[quartz wren]

feels sorry for your wallet

[wooden schooner]

who recommended it?

[delicate stream]

Person who recommended I apply for a job at his company

[wooden schooner]

ah. Ok, so it's at least not a direct financial incentive for that person

if the person working at the certification agency recommended it... well, I'd be skeptical

[delicate stream]

Nope, it's CompTIA who gets all the money, lol

[quartz wren]

Started laying out the panels for my walls to have them in place so once they are cut they can just be put right in place

Then I punctured my finger and decided to take a break

Good news though I should have plenty of sheets to cover the whole exterior without having to overlap them along the vertical axis

[blissful roost]

I got my A+ back in 2010.

Really not ever needed it, but it's nice to have.

[quartz wren]

Once I have an easy way to cut this metal I'll have walls soon after

(brother is going to let me borrow some electric metal snips)

[delicate stream]

I think that was back when it was still a forever cert... lucky. I wish I'd taken it 15 years ago

[blissful roost]

Yeah...

For me, it was more about personal gratification. 😛

[delicate stream]

lol

[lusty fossil]

TFW you wake up with cold symptoms but all the pharmacies in town are out of covid tests

[delicate stream]

oof

[lusty fossil]

I found an urgent care. I'm vaxxed so I'll be fine if it's +, but I work pretty closely with a guy who has not gotten vaccinated

[delicate stream]

Vax'd or not, still don't want to get sick!

[lusty fossil]

Yeah, esp because I have a deadline coming up lol

[delicate stream]

I mean that would be pretty low on my list of reasons not to get sick :P

[lusty fossil]

I have a phobia of missed deadlines, and lateness in general

Came from growing up with a mom who was late to everything, making me late to everything

[delicate stream]

oof

[lusty fossil]

Love her the most but I'm pretty sure when she goes her hearse will pop a wheel off and she'll be late to her own funeral.

[delicate stream]

Oh jeeze

[lusty fossil]

it's ok, part of loving someone is accepting the little things you don't like

[delicate stream]

Indeed

Pobody's nerfect

[lusty fossil]

I'm messy and it bothers her so we're balanced

[delicate stream]

lol

[lusty fossil]

TIL Greys Anatomy is still a thing

[delicate stream]

:O

[lusty fossil]

Yondu's whistle-arrow is so OP, too bad ||he wasn't around for Thanos||

[wary herald]

But Arduino is cool too

[wary herald]

Yessss

What was last year's

[lusty fossil]

One thing that really annoyed me about Endgame: In Infinity War ||They establish that the wizards know the trick of opening gateways in front of an enemy attack that open behind them, so the enemy gets hit with their own attack. HOWEVER they fail to do this at the optimal time when Thanos' heckin big ship is "raining fire" on them. So crummy||

consistency is key in baking and story telling

[wary herald]

What if they can't open a portal that big

[wary herald]

🍞

[pearl rover]

open multiple large portals like they did to bring in everyone, overlapped somewhat to increase coverage perhaps

[wary herald]

That's a good idea

I think they did a pretty good job with it all considered

[pearl rover]

while I was a bit pedantic with the inconsistent time travel mechanics, glossing over that and some smaller plot holes, I agree it was quite a movie, I enjoyed it immensely

[wary herald]

Well, yeah

It was one great movie

[tardy badger]

Did someone order bread?

Still have to add headers to the bags but so far so good

Ah shoot… I don’t have headers 😰

[tardy badger]

Ordered. Bread is live (initial batch) and with ship Tuesday/Wednesday

[tardy badger]

I said I Twitter I was all out of headers and all these graphic design/software people thought I was talking about graphic/software headers and not 2.54mm header pins lol

[weary fiber]

I climbed a hill!

[wary herald]

Cool image

https://tenor.com/view/dogecoin-doge-digibyte-dgb-mars-gif-20855148

hehe

[tardy badger]

Weird, you’re like.. not that far from where I live (maybe 30 minutes)

I’m guessing your on Mt Timpanogos

Or near it anyway

[delicate stream]

Too much work and waiting

[delicate stream]

That’s a very tall hill :0

[wary herald]

Really?? I love Arduino

[delicate stream]

But you have to compile and upload and wait for it to program and all… vs. save and go!

[weary fiber]

Oh I'm within 10mi of those coordinates lol

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/mr-krabs-smallest-violin-sponge-bob-square-pants-gif-10796371

[delicate stream]

[tardy badger]

Cool, more Utahans

[delicate stream]

Blinka fixes all

Also CP runs on moar things

[wary herald]

Don't get me wrong, I love CP, but I like the structure of Arduino more than the freedom of CP

Well, a lot of CP things support Arduino

[delicate stream]

I just prefer the text editor and terminal life XD

Arduino just feels kinda clunky because you need an IDE — I can’t move between machines as easily

[wary herald]

I will give you that

[wooden schooner]

I won't

I've never used the arduino ide

[wary herald]

I just use https://create.arduino.cc/editor for most of my things

so I don't have such a hard time

or Eclipse

[slim shard]

sometimes I really really want more speed, ardiuno IDE does that

[wary herald]

I agree

[wooden schooner]

I write c++ and build with arduino-makefile, a huge makefile that puts in the same flags as the ide

[wary herald]

Arduino's fast

[wary herald]

Hmm, I'll look into that

[wooden schooner]

I.m.o., calling the language arduino is bad

[slim shard]

well, it is some sorta mangled C?

[wary herald]

Yeah, but it differs from C

[wooden schooner]

It is C++ with a library

[wary herald]

Beat me

[wary herald]

Well, yeah

I agree

[delicate stream]

CP I also can update something using a random computer without internet

[slim shard]

would the bootloader allow that even for arduino compilations?

[wary herald]

Why would any computer not have internet

[delicate stream]

Because you’re 150 miles from civilization and don’t have satellite internet on the go

[slim shard]

or just have a lousy home

because economy

[delicate stream]

Yeah, or your home internet is down

Or you had to skip the internet bill to eat that month

[wary herald]

And you're programming CP there why??

LOL

[wary herald]

I'd eat Ramen Noodles every day to have internet

[slim shard]

CP is still useful, you'll notice while I've chafed at speed and opaqueness in the past, I've never said "burn it to the ground!"

[delicate stream]

Because you’re doing environmental science studies and needed to make an update to your sensors to fix a mishandled reading

[wary herald]

I agree

Very useful

And I love it, I just don't use it enough to be very good at it, while I'm fluent in C/C++/C#

[wary herald]

Man, your imagination

XD

[umbral phoenix]

spent too much time over the past day researching and thinking about how to work around a problem, looking at mutex semaphores and such, only to have an epiphany today that I don't have to solve the problem, I can just ignore it and everything will be fine

[slim shard]

again, I suspect you can use the bootloader in CP devices to update an arduino sketch

[wary herald]

That's a bad feeling

[umbral phoenix]

well, it was useful research and thought, so not totally wasted, just not applicable to the present endeavor 😉

[delicate stream]

This is a thing

[wary herald]

Research is always useful

[umbral phoenix]

sometimes usefun too

[wary herald]

Yes...

[wary herald]

Yes

XD

My 🤬 typing

Fat fingers don't type

very well

[delicate stream]

Oof

Put your fingers on a diet

[wary herald]

Diet life hard

XD

[delicate stream]

Moar exercise

[wary herald]

Moar typing classes

LOL

I've never taken a typing class

but my way works for me

most of the time

XD

[delicate stream]

You didn't grow up with Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing or Mario Teaches Typing?!?!

[wary herald]

Nerp

I didn't

[delicate stream]

Man what do they even do in school anymore

[wary herald]

XD

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/danisnotonfire-life-gif-11252214

[delicate stream]

... You never typed on a typewriter in school, did you?

[wary herald]

Nope

[delicate stream]

Yeah you kinda gotta learn to not jam those, lol

[wary herald]

What's a typewriter?

XD

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/robert-downey-jr-facepalm-annoyed-rdj-ugh-gif-11538289

[slim shard]

its that thing that gave us QWERTY, which keeps the typing arms in our 8 core 4 gigahertz machines from getting stuck in each other

[wooden schooner]

It's a cosplay prop

[wary herald]

You got a chuckle out of me

That was good

[delicate stream]

8 core 4GHz? Man you need an upgrade

:P

[wary herald]

4 core 2 GHz??

[wooden schooner]

Modeled after distraction saving devices like the Freewrite https://astrohaus.com/freewrite/

[slim shard]

I aimed low for relatability, I've got like 24 threads on this thing or something

[delicate stream]

I want one of these, but I don't write enough or go enough places to justify...

[wary herald]

I've got 8 threads on Hyperthreading

So not low enough hehe

[delicate stream]

I want an Epyc server

[slim shard]

intel, sorry to hear, these are AMD "threads" that amount to full CPUs for the most part

[wooden schooner]

If someone could sell not having a cell phone, that would be the most valuable product of this decade

[delicate stream]

?

[wary herald]

Man.... Lucky

I'd be happy with an Athlon

[slim shard]

intel has hyperthreading, that ... well, I dunno what percentage of a CPU they are, but they at least used to be much less than a full CPUs worth

[delicate stream]

Intel yucky, their processors like to dump everything on one thread/core

[wary herald]

Not enough

[delicate stream]

AMD best

[wary herald]

I agree

[slim shard]

it was mostly a trick to utilize silicon that one thread would not take full advantage of in intel's case

[wary herald]

Ryzen Threadrippers are INSANE

[delicate stream]

Still waiting to see if we get tripe or quad threading eventually

I <3 my Threadripper, although it's "old" now

[slim shard]

isn't AMD working on something like 4 threads per cpu tile?

[wary herald]

And insanely priced

AMD should donate an Athlon to me

[delicate stream]

More than 2 threads per core has been "coming soon" and "being worked on" forever

[delicate stream]

I may "donate" an Athlon to you

[wary herald]

My computer stinks so bad, my typing is laggy

[delicate stream]

oof

[slim shard]

either there is a good case for recycling silicon across 4 threads or not, I expect AMD to have a good idea about that

[delicate stream]

Do you wanna buy a machine from me? I can do installment plans

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/thinking-think-about-it-let-me-think-jerry-mouse-gif-16095863

[slim shard]

Athlon is a name that goes back to singlecore 32 bit chips (and I have a few of those)

[wary herald]

I've got my eye on something....

[delicate stream]

I got an Athlon 3000G specifically because the name gives me nostalgia

[wary herald]

I'll wait for a little bit....

But thanks for the offer

[delicate stream]

Lemme know if you change your mind

[wary herald]

I definitely will

[wary herald]

I was thinking like this Athlon: https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-athlon-gold-3150ge

[delicate stream]

:O that has more cores than mine

Also higher boost

[wary herald]

That bad boy's less than 100 buckeroos

I'm insufferable

[delicate stream]

Might also want to consider Ryzen 3 from 2nd or 3rd gen if you can find them, and if you're getting a GPU

[wary herald]

Integrated is cheaper

besides, I don't game

[wooden schooner]

What is going on here

[delicate stream]

I mean, yeah, but more oomf from dedicated, lol

[wooden schooner]

What kind of thing is that product?

[delicate stream]

Computers

[wary herald]

yesss

but cheap's cheaper

[wooden schooner]

What does it mean for a CPU to be "with Radeon™ Graphics"

[delicate stream]

I mean, if you're also not doing video editing, photo editing, 3D graphics/design, yeah, you can def get away without a dGPU, lol

[delicate stream]

It has an integrated graphics processor so you don't need a dedicated card

[wary herald]

I do F360 and Tinkercad and Eagle and GIMP.....

[wooden schooner]

And it connects via pcie...?

[wary herald]

Maybe a dGPU would be nice, come to think of it

[delicate stream]

dGPU good for F360

[delicate stream]

Internally, yes. It's inside the CPU package. AMD calls it an APU; their regular CPUs have no graphics, like Intel's K series

[wooden schooner]

OK so there is pcie internally, separate from the motherboard's pcie

[delicate stream]

Yup

[quartz wren]

the motherboard's PCIe is more of an extension

of the internal CPU bus

[wary herald]

Well, yeah.... but even for GIMP and Disney Plus, it's nice

[delicate stream]

Depending on the processor and board, sometimes PCIe is expanded via the chipset, although usually you get a slot or two that's direct from the CPU and the rest are via the chipset

[delicate stream]

Mmm yeah I guess GIMP can push the GPU

[wary herald]

F360 gave me a message that said that my computer's graphics are limiting my performance

[delicate stream]

Wanna buy a 980 Ti?

[wary herald]

I've got a laptop.... I'm not sure that'll do much

but thanks

[quartz wren]

drools at the thought of a 980 Ti and then sads

[wary herald]

with an Intel Core i3 4012y

[wary herald]

I know....

[quartz wren]

my computer is slim profile and I'd need a different case for it anyway lol

[wary herald]

My man Doctor's got a LOT of muns for computer goodies

[delicate stream]

I have an InWin 909 for sale too

[delicate stream]

I have no muns left XD

[quartz wren]

I have no budget, that's the issue...

[delicate stream]

oof

[wary herald]

I have a budget of $30 a month for electronics

[delicate stream]

I think I'mma go and try drawing on my iPad Mini now... see how it compares to the 12.9" Pro

[wary herald]

unless I win some extra money

then $50 a month

Excluding Adabox

[quartz wren]

currently my budget is sporadic and most of it goes to medicating.

[wary herald]

That's in there too

[wary herald]

[wary herald]

My friend just got a Mini

See ya

[delicate stream]

It's a beautiful little thing

Fits in pockets :D

[wary herald]

👍

[delicate stream]

Oof, this app doesn’t work so well… with the honkin’ ad at the top, the tool settings interface is barely there

[wary herald]

Big yikes

[delicate stream]

Thankfully this isn't a huge deal XD and it does work

[wary herald]

Well, that's good

[quartz wren]

I wish I hadn't gotten exhausted halfway through the day today...

I would have walls on my lab

tomorrow

I will get the metal cut and mounted

it's staged and ready to measure / mark

[delicate stream]

Dual screen is nice :0

Keyboard is a bit much XD

[tardy badger]

Nice

[delicate stream]

I named it “Fullmetal”… hehehehe

[umbral phoenix]

re: system 7 (from the other channel) ...last time I fired up that System 7 machine, I could access the internet (through convoluted means), but of course pages were wonky because JAVASCRIPT

this was System 8: #general-chat message

[delicate stream]

Lol. Never tried using the modern internet on mine

[wooden schooner]

shouldn't these coin cells be more carefully isolated?

this is the display photo for a battery organizer

it seems like it could have contained isolated slots for coin cells, but instead just has an empty space, and the photo looks like it could cause a fire?

[wary herald]

[real falcon]

fire risk yeah

if i had 3d printer, i'd design a holder area and print it to fir in that space

assuming its deep enough

[wooden schooner]

Luckily I'm still at the pre-buy phase so I'll just not buy it

[quartz wren]

I made an RGB agate pendant

Will post video when I have a demo program running it

I have tested light brightness and it comes through really nicely for all the colors

But so far I've just been holding a battery on the traces so it's hard to take a pic of

Got red to work

(while taking a pic)

Need to make a tiny MCU controller for it but I think I can make it self contained

Though I will be using a piece of the attached proto board as part of the necklace attachment with a controller

Possibly even a lithium cell from a vape or something

Probably will even have a serial breakout for setting up the color cycle pattern

Or...

I could build a small dedicated circuit that uses serial flash to encode a preset PWM pattern

Might even be able to use the unintentional coils around it for wireless charging and / or NFC

Would make it glow during charge and flicker during data transfer if it works

[pearl rover]

like an attiny in sot23?

[quartz wren]

Yes if I had one

Might have to make a controller from my old esplora

Would allow me to add a USB header

Or I could do it with a chip from an arduino nano pre-programmed before pulling it from the board

Do like coated wire connections and cast the whole thing in resin idk

If I can do NFC I don't need to have a serial header for programming

Just have it pre programmed with code that can be told how to set up its color cycle

But I may do a header so it can be reprogrammable

Just not sure how I want to do that, might make it part of the lanyard and have a connector on the end that normally connects to the other side of the lanyard with a complementary connector for while wearing it, then a programming / charge controller that it plugs into otherwise

Gonna see if I can get a white glow real quick

(on camera)

Gorgeous

Ooh! I wonder if I can use this with a 4 bit shift register and an ESP8266 module

Then it can be wifi controlled

Would need some custom PWM code but I can have it programmable by header and wireless

Could then write an application for my phone to relay application specific colors for notifications

I think I can manage it if I can find a module I haven't blown up

If not I may just do IR wireless control and header based programming

Of course... I could do a 6 bit DAC with PWM control over each channel for greater color range with less flicker

[quartz wren]

I might even start making these to sell...

they're really easy to put together the actual pendant part

especially now that I know what I'm doing and have a better understanding of the required order of operations

the hardest part is finding the agates

but I have a secret spot to find a bunch of really cool ones like this about a mile from home

though it isn't strictly speaking...legal...for me to be collecting them...

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[lost rampart]

Hi, I want to make a diy transceiver because we don’t see any transceiver module here. Is it possible to make a good quality of that module with 5km range ?

[tribal brook]

I need some help and this is the best place I can think of. Does anyone know if an app exists on the firestick that allows you to schedule episodes and movies from across multiple streaming services such as netflix and hulu? I've been searching for something like this for a while so i can set up the entirety of the arrow verse in chronological order.

[crystal ore]

I mean, it's possible, but you're probably going to run into trouble with local radio-emission regulations unless you've got expert knowledge in RF circuit design. Solving the "how to order a module" problem seems far, far easier...

[delicate stream]

Schedule? Like put things in a playlist?

[tribal brook]

Yes. I'm tired of always having to jump back and forth between 3+ series and eating episodes out of order because I forgot to switch.

[delicate stream]

Ahh... I feel like I've seen something like that, but not sure about for Firestick...

[tribal brook]

It would either have to constantly be working (kinda like an overlay) or it would kick in at specific times (basically telling itself, hmm, this show is set for 28 minutes, it's been 26 since I last did something, I should start the next item on my list)

[delicate stream]

I know there are apps/services that consolidate your streaming services into one interface, but not sure about playlists between shows

[tribal brook]

I have real hood I'm using right now. It's ok, but a playlist would be better, plus it doesnt always allow you to start a show from it, like a show from the CW app

[delicate stream]

Ah

[lost rampart]

I have a list of frequencies range used in my country so if I make a RF FM module that work on accepted frequencies will it be as good as brands modules ?

Sorry for my english it’s not my language

[quartz wren]

as someone with a ham license who has still not yet built my own radio: yes.

[delicate stream]

Power is also a consideration -- you might be about to freely use some frequencies without a license, but they might be restricted to low power/range transmitters

[crystal ore]

Generally it wouldn't be as good, no. Commercial modules use a lot of fancy modulation tricks and complex silicon circuits to do filtering, etc. to get longer range and lower noise, so a homemade circuit won't perform as well unless it's built by a genius with a silicon-wafer fab plant in their garage. 😉

[quartz wren]

I'm working on that

😛

[tardy badger]

You certainly are not talking about Sam Zeloof 😉

[umbral phoenix]

@tribal brook do the individual services forget where you left off on a different device, or is it just the coordination of the different services?

(which episode, where in the episode)

[tribal brook]

Coordination. Currently, the arrowverse is spread over at least 2 services and I like to watch it chronologically, which means that after a certain season of arrow I have to jump back and forth between that and the flash, and the further it gets in season the more jumping I have to do. It would be nice to have an app where I can schedule the order like a tv guide channel and just sit back and let it handle the jumping.

[umbral phoenix]

I'm not familiar with that development ecosystem, but it seems like an OS-level capability that would have to be provided as an API for app developers.

[quartz wren]

I cut my beard off today.

it finally got too annoying.

again

[proven olive]

It was just a hair too long?

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/groans-loudly-groans-groan-ugh-pbg-gif-15530629

[pearl rover]

shave me from these hairrible puns

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/conan-o-brien-face-palm-gif-5723399

[quartz wren]

I love you folks

[delicate stream]

Even with all the punishing commentary?

[honest jolt]

I swear shear, if this keeps happening I'm gonna scream

*cries in bad puns*

[quartz wren]

Heh, my RGB pendant is an uncountable infinity stone

Since it can do all the colors

[tardy badger]

Moved my monitors and changed up my desk

Before there was a lot of dangling wires because of a rushed setup. Now it’s good.

[proven olive]

I'm sure you'll be monitoring the situation

[tardy badger]

but i'm not sure the monitors will stand the scrutiny

[hasty quarry]

I learned this song years ago and played it terribly

I didn’t understand the 9/8 time signature

But now I’m taking music theory in school and I understand it. Satisfying to see how it fits into the metronome beat, isn’t it

[quartz wren]

Indeed

[tardy badger]

dang, there was an oil leak in Orange County, California

[hasty quarry]

Oh dear

[tardy badger]

126k gallons of oil leaked

[hasty quarry]

Is petroleum flammable?

Yes right

[tardy badger]

yes

[hasty quarry]

That’s ridiculously dangerous

[tardy badger]

the biggest danger is to birds and other wildlife

they can become entrapped in the oil or ingest it and it would kill them

the oil sticks to birds feathers making it impossible for them to fly

not to mention fish dying and the damage to beaches

[quartz wren]

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.

Always gotta get a Floyd reference in where you can

[hasty quarry]

Floyd reference?

Where

[tardy badger]

or a Rage Against The Machine reference

[quartz wren]

https://youtu.be/JBPrvDY6hzo

A classic

[blissful roost]

Who?

[hasty quarry]

Old man Newton

[polar bloom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8de2W3rtZsA

[blissful roost]

Yeah, sorry... I should have put a "/s" on that.

[polar bloom]

Watch it anyway, it's good for the soul 😄

[wooden schooner]

I see one of the guitarists is wearing a cap that says "geek"

[polar bloom]

He's been on Star Trek.

[quartz wren]

Soooo... Yeah it's getting so bad with my brother just thinking he is allowed to wander into my space and take things like wild plants that I was already given permission to transplant for myself that my mom literally told me to put 'no trespassing' on the door.

So I did.

And I'll be getting up cameras

Because if he is willing to wander in and take stuff while I'm there, who knows what he is doing while I'm not.

Someone told me to hang this https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/688659305188294692/894324621082509452/plaque-metal-vintage-interdit-d-interdire.png

[lusty fossil]

I think a simple sign would be better

[quartz wren]

I just wrote directly on the door

It's makeshift anyway

Not having him think he has license to be everywhere he wants on my parents' property even when it is made clear he isn't welcome in this part. I even asked him "is there a reason you need to be back here?" to which he responded "oh I'm just grabbing one of these wild strawberry plants" and proceeded to enter the space

(and my mom is the one who suggested putting up a fence, so they are on board with me protecting my space)

And by "my" space I obviously mean the space they have afforded me.

He didn't even shut the door on his way out

Didn't even try.

Good news though

I have over half the walls on the building

Soon I will be able to use the space

[lusty fossil]

In Endgame ||where the heck did they get the extra Pym particles to shrink the GotG spaceship?||

[lost rampart]

Oh gosh lol I give up

What is the best design tool between Eagle, Proteus and Altium design ?

[lusty fossil]

This isn't exactly off topic, in fact they have a whole channel for it! check out #help-with-hw-design

[crystal ore]

The consensus would probably be that Altium is the best. Assuming you can afford it, of course.

[tardy badger]

KiCAD is a great tool that is free

It’s pretty close to eagle now with all the recent updates

[pearl rover]

[dusk oracle]

writers suck and cannot think.. every movie today has gone very far to be bad.
everything is just rehashed trash and the things they add often don't do anything for the movie.. but it's great for shoving your real word politics into things we used to love... that way we can pay money to be brainwashed.

[lusty fossil]

That's a pretty cynical take, and if you think superheroes weren't political in the past, I'd do some more reading

But I don't want to get into an argument about superheroes on my day off, so I'll just say we're all entitled to our feelings about art

[dusk oracle]

Super heroes are not a problem.
it's the agenda's they put in films.

[quartz wren]

Super hero stories are all about an agenda. The moral of the story is what they train you to look for, and teaching whatever moral is the agenda.

When the moral of the story is unclear is when it gets both annoying and interesting

Annoying because you have to think, interesting because.. Well.. You have to think

[dusk oracle]

and then sometimes you dont need to think

the thinking was done for you

i dont want to talk examples but there is a good one dating as far back as transformers where they spent a entire moment going thru the "romeo and juliet" law

why do i even want to know..

[quartz wren]

Yeah... That was a bit transparent in terms of "someone pushing an agenda"

[blissful roost]

I think the biggest issue is asserting that it's a problem when it's not.

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/the-fairly-odd-parents-timmy-turner-internet-swallow-gif-4277727

[lusty fossil]

This is the internet!

[blissful roost]

https://c.tenor.com/L5-dA0NLn10AAAAM/300-leonidas.gif

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/wtf-runaway-johnny-depp-captain-jack-sparrow-gif-5206303

[quartz wren]

It straight up sounds like there's a monkey being carried off by an owl nearby...

And the owl's vocalization sounds like an owl morphing into a goat

HoooOoooahahahaha

Would get a recording but it's sporadic and I don't want to just have the recorder going constant

[wary herald]

Are you just watching them??

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/ohno-smh-wrong-no-gif-5849245

Can I have a link to the super cool Python TI calculator in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXl9oOxmUcE

I'd really appreciate it

The new one, not the old one

[pearl rover]

https://education.ti.com/en-gb/products/calculators/graphing-calculators/ti-84-plus-ce-t-python

[late fulcrum]

Proteus and Altium are DOS-only, which is a reliable sign of low grade software, so I'd go with Eagle from those choices.

[wooden schooner]

Isn't most of the industry DOS-only?

[fair summit]

Do you mean they still run in DOS? That does not appear to be true. They were first implemented in DOS.

[wooden schooner]

I am taking DOS to mean MS Windows

[late fulcrum]

I mean they do not run on MacOS, BSD, or Linux. Only MICROS~1

[wooden schooner]

TIL MICROS~1

[late fulcrum]

Since they still use an 8.3 filesystem under the hood, I figure I may as well refer to them by the name they'd have to have on the disk.

[tardy badger]

Geez, I’m using selection sort for the first time in my professional career

[late fulcrum]

That must be a weird feeling of "I thought I'd never use this" combined with "I'm glad I remembered it enough to recognize it!"

[polar bloom]

I'm all for hating on Microsoft but I don't think NTFS is 8.3 though?

[late fulcrum]

Last I looked, NTFS was in fact 8.3 under the hood (backwards compatibility and all that), with a translation layer to present alternate filenames that were transparently mapped to the storage format (sort of like the old Rock Ridge format for CD-ROMs).

[polar bloom]

Wasn't that FAT32?

Well, I stand corrected. NTFS does this indeed.

[late fulcrum]

I think CD-ROMs are ISO 9660, which is related/derived from FAT32 (via something like "High Sierra", which became even more confusing when Apple used the same name for one of their OS releases)

[delicate stream]

I think EXFAT is also 8.3 under the hood

[polar bloom]

Funny thing is, I've been doing some stuff on the C64 recently and it has filenames up to 16 (!!!) characters. (Of course that came out one year after MS-DOS but still.)

[late fulcrum]

Atari DOS has a weird mix of features too.

[wooden schooner]

To me, even if microsoft is using 1-character filenames under the hood, that is nowhere near the most compelling reason to hate microsoft.

[polar bloom]

I guess 8.3 really came from CP/M

[late fulcrum]

Yup.

[polar bloom]

Next month is 50 years since the release of the 4004 😄

[late fulcrum]

I picked up the grandpappy of the X86 line to see if I could get it running on a breadboard.

[polar bloom]

Nice, the oldest I ever worked with was the 8085

[late fulcrum]

At the moment, I'm playing with breadboarding an 1802, and learning that it is both a really odd CPU but also had a bunch of features that were misunderstood at the time but showed off concepts that became part of the load and store/RISC architecture of much more modern chips.

[subtle fable]

Someone bought the geiger counter I had my eyes on as soon as I put the money i needed to buy it in the bank

[late fulcrum]

Are you looking for a counter to play with, or a professional calibrated one? If you just want one to play with, there are some good deals at Electronics Goldmine (they also have frequent sales for even better deals). Here's one example, but they have a whole category for Geiger counters on their site. https://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=C8611ASB

[subtle fable]

It's mostly just to play with, I bought a different one of the same model, the reason i wanted the one i had my eyes on was because it was upgraded and had new parts, i was originally gonna buy a professional Ludlum model but then i realized it didn't come with the probe, so i ended up settling on some surplus counter

[late fulcrum]

My favorite Geiger counter is one of these, but they're the opposite of cheap. http://www.blackcatsystems.com/GM/GeigerCounters.html

[subtle fable]

https://ludlums.com/products/all-products/product/model-3
I Was originally gonna buy one of these off of ebay, but the one i was looking at didn't have the probe, so i bought a Victoreen 6b cold war era counter someone had calibrated instead, and it should work for what i want at the moment

Once i save up enough i'm probably gonna get a better counter

[late fulcrum]

The Ludlum looks like a copy of the Victoreen. Happily, there's lots of documentation available on the net on the old Victoreen units, which are fairly nice and good looking. A whole lot of them ended getting used as movie props.

[subtle fable]

The Ludlum has built in speakers and a bunch of other modern stuff, it's not a copy of the Victoreen from what i can tell, plus it has probes and stuff that can be swapped out

i might buy a digital counter though

[wary herald]

Thanks a lot

[solar ridge]

adafruit

Owner

adafruit#3230

Channel Categories

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6

Members

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ID: 327254708534116352 | Server Created · Jun 22, 2017, 1:13 AM

[delicate stream]

Almost 32k!

Woo!

[quartz wren]

I should get pictures of how I make coffee since dismantling my coffee maker...

Like the whole process

It's actually quite simple and with a few adaptations could make you good coffee in a proper apocalypse because of the simplicity

[lusty fossil]

I learned of a new, and affordable (rare where I work), mexican place that does a mean burrito. Today is good

[quartz wren]

Noice!

[delicate stream]

coughs up Taco Bell receipts

[lusty fossil]

Gotta move somewhere with better mexican food my friend!

[quartz wren]

Just because it was in the bag doesn't mean it's food... Please tell me you didn't also eat the napkins smh

😉

[delicate stream]

I thought those were palette cleansers...

[quartz wren]

Lol

[late fulcrum]

A palate cleanser would be a palette cleanser if you've been eating paint, I suppose.

[quartz wren]

Paint thinner, the ultimate palette cleanser

Yes I know that was terrible, I'll be waiting in the bad joke penalty box if anyone needs me

[delicate stream]

looks at jug of mineral spirits

[wooden schooner]

a palette is just a small palate, like a baby's

[lusty fossil]

and here I thought it was a lady palate

[quartz wren]

Why not lady friend, a pal-ette?

[lusty fossil]

https://tenor.com/view/brooklyn99-noice-jake-peralta-andy-samberg-nice-gif-14234819

[quartz wren]

Language is my playground and English is the jungle gym

[delicate stream]

Look at this :O https://twitter.com/WillowCreative_/status/1359607683075215360

🦇🎃🐺 Will'o'wisp 🐺🎃🦇 (@WillowCreative_)

Angry but in video.
Ears now move with jaw, may try to improve the linkage further https://t.co/7CUOtMRak2

Retweets

13531

Likes

76827

▶ Play video

Twitter · Feb 10, 2021, 8:58 PM

[quartz wren]

I was so sad when they removed the jungle gym from my elementary school, used to be my favorite thing to play on because all the other kids weren't as quick at climbing it as me, except my little brother but this was before I had recess at the same time as him.

[wooden schooner]

even with quickness, it doesn't seem like you'd be able to escape the other kids very long...

[quartz wren]

Climb drop jump grab repeat

They eventually got bored and tired

[wooden schooner]

ah right, and since they're third graders they don't figure out how to anticipate it

[quartz wren]

I think it was first or second actually

[wooden schooner]

I have never been able to use a monkey bar in my life. not even for one rung

[quartz wren]

The monkey bars are like jungle gym lite

That is

A lot of the same stuff is possible

But to a lower degree of freedom

And with less acrobatic skill required too

Which is fine, keep that for the people who aren't having fun on the jungle gym, but it was so boring in comparison to use the monkey bars

[delicate stream]

I was very good at falling off the jungle gym... Although it was just a pile of rocks and sticks back in my day

[quartz wren]

Yeah pea gravel was the best if you know how to fall

Distribute your weight and roll through trying to displace as much material as you can and the worst you will get is a couple scrapes from some insane heights

To be fair though... If I had a kid and saw them doing the things I did as a kid I would probably have a heart attack

My brother was even worse lol, he was climbing up the basketball hoop in the driveway and hanging from the rim at 2

We have video proof lol

Not sure if it's currently available on the web, people were leaving some quite uh... Distressed comments on it if I remember correctly

But to summarize nobody in my family displayed what one would consider normal playground behavior

It was never about the question "what is this for?" but always "what can I do with this?"

A dangerous mindset in the wrong hands to be sure, but I didn't make it I just have it.

As do most of my siblings

And while I would say that it has entered wrong hands, the other I have in mind whose hands those are would say otherwise. So I'm at a logical impasse where who am I to say that I'm not wrong hands when those I judge as being wrong hands would judge in reverse? There is no ground point and it just keeps looping in circles until the protons decay

I just fully and completely understood the meaning of "there is no point to <x>"

It's all about reference point

If you have no reference, there is no point

And reference can be anywhere along the path from start to finish of thing x

But you have to have it or you flounder

It even applies to measurements and units in a way. If you want to have a common point of the "amount" of something then you first need to know "in reference to what? Mass, weight under the effect of 1G of acceleration? Volume? Discrete units?" and this is important or you may get the answer wrong because your calculations were in reference to something not on your path and were thus pointless.

[lusty fossil]

I was just reminded of the time at the school fair, when unaccompanied by an adult, I had the face painter do a black eye on me. My parents didn't love all the looks and questions they got

[quartz wren]

Lol that is hilarious but also very sneaky

I love it

If I were in your position

I hate it putting myself in your parents'

[lusty fossil]

yeah they laughed it off, but would have much preferred a classic lion or tiger face

[quartz wren]

At very least have the artist sign it so that on closer inspection it's obviously art lol

[lusty fossil]

It didn't take much looking face to face to tell, but from a distance it looked grim

[quartz wren]

Ah so one of those "oh my gosh!" rushes over "oh." kind of things?

[lusty fossil]

Mostly silent judgement from others, this was a religious school

[quartz wren]

Uff

[stable vapor]

Does anyone know of some cool Matrix servers out there?

[late fulcrum]

I'm fond of this one: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4745

[stable vapor]

@late fulcrum that's really cool! But I was referring to this https://matrix.org/

[late fulcrum]

Ah, that's more specific!

[delicate stream]

Oh, I thought you meant The Matrix… like Neo…

[tardy badger]

Lol

[lusty fossil]

When is a good time to throw away a dog's bone? It's mostly gone and it doesn't seem to have sharp edges...

[tardy badger]

Whenever you can get it away from your dog without them noticing

[delicate stream]

Doge will consume

[tardy badger]

I dislike looking at things that are right but my brain is highly sus

Like this

[lusty fossil]

I'm going to a Renn Faire this weekend, so far none of my friends have agreed to prevent me from coming home with a sword, I'm worried.

[proven olive]

Having been to Ren Faires and having come home with swords, I do recommend it. It's great!

[lusty fossil]

I'm saving up for a truck 😩

[tardy badger]

https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/exoplanet-orbiting-three-stars/?amp&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=socialorg_news&__twitter_impression=true

[lusty fossil]

F150 lightning, hope to have it in a few years lol

[tardy badger]

Brings back a conversation for a few months ago

[lusty fossil]

would Luke Skywalker have been 50% more powerful if he grew up on one of these?

[late fulcrum]

I bought a Nida trainer as surplus to use as a general purpose power supply, but got curious about how it works as a trainer and bought a bunch of the special cards for it, including one for learning voltage, current, and resistance, it's sort of a physical implementation of that diagram.

[late fulcrum]

Lucky you, I'm saving up for a driveway. What a boring expensive thing.

[lusty fossil]

Adulting!

[late fulcrum]

True. But I'd rather buy toys.

[tardy badger]

We did these problems like that in circuits. Just passing glance it was.. “what the heck” and then my senses came to. Lol

[late fulcrum]

Wow, they still have the surplus trainers in stock. https://fairradio.com/product/nida-130/

[quartz wren]

Aaaaaahhhhhh!

Good news!

I busted my butt all day and now my lab has walls and the inside is pressure washed

Tomorrow: doors

And windows

[late fulcrum]

I'm having this mental image of pressure washing wood framing

[quartz wren]

Oh and my brother gave me a decent blower motor for building a fume hood

Heh I mean

[late fulcrum]

A friend gave me a Mul-T-Lock to play with

[quartz wren]

Almost but there's metal paneling

(pre-washing)

[late fulcrum]

Ah, that makes more sense!

[quartz wren]

This place is gonna be bomb when it's done

I'm getting a chair for it tonight that has an ottoman

Free from the side of the road because that's how I roll

And you see the piece of metal peaking out from behind the palette in the second pic? That's going to be a garage door style blast shield for my fume hood in case of sudden combustion while working on lithium cells

[quartz wren]

This is neat and I'm kinda jealous haha

Anyway I think I hit critical mass on the work that needs doing for my lab. I have done most of the hard stuff that was left and now it's just details

😄

Tomorrow just a bit more pressure washing of the inside but this time with more light, then set it up to dry out while I'm getting the windows and doors in

[delicate stream]

Confirm there are no critters or pests in it!

[delicate stream]

I'm jelly

[delicate stream]

ElectroBOOM's Christmas tree

[dusk oracle]

finished making all the graphics modes.
Testing the fpga has revealed i suck at calculating hdmi timings and my tv takes a lot of abuse compared to others

[late fulcrum]

Heh, I ran into that too. Some monitors are much pickier than others. Weirdly, the Atrix dock was fairly picky, where my old Acer would accept a range of stuff. Getting it right can be a real pain.

[delicate stream]

Hey, dumb VGA question… could I mess with VGA colors by adding potentiometers in-line on the signal channels?

[thick wind]

As long as you're adding resistance and not removing resistance, you should be able to safely experiment with it. Your voltages should drop extremely fast with even a 5k resistor pot, but I don't think there's a risk of breaking anything from too little voltage or current...

[delicate stream]

Yup, just adding. Figured a VGA male on one end and female on the other with just pots in line would work, just figured I’d ask, lol

[thick wind]

Do they have cheap pots smaller than 1k, I wonder...

[delicate stream]

Probs

These would work, right? https://m.alibaba.com/product/1600095573190/500-ohm-Potentiometer-501-RM063-Variable.html?__detailProductImg=https%3A%2F%2Fs.alicdn.com%2F%40sc04%2Fkf%2FH9eade7c5ad8045089773cf31ca575e27a.jpg_200x200.jpg

[thick wind]

Don't see why not

[delicate stream]

Soon™️

[quartz wren]

Every opening left is either a door or window space that will get trim around it after installation

[delicate stream]

AHHH EXCITE https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/5/22691850/google-pixel-6-event-2021-fall-announcement

[quartz wren]

I need to get some cash, go thrifting, and find as many old webcams as I can. I need security cameras for my lab

[delicate stream]

I can sell you webcams, lol

$5/each plus shipping, brand new in box

[quartz wren]

I can usually find them for $1/ea. At thrift

Don't need anything HD just something to capture images in sequence

Ooh! My mom is offering to sell me her gopro!

I should buy that for my ceiling gantry

Since then it could handle all sorts of g loading

Today I woke up with my eye itching so I went to the bathroom mirror to look and sure enough there's an eyelash plastered to my eyeball just under my iris, so I cleaned my finger, poked it, and it came right off onto my finger and felt soooo much better

[delicate stream]

Ugh, I hate errant eyelashes like that

[blissful roost]

Yes! Gimme that Pixel 6 Pro!

[delicate stream]

Yissss

My Pixel 2 XL is very tired

[blissful roost]

My P4XL is borked, so I'm due a replacement/upgrade

Yeah, I'm using the P2XL right now.

[delicate stream]

The Pixel 6 line seems like what I was hoping the Pixel 5 would be

[blissful roost]

That's how hard my P4XL is borked. Lol

[delicate stream]

Big oof

[blissful roost]

You mean, actually good... ?

The P5 was like "Well, we have to release something"

[quartz wren]

If I had the money for a high end cell phone I still would have a lower power device... But I would make my own.

Fona module for the win

[late fulcrum]

That's sort of the route I took. https://circuitmess.com/ringo/

[quartz wren]

I should make a breakout header for putting a fona module into Pixie so it can be a fully mobile device since it's a 2 part client / server system to allow urbit access

[delicate stream]

I wanna recreate this with an OLED…. One of my favorite phones ever

Nokia-Ericsson T28 WORLD is the one I have

[stray wind]

When did it become or stop being Sony-Ericsson? I was unaware of the Nokia connection. (hashtaglazyweb)

[delicate stream]

Nokia bought Ericsson in 1988, Ericsson and Sony confounded Sony-Ericsson in 2001

[stray wind]

Ahh. Fair enough.

[delicate stream]

They were also very not consistent with when they called it Nokia-Ericsson or just Ericsson after Nokia took over, lol

Confusing companies are confusing

[blissful roost]

Like, errmm.. Fujitsu-Seimens?

Siemens Nixdorf

[pearl rover]

Alps-Forward

[blissful roost]

Wincor Nixdorf

It goes on... and on... and on.. lol

[pearl rover]

Morkrum-Kleinschmidt

that’s an obscure reference for a very specific niche of nerds out there lmao

[wooden schooner]

the Burali-Forti paradox

the Levi-Civita connection

attributed to Cesare Burali-Forti and Tullio Levi-Civita, respectively

[late fulcrum]

confounded or co-founded? 🥴

[delicate stream]

Lol, co-founded. Stupid autocorrect

[late fulcrum]

How can you "found" a company that's already been around for three years?

[delicate stream]

Sony-Ericsson was a new company formed under Sony and Ericsson

[lusty fossil]

most corporate stuff only makes sense if you look at it sideways while standing on one foot

[late fulcrum]

I remember Nokia used to make good phones, then they made bad phones, then I stopped paying attention.

[delicate stream]

Nokia all over

[wooden schooner]

Wait it's clearly both

[delicate stream]

lol

[lost rampart]

Hi

Can someone here recommend me a radio module that can reach 4km with strong signal and acceptable brandwitch ?

[delicate stream]

"Acceptable bandwidth" is super relative

[velvet pelican]

The indestructible nokia talk brick

[delicate stream]

Mmm, Nokia 3310...

I think my eyes are broken, everything looks bent

iPad, Pencil, PyRuler, phone...

[stray wind]

Side talkin'.

[delicate stream]

Ahhh, N-Gage...

Classic

[stray wind]

Tacophone.

[delicate stream]

Alternatively

[velvet pelican]

The itacolate

[hasty quarry]

Got this for my birthday

Just set it up

Left to right, 2 rows is hours minutes and seconds

[lost rampart]

I mean acceptable data rate

[delicate stream]

Nice :D

[delicate stream]

Yeah, but... that's relative.... "acceptable" depends on your application

[lost rampart]

For real time transmission/reception

[delicate stream]

"acceptable" can be like 9600 BAUD or 5Mbps, depends on if you're just doing text or images or what

[lost rampart]

Drone and others wireless applications

[delicate stream]

Gotta figure out what transfer speeds you need before finding a particular module

[lost rampart]

The problem is that I don’t really know which speed is enough

I saw sx1278 ra-02 module, sx1280/1281 LoRa module and nrf24l01+pa+lna modules but I don’t know which one I can choose

[delicate stream]

If you know the resolution and framerate and encoding of your video streams, you should be able to calculate the thruput

[honest jolt]

GreatScott did a pretty good video on it in 2018 comparing LoRa vs. nRF vs. "generic" RF:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP6YuwNVoPU

[crystal ore]

LoRa is pretty much not suitable for any video stream. It maxes out at about 40kbps, and much less at significant ranges.

[lusty fossil]

I'm not sure there's a better feeling than showing off your sweet calipers to someone who didn't know calipers existed. Maybe the birth of a child, idk

[late fulcrum]

Even $2 plastic calipers are better than I expected.

[honest jolt]

RIP the icon scaling looks terrible lol

[wooden schooner]

can I have permission to share a bad joke (if one can even call it that)

a shower thought that occurred while I was not showering

[lusty fossil]

I think as long as it's G rated or G adjacent, you should be fine

[wooden schooner]

it is very much G

[lusty fossil]

I have no authority here, but I say post it

[wooden schooner]

ok here's the thought

imho = i = L

[quartz wren]

I drew an abstract piece, anyone wanna see?

It's called "interpretation of the abstract"

[tardy badger]

Someone leaked the entire Twitch source code

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22712250/twitch-hack-leak-data-streamer-revenue-steam-competitor

If they have source code and security tools, it really makes me wonder what good it does changing your password.. lol

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/head-scratcher-confused-perplexed-huh-clash-with-cam-gif-10198268

[dapper hatch]

@quartz wren Which are you?

[subtle fable]

Alright so my Geiger counter has a faulty meter, but the seller is shipping me another to replace it, guess i’ll learn how to repair geiger counters

[quartz wren]

what?

[quartz wren]

I want to make one from scratch at some point

[lusty fossil]

need some steel from an old shipwreck, not cheap

[quartz wren]

I saw some fairly simple designs for using a steel tube with a charged wire under vacuum

(for the actual Geiger-Mueller tube)

[subtle fable]

But the thing is, unless you have low background steel it won't be as accurate, low background steel is required for geiger counters as regular steel made after 1945 is radioactive

[quartz wren]

Oh right... Forgot about that

Sad day

[subtle fable]

"Imagine you have a sensor that needs to be extremely sensitive to low levels of radiation. This could be Geiger counters, medical devices, or vehicles destined for space exploration. If they have a container that is slightly radioactive it creates an unacceptable noise floor. That’s where Low Background Steel comes in."

yeah..

You could probably buy a scrap CDV-700

and use those as a container

[quartz wren]

What about meteoric iron?

Also if I'm just making a proof of concept and do my actual measurements with a Geiger counter that I buy I don't think it'll be a huge barrier to getting something to work at least marginally

(just as a "hey look what I managed to do" project rather than using it for labware)

And since I plan on working around radiation eventually I'm going to want a commercial counter

But I just think it would be cool to make a Geiger counter that works to any degree from scrap components

Would it be possible to shield the inner wire from the radiation of the metal without shielding too much to detect the pulse from the wire when it gets hit? Or would that give you the same noise threshold but a lower gain to just taking the raw readings and subtracting some count to approximate the noise threshold?

(since then you aren't shielding the return signal from the wire at all, merely reducing precision which comes as a byproduct of shielding the wire from the tube casing anyway)

But actually if I get rich, I want to buy a big chunk of iron meteorite that has a low radioactivity and use it to make Geiger counters that both work and are unique art pieces, then sell them on auction and give the proceeds to charity

And save a few to raffle off to schools but not for money, have each raffle ticket be given out for a paper written by a student of the school and sent in to the contest

A scholarship raffle

Probably limit the number you can enter to double the smallest school size in terms of number of students so big, well funded schools don't have so much of an advantage

Or

Better yet

Not limit to one per student

But of course this is a pipe dream for if I get rich

[subtle fable]

That sounds like a neat idea, but the thing is you have to use a special process in order for the air fed into the iron to be clean and pure, but since it’s an art thing and money is no object i guess it wouldn’t matter

Also the top of the needle had broken free from the meter, so it can go up but not back down, it’s also spinning freely

That’s why it’s not working

[lusty fossil]

Carnitas burrito for lunch and my new tool came a day early, today's going well

[lusty fossil]

Much excite

[delicate stream]

Chonk meter, I approve

[lusty fossil]

I also use it to pick things up

Us Great Apes are always finding new uses for tools

[delicate stream]

Lol

[quartz wren]

Sooo I did some mathematical figuring on the positive pressure environment and I realized I only need somewhere between 0.01 and 0.02 PSI differential between the inside and outside ([very] roughly 10kg/m^2)

The actual calculation I ran was 10lb of force distributed across a 2'x3' window surface

To get approximately 0.0116PSI

If I didn't completely bungle the numbers

Lol

But the point is I don't need anywhere near the pressures I thought I would

Just enough to hold a decent amount of force on the windows so that while there's a pressure difference the windows get latched by that, however they will be mounted in a way to open under gravity when that pressure equalizes to atmospheric, on opposite sides of the room so that there's a cross breeze and the main pressure valve will be designed to open up with no power

So that in the case of an outage the system will be fail safe

Don't want me suffocating because the power went out and the pressure is keeping the escape routes blocked so I'm preparing for that

Though the airlock balloon tunnel thing that will be attached to the door while under pressure is a good manual override

Since in the very worst case it can simply be torn/cut open

[delicate stream]

Fail-safes good

[honest jolt]

only the Refresh and Bundle info buttosn work right now but its coming along lol

[stark oasis]

Hey all. Some of us older folk were discussing our glory days and the birth of microcomputers and software market that emerged. I left Connecticut in 1984 for California and started a crazy adventure. Skipping over the brief homeless period living in a park with a gang in Orange County California, I worked in film and music in Los Angeles in my early 20s and wondered to Silicon Valley/Santa Cruz mountains after connecting with some people in the Borland crowd. I joined a boutique development tools company called TurboPower Software in CEO Kim Kokkonen's basement in Scotts Valley. I had bought a Turbo Pascal library called Turbo Professional that came with source code while living in L.A. It was an amazing value for about $100 I think with full source. I read it line by line and helped people use it on Compuserve and AOL. This caught the attention of many people over the years I did this back then and I met Bill Gates, Gary Kildall, Gordon Eubanks (later my boss when he was CEO of Symantec), and Philippe Kahn and a host of colorful Borland people like Zack Urlocker and Anders Hejlsberg and the aforementioed Kim Kokkonen. He wasn't an exotic Hawaiian women as he was in my mind when I read the elegant source code. He was a tall man of Finnish descent. He offered me a job to become the third employee and engineer at TurboPower. We ghost wrote libs for companies and sold our own class libraries for Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ that won Jolt Cola and Dr Dobbs awards. I published many articles about some pretty hardcore advanced TP concepts such as inline assembly, using extended RAM before supported by DOS, and using object oriented programming when it was still shiny. the good part is coming...

TurboPower was in Scotts Valley, as was Borland. Scotts Valley is lovely little town in the Santa Cruz mountains inland from the Pacific ocean up from Santa Cruz a couple of miles up. It was our shared connection as elite Turbo Pascal enthusiasts that brought many of the cool people together to that sleepy town. There were such colorful people like Philippe Kahn, CEO/Founder of Borland and his whiz kid Anders Hejlsberg. Anders had written Turbo Pascal originally in his late teens in Denmark and Philippe Kahn and Borland acquired it and hired him. Anders later when on to be chief architect of C# and TypeScript. This story is about something funny Anders said one of the last times I actually got to hang out with him in the 1990s. To appreciate this you need the context. We at TurboPower were closely aligned with Borland and we worked in the same dev tools market space. I had done a few contract development jobs on a couple of Borland products as an individual and later at TurboPower. We were involved in helping to successful merge Apple Pascal's Object Pascal into Turbo Pascal 5.5 to turn the Turbo Pascal community on to OOP programming. We release Object Professional which had a couple of really cool innovative functionality I invented and built. There was this party...

[quartz wren]

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

[lusty fossil]

Is that your YT channel?

[quartz wren]

yes

[stark oasis]

Well there were many parties. Silicon Valley and the record companies in Los Angeles I had worked for all partied like it was 1999 back then. Borland had annual picnics, annual developers conventions, and eventually they launched a magazine called Turbo Technix (if I recall) with writer Jeff Duntemann as Editor in Chief. Jeff became a close friend. I wrote for other magazines such as Dr Dobbs, Byte, and hung out with all the guys publishing dev tools books in the Borland universe. Jeff also lived in Scotts Valley and held a regular pool parties with open invitation to anyone at Borland, Ziff Davis, Science Fiction authors, and elite programmers. Several of my friends like scifi and Star Trek pilot author David Gerrold and PC Magazines Neil Rubenking and they both remain friends today. So this was the scene. Lots of beer drinking, hanging out in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains with giant redwood trees near the Pacific Ocean. It was a dream come true lifestyle for this Connecticut Yankee. Anders sometimes came to these parties. Naturally he gravitated towards his fellow dev tools programmers...

[late fulcrum]

I don't think Gerrold wrote the pilot, but he did write "The Trouble With Tribbles"

[stark oasis]

One night I vividly remember one somewhat historic conversation. You see, as much as I LOVED Turbo Pascal, I saw the writing on the wall and knew C++ was going to soon dominate software development for PCs for the next decade. So I liked to provoke friendly debates.

Yeah, he once told me he wrote a pilot too. It might have been for TNG

Yes it was

It was an amazing story of his battle with Gene Roddenberry. David is an interesting fellow. I have a few hilarious stories about interactions between him and my late wife Cyndi!

But back to Anders. I would debate Anders at why I thought some aspects of his strategy on Turbo Pascal may be part of the flight to C++, such as absolutely refusing to comply with standards. I understood his reasons, but wanted to challenge the choice on business grounds. One night we were having a moving party. Turbo Power was moving to Colorado (another fun story) after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in '89. Anyway, we were drinking Heinekens and hanging out in Brian Foley's kitchen. Brian was the 2nd TurboPower programmer. Kim was founder, Kim hired Brian and later me. We had drank a, um, few beers. I was a lightweight compared to many of the folks there and was probably the most sober man there. I was going on about how Microsoft C++ was going to eat Borland's lunch. Anders seemed to get annoyed at some point with my provocative statements. Provocative conversation starters are kind of my thing.

After a bit, Anders looked at me with near-empty beer in hand and said "well there are a few things I am never going to do. I am not going to be held back by standards, work with or for Microsoft, or embrace C/C++." I'm paraphrasing as this was 30+ years ago. Hopefully you see the humor in this. Anders, not long after, was enticed by Microsoft to architect their next generation development tool which became a little something called Visual Studio and C#. While he kept to his words on standards, which was one of my main points on why I had to migrate to other tools, but ended up working for Microsoft for decades developing C++ related development tools. I believe he is still in that job! Some day I'll tell you another story about Bill Gates. No, that one is better told in a less public setting. So many colorful people every step of my journey through software and technology development. And that was all in the first quarter of my career.

This is why I get excited to see what Adafruit does and the young people who become interested in technology. I was that kid taking apart TVs and embracing computers as a teenager. I am a college dropout. You are not limited by anything but your own risk aversion.

For years I didn't share these stories because it felt like name dropping and I often dislike ppl who do that. But nearly anyone among the hundreds (thousands?) of technology people who have worked for me have told me that I have to get these stories out there. They are often inspirational, or funny, or interesting. Once I heard "you need to write a book" or "you could make a movie with that career" I finally indulged while I was in the post Jibo depression. When Jibo went under I had worked there for 5 years and was the 7th employee and one of the first 3 architects/engineers hired. I touched nearly every part of the product and had just spent a year commuting back and forth to China to help bring the manufacturing online to get the robot shipping. What a wild ride it has been and continues to be. I seem to be a magnet for exciting projects and high risk/high reward opportunities. So I made a podcast available on Apple. It is a borderline narcissistic monologue of stories, history, ideas, and topics interesting. Adafruit has been mentioned and I have several whole episodes on maker stuff. While a little bit of a bizarre format show, the same people who are either in the stories or urged me to publish enjoy them. I also have a bunch of Jibo fans who listen including a bright teenage girl who bought a Jibo and became an avid influencer. When the company went under she found me and asked questions. I mostly couldn't answer her questions due to NDA (which can outlive the company of the IP is transferred plus you still need to respect it while there could be implications to breaking it). But we became pen pals. I love meeting people. She happens to be a young woman of color who is extremely smart and creative. Some day I hope to hire her and people like her.

Thank you all for encouraging teens and adults of all sorts to fall in love with technology

I'm not going to link to my podcast because i am not here to push anything. I just like the people who hang out here. I always use my real name or a reasonable abbreviation such as RichSad. My full name is Rich Sadowsky. Or if you are looking for older or more formal stuff like US Patents, Richard Scott Sadowsky! If you search on Apple Podcasts you can find me as Rich Sadowsky. It has been 40+ years since I sold my first program for $10 to a math professor, and recently worked at two different startup with MIT Associate Professors women founders: Drs Cynthia Breazeal at Jibo and Rosalind Picard at Affectiva. Not bad for a college dropout. The story about my interview with Roz and the C question (college) is for another day...

these days I do CTO, fractional CTO, and advisory roles. My main day job is CTO of Waverley Software. Waverley does outsourced software development that I had first used at Jibo almost 8 years ago and again at Plannuh, a startup in Boston where I was VP of Dev for years after. So I had been a delighted customer of Waverley for 7 years before they offered me the CTO position. My job is so awesome. I work with dozens of companies around the world out of 3 regional offices in Ukraine, Vietnam and Bolivia on IoT, robotics, SaaS, data science, ML, Crypto....

good night. Thanks for indulging an old programmer reflecting on a wild ride career while living in more or less seclusion for the last 19 months!

[dusty citrus]

adafruit got me to look at electronics differently. broken stuff is not junk, now what was once a recycling chore is now potential to fix or make other things with. so rewarding when repurposed stuff works again.

[wooden schooner]

Today I told my friend, for the love of @#$%, do not reattach the frayed ends the torn power cable on your Christmas lights with masking tape. That was the right thing to say, right?

Also curious to understand the risks a little more precisely.

• Is fire the only risk, or are there others?
• Is the conductivity / fire-catching of the tape itself a concern, or is it mainly that the strands could easily touch to create a short?
• Hypothetically, suppose there were already a short. Roughly what is the probability of a fire starting after 1 second, 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day of being plugged in? (I know this depends on a lot of things, but looking for a concrete estimate for a particular set of parameters to anchor my intuition)

[crystal ore]

Normally I'd expect a short to trigger the breaker almost instantly, so it probably wouldn't get hot enough to start a fire.

Usually the main risk would be someone touching a bare wire if it's not sealed well or the tape comes loose over time.

[wooden schooner]

what makes electrical tape better than masking tape for electrical applications? [Edit: Wikipedia tells me it's insulation, but not sure if there's more to it]

Oh also, what is the easiest/cheapest way to fix it safely? Crimp and heat-shrink around the exposed ends?

[wooden schooner]

also, would this still be the case if the light assembly started with a cheap, not-necessarily-efficient power supply?

[crystal ore]

In that case the power supply would probably max out its current capacity, so it might fry or overheat itself if it's very cheap.

[wooden schooner]

so the power supply is kaput but generally not a fire hazard?

[crystal ore]

Yeah, generally anything that is actually hot enough to catch on fire would have already broken the silicon circuits involved and stopped working before that. Not a guarantee, of course.

Maybe a little puff of magic smoke being released, heh heh.

[wooden schooner]

interesting, thanks. I do think this assembly includes a cheapo power supply, is part of why I asked

and to make sure I know what you mean -- "stopped working" in such a way that the circuit is no longer closed and therefore no more risk of fire? Or no longer functional but still dangerous?

sorry to be so focused on the fire question, for some reason it seems like an important one to understand fully 🤔

[crystal ore]

It's hard to say for sure, since it'll vary with the power-supply design. Often the circuits will "fail open", so they stop conducting when they break, but that's not always the case.

[wooden schooner]

this is super useful and I'm glad I asked my pedantic question to get this response

🙏

[quartz wren]

Masking tape is made of paper and is easily torn, electrical tape is made of vinyl and stretches before tearing, plus it is much thicker of a material

Both will provide insulation, but you need more layers of masking tape to get the same level, also because of the tearing factor it won't last as long

In short it's always just better to get a new set for something like that

[dusk oracle]

i prefer insulation tape

like the really stretchy stuff

some confuse plastic tape for it due to dodgy suppliers

[thick wind]

Masking tape is also more flammable, iirc

[tardy badger]

I believe there is a difference in adhesive too, as well as conductivity of the tape (thermal conductivity).

https://tapeuniversity.com/industry/building-construction/electrical/what-makes-electrical-tape-different-from-other-adhesive-tapes/

[delicate stream]

No question is too small or pedantic, especially when related to safety concerns! Always better safe than sorry.

[subtle fable]

Welp, looks like war thunder players have leaked another classified set of documents on a tanks armor

For the second time

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/classified-tank-specs-leaked-on-war-thunder-game-forums-again/

[delicate stream]

Oh jeeze

[subtle fable]

I'm gonna place my bets on the Leopard being the next one to be leaked

[delicate stream]

I have no specific tank knowledge

[subtle fable]

Well allow me to enlighten you on the wonders of tank shells

[delicate stream]

I should build a tiny tank bot

XD

[subtle fable]

I actually want to do that

3D print some parts of the shell, put an airsoft gun in a mount with an oscillating turret

But anyway

Tank shells in a nutshell

[subtle fable]

I wanted to build one with this type of turret

Oh thats very low quality

there we go

[delicate stream]

Big pewpew

[subtle fable]

Ok so apparently i was wrong

That was the 3rd time

The third time classified documents were leaked on the forums

[delicate stream]

Oop

[lusty fossil]

One nice thing about living in CA is websites have to ask to sell your info. One downside of living in CA is having to fill out the form again for every new website you visit

California, not Canada, I can only assume from meeting nice canadians that canada is also a nice place

[subtle fable]

Speaker got here

[quartz wren]

Nah, the harshest places make the nicest people

generally

(speaking geographically)

[wooden schooner]

NYT allows online subscription but you must call a "retention specialist" in order to unsubscribe, unless you live in CA. In other words, easiest way to unsubscribe is to change your address on file to be in CA.

[lusty fossil]

IIRC CA emissions standards lead to cleaner air in other states because manufacturers don't want to make a model for the CA market and a model for everywhere else

[quartz wren]

yeah, I heard this was why a lot of regulations take place in CA because it has such a high population that if you make your product conform to a majority market, you kind of have to take into account the california restrictions

[wooden schooner]

Similar phenomenon happening even with the cookies thing. CA is like a mini EU right here in the States

[quartz wren]

I had a super weird dream last night...

there were earth worms but they were shaped like starfish

and moved around like a starfish on time lapse

then when they went underground they would lead with one arm and pull the rest behind them

very strange

oh, I realised why

D&D adventure last night was kind of weird

and influenced my dreams

[quartz wren]

@late fulcrum I found the perfect bottles for some amber CRT jugs

[lusty fossil]

Is this the proper use of a semicolon? Santa's original eight reindeer; Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen first appeared in literature in 1823

[wooden schooner]

Doesn't track to me. I'd use em dashes

[lusty fossil]

like this? Santa's original eight reindeer - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen first appeared in literature in 1823?

[wooden schooner]

Another dash after Blitzen

[lusty fossil]

hm, I've never seen that used that way

[wooden schooner]

The list is "in apposition," I believe is the precise term for it

[quartz wren]

I would use a colon there

since you're starting a list that's in reference to the previous partial sentence

a semicolon is for separating two complete sentences which are related

[crystal ore]

The colon is problematic since the original sentence grammar continues after the list. I'm in the (double) dash camp.

[lusty fossil]

i'll go with dashes!

[quartz wren]

yeah actually that's a good point

the list isn't isolated here

[wooden schooner]

if the appositional phrase didn't contain commas, then surrounding it with commas would be the typical thing. But it does, so that's less good. There is a general rule of thumb that semicolons can kind of be used as a "second-order comma" in situations like those, but that just looks weird to me in this case. I can't justify it with a grammar school maxim.

(though there might be a way to justify it precisely via specific style guides like MLA or whatever... I tend to not care much about those tho)

[crystal ore]

Parentheses would be another option.

[quartz wren]

actually yes, if you did "Santa's original eight reindeer (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen) first appeared in literature in 1823" it seems most correct to me

[wooden schooner]

science people love their parentheses

[lusty fossil]

the dash kerning and vertical placement is weird in this font, I'll see how parens look

[quartz wren]

not as much as LISP people

though for them it just has to be matching brackets lel

[crystal ore]

You would technically want an "em dash", I think, not just a regular hyphen.

[lusty fossil]

ah how to do I do an em dash?

[wooden schooner]

yep, typically em dashes have either no space or a so-called "hair space" around them. Will look weird in monospace font but looks great in e.g. Times New Roman

[crystal ore]

It's this character if you want to copy and paste: —

[lusty fossil]

done! How can I impress others with this skill?

[wooden schooner]

now you're talking

[quartz wren]

if you're on windows you can do alt code 0151 apparently

[wooden schooner]

I believe the standard practice is to correct other people's style unsolicited

[quartz wren]

—

yup

[lusty fossil]

how do you use alt codes? holding the alt key and entering the code did nothing

[quartz wren]

did you use the numpad?

[lusty fossil]

I'm on a laptop

[quartz wren]

oh

[lusty fossil]

It's a microsoft surface 2 if that helps

[ancient kindle]

Sometimes there's a "num pad" accessible via the function key

[quartz wren]

^

[ancient kindle]

Usually on the right side of the letter portion of the keyboard in something like blue ink

[quartz wren]

it'll usually be in blue, but if the fn key is a different color it will match that color

(sometimes grey)

[lusty fossil]

my keyboard is too crusty to show you nice people, but I don't have that on mine

[delicate stream]

Semicolon was a definite no; the first part isn't a complete thought, and thus can't stand alone. A semicolon can take the place of a period to give some flow between two complete thoughts, but not two parts of one thought. If you want to use dashes, you'd use them the same way as the example with parentheses [in front of and after the list] as a way to insert that list into the complete thought [everything left if you take out the list]

If you're running Windows, the Character Map has all the characters, but finding the right one can be tricky

[ancient kindle]

ctrl-c, ctrl-v might be your best option

[quartz wren]

I'm seeing others having issues with alt codes on surface pro 2

upon searching for answers