general-chat

[wooden schooner]

Gotta be careful with those diamond-toothed titans

They think they can munch on anything

[lusty fossil]

reminds me of the golems or trolls, can't remember which, in Discworld

I think it's the trolls

golems are clay

either way, read the discworld books

[lusty fossil]

Laser cutting!

Plus ghostly fingies

Makerspaces are awesome

[stoic mesa]

how did you get that photo?

[lusty fossil]

My phone

[stoic mesa]

you left it inside during cutting? because normally, laser switches off as soon as you open the lid

[lusty fossil]

Oh no there's a UV rated glass panel

Actually plastic not glass

[quartz wren]

which is where the ghost fingers come from

reflection off the panel

[lusty fossil]

That's what my fingies are reflecting off of yeah

[quartz wren]

I'm printing a candy machine

because I bought a bunch of sixlets in bulk and now I don't know what to do with them

[lusty fossil]

Finally did the cheek swab and sent off my dog's DNA to be analyzed. Can't wait to find out what she is

Well apparently I can wait because I left it as an un done task for weeks

[quartz wren]

inb4 doggo is 100% covid

[lusty fossil]

No she's a good girl she had all her shots

[quartz wren]

I was just making a cheek swab joke

[lusty fossil]

Ah my experience with covid testing has exclusively been the dig into your brain via your nose

[quartz wren]

there's a few different ones. there's the nose swab, cheek swab, and a blood draw variant iirc

but I'm guessing the cheek swab one is less effective, though that's just my intuition and I haven't looked into it

[lusty fossil]

Ahh

[delicate stream]

I hadn't heard of that technique specifically, but I don't really follow 3D stuff too closely since I don't have proper depth perception DX

[lusty fossil]

What makes the product 3D?

[delicate stream]

Not exactly sure, but here's an article talking about it https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/lume-pad-brings-glasses-free-3d-back-again-on-an-android-tablet/

[lusty fossil]

How do you report a typo in an article?

They spelled yet "yett"

[delicate stream]

Lol

[lusty fossil]

And how do you surreptitiously ask if they are hiring editors lol

[delicate stream]

XD

[lusty fossil]

Looks like it works like the 3DS but slightly better

[delicate stream]

It's all the same as 2D screens to me, lol

Well, aside from distortions

[lusty fossil]

I have a hard time with the oculus rift I've tried both the original dev version and the most recent offering from Facebook. Idk if it extends to other VR products

[delicate stream]

What's the issue you have?

[lusty fossil]

Nausea mostly and headaches

I tried to play SW Squadrons on my buddy's super sweet VR/HOTAS setup but couldn't get more than 15 min into it

Also HOTAS is hard

[delicate stream]

Ahh... I've heard that's better on newer ones with higher resolution and refresh rate

I don't get motion sickness, so I can't really say

[lusty fossil]

I think his is less than a year old but I don't know for sure, could be closer to 2 years.

What skills would I need to create a simple VR world?

Simple is relative not a world actually

Just a room, I mistyped

Something you can walk around in

[delicate stream]

If you're starting from scratch, some 3D modeling and Unity experience I think

[lusty fossil]

Ok I have basics of CAD but I was nearly always designing something to be made with mills and lathes and power tools, not designing like 3d characters

Unity is an engine right? Or is it an engine and a language?

[crystal ore]

Blender would be a common 3D modeling program to use for something like that, for example.

[delicate stream]

It's just an engine as far as I know

I don't think the modeling software really matters, as long as Unity understands

[wary herald]

Pedantic nation

that's me

always pointing out misspelled words

XD

[delicate stream]

I tend to auto-correct in my head when reading

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/it-was-a-typo-aidan-gallagher-number-five-the-umbrella-academy-typo-gif-18224117

[wary herald]

Same

[quartz wren]

I remember hearing warnings about VR nausea and headaches and I tend to have balance issues as-is so I was super worried when I first tried it and it was fine for me... Then I tried Google cardboard and that didn't even bother me

No idea why but apparently I'm immune to the VR nausea, though eye strain from hours of use is a different story

[lusty fossil]

I'm really excited for AR personally.

[quartz wren]

I've got some ideas for making the ultimate AR system but I feel like people might get turned off about the idea of beaming (extremely low power) lasers directly onto their retina

[lusty fossil]

I wonder if work would consider sending me to school part time to learn how to make VR rooms you can explore

[quartz wren]

See my idea is something like a DLP chip but with only 3 actuated elements and with a precise swing through their range of motion, then bounce extremely extremely low power red green and blue lasers off of the elements, through some optics, and into the eye

[tardy badger]

I need opinions

this

[waxen wasp]

Good pineapple on pizza is great

[tardy badger]

this

whoops that one has a edit thingy in it lol

[lusty fossil]

First one grabs me more

[tardy badger]

oh well

[delicate stream]

I GOT IT

[waxen wasp]

I really enjoy the first one as well, it feels softer if that makes sense

[delicate stream]

PI ZERO 2 W WOOOO

[lusty fossil]

The second one reminds me of the negative of a color image

[waxen wasp]

Both are really good though

[delicate stream]

I like the second one

[lusty fossil]

Show us the tattoo when you get it!

That's what this is for right?

Jk

I think without the edit box the second one would also work, I just like it slightly less than the first one

[tardy badger]

or

[lusty fossil]

Oooh

That's interesting

Would it be possible to use a chip like the earth and have traces coming out for the roots and trunk/branches?

Idk if there's a way to do skinny chip that would look real device though

Hmm hard to say whether I like the first one or this one more

Very good work!

[delicate stream]

Circuit tree

[tardy badger]

i don't have those kinds of skills. Using Canva xD

i could probably do it if I REALLY tried

but i don't want to really try right now xD

[delicate stream]

Valid

[lusty fossil]

Makes sense. If I had to pick I'd go with the first one

[tardy badger]

seems to be a majority of the consensus

[stoic mesa]

how about using oak leaf?

[tardy badger]

i've thought about that too

but i don't know if everyone knows what an oak leaf looks like xD

[stoic mesa]

they do, I hope

[waxen wasp]

I think it should be said that all the designs look great, I'm just picking my favorite of the three great options

[lusty fossil]

Someone from the American SW could easily not know

But good point that's a small market lol

[tardy badger]

i thought about maybe an acorn but i don't want to be sued by ARM

[lusty fossil]

Good idea

They are known to strongARM the little guy

Badum tish

[stoic mesa]

good thing that apples do not grow on oaks, otherwise that would open you to more lawsuits

[tardy badger]

haha.. yeah

speaking of fruit on non-fruit trees

there is a post that goes around socials that's like "graft fruit trees onto city trees to feed homeless"

but they don't realize... THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS... and i lose a few braincells

[lusty fossil]

Lol

It's more effective to just give the homeless food directly or even money.

Than to wait for fruit to come and hope they get it, if you even could do that

[polar bloom]

Maybe they meant feeding the homeless to the fruit trees.

[lusty fossil]

TIRL (Today I Re-Learned) about the golden state stimulus. That's nice.

[tardy badger]

making sticker designs

[tardy badger]

very possible

[tardy badger]

the city would find a way to stop people from eating it

[lusty fossil]

Idk I think my city had or has some public fruit trees but idk for sure

[tardy badger]

anyway, thoughts on the sticker?

it'll be a round sticker

[lusty fossil]

Are you not worried about the acorn/ARM thing?

[tardy badger]

not in this case

[lusty fossil]

I might bring the outer circle in a bit

[tardy badger]

because i name my small breakout boards acorns

[lusty fossil]

Ahh

[tardy badger]

I might add a black ring on the outside of the sticker to make the inside more compact

[lusty fossil]

Oh my buddy witnessed someone who didn't know that the shift key capitalized letters. They used capslock

[tardy badger]

some people just tap the caps lock to do capitals even if they know shift makes them upper case.

[lusty fossil]

Seems odd to me but what do I know

[tardy badger]

I think it comes from typing on type writers

[lusty fossil]

This was a young person

It's possible but very unlikely

Maybe they learned typing from someone who learned on a typewriter

[tardy badger]

Huh could be they don’t realize that shift is the up arrow on a mobile keyboard?

So they just assume it’s caps lock?

[lusty fossil]

They used shift to get access to the alts as well

So they knew shift had utility

Just not that utility

I'm assuming

It's possible their muscle memory made this way faster.

Just seemed odd

[tardy badger]

Yeah who knows

[lusty fossil]

The typewriter clue is interesting though, I didn't know that about typewriters

[tardy badger]

Yeah, there were a handful of type writers that didn’t have shift

But it wasn’t prevalent

[lusty fossil]

Interesting. Typewriters are fascinating

[late fulcrum]

My first typewriter had a conventional "shift" key, as well as a "figures" shift to get symbols and things.

[lusty fossil]

I'm so glad I don't have to work in an office full of them slamming away all day

I watched Mad Men and the sound nearly drove me mad

[late fulcrum]

The Model M I'm using (salvaged from a GE X-ray machine) is fairly noisy.

[stoic mesa]

I would prefer that the text overlaps either top of the acorn or bottom, but not the seam between them

[tardy badger]

@stoic mesa like this?

[stoic mesa]

well, maybe... doesn't look quite right either

[tardy badger]

there it is with the top

[lusty fossil]

I like the logo on bottom personally

[tardy badger]

Might go with the name in the middle. My wife said it looked like the name was “A little seed of inspiration” with it elsewhere

[lusty fossil]

Hmm good pt

[crystal ore]

I'd consider rearranging the font sizes, so that Oak Dev is clearly the main name, while the circular motto is secondary, and connected top-to-bottom by being in the same style.

[tardy badger]

Good idea

[crystal ore]

Since the two halves of the motto are kind of different word lengths, you might consider having the motto be more like a single 270-degree arc instead of split top and bottom.

[subtle fable]

Showed up to work like this

[wooden schooner]

Always good to unspecifically remind your buyers that using your product makes a huge difference™

[tardy badger]

Yeah hahahaha

I bought that same cable raceway

[lusty fossil]

I just have a ratsnest

I've decided I'm not gonna fight that particular form of entropy

[tardy badger]

Lol

Only entropy growing behind the devices

But organized to the unsuspecting eyes

[wooden schooner]

You do you, but I have really enjoyed the homey-ness boost from concealing cables in the living room

[tardy badger]

And hallways for wall mounted Wifi router

[wooden schooner]

Same

[tardy badger]

Especially if you rent and can’t run it in the walls

[wooden schooner]

I rent and don't know how to wall

[tardy badger]

Lol

[wooden schooner]

I do want to replace the one overhead light fixture in this apartment with a much higher max output, dimmable one

Perhaps a strip light that holds two strips that can be switched independently, and I'll have one strip be warm color temp and one strip cool

I've already done that with the insane number of freestanding lamps and lightbulb splitters I have in the rooms without overhead lighting, so I know it's possible and makes life better. The issue just seems to be that these dimmable high output bulbs are hard to find in the strip form factor

[tardy badger]

Yeah

@crystal ore how's this?

[quartz wren]

I like this

It feels a lot cleaner

But it isn't my opinion you're asking for 😉

[crystal ore]

Great! The last tweak I'd suggest is to un-capitalize "of", since that's usually the standard for things like book titles, but other than that, looking good...

[tardy badger]

Your opinion is welcome 🙂

[wooden schooner]

yeah, I'd eyeball what it looks like as both "A little seed of electronics inspiration" and "A Little Seed of Electronics Inspiration" and choose whichever one looks best in the graphic

also I'd replace the parts outside the circle with transparency, so that the turquoise/aqua background is confined to the interior

[tardy badger]

it's a template for using with circular stickers

i can't really change it 😛

[lusty fossil]

Do you have a printing service do them?

I want to do some custom hi voltage stickers

[tardy badger]

Ninja stickers

[lusty fossil]

Nice

[stoic mesa]

@tardy badger do you want to include the web page link there?

[tardy badger]

https://stickerninja.com/

[stoic mesa]

no, I meant including on the sticker link to your webpage

[tardy badger]

Ohhh

Probably when I launch them yeah

[lusty fossil]

Or a QR code?

[tardy badger]

Yeah I could do that

[lusty fossil]

I've decided I want to make a big archimedes screw

[stoic mesa]

is it part of the same project as the carousel you were discussing earlier?

[delicate stream]

Wait, what do acorns have to do with ARM?

arm

I forget, all lower case is the new one, right?

[tardy badger]

ARM used to be Acorn RISC Machine

[delicate stream]

I thought the A was Advanced...'

[tardy badger]

Used to be Acorn

[delicate stream]

Ohhhh

I'd forgotten that

[tardy badger]

It’s Advanced RISC Machine now

[delicate stream]

I have a feeling you could use an acorn without issue at this point... but up to you if you want to try or consult a lawyer

Ok, so apparently it wasn't a rename; Acorn Computers spun off ARM, and Acorn Computers is defunct as of 2015, so it looks like the acorn logo never applied to ARM

ARM the platform was Acorn RISC Machines first, but the company apparently was always Advanced RISC Machines

And apparently Apple requested they not use Acorn in the ARM company name... guess they wanted computers to be a 1 food industry, lol

[tardy badger]

Lol

[delicate stream]

So you might have Apple coming after you for trying to confuse the market, because acorns and apples are so similar, folks might get them mixed up :P

[tardy badger]

Apple has gone after people for less

[delicate stream]

lol

[delicate stream]

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/10/random-pikmin-bloom-player-accidentally-sends-pikmin-on-homeward-bound-style-mission

Oop

[tardy badger]

Oop

For sure

[real falcon]

LOL

[idle iron]

wonder if "adafruit_displayio_ssd1306" will work with this display https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003215803170.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.57914c4ds882kx

anyone know what display this is?

think it will, looks the same as this
https://www.amazon.com/MakerFocus-Display-SSD1306-3-3V-5V-Arduino/dp/B0761LV1SD

[lusty fossil]

I fell asleep in Dune 😫 I didn't mean to I'm just very sleepy today.

[idle iron]

awww, hope you didnt pay to watch it in IMAX

[lusty fossil]

No

But I'll have to see it again so I can enjoy it

Fortunately I rode with a friend so I didn't have to drive all sleepy

[crystal ore]

The IMAX sound system was a great complement to Dune. Amazing subsonic bass, real rumble-your-seat explosions...

But I hadn't read any reviews, so I was a bit surprised by the pace of the movie. "How in the heck are they going to get through the rest of the plot in the next half-hour? Oh... they aren't." 😅

[lusty fossil]

Lol

[crystal ore]

At least Part 2 has been greenlit now.

[late fulcrum]

I didn't see it in an IMAX theater, but I found the sound mix made it hard to understand the dialogue

[dusk oracle]

i thought the audio was amazing

[tardy badger]

I find this pretty interesting

They throw billions at hunger every year. Obviously money isn’t issue.

[delicate stream]

I wonder if it's a matter of it just not being used properly...

[tardy badger]

We don’t need to discuss it in depth. But it’s just interesting to me that the answer to world hunger for most people is throw more money at the problem even though we spend the amount they say would fix it, but people are still starving

Most people who work on the front lines of hunger say the biggest barriers are geopolitical issues

Corrupt local governments that either take the money or food/resources for themselves

[delicate stream]

Yeah, politics get in the way a lot... But I also am under the impression that a lot of the effort is to supply food, but little to nothing on trying to create infrastructure and secure food supply/production in the long run

[tardy badger]

One thing that has helped stave off hunger is advances in technology that are given directly to food producers in these areas

Lots of crop losses due to older growing techniques that are not adapted to climate change

[delicate stream]

Yeah. I know at one point golden rice was heralded as a huge boost for nutrition in developing areas -- easier to grow like regular rice, but had more nutrients packed into it because it was modified with corn genes

[tardy badger]

Yeah, one downside of rice being pushed was other nutritionally stable foods were dropped so a lot of malnutrition still persisted in many areas

[late fulcrum]

Not modified with corn genes: the vitamin A genes were already present in the rice genome, but switched off. The change was merely to restore the functionality of that gene.

[tardy badger]

And other things like inadequate means to cook food properly

[delicate stream]

"if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime." -- I think this really applies; setting these areas up to continue production for themselves should be the ultimate goal

[delicate stream]

Huh... I was lied to then

[late fulcrum]

Susan McCouch (the person who sequenced and did analysis of the rice genome) has done a huge amount for our understanding and use of food plants, but few people have heard of her and her contributions.

[tardy badger]

Sure, but setting up means for them to grow sustainably too.

Many don’t have the tools to grow in low water environments

Rice grows in marshes which just isn’t possible for so many areas of the world

Corn is great but it is a soil sucker

And soybeans also require ungodly amounts of water as well

[delicate stream]

Food hard

[tardy badger]

We should be looking to improve local food plants for these areas rather than trying to make a universal crop

[late fulcrum]

Rice is one of the few plants that can grow in ordinary soil, or saturated. Most plants insiste on one or the other. Corn is a C4 grass, which has an unusually efficient photosynthetic process, and yes, it depletes soil rapidly. There are ways to address this, but the usual approach is to use petrochemical fertilizers (which is, IMHO, the wrong approach)

[tardy badger]

And also modifying plants to grow with less water

There was a paper I read a few years ago about modifying leaves of plants to take in nutrients from dust. I don’t remember if it was successful or not. But it was a neat idea

Also speaking of rice, you know most wild rice blends aren’t even all that much rice

[late fulcrum]

The practice of narrowing down our food plants to just a few species seems to me like asking for trouble (in several different ways). There is a wide variety of plants to choose from (humans can eat all sorts of things), but people keep ignoring useful local plants and importing the same few.

[tardy badger]

Yeah, that is a huge problem

And mass reliance on meat products is dangerous too because of how they exasperate drought

[late fulcrum]

I raised carnivorous plants for a while, not as foodstuffs (although the cat liked eating the traps off the venus flytraps), but just to admire. Even the simple sundews were amazingly efficient (we bought one large plant with a serious gnat infestation, we set a small sundew next to it and the problem was solved within a couple of days)

I had figured flytraps came from some far-away exotic locale, and was bemused to discover they hail from North Carolina.

[tardy badger]

But for hunger overall, I really think organizations should not rely so heavily on local governments to distribute food to those hungry. They should be working with local growers and families to teach skills, provide basic modern tools and processes, and ultimately support to become efficient and effective growers.

[tardy badger]

It’s crazy right? Just good ole North Carolina

[delicate stream]

Whaaa

[late fulcrum]

Apparently, the utilities clearcut land under power lines to provide access for maintenance, and the ditches tend to fill with water, which is then colonized by flytraps, which enjoy that habitat. I'm pleased to discover industrial activity inadvertently creating a haven for something.

[tardy badger]

Yeah, especially considering the Venus fly trap was on the verge of being endangered for a while

But anyway, I’m interested to see how Elon musk would solve world hunger

[delicate stream]

I would be most pleased if he focused on that and not just space. Space is good and important, but Earth is also good and important

[tardy badger]

He is crazy, but he’s not stupid by any means. And he makes a good point. If they could prove how $6B would solve world hunger, he’d be the one to be able to execute on it

[late fulcrum]

While I'm not a huge fan of Musk, I totally understand his attitude there: someone's claiming he could fix this, and his response is "tell me how, and I'll do it"

[tardy badger]

I think out of all the billionaires he’s most willing to do things if people can show clearly that those efforts wouldn’t be wasted

[delicate stream]

Yeah. If I were a multi-billionaire, I wouldn't just give money away, I'd want to do it myself too if I saw that a bunch of money hadn't solved it already

[tardy badger]

Yeah

At the end of the day, I think I trust billionaires to do something more than I trust the government to do things.

Most government money spent (outside of SSI/Medicare/defense) gets spent on administrative costs and in turn, so little money is spent on actual achieving program goals

And in other countries, similar

[delicate stream]

Yeah... Not efficient

[tardy badger]

Even public universities are worse at managing endowments and spending it on students than private schools

[delicate stream]

If only systems were easy to fix

[tardy badger]

I guess my feelings are.. if governments actually fixed the issues they claimed to care about, I’d be more inclined to say “more government” but plenty of people in the US are still starving and homeless. Yet we spend more than any country on programs to combat those things.

[crystal ore]

A common failure mode I've heard of in third-world food programs is... you ship tons of food to a country and give it away to people. Now the local farmers can't sell any of their produce because they're competing with "free". Guess what happens next season? No more farmers, and even worse hunger.

[tardy badger]

Yes, this is a very important issue people don’t think about

Like Toms shoes who sent free shoes to African villages

They put shoe smiths out of business there and the shoe quality was arguably worse than the shoes that shoe smiths were making

[delicate stream]

Oof...

[tardy badger]

Yeah

Feel good capitalism

That’s the term coined for it

[delicate stream]

Sounds worse than "virtual signaling" in the end

[tardy badger]

It is virtue signaling

By both the customer and the company promoting the activity

People want to say they did something but don’t necessarily want to put in the efforts that make a difference

As bad as missionaries can be for pushing whitewashed religion on locals, they do provide a lot of help with promoting local sustainability

Many people I know who are missionaries, a lot of the work they do is helping local farmers and businesses with getting new equipment, helping with work on their farms, and things like that

Raising money to dig water wells for clean local water. Help teach sustainable farming practices

These are all things that all world hunger initiatives should focus on

[delicate stream]

Yeah. Building infrastructure and the future, not just dumping food and running

[tardy badger]

Yup

[dusk oracle]

i'm starting to think i need to replace my 5G router with one that is verified as spyware free

i honestly feel like it's peeking into my online activities

[tardy badger]

that's ISPs for ya

peaking into your online activities and selling it to marketers

that's how they offer "cheap" internet

cheap is subjective though

[late fulcrum]

Especially in the United States (I'm currently paying $70/month for 3Mbps)

[tardy badger]

Wow

3Mbps.. DSL?

[late fulcrum]

Yup 😦

[tardy badger]

Ouch

I take it you have only on provider and it’s AT&T

Or maybe some small local ISP

[dusk oracle]

and here i am getting 100Mbps in africa

[tardy badger]

I pay $60/m for 800Mbps

$60 is after a $10 discount for letting it autodraft every month

[dusk oracle]

my upload is like 9 tho

[tardy badger]

I get 15

[delicate stream]

We pay like $120 for 100/100Mbps, TV, and phone

[tardy badger]

I don’t pay for TV and Phone. Not when I have a cell phone and Disney+ lol

[delicate stream]

We still use phone and TV, lol

[vagrant sonnet]

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-10-30

[delicate stream]

lol

[delicate stream]

I just tried to use some Liquid Stitch, wondered why it wasn't coming out... Realized it was from 2002...

[lusty fossil]

Man that's some old material

Wow that material can drive and vote in the US by a good margin

Almost rent a car

[delicate stream]

lol

[vagrant sonnet]

Holy crap wow that's cool https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15079

[delicate stream]

I wish they had a version that was a full type display rather than dedicated HUD segments

[lusty fossil]

People with trick or treat age children, are you knocking on doors this year or should I leave a candy bowl out?

I want to see costumes but I want everyone to be safe.

[delicate stream]

If you're wearing a mask, standing outside, and not getting close for long, should be fine. If you want to be extra safe, you can attach a tube to your railing and have them hold their bag on the lower end, you drop candy in the top. But putting the bowl out is asking someone to take it all at once

[lusty fossil]

Looool

I just realized I'm gonna be at a buddy's house for most of the trick or treating hours so it's moot

We're having chicken wings

[tardy badger]

We did trick or treating last night since tomorrow is a school day

[lusty fossil]

Ahh

[tardy badger]

Most people left out bowls of candy

[lusty fossil]

Most of the kids around me are either really young or too old for TorT

[tardy badger]

Some were handing out

[lusty fossil]

So idk if school is an issue

[tardy badger]

But no masks since it was outdoors

[lusty fossil]

Except for costume masks heheh

[tardy badger]

We were out for maybe 45 minutes

My kids are young so they tired out fast

[lusty fossil]

I got chocolatey candies mostly but I got some pure sugar ones for the allergic kids

I always ended up with a fraction of the candy I collected because I was giving away the ones I'm allergic to

[tardy badger]

Makes sense

Our Walmart was putting out Christmas candy out yesterday

The holiday candy has been thoroughly raided

[delicate stream]

oof

[tardy badger]

Yeah

Taking advantage of the fact that most people are still in Halloween mode

Needed a Christmas tree since I left the one I had when I moved

And it’s always my luck that all the trees I want are gone when I remember to buy one.

Not this year

Not putting it up yet, don’t worry lol

Just getting ahead of the holiday rush

[wooden schooner]

lmao. Is he using the oled to display the RPM produced by him foot-pedaling his wheely chair across the office?

[vagrant sonnet]

I can think of no more productive and noble usage

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/bones-skeleton-waiting-bored-gif-14221479

[weary fiber]

valve's RMAing my lighthouse even though it's been 1.5 years after purchase

honestly loving it

[weary fiber]

I have 6 of them

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15173

they go out of stock often, but are pretty handy

oh, AND

the library for them is bugged, there's some fixes you have to do to get a decent frame rate

Still need to submit a github ticket for those

[wooden schooner]

Curious what kind of firmware bug could lead to this limitation?

[delicate stream]

But it is just a segmented display, right? Not a full display you can put whatever images you want?

[delicate stream]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7eI1-rMkQI

[weary fiber]

I had to do some really weird stuff with ram mirrors-- this is the only display-altering code I could get to work with any speed

[weary fiber]

The display I linked is a full dot matrix, 128x64

Physically pretty small though

[weary fiber]

OH and I forgot-- I had to make my own display class

I REMEMBER NOW

the library would do a WHOLE DISPLAY REFRESH for every pixel change

so, something like "draw a filled-in rectangle" would lock up your processor for a good 30 seconds refreshing the whole display for every pixel in the rectangle

My library works on the concept of "frames" and a "framerate", which ONLY sends the necessary data to update the pixels that've changed since last frame

and it sends all those updates in one burst

that change alone sped up the framerate literally 20x over the public library

[delicate stream]

Oh, the new one is different then! I didn't know that!

Or I misunderstood the description of the original

[weary fiber]

the one you linked is pretty limited, just a random set of obscure symbols that might fit in a hud

[delicate stream]

Ohhh, I thought you linked the newer version... I am easily confused XD

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/skeleton-trumpet-gif-4622525

doot

[wooden schooner]

I assume you are aware of the standard audio track to this gif?

[delicate stream]

Isn't it like a clown horn doot? XD

Been a loooong time since I saw it accompanied by audio

[lusty fossil]

Are the ads playing on my smart TV running the hulu app targeted? I'm signed in with my friend's and he gets ads that really don't seem relevant to him

[tardy badger]

It’s unlikely that ads are ever relevant even if they are targeted

[lusty fossil]

The targeted phone ads that I get that are relevant are for stuff I've already looked at online so that's easy to target

[tardy badger]

Might be. Not sure though

Do you use the Hulu app on your phone as well?

[lusty fossil]

Sorry I left part of a thought out

I was saying that the ads I see while browsing the web on my phone are for stuff I've already googled. But I don't get relevant ads on any smart TV platform so I was wondering

[silver shale]

philosophy for me on that is: if they can get data like that, imagine what someone else could do with that data

[lusty fossil]

Yeah idk how to stop it without upending my routine a ton

[delicate stream]

Ads don't follow me well, lol.... I don't give enough data

[silver shale]

same

[delicate stream]

Basically the only relevant ads I get are for things I just bought... like from Adafruit, lol

Or at least things I looked at

I dunno why that got blown out XD

[lusty fossil]

I'd like to see a serious push to have GDPR level data protection in the US

Advertising isn't important enough to allow all those data protection issues

[silver shale]

pihole (or any DNS server) has been a real help. Ironically run it in a x86 VM (and have the RPi 4B use it 😆 )

[lusty fossil]

I'll look into pihole

[delicate stream]

Do the ads really even work? I mean, rarely do I want to click on anything -- it's either always things I don't care about at all or things like Adafruit I just got/looked at anyway. Or do a lot of people actually follow ads when they're on social media and all?

[tardy badger]

i have a complete disdain for ads so they are useless to me

some people are impulsive and just... buy stuff they see ads for

on the other hand, food in movies is a big motivator for me to order stuff which is dangerous lol

[delicate stream]

I do find some enjoyment in clever ads... Like the Old Spice commercials, I love those. I'll never buy Old Spice, but I love the ads

[silver shale]

same, once again

[lusty fossil]

I'm really susceptible to neat Instagram products. So far I've only bought 2 things and they were as gifts

[silver shale]

price tracking is one of the things I have been avoiding the most

[delicate stream]

I guess I avoid a lot of ads by not being on socials

[lusty fossil]

Probably

[silver shale]

only 3rd party apps I have on my phone is Instgram (carefully) and Rocket.Chat

[wooden schooner]

Capitalist corollary: if someone can make money from having the data, and if it's not conspicuously illegal to have the data, then someone has the data and is trying to make money from it.

[umbral phoenix]

The U.S intelligence community recognizes the hazards of the online advertising ecosystem and recommends blocking: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ypke/the-nsa-and-cia-use-ad-blockers-because-online-advertising-is-so-dangerous

[lusty fossil]

I use ad blockers on my PC but my phone is pretty bare to the world

[umbral phoenix]

I have tracker blockers on each device, and at the network level (including completely blocking some of the more egregious data collectors, like the "Meta" family of companies). Plus, using private browsing so no two visits to separate sites are ever sharing state. Yes, I have to log in a lot, no cookies stick around for long.

[lusty fossil]

Ah yeah I wonder if a password Manger would help with the login

Issue

[umbral phoenix]

PW Manager is a good idea, some can even be integrated with 2FA

[silver shale]

I recently used pfsense to isolate my part of the network from my parents. One of the reasons being the amount of Amazon, (unprotected) Windows, Google and Apple devices on the network that can scan for devices with ports open.

before my dad stopped using Avast and setting up a different network I caught it looking for DNS servers when it starting showing up in my logs

[tardy badger]

My lanta

[umbral phoenix]

More and more devices are acting as bad LAN citizens, I set up VLANs and special router rules for anything marginally sketchy so they can't see the rest of the network.

[tardy badger]

I don’t use cots antivirus other than windows defender

I was using Malwarebytes for a while but found that it just slows computers down way too much

[umbral phoenix]

it's good for an occasional scan

[tardy badger]

It’s easier to just be net aware and have a network appliance that you can have a deeper hand in controlling network flow and detecting and preventing malicious activity

Probably the biggest reason I have a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro

Tons of security applications that run natively on the system that are regularly updated

I recently set up a honey pot to see what kind of activity my network attracts

[umbral phoenix]

any surprises?

[tardy badger]

Not really. I did see something attempting to scan my network from my MacBook Pro back in august but my wife and I are pretty safe browsers.

Or actually let me find the screen shot of it

When my family was visiting I did see this

[umbral phoenix]

yeah, family, they're a security hazard 😉

I run Little Snitch on my Mac to keep tabs on anything outgoing, I shut down lots of stuff that's routine but I find objectionable

[silver shale]

after increasing system memory on the pihole VM, turns out I had 2.2 million requests since April 22, 2021

[umbral phoenix]

wow

[tardy badger]

This was from my nephew and his wild internet habits

That’s insane, 2.2m requests..

[silver shale]

144k of them thanks to keyvalueservice icloud com

all from one iPhone XR

[tardy badger]

Safari informed me the other day that it stopped something like 1500 trackers in one week

I imagine mostly from Facebook properties like Instagram, and then trackers from Google searches, Twitter, etc…

[umbral phoenix]

Safari always tells me "You have not browsed enough in Safari in the last 30 days to generate cross-site tracking statistics." (because I'm always in private mode)

[tardy badger]

Lol

Surprisingly, private browsing doesn’t really provide much more protection with how companies are tracking people

[umbral phoenix]

it's basically like ITP on steroids

[delicate stream]

I don't use Safari at all XD

[umbral phoenix]

nothing does much against fingerprinting, except Tor

[delicate stream]

I have multiple networks in my house

[silver shale]

I just use "incognito mode" to have a separate session so no login cookies are stored on the main session in case I need to do some school thing quick

[tardy badger]

I just… don’t have Facebook logged in. I don’t click Instagram links in browser, and only stay logged in on Twitter in browser

Safari does a pretty good job as stopping cross site tracking. Much better than Firefox

Google basically scrapes all your data, incognito mode or not if you’re logged in to any Google service

[delicate stream]

I don't use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or any social media, so that's a bunch of stuff I'm not tracked by, lol

[tardy badger]

Twitter cross site tracking is lack luster so it doesn’t matter too much

Especially because I am usually only using Twitter from safari

[delicate stream]

I use Opera

[tardy badger]

Also the thing about Google tracking peoples activity even when using incognito mode is just.. so Google

[silver shale]

I use Ungoogled Chromium nowadays

[delicate stream]

Incognito mode is not a privacy mode they scream

[tardy badger]

Yeah

It is basically a way to give Google unfettered access to your browsing data without having to share

ungoogled chromium sounds interesting

[delicate stream]

I treat it as the I don't really want this in my regular search stuff so it doesn't impact my searches or YouTube recommendations if someone sends me something I don't think I'm gonna like

[tardy badger]

Does it remove all account features and plug-in ability?

[silver shale]

have it in a flatpak on Debian but no protection on Windows unfortunately

[tardy badger]

The thing that makes browsers even more insecure than they used to be is browser plugins and extensions.. ohhh they are a cyber security worst nightmare

They’ve always been around to an extent

But they run so rampant these days.. with very little moderation.

[silver shale]

exactly

only thing in there

[tardy badger]

Apple made it easier to do safari extensions but I think they do more moderation than Google does

Still… cyber threats kind of terrify me

The damage they can do, so quickly

[umbral phoenix]

Safari extensions can be built to not send any data out, like Disconnect

[tardy badger]

I think about how the US military DEERS servers were hacked by China and how they got the most sensitive information related to military members and their dependents.. and that was 2015. Only 2 years later Equifax was hacked and that was catastrophically worse.

I only can imagine what the next super breach will look like

[umbral phoenix]

it's worth some inconvenience to me to me to reduce my footprint in other people's servers

for that very reason, you never know when some data will be misappropriated

[tardy badger]

Yeah. It’s worth the cost for some higher end network equipment that has the tools to better protect my home network

I’m sure most people probably think what you get from COTS network gear you get from the electronics department at Walmart or the security services ISPs offer is enough.. but I don’t

Just the level of protection I can drill down with on my network is what the average person really needs but generally doesn’t have the desire to understand or utilize

[umbral phoenix]

I don't trust ISPs as far as I can throw them, really liking the new QUIC protocol in Safari and Mail (private relay).

...encrypted DNS (ObliviousDoH) and Tor-like obfuscation to the ISP and to the destination site

[tardy badger]

Yeah. I was considering setting up a local DNS on my Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro

It’s a little tedious though I could just use the Pi I have laying around

[umbral phoenix]

so far I've avoided running my own DNS server, just use encrypted DNS where possible and funneling port 53 queries to a relatively trusted provider over a trusted VPN

[tardy badger]

I have the ability to set up a VPN on my dream machine pro, though that only helps me when I am not in my network

I can do… a lot and there’s more that I’m not even doing yet that I could

[umbral phoenix]

so many features, so little time 😉

[tardy badger]

Indeed lol

I just checked, looks like my DMP uses Unifi DNS servers

[umbral phoenix]

but I'm sure you could point them anywhere

[tardy badger]

Yeah

I could

Also digging deeper into Wifi settings.. I can isolate my Wifi routers to L2. That’s pretty nice.

Also have the ability to force faster higher end devices to 5GHz

And I can enable Multicast routing

Cool stuff..

And if all devices supported it, I could use WPA-3

But not all devices support WPA-3

[tardy badger]

So I have some thoughts about personalized ads

I think there is a way that people can have power of the information used to run ads in front of them while still providing platforms with a dataset to sell ads against

And it’s actually something I think that Facebook actually does have on their platform.. it’s just deeply embedded in the account settings to find it

But basically my thought is when you sign up you can opt towards personalized ads or random ads. If you want personalized ads, you fill out a basic “diary” with interests, dislikes, things like that.

And then say.. twice a year they ask you to review that diary to see if it’s still relevant or if you want to opt out if personalized ads.

[umbral phoenix]

Twitter is always bugging for interests too (and will assign you a bunch seemingly randomly if you don't pick some). There's nothing wrong with contextual ads, but the industry has somehow convinced people to pay way more for targeted ads than the incremental revenue they produce over non-targeted... it's a house of cards built on ever-increasing data collection. Look at the extremely low rates of opt-in for iOS app tracking, most people don't want that kind of intrusion.

[tardy badger]

Yeah

I think if people had more power over the ads delivered to them it would be different

But ad companies does seem to care that people actually do care about the information collected on them

Lots of companies that market through mobile targeted ads are suffering because people just don’t want to be tracked. And companies are blaming apple but people should blame social media and search companies for taking tracking to extremely creepy and invasive extents

[umbral phoenix]

yeah, I have no sympathy for companies that chose a business model that exploits its users

[tardy badger]

I feel bad for small businesses that suffer from this but on the other hand, you should never have grown so reliant on such practices or platforms

The shoe was gonna fall

It was just a matter of when

[idle iron]

is it worth buying a workstation GPU over a gaming desktop one? that amd pro w6800 is going for $2,200 and has 32gb VRAM with ECC, and 3090 is only 24gb VRAM and costs more

[vagrant sonnet]

I'm not sure what to conclude from this other than "some people don't know about printf"

void printSerialNumber(uint16_t serial0, uint16_t serial1, uint16_t serial2) {
    Serial.print("Serial: 0x");
    printUint16Hex(serial0);
    printUint16Hex(serial1);
    printUint16Hex(serial2);
    Serial.println();
}

void printUint16Hex(uint16_t value) {
    Serial.print(value < 4096 ? "0" : "");
    Serial.print(value < 256 ? "0" : "");
    Serial.print(value < 16 ? "0" : "");
    Serial.print(value, HEX);
}

[wary herald]

I use Firefox

[vagrant sonnet]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/904448521346904094/904613002232340511/IMG_8164.jpg

This draws just shy of 0.3 A when charging

[wooden schooner]

Yes it's called being under EU jurisdiction

[wooden schooner]

I reserve my sympathy for people, not companies

[tardy badger]

Plenty of companies are paying GDPR fines for not following GDPR. It’s not a guarantee for unsolicited tracking

To think we could regulate ourselves out of it is a pleasant thought but an unrealistic one.

Also. Get a cat they said! It will be so easy they said! wakes up to a trail of vomit and bile from the living room to the feeder

[late fulcrum]

Printf is a large library that eats a lot of resources, sometimes people prefer to do things longhand instead.

[tardy badger]

Yeah, plus if you could potentially have a race condition, it’s better to use the lowest level serial output

[silver shale]

GDDR6/X should have on-Die ECC by default

[tardy badger]

Printf is not thread safe

[silver shale]

I have not seen a graphics card with bus ECC yet

[tardy badger]

Santa is a socialist cookie burglar. It’s an interesting concept lol

[real falcon]

sugar must be very valuable in his country

thats why he exchanges fair price for cookies

thats capitalism

[vagrant sonnet]

Sure, but it's entirely within one's control whether setup() gets interrupted with something else that also uses printf().

[vagrant sonnet]

Oh! I didn't realize omitting it was practical.

[late fulcrum]

I have...

[silver shale]

good, what arch?

happy halloween btw

[late fulcrum]

Main CPU is a 68020, graphic pipeline is a bunch of custom matrix multiplier chips (Matrox style)

The machine itself is a Silicon Graphics Iris

[wooden schooner]

meaning that the digits could be printed out of order (as they also could in the above function), or that there is some kind of global state that printf mutates?

[wooden schooner]

seems like in the common case where the format string is known at compile time, the compiler could (but currently doesn't) generate code like the above

[tardy badger]

No, if you have multiple printf statements, they might print out of order

[wooden schooner]

that's true of every kind of print though, right?

[tardy badger]

Like if you were incrementing two variables and had printf(a) and then printf(b) it might print out of order or at the same time.

They are not considered thread safe

std::cout is thread safe though

So you don’t have to worry about out of order prints in threads

[wooden schooner]

oh so you're saying that two prints within the same thread could still produce outut out of order

or are you saying that if two threads try to print at the same time, the output could be garbage

[tardy badger]

The second statement.

Ah wait

[wooden schooner]

oh, yeah got it. Just wasn't sure what kind of thread safety you were talking about

[tardy badger]

That was C++11

Looks like they are thread safe in newer C++ versions

[wooden schooner]

it's been a while since I've worked in a language that didn't have higher-level i/o abstractions (which to some extent is orthogonal to this issue I guess)

[tardy badger]

From the arm dev site:

“When using these functions:

the standard C printf() and scanf() functions use stdio so they are thread-safe
the standard C printf() function is susceptible to changes in the locale settings if called in a multithreaded program.”

[wooden schooner]

hah that is so C

[tardy badger]

Confusing right? Lol

Anyway, basically making the same printf() call in two threads could yield unpredictable results

It’s weird, which is why std::cout is the safest print call in multithreaded operations

[wooden schooner]

Even that thread safety must come at a cost, so there will always be someone who wants to do without it (such as all of gcc-avr, which has no stl)

Cout is part of a carefully designed stream abstraction so not surprised embedded C wants nothing to do with it :p

[tardy badger]

Yeah hahaha

[wary herald]

Has anyone's not shipped yet??

[idle iron]

did pi zero w 2 sell out in 1 day? lol im sad, ordered stuff day before stock was in, and waiting on more funds and its out of stock again ={ the stock struggles of 2020s

[idle iron]

i found someone say this is it true? "All GDDR5 and GDDR6 variants have error correction on both AMD and Nvidia."

[wary herald]

I'm sorry, what??

[wary herald]

Yesssss

[vagrant sonnet]

Mine hasn’t shipped yet either. Still marked as pending last I checked. A lot of industries sure are overwhelmed. :/

[tardy badger]

Where did my message go..

[vagrant sonnet]

Oh, I just noticed they addressed this in the announcements channel #announcements message

[wary herald]

Yes

[wary herald]

Mine's marked as Preparing for shipment

[wary herald]

Dyno...

https://tenor.com/view/bot-bot-bot-bot-jesus-ot-jesus-rendon-ot2020-gif-16396192

[tardy badger]

Well, I replied to a message and the original was deleted

And with that, my reply

[wary herald]

Well, then....

[stray wind]

That's odd. I didn't know that was even a thing.

I see your message having been deleted, but I've never seen it do that before.

[tardy badger]

Yeah.. super weird

[stray wind]

There are other replies that didn't get deleted.

[tardy badger]

Oh well lol

[stray wind]

Sorry about that. I'll keep an eye on it.

[tardy badger]

All good

I was just confused haha

[stray wind]

Valid!

@tardy badger One of the mods deleted the reply. They meant to delete all of the replies but did not catch them all. Question answered.

[tardy badger]

Ohhhh gotcha

Makes sense

[stray wind]

My response exactly 😄

[wary herald]

Thanks for deleting

XD

[tardy badger]

I’ve discovered how to lag an M1 MacBook Pro lol..

Try to draw a dxf image in Eagle CAD but don’t scale it down properly

[tardy badger]

Hey @delicate stream what do ya think? 😄

Thank Canva for free graphic trees

[late fulcrum]

It's a kind of fractal looking tree, but trees are arguably fractal in nature.

[tardy badger]

Yeah

It was the best tree I could find that looked playful

[late fulcrum]

I like it.

[tardy badger]

Front side slowly filling up

Added a BSS138 n channel mosfet for level shifting the neopixel signal for strands connected

[late fulcrum]

I can see Christopher Robin and the Hundred Acre wood!

[tardy badger]

Hehe

I’m working on my “boards with good initial utility” design skills

[late fulcrum]

To good effect, IMHO

[tardy badger]

It’s easy to just relegate myself to making simple breakouts but the real gain is designing things that provide a fulfilled function with more potential if it’s desired

[late fulcrum]

It's good mental exercise, and produces useful mélanges

[tardy badger]

Yeah, forces you to think about more and more complex systems. This version of the TreeHouse Terminal has more features than the prototype I ordered

Mostly because I wanted to test out the initial layout to see how it felt

But I’m really look forward to the final design

May even crowd supply it.

[late fulcrum]

I take it the flex cable to the TFT goes in the notch?

[tardy badger]

Yeah

Measured out with the TFT I have to make sure it will work well

It’s the same tft Adafruit uses in their 240x240 1.3” breakouts 🙂

[late fulcrum]

J2 and J4 aren't too close? I try to keep stuff where people may be pulling and pushing a little away from delicate bits.

[tardy badger]

J1 & J2?

The barrel and the USB-C

?

[late fulcrum]

The chonky 3-pin one and the battery connector

I used a similar wrap-around mounting for an ePaper display, but didn't think of the notch (good idea, that)

[tardy badger]

No, they should okay

Ideally the battery is only installed once

The other is a screw block terminal so it should be okay

But I will probably adjust the final spacing on it after I see how it lays out physically

[late fulcrum]

Ah, that's what that is. Makes sense.

[tardy badger]

But I have no screw block terminals on hand so I will need to order some

I’ve never actually used screw blocks in a design so I need to get a few for how they’ll sit

I’m excited though

It’s my second wack at a TFT design

First round was pretty successful

[late fulcrum]

Noice

I keep finding screw terminals to be chonkier than I expected

[tardy badger]

That’s my fear

[late fulcrum]

I'm oddly charmed by this "Vanillin" skeletal Uno

[tardy badger]

Oh that’s pretty neat

[real falcon]

uhoh some rat got to it and ate most of board

[lusty fossil]

Weirdly rats usually chew electrical lines whereas here they eschewed them

Yeah that was just an excuse to use "chew" and "eschew" in the same sentence, even tho they sound different.

[lusty fossil]

What's this board do, and what drove the choice of so many thru hole parts?

[late fulcrum]

It's a deflection amplifier for electrostatic CRTs. It's designed as a kit. (Not my design, http://www.sgitheach.org.uk/ for details)

[wooden schooner]

What do you expect them to do, you took their nest with your wiring job

(jk idk what "it" is)

[real falcon]

lol

[wooden schooner]

Do you not pronounce eschew "es-chew"?

[lusty fossil]

Es-schyoo

Is how I do it

[wary herald]

I ❤️ screw block terminals

[wooden schooner]

Yeah, block terminals are the worst

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/eye-roll-robert-downey-jr-sassy-over-it-ugh-gif-3635563

[tardy badger]

Lol

[wary herald]

😆

[burnt tendon]

I loves my terminal blocks.

These are pretty nice: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/cui-devices/TBL009V-254-04GY-2GY/10442221

[tardy badger]

Would you say they end up looking good?

Wow, some brand accounts on Twitter are hilarious

Nutter Butter has a great tweet

[wary herald]

Me too

[wary herald]

Nutta Butta

hehe

https://tenor.com/view/ya-yeet-yeet-cant-handle-my-yeet-big-yeet-yeet-baby-gif-18124551

[wary herald]

Just a funny GIF

[lusty fossil]

I'm in the no yeeting of children camp personally

[wary herald]

Yes....

XD

[blissful roost]

https://tenor.com/view/southpark-bestof-baby-kick-gif-4834772

[real falcon]

4 points

[tardy badger]

Imagine if people took South Park seriously. We’d be blaming Canada for our supply chain issues.

[blissful roost]

Seems perfectly reasonable to me...

[thick wind]

It's eh-shoe.

[tardy badger]

Bless you

Lol 😆

[stoic mesa]

have you seen the old Michael Moore's movie "Canadian Bacon"?
It is probably too obviously political for my taste, but is is really funny in places.
And yes, it is all about blaming Canada

[tardy badger]

Haha, no I haven’t

[stoic mesa]

check it out

[tardy badger]

There are tons of movies I haven’t seen though hehe..

Like blazing saddles

[wooden schooner]

You do you

[lusty fossil]

Seems like there are several pronunciations

[vagrant wolf]

cough cough

[tardy badger]

eh sky you

[vagrant wolf]

I sold a Samsung smarttag (a gps) and I forgot to reset it and its linked to my account and I can still track it lol

[dusty citrus]

I like that that in sentences.

not that that is a problem for me.

[silver shale]

I am making a Flask webapp for the first time (first programming project too) that takes user input and generates a image. How can I do this? I already have Flask development server set up with Apache reverse proxy on FreeBSD 12.

[vagrant sonnet]

What user input do you want to take, and what will you use to generate the image?

It’s likely handling a POST request will do the trick for receiving whatever input you desire, whether that’s a file or text.

[silver shale]

Either a text string into an input box or buttons on a html page.

[lusty fossil]

How do Christmas lights where some of the strand blinks work? Is there a flip flop in the strand somewhere?

[vagrant wolf]

what

[silver shale]

I have noticed on some with two wires switch polarities since LEDs are diodes

[lusty fossil]

That would make sense

Thx

[silver shale]

example circuit btw

[lusty fossil]

cool!

[silver shale]

real 555 timers should be able to handle 200ma of current so it could in theory drive more LEDs

[wary herald]

Why not!

[tardy badger]

Because the collective “opp! sorry bud” would destroy all the glassware in the US which would have catastrophic impacts on the US.

[lusty fossil]

me: why aren't my shift registers operating? also me: doesn't wire them right

[honest jolt]

lol

I was ripping my hair over on how I could wire an Arducam to 3.3v device because I would have to power it with 5v and a Feather board doesn't even have 5v regulator and then I would have to use level converters instead of just voltage dividers because I2C is weird and more and then I realized that if I just power the cam with 3.3v then everything would be fine 🤦‍♂️

[lusty fossil]

lololol

I was tearing my hair out looking at the connections between the shift registers and my other chips

[honest jolt]

sometimes i like to draw a schematic on some grid paper by hand before i wire up anything that isn't trivial

also is good practice for drawing straight lines haha

[lusty fossil]

this is "trivial" but I'm such a bad breadboarder I basically have 30+ low power antennas operating

[honest jolt]

haha
do you use those jumper wires that stick into the air

[lusty fossil]

I'm looking for my phone so I can post my NSFL setup

not truly NSFL just NSFengineers

[honest jolt]

hahaha

these are terrible imho

always breaking

only useful if going from say arduino uno to breadboard

[lusty fossil]

I'm working on another system that someone else built that is such a rats nest of wires carrying current that my wireless earbuds stop working when I get close

yeah I kind of want to put a "NOBODY WITH PACEMAKERS COME NEAR" sign to be safe lol

[honest jolt]

what is that system?

[blissful roost]

Shibby!

[lusty fossil]

it's just a pi controlling a bunch of relays but they seem to have made it more complicated than it needed to be

My unacceptable test setup lol

Logitech brand loyalty points tho

[silver shale]

i'd be careful around a machine that can tear hair out

[lusty fossil]

isn't that what I subject myself to at the barber?

[honest jolt]

i wish you the best of luck debugging that

[tardy badger]

Remember, in all you do… choose potato

[quartz wren]

lab door now shuts with a deadbolt

still no knob yet but I can keep it from blowing open in the wind without a wedge in the doorframe

[vagrant wolf]

im doing the unthinkable

https://gyazo.com/d7fa83cc8799e4fbc8b2e8853a987a37

[lusty fossil]

uhoh

[lusty fossil]

reading an article about a programmer who had very popular NPM packages. One was named kik. He got threatened by lawyers for the messaging app and in retaliation un-published all his open source code. One of his packages had ~2.5M uses in one month. He broke a huge chunk of the internet apparently

[tardy badger]

IP lawyers are ruthless

[silver shale]

surprised anything that did not just come out of the fab a day ago supports Win11

[stray wind]

I swear there was a comic or article or something about that - how the internet precariously rests on a few pieces of code that if a few folks stopped maintaining something, the internet could crumble. But I can't find anything like what I'm picturing. My google fu has failed. Might have been related to what you're reading anyway. So... shrug.

[tardy badger]

For real though

[tardy badger]

There is a comic somewhere, I’ve seen it

[lusty fossil]

I recall it as well

[silver shale]

yet another xkcd i would guess

[stray wind]

Oh good, verification. I mean, I guess I wish I had made it up. Hehe.

[stray wind]

I checked there too, and I don't think so.

But I might have failed to search for the right thing.

[tardy badger]

But what’s even more interesting is how the collective internet freaked out when a vital npm package account was compromised and basically sent a lot of companies into panic

[lusty fossil]

there's an episode of South Park where one of the kids has to go reset the modem for the whole world by unplugging and replugging

There's also an episode that sufficiently scared me off of having kids where one of the kids just rattles off his parents' credit card information from memory. Kids are scary!

[tardy badger]

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency

There ya go

It’s one of many variations

[stray wind]

Hah! Yes! That's basically it.

[silver shale]

knew it

[stray wind]

I remember something more colorful, but Randall Monroe always nails it.

[silver shale]

Amazed by how much ImageMagick is used

[stray wind]

Met him once, he's a sweet, humble person.

[silver shale]

grew up real close to here too

wonder if he ever goes back to Richmond

[weary fiber]

I literally ended up using it for one of my projects that needed to do photo conversion on every frame of a video

it's such a great tool imo

[silver shale]

yeah, remember using it for writing images to /dev/fb0

[silver shale]

https://xkcd.com/1052/

xkcd: Every Major's Terrible

Someday I'll be the first to get a Ph. D in 'Undeclared'.

[tardy badger]

Ha

Relatable

Don’t go into electrical engineering unless you enjoy watching 3 people do the same circuits problem and get three unique and oddly correct answers

[lusty fossil]

flashbacks intensify

[stoic mesa]

I think when I retire I will get a second degree.
Maybe PhD in underwater basket weave?

[lusty fossil]

conspiracy theory: Microsoft is purposefully slowing down my PC in advance of offering me an "upgrade" to win11

[tardy badger]

Hehe.. apple did it with iPhone 6 devices

[lusty fossil]

yeah I wouldn't put it past any big tech company. It's painfully slow

Going to do a virus scan later.

[quartz wren]

same thing happened with android on my phone. it was working fine then suddenly one day everything is slow and later that day it says I need to update the OS

then when I did things went mostly back to normal

other than the fact that now I have basically no storage space

because it won't let me uninstall OEM apps

[tardy badger]

That’s how they get you to upgrade

Need more space? Buy a new phone!

Or buy our specialized SD cards that are 50% more expensive

[lusty fossil]

spanish speakers, does this seem like a good translation of "DANGER High voltage, disconnect before servicing"?
peligro alto voltaje Desconectar antes de dar servicio

I just used google translate

[tardy badger]

High?

Oh lol

[lusty fossil]

high not hi

"hello voltage!" lol

[tardy badger]

Hahaha

https://tenor.com/view/hello-there-baby-yoda-mandolorian-hello-gif-20136589

[lusty fossil]

ope

[tardy badger]

Wait did it go through? Lol

[lusty fossil]

nope!

[tardy badger]

Weirdddd

I see it on my side

[lusty fossil]

huh

discord being weird

[lusty fossil]

interesante

[tardy badger]

Hey @stray wind is this a glitch or does it only delete for the server and not the individual now?

(Moderation question)

[lusty fossil]

I wonder if it's not able to delete for you?

[stray wind]

Too many links at once, it thought.

[tardy badger]

No it still shows the gif for me

[stray wind]

Oh. That's odd. I don't see it.

[tardy badger]

But not for the rest of the chat

[stray wind]

Glitch is my guess.

Because it's supposed to straight up delete it.

[tardy badger]

Huh.. so so strange

Huh

[stray wind]

I even see the message deleted by the bot.

[tardy badger]

I tried to reply to it

[stray wind]

Hmm

[tardy badger]

But it said it’s not on the same server

Lol

[stray wind]

wat.

[lusty fossil]

https://tenor.com/view/bill-and-ted-strange-things-are-afoot-at-the-circle-k-gif-20311680

[silver shale]

root it if it can let you

[tardy badger]

Yay I broke discord lol

[silver shale]

Windows is slow on purpose to force hardware upgrades. Got KDE plasma running on a L9400 just fine.

[tardy badger]

Yeah, I’m going to chock this up as lingering spooky discord ghosts from Halloween

[stray wind]

Sounds like a good plan.

[lusty fossil]

lol

it's funny, I type lol all the time but I rarely actually laugh out loud

I use hahahahahhaa if I actually chuckled

[tardy badger]

Hahaha

[lusty fossil]

lol

[tardy badger]

Yeah…

Lol

Now you chuckled out loud

See how it works? 😄

Anyway, I was replying a general kenobi gif to the hello there gif lol

[lusty fossil]

lolol

[stray wind]

I use llol. Literally laughing out loud.

[lusty fossil]

That's good I like that

[tardy badger]

Lolol for “like obviously laughing out loud”

😆

[lusty fossil]

Apparently there's a "raid mode" for discord when spammers attack? Another community I'm in was just hit

[tardy badger]

Weirdddd

[lusty fossil]

I guess be on the lookout for raiders

[wooden schooner]

I like how this one frontloads the phonetically difficult parts. Like people say "lollll" (or even more unpronounceable, greatttt) all the time but they usually have a pronounceable beginning

[stray wind]

Heh, I say it l-lol if I say it out loud.

[wooden schooner]

oh that's even better

or "luh-lol"

"el-lol" is quite nice

for greatttt, it's quite difficult to emphasize an unvoiced, unaspirated stop consonant

or in the case of sameeeee, a silent vowel

[quartz wren]

It's on the agenda, but I won't have much space / time to do much of my agenda items until my lab is complete and I have a warm place to do this stuff that isn't my bedroom over the winter

Like I could focus on it now but I'll be moving everything into the lab when it's done (hopefully this month) so I don't want to get partway into any projects to then have to move everything

So I've just put most stuff on hiatus until I have the space prepped

[silver shale]

I got some Positivo tablet and it has the most OEM installed apps I have ever seen. Facebook, Jetpack Joyride, even spotted it calling home to a Brazilian server according to PiHole.

[quartz wren]

And yes I know it's a simple task to root a phone, most of the time but straight talk (who I go through for service) tend to lock stuff down and make it annoying so I'm trying to avoid that too

[silver shale]

I have never rooted outside of using Android Studio's AVD shell

[quartz wren]

There are apps that do it automatically for some devices

But yeah that's the other thing is my only computer right now is being moved to the lab when it's ready too and I want to re-do my whole system when that happens

[silver shale]

finally did that too

[quartz wren]

I've done it many times I just don't want to install stuff, redo the system, then have to reinstall it

[silver shale]

in this case was carrying a dual socket Xeon with 12 RDIMMs down two flights of stairs

[quartz wren]

Oh I meant software

[silver shale]

oh

[quartz wren]

OS and whatnot

Want to get it dual booting with windows and Linux

Which the person who gave me the computer was trying to do but was having issues

Since I have two drives now though, it should be easy

They were trying to set it up on a single drive which can get notoriously annoying

And because it was a gift they decided getting it operational with an OS at all was fine, which is completely fair

Especially since I now own a copy of windows 10 again

Which isn't cheap

They could have installed any flavor of Linux on it and I would have been happy

But this means I can dual boot for the games that I own which aren't wine-friendly

Such as space engineers

[silver shale]

I have Debian 11 on the one out there. Since the tasks I need it to do is all Linux-friendly and the CPUs are a bit old to Windows 10 standards since they are Westmere.

[quartz wren]

Yeah anything I don't want to game on gets Linux exclusively

Usually lubuntu

And if I manage to put in the effort, i3 window manager

[silver shale]

Sometimes I play source/goldsrc games and Minecraft on it, even GTA V ran good on it but would crash sometimes, probably the same amount as it would on Windows.

[quartz wren]

Oh I'm not saying I don't game on Linux, just that I have some that I can't get running properly in Linux. When I get dual boot going, I will actually mostly be gaming in Linux but for games that don't have a Linux version and don't run well in wine for some reason it's nice to have windows available

I actually prefer some games in Linux because they tend to be more stable in my experience (such as KSP) and when they crash, it doesn't take the whole system down

[silver shale]

I have noticed that

[quartz wren]

I don't understand what's happening with me, maybe I'm maturing maybe I'm regressing but video games have been getting more and more disinteresting to me as time goes on and I start to see my ability to do things physically in the real world. I've noticed I've kind of been taking the attitude of "why do it in a video game when I can do it for real" and since most of the things I like to do in video games are for the most part learning tools for real world things (learning boolean logic with minecraft, basic orbital mechanics intuition with KSP, etc.)

It's like... Idk the only things that interest me in video games anymore is stuff I either can't or don't want to do in real life

[silver shale]

same

[quartz wren]

Used to be able to sit in front of a video game for days at a time playing from wake to sleep with only food / water / bathroom breaks but I can't do that anymore, too many interesting real things to focus on

When I have focus at my disposal

Which is about 20-30% of the time

(thanks bipolar)

[silver shale]

I need to do real things but instead on games

[quartz wren]

Something like minecraft or KSP? I can play those without focus but I feel unfulfilled these days whereas when I was younger that used to be something that I could enjoy even during my low cycles

[tardy badger]

I play some games but I’ve developed a deep love of making

[quartz wren]

This tbh

[dusty citrus]

im too dumb to make anything

i have ideas but i just cant do them

like "ooh i want to make an mp3 player"

[quartz wren]

Nobody is too dumb to make anything, some just aren't yet trained in the art

[silver shale]

been trying that for three years now

[quartz wren]

I could walk you both through that if you want once I have my lab set up, so probably next month at the earliest

Or better I should just do a video series that goes super deep and starts simple on how to do just that

[dusty citrus]

i did a tv b gone kit thing like 3 years ago

[silver shale]

did successfully build the first version in late 2020, for most of this year been trying to build the second one

went from mp3 player to android tablet quick though

[quartz wren]

Heh nice

[dusty citrus]

ive wanted to make one of those for a while now

my own personal nugget

[silver shale]

Called it MediaCow Touch 1 "Nashville" was even able to play among us until support was dropped

[dusty citrus]

lmao

but can it run crysis

[silver shale]

M64 in a box basically

[quartz wren]

How about this: I should do a series on how to do an MP3 player with no screen but that gets commands over Bluetooth. Songs are stored on the MP3 player in an SD card but you control / browse songs from phone / computer over Bluetooth to select song, set volume (with physical buttons as well, also a few other buttons for mute, shuffle, skip, replay, previous, etc.), do all the button controls yadda yadda

So basically like an ipod shuffle but with a Bluetooth connection for making it a regular MP3 player with full controls

Idk just an idea that popped into my head when y'all were talking about MP3 players

[silver shale]

yeah that happens

[quartz wren]

(and yes I have the know-how to implement this so it can be a real thing if people like the idea)

[silver shale]

the second version of the build will be SoM based instead of cables and a SBC in a box

[quartz wren]

I'm thinking RP2040 board with pads for wifi and Bluetooth modules

[silver shale]

ah

Was going to be RK3399 until Graperain (same vendor) released a board with RK3568 https://www.graperain.com/ARM-Embedded-RK3568-System-On-Module/

[quartz wren]

If I can't manage to get the RP2040 chips on their own, I'll just pull the one from El Pico Yolo

[dusty citrus]

i was thinking of a m4 + codec board doodad with an oled and simple controls

[quartz wren]

(a Pico that survived a serious incident)

(and is now used for YOLO experiments)

[silver shale]

had a zero w that arrived with a damaged RAM package but still worked

[quartz wren]

Just with less memory? Robust

[silver shale]

no BGA balls were missing

so both dies were usable

[quartz wren]

Uff

Hope you got an exchange unit

Erm

Replacement

Can't words today lel

[spice drum]

anyone know if a usbc hdmi splitter will work to connect both monitors to my M1 Mac

[silver shale]

I did, this was a couple years ago. Earlier this year I strapped it to quadcopter to see if I could ping it while it was in mid-air

[quartz wren]

I've got a drone design I've been working on for a bit but I may not finish v1 and may just do v2 when the lab is functional

It's a couple of 3D printed motor mounts designed to screw onto a breadboard style permanent proto board

Onto the screw holes on the end

I think I linked to the thingiverse thing here a while back but I can try to find the message... Don't want to get dinged for "spamming" because I link the same thing multiple times lol

Can't seem to find where I said it so imma risk it because I likely linked it elsewhere

And am misremembering

Just a sec, finding the link

[dusty citrus]

how easy would a digital clock be to make

with ntp sync and stuff

[quartz wren]

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3884552

For the record, not advertising that board, just the one I had on hand and designed the stuff around

Hence "compatible with"

[silver shale]

heh

[late fulcrum]

I didn't know Lynx had progeny

[umbral phoenix]

@dusty citrus pretty easy... which environment?

[dusty citrus]

i don't know

probably would use circuitpy

[umbral phoenix]

you can throw an Airlift (ESP32) onto many boards to add wifi, or just use an ESP32-S2

the ESP32 wifi firmware has a built-in NTP function, so it's just esp.get_time()

or it's just a few lines on either Airlift or ESP32-S2 to do NTP on a UDP socket

if you want to get fancy, there are other ways to get time: various other ways over wifi; set a battery-backed RTC once and use that; GPS module; etc.

[wooden schooner]

it was a slog - you should have seen Blinks, Clinks and Dlinks

[lusty fossil]

Watched a cool video about why Victorian stairs were so deadly. Turns out not all of them were, it was a class issue. As London grew immense, housing got jammed tighter and tighter. stairs got steeper in working class homes for various geometry reasons. Middle/upper class and nobility had big fancy stairs for their front hallways but servants stairs were steep. That combined with the varying step heights led to lots of deadly falls.

Esp when carrying trays of food or laundry or other things

[delicate stream]

https://tenor.com/view/horsehead-iloveit-gif-5974982

[tardy badger]

Hey you’re back! 😄

[delicate stream]

Also not dead just new job and lots of driving weeeeeee

[tardy badger]

How is job

[delicate stream]

Good :D Today was classes

[tardy badger]

Oh fun!

[delicate stream]

1st, 3rd, 5th grade. A bit rambunctious, but nothing crazy

[tardy badger]

But you did the things!