general-chat

[wooden schooner]

@umbral phoenix, I'm guessing you might have thoughts on this

[fading hare]

is the Twilio API for WhatsApp still a thing?

[wooden schooner]

No idea

Looks like it is, but not sure whether that API lets you do group chats [edit: upon skimming their summary page, looks like no]

[fading hare]

yeah, just kinda came to mind that it would probably be way safer than using WhatsApp itself

[wooden schooner]

Yeah

[fading hare]

It's not just a Facebook leech. It's still got plenty of Chinese spyware in it I am willing to bet.

[wooden schooner]

WhatsApp looks really egregious, I might just forgo non-in-person communications with this group

[fading hare]

tell the group to switch to Signal 😅

[wooden schooner]

Of course. But I doubt they will

[fading hare]

or Discord

[wooden schooner]

That's an idea

[fading hare]

Discord is so much better than WhatsApp.

[wooden schooner]

WhatsApp appears to have no redeeming qualities

[fading hare]

No. It's a dumpster fire.

[slim shard]

it has an awesome name that doesn't at all make me think a marketing person had an unfortunate interaction with a frying pan

[blissful roost]

https://tenor.com/view/redneck-wut-country-what-in-tarnation-tarnation-gif-10883963

WutApp

[umbral phoenix]

I'm afraid I don't have much to offer. Other than skipping the app or persuading the group to use an alternate, I'd probably load a dedicated phone with a cheap SIM (or wi-fi, but routed through something other than my raw IP address) and use it just for that.

[wooden schooner]

how cheaply can this be done?

[blissful roost]

What kind of anti-social group uses WutApp?!?

Gross.

[umbral phoenix]

In the US, Ting last I checked was $6/mo + usage. This approach still runs the risk of your name and other details still being in your conatcs' address books with this new number, thus connecting your personae 😦

[wooden schooner]

yeah, true

[umbral phoenix]

unfortunately, people were never trained not to "sync" (betray) their contacts

[wooden schooner]

yeah

it does seem like people understand the idea of someone wanting to have separate accounts though. Like people understand that I may want a work email and a personal email and to not mix them

[umbral phoenix]

right, hard to rely on every member of a group having the discipline to put that separation into practice though

[wooden schooner]

right just a glimmer of hope

more than that actually. It protects me from some degree of criticism -- people don't assume I'm totally crazy

[umbral phoenix]

lol, but all is not lost... I figure any reduction in entropy is a good thing, even if it's not complete

[wooden schooner]

I'm not getting the entropy analogy, can you explain

oh you mean literal entropy lol

[umbral phoenix]

entropy used as a measure of uniqueness, 33 bits needed to uniquely identify each person on the planet

[wooden schooner]

right, the information theory thing. I have gotten to the point where I assume every colloquial use of the word "entropy" is far enough from technically correct that I will always have to ask for an explanation

good job using the term more precisely than the usual "the preceding thing is vaguely unavoidable" usage

and sorry I doubted you 😆

ok back to complaining about the whatsapp-complacent masses

[umbral phoenix]

as one does 😉

[wooden schooner]

it's frustrating. There are many alternatives, all vastly better. Everyone in the group knows how to switch. I don't see what invisible string ties them to WhatsApp

there does seem to be one though

[umbral phoenix]

inertia and familiarity probably in the list

[wooden schooner]

yeah. Some of these people even work in tech, but they appear to have given up wholesale, due to having contacts who use it.

it's weird though because it's a group of people, all of whom use WhatsApp because they have friends and relatives who use it, now themselves deciding to use it for their own communication, even when they do have a choice

it's weird how they willingly reinforce the false narrative of inevitability. Big Tech is of course known for doing this, but people don't have to

[blissful roost]

I love the false narrative of "personal information" on the internet.

[hasty wedge]

@umbral phoenix

I remembered you said you used 8051 before

Just saw something crazy today

32bits 8051

This weird Chinese company made it

70 times faster than regular 8051

7000 MIPS maybe?

Not gonna use it though, this company does not makes me feel comfortable

[umbral phoenix]

@hasty wedge I wonder if it's a 251, or something modified... "discontinued by Intel, but is widely available in binary compatible and partly enhanced variants from many manufacturers"

[fading hare]

could be that they have family members/other friends using WhatsApp. Especially if they've got family towards Asia and such.

[umbral phoenix]

I'm all for distilling down the number of apps used, but probably very few people use only one messaging app (and when they do it probably shouldn't be one from a company like Meta)

[fading hare]

I totally support the idea of using a burner phone. @wooden schooner I don't remember what continent you were on, but if you're in the US I have an old Galaxy Prime that I only used as a hot spot while traveling a few years back. I can ship to whatever post office/CVS/PO box of your choice. Free of charge. Then just get a Ting subscription for cheap. I am pretty sure it's operator unlocked but I can doublecheck if you are interested.

[umbral phoenix]

I do get the regional ubiquity of various apps, and the desire to play in the same sandbox as one's peers

you can ship to a CVS?

[fading hare]

I am pretty sure you can. They receive packages from FedEx/UPS, I think. They'll hold packages for a few days.

[umbral phoenix]

just packages shipped to randos? that's unusual, but friendly of them

[fading hare]

That way ben doesn't need to give me an address that compromises opsec.

I am assuming you might need a CVS membership or something... maybe?

Or just show ID?

I dunno. I need to look into it, but it's something they started doing recently.

[umbral phoenix]

I have several cards with no profile 😉

Walgreen's otoh won't give you a card and let you "fill out the application later", so their card has entirely fake info attached to it

but I always pay cash at those places, so no ties to credit card name

[fading hare]

you are way more paranoid than I am... 😄

[umbral phoenix]

paranoid implies thinking someone is out to get you specifically... I'm not that 😉

[fading hare]

I'm like, not hard to find, my name is 100% entirely unique, on the planet, probably in the solar system. So I can't get away with anything. My opsec consists of "F around and find out."

[burnt tendon]

Oh, yeah, I hear that.

[wooden schooner]

Not many people named Wirehead eh

[wooden schooner]

Thank you, I really appreciate this generous offer! I'll let you know if I need it.

[wooden schooner]

I get the card if it lets you opt into electronic receipts (it does for CVS and Walgreens)

[dusty citrus]

Well I don't worry about those things at all. Not even a little bit.

I *have* had online acquaintances just show up.

It was just awkward, not scary.

[umbral phoenix]

it's not about scary people for me, just business models I don't like

[wooden schooner]

I do not want my work colleagues in my personal life. I'm fortunate that that's all it is, rather than having a stalker or abuser that poses a real danger to me. Some of my friends are in that boat.

[dusty citrus]

I usually won't tell an IRL friend how to contact me online outside of generic email. ;)

and I slow-play anyone who has just 'discovered' SMS texting ;)

[gusty edge]

It really depends for me

Some folks I scare away with my green hair and badges and I’m kinda happy with that, means the types of people I wouldn’t associate with stay far away :P

otherwise I’m always down for a new friend

Honestly I’d kill for more friends in my field

feel bad ranting about my personal projects to people who can’t follow

[dusty citrus]

;) lol

yeah.

We have a code between us; they know that I've summarized an entire decades-long pursuit of electronics tech with .. oh about five words or so. and that all they have to do for their part is nod, smile and wait a beat or two before moving on to whatever does interest them.

One of them is into barbershop singing.

[late fulcrum]

The original 8051 took 12 clocks per instruction. The modern ones generally take 1, for a 12x speedup off the bat.

[hasty wedge]

8051 is really good for such a chip shortage

but I just doesn't trust STC for some reason

I am having an untrustworthy feeling but I can't tell why

[burnt tendon]

Like, there is exactly one person on the earth with my combination of names and if someone has the same last name, it's highly likely they are related.

Now, granted, I am a large male type human being so I have somewhat reduced concerns compared to others.

As a kid, there was some stuff centering around TradeWars 2002 and BBS account hijacking and ex-girlfriends that wasn't bad but someone's parole officer had to be called.

So, dono, this has led me to some really really strange things, like "Um, I deliberately didn't ask your name because you are a not-male person on the Internet, but I'd like to introduce you to my boss because we'd love to hire you. What's your real-world name?"

But, yah, where I live, it's like... maybe the person is in tech, maybe they aren't.. but if they are in tech, there ends up being an unspoken agreement to not talk about work-related tech things too much but maybe talk about not-work things even if they are actually also deeply nerdy and techy.

[dusty citrus]

In the computer club, 1989, we found kayaking to be a common interest.

"Let's go to the computer club meeting so we can talk about .. kayaking."

It was almost pathological. There we were, in one of the few computer clubs in the state .. and we could find nothing in common. It was as if, if you were working on X then I felt I had to work on Y and avoid X at all costs.

[wanton thistle]

So, I actually kind of had a stalker. I dont know if he actually was a stalker, or just..didnt respect certain boundaries. It was odd when he showed up. I told my mom to tell him I was busy or not home or something. But..bro...wth?

It persisted online a bit, and he even went too far on certain boundaries towards my wife.

[quartz wren]

That's some scary stuff because if someone's willing to cross certain boundaries regularly you don't know how far they're willing to take that

[wanton thistle]

Yea, luckly he was pretty benevolent. However, I had heard previously he did something like it to someone else. But it did rattle me a bit. I eventually blocked and removed him

[quartz wren]

That's the thing though... I've seen quite a few case studies in incidents that are too graphic to discuss here that seem to suggest that's how most of the bad situations start too...

[wanton thistle]

When I moved I told him I moved to a different county lol. Luckily he didnt pursue after that.

[quartz wren]

And you see, if it gets to the point where you feel you have to do that it has already gone way too far

[wanton thistle]

True

I think he got the hint after I removed him from discord after not talking for a few months. But he would literally keep messaging me even if I didnt respond.

[quartz wren]

I used to do something similar back before I learned to recognize social cues online but after getting a similar response from people I eventually learned to take a hint that someone's done talking to you and that they'll respond if / when they want to... So at least you've possibly been helpful to this individual's growth

Not in person or anything

Just with online interactions of people who gave me attention as an attention starved teenager

Hopefully they learn something from it

[wanton thistle]

Yea, I suspected that he didnt see social cues for a time. He had said he was self diagnosed with autism. I dont know if thats a thing, but it doesnt excuse his behavior, and gives actual people with autism a bad rep 😦

[quartz wren]

Nope that's 100% a deflection technique. Even if someone has autism and it's been properly diagnosed (self assessment online only can tell you whether you should see a specialist) that's no excuse for such behavior

[wanton thistle]

OH you made me remember the gas lighting. Totally forgot about that (which I guess is a good thing?)

[quartz wren]

Sounds like they got told off a bunch and wanted to find something to blame it on and found out how to game the autism self assessments which is super easy to do

Hence why a self assessment is entirely invalid

Because if you know why the questions are being asked you can make the assessment say whatever you want

But a specialist has years of experience of interacting to pick up on subtle cues

That isn't to say he definitely isn't autistic... Just that a self assessment is far from conclusive and it sounds like something he found to hide from responsibility instead of actively learning to be better from the mistakes

But I'm just some rando on the internet lol take whatever I say with a grain of salt as you should with any internet interaction

[wanton thistle]

Hmm

True

He was into Philosophy and did recommend some good channels. But Philosophy is useless unless you apply it.

Sure, we can discuss how Diogenes was the OG sewage poster of the day..but unless you apply it? its pointless

[quartz wren]

Philosophy without application is like trying to understand physics with only thought experiments

[wanton thistle]

💯

[wooden schooner]

also, people with autism are not stalkers.

[wanton thistle]

off topic but when did adafruit add the "this" emoji?

[quartz wren]

There are some regions of the spectrum where boundary issues are a thing but not that kind of boundary issues, usually just having issues with understanding about the personal bubble

With physical interactions

[wanton thistle]

Yea, I think he used philosophy and "smart talk" to hide his true intentions

[quartz wren]

I've got a few nieces and nephews on the spectrum and that is something most of them do

[wanton thistle]

I felt bad for his gf, because there were certain things it sounds like she was coerced into..

[quartz wren]

It tends to go hard one way or the other, actually, I've seen the "I need to touch/put arm around/hug" response and the "please just don't touch me or even look at me" response

[wooden schooner]

@wanton thistle only our superiors can use the special emoji. And when they react, we can copy them

[wanton thistle]

ahhh

O_o

or if you have the paid "thing that makes cars go faster"

there we go. It kept deleting my post.

[quartz wren]

I think that's what was being said

But cleverly worded

[wanton thistle]

Yea, It is

Gone 😉

[wooden schooner]

yeah, there's a lot of complexity to living with a self / friends / loved ones who have autism. Mainstream public perception isn't anywhere near accurate, and I get pretty snappy when people say things like "I feel sorry for him because <insert ignorant generalization about autism>"

(which you weren't doing)

[quartz wren]

Ngl there's a chance I'm on the spectrum but it's kind of expensive to see a specialist so I haven't had it confirmed

And my mom didn't want a diagnosis bias to affect me growing up so she never brought me to one as a kid

But I don't go around making positive assertions that I am

[wanton thistle]

Or stalk people

[quartz wren]

Just that there's evidence that points to it

[quartz wren]

Yeah I pride myself on being able to get into the mindset of others to understand them but it's not something I even want to attempt when it comes to the stalker mentality... Feel like I'd come out of that experience feeling like I needed an eternal shower

(not performing actions from those mindsets, just doing mental exercises to place myself in other peoples' shoes)

[wanton thistle]

Empathy goes a long way 🙂 but also it helps to recognize when people do or dont want to talk. However, this is different than being ghosted and what not.

[quartz wren]

Empathy is a quality that everyone appreciates far more than the person who experiences it...

Source: my emotions seem to have puppet strings shooting out in every direction and they get played on by others' emotions to a scary degree

[wanton thistle]

Ahh yes, emotional vampires. You learn to turn it on/off or re-direct it as needed 🙂 It will make you the loyalist of friends, but also be quite lonely at times because of it.

[quartz wren]

Yeah... So you understand... Which means this essay I prepared is useless

[wanton thistle]

lol

[fading hare]

Seems #general-chat got somewhat topical tonight. 😄

[wanton thistle]

TROPICAL

😂

[quartz wren]

Just remember if you have tropical topicals they can get sticky

[wanton thistle]

You made me think of how bad a tropical storm would be right now for the Northeast. 👀

[quartz wren]

I was thinking about a tropical fructose based skin rub

Topical as in applied to the surface 🤣

[wanton thistle]

I used coconut fragrance in my last soap batch and it smelled AMAZING

[quartz wren]

Coconut is wonderful

[wanton thistle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TazHNpt6OTo

And now for random tunes

(10. Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song))

[fading hare]

I have this secret (not anymore) love affair with the Gold Moss soap scent from Dr Squatch. It's extremely soothing to me.

[quartz wren]

I see awesome mix I click

I'm a simple man

[fading hare]

That's such a great soundtrack.

[quartz wren]

Actually this is a lie but I'm always down for this mix

I was going to write code earlier and my brain decided it was nap time instead

[fading hare]

I used to get asked a lot if I liked death metal since I am from Scandinavia. I would usually respond with: "While I find the mating song of the humpback whale fascinating, it's not something I would combine with drums and an electric guitar."

[wooden schooner]

Years ago I got a bottle of Caress Endless Kiss body wash and it was perfect. Smelled like heaven, with exfoliating beads that were just small enough to give a gentle scrub, not a rough sand of pain. Recently I found the same soap as a bar and it's just a solid brick of overpowering perfume. Oh well. I'll try the liquid version if I see it again.

[quartz wren]

Maybe the brick was the liquid in concentrate form

[wanton thistle]

See if you can find someone on etsy who makes something close to it

tons of soap on there

[fading hare]

Buying soap on Etsy is like ordering mystery boxes off of the dark web.

[wanton thistle]

Also the profit margin on soap is crazy high lol

[quartz wren]

It's also pretty easy to make

Just saying

[wanton thistle]

yooo I love the mystery soap boxes

[fading hare]

My nemesis is face scrubs with exfoliating beads. I generally try to do them in the shower because I generally, without fail, end up with one in my eye and then my day is ruined.

[quartz wren]

Actually that gave me a thought

Why sell soap when I could sell soap making kits

[fading hare]

If I was to recreate Fight Club I would totally sell soap on Etsy. Just sayin.

[wanton thistle]

They actually do

[quartz wren]

Right but I don't... Yet...

[wanton thistle]

Its melt and pour soup

[quartz wren]

So fake soap

[wanton thistle]

but if you mean "fats + lye" youd have to justify the price increase some how

because they still need the equipment

[quartz wren]

Don't have to ship it with lye you can ship wood that makes good potash and show them how to do it the old fashioned way

[wanton thistle]

thats a bit much for most people lol.

[wooden schooner]

There is a whole genre of "surprise metal on a talent show, especially from kids." I've definitely gone down the rabbit hole a bit on that one. E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhQK-6iI7cI

[quartz wren]

There's a market for it though

Might be niche but it could be viable depending on the profit per unit of work

[fading hare]

What if you made soap scrub with PTH pin clip-offs as an exfoliating agent? You could call it CyberSkinDeath.

[wanton thistle]

might as well add in metal chips from the machine shop

Now with extra slivers

[fading hare]

now you're thinking outside the box

[quartz wren]

Only the ones that were set up incorrectly and make dust rather than chips

[wanton thistle]

uranium dust
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb-sKcHJ67E

[quartz wren]

To give your skin that extra glow

[fading hare]

"We source this bespoke soap mix from North Atlantic cod liver to give you that true Chernobyl glow."

[wanton thistle]

Ok this is pretty interesting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x7DozCqLxU

A LOT of automation going on there

[quartz wren]

I'm not doing so well emotionally all of a sudden and I know this isn't the place for that vibe so imma hop off until later, thanks for chatting everyone

[fading hare]

The fish around Chernobyl have undergone morphological changes in their reproductive systems, among other things. Their livers, and other fatty parts, store Cesium and all kinds of nasty stuff until they die. [sic: after Chernobyl] It actually spread out into the North Sea, making fish essentially inedible for three decades.

[wanton thistle]

be well!

[quartz wren]

It comes in waves, bipolar and all

I'll be better, and I'll be back

[fading hare]

stay awesome, Cat

[quartz wren]

Just don't want my negativity to bring others down

[late fulcrum]

I haven't made exfoliating soaps, but I did make some "old oscilloscope" candles

Restoring old oscilloscopes involves replacing a lot of paper-wax capacitors. It occurred to me I could melt them down and capture their scent.

[fading hare]

Sounds like a great way to test that PM2.5 sensor.

[wanton thistle]

forbidden pickles

or forbidden squash

[fading hare]

at first I was like "that looks like some really odd paella"

[fading hare]

That kielbasa in the middle looks kinda tasty.

[honest moth]

i have discovered a shop that makes watches out of microdrives.

and I want one.

https://origami.watch/product/hddwatch/

[fading hare]

that's kind of cute

[honest moth]

...actually, should I try making my own? I DO have a 2.2 GB CF+ Type II PLUS that won't be used anytime soon after all.

[real falcon]

lol thats kinda cool

[fading hare]

dude, do it

[honest moth]

Aye aye captain!

[this should be fun]

[fading hare]

😄

make videos... send a postcard, you know the drill

[honest moth]

Yep!

[fading hare]

and it actually does sound like an awesome project

[honest moth]

Indeed, only one issue:

I don't think I've tried making a watch before, so this is going to be...interesting to say the least.

ah well, if I can figure out Linux, I can figure out the inner workings of a mechanical watch.

[fading hare]

so, wait, these watches are using the gears/mechanical stuff in the HDD to actually tell time?

or is it just the shell and there's some other thing that does the time tracking?

[honest moth]

Not entirely sure. Couldn't get a solid view of the inner workings, however, I only recently found this.

More research is required.

[fading hare]

yes, for sure

either way, super neat project

[honest moth]

Agreed!

[fading hare]

and there's plenty of watch OS's out there to play with

[honest moth]

hehe

if it'll read and write once I'm done with it, that is

...one step at a time engi.

[fading hare]

"The hard drive is disassembled and transformed into a watch."

So this is just a shell essentially, with the hands being placed over the drive's disks in order to give it a "face"

[honest moth]

that's what i figured, however...

[fading hare]

you're going to take it a step further

[honest moth]

Ok, if I even get it to read/write, it will probably be VERY impractical, and I would run the risk of damaging the platters inside with every movement from my wrist. That, and connecting this thing to a computer I am using will probably be uncomfortable and inconveniencing.

[fading hare]

for sure

I think instead of that, if you could figure out how to get some gears in there, and piggy-back off of the rest of the drive, that would be super cool

don't even use it as storage, just to power gears

[honest moth]

that

is brilliant

Lightbulb just went off, thanks for that!

STEAMPUNK WATCH

[honest moth]

thank you!

[fading hare]

all day, any day

Also, I know about 50,000 people that would buy that watch at ANY renaissance festival, no questions asked.

[honest moth]

heheheheheheh

nice 👍

[static flare]

does anyone know what this would be?

[quartz wren]

almost looks like some kind of tunable RF meter

note the gap between the resistor lead and the white wire attachment point

could be used as an air gap tuner

[static flare]

I wouldn't know!

[quartz wren]

could also just be broken

what happens if you attach a wire to the nut on the back and put it near a wifi router

actually, the point where the white wire attaches to the case on the left in the last picture almost looks like an antenna cradle...

idk I wouldn't be able to tell more by mere speculation, would have to run some experiments on it

actually looking at it, it doesn't look like it has very much if any coil to speak of

so it may be a static charge meter

[static flare]

I'm just really not sure what OZS means

[quartz wren]

yeah, that stumped me too

at first I was thinking a unit like "Ounce Seconds"

but I couldn't find anything that used those units

hmmm

seems to be similar construction to high current ammeters

acryllic case, steel chunk inside, etc.

[static flare]

i got it from a guy who had a whole bunch of random electronic stuff, he was a retiring electrical engineer

[quartz wren]

here's the one that I'm looking at that seems similar construction

https://az343058.vo.msecnd.net/productlargeimages/ba8354e45d3244a5b7b356a15c91f10e.jpg

slightly different dimensions but same overall design it looks like

[static flare]

except that's vertical instead of this being horizontal

[quartz wren]

that's just a mounting choice for the readout

turns out when your display has a fixed backdrop it matters what orientation it's installed in 😉

[quartz wren]

bahahahaha

it's me

except not

because it's the Cat-5 O' Nine Tails

[static flare]

Ooh~

[dapper hatch]

Took this picture for a friend a few minutes ago. I've cropped and scaled it. Makes a nice wall paper. For the 8 bit fans. 😉

[dusty citrus]

Tools like ansys or solidworks do have generative designs that allow to generate a solid optimized for manufacturing costs or physics capabilities, but they are too expensive

So does exist any sort of library or toolkit, for c language, that allows to do the same thing?

[weary fiber]

Prototype/test fit for a sign I’m making!

I’m trying to put all the mounts for the strip + electronics in one (kinda expensive) 3D printed part— this test-print is just checking fit of the lightstrip & how it looks overall

Full design:

[chrome holly]

So, not usually on discord very much. Thought I would share an idea I had after snagging myself a couple of the new QTPy-S2's. I love these little dudes, but thought that I'm missing one crucial feature now from these tiny powerhouses...BLE! Was thinking about submitting the idea through the main @night crescent website, but thought I'd see just how many other users would enjoy seeing a Nordic-based BLE QT-PY. Any thoughts @stuck moth ? I don't want to use a XIAO BLE, I want me a QT-PY with it's sweet little Stemma connector! 💯 👀

[hasty wedge]

Power of staplers

[burnt tendon]

Sometimes they are a real staple.

[hasty wedge]

[fading hare]

thy work is done, thane, pray see thyself back into the shadows afore thou art noticed

[burnt tendon]

....until the next pun

[fading hare]

I literally cannot wait.

[hasty wedge]

[wanton thistle]

I have the perfection reaction to this but I cannot, for the life of me, find the comic it came from. Its in my mind. I just have to find it

(or you have to develop your mind reading powers more 👀 )

[burnt tendon]

was it this one? https://xkcd.com/478/

xkcd: The Staple Madness

Staple guns: because duct tape can't make that 'kaCHUNK' noise.

[wanton thistle]

Lol nope. It was a comic about a guy and his cat lol. Man now this is gonna bug me.

The artist was on imgur a few times and people did make reaction images out of them

[fading hare]

a man and his cat... Garfield? 😄

[wanton thistle]

lol

nope. I gave up. Its gonna pop up when I least expect it

[fading hare]

The best XKCD of all time is...
https://xkcd.com/865/

xkcd: Nanobots

I think the IETF hit the right balance with the 128 bits thing. We can fit MAC addresses in a /64 subnet, and the nanobots will only be able to devour half the planet.

[quartz wren]

today was an emotional roller coaster but I'm proud to say I got off the ride in one piece and things are looking up

[hasty wedge]

Ah yes, OCR

[honest moth]

bad news.

scraptop might be dead...

So far, I have tried: Discharging static buildup, disconnecting the CMOS battery, disconnecting the battery itself, turning on the computer without the battery while hooked up to a charger, and holding down the power button while plugged in with or without the battery.

Symptoms: Green light when plugged in, indicating a full charge with or without the battery. Will not turn on at all, no fans spinning, no lights, nothing.

[real falcon]

cant enter bios?

no POST beeping?

[honest moth]

Nothing, no power.

[real falcon]

weird

[honest moth]

and this happened immediately after I accidentally plugged in the charger, and swiftly disconnected it realizing I had yet to reapply the thermal paste.

[real falcon]

ouch 😦 so either chip is fried, or rapid disconnect broke psu

measured psu output?

[honest moth]

Idk, haven't checked the PSU just yet, but what chip will I be looking for if it DID fry?

really hope it's not a micro-component, because I do not have the proper equipment to make THAT kind of repair a reality.

[real falcon]

dont know

id suggest start with psu

[honest moth]

psu seems fine

[fading hare]

what did you forget to apply thermal paste to?

[honest moth]

CPU

[fading hare]

Also, I am pretty 100% P certain that you should never plug in power without the battery hooked up

[fading hare]

how long did you leave it running for?

[honest moth]

it wasn't

[honest moth]

and it wasn't

[fading hare]

I mean, you plugged in power, and how long did it take before you realized and unplugged?

[honest moth]

a few seconds

[fading hare]

should be fine then

[honest moth]

Should.

[fading hare]

however...

turning on the computer without the battery while hooked up to a charger

that's the kicker

[honest moth]

It. SHOULD.

[honest moth]

it was there

everything was connected

[fading hare]

alright

but that statement indicates that the battery wasn't

[honest moth]

it was. sorry, mis-spoke

[fading hare]

without the battery you could potentially fry some stuff

ok

I know for a fact that several different Lenovo models (for instance) will die in spectacular fashions if you try to plug in power when the battery is disconnected.

[honest moth]

I have an ASUS

but noted

...i swear, if I have to jerry-rig this thing-

[fading hare]

question.. did you ever unplug CPU power on the MB?

That's 100% the cause of all my computers never starting when I build them. 😄

I forget that one little connector, every single time, and freak out.

[honest moth]

Idk what you mean by that, however, my CPU is soldered, so I couldn't remove it if I tried.

[fading hare]

I meant the power from the PSU to the motherboard

not sure how that's wired on an ASUS laptop

but if there's no power to the CPU it will definitely behave like you stated...

Also, you said this:

"Symptoms: Green light when plugged in, indicating a full charge with or without the battery."

How do you get a green light without the battery plugged in?

[honest moth]

IDK, but it did.

correction

I had the charger plugged in with the battery disconnected during another test

again, this is an ASUS

[fading hare]

that might have been not good

[honest moth]

not a lenovo

[fading hare]

sure

but it might still affect things negatively

depending on where the protection circuits are

then again, I am not a laptop expert

[honest moth]

model: ASUS X202E

this is not good

[fading hare]

what's up?

[honest moth]

I can't have my second to last machine dead.

the only other one I have would be the T450S. If this thing is dead like my PC, I am so screwed.

[fading hare]

How do they all die? Did you tinker with them all?

[honest moth]

PC: old age. Laptop: Sudden refusal to charge.

[fading hare]

I am asking because my philosophy is: "if it ain't broken, it doesn't need fixing"

So laptop maybe needs a new battery? And it could be that the protection circuits did indeed protect it, and it won't run without a battery, and the only way to know for sure is to get a new battery?

then again... ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[honest moth]

well, the battery should have been fine...except that it was mega-dead when I found it.

im panicking

[fading hare]

What condition did you find it in? Like, where was it, physically? Was there any humidity or water?

[honest moth]

fully assembled, dry air

[fading hare]

OK, so that's good then.

Can you test the battery voltage?

Also, are you using the power brick that came with the laptop?

[honest moth]

not easily, however, if I leave the charger in and hold down the power button, the green light turns off, which tells me that the machine is responding and trying to turn on, but without sufficient power maybe?

[honest moth]

yes

[fading hare]

cool, I think the next step is checking the voltage on that battery

[honest moth]

roger

...

this didn't just throw a wrench in my plans.

it threw a titanium pipe wrench into it and destroyed the entire machine by tearing itself apart from the inside out.

and spat out it's guts

...yeah, im not taking this well.

[fading hare]

so, let's take it easy and check the voltage on that battery

And if you need a working laptop, I am pretty sure we still have a stack of recycled laptops. They are not the fastest, and they need new batteries, but you could probably use one. I can ship one to you. They were part of a program we ran where we gave away laptops to low income students.

[real falcon]

batteries can be rebuild with new cells if have skills to do so

[fading hare]

yes, but also, anything with batteries is generally a pretty high risk... if anything explodes, you are likely to get very hurt

so unless you work with batteries for a living or have extensive knowledge, you should not try to rebuild them

[real falcon]

yeah

[honest moth]

I appreciate that, though I will leave that as a last resort if this thing is truly cooked. Thank you though.

Researching which ends are positive and negative right now, as to not mess this up.

[fading hare]

shouldn't really make a difference if you use a multimeter and don't hook it up to power

you can figure out which one is pos and neg

[honest moth]

ok

if i can find the multi-meter and not wake up my buddies...

wait holy !@#$ it's 12 AM

um, i think i messed up my internal clock a bit

should I put this off until the next day?

ah forget it, brb

[fading hare]

😄

[real falcon]

what is sleep?

😉

[honest moth]

couldn't find it. gonna go wash some dishes to vent my frustrations.

...none of this was supposed to happen.

or...

[gusty edge]

i wish 12am was early for mee

its almost 6am here 😅

student life i guess

[dusty citrus]

Can I just nerd out real quick

Since hank pins technology is able to shrink and enlarge matter without problem or loss...

Wouldn't his technology solve EVERY SINGLE problem we have?

Like for trash overflow we could shrink the trash down

Shipping would have less waste in packaging if it was shrunk

Overpopulation would be eliminated for a long long time

We could enlarge resources so we no longer have resource depletion

And if we do that it also requires less dangerous mining

We could shrink large technology

And tech in general

Also it may be outlandish but could we increase density of atoms in the brain making us smarter?

[lapis bluff]

Assuming you're talking about a super hero and their power, it's actually very common that if you think hard every superpower could solve all the world's problems, except for the bottleneck of "It's only one person".

[dusty citrus]

Mass production of materials or chemicals would be easier

[dusty citrus]

Fair enough but it isn't a super power its technology

So if hank were to sell his tech in a legal and ethical manner he would be able to solve many world problems

[lapis bluff]

Well, it's Science Fiction so it really is! At least as far as the "solve everything" part.

[dusty citrus]

Why is your name map?

[lapis bluff]

Except the problem of all the world's bad guys out to kill him and monopolize it.

[dusty citrus]

Fair point

[lapis bluff]

"MAP" is not my name, it's a nickname I have been using since around 1970. It's my initials.

[dusty citrus]

Oh ok, sorry

That is pretty inconvenient

(I'm not trying to be rude sorry)

[lapis bluff]

And because they are the first letters of a proper name, they should all be capitalized.

[dusty citrus]

Yea

[lapis bluff]

Why inconvenient? I've found it pretty convenient over the years.

[dusty citrus]

Its just where I'm from its a bad acronym, idk if thats a global thing

I really don't mean to be rude

[lapis bluff]

Oh, in what context. Here in the US it's the name of a geographic rendering (such as you get from Google MAPs).

[dusty citrus]

Oh well I'm also from the US but let's just say it's a disgrace to lgbtq(trying to be in descriptive)

Your face looks very familiar idk why

[lapis bluff]

Everyone says my face looks familiar. 🙂

[dusty citrus]

Oh

[lapis bluff]

You can see a larger picture if you go to my personal web pages at map.map-ne.com and go to "About Me", but that one's a couple of decades old.

[dry rampart]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gai8dMA19Sw

[honest jolt]

switching from ESP32 to Arduino Uno, compiling and uploading is the literal speed of light now lol

[late fulcrum]

I had my circuit running in test mode, and was just switching over to running it wirelessly and ⚡ I fried my Teensy. I think I'll abandon that approach and use a digital protocol instead this time.

[hasty wedge]

oh no

rip teensy

[burnt tendon]

Seems like your design has a teensy problem.

[late fulcrum]

I suspect my design was valid, but either the transmitter module or my wiring caused problems.

[honest moth]

HOLY CR_P THE SCRAPTOP LIVES

IT LIIIIIVES!!!

MY BABY SURVIVED!!

[real falcon]

nice

[honest moth]

Cause of refusing to charge/turn on: CPU Fan making direct contact with the board due to it being a model from an earlier series of laptop, and not intended for the X202E.

and yet it fits perfectly.

confirmed: old laptop does not like the new fan

[tidal prairie]

What do you do when a project feels like it's never going to work? I've spent the better part of my weekend reading forum threads and trying different things, none of which have worked, and I just feel defeated. This was supposed to be a fun hobby! But I feel like I just wasted hours of life and have nothing meaningful to show. How do you all pick yourselves up when things aren't working?

[late fulcrum]

My usual tactic is to put it aside and do something else. That something else can be another project, a chore, going for a walk, reading, etc. When I come back to it with a fresh mind, I have a much better time of it. I'm currently juggling several such projects, one's a heavy math one, one's dealing with bizarre RF issues, another is a logistics one complete with hidden surprises, and another is more arts & crafts.

[dusty citrus]

One of the ideas that circulated was the suggestion that one

enjoys the hack

Managing emotions is quite important but it's not a thing discussed in electronics textbooks. ;)

I knew a psychologist who was also an EE; I went to him for mental health stuff and 'paid for the visit' .. by wearing electrodes and playing a video game he'd designed, for research purposes.

(a vertical line on the screen wanders left or right; your only job is to try to re-center it)

[late fulcrum]

Adam Savage's book "Every Tool's a Hammer" gives a lot of coverage on keeping motivated.

[hasty quarry]

What the heck is contour and residue?

I was watching a video of someone integrating a function, and he pulled out this ridiculous technique I can’t even begin understanding

[quartz wren]

somehow my brain wants to say residue has something to do with an infinite series but I don't know why and I'm probably incorrect

[wooden schooner]

they're terms from complex analysis. It turns out that complex-differentiable functions are insanely well-behaved, much more so than your average differentiable real-valued function, so you can pull some very strong tricks to compute things about complex-differentiable functions. One of them is the residue theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residue_theorem

[jagged pewter]

My art world + electronics world are colliding again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcVYKN-KT_E

[wooden schooner]

a "contour" is just a closed curve in the complex plane. A "residue" is a certain value related to a certain kind of point discontinuity that can appear in what is otherwise a complex-differentiable function -- these are so-called "meromorphic functions."

[tardy hill]

:0 new around here, already loving all the different topics I'm seeing :0

[honest moth]

uploading more files to onedrive...

have to do what you have to do.

[wary herald]

Nice!!

?showtimes

[solar ridge]

Desk of Ladyada - Random hacker times
JP's Product Pick of the Week - 4pm ET Tuesdays
3D Hangouts - 11am ET Wednesdays
Show & Tell - 7:30pm ET Wednesdays
Ask an Engineer - 8pm ET Wednesdays
John Park's Workshop - 4pm ET Thursdays
Deep Dive w/Scott - 5pm ET Fridays
FoamyGuy's CircuitPython Stream - 11am ET Saturdays

[dusty citrus]

Something like AliExpress, but with fast eu warehouses? Yes, I know AliExpress has them, but it doesn't have everything
Without the stuff costing 50 euros per piece

Basically I need some ~ 3 inch graphic display, some small low cost and powered board (it will run on battery), batteries and power supply boards, mopeds, LEDs, various switches

[honest jolt]

https://i.imgflip.com/68ntkf.jpg

[thick wind]

Not sure what you would compare to AliExpress, even without the "fast eu warehouses" condition. Amazon, maybe?

Don't think you can get the low prices of Chinese wholesale at the speed of local distributors...

[honest moth]

Does anyone have any solid/reliable/affordable DDR3L PC3L-12800 1600mhz SODIMM 8GB RAM [Laptop RAM] recommendations? I could use some help please, for there are too many options.

[fading hare]

I ❤️ you Ben, but my eyes glazed over a little bit there. 😄 Seriously, I don't know why I have such a hard time with math.

[fading hare]

Kingston Hyper-X are some very robust memory modules. https://www.newegg.com/kingston-8gb-204-pin-ddr3-so-dimm/p/0RM-005Y-000E2
I've used them in laptops and NUCs for a long time.

and they're only $34 for two 4 GB modules

They are also generally compatible with a lot of different motherboards.

I would check your specific board, first, though. Should be able to find a CSV/Excel with all the different memory modules it supports. Be sure you check all the different data points to ensure that you're looking at the right module when you're buying.

For instance, I accidentally bought the wrong Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro memory modules for my gaming rig. I didn't realize that there were several different types of basically the exact same RAM (when you look at them on Amazon or NewEgg they would present exactly the same other than a slight difference in the product number)... Took me a few months of random crashes to finally look into it, and it was the RAM that wasn't compatible with my mobo. Sold two sets of identical modules on e-Bay and bought cheaper Corsairs without RGB. Machine's been stable like a rock ever since.

[honest moth]

Roger that, thank you!!

[hard estuary]

Episode 3 of The CIrcuitPython Show came out this morning - I talk to Professor John Gallaugher of Boston College about how he's using CircuitPython in education, community, accessibility and more. https://circuitpythonshow.com/episodes/3

[solar ridge]

Desk of Ladyada - Random hacker times
JP's Product Pick of the Week - 4pm ET Tuesdays
3D Hangouts - 11am ET Wednesdays
Show & Tell - 7:30pm ET Wednesdays
Ask an Engineer - 8pm ET Wednesdays
John Park's Workshop - 4pm ET Thursdays
Deep Dive w/Scott - 5pm ET Fridays
FoamyGuy's CircuitPython Stream - 11am ET Saturdays

[hasty quarry]

@wooden schooner

https://youtu.be/EyBDtUtyshk

I struck GOLD

[empty oasis]

Thank you for sending this

[hasty quarry]

@empty oasis Your profile picture

I love that game

[dusty citrus]

somehow my entire breadboard is connected to itself

just gonna use perma proto boards from now on xd

[late fulcrum]

I know that feel

[dusty citrus]

lmao, art

[empty oasis]

What’s your hardest

[crude folio]

anyone else getting github phishing emails?

im getting them to an address i only use for commits

[lusty fossil]

I haven't seen any in my inbox, let me take a look at spam

Nope just 90% credit cards

[hasty quarry]

Betrayal of Fate by weoweoteo

Recently I got 44% on Omega in a week or so, but I laid off it, too busy with other things

[empty oasis]

mine is like 36 up to 95 or something like that in sakupen heck. I died at last straightfly

[hasty quarry]

Oh no

Awful level

I beat Hypersonic in 3 days

And I realized “Huh…I guess I’m a bit better than I thought”

[empty oasis]

ye i hate that level

sooo inconsistent

i dropped it like a month ago

[hasty quarry]

Hypersonic? Sakupen?

[empty oasis]

sakupen

[hasty quarry]

Which level

Ah

I didn’t “drop” Omega. I just stopped playing games

But it’s the last thing I did

[empty oasis]

ye ive been getting back into hardware progamming

[hasty quarry]

Ah yeah?

That’s nice

I haven’t put the time back into that

[empty oasis]

yes, ive fallen in love with C again

[hasty quarry]

Yes

Fun language

The last thing I did was an LED cube with C

[empty oasis]

cool

im working on a machine learning library for tiny microcontrollers

[hasty quarry]

That’s hardcore, dang

[empty oasis]

yes, im a math enthusiast and i love progamming and machine learning fits both of those

[hasty quarry]

Man

I was more of a fully programming person up until this summer

When I realized calculus is awesome and I taught myself like everything

Now I love math

[empty oasis]

bro same, i used to really hate math

calculus is epic

[hasty quarry]

I was like “wait, this is so beautiful”

Calculus

Is just

So so engaging

[empty oasis]

i love integration

[hasty quarry]

Everything clicks. Nothing feels useless, it all fits

Yeah

[empty oasis]

the concept of infinity was a little wacky at first but it all falls into place

[hasty quarry]

I taught seniors at my school what integrals are before their class did. Mostly to enforce my own knowledge

But their reactions to beginning to understand it were great

[empty oasis]

i used to help seniors with their homework too

[hasty quarry]

I love that so much. “We can’t use infinity? Hmmm…let’s just pretend to then HAH”

[empty oasis]

cant divide by 0? limits

[hasty quarry]

It really is simply more useful. Because in almost any case where you’d be dividing by 0, the question you’re trying to answer is what happens around 0, and calculus just attacks the meat of that question directly

[empty oasis]

yes, but you need really solid algebra and trigonometery fundamentals before trying calculus

[hasty quarry]

But yeah, I’m in 11th grade. I tried to take precal over the summer, but they didn’t let me over some complications. So my thought process was “You know what, what is stopping me from learning whatever I want? School can’t tell me what I can and can’t learn”

I was angry

To be honest

I was angry they did that to me. So I spited the situation and taught myself everything

[empty oasis]

im in 9th 😮

math is just fun

[hasty quarry]

Yes

[empty oasis]

its a shame that people see math as an annoying useless thing

[hasty quarry]

Consider editing that

This place is strict

Yep

[empty oasis]

forgot im in adafruit

[hasty quarry]

There’s this main sorta project I’ve put off for the longest time. An 8x8x8 LED cube

That motherboard will be very tedious to make. I finished the soldering itself

But there’s a lot of logical things I’ll have to tangle myself in to make that properly. The most complex thing I’ll have made if I do

This monster

[empty oasis]

pretty cool

i dont have any led cubes

[burnt tendon]

I'm not motivated to start one. Seems like they always end in tiers.

[hasty quarry]

wire

head

just

I don’t even know anymore

You’re impossible

And I hate how accurate you are

That took hours and hours and hours

Two joints per light, 512 lights, and I had to carefully bend each and every one

[late fulcrum]

I remember doing that on a desktop, back when a desktop was a 1.77MHz 8-bit CPU with 48kB of RAM

[honest jolt]

That is still better then an Arduino Uno 😛

[empty oasis]

And the mega

Maybe not the mega

Idk specs are hard

[quartz wren]

Mega has 8kB of RAM, but 4k of EEPROM and 256k of flash

specs are my thing 😉

[lusty fossil]

Does anyone else wish that imperial fasteners (and other parts) were also given with the decimal value? like .875 in conjunction with 7/8?

[honest jolt]

We should just make another standard to replace metric and imperial
Then we don't have to worry about that 🤣

[honest jolt]

Right now I'm programming the PyGamer which uses a SAMD51 that has a whopping 192KB RAM and 512KB of flash on a 32 bit CPU at 120 MHZ (up to 200)!
I feel so spoiled now 🤣

[empty oasis]

I use the Esp32

Which has like 4mb of flash or something

And 320kb or ram

[late fulcrum]

My first computer runs at 1MHz and was maxed out with all six RAM chip positions filled, for a princely 768B of RAM.

[honest moth]

phew, I can't imagine finding a way of optimizing a dinosaur like that.

I'm curious however, what is it's name?

[late fulcrum]

It's the Motorola 6800 evaluation board kit, part number MEK6800D1

I still have it, and it still runs. It has grown another 16kB of RAM since it was new. It retains its TTL level serial port (achieved by replacing the 1488 and 1489 RS-232 chips with 7400s), delivered via a 1/4" phone jack. I've made an adapter cable so I can use a computer that's several thousand times more powerful as a dumb terminal for it.

[blissful roost]

Very nice.
Much want. Lol

[honest moth]

very interesting...

though very out-of-date by today's standards, still cool to see

[late fulcrum]

I still have the books it came with too

[honest moth]

cool

very cool

[dapper hatch]

Here is a left field question. Why do we still have page breaks in documents? Most are never printed. It would make formatting so much easier. It is a right pain when a figure jumps to the next page because there is not much room leaving a big gap from the paragraph that is referring to it.

[thick wind]

If you're referring to MS Word (or equivalent) there does exist "Web Layout" in the View tab. That might make your formatting funky elsewhere, but it'll make your document a continuous scrolling read with no page breaks, if you prefer.

"Page Layout" is just the kind of standard everyone got used to without really questioning why they use it for everything. It's like picking a default browser: most people don't have a particular reason for it other than "they've been using it for years."

[umbral phoenix]

I think pagination is useful even in online contexts. It allows for a predictable view (think of PDF), and also allows me to print one well-defined page from a reference source, for example. Pages are typically numbered, many people would not know what to do if I told them to read starting at line #17,325.

We could come up with new forms of structure to solve the use cases for pagination, but good luck standardizing anything these days.

[burnt tendon]

hee hee hee.

[static flare]

watching someone with a Centurion minicomputer data terminal, and I love the look of it

[dapper hatch]

Ha ha customers are sneaky. 😄 Had a request for a quote for developing some 'firmware'. In asking some questions to get an idea for their requirements they said it should be configurable from a PC. So I asked if there is an old system they need the new one to be compatible with or are they looking for a new config tool. They want a new tool, on windows, at the same time as the firmware. So a four week project just got a lot bigger. 🙄

[wooden schooner]

I think epubs don't have inherent pagination -- the reader can resize text, change indentation, etc. which all reflow the book.

See also #general-chat message about how schematic drawing tools typically have a page-oriented interface, which doesn't make that much sense i.m.o.

[lusty fossil]

There are a lot of little things that annoy me about Fusion360, but I think the only thing that I really hate is that in english units, the default and seemingly unchangeable units of mass are Oz-Mass.

[burnt tendon]

FreeCAD forces you into metric.

[lusty fossil]

Fusion uses normal units for metric fortunately

[subtle fable]

Thank you bing

[static flare]

that seems a little... slow

[quartz wren]

Well it turns out there's a name for the laptop thing I'm doing... Apparently it's called a "cyberdeck"

And now that I know there's communities of people who do it I'm going to obviously have to make a whole bunch of them

[static flare]

yee, cyberdecks are awesome

[slim shard]

that would be the case at certain densities of environment though?

[empty oasis]

Calculus joke

[quartz wren]

You would need to have an incredibly cold temperature fluid to make that happen

So you could probably do it in liquid helium at the right temperature

[honest moth]

With YouTube running [on Firefox]:

With both YouTube and Discord running [on Firefox]:

So far, the optimizations I have made are working. I'm happy.

[blissful roost]

Wut?!?

blinks

[umbral phoenix]

Adafruit product ID 54B3 in my fictional hobby universe: QT Py BFF Proto - Prototyping Add-on

[stray wind]

Use the https://www.adafruit.com/contact_us form to send in a product suggestion for it. 🙂

[burnt tendon]

I made something vaguely like that but my first cut at it has a bunch of design and ergonomic flaws.

I had a little bit of space on a 10x10 order from DirtyPCBs that was a bunch of snap-apart Feather boards and stuff so it was kinda space-constrained.

[lusty fossil]

I'm looking into the possibility of financing a new macbook. Apple is pushing the Apple Card pretty hard. Does anyone know if you can use it if you don't have an iPhone?

Ah it looks like you can't

[umbral phoenix]

looks like you can, but features are limited without iOS or iPadOS (used for app, authentication, and on-device purchases) https://card.apple.com/apply/start

I use it mainly for the 3% discount (cash back) on apple purchases

recently bought a laptop with education discount, and got 3% on top of that

[lusty fossil]

Hmm OK, I'll be waiting for the M2 Macs to come out anyways so I have some time. I need something that's better at CAD than my surface book 2. When the GPU is actually working, it's fine, but it rarely works.

Ooof pricing this out is making me cry TT

[hasty wedge]

Just got an entire tube of MS51FB9AE microcontroller

73 of them

32 bucks total

[static flare]

nice

[static flare]

should i move the chips that are same chip same manufacturer to tubes if i have too many of them? ive been moving them to foam, because it's easier on my brain

[thick wind]

If you have the tubes and a good way to organize said tubes, sure.

[static flare]

i don't really have a great way to organise them, which is why I went with the foam to begin with

[thick wind]

I think that answers your question then. If you aren't satisfied with the foam, I would recommend a tube organizing solution before you start moving chips...

Whether it's some form of wire rack or other shelf, it could become a DIY project on its own...

[static flare]

I'm satisfied with it, i just have more chips and no space

[subtle fable]

no it's the speed of a golf club

I looked up the speed of Mach 3 and bing gave me results based on the speed of a golf club

[real falcon]

candy chips 😉

[spice moss]

Nasa Artemis First rollout happening

[static flare]

Figured out the chips on the sheet, they're:
18 NEC D4164C
1 NEC D41464C
20 Samsung KM4164B
27 Intel P2164B
27 Mitsubishi M5K4164ANP
11 NMBS AAA280P
12 TI TMS4164
7 Panasonic/Matsushita NM4164P
3 Fujitsu MB8266A
3 National Semiconductor GAL16V8
1 Micron Technology 1259

[lusty fossil]

What is this part called (in red)?

[real falcon]

sidings?

[lusty fossil]

Hmm, I feel there's a specific name for where the flat face joins with the triangular portion?

[crystal ore]

Are you thinking of "transom"? I'm not sure if that's correct, but it's the only weird window term I can think of, heh heh.

[lusty fossil]

Yeah I thought of that word but for some reason I dismissed it as not the same thing

[dapper hatch]

Eaves and Gables

[lusty fossil]

@real falcon @crystal ore From another discord and confirmed on google, it's called a Gabled Dormer

Ah, nice timing @dapper hatch

[dapper hatch]

As in Gable end. 🙂

[real falcon]

ahh ok

[lusty fossil]

Or Anne of Green Gables!

Anne with an E was legit great

[lusty fossil]

Noooooo

[hasty wedge]

Oh Windows updates

Windows Server never have such issue

Update on my 8051 speech module, found a way to drive the speaker with a single NPN transistor and does not requires a class D amplifier

The speaker is so loud it started to get hot lol

(and yes, that an adafruit 1000ma charger board)

[late fulcrum]

Pricing for M2 machines is out already?

[lusty fossil]

Oh no I didn't clarify, I'm looking at an M1 max build

[hasty wedge]

oh also

the entire playback circuitry costs less than 90 cents

and it's programmable with ADC and additional PWM

[static flare]

been wanting to make up a custom switching circuit for power for a project, but I'm not sure how to go about it in terms of power delivery

basically, one socket to multiple sockets, but only one socket is on at a time

[lusty fossil]

Hmmm would folks expect a store like target to respond to requests like: "hey are you folks going to come out with more shirts like these you stocked last year?"

[crystal ore]

I'd expect to get some marginally-relevant canned response from a copy-paste customer service drone.

[lusty fossil]

Bummer

They have the best prices:fit:style ratios for the shirts I like

Everyone else is like minimum 4x the price

[hasty wedge]

https://github.com/MegaHits/module-v0

the firmware binary is up

currently closed source

I am looking for contributors that can help me to clean up the source code before I can confidently open source it

[quartz wren]

Isn't this pretty much standard with prototypes?

[honest moth]

Yep, pretty much.

[late fulcrum]

There are a few ways to do it. The direct ones are "low side switching" and "high side switching", which you can do with relays or transistors. There are also power switching chips available that have additional features like current monitoring, circuit protection, etc.

[hasty quarry]

When my best friend asks “what is calculus about” and we’re at a restaurant

[quartz wren]

you could switch both sides too if you need full isolation

[quartz wren]

sounds like you're ending up drawing a lot of DC through the speaker if that's the case

[late fulcrum]

True. It's more complicated, but sometimes that kind of isolation is what you want.

[quartz wren]

I'll be using it for doing an automated hard line cutoff for the network connection into my lab network to be initially used with a button in a molly guard but eventually will have a NN trained to detect suspicious network traffic

that is, have an 8 contact relay that latches open and requires manual reset when it does

[late fulcrum]

Or you could do it the old fashioned way with a pyrotechnic charge that launches an insulated knife through the cable.

Yeah, relays are nice for full isolation.

[quartz wren]

that's like the difference between a traditional fuse and a thermal cutoff fuse

can't reset the traditional one

must be replaced

[late fulcrum]

Yup. A friend of mine had a company fire drill and decided to press the "fire" button in the computer room when he left. What he didn't know was it was one of those systems that launched a knife through the power mains. Ooops...

[hasty wedge]

Yeah, it's PWM

That's the nature of using PWM to drive the speaker

[quartz wren]

right, but if you don't have that isolation of an amplifier it will get hot

[hasty wedge]

Yeah

[quartz wren]

at least try sticking a capacitor between the signal pin and the transistor base to see if you can mitigate it a bit

I just woke up from a nap or I'd be able to actually draw up a passive isolation circuit for you

need to get my brain some caffeine

[late fulcrum]

I was thinking it's an effect of a bridged amplifer more than a PWM one

[quartz wren]

can that be mitigated simply by having a pair of transistors on either side of the speaker, one PNP the other NPN?

[hasty wedge]

That won't work

Since I need the transistor to either be full on or full off to get the desired volume

The transistor is really small, a simple s8050

[quartz wren]

okay so put resistor in the 1-2k range from the base to ground

[late fulcrum]

It can work, there are several circuits that work that way.

[quartz wren]

to make sure that the transistor fully shuts off when it's not getting signal

[hasty wedge]

I just tried that

[late fulcrum]

It's NPN, it'll turn off just fine without base drive, you don't really need a pulldown resistor like with a MOSFET

[quartz wren]

if you ran a filtering circuit at the PWM frequency could you get pseudo-analog?

[hasty wedge]

You can

Probably an RC filter

[quartz wren]

yeah that's what I was talking about

you'd need a band stop filter

specifically

also known as a notch

[hasty wedge]

Low pass should do the job

[quartz wren]

oh fair

yeah you don't need the higher frequencies

as none of them are being expressed

as I said, just woke up from a nap haha brain not fully working currently 😅

[hasty wedge]

You can see the transistor

MCU using the MS51FB9AE

[quartz wren]

You design the board?

It's pretty ❤️

Even if you used autorouting the components are placed well enough for the routing to look good which is a skill

[honest moth]

I'm very curious, what are we talking about, what's the end-goal, and what are you using to accomplish it? @hasty wedge @quartz wren

[hasty wedge]

I routed it manually

[quartz wren]

I'm not 100% sure it seems like @hasty wedge is implementing a speech synthesis module for something if I'm understanding correctly

[hasty wedge]

sub 90 cents audio playback module

[quartz wren]

Nice!

[hasty wedge]

yup

speech module

[quartz wren]

I have one manually routed board that I'm proud of

[hasty wedge]

[quartz wren]

This fella

[hasty wedge]

The coolest thing about this module is that the controller costs only 43 cents

[quartz wren]

Wut I need some

[hasty wedge]

It's a 8051 MCU

[quartz wren]

Well when your budget comes down to nickles and dimes shipping prevents purchase of new components even at that price

I build most things from scrap

[hasty wedge]

https://direct.nuvoton.com/en/ms51fb9ae

It have tons of PWM, ADC, and flash

https://direct.nuvoton.com/en/nutiny-ms51fb9ae

here's the dev kit, the ICE can snap off and being used as a fully featured programmer

I just wish ppl can start looking for alternatives to microchip and STM

or they will continually raise their price until our absolute tolerable maximum

and don't forget their 52 weeks lead time

[quartz wren]

Next chip investment I intend to make is to save up $500 to get 100 of something running on the same architecture or a similar one can't remember off the top of my head and can't seem to find the link I sent to someone about it but it's pinned on my PC... They're just under $5/ea. And do all the things you'd need to implement a tiny PC motherboard if you've got the CPU

[hasty wedge]

F1C200s?

there's a feather coming for it

[quartz wren]

Doesn't sound right

Hold up let me go to my PC for a sec and get the datasheet

[hasty wedge]

It's basically "linux on a chip"

with a ARM7 CPU and 64MB of DDR1 RAM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pn4Sdgz8-0

[quartz wren]

this'n http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/00002492A.pdf

basically an all in one motherboard controller

I want to pair it with a 386sx I've got and make a tiny PC mobo

[hasty wedge]

Oh that's a super IO

[quartz wren]

I'm going to save up for enough to get 100 of them because I want to have plenty on hand

got lots of projects that I can use them for

but that's the next investment I intend to make hardware-wise

[hasty wedge]

you probably want to find an LPC compatible MCU or something

there isn't a pre-built library for LPC communications

[quartz wren]

Who needs a pre built library? I love low level development

Hardware and software

Can always do discrete logic interfacing if nothing else

Or rather, PLDs

Those are only a dollar a pop and I'm pretty good at cramming a lot of functionality into them

And I've got some 25 or so on hand

Most of what needs doing is just buffering and syncing so if arranged cleverly with 2-3 high stacks of chips it can still be made compact

[honest moth]

i need to learn micro-controllers next, holy cow im missing out

[lusty fossil]

Hmm unsure if anyone would know, but I'm trying to join a server. You have to react to a post with a checkmark to verify yourself. But when I hover over the reaction to click, I get a red circle with a slash thru it. Anyone got any idea?

Ahhh, there was a delay before you could write messages, so there was a delay before you could react!

[honest moth]

...ah f@#$.

[static flare]

If anyone remembers me talking about making tech themed earrings a while ago, I kept going with the idea, and now I finally have my first prototype set! Capacitor earrings!

[fading hare]

One of these days you'll just buy new SSDs and never have to worry about this crap again.

[honest moth]

This is an HDD, and true...all I need is a single terabyte SSD and all my problems will disappear. Just need to save for it...

[fading hare]

https://smile.amazon.com/SanDisk-SSD-PLUS-Internal-SDSSDA-1T00-G26/dp/B07D998212

80 buckazoids

[honest moth]

thanks

[fading hare]

Oh, speaking of computers and things... Company I work for were being weird about me requesting a PC for a test bed for some AWS/Windows/oddities, and client was weird about it as well. I ended up buying an Intel NUC for $179. Came with a 64 GB eMMC drive (even though it advertised 32 GB on the listing), 4 GB RAM and Windows 10 Home. Funny fact: Windows 10 is a whopping $110 all by its lonesome. So I basically got a new Win 10 license + a computer for $70.

thing actually runs really well, it's a bit slow on the provisioning with the eMMC drive, so I ordered one of these guys for twenty nine dollares: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N5IB20Q/

(I have been provisioning it over and over again to test some stuff for a project for work)

I'm not even going to expense it. It's mine now. After this project I'll repurpose it for something around the house. Need to offload my other NUC since it's got a bunch of stuff on it besides Nextcloud, including Plex and some other crap.

I have like... 3-4 drives in my gaming rig. Could probably just yoink one from there. It's kind of sad. I haven't used that gaming rig in months. Just haven't felt like playing PC games. This thing is a sneaky beast with an AMD Ryzen 9 and an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, both liquid cooled. Sure, not the greatest these days compared to 3090s and whatever, but, then again, I spent less on this computer than people spend on a 3090 these days.

FYI, this was the NUC I got:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B09NXQVFTQ/

it says 32 GB flash for some reason, and maybe that's for the SD slot? But the onboard eMMC was 64 GB. Comes with a decent 4 GB RAM stick, and getting more laptop memory is real cheap these days.

No m.2 slot, however, to my ultimate sadness. Just space for a 2.5" SSD. Then again, $179. 😄

If you add an SSD and either another stick of 4 GB or replace with an 8 GB stick you can run Windows 10/11 comfortably.

Or you know, any flavor of Linux.

[fair summit]

I have bought several used Dell Optiplex micro desktops (and other sizes, and laptops too) from https://dellrefurbished.com. Except for the clearance ones, they all come with Windows 10 Pro. The prices might seem higher than you want to spend at first, but there is almost always a coupon for 35%-50% off several models or sometimes everything in the store.

Sometimes the coupons are on the Coupons page, and sometimes you can find special ones on dealnews or slickdeals.

[late fulcrum]

Wait until you find out SSDs wear out

[hasty wedge]

I have two HDDs only in my gaming rig

paired with Ryzen 9 5900X and RX6900XT, both air cooled and only one exhaust fan for the entire system

and my steam library is on a SMB protocol connected NAS(living room TV computer with xeon and ECC ram) that runs on NVME and SAS drives

yeah, basically the worst gaming setup if you're not taking performance into account

[velvet pelican]

Yeah gaming rigs these days are super spendy. I build one recently and the gpu was more expensive than all the other parts combined and they have gone up since then in price

Also what kind if games do you play

[blissful roost]

Darn sight better than my Xeon X5470 and 1050 Ti. 😅

[stoic mesa]

just stopped to say hi and see what news here

[lusty fossil]

:):):)

[stoic mesa]

yeah, I was mostly absent form discord these last weeks

@lusty fossilhow is your project going?

[lusty fossil]

Slow! But ok

Glad to have you back

[velvet pelican]

there is all kinds of news everywhere but most of it isnt good news these days

[lusty fossil]

I'm currently going thru the painful process of finding a new CAD laptop

I'm trying to figure out if a specific graphics card on a cheaper machine is good for the program I use

[velvet pelican]

why a laptop over a desktop?

[lusty fossil]

It needs to be portable

[stoic mesa]

I am buying a new laptop for my bday, but I just decided to get a Macbook Air M1

[lusty fossil]

I use an external monitor at my work and I like having 2 screens

[velvet pelican]

ahh if you got a monitor everywhere you go... and by monitor i mean tv... then a desktop is portable lol

[lusty fossil]

Lol, hard to put an ATX build in my backpack

[velvet pelican]

not if your atx /is/ your backpack

[lusty fossil]

Lol

[velvet pelican]

just make it look like a breifcase and your all business

[lusty fossil]

I considered a Mac studio for a while but too pricey and not having a screen attached is a no go for me

[fading hare]

Oh, snap. I thought they lasted forever. My whole world is in ruins.

[fading hare]

Primarily Destiny 2 and some of the Tom Clancy games as well as ESO.

[velvet pelican]

ever tried Risk of rain 2

[fading hare]

I haven't. I played a little bit of the first one.

[velvet pelican]

ive never played the first one... the second is addictive to me. super fun and never gets old IMO

[wooden schooner]

Last night I dreamed I got a state-subsidized desktop computer. It was manufactured by Raspberry Pi and had one of those see-through gamer chassis. There were many vacant bays, but it got the job done.

[sick adder]

Oshpark makes me feel well taken care of

[lusty fossil]

They are nice folks

[velvet pelican]

That looks automated

Or they were singing when they were writing it

Copies of this board 🎶

[rustic basin]

We had some commercial grade SSDs running in some VMWare servers, running VMs that were almost continually refreshed for running software build validation testing, and the SSDs lasted for a little over three years. And that was about six or seven years ago, so pretty old SSD technology. You should be fine as long as you have backups of your data. You do have backups of your data, right? 🙂

[fading hare]

Does 12 TB of RAID 6 suffice, you think? That's just for photos, projects, and other personal documents. All my smart cards have duplicate or triplicate copies stored along with printed paper keys in Loksak bags in a safe. The conversation about losing data and all that was directed towards @honest moth, who has issues with their drives. But, yeah, I think my data is fine barring a nuke taking out us-east-1, us-west-2, and a direct hit or sustained full blaze fire in my abode.

[rustic basin]

My question was facetious. I used to work as a field support engineer for a company that makes data backup systems. There are two kinds of hard drives/ssds/flash drives/raid setups/storage appliances/etc; those that have failed, and those that are going to fail.

[fading hare]

Oh, I definitely picked up on the tone and spirit of your question. My answers so far have been pretty sarcastic, unless you didn't pick up on that. 😉 But, yeah, my set up is fairly fault-tolerant with a couple of different online services as DR, basically.

[rustic basin]

I figured you were. 🙂

[fading hare]

😄

[burnt tendon]

I am a software engineer who has worked with storage systems at various times who is married to an archivist, so not only do I have the first lesson (that there are two kinds of storage devices: those who have failed and those who are going to fail) but also a reminder that we're all screwing up later generation's understanding of history by being so darn cavalier about it.

[fading hare]

I went with RAID 6 because I can't afford anything better. I figured I've got the same data stored on two different laptops, one desktop, and mostly up-to-date copies in some online services.

I figure if us-east-1 and us-west-2 go down at the same time, we have way bigger problems than photos of my cats and some project code I worked on two years ago or some logo I designed a decade ago or a bunch of poems getting lost forever.

And before you ask, yes, all my paper keys are printed on proper archival paper, no fingerprints or direct skin contact, then directly into LOKSAK bags and into a fireproof bag that sits in a pretty darn decent safe.

[rustic basin]

Yeah, I'm much more cavalier about my archive. 🙂

[fading hare]

I would argue that the things that are worth saving are being saved. The rest is just noise. Like my 600 photos of a road trip from Utah to Oregon. Sure, there's some amazing shots in there, but for the most part, that's some 3 GB of sheer noise to those that come after us.

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, totally, which is why part of the curation process is to toss a buncha stuff.

[fading hare]

What I am kind of sad about is that there's no real good ways to store electronic data long-term past the 10-15 year-mark that aren't super cost-prohibitive.

[burnt tendon]

The thing they are worried about is, yeah, full archive wipeout out of some quarters.

[fading hare]

People just assume USB sticks and SD cards will basically last forever. But, they don't. The energy dissipates, and with it, the information stored therein. Even if you don't use them. I know some folks--and corporate/gov/mil entities--use tape storage still, and some also use USB/SD/HDD/NVMe that they simply rotate every 6-8 years, but, I'm not the US government, I am just a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude, if you know what I mean?

I can't afford tape storage, even though they do last about 25-30 years. Which is way longer than a USB/SD in perfect condition, which will last about 10.

[rustic basin]

And the tape storage needs to be rotated to new media as well. Back when I was working in that industry, the drives would only read two generations of tape back. And that's within the same format. If you changed to a new format, the newer drives won't read the older tapes. That's a huge cost in time, manpower, and equipment. That most of my customers never thought of, even the government entities.

Gotta go!

[lusty fossil]

Man, given what they charge for their products, neither 80/20 nor t-slots really have a buttoned up/acceptable user experience.

On their websites

I don't want to have to page through an enormous catalog, it's 2022

[fading hare]

What are those?

[lusty fossil]

Aluminum extrusion manufacturers

The actual aluminum extrusions aren't that expensive, they get you on the hardware

At least t-slots uses a semi-sensible diameter for their central holes

[fading hare]

aah

[velvet pelican]

where all did ya visit in oregon?

[fading hare]

Bend, primarily. Although I also went to see a few different landmarks around there.

[velvet pelican]

cool

timberline is always good to visit as well

[stoic mesa]

check misumi

[velvet pelican]

bend has alot of good places to hit... went to sun river a few weeks ago

[lusty fossil]

Do they sell extrusion?

[stoic mesa]

yes

t-slots from 15 to 40mm

[lusty fossil]

Ah I'm doing this project in fractional

[fading hare]

I did the river rafting thing when I was there. Pretty chill. Also went out to Lava Lands in Deschutes National Forest. Was wild to drive up there because they had recently had a wildfire. This was before the big wildfires that hit Oregon and other west-coast states.

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, Misumi is totally great. Cut to length.

I've done three projects with Misumi extrusions and now my lovely long-suffering spouse is coming up with suggested projects.

Because, like, the parts arrive, already cut to length, and then I assemble them and she's still a bit traumatized by her father's woodworking projects that inevitably took up most of the living room for months.

[lusty fossil]

Lol

[fading hare]

hahahaha

my wife gets antsy if I leave anything in the kitchen for longer than half a day... she knows, I'll take over that space TOO

[burnt tendon]

Oh, yeah, the kitchen is actually my domain.

[fading hare]

I have an office/lab/lair/cubbyhole which is a room that is about 6 by 6 meters. It houses my desk with 3 computers, 1 Xbox, a Switch, a pair of speakers, one monitor, and some other stuff. One wall is entirely covered with heavy-duty shelving from IKEA with cabinets for storage. A closet with supplies. A work cart from IKEA that houses my 3D printer and a ton of different parts for electronics and computers and the like. Behind that cart there's a peg board that holds all my tools and supplies for soldering, 3D-printing, and other projects. Then across the last wall is a large butcher's block desk surface on sturdy metal legs which is where my 3D Resin printer sits along with a bunch of my ongoing computer and electronics projects.

[velvet pelican]

yeah we got evacuated last year due to one of the fires but it stopped 7 miles from our house

lavalands is wild

the caves there are neat

[fading hare]

Do not fall down in lava lands hahahaha

[velvet pelican]

right

obsidian cuts like glass

[fading hare]

volcanic rock will slice you to ribbons

my buddy actually climbed up to this one massive rock and sat on it, like the mountain king in his hall... it was pretty metal

[velvet pelican]

i remember having a shard of obsidian that was sharper than a razor

[fading hare]

I remember the wildfires. The best meme of that entire year was the three spidermen pointing at each other and the caption was weed cough, covid cough, and wildfire cough.

I am going to assume I can say the name of that medicinal herb without getting in trouble, especially since it's legal in Oregon.

[velvet pelican]

yeah there was alot of nonsense goin on here around that time for various reasons. the whole covid mess made a bigger mess with alot of people with too much time on their hands and not enough to do IMO

[fading hare]

That's a nice way of putting it. But yeah, they're probably the same type of people that are on the board of their local HOA. 😉

[velvet pelican]

I always use the rhyme when i hear hoa stay away

Never done me wrong 😂

[honest moth]

Speaking of drives, what is your best rough estimate on how long data on HDD's last, as well as the HDD itself, as in the good kinds by Toshiba and Fujitsu? @fading hare

[velvet pelican]

hdd drives last a long time and even longer when they arent constantly being spun up to retriev data

i have some that are ten+ years old still goin well

[honest moth]

I ask mainly because I've been hanging onto an HDD from 2008 that still runs to this day by Fujitsu, and it's the magnets that are dying first.

[velvet pelican]

also you can retrieve data from a dead HDD but im not sure you can with an ssd

[honest moth]

Honestly I'm not entirely sure about SSD data recovery myself.

It's possible, however it can be costly if you don't know how to do it yourself, though that introduces another can of worms: SSD's, like HDD's, can fail in several ways.

[dusk oracle]

hi guys i want to talk about optimal math been wondering if optimizations like fast inverse square root and using shifts when doing math is faster than arduino's stock C

[velvet pelican]

well an HDD is cheap where as a secondary SSD isnt

[honest moth]

aye

[velvet pelican]

so replace the HDD every ten-15 years and bam your good to go

[dusk oracle]

ssd recovery is limited to the damage to the flash/nand

[honest moth]

Or 20+ if you're lucky and take good care of it

[dusk oracle]

if the controller is dead.. replace it

[velvet pelican]

i mean my original is stil goin

doesnt have anything super needed on it

its from 2012

[honest moth]

Aye same, just keep it around because of the memories I made on it

[dusk oracle]

it's wierd i have seen people kill a ssd in a week yet mine is 9 years old and still kicking

[velvet pelican]

got another one thats a 4TB because thats cheap backup space

[honest moth]

probably gamers

[dusk oracle]

i'm a gamer but no fool XD

[velvet pelican]

depends on what your doing for sure... i know those older ones were not as robust tho

[honest moth]

Lol epic

[dusk oracle]

i think mine is still a ocz agility 3

[velvet pelican]

i like the nvme i have now

[dusk oracle]

yeah believe it or not it is

[honest moth]

Indeed. I can back this because I have an old Kingston and it is not happy being alive.

thermal throttling all the way.

[velvet pelican]

i never had the funds for one back in those days... i was pretty much living on 10 cent top ramen in those days

[dusk oracle]

i have a habit of deleting only if i am full
a feature my phone now has stock.. progress

[velvet pelican]

yeah a full HDD doesnt run well at all

[dusk oracle]

ssd is fine

hdd not so much

[velvet pelican]

yeah

like 90% is fine

[honest moth]

More data means more reading and writing

[velvet pelican]

above that you notice a major slowdown

[dusk oracle]

i miss 3" floppy drives

[velvet pelican]

well between my 2 computers i have around 10 TB of storage

[dusk oracle]

the sound the made as the shuffled looking for commander keen to load

[velvet pelican]

still havent pulled the one from the old PC with 4TB to throw in the new one yet

[dusk oracle]

i have had 2x 4TB drives fail on me recently