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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • In the professional space:

    Add Altium, KNX, pspice, LTSpice (luckily works in wine), and for us electronics/electric guys lol.

    Linux is a 3rd class citizen in ANSYS simulation tools. Slow updates, old UI, etc… On Linux. Pretty much only used as a simulation node for kicking on sims from windows since Linux machines can be >1TB RAM + 144± core powerhouses where windows sucks on those type of machines.

    Pretty much all architecture software

    Many ERP systems desktop apps

    Not to mention a lot of companies use active directory for access control + sharepoint

    Web apps suck, but have been very helpful in Linux compatibility in the enterprise space since the devs only have to care about 1 set of production builds.

    At my work, software guys and mechatronics PLC focused guys get away with Ubuntu (saleae is great), but for electronics and mechanicals it is not even worth it to dual boot.


  • Well being able to figure out 1 complex math solution per day vs 1 complex solution per 1.5 days for the person who just has to work on the problem for longer is balloons a lot over the long term.

    Like how the average calorie burning difference between people is only 400 per day out of ~2000, but over a month that is like 1.5kg difference of mass burned which is 18kg per year.

    But I don’t know if I am interpreting the result you said correctly.


  • ~/workspace/git

    That way I can also keep other stuff in the same “workspace” directory and keep everything else clean

    I have a Code, simulations, ECAD, and FreeCAD folder in the workspace folder where projects or 1-offs are stored and when I want to bring them to git, I copy them over, play around in the project folders again, then copy changes over when I am ready to commit.

    I could better use branching and checking out in git, but large mechanical assemblies work badly on git.


  • KDE for my main PC. Pretty with floating panels, KDE Connect, QT apps are often the best apps in their class and are perfectly integrated (FreeCAD, krita, okular, kdenlive, vlc, dolphin, etc…) And konsole is also very full featured.

    I don’t know what KiCAD uses, but it also seems very well integrated into the KDE desktop unlike most gnome apps.

    XFCE on MX Linux for an old Intel Compute Stick to keep it very usable.


  • With electronics, that is only the tip of the iceburg before you get into trinocular microscopes which the absolute cheapest are almost 300€ nowadays 😉 then assembled PCB prototypes where every iteration can be 200-500€ depending on size. Or you could get into spending hundreds on hotplates and reflow ovens to do it yourself.

    But wouldn’t it be faster and cheaper in the long run to be able to fabricate the simple PCBs yourself? There goes 1000€ on a small CNC 😂 rabbit hole goes deeeeep.


  • Electronics projects mostly.

    Mostly smart home PCBs and interconnect boards and 3D modelled housings. Examples:

    • esp32-C3 dumb doorbell (just a doorbell that sends an MQTT message and sleeps the rest of the time). It works fatastic except that my Proximus ISP modem/router completely fucked up and so the network is no longer usable and I had to set it in bridge mode to a router it can’t reach. I want to release it, but haven’t had the time to water - resistance test it or make assembly instructions
    • esp32-S3 voice assistant satellite attached to an IR blaster, I2S mic, and PCM5102 to control and send audio to my old Yamaha RX-496RDS to control it via IR and can play audio (local or Spotify) via music assistant. Pretty much an Alexa echo attached to my speaker system. PCB link which I am planning on releasing.
    • My unfinished Flight Stick with custom electronics, fully custom 3D printable housing, etc… It is almost done, but needs like 2 more small iterations, but we moved and started doing a full-strip renovation, so my 3D printer is no longer set up because it is too dusty inside, and I don’t want to spend another $100 doing a PCB test iteration to use a better ADC with less components. Eventually as firmware practice, I want to rewrite the firmware in Rust or something. I also just looked at the Repo and the quick logo I drew up has been modified somehow without any commit. I know for a fact it was correct before. Very weird.

    I also have tons of new project ideas that I don’t have time for.

    My other hobbies

    • weightlifting, again completely dropped off due to every free moment renovating

    • Running a home server with replacement services for everything I need

    • Running (my motivation has been 0 recently…)

    • cooking. I try to do a few new recipes per month

    • gardening. With the renovation, I just grew a few courgettes, tomatoes, and squash this year

    • video games (more of a de-stresser nowadays than a hobby, most recently casual rocket league with friends is fun, hadn’t played since 2018 or so)


  • Ease of electronics.

    It is more expensive and bulkier using those cells because you need boost converters instead of dirt cheap linear regulators to put a modern 3.3V MCU in there. With how cheap lithium cells are (and that they are rechargeable) nowadays, the power converters + the mechanical AAA housing is often more expensive than a lithium cell + charger

    Hopefully we will switch over to sodium ion in the coming 5 years or so which are rechargeable, cheaper materials, higher charge cycle counts, and completely safe at the cost of also needing a boost converter. Maybe we will even start to shift more towards 1.8V MCUs. Sodium ion is better in nearly every way than alkaline while just having bad capacity compared to Li-ion.


  • “Critical” as in not really needed.

    It is very bugged and constantly runs even if it isn’t doing anything. It will also max out your disk IO for hours at a time with an HDD for larger game storage.

    I have had it off for 1.5 years across 3 OS installs and have never had a problem with stuttering or shader related problems in that time. It is really not needed anymore for 95% of games since the Linux async solutions were merged.

    Maybe if one uses severely out of date kernels it is critical


  • Yeah, but as someone who had both bazzite and Opensuse MicroOS (Kalpa), it is even more of a long and painful process on that platform lol.

    Immutable OS’s are literally for people who specifically don’t want to tinker. Everything via flatpack except a few system-level apps layered on the base image.

    (Also they are for people who don’t need document digital signing as Firefox and libre office can’t access the modules via flatpak)

    If people want specific apps and don’t want to build them or use user space apps then it definitely isn’t their best option. Just a different option.

    I have very much enjoyed never even having to think about updating my system for months



  • It’s interesting the difference in what people think a collapsed civilization will look like.

    Some people think we will “return to monke” where wilderness survival skills will be essential and people who have them will be the “main characters.” That would probably be the easier and better future.

    The more likely option will be technofeudalism where rich people have small, brutal armies and control localized power grids, farming operations, and politics with tech as mass migrations happen and wildlife becomes all but extinct outside of human cultivation. Survival skills won’t matter when all land and food scarcity is controlled by a rich few with absolute control. The average survivalist will be wiped out with the first natural disaster or by the feudal lords with drones. Return to nature might only come after 50 years when chip supplies and power grids have dried up and fallen apart, but it would just as likely be mad-max as oil could likely still be used.

    Who knows. Fascism might take over with how it is going now and solve the climate crisis with mass genocide and forcing green energy for all we know.


  • The thing about meshtastic is the walking distance range and limitation to text messages.

    Though I don’t know if it is possible to integrate a LoRAWAN concentrator with a nice collinear J-pole antenna to mount on the top of your house to move to a double digit range where it could be useful as a neighborhood mesh with multiple channels. (With the added benefit of using lorawan devices like pet trackers and things).

    Still Lora smart (but local) home agriculture, water collection, etc… Is a really cool technology for large properties.



  • 321

    Kopia backup to secondary HDD

    • Pictures (phone photos backed up to my server via immich)
    • workspace (git repos, ECAD, MCAD, firmware, etc…)
    • qmk layout
    • Documents
    • vim folder with bundles
    • ebooks

    KDE vaults stores on secondary HDD

    Soon I will set up kopia to also back up every via SSH to my server and then small size essentials and important docs via google drive

    I need to set server cloud backups too, but haven’t had the time…



  • I still have a 5 year old Jabra Elite Active 65t that is still trucking. I had a few glitches starting a year ago like the right earbud dropping in volume or it being stuck in a hung mode where they had to be completely depleted over a few weeks to reset them, they wouldn’t even charge.

    However, they still work fine and are super convenient with hear-through for office work compared to wired IEMs way better for all fitness activities too, just not as good for really listening to music.

    Battery life is still 3-4 hours after 5 years not including the case recharge (the case battery has degraded significantly more than the earbuds themselves, probably due to the high quality VARTA cells in the earbuds)

    I am going to wear them into the ground, but jabra is doing a stock sellout before their new version of buds come out, so I bought the €140 Jabra Elite 4s for €60 for when these bite the dust, but they seem to be going strong still.



  • Sorry, but inflation is a not great reasoning.

    Wages in a lot of the world (especially the US) have been completely left behind by inflation, so many people are paid very similarly to how they were paid in the 2000s. That is the entire driver behind the insane wealth inequality gap.

    Video games are a luxury good, so if you up the price (especially for shitty cranked out AAA games with little replay value and dubious quality) then they will see profits actually fall because so many people will see those games as not worth it. Not to mention that orders of magnitude more people are just struggling to pay rent now with skyrocketing housing prices (corporations switching to housing for investments and buying up all property) and worsening working conditions.

    The reason companies are switching to subscriptions and micro transactions en masse is because they just work, take minimal effort, and make massive profits. They are literally exploiting flaws in the human psyche.

    According to blizzard, 1 single horse skin microtransaction in world of warcraft made more money than all of the sales from the entire game of StarCraft 2: wings of liberty.

    Plus, let’s say all of this was successful in switching the content of games to less exploitative means of earning profits. Do you think developers will be treated better? Do you think shareholders will forgo their worship of yearly increasing profits and treat employers fairly? More likely they would just increase the price and double dip by micro transactions, loot boxes, and battle passes for those precious profits.

    I would love to go back to the better times of games also, but corporate greed prevents it at every turn.