Okay, I think I've reached a stopping point for this #projects. (Are they ever really done?) Rigged up the necessary cabling hooking it to my 100 watt portable solar panel that I made a while ago and got it tidied up. Even if I use it only intermittently for powering the #aredn node, if we have a power outage, it will at least be capable of recharging phones and provide some basic LED lighting. I learned a bunch and may do a larger version at some point.
Mark VandeWettering 📻🔭👾
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Technical Director for Pixar Animation. Programmer, Patent Holder, Telescope Maker. Woodworkers. Licensed as Amateur Extra K6HX, enjoying the combination of nerdy electronic and technical skills that amateur radio requires. On an AREDN kick lately...
Okay, it's not a perfect #projects but it's functional. I have a Harbor Freight ammo box containing a 12v 6A LiFePo4 battery, a solar charge controller, and the necessary 12->24V upconverter with a POE injector. It powers a TPLink CPE210 (or 510) over the POE port, and can run it for hours (haven't timed it) with a charge, and can be hooked to a solar panel with a SAE adapter to recharge. If I do it again, I'll probably make it bigger and with more capabilities, but it's good for a first try
A couple of days ago, I noticed that my 1Gbps nominal Comcast service was down to ~90Mbps. I spent an hour with them on their automated chat, and then did a couple of things, and it bouced back up to closer to 900Mbps. But then, this morning, it has slipped back down to sub 100Mbps again. Sigh. And they reset my cable modem out of bridge mode. Anyone have any experience with this?
PwnallthethingsOne thing that's getting a little lost in this mix, is that some of the people desperately holding on at Twitter are because they are trapped by either healthcare or visas.
That there are systemic traps that trap workers in America so they feel unable to move freely to new employers who want them and would have better pay or conditions is *nuts* and deserves a lot more attention than it gets.
So, this morning I woke up about an hour ahead of my alarm. I don't always get a lot of sleep, so I tried to go back to it, but it was hopeless. For some reason, I'm thinking about my upcoming work anniversary. I passed 30 years working for Pixar/Disney, and so will get new bit of hardware to accompany Buzz, Woody, this Martian, and Tinkerbell. I started thinking about how I could summarize my career. This is not something you should attempt before coffee.
Chris TrottierThe biggest problem of the Internet today: everything depends on a network effect owned by someone else.
Usually, that "someone else" is a giant tech company.
Your options for building the network effect are:
1. Google
2. Big Social
3. Email
If I don't want to use someone else's network effect, I will have effectively siloed myself.
And this isn't why we use the Internet, is it?
After all, we're here to build connections.
In years past, I made a study of blackjack and other casino games. I still find it interesting, but haven't kept up with it. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221019-how-a-magician-mathematician-revealed-a-casino-loophole reveals some new twists I hadn't heard of before.
Bruce Schneier has a new book which is on my list: https://www.schneier.com/books/a-hackers-mind/
A Hacker's Mind - Schneier on Security
A Hacker’s Mind How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back A Book by Bruce Schneier It’s not just computers—hacking is everywhere. Legendary cybersecurity expert and New York Times best-selling author Bruce Schneier reveals how using a hacker’s mindset can change how you think about your life and the world. A hack is any means of subverting a system’s rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn’t computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them “loopholes.” We call exploits “tax avoidance strategies.” And there is an entire industry of “black hat” hackers intent on finding exploitable loopholes in the tax code. We call them accountants and tax attorneys...
Matt BlazeI capture mostly urban landscapes, primarily in high resolution black and white or IR (with a Phase One system). This means I have an annoyingly slow working style, involving lots of fussy adjustments.
I'll occasionally share photos here, but I'll try not to overdo it; thanks for indulging me when I do. Many of my photos (at full resolution) are on flickr at https://flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/, or on walls in various places.
Hmm. Pondering another radio #projects. A while ago, I setup a https://tinygs.com/ system, using a very crufty home made Moxon antenna aimed up at the sky, made from some copper wire zip tied to a piece of cardboard. That wasn't weatherproof, and according to my VNA, it also was pretty far off in frequency. Thinking of experimenting with some copper tape attached to a piece of lucite.