TIL: 1.27mm hex-head keying exists. This being distinct from 1.3mm.
I have a driver that is, turns out, 1.27mm, and our Tangara screws are currently 1.3mm. I have been gradually fucking up the sockets in the screws with my 1.27mm bit.
1.27mm is... [drum roll] 0.05 inches. FUCKING IMPERIAL DOES IT AGAIN
@buzzyrobin if I ever become responsible for writing datasheets I'm going to design parts with dimensions like 25.4mil and 50.8mil to really throw people off.
[thinks a bit]
actually I think computers have been shit for a long time, and I much prefer computing of the present.
I think the only reason I enjoy retro tech is that it’s like medieval reenactment; I can have my fun, but then pack my gear and go back to my microcontrollers, a laptop with 3D modelling and video playing, and a desktop PC with a kinda-old VR headset that lets me fucking fly convincingly-real planes. I don’t have to go back to leeches and uploading files via cPanel or whatever.
There’s a bunch of proprietary shit baked into computing these days, and tightening lock-in, but I feel like the possibilities for escaping that are a lot better too.
I mostly think in terms of hardware; computing power (that something like the mnt pocket reform is even possible and hand-assemble-able still makes me :U), storage (I can host jellyfin and a pile of media in a lil box), and connectivity (a friend and I dreamed of a multiplayer x-wing game in primary school; look at XWAU now), …
Further explainers on the MiniBrute replacement cheeks I posted pictures of earlier:
I used a plane to do the sloping nose bit (shaded in pencil, pic 1), then coarse sandpaper on a sanding block at an angle to get a flat surface to use the plane again to make the big 45° chamfer (shaded in pencil, pic 2+3) on that now-smaller nose.
I chiseled out the inset rabbet (??? the step the bottom metal panel fits in) first by scoring with a knife (to reduce tear-out), the using a mallet + chisel to take half of the amount out, then half again, then rotating the piece 90° to come at it from the side, then using the (resharpened) chisel directly to clean up the edges, rotating it a couple more times. I’m very new at this kind of thing, and I’m not happy with my edges, but it’s good enough for now.
Oh! I fucked something up while chiseling. I went too far, and took a chunk out between the front of the piece and the inset cut-out. PVA + clamping sorted it out.
(Then I did it again. Oops. Oh well, I don’t think it’s visible.)
do you like reading a listing full of "the wall plug can break off the main body of the charger exposing the internal wires" and "the power bank may overheat and catch fire" for Comsol and Keji products?
@buzzyrobin because of how they process knowledge, the robots don't know that unless they're presented with a great many specific examples of it. honestly they're pretty crummy robots, it's kind of pathetic that they're inevitably going to defeat us
update: my mini screen didn’t work for the Debian installer, so I used its TTS mode and stumbled through the install steps (I would anti-recommend doing complicated partitioning schemes this way 😰)
One downside: I went to test my little HDMI screen, but the M625q is 'only' DisplayPort; guess someone didn't wanna pay the licence fee. 💁♀️
Serious question: the port is marked as DP++, but I can find nothing that'll tell me what version of DisplayPort this is (an accordingly whether I need to buy an active DP-to-HDMI adapter or if I can get away with a passive one). The box is an M625q 10UY ThinkCentre. Uh. Help? 😅