deshipu

deshipu, 24 days ago to random

Remember that automation is not about removing effort, it's all about packaging it in convenient ways so that it can be stored and moved around. Sometimes you get some savings due to bunching up of similar things or economy of scale, but most of the time the perceived savings are simply because the real effort is hidden away or deferred. Whether it's Jacquard looms, language models, github actions, self-driving cars, or robot food delivery, someone is doing (or has done, or will do) the work.

deshipu, 12 days ago to random

I'm still slowly working on improving my homebrew CircuitPython game console. Recently I tackled the problem of screws – they don't work very well with the acrylic case, tend to either be too tight or fall off. So I tried something new: solderable nuts. They can be pick-and-placed and reflowed, and they give you very good way of getting the screws in.

I also experimented with a Xiao S3, but I think that I will switch to an ESP32-S3 WROOM module instead. More testing is required with the S3.

close up of the left side, with the xiao
the whole game console

deshipu, 10 months ago to random

I have insomnia again, and that means I'm designing PCBs again. I decided to move my design for the µGame 22 handheld console from my original design in Fritzing to EasyEDA. Got most of the largest components placed, now I need to find all the caps, resistors, crystal and flash memory, and also redo the power switching and stabilization – those are actually the new things for me.

a 3d rendering of the handheld console pcb
an assembled earlier version of the handheld console

deshipu, 1 month ago to random

Looking at the state of the software industry, I expect to be forcibly brought back from retirement in some 15-20 years from now, if I will even be allowed to retire.

deshipu, 1 month ago to random

Traveling for #PyConUS tomorrow. Bringing some #CircuitPython robots and handhelds with me. Catch me if you want to see them and/or talk about Python on microcontrollers.

fluffy bunny spider robot walking

deshipu, 9 months ago to Electronics

An #electronics question. I have a number of displays that have 0.7mm pitch on their ribbon connector. But searching LCSC, Mouser and Digikey yields no FPC connectors with 0.7mm pitch. There are literally all other pitches, except for 0.7mm. What am I missing? Am I searching wrong? Is this secretly some other pitch? Where and how do I find connectors for those displays?

deshipu, 9 months ago to random

The web browser situation is really the two party system, isn't it? On one hand you have rampant capitalism and exploitation, and on the other extreme incompetence, arrogance, and disregard for users. And both sponsored by the same lobbyists, working to take away control from the users.

deshipu, 19 days ago to random

If you were told to design a programming language that makes it as easy as possible to implement undo functionality for applications written in it, how would you go about it?

deshipu, 19 days ago to random

I got jealous of all those people having ribbons on their badges at conferences, so I decided to make my own, but blinky. There are going to be a bunch of rainbow LEDs behind the text, and a coin battery.

deshipu, 15 days ago to random

Is it just me, or is the eternal ping-pong between personal computing and computing infrastructure speeding up?

deshipu, 20 days ago (edited 19 days ago) to scifi

Translation State by Ann Lecke is very good, as expected. #book #SciFi

deshipu, 4 months ago to random

Contributing to open source projects I increasingly feel like a bee watching a bunch of bears fighting over the honey, trying to not get trampled underfoot, and thinking about how to rebuild at least some of the the stuff that we rely on once the corporations lose interest and move on.

deshipu, 9 months ago to random

I find it very funny how job requirements list things like familiarity with version control systems and knowledge of algorithms, while in my experience running programming workshop the best predictor of a beginner programmer performance is their ability to type on the keyboard. I've seen people bending over backwards using copy-paste and auto-completion and all sort of, frankly ingenious, tricks to avoid having to type the name of a variable, because finding the letters on the keys takes longer.

deshipu, 1 month ago to random

There were no left-handed people in the 14th century. They were just clumsy.

There were no color-blind people in the 18th century. They were just not paying attention.

There were no people with ADHD in the 20th century. They were just lazy.

As the requirements the society puts on us increase, completely new forms of disability are invented.

deshipu, 13 days ago to random

Isn't it funny that in English the end of the queue is where you enter it, and the beginning is where you exit?

deshipu, 1 month ago to random

What if there was a university-developed, EU-sponsored, open source reference implementation of an operating system for consumer devices, and all consumer devices sold in EU had to be compatible with it, in addition to optionally having their own operating system, developed by the manufacturer?

deshipu, 9 months ago to random

Insomnia again, and again designing PCBs. This one is something I wanted to do ever since I saw that round display. It's a kind of badge, with the display acting as the astronaut's helmet, displaying the face. It has accelerometer, so I can do different animations depending on the orientation or motion. Using a xiao module, because I'm too lazy to do a bare chip again. There will be an ER14250 battery acting as a backpack.

front of the PCB, where the display will be, otherwise no components
back of the pcb with the xiao module, display footprint, switch and a battery holder

deshipu, 21 days ago to random

Can we simply just not?

deshipu, 18 days ago to random

Boss battles aren't nearly as exciting in the real world.

deshipu, 11 months ago to random

I'm more and more convinced that a lot of our larger problems stem directly from misplaced sense of loyalty.

We have a large number of organizations, from churches, through academia, guilds, political parties, to corporations, that initially had a very specific goal, but with time mostly spend their resources on maintaining their own status. People who joined them for those goals now stay out of loyalty to the organization, instead of that initial goal.

Seems like a failure mode to me.

deshipu, 22 days ago to random

Can we adjust the intensity of the world down a little bit? Thanks.

deshipu, 17 days ago to random

Does anybody know where I put that laser-cut Arduino quadruped robot I bought from China seven years ago and never did anything with?

deshipu, 8 days ago to random

I spent at least four hours today trying to get a parallel ILI9341 displlay to work with the Lolin S3 Mini board and CircuitPython.

When I got it working 3 years ago with a Pi Pico, I found a couple of things – the resistor you have to move for 8-bit mode, the fact that pins are broken out in reversed order. The usual.

But I have run out of ideas with this board. The logic analyzer captures look correct. The shape of the signal looks correct. The connections all check. Even tried S2 Mini.

a display neatly connected to a lolin s3 mini

deshipu, 10 days ago to random

All those GPUs are doing really is just multiplying matrices. Over and over again. Obviously, there is a lot of duplicated work – they keep multiplying the same matrices they did previously. That's a huge waste of energy.

Someone should just do all those multiplications once, and publish the results, so that everyone can just refer to that instead of wasting the energy repeating the computations uselessly.

Don't @ me.

deshipu, 8 days ago to random

I wrote an update on hackaday.io about my handheld game console: https://hackaday.io/project/178061-pewpew-s2/log/230354-s3