Saigonautica

9 ms·

61.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
This is often the result of consulting an astrologer in Asia for a marriage date, to be fair.
62.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
Years back, there was a CDROM drive I really needed to work at the moment, but it was jammed shut. I could hear it trying to open, and failing. I reasoned that the motor holding it shut had mostly failed in some way, but could still exert
63.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
Interesting! I never thought about this, thank you for sharing. What kind of turn-around time would be practical? Could you point me to any typeset mathematical braille that would be an example of a solution to your problem? Is Nemeth the o
64.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
I've never done this in China, but I've done it in Vietnam (before I learned more of the language) and in Japan. It is surprising how much you can communicate by drawing circuit diagrams, sketches of oscilloscope traces, and equat
65.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
I wonder what would happen next, if we could communicate with whales, and the language ended up having more than 25 words? There are just north of 8 billion humans, and something like 850k sperm whales. If even a relatively small percentage
66.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
Yes please! My wife and I constantly struggle with this kind of thing. When there's just a "name" field that permits some high number of characters, it's fine. Which name is my "first name" or "last name&q
67.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
There's an interesting thing I noticed here (in Vietnam). I live in a small alley and the economics of family growth are interesting. First, real estate is almost always inherited, not purchased over the course of your life (it's
68.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
I immigrated to SE Asia, certainly it was very different. 99% of indoor surfaces (and some outdoor areas too) are tile floors, or polished concrete/granite/terrazio. These are really easy to keep clean by just sweeping for 5 minut
69.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
Yeah, this is the main reason I haven't been to China in a while. It's quite nearby for me, but just too difficult. In principle, I would love to go to Chengdu or Shenzhen, but end up going to Singapore instead because I don'
70.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
Some cheat codes I use when ordering parts from overseas, in case useful: I set postal code to 700000 for HCMC (in theory, we have postal codes defined in VN. We just don't use them). Usually I set province = Hồ Chí Minh City and then
71.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
One of my colleagues' family runs such a tinker shop in rural Vietnam. It's their family business, they have been doing it for some time. Mostly, it involves making simple machines from scrap electric motors sourced from Japan (th
72.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
I got started with AVRs too! It was just before Arduino became well known, so by coincidence I got started with ASM instead of anything C. I still force myself to take a break from work once in a while and hack together something with hand-
73.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
Looking at the first 3 causes they list, that's pretty much my wife and I. I'm an immigrant to Asia, so got my life in reasonable order a bit later than most (picking up and moving across the world will do that). Early marriage in
74.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
I was able to immigrate to Vietnam and set myself up without bribery. I've been here 10 years. Mainly it was a matter of learning how to do the paperwork properly. Some people here pay bribes, others refuse to. I won't claim every
75.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
Most useful thing? Honestly, a lamp that uses a 1W red LED behind a big diffuser. It uses PWM in the MHz range for dimming (so definitely no flicker), and big physical controls. My wife and I both get migraines and being able to set very di
76.
by Saigonautica 3y ago
Here's another test I'd like to run in a few years: Record both conversations, without revealing which is human, and ask strangers which they would prefer to continue talking to. Honestly, I dream up some pretty wildly incorrect s
77.
by Saigonautica 4y ago
Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need -- this is [hu]man.
78.
by Saigonautica 4y ago
I can't say I've seen any evidence for it here (Vietnam) or with my Chinese colleagues. The slack channels are still active very late at night sometimes (e.g. midnight), and I'd classify most people in the workforce as '
79.
by Saigonautica 4y ago
Choosing to be poor seems logically impossible to me. During the time in my life when I was poor, it was characterized by a lack of choices more than anything else. I don't think poverty is a thing that can be chosen, because being p
80.
by Saigonautica 4y ago
I have an Atmel-ICE for embedded systems development, however I was too cheap to buy their cable and case (over 200$ vs 80$ for the raw board). Turns out the board has the SWD header installed backward, and their cable assembly silently rev
81.
by Saigonautica 4y ago
My favorite bug this month was while setting up a development environment with the AVR-ICE. I tried to save some company money by not buying the (optional) case and programming cable assembly -- figured I could just use another not-80$ SWD
82.
by Saigonautica 4y ago
Well, I don't think you could make many paperclips out of me (please don't try though). In this extreme scenario, I suppose I would just have to be a net-paperclip producer at work for a hyperintelligent AI, instead of a net dolla
83.
by Saigonautica 4y ago
Vietnam. The hiring market for programmers isn't as hot as it was say, a year ago. However, none of my colleagues have lot their job and the overall sentiment from people I know is that it's business as usual.