nippoo

8 ms·

31.
by nippoo 8mo ago
A lot of tests are designed as regression prevention. You know the system is working as designed, but what if somebody comes along and changes the Fibonacci function to compute much more efficiently (and, in the process, makes some arithmet
32.
by nippoo 8mo ago
My favourite one of this kind is the Rockchip RK808 RTC, where the engineers thought that November had 31 days, needing a Linux kernel patch to this day that translates between Gregorian and Rockchip calendars (which are gradually diverging
33.
by nippoo 8mo ago
And price. A PY32 is about $0.08 in quantity and can do a lot more than a 555 - which is at least 3 times more expensive...
34.
by nippoo 8mo ago
There's only about 400MJ of energy in each beam, so that's about 110kWh. The beam is dumped a couple of times a day - so it's on the order of a ~10kW continuous source if spread over the whole day. Which isn't nothing, b
35.
by nippoo 8mo ago
By the same ticket, you really also don't want elemental sodium in your ear. Don't let the fact it's commonly found in sodium chloride alongside chlorine (something else you don't want in your pocket!) lull you into a fa
36.
by nippoo 8mo ago
You don't have any programming experience, and yet hold strong opinions on good resources to learn programming? There's some wonderful book recommendations in this thread, but I wouldn't underestimate how much great long-form
37.
by nippoo 8mo ago
eFuses have been a thing forever on almost all MCUs/processors, and aren't some inherently "evil" technology - mostly they're used in manufacturing when you might have the same microcontroller/firmware on separ
38.
by nippoo 9mo ago
This isn't (entirely) new. I did the electronics design for this lamp: https://www.fridotechnologies.com (nb: not affiliated any more, no stake in the business, just a freelancer). The modules and emitters themselves are st
39.
by nippoo 10mo ago
They failed to deliver a Pixel phone to me - they never even tried to deliver it and the status said "permanent delivery failure" so I assumed they'd automatically refund me. Fast forward a few months, I never received a refu
40.
by nippoo 10mo ago
The author (and many others) assume that quality 3D printers are expensive, as a throwaway note in the last sentence. A plastic soldier set is on the order of $20, and collectors will often purchase dozens. A Bambu A1 mini (which is suffici
41.
by nippoo 11mo ago
Preview on Mac does automatic OCR. I'm sure other tools exist that are similarly friction-free on other platforms, but it took me under 5 seconds (drag the image from the webpage into my downloads folder, click on it, and then select t
42.
by nippoo 11mo ago
Notably, the XMOS xcore.ai series of chips have no dedicated hardware peripherals - their 100BASE-TX MAC (as well as UART, SPI, I2C, I2S etc) is entirely software defined. A very different approach to most other microcontrollers: https:&#x
43.
by nippoo 1y ago
Thanks for your great work! I would love to be able to search by processor (eg look for all boards with an iMX95, for example) as well as search for things like audio I/O channels, I2C pins, etc. Super useful website!
44.
by nippoo 1y ago
One of the big things this article fails to mention is that TDP/heat budget is way more of a constraint than number of transistors - at small feature size, silicon is (relatively) cheap, power isn't. There's no way you can us
45.
by nippoo 1y ago
There's a couple of factors at play here. One is that AC suffers from capacitive losses over long distances (high power multi-megawatt underground/undersea cables are often HVDC for this and other reasons). The other more interest
46.
by nippoo 1y ago
Yes! You can indeed do exactly this. Look up CoolBot - they do exactly this, by just heating up the existing thermostat
47.
by nippoo 1y ago
To view all the images properly: https://archive.is/5mdgs
48.
by nippoo 2y ago
Or is this the end of the intrusive, tracking, eyeball-grabbing online advertising industry? Because I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing!
49.
by nippoo 2y ago
Has anyone managed the opposite feat, i.e. made a piece of hardware that can recognise an iPhone over NFC? I'm trying to design control system that relies on you touching your phone to various hardware readers (with some kind of unchan
50.
by nippoo 2y ago
Is hyperfocus a state you want to avoid? In my experience I spend most of my time (as a developer) hoping/trying to induce hyperfocus as that's when I get most productive work done...
51.
by nippoo 2y ago
Yeah, in Europe it's pretty standard to extract wisdom teeth under local anaesthesia only (and perhaps mild sedation). You're pretty lucid throughout. As a (former) neuroscientist I'm a lot more terrified about going under ge
52.
by nippoo 2y ago
As someone who's had several of these artist visas in the past... especially when you're a small band with limited budget and need to get several of these - this is going to be cost-prohibitive for a lot of smaller artists. FWIW,
53.
by nippoo 2y ago
I'm glad you love your career! I found myself getting increasingly unfit, sad, daylight-deprived and in need of doing something - anything! - else that involved me moving my body. (Bandaids like a standing desk or regular breaks or gym
54.
by nippoo 2y ago
You do want to ground it or EMI can come to bite you. If that long bit of wire is left floating it can act like an antenna. (SPST switches exist but they actively chose not to use one)
55.
by nippoo 2y ago
The fun bit here, for those who missed it, is the spot price being negative - ie there's so much solar being generated that industrial consumers are being paid to consume electricity!
56.
by nippoo 3y ago
Slightly unclear what's even being proposed here. One person just takes orders, and the other person makes drinks? Isn't that what happens normally?
57.
by nippoo 3y ago
If any civilian company jammed GPS enough to affect commercial aviation that would be a huge no-no - RF emissions in places like Germany are strictly controlled, even if you're just 'testing'
58.
by nippoo 3y ago
This is an oft-repeated quote which doesn't have any backing to it.
59.
by nippoo 3y ago
The US isn't the only country in the world, either. Starlink has revolutionised communications at sea, in the air, and in countries where "burrowing some fibres" is nigh on impossible.
60.
by nippoo 3y ago
As a non-migraineur (and neuroscientist) I find this absolutely fascinating! It's so wild that these are visual enough to draw.

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