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ansible

5,567 karma · joined October 5, 2010

Software and hardware engineer.
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ansible··on PCBs, copper pours, ground planes, and you
If you don't need components on the bottom side, it saves money to not do so. That means the board doesn't need to go through another pass on the SMT machine.

Even if a board is double-sided, it is common to avoid putting major ICs on both sides, unless the space constraints are severe. Often, people will only put passive components on the bottom side.

ansible··on Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers
> `... they did invest in Uber, but also have many bad investments.`

The one I really don't get is that they funded Adam Neumann's new company after the collapse of WeWork. How stupid do you have to be to give that guy any more money?

ansible··on Trailbase: Fast, single-file, open-source app server built using Rust and SQLite
You can insert arguments into an SQL statement with the (?1) style syntax. See the example here:

https://docs.rs/rusqlite/latest/rusqlite/

ansible··on Greenwich: an experiment in collaborative links
Well, that would be an awkward DM to write. "Hello, you invited me to the website, but I don't actually know who you are."

Modern problems...

ansible··on Greenwich: an experiment in collaborative links
You can look on your user page, or search for your username on the user tree page.
ansible··on I've built a city, now it needs residents
I requested an invite from a guy I have only known via Reddit, we've never met IRL.
ansible··on Greenwich: an experiment in collaborative links
That is basically the idea behind https://lobste.rs/ . There's approximately zero spam or other bad behavior.

You can look at the full user tree (https://lobste.rs/users) and see if there's anyone you know who might be willing to invite you to join.

ansible··on A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines
Why do you want to stick your opinion into something that you hadn't previously known about? What are you going to positively contribute to the discussion that will move things forward? How does that help?
ansible··on The gigantic and unregulated power plants in the cloud
The high-voltage side should be separated from the electronics, so it shouldn't be dangerous if you are observant.

It may be sufficient to just disconnect the antennas from the WiFi module, that will help prevent any network connections.

ansible··on Bit-banging a BASIC Birthday
This is an interesting and fun project, I was glad to read about it.

It was a bit of a bold move to base this on a Model I. That system had an unreliable expansion interface, limited memory options, and emitted a lot of EM interference.

ansible··on One man's quest to restore the first-ever Air Force One
The museum has "Columbine III" (a slightly newer Super Constellation), which was also used by Eisenhower. It was delivered to them soon after it was retired in 1966.

https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact...

I saw this plane decades ago when it was in an auxiliary hanger, before being moved to its present location. It was in decent shape then (you were allowed to walk through it), and hasn't spent decades sitting outside.

Obviously, Columbine III is not in flyable condition, and will likely never fly again.

ansible··on I turned an old phone into a NAS
Yes. The ARM Chromebooks suffer from long term support issues just like phones. Qualcomm and the other chip vendors will only support a given chip for a few years, and then that's it.

For x86-64, the peripherals are mostly standard, with the sometimes exception of suspend / resume support. So a regular Linux distro will often just work with little tweaking required.

ansible··on I turned an old phone into a NAS
You can do this sort of thing easily with an old Chromebook as well. You can re-flash the BIOS from https://mrchromebox.tech, and then install a standard Linux distro on it. You can use an SD card or USB drive for additional storage.

Look around and see what you've got laying around!

ansible··on No Salt
There's a lot of quackery around these days, especially with regard to tech and finance.

There's quite of bit of quackery just with nutritional supplements, too. And people and companies try to bypass the FDA all the time with fake cures, the COVID-19 epidemic was just the latest version of that.

The FDA is over-zealous with their testing requirements. However, without them we will see an explosion of fake cures for everything. The legitimate pharma companies will lose money, or otherwise start cutting a lot of corners in the pursuit of profit.

We need something like the FDA to keep things in check.

ansible··on Rhombus: Macro-extensible language with conventional syntax built on Racket
> Syntax highlighting code visible on the screen

That... does not work in most programming languages. Especially so for showing indent levels correctly. Generally speaking, the language server (or whatever) is parsing the entire file.

ansible··on Rhombus: Macro-extensible language with conventional syntax built on Racket
> If I start parsing from an arbitrary offset in the code, ...

Why would you ever do that? What's the point?

There are many other examples, but in C and C++, if you don't start parsing at the beginning, you're definitely going to get many things wrong. What if you start parsing in the middle of an identifier? How can you possibly expect to get something useful from that?

ansible··on Open Source Farming Robot
It doesn't really look like it can handle weather or ordinary dirt getting into the belt drive and rails. Automating the watering isn't hard with existing technology. if it can't remove weeds, I don't see what's the point.
ansible··on Rotation curves: still flat after a million light-years
I also don't know why MOND remains so popular.

Angela Collier talks about Dark Matter here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbmJkMhmrVI

And talks more about how often MOND is brought up in comments on her own video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS34oV-jv_A

ansible··on Mouth-based touchpad enables people living with paralysis to use computers
At least one company I know of (though this was 15 years ago) had ridiculously high prices for their products. But they had extensive after-sales support, and the warranty was such that you could basically run over the unit with a car, and they'd still repair / replace it under warranty for free.
ansible··on How Alexa dropped the ball on being the top conversational system
Huh, interesting.

I've never used our Alexa for shopping. If I said something like "Alexa, buy more filters", even being very clever and looking at my order history, it would still get something wrong. And then I'd need to use another device to actually make the order.

While it seems to work fine on the speech recognition part, in that Alexa understands the words I say, it never seemed good enough to actually navigate a task like ordering the right kind of filter.

I knew there was some behind-the-scenes scripting going on, but I didn't realize just how much...

We mostly use our Alexa for kitchen timers, reminders, and video calls with family. Occasionally for playing music too. No, I don't want to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited.

ansible··on The danger of the mediocre success when testing startup hypotheses (2023)
> Having a corporate job is usually a 'mediocre success'.

Eh, that is doing OK to me, which is better than some nebulous "mediocre success". If you are at least saving for retirement, and able to support a family, that's actual success in my book.

The typical startup outcome, where you try for a couple years, it fails, and then you move on to a corporate job is not terrible.

What's really bad is when you make enough to just barely get by, paying yourself a sub-market-rate salary, and keep limping along for a long while. Waiting for that "success", that big breakthrough, "just around the corner". You can be stuck doing this for years, out of a misguided sense of loyalty, determination or whatever. And then you are not saving for retirement, and letting the best family-creation years (if that is a life goal) pass you by.

That, to me is "mediocre success".

Ask me how I know. On second though, no, don't ask me how I know.

ansible··on OpenBSD Desktop
So of course I have to ask...

What version of NFS are you running, and are you disallowing the older versions?

How are you handling user accounts? LDAP, Samba PDC (which is also LDAP), something else?

ansible··on 40 years later, a game for the ZX Spectrum will be again broadcast over FM radio
Without knowing the specifics of that platform, it is likely that the BASIC interpreter was not fast enough to generate the desired effects and animations.
ansible··on LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops
Generally speaking, layout for modern DRAM (LPDDRx, etc.) is a giant pain. Trace width, differential trace length matching, spacing, number of vias, and more.

And all this is needed even though the DRAM signaling standard has extensive measurement and analysis of the traces built right into the hardware of the DRAM and the memory controller on the processor. They negotiate the speed and latency at runtime.

Giant pain.

ansible··on We've been put in the vibe space
> And on Whatsapp, I want to talk to people on Whatsapp directly, without a chatbot in the middle.

They're doing this with Skype too. It annoys me. I have a list of business contacts, and that's all I use it for. My friends are elsewhere. I don't want to talk about the weather or politics. I have specific people to talk or chat with for specific topics.

Microsoft, you are already trying to be my friend via Bing and whatever that is built right into Windows 11 already.

Rant finished. I guess I understand why they do that. If I only used Skype, and no other Microsoft products, how else would I discover all the wonderful experiences I could have with an LLM?

And change is inevitable, and how much money do I give Microsoft for this particular service to stay the same, etc., etc., etc..

ansible··on Goodyear Inflatoplane
Mustard did a video on this.

Nebula (subscription required): https://nebula.tv/videos/mustard-escape-in-an-inflatable-air...

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ-4uWwQ5HA

ansible··on Hitting every branch on the way down
Didn't you guys have filesystem backups of a shared git repository?

This is exactly what backups are for.

ansible··on Cheyenne Super Computer Auction
I presume no one is building new motherboards for those processors either. While there is old stock laying around, you really need to run those systems close to as-is for them to be useful.
ansible··on Cheyenne Super Computer Auction
It is playing on the psychology of the bidders. You want the bidders to be invested, to want to win the auction. To compete to win the prize.

Also, consider this: if the reserve is too high, and no one bids on it, then everyone looking at it is going to wonder what it is really worth. If there are several other bidders, then that gives reassurance to the rest for the price they each are bidding.

ansible··on Flying Aircraft Carriers (2019)
Yes, the notion of an airship as aircraft carrier was really only viable for a short time when aircraft engine technology wasn't good enough for high-altitude flight.

With the incorporation of superchargers and turbochargers in aircraft engines (and an overall increase in power), this drastically increased the altitude limits for propeller aircraft.

When the airships could still fly higher than aircraft, that reduced their vulnerability to direct attack.

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