farkanoid

That seems a bit harsh. I have two rescue parrots that live in large cages (indoors). I let them out every night when I get home from work, and they're given plenty of toys and material (including native blooms) to interact with every day while I'm gone.

I buy a couple of pinewood storage crates for them to play in and destroy every month. I also spend over half an hour every morning cleaning all their food and water containers, and cooking them breakfast (sweet potato, corn, fresh apple, assorted greens), I don't even make myself breakfast!

If you have anything to hide you have nothing to fear, eh?

Former Mossad Chief Yosi Cohen bragged about having booby trapped and otherwise compromised devices in pretty much every country. [1]

[1] https://the307.substack.com/p/former-mossad-chief-brags-that...

Well, you sure showed me.

I did. There's long term patent cross-licensing agreements between the two companies. Motorola mobility may be a separate company now, but they didn't start from scratch.

Not sure how I feel about this. Motorola seems to be the exclusive provider of encrypted cellular networks and associated devices to the Israeli military [1][2].

I'm under the impression that basebands still require a proprietary/binary blob, basically rendering the security features of the underlying Open Source OS useless, since it sits between the user and outside connectivity.

How can GrapheneOS ensure that there are no hidden backdoors (ie: Pegasus-like spyware, which was created by ex-IDF soldiers via NSO Group), etc, in the baseband?

[1] https://www.whoprofits.org/companies/company/3808

[2] https://www.motorolasolutions.com/newsroom/press-releases/mo...

Hi, sorry I missed your reply - Unfortunately it's a proprietary design, the vendor provides the firmware, I do all the schematic capture / PCB layout.

Good luck though!

Somewhat related - I've been working on a design using Nordic's NRF52840 SOC for work; Intensely focusing for the past few weeks on antenna tuning for maximum BLE range.

Part of the testing involves using the 'nRF Connect' app, which lists all nearby Bluetooth devices, plots signal strengths, and allows for some rudimentary communication. It doesn't seem to be Nordic-specific.

I'd frequently leave the app open scanning during development late in the evening, and rarely, an unidentified Bluetooth LE device would pop up for a few minutes then disappear.

Turns out it was my dad's pacemaker, which sends telemetry via Bluetooth to a 4G gateway they gave him (this only happens after he lies down with little movement apparently).

This prompted me to look into pacemakers and deactivation after death of course. I wish I hadn't, it turns out they leave it in the corpse unless it's scheduled for cremation.

Because of the aforementioned research, and the open field tests I was performing, it somehow devolved into me having a nightmare where I was RF testing at a graveyard, and the app suddenly displaying a bunch of pacemakers underground.

...I really hope this isn't possible - The signal through 6ft of dirt and concrete would be marginal but still detectable.

~$320USD each at ALLPCB with a MOQ of 5 for their standard 32-layer stackup, but that doesn't include the blind vias. Probably close to $400?

Would you happen to be the "what the god damn shit is this fuck" Brian Benchoff of benchoffisms[1] fame?

[1] https://hackaday.io/project/7986-benchoffisms

It's basically French for GB (Go = Gigaoctet)

Schematic and PCB design relating to Lighting and Control Systems for my main job. Schematics and PCB Design after hours as a contractor too, because I have a daughter now, my wife can't work, and life has become /very/ expensive in Sydney.

What I'd love to be working on: Try to initiate a high voltage arc through the air to a target device, and modulate it to send "Data over Lightning", like Alyx does in Half-Life 2. It won't work the way it does in the game, but I'd it's an idea I've had for a long time and I'd love to prototype it some day.

Critical information for those that aren't aware: MLCC capacitance decreases with applied DC voltage, like, a whole fucking lot. [1]

Those 10uF/100V/X7R/1210 capacitors you love for your space constrained designs might only be 1uF at 48V. And it gets worse when choosing smaller package sizes.

This caught me completely off-guard. I've always thought an MLCC with a reasonable Dielectric at a given Capacitance would perform at least as well as an Electrolytic or Tantalum (minus fire hazards).

[1] (PDF) https://www.digikey.com/Site/Global/Layouts/DownloadPdf.ashx...

It's not uncommon in Tartus, but far less common in Homs and Dimashq. Oddly enough it's usually Sunni husband and 'x' wife.

For example we have Sunni/Shia, Sunni/Druz, Sunni/Christian and most recently Sunni/Alawite in our extended family, all from Tartus.

Our relatives from Homs/Dimashq are almost exclusively Sunni, religious, and tend to marry from their own sect and even city.

There are irreconcilable differences between (for example) Sunnis and Shiites that would usually prevent marriage if the husband is 'stricter' in faith, not to mention the rift caused during family gatherings by the politics behind each sect (ie: Alawites are generally pro-Assad, Shiites are usually pro Hezbollah, Sunnis are usually against both)

Edit: This is obviously a gross oversimplification, basically less religeous more intermixing.

Honestly, my Sunni relatives from Tartus, Homs and Dimashq are elated. My alawite and druz relatives from Tartus and Latakia are almost distraught.

There is a massive disparity between the treatment of Alawites/Shiites/Druz and Sunnis in Syria (Re: employment opportunities, etc)

I've always heard horror stories about starvation and torture from my father (Sunni) who served over a decade in Hafiz Assads military, as well as constant fear of the "Mukhabaraat" (government informants), leading to huge amounts of self-censorship when speaking on the phone or in public.

My alawite/druz relatives are generally well off and would tell me "eh, it wasn't so bad", despite having the same informant fears and self-censoring

Having a similar experience with our first child this week. Almost a full day of labour only to have a c-section at the very end due to complications.

Even the c-section seemed absolutly brutal, at one point I was convinced one of the surgeons placed his foot on the table for leverage, given how much movement there was to her body.

As if the physical trauma wasn't enough, being in a room with multiple first-time parents struggling to breastfeed as both they and their children cried, then being visited and probed every hour by medical staff with ineffective pain relief, /and/ having work out how to care for your child when the only communication path is basically through an amplitude modulated scream -

Honestly, I've had some low points in my life, I thought I had a high tolerance for physical and emotional pain, but I can only describe what my wife experienced this week as total, crushing anguish.

Doesn't seem limited to GE Microwaves! My wife uses a cheap Kmart house-brand microwave for waxwork that does the exact same thing.

I have another in the kitchen (Panasonic NNCD997) that has an interlock system which blows the primary fuse if a) The door is open and b) The magnetron is currently active.

Unfortunately, with this model, the incandescent bulb dying kills the inverter PCB.

Edit: The service/repair manual[1] for the Panasonic is an interesting read, if anyone is interested

[1] http://up.orificeworks.com/nn-cd997s_cd987w.pdf

I wish. 10 years imprisonment and $150k~$470k fine for growing Tobacco in Australia! [1]

[1] https://www.ato.gov.au/about-ato/tax-avoidance/the-fight-aga...

Quoting Michael Nyqvist playing Viggo in John Wick: "I once saw him kill three men in a bar... with a pencil, with a fucking pencil."

I can't believe these renderings were created /with a fucking pencil/

Just wanted to say that I really appreciate the SMD marking database link you posted a while back.

SPARCPlug is such a great name for it too!

This somehow reminded me of the "Access A1200"; A complete and upgraded Amiga 1200 clone that fit in a 5.25" floppy drive bay [1]

I remember the Amiga community absolutely frothing over it a couple of decades ago (myself included). It makes me sad that I can't find any info about it anymore, except for the Soft3 page advertising used versions on the Internet Archive.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20030421150743/http://www.soft3....

I'm disproportionately enraged by this.

I remember this! I'm glad someone else does too.

I often wonder the same about the technology used in a mysterious video that appeared on youtube about 15 years ago titled "Laser Induced Plasma Channel".

It appears to be an area denial weapon that uses femtosecond lasers to guide electric arcs across a hallway (think a metre-long ridiculously straight Taser discharge).

The video had no description and comments on it were never answered - it was recently removed by the uploader, but there seems to be a reupload on DailyMotion[1] from 9 years ago.

[1] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31ovvi

My wife's IPhone 12 Pro Max had the same problem.

She somehow managed to fill up the entire 512GB. Updates were unsuccessful, she couldn't make calls and wasn't able to delete anything to make room.

She couldn't even back up her phone through iTunes, the only option was to purchase an iCloud subscription and back up to the cloud in order to access her photos.

I felt physical pain looking at that sequence of eleven characters.

Hello, I have a 10+ year old MFC-9335CDW and a ~1 year old MFC-L3760CDW laser, so far no issues with DRM - I buy the aftermarket cartridges from InkStation[1], but they seem to be just generic rebrands

The label printers are 5+ year old QL-500 (x 3) and a ~3 month old QL-810W (x 2 at he office). I really hope they're not taking the DRM route for future models!

[1] https://www.inkstation.com.au/brother-mfcl3760cdw-toner-cart...

I have a couple of Brother Laser Printers at home, as well as several Brother Label Printers at work - Haven't had any issues to date. All work great under both Windows and Linux.

I've used both genuine and aftermarket Toner for the Lasers and the same for the Label printers without issue.

For label printers, avoid Dymo like the plague. They stopped Linux support and now include bidirectional RFID chips in their label spools to lock out after-market supplies. The remaining label count is decremented on the chip as you print.

PicKit2 and MPLAB8 made MCU programming a pleasure. Everything was so damn snappy and responsive. Feels as though everything went downhill with the advent of PicKit3 and MPLABX.

Edit: The site only exists on the wayback machine now, but there was a hate page [1] for the PicKit3 posted on Dave Jones' twitter some time ago

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20180423225612/http://www.fuckit...

I'm ashamed to admit that I spent more time highlighting random snippets of text than I did reading the article.