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nereye

228 karma · joined October 27, 2014

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nereye··on Europe built sovereign clouds to escape US control. Forgot about the processors
And ST (with similar considerations for node size etc.).
nereye··on SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format
VBA is just there for backward compatibility.

The modern alternative is to use JavaScript/TypeScript, which makes such solutions cross platform (including MacOs, web etc.):

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/overvie...

nereye··on Fully Featured Audio DSP Firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico
FWIW, this project is entirely digital (audio in: USB, audio out: S/PDIF or I2S).

There are other projects for the Pico which implement S/PDIF in.

In either case, since it is digital, the quality (or lack of) of the internal ADCs should not matter.

nereye··on The APL programming language source code (2012)
A lower cost option is to buy a set of sticker overlays (e.g. similar to the ones you can buy to make it easier to type Korean or Japanese, etc. on a US (or generally, non-native) keyboard).

For example (no affiliation):

https://www.tindie.com/products/russtopia/apl-keyboard-symbo...

nereye··on CIA to Sunset the World Factbook
Over 30 years ago, was working on a presentation software that shipped with a bunch of (vector) clip art and remember using the (raster) graphics from the CIA World Factbook as a base to create vector (WMF) versions of the flags of various ‘new’ countries at the time (following the breakup of Yugoslavia) that were missing from the set that our art vendor provided to us.

The Croatia flag in particular took quite a while to trace/draw (by hand).

nereye··on Apple-1 Computer Prototype Board #0 sold for $2.75M
For folks who are in the area (or might be visiting), the recently opened Interim Computer Museum has quite a collection of vintage systems:

https://icm.museum/?faq

nereye··on Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
Which Seattle library (am assuming you're referring to SPL/Seattle Public Library system) has a maker space?

There is no maker space listed at https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/a-z-programs-and-s....

Within KCLS, there are two public libraries that have maker spaces (AFAIK): Bellevue, Federal Way.

PS this is not meant to be confrontational, would love it if there were more maker spaces in libraries (when have asked in the past, the usual answer is that they do not have enough space for it).

nereye··on Japanese electronics store pleads for old PCs amid ongoing hardware shortage
couple more: Off House (household goods) Garage Off (car stuff)

Also: mode off (fashion).

See https://www.hardoff.co.jp/shop/brand/offhouse/

nereye··on I know you didn't write this
Also, in some countries (e.g. Germany) applications explicitly do not track that information (such as how long a documented was edited) for legal reasons related to privacy laws.
nereye··on EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
[1] “ The Glazer family’s acquisition of Manchester United remains controversial to this day.

Their £790m takeover in the summer of 2005 came by way of a leveraged buyout: when a significant amount of borrowed money is used to fund the acquisition of a company, with the debt secured against that company itself.”

1 - https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/manchester-unit...

nereye··on RPi 500 arrives with mechanical switches, RGB LED backlit keys
The Pi 5 does support OTG mode, e.g. see:

https://www.foxipex.com/2024/10/26/virtual-keyboard-over-usb...

nereye··on Microsoft PowerToys
About PowerToys’ Text Extractor, there’s equivalent functionality in Windows now, from [1]:

It's recommended to use the Snipping Tool instead of the Text Extractor for capturing screenshots.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/text-ext...

nereye··on Trade in War
FWIW, USA buys uranium from Russia, e.g. see: https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2025-06-18/rus...
nereye··on Berry Script: lightweight embedded scripting language for microcontrollers
Adding to the list, DeviceScript, which affords running TypeScript on embedded devices:

https://microsoft.github.io/devicescript/intro

nereye··on Backyard Coffee and Jazz in Kyoto
If you’re in the mood for an almost unbearably moving one, would recommend Nobody Knows.
nereye··on Cray versus Raspberry Pi
The memory in the Cray was external and there are RP2350 boards with 16MB of QSPI flash, here’s one of them:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/RaspberryPi/PICO/PICO2-XXL/o...

nereye··on Cray versus Raspberry Pi
Early 80s (1982), according to Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth

nereye··on Interferometer Device Sees Text from a Mile Away
Applied Science YT channel has an interesting video showing this at work:

Dramatically improve microscope resolution with an LED array and Fourier Ptychography

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KJLWwbs_cQ

nereye··on Show HN: Open-Source Windows AI assistant that uses Word, Excel through COM
See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/overvie....

Note: this is in the context of 'programmatically extending Office/M365', I don't think the OP was referring to COM in general.

COM is at the base of WinRT, which is pretty much _not_ deprecated.

nereye··on Oliver Heaviside and the theory of transmission lines (2021)
Am partial to the following vintage video on transmission lines from Tektronix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9m2w4DgeVk

nereye··on Nanoimprint Lithography Aims to Take on EUV
With exceptions, was reading recently an interesting die analysis/estimate of the costs and margins of manufacturing of the AD9361 chip (a 65nm, digital radio transceiver, introduced 12 years ago and still selling at retail today for $300/$400):

https://zeptobars.com/en/read/AD9361-SDR-Analog-Devices-DAC-...

Relevant quotes (and the current retail price if anything is higher now then when the article was written):

“ Retail price of AD9361 at distributes is 275$, volume price from manufacturer is 175$.

That is quite an impressive added value! For 1,68$ of manufacturing cost we are getting 173,32$ of added value! Even Intel with their x86 or drug cartels could NOT do business like that.”

Of course, the actual margin needs to take into account NRE and other costs (and the above link does get into that) but, in this case, the manufacturing is a tiny sliver of the costs.

nereye··on Liberating Wi-Fi on the ESP32 [video]
From https://octopart.com/search?q=CYW43439&currency=USD&specs=0.

Indeed the lowest price $2.551 from Arrow has a MOQ of 5000 but Newark does have it for a promotional price of $2.73 for quantities as low as 1.

It’s not $2.5 but that’s why it was quoted as ~$2.5 in my reply, since it’s in the ballpark.

nereye··on Liberating Wi-Fi on the ESP32 [video]
The WiFi (& Bluetooth) IC used in the Pi Pico W retails for ~$2.5, and presumably a bit less in volume (considering the Pico W is only $2 more than the base Pi Pico.
nereye··on What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_s...
nereye··on Panasonic Toughbook 40
The barcode scanning in the Libib app (an app to keep track of books) seems quite fast, it is quite addictive to just zap the barcodes and see the book data added to the catalog.

It seems comparable to the laser based scanners used at library checkouts for example.

nereye··on Programming a CH32v003 with light
This would likely have been the Mintronics POV kit (MAKE had a whole series of kits that shipped in an Altoids/mints tin, e.g. the Mintronics survival pack [1], which had a mini breadboard and 60+ components), here is a picture:

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/make-mintronics-blink...

It seems to be based on the Blinky POV:

https://www.wayneandlayne.com/projects/blinky/

A similar idea (transferring data via computer screen) goes back to 1994's Timex Datalink:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Datalink

1 https://makezine.com/article/technology/in-the-maker-shed-mi...

nereye··on Learning about PCI-e: Driver and DMA
The ULX4M boards are not available yet but seem to support both PCIe as well as digital video:

https://kitspace.org/boards/github.com/intergalaktik/ulx4m/

Done by the same team who did the ULX3S.

nereye··on Back to the future: Are hackers the future of amateur radio?
And another one:

https://tait-radio.com/comjot-cj-1/

nereye··on Seattle library network outage nears a month
> I forget if you need to be a Seattle resident to get a card

Any resident of King County* can get an SPL (Seattle Public Library) card, due to a reciprocal agreement between SPL and KCLS (King County Library System).

* with an exception for a couple of towns within KC which are not part of KCLS, from https://www.spl.org/using-the-library/get-started/get-starte...:

"If you live, work, go to school or own property in King County (even outside the city of Seattle) you qualify for a free Seattle Public Library card through our reciprocal agreement with the King County Library System. (The only exceptions are the towns of Hunts Point and Yarrow Point, which are not part of the King County Library System.)".

And indeed, as already mentioned in a sibling comment, most counties have reciprocal agreements with both SPL and other counties' library systems too.

nereye··on I like the RP2040
One example (PIO implemented in Verilog for use in FPGAs):

https://github.com/lawrie/fpga_pio

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