Recent submissions

Comment · 12 days ago
I wonder if one sustainable business model on the "lifestyle" side in the age of commoditized software may be based on long-term support of stable tools. Like, I can cheaply DIY a tool for my needs, but I won't have attention to polish its UX or fix incompatibilities with future API changes; conversely, there might well exist a polished tool for the same task for $5/month subscription that does exactly what I need, but I'd have to take a risk that they won't go bankrupt in half a year or (more likely) "extend" and enshittify the product beyond recognition.

If said tool was sold by a company with reputation for long-term stable support and a track record to match, I'd be willing to consider it. And nowadays such a company may support 100s of small tools, each $10/year or so for which you buy security patches and adaptation to OS/API changes. The problem is, as always, getting the initial fame.

This model appears to exist in music production software, with effect plugins.

Comment · 17 days ago
> You more than likely will probably never need a table saw, jointer

Very much depends on available material. If you do have decent square boards or plan on mostly using thick plywood, then yes, you can make a lot of practical stuff easily with miter saw and an improvised track saw, or just a real track saw. Otherwise, you'll want to have a jointer.

The necessity of a table saw is a controversial topic, a lot of guides position it as the only saw you'll need, and while technically that may be true, it's way less safe and an overkill for simple projects. Also, expensive in both money and space, since this is a tool you definitely don't want the cheapest and smallest version of. So I agree with you here. If I had the current experience, I'd get a decent track saw instead of the miter saw, more versatile.

I'd prioritize a router table made with a basic wired trim router and a cheap adjustable baseplate, with dust extraction.

Comment · 27 days ago
Literally nothing incentivizes real diligent reviews, from what I’ve seen. It’s an unpaid extra work, and the two incentives that are present are (1) maintaining and enhancing your visibility to publishers/organizers, and (2) occasionally getting insights what other groups are up to. Thus, senior researchers typically accept review assignments, but the work is outsourced to the least busy grad student that can produce a diligent-looking review.
Comment · 28 days ago
This. For me it’s insane that the default is “you got the service, we send the bill after, and you’re expected to pay” and not “if I got the service without explicitly agreeing to pay set amount for it (without signs of fraud), it’s your loss for providing it”. Obviously things change for corporate agreements, but then both sides are expected to have lawyers.
Comment · 1 month ago
I read it like “of the land you own, up to x amount is tax exempt”. Which makes perfect sense, and encourages ownership transfer and de-aggregation. Where aggregation of land plots actively increases land use efficiency, that efficiency gain is expected to be large enough to offset the added tax.
Comment · 1 month ago
A book 'The Jakarta Method' by Vincent Bevis is a great exploration of those events and similar cases of deliberate destruction of the independent third world.
Comment · 1 month ago
Get two: typical electronics flush cutters, and mini side cutters from hardware store. Use the latter in most cases, the former only where precision is really needed.
Comment · 1 month ago
I have a FNIRSI 1013D, it has a large display and actually decent, if primitive, touch screen controls. You even can export waveforms in a proprietary but reverse-engineered format. Pleasant device overall, it’s both portable and ok for desktop use.

If you’re doing mostly digital circuits, I’d consider a very basic scope for dealing with power supplies and PWMs (but skip the cheapest single channel ones, you’ll want the second channel very soon), and consider getting a separate logic analyzer that can decode common protocols on several channels. You won’t need that if you just work with popular modules though.

Comment · 2 months ago
also reader on ios interprets it wrong as it picks up the first heading as the article’s title, and that makes me think that it could skip some content as it’s prone to do, so back to poorly readable layout I go.
Comment · 2 months ago
It definitely looks to be one of the better ones. Since many of these products use same generic Chinese platforms, I looked for a similar product on Aliexpress since they have better shipping for me, but didn't find a full analog. Had to use a forwarder to order from Treedix—only to have it shipped in a very roundabout way from China.
Comment · 2 months ago
RAL and Pantone serve different market, at least from my Europe-adjacent POV. Pantone is more used in print and branded sign design (like, colored plastic) as brandbooks typically specify Pantone colors. RAL is more industrial-oriented: it's more constrained but supported by manufacturers of industrial paints and coatings. Like, you buy coated corrugated metal sheets for your roof in RAL, and often can order paints by RAL code in your hardware store.
Comment · 3 months ago
Would be best to have a modular generator for an EV, that would allow slower but practical charging while on the go or at rest. This would be basically a series hybrid with modular generator, not popular due to lower efficiency AFAIU. Just explicitly design for lower performance when battery critically low and is charging on the go.
Comment · 3 months ago
Those are not as good as they seem to be. I once had a g-shock mudmaster, seemingly an absolutely overbuilt thing, and it was resetting randomly in wet conditions. Maybe that could be fixed on warranty and it would work next 50 years flawlessly, but it didn’t inspire any confidence in that brand. They re-positioned themselves as a loud fashion brand, not a tool watch manufacturer.
Comment · 4 months ago
So, they predict that the future is a mix of JLCPCB and AWS Lambda for bio research, with immediately available library of reagents and easily programmable hardware-agnostic experiments.

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