I really liked my Nexus 5 and have enjoyed my Nexus 5X, but the latter is finally showing signs of its age. I'm hoping the Pixel 4A release drops prices for the 3A and I can grab one of those cheap sometime this year. It seemed like a pretty good phone (and continues to get praise here from users who recently got it).
I wasn't gonna get a 3a but my brother did and had a huge discount code for Google store so I also grabbed one and at the price I paid it's a great phone but yeah damn they are pricey
I just used a Pi 0 W to build a little device, but I have a sweet Pi 4 sitting around collecting dust and I have no idea what to do with it. I might make it a home media center and connect it to my TV so I can move videos from my PC/Laptop to the TV.
This is a very good thing to do with a pi and very convenient and easy to set up.
Should be even better with a pi4 with the extra cpu power.
I find a pi is also a nice way to teach yourself basic linux shell navigation and commands.
You could also turn it into a little makeshift NAS with external usb drives. But it won't be as reliable or as big as like a synology box.
So I just noticed the screen on my Pixel 2 is kinda coming away from the body of the phone. A friend said they had issues with the battery swelling, but it doesn't look as serious as the pictures online. Either way, I don't like having the internals of my phone exposed like this. Also, apparently they just had a sale on Pixel 4s. How often do they have that? I'm not spending $700 on a phone again. But I do like the striped down android experience.
The Moto G (maybe any of the Moto lines?) line of phones also are stock Android + like 1 app you can choose to use to utilize the special functions of the device they added.
sort of. All of the moto lines have a relatively light version of android. The Motorola One has actual vanilla Android, basically just like what the Pixel has.
The Octo-Bouncer4:25 https://youtu.be/lYyAMDYzJQM Arduino project with 120 FPS OpenCV image processing and smooth stepper motor moves. The machine calculates the ball's 3D position from the image processing data and uses this information to control the orange ping pong ball.
A big thanks to the people at e-con Systems for supplying me with a superb See3CAM_CU135 camera which I used in this project. Find out more about the camera here: https://www.e-consystems.com/4k-usb-c...
This machine requires the following things to work:
- 1x Teensy 4.0 Microcontroller
- 4x StepperOnline DM442S stepper motor drivers
- 4x Nema 17 Stepper Motors with 5:1 planetary gearbox
- 1x 48V 8A power supply
- 1x e-con Systems See3CAM_CU135 camera
- 1x Windows Computer with OpenCV installed on it
- All the parts defined the Fusion360 project
- Custom Windows Application (made with Unity)
I joyfully unhooked myself from Comcast's infinite bullshit when I left boston, only to find it's the only service provider in my new area (well ... them plus AT&T, but obviously they don't count)
now they're unhelpfully foiling my cunning scheme to give them money by refusing to have a website that loads over a shitty phone connection. The usual stellar service I have come to expect from the company.
edit: seriously I've been doing this (intermittently) for ... an hour and a half. It took me a good 25 minutes just to sign in.
... and now it's booted me out again for taking too long. I'm gonna go find their store and set fire to a modem in front of it.
I joyfully unhooked myself from Comcast's infinite bullshit when I left boston, only to find it's the only service provider in my new area (well ... them plus AT&T, but obviously they don't count)
now they're unhelpfully foiling my cunning scheme to give them money by refusing to have a website that loads over a shitty phone connection. The usual stellar service I have come to expect from the company.
edit: seriously I've been doing this (intermittently) for ... an hour and a half. It took me a good 25 minutes just to sign in.
... and now it's booted me out again for taking too long. I'm gonna go find their store and set fire to a modem in front of it.
Fill up a paper bag with Mable poops and set it on fire on their stoop.
well I went to a coffee shop to scam their wifi and now every time I click on anything it just takes me to a page that says "We're sorry."
which - well, good, but it's not helpful.
well I went to a coffee shop to scam their wifi and now every time I click on anything it just takes me to a page that says "We're sorry."
which - well, good, but it's not helpful.
Everything I hear about US internet service leads me to believe that they not only don't care about customer service, they view it was the moral duty to hate and punish their customers.
My experience with BT was nice. When I moved into my current address, despite being a 20 minute walk from the centre of a MAJOR CITY, GOD DAMBIT, all I could get was basic ADSL because reasons.
Then one day a leafllt from BT came through my letterbox asking if I'd like fibre broadband. I called the number, spoke to a nice lady who was genuinely pleased at the opportunity to upgrade by from 8 (sometimes 8, up to 8, 8 on a good day) mbit ADSL to 68Mbit fibre with a guaranteed 38mbit minimum.
And 4 days later that's what I had. And at peak times, 6-9PM, it does tend towards 38mbit, most of the rest of the time it's 60+. It's been fine.
+7
Options
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
I joyfully unhooked myself from Comcast's infinite bullshit when I left boston, only to find it's the only service provider in my new area (well ... them plus AT&T, but obviously they don't count)
now they're unhelpfully foiling my cunning scheme to give them money by refusing to have a website that loads over a shitty phone connection. The usual stellar service I have come to expect from the company.
edit: seriously I've been doing this (intermittently) for ... an hour and a half. It took me a good 25 minutes just to sign in.
... and now it's booted me out again for taking too long. I'm gonna go find their store and set fire to a modem in front of it.
If you're in an apartment building see if you can get hooked up with Monkeybrains.
Looks cool, but I'm in a big apartment building so they'd have to organise it with the management company first. I'll keep an eye out for availability when my 12 month intro rate ends though.
Before I got this Pixel 2, I had a Motorola, and I really liked it. Camera sucked balls, though. Has that changed in the past couple of years?
Motorola's cameras have been ... inconsistent. The Turbo had great cameras, the Moto line did not at first, but the Z line has MotoMods that you can get better camera adapters for.
I'd be curious to see how the Motorola One compares
Looks cool, but I'm in a big apartment building so they'd have to organise it with the management company first. I'll keep an eye out for availability when my 12 month intro rate ends though.
Also check with the building front office. It took them 3 months to tell me I could get gig fiber for $50 a month because the provider wasn't very organized.
Looks cool, but I'm in a big apartment building so they'd have to organise it with the management company first. I'll keep an eye out for availability when my 12 month intro rate ends though.
Also check with the building front office. It took them 3 months to tell me I could get gig fiber for $50 a month because the provider wasn't very organized.
I'll ask them, they did kind of mention some ISP names casually when I signed the lease, but I foolishly believed I'd be able to access that info elsewhere and it turns out maybe not.
That said, my internet requirements are extremely low, so usually I'm just looking for the cheapest possible option.
"Hello, John Internet? Can you get me a product that lets me access Ess Ee Plus Plus, reuters and instagram (for my food pics, of course) and nothing else at all? Thank you in advance."
+3
Options
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Nah, you need them fat pipes around here. Maniacs don't even respect the NSF56k these days.
hahahaha oh shit
i was browsing amazon for large anti-static dissipative mats for soldering/electrical assembly and I found one which looked like it was much larger than the commonly available options. Awesome!
... turns out I just added "Universal Earthing Mat. For Grounded Foot Therapy, Potential EMF and ESD Protection, Reduce Inflammation, Sleep Assist and Helps with Anxiety" to my wish list.
also the reviews are fucking bonkers.
I don't know whether my favourite is the people complaining it doesn't have a wall plug, or the one that says "It's NOT a mat, you will FALL OFF IT"
I joyfully unhooked myself from Comcast's infinite bullshit when I left boston, only to find it's the only service provider in my new area (well ... them plus AT&T, but obviously they don't count)
now they're unhelpfully foiling my cunning scheme to give them money by refusing to have a website that loads over a shitty phone connection. The usual stellar service I have come to expect from the company.
edit: seriously I've been doing this (intermittently) for ... an hour and a half. It took me a good 25 minutes just to sign in.
... and now it's booted me out again for taking too long. I'm gonna go find their store and set fire to a modem in front of it.
If you're in an apartment building see if you can get hooked up with Monkeybrains.
If that doesn't work you can try Eyeball Soup or Snake Surprise
You do need to connect them to electrical ground, so the people complaining about the lack of wall plug weren't totally insane (I just loved the idea of plugging a bit of carbon into a wall and then standing on it for a while). Basically they get rid of any built up static charge on non-grounded surfaces, which otherwise can theoretically damage small or sensitive electronics. Two layer mats have a carbon layer on the bottom and a rubber (static dissipative) layer on top which can be optionally connected to the carbon layer to dissipate any buildup, single layer mats are just highly conductive.
(Personally I just want a nice looking bit of rubber to put over my workbench so I don't burn holes in it, but that's surprisingly hard to google).
CPUで焼肉してみた！ BBQ on AMD CPU (Meatsink)6:26 https://youtu.be/zAEXuONMJCQ AMDのCPUで焼肉しました。北海道産の黒毛和牛です。
この時代のCPUは簡単に死ななくていいですね。
今回の焼肉プレートはPhenom II X4 970 Black Editionです。
前使ってたPhenom II X4は焼け死にました。
how do electrostatic discharge mats work anyway? do they just... ground you, somehow? Do they have a high attractiveness to static charge?
At a high level:
A static charge is just a difference in electric potential between two surfaces (e.g. your hand and the doorknob), mediated by a non-conductive medium (e.g. the air). If the potential is high enough, and the distance is short enough, a small arc will form, and for a brief moment of time, the air will be conductive enough to equalize the electric potential between your hand and the doorknob. As a bonus, you get a nice zappy zappy feeling that'll really wake you up in the morning.
The mat is conductive, and needs to be connected to a ground (e.g. the ground pin on a three prong plug) to do its job. Why is the mat conductive? The mat is conductive so that whatever it's touching will be brought to the same potential as the ground, which means something resting on the mat will be grounded if the mat is grounded (assuming the thing resting on the mat is conductive). So how you would use a conductive mat is to ground it (typically there's a loop that's intended to go around the ground pin of something you have plugged in). The mat will typically also have a wrist band you can attach that will serve to ground you. Since you and the thing that's on the mat have the same potential, there's no electric charge, and no static discharge. If, however, you bring something with a large potential relative to the ground, you can still get an electric shock. So, for example, if you have a grounded mat and are not grounded, if you shuffle your feet on the carpet, you can give yourself a shock simply by touching the mat.
There's quite a bit I'm glossing over here--there's a reason lab space is expensive, and factory space for delicate electronics is even more expensive--but that hopefully gives you the idea.
ah I didn't know you had to connect them to a ground, that explains it. Are they much more effective at neutralizing your static charge than something like just touching a grounded metal pipe before working on your circuity things?
0
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
ah I didn't know you had to connect them to a ground, that explains it. Are they much more effective at neutralizing your static charge than something like just touching a grounded metal pipe before working on your circuity things?
It gives you greater assurance that there will be a minimum of potential built up between your circuity things (which will be grounded by the mat) and you (which will also be grounded by the mat via the wrist strap). If you're just touching a grounded metal pipe before working on, e.g. your motherboard, there's no guarantee the motherboard itself is at ground (edit: though it probably is if you had it plugged in just a moment ago). And once you stop touching the pipe, you may begin accumulating charge yourself, especially if you're working on carpet. The amount is likely small, and if you don't touch anything important, it's not likely to be a problem as a consumer if you aren't doing things like touching pins or what-have-you. But it is risk.
If you're truly paranoid, there's charge dissipating fans and humidifiers/dehumidifiers you can use as well. But for most folks, just grounding themselves before working on stuff is adequate. If you're doing delicate electronics repair regularly, a proper grounded mat and strap are invaluable. Using a microscope you can actually see pits where the static discharge has blasted craters in chips from static discharge that you may not even feel.
Looks cool, but I'm in a big apartment building so they'd have to organise it with the management company first. I'll keep an eye out for availability when my 12 month intro rate ends though.
Also check with the building front office. It took them 3 months to tell me I could get gig fiber for $50 a month because the provider wasn't very organized.
I'll ask them, they did kind of mention some ISP names casually when I signed the lease, but I foolishly believed I'd be able to access that info elsewhere and it turns out maybe not.
That said, my internet requirements are extremely low, so usually I'm just looking for the cheapest possible option.
We were in the Essex, if that helps. The company that does a bunch there is webpass (now Google fiber webpass)
I stopped by the Goodwill behind my office building on my way back from lunch, and there weren't any finds as nice as that HP monitor I found a few month back, I did stumble across a Thermaltake CPU cooler for socket 370 motherboards. That's the Pentium III socket.
How did you end up at this Goodwill in 2020, little heatsink?
There was also a fairly basic CRT TV with fake woodgrain paneling that I almost grabbed, but I think I'm going to hold out and buy a nice CRT computer monitor for my retro gaming needs.
0
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
I joyfully unhooked myself from Comcast's infinite bullshit when I left boston, only to find it's the only service provider in my new area (well ... them plus AT&T, but obviously they don't count)
now they're unhelpfully foiling my cunning scheme to give them money by refusing to have a website that loads over a shitty phone connection. The usual stellar service I have come to expect from the company.
edit: seriously I've been doing this (intermittently) for ... an hour and a half. It took me a good 25 minutes just to sign in.
... and now it's booted me out again for taking too long. I'm gonna go find their store and set fire to a modem in front of it.
Might not be relevant to you since it's an apartment complex, but if you do have access to AT&T's fiber it is legit. I switched to it from spectrum a few months ago and I'm really impressed with the internet. I got a ton of promotional shit for the next three years too.
Trying to help my father reformat his computer. Go to put W10 on my USB. Reformats the USB. Trying to get the files back. Spent $70 on this monthly subscription and now I'm reading elsewhere that it doesn't always work as advertised. Really looking forward to fighting about a refund for this.
photos and video kill me. Especially now having a kid.
My 128gb phone fills up really quick, although about 40gb is just music.
I only have 1 game, dungeon warfare, which is pretty small. I prob have to dump all the vids/photos every 2-3 months.
Dixon on
+1
Options
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
Anyone got a suggestion for an external bluray drive? I don't actually need it to write discs well or even at all. Just something simple and possibly cheap I can plug into various computers at home and watch movies/tv shows on disc.
Anyone got a suggestion for an external bluray drive? I don't actually need it to write discs well or even at all. Just something simple and possibly cheap I can plug into various computers at home and watch movies/tv shows on disc.
I think you still have to pony up and buy a program that will play the blu-rays. Unlike DVD the software license isn't baked into the device, so you'd have to install the software on each device and use it to play them instead of whatever your preferred playback method is.
Posts
spoilered for big
Especially up here in Canada. :sad:
This is a very good thing to do with a pi and very convenient and easy to set up.
Should be even better with a pi4 with the extra cpu power.
I find a pi is also a nice way to teach yourself basic linux shell navigation and commands.
You could also turn it into a little makeshift NAS with external usb drives. But it won't be as reliable or as big as like a synology box.
sort of. All of the moto lines have a relatively light version of android. The Motorola One has actual vanilla Android, basically just like what the Pixel has.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Arduino project with 120 FPS OpenCV image processing and smooth stepper motor moves. The machine calculates the ball's 3D position from the image processing data and uses this information to control the orange ping pong ball.
A big thanks to the people at e-con Systems for supplying me with a superb See3CAM_CU135 camera which I used in this project. Find out more about the camera here:
https://www.e-consystems.com/4k-usb-c...
This machine requires the following things to work:
- 1x Teensy 4.0 Microcontroller
- 4x StepperOnline DM442S stepper motor drivers
- 4x Nema 17 Stepper Motors with 5:1 planetary gearbox
- 1x 48V 8A power supply
- 1x e-con Systems See3CAM_CU135 camera
- 1x Windows Computer with OpenCV installed on it
- All the parts defined the Fusion360 project
- Custom Windows Application (made with Unity)
Read more here:
https://electrondust.com/2020/03/02/t...
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
now they're unhelpfully foiling my cunning scheme to give them money by refusing to have a website that loads over a shitty phone connection. The usual stellar service I have come to expect from the company.
edit: seriously I've been doing this (intermittently) for ... an hour and a half. It took me a good 25 minutes just to sign in.
... and now it's booted me out again for taking too long. I'm gonna go find their store and set fire to a modem in front of it.
Fill up a paper bag with Mable poops and set it on fire on their stoop.
which - well, good, but it's not helpful.
Everything I hear about US internet service leads me to believe that they not only don't care about customer service, they view it was the moral duty to hate and punish their customers.
My experience with BT was nice. When I moved into my current address, despite being a 20 minute walk from the centre of a MAJOR CITY, GOD DAMBIT, all I could get was basic ADSL because reasons.
Then one day a leafllt from BT came through my letterbox asking if I'd like fibre broadband. I called the number, spoke to a nice lady who was genuinely pleased at the opportunity to upgrade by from 8 (sometimes 8, up to 8, 8 on a good day) mbit ADSL to 68Mbit fibre with a guaranteed 38mbit minimum.
And 4 days later that's what I had. And at peak times, 6-9PM, it does tend towards 38mbit, most of the rest of the time it's 60+. It's been fine.
If you're in an apartment building see if you can get hooked up with Monkeybrains.
Motorola's cameras have been ... inconsistent. The Turbo had great cameras, the Moto line did not at first, but the Z line has MotoMods that you can get better camera adapters for.
I'd be curious to see how the Motorola One compares
Also check with the building front office. It took them 3 months to tell me I could get gig fiber for $50 a month because the provider wasn't very organized.
I'll ask them, they did kind of mention some ISP names casually when I signed the lease, but I foolishly believed I'd be able to access that info elsewhere and it turns out maybe not.
That said, my internet requirements are extremely low, so usually I'm just looking for the cheapest possible option.
i was browsing amazon for large anti-static dissipative mats for soldering/electrical assembly and I found one which looked like it was much larger than the commonly available options. Awesome!
... turns out I just added "Universal Earthing Mat. For Grounded Foot Therapy, Potential EMF and ESD Protection, Reduce Inflammation, Sleep Assist and Helps with Anxiety" to my wish list.
also the reviews are fucking bonkers.
I don't know whether my favourite is the people complaining it doesn't have a wall plug, or the one that says "It's NOT a mat, you will FALL OFF IT"
If that doesn't work you can try Eyeball Soup or Snake Surprise
(Personally I just want a nice looking bit of rubber to put over my workbench so I don't burn holes in it, but that's surprisingly hard to google).
AMDのCPUで焼肉しました。北海道産の黒毛和牛です。
この時代のCPUは簡単に死ななくていいですね。
今回の焼肉プレートはPhenom II X4 970 Black Editionです。
前使ってたPhenom II X4は焼け死にました。
CPU焼肉以外にも何かリクエストありましたら、コメントからどうぞ。
☆自作PCで色々遊んでます。よろしくお願いします！☆
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
At a high level:
A static charge is just a difference in electric potential between two surfaces (e.g. your hand and the doorknob), mediated by a non-conductive medium (e.g. the air). If the potential is high enough, and the distance is short enough, a small arc will form, and for a brief moment of time, the air will be conductive enough to equalize the electric potential between your hand and the doorknob. As a bonus, you get a nice zappy zappy feeling that'll really wake you up in the morning.
The mat is conductive, and needs to be connected to a ground (e.g. the ground pin on a three prong plug) to do its job. Why is the mat conductive? The mat is conductive so that whatever it's touching will be brought to the same potential as the ground, which means something resting on the mat will be grounded if the mat is grounded (assuming the thing resting on the mat is conductive). So how you would use a conductive mat is to ground it (typically there's a loop that's intended to go around the ground pin of something you have plugged in). The mat will typically also have a wrist band you can attach that will serve to ground you. Since you and the thing that's on the mat have the same potential, there's no electric charge, and no static discharge. If, however, you bring something with a large potential relative to the ground, you can still get an electric shock. So, for example, if you have a grounded mat and are not grounded, if you shuffle your feet on the carpet, you can give yourself a shock simply by touching the mat.
There's quite a bit I'm glossing over here--there's a reason lab space is expensive, and factory space for delicate electronics is even more expensive--but that hopefully gives you the idea.
It gives you greater assurance that there will be a minimum of potential built up between your circuity things (which will be grounded by the mat) and you (which will also be grounded by the mat via the wrist strap). If you're just touching a grounded metal pipe before working on, e.g. your motherboard, there's no guarantee the motherboard itself is at ground (edit: though it probably is if you had it plugged in just a moment ago). And once you stop touching the pipe, you may begin accumulating charge yourself, especially if you're working on carpet. The amount is likely small, and if you don't touch anything important, it's not likely to be a problem as a consumer if you aren't doing things like touching pins or what-have-you. But it is risk.
If you're truly paranoid, there's charge dissipating fans and humidifiers/dehumidifiers you can use as well. But for most folks, just grounding themselves before working on stuff is adequate. If you're doing delicate electronics repair regularly, a proper grounded mat and strap are invaluable. Using a microscope you can actually see pits where the static discharge has blasted craters in chips from static discharge that you may not even feel.
We were in the Essex, if that helps. The company that does a bunch there is webpass (now Google fiber webpass)
Light Phone II
How did you end up at this Goodwill in 2020, little heatsink?
There was also a fairly basic CRT TV with fake woodgrain paneling that I almost grabbed, but I think I'm going to hold out and buy a nice CRT computer monitor for my retro gaming needs.
Might not be relevant to you since it's an apartment complex, but if you do have access to AT&T's fiber it is legit. I switched to it from spectrum a few months ago and I'm really impressed with the internet. I got a ton of promotional shit for the next three years too.
What kills me about the Light phones:
Here's a stripped-down device that purposely does less than a smartphone. Okay, that could be useful!
Also, it costs just as much as a regular ass phone. 😒
Yeah, I saw the price and laughed. You can get a year or 2 old top of the line cell for that.
Now this might be something I can get behind, if it comes out reasonably soon. Big if with what is going on with China.
Marques should probably remote start his car for the next week or so.
Damn, only 64GB?
Trying to help my father reformat his computer. Go to put W10 on my USB. Reformats the USB. Trying to get the files back. Spent $70 on this monthly subscription and now I'm reading elsewhere that it doesn't always work as advertised. Really looking forward to fighting about a refund for this.
My 128gb phone fills up really quick, although about 40gb is just music.
I only have 1 game, dungeon warfare, which is pretty small. I prob have to dump all the vids/photos every 2-3 months.
I think you still have to pony up and buy a program that will play the blu-rays. Unlike DVD the software license isn't baked into the device, so you'd have to install the software on each device and use it to play them instead of whatever your preferred playback method is.