Thank you! I went through a few iterations before arriving at this 🙂

Haven't been here in a while... I've taken a break from tech hobbies and just opened an Etsy shop. First listing? A Kumihimo disk that I designed for making friendship bracelets. underproofed.etsy.com/listing/4418...

My sign which reads: "NO kings, NO fascists, NO nazis. Stop rewinding our timeline". At the bottom there is a picture of a rewind icon with a "no" symbol on top. There is also a picture of Miss Minutes holding up her hand to say stop, with a frown on her face.

A view of the No Kings Day protest in Ann Arbor, MI. This perspective is at the top of the 4th Street parking garage. Protesters fill the street in front of the federal building. Many of the protesters are outside the view of this picture.

No Kings Day in Ann Arbor, MI #nokingsday

It genuinely feels like the last decade has been less about "using tech to solve user problems" and more "using tech to extract sellable information" which is... just not what tech is *for.*
It's the rot that is "businesses exist to maximize shareholder profits" fully hollowing out innovation.

A screenshot of a Google Gemini response to a Google search. It reads: "The Honda CB300R's monthly payment can vary significantly based on factors like the loan amount, interest rate, and loan term. For example, a loan of $2,46,256 at 10% interest for 3 years might have a monthly payment of approximately $7,492. However, the specific monthly payment for a Honda CB300R would depend on individual circumstances and financing options."

So I'm generally not in love with google's automatic AI responses but this one was particularly unhinged.

Thanks for giving this great example of a $2,46,256 loan principal amount.

Screenshot of a Forbes article with the headline "Samsung's smart refrigerators ramp up screens everywhere push"

Oh thanks, I really needed another clue that this timeline is cursed and I'm living in a dystopia

(P.S. The headline leaves out the part about how 'screens everywhere' will incorporate AI 🙄)

www.forbes.com/sites/paulla...

NY style cheese pizza sitting on a cooling rack

NY style pizza cut into slices on a tray. Most of the slices are sprinkled with fresh basil.

Three trays of NY style pizza slices with various toppings. Some cheese, some pepperoni, and some with mushroom, onion, bell pepper, and olives

I like to make pizza. I started making Neopolitan pizzas after getting an outdoor oven a year ago. Then I learned how to make Detroit style. Now I've been trying my hand at NY-style. Friday is pizza night at our house 😁

Wonder if Elon could survive a week on the salary we make. While he burns through $8 million a day, the working class struggles—yet he paints us as the enemy.

There is no 4th branch of government (in the US) called ELon Musk (paid for by maddogpac.com) Billboard on I95

To America’s 2.3 million federal employees:

Don’t accept a buyout.

Neither Musk nor even Trump has the legal authority to make such an offer.

And even if they did, would you trust them to follow through on it?

Sincerely,
Robert Reich
Former U.S.Secretary of Labor

OligarchyExpress

A picture of my manual espresso machine being used. A cup is partially full of espresso. A pressure gauge reads about 7.5 bar.

As time wears on, I'm increasingly disenchanted with technology in my life. I just got a manual espresso maker and I love it. It is slow, yes. But when I hand grind the beans and manually force water through the grounds, it awakens all of my senses. I really appreciate that. Easy ≠ good.

Found a 2.7mm thin Neopixel strip with a silicone coating and decided to cram as many rows as would fit ( turned out to be 5) onto a headband. Added a #Pixelblaze Pico controller and an off the shelf holder for an AA-sized Li-Ion battery. I intend to be "light headed" for the holidays!

If you're paying attention and haven't stopped by now, I'm not sure there's much hope

An inpiring article which captures some of the thoughts I've been wrestling with over the past few years. Tech used to be exciting to me but I'm developing a deeper appreciation for the social implications, and it's scary.

Check out the comments for a non-paywalled link.

A Google doorbell notification message that reads "low device temperature, this device may have reduced battery life if the temperature is very cold"

Ah yes, my annual reminder that Google hardware was designed to be used in the bay area. Can't wait to see this notification again and again over the next few months.

Perhaps I should remove my doorbell and mount it inside the house?

enamel wire bodging an IC dead-bug style to a circuit board due to incorrectly designed footprints.

This was one of my most popular tweets, I think mostly due to the clear macro photo I took.

Footprint was P0.5mm vs 0.65mm. So IC couldn't be soldered down. I was able to bodge existing boards in 1-2hrs.
While my friend spent 10min on the redesign (+waiting a week for mfg/ship).

This weekend I was able to more-or-less recreate my original electric prism code with MicroBlocks. Video attached!

There are two different moving rainbow modes and a white light mode. A short tap on the touch pad changes modes, and a long drag across the slider adjusts brightness.

I applaud your creativity and I kind of want to try this. If you shared this on reddit someone's brain would literally explode.

BTW, I also converted the Rigol DS1054Z #picoCAD model into papercraft! ✂️📄

If you want to try and make it, you can get the files here: www.arturo182.me/ds1054z_pape...

Me holding the test board in front of my computer monitor. The LEDs on the board are lit up in a rainbow pattern.

The MicroBlocks code blocks that I used to run the LEDs in a scrolling rainbow pattern, and read two touch pads, and filter the touch pad signals.

A chart showing the filtered touch pad signals. Peaks in the signal indicate the time periods when I'm pressing the touch pads.

Day 2 of messing around with MicroBlocks on my Pi Pico project. Have added some rainbow action to my LEDs, and managed to get capacitance sensing touch pads working with a recursive filter to smooth the signal. I'm really liking this, @microblocks.bsky.social

Thanks for the advice. I usually stick to stable releases, however, I installed the pilot on my computer and it is working well. It also fixes an issue with Pi Pico firmware installation that was giving me problems on the stable release.

That's awesome. Metal lathes are super handy to have around. I miss working in an office where I could use one.

Ah, yes, I wasn't thinking about that. Yeah, that's becoming a real problem.

Bad USB cables are like a dried out marker. Throw them away or they will live to frustrate you another day!

A picture of a bodged together PCB with neo pixels being driven by a raspberry pi pico. The device is held in front of a laptop screen which displays the MicroBlocks code that is being run on the board.

Hey @microblocks.bsky.social thanks for following me! You inspired me to pick up my old pi pico project and install MicroBlocks on it. I had a little trouble getting started but now that it's up and running I must say that I'm impressed.

This is super cool and a very thoughtful gift. I bet they will appreciate it!

That is... very reasonable

Well, did you answer them? lol

It's good to see you here! I followed you hoping you might show back up some day.