brad

@brad@posiwid.net

electrical engineer, synth designer, ham radio operator. alt of @kr4dio@mastodon.radio
websitehttps://posiwid.net
pronounshe/him
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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

Travis County decided my house is worth about 4x market value, so I get to spend several hours this morning waiting for them to show up for my "scheduled" protest hearing.

Photo of the Travis County Central Appraisal District building with blue sky in the background

Alt...Photo of the Travis County Central Appraisal District building with blue sky in the background

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

The neighbors' falling-down shack finally fell all the way down. The kids and I were doing crafts when we heard a loud crash outside. The building was about 10ft from our property line. Before pic is from last summer.

Small house missing a couple of walls, leaning precariously

Alt...Small house missing a couple of walls, leaning precariously

Pile of construction debris

Alt...Pile of construction debris

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

Back home in Austin, and our sage bush correctly predicted this morning's rain

Texas sage bush with pink-purple flowers in front of a blue sky with wispy white clouds

Alt...Texas sage bush with pink-purple flowers in front of a blue sky with wispy white clouds

requiem 🏴 »
@requiem@hackers.town

It bums me out that the links to almost every project listed on sites like @hackaday are to YouTube videos instead of real websites.

I know some people like watching videos but it’s a terrible format for the sort of random access reads that documentation is used for and we all know that YouTube is a terrible archival store (not to mention that the ads make the videos unwatchable).

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

Weekend project! Arduino based eprom programmer: https://github.com/walhi/arduino_eprom27_programmer

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

While playing with my kids at Jinjiang Action Park (锦江乐园) earlier this week, I had a sudden rush of memories from my first time there in 2002-03. At the time, I still carried a paper pocket dictionary everywhere, but my Chinese had gotten good enough that I was able to make friends with people who didn't speak English. A couple of my "local" friends, S and X, wanted to check out this huge new ferris wheel that had just opened up. We walked around the outer wall of the park until we found a some construction debris we could use to climb over, then just hopped the wall. I don't remember what the ferris wheel cost, but it seemed expensive at the time, so S talked an attendant into letting us ride for free. They say the wheel is going to be torn down later this year.

photo of an amusement park with merry go round and ferris wheel

Alt...photo of an amusement park with merry go round and ferris wheel

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

Bluetooth audio has been broken on my Ubuntu Macbook since the upgrade to 24.04, but I finally got around to seriously looking for a solution today. After quite a few useless stackoverflow comments, I found the answer. Turns out it was as simple as blacklisting the snd_soc_avs module: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pipewire/+bug/2063150

Ed W8EMV »
@w8emv@mastodon.radio

Reading "The United Fruit Company and Early Radio Development" (Drale, 2010) with interest, about the history of the Tropical Radio and Telegraph Company - later TRT Telecommunications.

Commercial radio transmitters and shipboard equipment to support the banana trade, and then a transition over the years into the international telecommunications business.

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

@w8emv@mastodon.radio Sounds interesting. Do you happen to have a link to the PDF?

N3VEM »
@N3VEM@mastodon.radio

Mini duck-pond leak test!

As long as it checks out, I’ll be building a retaining wall around it, and backfilling with gravel and river stones, so that the ducks that are coming later this summer will have a nice place to splash around.

A watering trough turned duck pond with waterfall. Landscaping isn’t yet done, so you can see the infrastructure, plumbing, pump, etc.

Alt...A watering trough turned duck pond with waterfall. Landscaping isn’t yet done, so you can see the infrastructure, plumbing, pump, etc.

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N3VEM »
@N3VEM@mastodon.radio

And because kids are kids….

A small child in the unfinished duck pond.

Alt...A small child in the unfinished duck pond.

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Graham McIntire »
@kivrak@hachyderm.io

@N3VEM ducks are rough on things, kiddo is just doing some quality assurance!

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

It's apparently a real word, but my brain independently invented the term eco-brutalist when I saw the 1000 Trees building looming over Suzhou Creek this afternoon

Photo of a large building with towering concrete planters beside a river

Alt...Photo of a large building with towering concrete planters beside a river

Photo of a large building with towering concrete planters

Alt...Photo of a large building with towering concrete planters

Photo of a large building with towering concrete planters

Alt...Photo of a large building with towering concrete planters

Photo of a large building with towering concrete planters covered in scaffolding beside another highrise

Alt...Photo of a large building with towering concrete planters covered in scaffolding beside another highrise

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

I feel fortunate to have had the chance to see a collection of Roman Verostko works in person at MUD Gallery in Shanghai. He was a great pioneer of generative and plotter art.

Artwork by Roman Verostko, colorful lines, thick black line

Alt...Artwork by Roman Verostko, colorful lines, thick black line

Artwork by Roman Verostko, colorful lines, thick black line

Alt...Artwork by Roman Verostko, colorful lines, thick black line

requiem 🏴 »
@requiem@hackers.town

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

Uspol [SENSITIVE CONTENT]@requiem@hackers.town I'm not an infosec expert, but I don't see how the US government can monitor or limit what software people run on their own computers, as the first paragraph of the article implies.

The article goes on to say that Kaspersky is banned from providing software to US users, which I guess is possible to enforce to a certain extent.

I'm in Shanghai right now, seamlessly using a VPN to access blocked content (including the linked article), so I'm a little skeptical.

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Francis 🏴‍☠️ Gulotta »
@reconbot@toot.cafe

Uspol [SENSITIVE CONTENT]

@brad @requiem yea but you probably don’t need a soc2 audit

ripper, haunting a castle »
@ripper@chaos.social

Is there a way to change the default font for component identifiers in KiCad?
I'm asking because I need a professional looking PCB at work and it's quite some work to manually change every label to Comic Sans.

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

@ripper@chaos.social select all, edit menu, edit text and graphics properties

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ripper, haunting a castle »
@ripper@chaos.social

@brad thanks! That's perfect and something I can do on every PCB once the parts are placed! :)

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

@ripper@chaos.social If you have a lot of PCBs to change, it's possible to use a regex in your language of choice to modify the file directly

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

I took a little walk around Fengjing Ancient Town (枫泾古镇) on the outskirts of Shanghai this morning

old Chinese buildings along a canal

Alt...old Chinese buildings along a canal

Matt W1CDN »
@W1CDN@mastodon.radio

Thinking about getting a . Should I get an RG535V? I am familiar with gamedad.club but figured I'd ask around.

Mostly thinking about N64-era games, but open to others.

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

The park by the National Palace Museum is pretty nice

zig-zag bridge over a pond with koi

Alt...zig-zag bridge over a pond with koi

zig-zag bridge over a pond with koi

Alt...zig-zag bridge over a pond with koi

view of park with pond and pavilion

Alt...view of park with pond and pavilion

tropical trees with lots of air roots

Alt...tropical trees with lots of air roots

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

Sunny morning in Taipei

View over the rooftops of Taipei with Taipei 101 skyscraper and mountains in the background

Alt...View over the rooftops of Taipei with Taipei 101 skyscraper and mountains in the background

View over the rooftops of Taipei

Alt...View over the rooftops of Taipei

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

We're on our way to Shanghai (via Seattle and Taipei)

Airplane at gate with jetway attached and Delta baggage trolley

Alt...Airplane at gate with jetway attached and Delta baggage trolley

brad boosted

Paris Marx »
@parismarx@mastodon.online

Farmers in Bastrop, TX were hopeful when Elon Musk bought land nearby, but now he’s turning the area into “an environmentally hazardous industrial park.” Authorities won’t do anything because they’re understaffed and “intimidated by their powerful new neighbor.”

texasmonthly.com/news-politics

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paulrickards »
@paulrickards@mastodon.social

What was your first modem? Mine was a 300 baud VICMODEM for my Commodore VIC-20 which included a type in terminal program in the user guide.

You had to manually dial the number with the phone, unplug the coil cable from the handset when you heard the carrier, and plug it into the modem!

Photo of the right corner of push button phone, the top left corner of a Commodore VIC-20 at the bottom, and a brown and silver VICMODEM cartridge plugged into the back of it. A telephone coil cable was removed from the handset and plugged into the modem.

Alt...Photo of the right corner of push button phone, the top left corner of a Commodore VIC-20 at the bottom, and a brown and silver VICMODEM cartridge plugged into the back of it. A telephone coil cable was removed from the handset and plugged into the modem.

Page 7 from the VICMODEM manual as follows.

The following computer program is for use with the VIC 20. This is a third method of turning your VIC into a terminal. You may type this into the computer and then start it by typing "run", those of you learning to program may find some of the routines interesting! For your convenience, we have provided an explanation of the listing.

Terminal Software for the VIC

100 OPEN 5,2,3,CHR$(6)
110 DIM F%(255), T%6(255)
200 FOR J=32 TO 64: T%(J) =J: NEXT
210 T%(13)=13: T%(20)=8: RV=18: CT=0
220 FOR J=65 TO 90: K=J+32: T%(J)=K: NEXT
230 FOR J=91 TO 95: T%(J)=J: NEXT
240 FOR J=193 TO 218: K=J-128: T%(J)=K: NEXT
250 T%(146)=16: T%(133)=16
260 FOR J=0 TO 255
270 K=T%(J)
280 IF K<>0 THEN F%(K)=J: F%(K+128)=J
290 NEXT
300 PRINT " "CHR$(147)
310 GET#5,A$
320 IF A$="" OR ST <> THEN 360
330 PRINT " "CHR$(157); CHR$(F%(ASC(A$)));
340 IF F%(ASC(A$)) =34 THEN POKE 212,0
350 GOTO 310
360 PRINT CHR$(RV)" "CHR$(157); CHR$(146);: GET A$
370 IF A$< >" " THEN PRINT#5,CHR$(T%(ASC(A$)):
380 CT=CT+1
390 IF CT=8 THEN CT=0: RV=164-RV
400 IF (PEEK(37151) AND 64)=1 THEN 400
410 GOTO 310
NOTE: Insert a space between the quotes in program lines 300, 330 and 360. Do not put a space in the quotes in line 320.
TIP. Once you have typed the above program into your computer, save it on your tape or disk for future reference or use.

Alt...Page 7 from the VICMODEM manual as follows. The following computer program is for use with the VIC 20. This is a third method of turning your VIC into a terminal. You may type this into the computer and then start it by typing "run", those of you learning to program may find some of the routines interesting! For your convenience, we have provided an explanation of the listing. Terminal Software for the VIC 100 OPEN 5,2,3,CHR$(6) 110 DIM F%(255), T%6(255) 200 FOR J=32 TO 64: T%(J) =J: NEXT 210 T%(13)=13: T%(20)=8: RV=18: CT=0 220 FOR J=65 TO 90: K=J+32: T%(J)=K: NEXT 230 FOR J=91 TO 95: T%(J)=J: NEXT 240 FOR J=193 TO 218: K=J-128: T%(J)=K: NEXT 250 T%(146)=16: T%(133)=16 260 FOR J=0 TO 255 270 K=T%(J) 280 IF K<>0 THEN F%(K)=J: F%(K+128)=J 290 NEXT 300 PRINT " "CHR$(147) 310 GET#5,A$ 320 IF A$="" OR ST <> THEN 360 330 PRINT " "CHR$(157); CHR$(F%(ASC(A$))); 340 IF F%(ASC(A$)) =34 THEN POKE 212,0 350 GOTO 310 360 PRINT CHR$(RV)" "CHR$(157); CHR$(146);: GET A$ 370 IF A$< >" " THEN PRINT#5,CHR$(T%(ASC(A$)): 380 CT=CT+1 390 IF CT=8 THEN CT=0: RV=164-RV 400 IF (PEEK(37151) AND 64)=1 THEN 400 410 GOTO 310 NOTE: Insert a space between the quotes in program lines 300, 330 and 360. Do not put a space in the quotes in line 320. TIP. Once you have typed the above program into your computer, save it on your tape or disk for future reference or use.

Screenshot of a VIC-20 being displayed on a CRT monitor with light blue border and white foreground showing a partial BASIC listing of the terminal software from the VICMODEM manual. See next photo for full BASIC listing in alt text.

Alt...Screenshot of a VIC-20 being displayed on a CRT monitor with light blue border and white foreground showing a partial BASIC listing of the terminal software from the VICMODEM manual. See next photo for full BASIC listing in alt text.

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Eric Furst »
@ef1j@post.lurk.org

@paulrickards I wasn’t allowed to get a modem. 😭 I did borrow a 1200 baud one from work the summer of 92. I guess that was my first.

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paulrickards »
@paulrickards@mastodon.social

@ef1j Aww bummer! At least you got a chance to go ⭐️ online ⭐️

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Eric Furst »
@ef1j@post.lurk.org

@paulrickards Oh… Usenet, ftp, gopher, etc. had me plenty busy in 91 at school! No modem tho’… we had token ring in our dorm. 💾 🕺💣

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paulrickards »
@paulrickards@mastodon.social

@ef1j Ahhh the good stuff!

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

@paulrickards@mastodon.social I didn't have a modem for my VIC20 or C64 when I was a kid, but I happen to have one of those VICmodem cartridge near the top of my retro computing project pile. I was thinking about sticking an esp32 serial-wifi thing in the case.

VICModem cartridge, Hamtext VIC-20 cartridge, and serial port cartridge for HP85 on top of a TRS-80 pen plotter

Alt...VICModem cartridge, Hamtext VIC-20 cartridge, and serial port cartridge for HP85 on top of a TRS-80 pen plotter

vga256 »
@vga256@dialup.cafe

@paulrickards my first was a generic internal 2400 baud modem in our family’s IBM PS/1. downloading my first file via xmodem from a local bbs was a shocking moment. “i can… just download games and programs for … free? over a phone line?”

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paulrickards »
@paulrickards@mastodon.social

@vga256 Yes! Isn’t it amazing that computers screaming at each other over the phone gave us games!? 😆

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vga256 »
@vga256@dialup.cafe

@paulrickards 😅 i honestly have lost that excitement since broadband became ubiquitous. it’s such a special feeling

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paulrickards »
@paulrickards@mastodon.social

@vga256 Yeah, computers were whimsical then.

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

There's been a lot of talk about enshittification lately, and this Baffler article is a really good look at the history of SaaS: https://thebaffler.com/latest/spreadsheet-assassins-king

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brad »
@brad@posiwid.net

The boys and I hiked down to the bottom of our hill this afternoon

Two boys facing away from the camera, climbing up a rocky hill with sparse vegetation under a blue sky

Alt...Two boys facing away from the camera, climbing up a rocky hill with sparse vegetation under a blue sky

Two boys facing away from the camera, walking down a rocky hill with sparse vegetation under a blue sky

Alt...Two boys facing away from the camera, walking down a rocky hill with sparse vegetation under a blue sky

History