Notices by 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account (thorthenorseman@octodon.social), page 29

You can't design an electronic circuit without including a ROFL resistor.

You can't design an electronic circuit without including the ROFL resistor.

Every instrument you've ever heard, including the human voice, is an oscillator in a resonant cavity.

Stereo circuits: I have to do everything twice? All right.

5.1 circuits: I have to do everything 6 times? Sheeeeet!

I think that, with my "new simplified appetite", I could probably subsist exclusively on oat cookies, tortilla chips, cream cheese and Mountain Dew and be perfectly content, and this frightens me somewhat.

I think that, with my "new simplified appetite", I could probably subsist exclusively on oatmeal cookies, tortilla chips, cream cheese and Mountain Dew and be perfectly content, and this frightens me somewhat.

I used to be heavily into various forms of restaurant and take-away food, but my appetite has changed after surgery. I still mostly like the same flavours, but I'm more often content with bland foods, like chicken and corn wrapped in a tortilla without other ingredients or, say, oatmeal and a banana, or a roastbeef and pickle sandwich. I have also replaced margarine/mayonnaise with cream cheese, and I rarely toast my bread anymore.

@Ricardus That's his biggest weakness, but also what makes him less dangerous than he otherwise would be. Imagine a smart, disciplined guy working toward Donald Trump's goals. Hitler was reasonably intelligent, verbally gifted and charismatic, and that made him incredibly dangerous. If Trump is a cobra, Hitler was a cobra that could fly.

It wouldn't be that hard for a person with a garage or other spare room to store at least a few hundred types of Chinese parts. Neither would it be very hard to set up a site where people list which parts they have for sale. I mean, if I could take the bus to pick up the parts I need, or get them mailed to me in an envelope, and they only cost a little bit more than ordering them from China, I'd gladly do that.

I think we need a system for sharing what we know about Chinese electronics parts. Lists of suppliers, data sheets, translations, information that was left out of the data sheets, etc. Also, nobody seems to stock Chinese parts in Europe and the United States. For some stupid reason, it's cheaper to ship a part from China to Europe than to ship it from Germany to anther European country. That's ridiculous. We need a distribution network.

You thus end up with a situation where a few large global companies hold the competitive edge, together with an underforest of minor Chinese players, who gain access to this information through osmosis. Any small Chinese player can launch an attractive product using the latest chips at a relatively low risk, while players in the US and Europe struggle to fund their often inferior products on Kickstarter and the like, only to get outcompeted by a low-effort Chinese clone of their product.

IMHO, the Chinese seem to possess all the infrastructure, technology and know-how required to design the products that consumers find attractive. A good deal of it originated with large American and Japanese corporations who outsourced their manufacturing to China, and these companies have full access to the Chinese ecosystem, while individuals and small businesses in the US and Europe do not.

They don't seem keen to share information on the Internet, and most electronics engineers from the west just kind of shrug if you ask them questions about these components.

If try to use parts that were designed in Europe or the United States, the price goes up considerably, and the design is no longer cost-effective. Also, in a lot of cases, you won't even find equivalent parts, because the products they are used in are all designed in China.

Data sheets for Chinese electronics components are rather sparse on details. They're so sparse that I'm not sure how they manage to incorporate their components in their designs. I suspect that Chinese engineers either do a lot of prototyping to discover specifics about the parts, or there is a great deal of face-to-face communication going on behind the scenes.

@zatnosk @wilbr @aredridel @deadsuperhero If a friend or person in a community wants to start a business, I think it would be a good idea for people to chip in. People spend enormous amounts on cars, televisions, alcohol and other luxury goods, but shares are somehow a risky proposition. It's not a rational way of thinking at all.

@zatnosk @wilbr @aredridel @deadsuperhero I think that if ordinary people were more eager to invest in startups, we wouldn't need big capital. More people ought to discover stock investments as an essential part of their personal finances. If most businesses were owned by regular tax payers, the incentives would change.

Stock exchanges are essentially designed to make stocks available to the general public, but very few people use them like that.

@zatnosk @wilbr @aredridel @deadsuperhero Bootstrapping is possible in certain cases, but not workable in others. It's also very hard, and starting a business is already very hard. I think it would result in fewer startups.

The first corporations were shipping ventures. Investors would buy shares, ships and supplies would be acquired, goods would be shipped from abroad and finally sold at a profit back home, and the shareholders would receive dividends.

Blues is negro spirituals with guitars.

Dixieland is happy blues with a beat.

Jazz is dixieland for nerds.

Swing is ensemble jazz for dancers.

Bebop is swing for nerds.

Funk is bebop for dancers.

Disco is funk with a string section.

House is electronic disco.

@wilbr @aredridel @deadsuperhero Crowdsourced loan platforms exist, but if you ask most business people whether you should take up a loan in order to start your business, the answer is that you should try other options first. A business that starts its life with a large amount of debt is not ideal. Seeking capital from capitalists is attractive because it reduces such risk.