Notices by 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account (thorthenorseman@octodon.social), page 32

I'm trying to use the PCBs and the case itself for mechanical support where possible, but I won't be able to avoid screws and standoffs to secure the front panel PCB to the faceplate. I hope the hackerspace I'm going to do the CNC routing at can do countersinks for the screws. Countersinks are conical sections that screws can sink into to make them flush with the case. The case I bought has countersinks, and it would look a bit shitty to have these other screws sticking out the front.

I haven't got a ton to show for all my efforts yet, except for the schematic, but I do have a finished PCB design for the front panel, and I have a custom footprint for the three-story motherboard-style jacks I'm using in the rear. The circuit complexity went down considerably when I added that volume controller chip to it, because it has buffered inputs and outputs and a virtual ground at 2.5V, and yes, the attenuation stages, of course, so then I don't need to worry about that.

Do IDC connectors work like I think they do, i.e. you can clamp them onto both ends of a ribbon cable with 180 degrees between each other and have the pin layout be identical, in identical orientations, on both ends?

If you're an iOS user, go and buy @tootapp. It's still in version 1.0, but nevertheless, it offers a smooth Mastodon experience on iOS, and by buying it, you encourage its further development. The more mobile apps we have for Mastodon, the better.

@debbie Let's see how much you agree in another 10 years. My opinions changed a lot since I was 19. (They change much slower now.)

@debbie Yes, I do believe that's what you've been indicating with those favourites you've been giving them, if I'm not mistaken. 🤔

IT workers are cursed. If we ever want to retire, and I mean retire fully and never pick up a keyboard and a mouse again, that's not really an option. You can't even check your bank account without using a computer now. They're everywhere.

I guess it's a bit like being a plumber. You're reminded of your job every morning when you turn on the faucet or the shower. You can't ever escape it.

Every appliance wants to turn into a computer. Little computers are inside of most things that have buttons and a screen. It's only a matter of time before your washing machine has a USB-C port and doesn't boot anymore because a firmware upgrade failed.

Android/Windows: If you're not happy with it, you can install this ugly and/or buggy plugin to fix it.

iOS: You're not supposed to want that.

Linux: There are 9 different daemons that each implement a subset of the features you need, and here a shell script I wrote for it. What do you mean it "looks ugly?"

macOS: Yes, it's possible, but not officially, and you have to mess with some plist files in the app support folder, or buy this one-feature one-button application that does it for you.

@tootapp Does Toot! currently offer a means of viewing the profile of a person who favourited your toot? I do that constantly in order to see if they are someone I should follow, and it seems to be missing, which feels a tad inhibiting...

Whenever I see a depiction of an elf, I'm like... You drew the ears too long. Yes, I know elves are supposed to have pointy ears, but they just look like wrongly drawn ears to me...

I guess elves are a type of fiction that break my suspension of disbelief. The anatomy just doesn't feel plausible to me.

For a while, it looked like the humble personal computer would eradicate the need for "big" computers, but we just found bigger problems to solve instead.

Looking at what people are doing with big data these days is a stark reminder that the mainframe days are back again. Or rather, the mainframe never went away. We just call them "the cloud" now. The computers that run VMs at Amazon, Google and Microsoft are nothing like home computers or the rack servers of yesteryear. They have far more cores and memory, and are being used for far bigger computational tasks.

@CobaltVelvet Ah, the term "power vacuum" is probably nonsense to you, in that case. As much as anarchism appeals to my personal tastes, and as much as a group of intelligent and reasonable people could indeed operate successfully within such a system, if you extend it to the masses, you're going to run into trouble. Also, you're going to run into people who *do* want to seize power. In the presence of power structures, anarchy isn't sustainable.

@CobaltVelvet For example, if we wish to end all superstition, such as religion, we won't win that battle by means of rational argument. Rational argument doesn't work. Instead, we must accept that some people have a spiritual side, and seek to satisfy that need in a less harmful way. Same logic that we use when handing out free condoms to teenagers to reduce accidental pregnancies and STDs.

@CobaltVelvet That's not my argument. My argument is that if we are going to improve the system, we must do so in a way that anticipates the behaviours that we will inevitably see. If we wish to gain power, which we must do to change the system, we must do so using techniques that work. We must be willing to fight fire with fire. People who oppose the system usually throw the baby out with the bathwater. Methods shouldn't be dismissed just because they are used by bad people.

@CobaltVelvet You mentioned justification. One can't justify (or condemn) anything without a moral standard.

@CobaltVelvet Ah, but in crucial ways, we haven't evolved at all. The same patterns continue to repeat, despite superficial changes like what we name it and what colour it has. It still smells the same. What we can learn from history is that we don't learn from history, isn't that what they say? We make cosmetic adjustments, but certain patterns keep reemerging because what we invented wasn't fully stable, but later stabilise in a form closer to ancient power structures.

@CobaltVelvet Who brought morals into this? I'm not concerned with morals in this particular discussion. I'm merely concerned with behaviour, with realities on the ground. All of this can be morally assessed in any way you wish. My assessment is that it stinks. Doesn't make it any less true, though. This is a system and I'm analysing it. Was it morally wrong to overwrite that variable? Perhaps, but thinking about that is distraction when trying to build a model of a system.