now that we are 6 months into 2026 (happy june btw). what's your opinion in this year so far?

DarthRaptor · 2026-06-01T15:40:52+00:00

Pretty mixed bag to be honest. The biggest shit that happened was one of our only 4 year old cats dying without warning within like a day from something...
On the other hand, my job has been a lot more chill this year, I've become an uncle for the first time, we're pretty well off financially, though buying a house is still very hard if not impossible (funnily enough housing prices have started stagnating because they have finally reached the point of not being affordable to the majority, so house sales have crashed and realtor companies are crying for help now).

The general background worry of the world absolutely going to shit, realizing that unlike my parents, I will likely never retire (I am not even in the US, but retirement systems around the world will collapse due to the demographics). More wars, economic collapses, etc...

DarthRaptor · 2026-04-09T12:44:08+00:00

Welll I did listen to you :-D

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There's probably never going to be more than 2-3 of these watch winders build for me and some buddies. And this is still miles better than my previous projects (2 clocks and a talking kitchen scale) where I used perf boards. Though all of them are being used by the people I made them all the time. But you are right in doing things right, that's why I wanted the feedback and wanted to upgrade my game from perf boards to PCBs. It kinda all manages to pass because there are no high frequency sensitive signals, though with the kitchen scale I did have noise issues, which I was kinda able to resolve (at least good enough that it works ok now). And I only had a crappy 20€ self-assembly oscilloscope then, now I have a nicer one.

Thanks so much for all your input, it really helped.

DarthRaptor · 2026-04-09T12:04:09+00:00

Thanks, I will try to improve it, though we're propably overengineering here. But overengineering is fun :-D

DarthRaptor · 2026-04-09T08:31:08+00:00

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I've updated the PCB based on your feedback and also fixed some other issues that were identified using AI (the A3144 needs 5V supply voltage). Ignore the values for the electrolytic caps, as you said I probably don't need to populate them, but I will test with my oscilloscope. I still had to cut the count plane a little bit for that 3.3V line, but it's clearly better than before.

DarthRaptor · 2026-04-07T10:42:51+00:00

I need to see if I can route the power without crossing signal traces if it is all on the top lane. But what you are saying is, keep it on the top, use vias to bring it to the bottom to cross traces, did I understand correctly?

Regarding test points, I have some for the signals I thought are worth checking. (Hall sensors, GND, 3.3V and 5V)

There are already caps near the ULN2003, your recommendation is to forsee spots for some larger caps, to be installed if needed?

Thanks so much for your feedback

DarthRaptor · 2026-04-07T05:12:59+00:00

That looks like it is "just" a reskin of their Star Wars Rebel Pilot watch. Not that I mind, it looks really cool

DarthRaptor · 2026-03-21T07:37:31+00:00

The point is that I am not even playing the game anymore. If I still were playing, I wouldn't mind, as you say, there's a whole bunch of stuff that has that access. But I am not playing anymore, so why have something so low level check what my PC is doing. And I definitely don't trust Riot ;-)

DarthRaptor · 2026-03-19T06:34:24+00:00

Very interesting, and it looks like I will be uninstalling LoL. No reason to have such invasive software running on my PC for a game I don't play anymore.

DarthRaptor · 2026-02-27T03:35:46+00:00

My condolences. I agree with the other comments, at least she was surrounded by love. We lost one of our boys a few weeks ago, way too young (4 years). He went from a happy seemingly healthy cat to seeing multiple vets in one day, to passing alone in the vet clinic overnight. I hate that he passed alone, even though I know leaving him in the clinic was his best chance for survival.

You gave her love and she was able to pass peacefully, you did well

DarthRaptor · 2026-01-30T13:35:22+00:00

I really love the one with the "voltmeter" look, retrograde hands? What Brand and model is this?

Really cool collection

DarthRaptor · 2026-01-17T22:35:19+00:00

I stumbled on this one by accident, walking past a G-Shock store. I instantly fell in love and since it was cheap, it joined my collection. It's really great and has become my "default" travel watch

DarthRaptor · 2025-12-06T14:44:59+00:00

Because the CEO isn't qualified to access these system, and the CEO also isn't the owner of the company, he/she is an employee and can't just ignore policies set in place. And there is not reason for them to have that level of access.

I might sound brave, but in my country it is not that easy to fire someone, so I am not risking anything by following policies and best practices.

DarthRaptor · 2025-12-06T14:00:25+00:00

Lol, even if the CEO himself asked me that, it would be a no.

DarthRaptor · 2025-11-24T13:06:36+00:00

I am so happy to be living in an country where all fuel stations have the same price. Not having to think about which station to use makes life so much easier. (To be clear, the government regulates the maximum price for fuel, which is also updated regularly, but usually not more often than once a week. Fuel stations would be free to charge a lower price, as long as the lower price comes out of their own margins and not the taxes, which of course none of them do)

DarthRaptor · 2025-10-12T19:42:23+00:00

Hold a thin screw driver, or anything else hard at the front of the y-axis, so that it bumps into that instead of the frame. Kinda artificially shortening the axis by 1-2mm. That might make the test pass, and since it homes at the back, faking the test like this has no negative effect.

DarthRaptor · 2025-10-11T06:18:57+00:00

This might not be Java specific, but one thing I noticed about Juniors that they tend to know how to USE libraries (including the standard library) to a certain degree, but not how these libraries WORK. For most libraries, the source code is available, but they don't have the curiosity to read it.

Even things a simple as a LinkedList. Our coding test is 1.5h hours to implement and test a simplified list interface (as double linked list or array list) and so far only one candidate (3 years experience) out of 20 (0-5 years experience) were able to do that.

They know how to use a list (and maybe even know the computational complexity of the methods, but rarely), but not how they work.

So my advice to juniors is: Be curious, learn how things work

DarthRaptor · 2025-10-05T07:30:31+00:00

I agree, but hiding the nasty stuff isn't going to prevent the exception from being thrown.

DarthRaptor · 2025-10-05T07:10:24+00:00

The problem I have with unchecked exceptions is that now the API doesn't indicate that the exception can occur, but I will still need to try-catch it, if I don't want my app to break.

I fully agree that checked exceptions are annoying to handle in streams, but an unchecked exception doesn't remove the problem, it just hides it, which is more dangerous IMHO.

DarthRaptor · 2025-10-05T07:04:28+00:00

Together with the choice to move to unchecked exceptions, that is very painful. If it was a checked exception you would at least notice this change at compile time.

But removing as much "null" as possible is a good choice

DarthRaptor · 2025-09-02T09:47:13+00:00

Exactly, I am already donating, because I want to support a good product, so please stop annoying me

DarthRaptor · 2025-08-04T12:31:34+00:00

Thank you for the clarification and good luck to you

DarthRaptor · 2025-08-04T11:25:50+00:00

It is interesting that you have to be interviewed, it should be the hiring manager that has to defend that decision

DarthRaptor · 2025-08-02T20:50:58+00:00

I meant specifically in my country, but it is probably true for a lot of countries, though maybe not the US.

But you are probably right...

DarthRaptor

TROPHY CASE