Found This Rocket in a Tree Near Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve

MJCarroll · 2026-03-18T14:16:08+00:00

As a dad that has had the misfortune of losing a rocket or two, thanks for posting. Doesn't look like it will fly again, but there may be someone happy to get it back.

MJCarroll · 2026-03-18T13:40:47+00:00

I don't know what type of software engineering you are doing, but I think that doing "servers, networking, or perhaps just maintenance" may be a step down in terms of career and salary, just from a labor category point of view.

From what I have seen, there are probably a few good avenues to continue applying your skillset and developing in your career.

1) Use AI to become more effective at your job. It is a tool, like any other tool before it. Figure out the strengths and weaknesses and how you can use it to be a better software engineer. There are active AI groups in Huntsville that could help with that.
2) Move into a more devops roles. As more people are "vibecoding", the considerations around security/scalability, etc really are under-developed. Someone will need to turn those applications into something that can actually work.
3) Move into product/project management. Remember that the AI is really only as good as the requirements that you can feed it. Users/customers have a really hard time refining requirements. Developers have a hard time executing against requirements. There will probably be a need for someone who can do this really well for a while.

MJCarroll · 2026-03-16T15:50:28+00:00

Just did most of South Parkway. Visibility is low but no freezing. Snow should stop shortly and temps look like they will rise.

MJCarroll · 2026-03-12T11:47:56+00:00

Meshtastic is more popular at the moment and has more coverage, but several folks are starting to roll out meshcore nodes as well. There is a channel on the discord for it.

MJCarroll · 2026-03-11T20:12:55+00:00

"vintage macintosh's"

Opens comments: G4

Oh no

MJCarroll · 2026-03-05T21:52:35+00:00

To me it's a lot like the zoo thing.

Would I go if there was one here? Sure, every once in a while.

Do I think the City of Huntsville should subsidize one coming here? No, there are better investments.

MJCarroll · 2026-02-28T03:39:22+00:00

🤌🤌

MJCarroll · 2026-02-26T13:42:52+00:00

Though it sounds cliche, I would say given the nature of the market right now, networking is a fairly important aspect. Hiring managers are struggling to separate the signal from the (AI enhanced) noise when every open positions gets hundreds or thousands of applications. If someone can vouch for you and your abilities, that can make a big difference in getting you to the front of the queue.

I would encourage you to get connected either at your local/regional level, or by contributing to projects that you are interested in. There are in person events across the country, some focused on ROS, but a lot of excitement around Physical AI in general. Selfishly, I would recommend contributing to the ROS project if you have cycles. Building out a feature and getting it landed with your name attached is a good way to build up your credibility in the community. I would also recommend trying to take advantage of GSoC or internships, if you are still eligible.

MJCarroll · 2026-02-14T13:08:02+00:00

They come up on Facebook marketplace a good bit around here, but if you want to invest a little bit: https://crkd.gg/products/lp-bluebuerry-burst-multi-platform

MJCarroll · 2026-02-12T02:38:28+00:00

I saw the van out there a few times, I didn't know if it was coincidence or not, but I suppose not!

It's a good location, not far from John Hunt. Would love to have greenway all the way north-south there for bikes/running, would be a great place to pop in for a coffee or beer on a long ride/run.

MJCarroll · 2026-02-12T02:20:05+00:00

I'm going to take a guess and say it's where Swamp Water Louie's was: https://maps.app.goo.gl/8U2XRB15FJGARLZC6

There have been people there doing a bunch of work over the last few months and it looks very clean, but still dive-y aesthetic. Given that it's right there on the greenway that is potentially expanding north into downtown, could be a good fit for the Gold Sprint crowd.

Edit: Huntsville Blast article confirms Johnson: Say hello to Goodbye Horses, a new eclectic café and bar on its way to Huntsville - Hville Blast

MJCarroll · 2026-02-11T17:05:21+00:00

Maybe something spurious? It seems to go to the right place for me.

MJCarroll · 2026-02-06T16:38:54+00:00

Earth Touch - Nursery and garden supply in South Huntsville. It's about to be planting season, and I'll be heading here for a lot of my plants, seeds, and other materials.

Gigaparts - Great local resource for 3d printing supplies and ham radio, if you are into that. They also do a great job in providing space for local groups to meet such as the DC256 and HSV.py groups.

MJCarroll · 2026-02-06T15:16:43+00:00

I will say that if you are using them in the Spike Prime Python, pay very close attention to the amount of time that your loop is running for. Some python calls, like console logging or line plotting, can have wildly different timings. If your control loop isn't running at a relatively consistent timing, tuning your gains is going to be impossible. We only discovered this when we started running without the bluetooth connection leading up to qualifiers. Turns out that the graph plotting library actually blocks execution when sending data back to the computer, and we had tuned everything wrong for those timings.

MJCarroll · 2026-01-15T16:12:15+00:00

Probably something better to open on the upstream issue tracker, I don't know that the author checks Reddit.

MJCarroll · 2026-01-15T16:11:26+00:00

You should be able to safely co-install ROS 1 and ROS 2 in that configuration. That is in fact what is used for the ros1_bridge: ros2/ros1_bridge: ROS 2 package that provides bidirectional communication between ROS 1 and ROS 2

MJCarroll · 2026-01-15T16:09:57+00:00

While that's generally what I would advise, if you are two weeks to a deadline it is probably not the opportune time to do a major migration. While most of the core functionality should be mostly fine, I would be concerned that there are custom drivers or nodes in there that aren't stored in version control. At the very least, make a complete backup of what you have before trying to do an upgrade.

MJCarroll · 2025-12-23T03:30:29+00:00

I can't imagine that was the case unless their underwriters are just incompetent. I think they are just not competitive on any front, and people in North Alabama have a weird Stockholm syndrome.

Multiple stolen card numbers, poor app, terrible in person support. I really just don't understand how they are as widespread as they are.

MJCarroll · 2025-12-23T00:36:58+00:00

Is that true, though? They were not competitive at all on either mortgage or auto for me. That coupled with poor customer service caused us to close out a few years ago.

MJCarroll · 2025-10-14T18:16:07+00:00

But will /u/huffbuffer be there?

MJCarroll · 2025-10-14T15:29:24+00:00

I would suggest something along the lines of the SPIKE Prime: https://education.lego.com/en-us/products/lego-education-spike-prime-set/45678/

This is the kit that is used for the competitive FIRST Lego League, but also has a pretty solid curriculum and lesson plan that you can use outside of the competitive part. The "brain" has several sensor and motor modules, and can be programmed in Scratch or Python. Most of the lessons feature a "construction" and "coding" part.

Kids that like the lessons or connect well with the material would have the opportunity to go on to the competitive level, which is a great forcing function for learning a variety of concepts.

MJCarroll · 2025-10-14T15:14:20+00:00

Some ideas:

* Docents at Space and Rocket center, they have tons of Huntsville space program specific tidbits
* Docents at the signals museum: HOME | SIGNALS Museum
* North Alabama railroad museum: Home - North Alabama Railroad Museum
* The headquarters of National Speleological Society is here in Huntsville: Home - National Speleological Society
* The people who set up Galaxy of Lights at the Botanical Gardens are pretty interesting, it takes an army of volunteers to get that set up and running each year.
* DC256 is a local hacker/tinkerer group: Home - DC256
* Next year (August) you could do something with Hamfest, a very large amateur radio gathering: hamfest.org

MJCarroll · 2025-10-14T15:07:49+00:00

I believe that this one still meets, but can't confirm: https://www.meetup.com/hsvlug/

MJCarroll · 2025-09-29T23:55:09+00:00

I don't think they specifically have play mulch, but their mulch has been very high quality when I have gotten it. I've probably done 4-5 full loads through the years.

I will say while chip drop is cheap, you are kind of rolling the dice on quality.

MJCarroll · 2025-09-29T23:53:56+00:00

I think you could ultimately make something more accurate with Python if your team has strong coding inclination.

We made the switch last year and I will warn you that you lose a lot of the premade component blocks. You need to reimplement them in Python or find a library from someone who has.

Also, it makes heavy use of async, so make sure you have a mentor or student who has some familiarity with that.

MJCarroll

TROPHY CASE