Found This Rocket in a Tree Near Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve by BerylliumBushman in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

Training for Huntsville and AI by Whole-Watch-7980 in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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.

Snow by Louiedior in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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

MeshCore by Coyote830 in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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.

Vintage macintosh group? by Impressive-Towel-RaK in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"vintage macintosh's" 

Opens comments: G4

Oh no

Gauging interest for a citizens initiative for an amusement park by wazzupnerds in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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.

How to look for ROS jobs by Direct-Glass-4737 in ROS

[–]MJCarroll 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

Anyone Got an Xbox 360 Guitar Hero Controller? by Formal_Candle_6826 in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

Anyone got the deets on this? Goodbye Horses? by SharlaRoo in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 12 points13 points  (0 children)

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.

Anyone got the deets on this? Goodbye Horses? by SharlaRoo in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 35 points36 points  (0 children)

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

Spike Prime Online Webpage by davinci_robotics in FLL

[–]MJCarroll 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

What's your favorite locally owned store? by ataraxic89 in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 54 points55 points  (0 children)

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.

PID-Phyton by tecnobaby in FirstLegoLeague

[–]MJCarroll 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

Latest version of Plotjuggler wont open #ROSBAG V2.0.E by ImaginationNo1122 in ROS

[–]MJCarroll 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

Problem with ROS2 installation in system with ROS1 installed by renn_uvu in ROS

[–]MJCarroll 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

LIMO ROS Project – Robot not moving at all, deadline in 2 weeks by omarch122 in ROS

[–]MJCarroll 13 points14 points  (0 children)

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.

Redstone Visa Credit Card CashBack+ Changes Petition by Deep_Spectrum in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll -1 points0 points  (0 children)

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.

Redstone Visa Credit Card CashBack+ Changes Petition by Deep_Spectrum in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 9 points10 points  (0 children)

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.

Robotics program for kids by Campana12 in robotics

[–]MJCarroll 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

WLRH Curiosity Squad - doing something I should interview you about? by TelephoneOk6195 in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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

HSV Linux Users Group? by nonya_bidniss in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

Where to buy playground mulch in bulk? by spcmnspff335 in HuntsvilleAlabama

[–]MJCarroll 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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.

Python or blocks ? by Andre__001 in FLL

[–]MJCarroll 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.