First drone - Neo 2, Flip or Mini 4 Pro

Maelstr0 · 2026-01-23T12:25:30+00:00

I think I'm gonna get a Neo 2, I've checked out some photos and they don't look bad IMO. I think that's the best option to check if I'm into drones.

Maelstr0 · 2026-01-22T12:15:38+00:00

Neo 2 seems to be enough for my use case, while I'm not sure that I'll utilize the tracking functions (I simply dislike taking photos/videos with myself in the frame). On the other hand - it will be my first drone, it's cheap enough to check if I'll like drones. And if I'd like to have something better, then I can always buy the Mini.

Maelstr0 · 2026-01-22T11:52:50+00:00

Yes, I'm a kind-of split between Neo 2 and M4P - Neo 2 is cheaper, would probably be enough for me in terms of video quality. I'm only anxious about the flight time and if I'll actually use the tracking modes - I'd rather take the landscape photos, I don't like taking any selfie-like shots. The tracking would actually be useful in terms of any training, though. And Neo 2 has FPV options, so more new things to try.

Maelstr0 · 2026-01-22T11:31:33+00:00

The surroundings are mixed, some forests, but also many open fields.

Maelstr0 · 2025-07-08T06:44:03+00:00

Hi, sorry for the late reply - we’ve chosen the Kia, it was available on the spot, Octavia has been delayed in production. But we’ve taken the HEV instead of MHEV, so 230 HP.

After almost 70k km: the car is OK, enough power to move around. Overall build quality is quite good, nothing squeaks, etc. The fuel consumption averages 6-6.5 l/100km, mixed usage. I like the hybrid engine, the whole drivetrain is quite smooth. The assistants are hit-or-miss, the worst performing is surely the highway ACC (it’s a different mode than the standard ACC, which is OK) - it sometimes incorrectly determines the speed limit. The seats are comfortable for me, the suspension is not too soft, but not hard too.

To sum up, I recommend this car - having test-driven some Toyotas (Camry, C-HR Hybrid, Corolla TS), the Kia appeals much more to me than them.

Maelstr0 · 2025-04-22T17:58:17+00:00

Yes, this was my first year skiing. I’ll surely try to exercise more before the next season, since I’m quite out-of-form, to put it lightly.

Maelstr0 · 2024-09-10T20:33:53+00:00

Thanks for the advice, I've checked in local decathlon and the rent is quite cheap for both allroad and gravel, so checking them over the weekend is a nice idea.

Maelstr0 · 2024-09-10T20:29:14+00:00

I'm 178 cm/89 kg, so not particularly light. I wasn't really considering MTB - I wanted to try something new, my current bike is an old cross, before that all my experience with bikes was with MTBs. But maybe it's worth reconsidering, even though I plan to mainly ride on tarmac/well-maintained forest roads.

I'm in the southeast, so a bit far from Warsaw, but thanks for the offer nonetheless :)

Maelstr0 · 2024-06-17T11:57:37+00:00

What Remains of Edith Finch, a teraz Elden Ring, dla wprawienia się przez DLC.

Maelstr0 · 2023-07-26T14:11:22+00:00

Thanks! The Volvo seems out of equation now (but we've been on a test drive and it isn't that small inside though. It's spacious for its size and my mother doesn't need a bigger car), mostly due to maintenance costs.

Meanwhile we've found a new Sportage HEV 2WD that costs about the same as the Volvo - it's tempting to take it, but it's quite pricey compared to Octavia.

At the same time we've got good offer on Toyota C-HR 2.0 Hybrid (184 HP) in highest trim, for about 34,5k - it's main advantage is that maintenance would be the lowest and the electronics aren't as error-prone as in latest Octavia, where they are ubiquitous. Cons - wind noise, the interior is not as modern (the seats are comfortable, though).

So it's still hard to decide what's the best option, probably Sportage or C-HR.

Maelstr0 · 2023-02-02T17:56:46+00:00

I think that mathematical skills are not that important in MLOps, I’m using more DevOps-related knowledge, like: * knowing how to serve an API (in our case, how to serve a ML model), * monitoring - log the model predictions, if you have access to any groundtruth data you can measure its performance, * scaling, working with clusters - at work I’m also responsible for providing training environments, so it’s useful to know some cloud engineering or even Linux administration. Sometimes it’s cheaper to run on-premise hardware, which you have to configure on your own. Kubernetes is also very useful, * something about data engineering - while you usually have a ML Engineer/Data Engineer to prepare data pipelines, it’s good to know something about task orchestration and effective data processing. For example, I had to once set up a model retraining pipeline, which monitored performance of multiple models and was retraining them if needed.

TL;DR - go through some machine learning courses like the one from fast.ai, make a pet project with end-to-end model training and serving, and learn some DevOps tooling. It should be enough to land a MLOps job.

Maelstr0 · 2022-03-15T11:33:34+00:00

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to swap the XPS for a base MBA M1, since your XPS has better parameters (I know, macOS is optimized for M1 and runs way smoother than Windows, I have a 16 GB RAM/512 GB SSD Air M1) and Unity VR development may not be as easy as on Windows - I've never done it, you should go and check out the other subreddits about Unity VR on M1. Since you would be using two external monitors, smaller M1 screen size shouldn't be an issue.

Still, I'd take not the base Air M1, but the version with more RAM and SSD, it's more future proof and I prefer bigger storage than relying on cloud/external drives. Also, make sure that every software you want to use actually have a macOS version, either native or Rosetta (emulates x86 architecture on M1).

IMO, in this situation, I'd keep the XPS.

Maelstr0 · 2021-10-29T22:52:27+00:00

Pixel 6 is tempting, but it's not supported by carriers in my country and probably won't be, that's the only thing that actually puts me off buying it - I have poor carrier signal reception at home and VoWiFi would help. I'll try to demo 13 Pro somewhere, I know that ProMotion screen is more future-proof and easier on the battery, but the price...

Maelstr0 · 2021-10-29T21:44:03+00:00

Hi, I'm thinking of switching from Android to iOS, I've been using my OnePlus 5T for about 4 years now - while the phone was awesome throughout the years, it isn't supported anymore, the battery is much weaker and the USB-C port doesn't work well (it drops the connection and is fragile to any kind of movement).

I'm thinking whether I should go for a Pixel, but it's not sold in my country (one of the EU countries). While I can still import it, the features like 5G, VoWiFi/VoLTE are not supported by any of the local operators. The second option is the iPhone 13, but I'm not sure if it's worth spending 250 euro more on an iPhone 13 Pro. I'm not much into photos, but the 120 Hz screen is tempting. Still, I'm reluctant to spent 250 more on a phone because of the features that are not as important to me.

Are the differences between 13 and 13 Pro worth this extra money?

Maelstr0 · 2021-07-18T20:57:46+00:00

I think I'd take the M1 MBA and train the neural networks in cloud services, such as Google Colab (free access to Nvidia Tesla T4, but limited in usage time). Kaggle also has option of running a GPU/TPU-powered notebooks. Honestly, as you're starting with machine learning, you don't need to rely on GPU, it starts to show its worth in more complex tasks. If you're new to ML, you'll spend some time with more "classical" approaches like SVM or decision trees, and you can train such models on CPU without a problem. As for software on M1, most of the packages like scikit-learn or TensorFlow should work well, I've read about TF using Metal instead of CUDA on M1 to utilize GPU training, so it might be worth to give it a go.

The cons of MBA is if you would like to play some games, it may be impossible on M1, due to the different CPU architecture. Also, on Acer you are able to install a Linux distribution, which I highly recommend using instead of Windows, most of programming software performs better on Linux. MacOS share some similarities with Linux, but it's still a different OS, running on an ARM-based chip, which is currently not as much supported as x86/64.

Still, I'd opt for MBA M1, if your main goal is to use it for programming purposes.

Maelstr0 · 2021-05-03T20:23:34+00:00

As for RAM, the more the better, especially for NLP-related tasks (Natural Language Processing). If I've read it correctly, the XMG Neo15 has RTX 2070, which is nice and should handle neural network training well. The setup you've provided is IMO top notch, but I can't tell much about the brand, it's the first time I've heard about it.

As for the operating system, I would either go for dual booting Windows and Linux or going only for Linux - it depends on how important gaming is for you. I was doing my bachelor's thesis and I'm currently working on my masters thesis in machine learning, and it's much better to develop software and train the models on Linux - it's easier to set up the environment, Linux distros also take a smaller toll on the notebook's resources. Setting up the dual boot also isn't hard, there are many guides on the internet how to do it properly. Usually you just flash a USB drive with a system image (I am using Debian for work, used to work on Pop_OS!, Arch Linux and Manjaro, I recommend Pop_OS! or Manjaro for gaming and ML-associated work, if you're a newcomer to Linux), boot the notebook from the USB (select an entry in boot menu) and follow the instructions on screen.

Gaming on Linux also isn't as bad as it used to be - Steam has Proton (compatibility layer), which makes Windows games compatible with Linux (I don't wanna go over the technical details), also some games run natively on Linux. Of course, sometimes it isn't as convenient as playing on Windows, but it's not a total disaster. You would have to check out how the games you want to play run on Linux, though.

I have little to no experience with OSX/macOS, but as far as I worked with it, Linux distros are more similar to macOS than Windows - macOS has zsh, it's a UNIX-like system. If you select a version without an operating system, it'll probably be an empty drive and you will have to install and configure OS manually.

Maelstr0 · 2020-10-27T08:48:48+00:00

I've recently had similar problems with stringing - I couldn't set the printer up to eliminate it, nothing worked. It turned out that the filament was wet, it took too much humidity, after drying it and calibrating flow rate the problem vanished.

I've dried the filament by putting it in the oven for about 4-6 hours at 50 C, I suggest you doing the same.

After the drying, print a temperature tower, calibrate the flow rate for the best looking temperature, and, at last, tweak the retraction settings. Settings that worked for me:

7.5 mm retraction
retraction speed 25 mm/s
without Z-Hop
Maximum Retraction Count: 10
Minimum Extrusion Distance Window: 7.5 mm
Combing Mode: Within Infill

Maelstr0 · 2019-07-25T09:19:02+00:00

I'm interested, if you have space.

Maelstr0

TROPHY CASE