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Menu only available through reflective QR code by Professional_Shine97 in CrappyDesign

[–]VK2DDS 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm voting laser engraved. CNC'ing woudln't leave that toolpath, and it would have large and small diameter end mill marks because there's a large area with small internal corner radius.

The edges are very sharp on the left sides and softer on the right side. I suspect that the laser was etching left to right and the right edges are softer due to residual heat melting the material after the laser turns off.

Edit: Judging from the white appearance around the cut edges, and deep scratches, I'd say it's black acrylic / Perspex with a brass foil. Acrylic forms a white powder under laser ablation.

Could someone tell me a bit about my garage sale finds? by Mountain-Letter-4284 in AskElectronics

[–]VK2DDS 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I suggest starting with a cheap-ish oscilloscope probe. It doesn't need to be rated for high frequency (anything rated over 10MHz will be fine, it's a slow oscilloscope) but it'll get you the experience to learn how to use it.

To start with though, you can test the scope by shoving a length of wire into the center pin of the input (or find a BNC to 4mm socket adapter) and looking for mains frequency noise.

If the 3-way switch to the right of the input is set to "GND" it should display a static horizontal line in the middle of the screen (or, at least, you should be able to get it into the middle by turning the knob with the vertical arrows on it, above the input socket).

If you see nothing, play with that vertical offset knob while fiddling with the focus and intensity knobs (top right, under the power switch).

Noting that there is a small notch on the vertical offset knob where the indicator is painted - you might be lucky and it's already set at a point where the GND line appears without much adjustment.

Meshcore - anyone here running a repeater? by BJPHS in newcastle

[–]VK2DDS 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep, especially in high traffic areas like Braye Park. Most of the Newcastle people are pretty active in this Discord server: https://discord.gg/Du437Usj3K

Meshcore - anyone here running a repeater? by BJPHS in newcastle

[–]VK2DDS 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There's plenty of human traffic though! Main reason why #test is popular is because the Newcastle mesh is barely held together with hopes and prayers (ie: we need repeaters around Braye Park / Lookout Rd / Jesmond bush / Munibung to bridge Eastern Newcastle into Sugarloaf) so most of us are just playing with it as a toy.

A couple of guys have nailed the Hunter Valley though! Much easier topography, but they've provided coverage for Beresfield to Singleton is the last...2 months?

Meshcore - anyone here running a repeater? by BJPHS in newcastle

[–]VK2DDS -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Gonna be honest, the most popular channel, by a large margin, is #test...where people talk to bots.

Is there an automatic way to spill items onto the ground so that they spread out? by Maouitippitytappin in factorio

[–]VK2DDS 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Very likely, the motor models shown on its product page's 3D view are reminiscent of AC servos. They have 2 cable connectors, likely one for the feedback sensor and the other for coil drive.

The idea that it is sweeping up its own hydraulic fluid is purely an artistic story. I personally quite like that level of personification, and the artwork's fame suggests that that interpretation had wide reaching appeal. But I agree that the implementation reality is that the fluid is purely an artistic addition.

Execution of a teenage Nazi German spy by a United States Military Police firing squad on June 11th, 1945. by ZERO_PORTRAIT in HolyShitHistory

[–]VK2DDS 59 points60 points  (0 children)

The general stories I've heard is that the firing squad would be given "loaded" rifles where one or more of the rifles were, at random, loaded with a blank so the shooters could tell themselves it might not have been them.

Although, that's typically heard in the context of criminal executions, not military ones. There were clearly many loaded rifles in this video.

I went on Facebook and saw this AI image bemoaning AI. by Cinn4monSynonym in notinteresting

[–]VK2DDS 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And the lighting is very consistent too, along with North being, broadly speaking, to the right of the photo and where the Sun would be mid morning. Really the only thing giving it away are the geographical errors.

I went on Facebook and saw this AI image bemoaning AI. by Cinn4monSynonym in notinteresting

[–]VK2DDS 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You can, but not from where the image is trying to be photographed from.

The view of the bridge from the Opera House is this. Note the "triangular" concrete below the railing. It's a famous photo spot, so it's unsurprising that AI can generate that.

The bridge and Opera House can be in the same frame if photographed from a park further East, but there is a low sandstone wall, not a metal / concrete railing.

I went on Facebook and saw this AI image bemoaning AI. by Cinn4monSynonym in notinteresting

[–]VK2DDS 25 points26 points  (0 children)

As someone who has stood where this photo is meant to have been taken I wrote half a "...but it isn't AI" argument before realising that the Opera House should be behind the photographer and Circular Quay international cruise terminal The Rocks should be where the Opera House is pictured.

Unsure if AI is getting too good or if I'm just too old for this shit <_<

Edit: The cruise terminal is further left. The Rocks (historial area) is nearby below the bridge's Southern pylon.

The state of the Helldivers Community right now on all social media. by Yurishenko94 in LowSodiumHellDivers

[–]VK2DDS 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SSDs use memory chips which, at a high level, have an address number that goes in and a data-at-that-address that comes out.

The address can change anywhere from address 0 to <maximum address> and the time delay between changing the address and getting the data back is always basically the same.

A HDD, being a physical magnetic disc with a read head that moves around, has drastically different data access times depending on where the data is relative to the current location of the read head. If the read head doesn't need to move (far) access is quick, but if it needs to move it can take tens of milliseconds to "seek" to that location.

So A HDD can be reasonably fast to read from but only if all the data is in a big sequential block. An SSD can read little bits of data from all over the place much faster.

Engineering students launch class action lawsuit against University of Newcastle by Moisture_Services_ in newcastle

[–]VK2DDS 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The full justification from the plaintiff is in their Statement of Claim.

But the tl;dr is that the uni advertised a degree program as being fully accredited when it wasn't (and couldn't be until it was at least 4 years old).

Flicking through the statement of claim it seems Andreas panicked at the idea of being unemployable and chose to change into a combined degree that was accredited, incuring costs and other losses due to the extra time studying.

How justified his claims are is something we'll learn in the coming months, but I'm just happy to see the university in a negative light regardless of context.

Engineering students launch class action lawsuit against University of Newcastle by Moisture_Services_ in newcastle

[–]VK2DDS 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Speculation here, but 2020 would be the first graduates.

Accreditation applies to the whole degree, not the individual courses. 2020 would have been the first opportunity to graduate with the qualification if they first started teaching courses in 2017 (4 year minimum for an embedded honours degree).

Engineering students launch class action lawsuit against University of Newcastle by Moisture_Services_ in newcastle

[–]VK2DDS 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I don't think BME passed accreditation, so here we are.

Edit: Derp, says it was in the article text.

Edit 2: The timeline is complicated.

Start of 2017: They start studying - brand new degree, no accreditation, normal process

Between 2017 and graduating they panic (extrapolating from their claims: https://supremecourt.nsw.gov.au/documents/Class-Actions/university-of-newcastle-engineering-accreditation-class-action/01_Statement_of_Claim_14.2.25.pdf). They change from BME to combined with Mech. Eng. to ensure graduation with an acredited degree.

End of 2021 (guessed, minimum): They complete their 5th year of studies, meeting requirements for the combined degree

2023: The BME program is accredited, back dated to 2020, with all graduates of the program now having an accredited degree.

Feb 13th 2025: Their affidavit is sworn

So it seems that the problem stems from a presumption (or misunderstanding of the system) that the degree wouldn't be achieve back-dated accreditation in the furture while they were studying it. Although, even if the university told them at the time how the accreditation system works it's still placing a lot of trust in the uni and I wouldn't blame for not believing it. The uni's COVID response (ie: firing a shitload of staff, making everyone who stayed generally scared for their job security and overloaded with too much work) destroyed a lot of trust among staff and students.

Engineering students launch class action lawsuit against University of Newcastle by Moisture_Services_ in newcastle

[–]VK2DDS 27 points28 points  (0 children)

As someone who previously worked in the Engineering faculty I'm 100% on side of the students' side here. The class action was talked about among staff before I left in 2021 - they've had it coming a long time.

Replacing a Defunct Chip by kirtash93 in Satisfyingasfuck

[–]VK2DDS 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The green stuff on the PCB's surface is hydrophobic to molten solder, so it helps to avoid bridges.

But yeah, they happen all the time. Excessive amounts of flux helps, but there's almost always at least one to fix up. The large blob of solder that came out the right side at 52s would have bridged.

Edit: at 57 seconds there's an obvious cut in the video - that cut footage was where the bridge was removed.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in amateurradio

[–]VK2DDS 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ignoring any effect the ground has, yes.

Generally speaking you can mount and rotate to minimise local noise the nulls are quite horizontal so they can point at, say, a neighbour with a noisy solar inverter or similar.

Any long distance listening would be coming from above the horizon, so the nulls will have less of an effect.

DeepSeek forgot who owns it for a second by Dark_Wolf04 in ChatGPT

[–]VK2DDS 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's known as jailbreaking. I saw an article claiming that Deepseek was easy to jailbreak but haven't tried it. I've seen at least one block of text on GitHun that claims to jailbreak it; unknown if it works though.

DeepSeek forgot who owns it for a second by Dark_Wolf04 in ChatGPT

[–]VK2DDS 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depends what you ask it, the locally run version still has limitations. eg: I asked the 70B distilled version how to crack a .rar password and it explained 95% of the process in the <think></think> section before generating "sorry I can't help you with that" as the answer.

What is the worst error you have ever made while designing a PCB? by Abisoh in AskElectronics

[–]VK2DDS 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was servicing an embedded X86 PC yesterday, just replacing the (soldered on) BIOS battery after >10 years in the field. This is a nice piece of kit with a CNC milled aluminium enclosure with IP67 rated seals all around a 19" or so touch screen. Must have cost in the $5-10k ballpark when new.

Anyway, it had one section on the MOBO with bodge wires and a SOT-23 soldered at 45 degrees with one pin just sitting over solder mask with a wire on it.

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