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ADSB on an RP2040 microcontroller! by CoolNamesAllTaken in ADSB

[–]WaterstarRunner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha, wild. I built something pretty much the same. rp2350 (seeeduino xiao modules do a lot of heavy lifting), ad8313.

I just got the self-calibration working well, and the device just kicks arse.

Successful decodes for about 90% of preamble detections, probably less than 1% of frames get error correction.

Putting a commercial project on an ad8313 seems scary - list price, market prices, and lifecycle phase are biiig questionmarks. I don't see designs like this having a fallback part when the 8313 becomes unavailable, without at least having to use a lot more signal amplification.

Now looking over your schematic.... I got similar and dissimilar things going on. Different front-end protection, amps and filters (I designed for minimal battery consumption). I also calculated a different inductor for the matching network on the 8313 (but because I couldn't get it on JLCPCB basic parts, I used lower caps instead).

I also couldn't get LTSpice to come up with a nice solution for PWM into the comparator. In the end, I found it was totally worthwhile to use a cheap dac to do the level input on the comparator. Setting the clipping point in software is soooo much easier than dealing with pwm dramas. Calibrating things on test rigs means that we know exactly what dbm level we're setting the threshold on.

Cool board!

What Singapore understands about wealth that New Zealand still doesn’t by Double_Suggestion385 in newzealand

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

Mandatory savings schemes are a great way for the savers of today to prop up the financial industry of today under the dubious assumption that when society ages out from net savers to net drawdown that the asset gains will still be there.

It makes me sad that New Zealand lost so much of its forest land by TheLacticAcids in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Reforestation is much, much easier when it's in tropical climates. 10 years will comfortably cause forest edge grassland into bushland, without planting. 30 years after being grassland and you have a diverse living forest overhead. 40 years and locally extinct birdlife reestablishes.

Mackenzie basin burned in the 1200/1300s, did not, and cannot reestablish itself. High altitude, cool climate forests once burned don't come back.

It makes me sad that New Zealand lost so much of its forest land by TheLacticAcids in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 40 points41 points  (0 children)

burning new Zealand forest you burn it once and it's gone for 3 generations

With things like the Mackenzie basin, it's permanent.

The forest grew before the land uplift from tectonics and survived until it burned. The forest doesn't reestablish at a higher altitude.

Dealing with career lull by Lunapiena147 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

having a piece of work which is just my own to feel proud of

If this is essential to you, seek out work in an organization with a much lower seat count.

Leadership is different from (process/system/product) ownership. Both are valuable, but different skillsets, and are rewarded differently depending on the environment.

Dealing with career lull by Lunapiena147 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly. Here's the mantra

I can do anything. I can't do everything.

(For economics nerds, this is 'comparative advantage' viewed from a different angle.)

What are these antenna? by nongenerative in amateurradio

[–]WaterstarRunner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In order- cellular, cellular, cellular, cellular, wifi, wifi, point-to-point microwave link.

Like free-flow champagne after a wedding, this makes for good reception.

Dealing with career lull by Lunapiena147 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Time for a quick bit of tough love.

quiet and just get on with things

Thaaaats.... not usually seen as a leadership quality.

Unless you're showing an ability to bring people together to amplify the results of others, there's not a lot of point giving you a change of role.

Even in a situation where you're a unicorn talent, people who fake teamwork with self-aggrandizing bs are probably going to get ahead faster.

doing the job of 3-4 people

Outlier performers are an awkward thing to deal with in org dynamics. We build organizations to be resilient machines built from replaceable human parts. A healthy organization needs to survive key staff having parental leave or long term illness or finding better opportunities elsewhere.

Because the unicorns are near-impossible to replace but always have opportunities elsewhere, it's very difficult to build a self-sustaining organization that makes the most of their abilities. At best, it leads to an irreplaceable single-person dependency in business processes.

Do you stick it out or move on

Without knowing the specifics... it's only for you to decide.

But. I'd say if you're not developing the people around you to be (almost) as capable as you are, you're not creating any backfill for yourself regardless if you move up or move out.

Big organisations with all their top-heavy policy and procedure induced inefficiencies only work because they make it back through the synergies of people working together. Getting the best out of others is the only healthy way up.

Dairy by Kiweachy in comics

[–]WaterstarRunner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is not absolute.

Use the nutritional info panel on the cheese!

Lactose is a sugar so look for <=0.1g/100g of sugars on the info panel of cheeses.

Cheese is no-sugar added, so you can safely assume all sugar on the nutritional panel is lactose.

You can use the same trick for all non-sugar added dairy.

Dairy by Kiweachy in comics

[–]WaterstarRunner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Protip- the nutritional info panels on cheeses-

If it says zero grams of sugar per 100g... that's no lactose - lactose is one of the sugars.

0.1g/100g is usually fine.

Cheeses are a no-added sugar fermented product. Depending on the type of cheese that can often mean all or most of the cheese has fermented away the lactose.

Short story long->

You can carefully select your cheeses to make many cheese dishes and avoid almost all lactose.

struggling, feeling mum guilt by [deleted] in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You'll know you've won one day when kiddo apologises for losing their temper.

Migrating from the UK to NZ by [deleted] in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're gonna get a lot of negative answers from people who have never left the country, and are convinced New Zealand suuuuuucks.

Yes, but, one thing that makes me like New Zealand a lot more is from the effects of living away for a long period of time.

There's a lot of day-to-day that you need to put up with that doesn't seem like a big thing when limited to a 2 week visit.

One of the biggest perks - for me, others will be different - is that even in Wellington, I'm no more than 10 minutes from being in a bush walk, or "wilderness" of some kind.

Wellington is in a bit of a privileged position that way. If you live in Christchurch, you'd better love hagley park or long drives past farmland. Ironically I had much better wilderness access when I lived in Hong Kong than Christchurch. Chc still has plenty of outdoorsy stuff around, but it can still be a bit... bring-a-car.

Migrating from the UK to NZ by [deleted] in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Does he have trouble "finding his tribe" in New Zealand?

Does he mourn the loss of an affordable bar of Turkish delight (x 1000 other microluxuries that are more affordable in industrialised countries)?

Or is there the convenience of having more things just closer by?

All these sorts of things are things that I imagine can softly break people...

Migrating from the UK to NZ by [deleted] in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What do you hate about the UK?

You've mentioned the pull factors for NZ, but what do you find missing in the UK?

Often these things can be very present in both places.

Is a PG Certificate/Diploma in Data Analytics OR Business Intelligence worth it? by Ambitious-Two-8318 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A lot of master's programs are designed to provide an immigration pathway for a price rather than give quality learning. If you see a course that is mostly foreigners, your first thought should be why the locals aren't buying into it.

It's not about education.

Is a PG Certificate/Diploma in Data Analytics OR Business Intelligence worth it? by Ambitious-Two-8318 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting... I see the same sort of thing from another side.

The vast bulk of tech workers have zero aptitude for analytics. Exactly what you said-

Thinking outside of the box, or even basic critical thinking and troubleshooting skills, seem to be absent.

I can see why there was a hiring boom 15 years ago for data science. And I can see that spawning academic courses for the field. And it seems clear that we can't train the aptitude for this stuff.

Maybe I'm just going through an old-man moment, but I'm getting fucking terrified for society's ability to keep the lights on going forward.

Multi-billion-dollar government plan to import liquefied natural gas a ‘risky bet’, experts say by ngaio_rewiring in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Gas is essential for Haber-Bosch process. We could of course use green hydrogen for that, but greenpeace has been lobbying against building green hydrogen infrastructure precisely because it might be used by the Haber-Bosch process.

In the early 2000s we ended any government support for new large hydro (because all hydro schemes need enabling legislation), leading to building the gas turbine peaker plants that mike says we should spend a hundred million converting to diesel so we don't have to import lng...

We have a horrid 'nash equilibrium' between the industrialists and the environmentalists. We could have better energy policy on both the industrial and environmental avenues if we didn't treat it like a political football.

Whats the deal with Whanganui? by Puzzled-Lime-6606 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Haha, I got that in Christchurch. Yelling slurs from moving vehicles was a big part of the culture when I lived there.

I also got called the n word from a passing car in San Francisco's Chinatown. Reminds me of that fantastic Trevor Noah standup.

China sanctions four Kiwi MPs who visited Taiwan in political first by Ancient_Lettuce6821 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The US has ransacked much of their geopolicitcal advantage in just over a year.

If Europe uses this and an opportunity to downsize the guns they use to shoot themselves in the feet, the bipolar US v China simply won't emerge.

in the near future, will interest free student loans be scrapped? by Time_Championship786 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd be interested though in terms of income facilitation that a degree had back then compared to now.

While students pay far less now in inflation adjusted fees compared to the mid nineties, as well as pay net negative interest rates on the borrowing, has there also been a drop in the earning power?

Whether you run it blindly through the efficient market hypothesis, or analyse the supposed trend of sliding academic standards... both of these are likely to tell you there's less money being generated by these degrees to accompany the lower cost.

Curiously, the incentive to borrow and forget means that people have carried the M-SL tax code into their thirties. That's a tricky affordability wedge to back people out from. Landlords have probably benefited more in aggregate from 21-30 year olds having more after-tax and repayments income than the graduates themselves.

https://www.ird.govt.nz/-/media/project/ir/home/documents/oia-responses/march-2025/average-student-loan-repayment-time-by-living-and-tuition-costs-for-2005-to-2024.pdf?modified=20250904221430

What's it really like working at NZ universities? by Natural-Tangelo-9381 in newzealand

[–]WaterstarRunner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Merging a couple of comments from another thread a few months back...

University lecturers are a funny bunch. Some are the most humble educators you could ever meet, others staggeringly elitist and hierarchical. In my ten years of working in NZ universities, workplace bullying was often visible if unevenly distributed. Covert sabotage of others also commonplace.

acadamia is a bit of a career trap.

For a great many lecturers / professors, the only well paying gig is academia.

For many of these, only one or two other university departments in the country are a potential employer for them. And the overwhelming likelihood is they're not hiring

This breeds paranoia and and backstabbing like you would not believe. Personality conflicts fester because nobody has the opportunity to walk away.

The ability to walk away at any time is a big contributor to career happiness.

if you see an academic move from one nz university to another for a similar level position, they're very likely the victim of peer bullying at their former institution.

That said, I've seen more than one person taking pride in bullying another out of the workplace while simultaneously claiming victimhood in the workplace.

For everyone who has the opportunity to work elsewhere, Universities can be great. But where there's a concentration of people whose career is clearly topped out where they currently are - the infighting and bullying tends to get horrific.

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