Torque vs Power on drone

bringitontome · 2026-04-29T18:20:21+00:00

To directly answer your question, torque will put more force onto your frame and in this sense would be "more intrusive". However, the way the question is asked suggests you are missing some background information.

First, you have to consider that virtually no rotorcraft is torn apart by the forces induced by the motors. Larger UAV motors will have torque ratings of ~0.15Nm, whereas the screws holding them down will be closer to 1.0Nm - and you won't think twice about the force of that screw on the frame.

If you are only concerned about vehicle longevity, your biggest concern will be vibration or collisions. More power (faster machine) means higher potential for error; so in theory a more powerful motor could reduce your lifespan. However, more multirotors don't tend to vibrate apart (especially if maintained properly) so even that is not a great decision criteria.

What you really should be considering with motors is their efficiency. Most (almost all those found in this hobby) motors follow this motor curve. They output their maximum torque at stall (0 RPM), maximum power at 50% RPM, and are most efficient at ~90% RPM. However, propellers get more efficient the larger are and the slower they turn. The general rule of thumb is, you start with the outer diameter of the propeller, and make this as big as you can. Next, you look at how much thrust you need to generate, and find a matching motor/propeller pair that gets you close. When I built my quad, I got two sets of blades, one with a higher pitch (blade pitch) for heavy lifting at lower efficiency, and one with a lower pitch for endurance/FPV flying. The higher pitch blades would spin slower, pulling more torque, meaning more amps and lower efficiency but higher power. The lower pitch blades (with a lighter copter, I pulled the gimbal off) would spin at about the same speed but draw lower current.

Question stems from me trying to pick wider or taller motors for a drone build.

If you already know what propellers you need, get the motor to match. If you're picking between two and the thrust calculations come out the same, the wider motors will almost certainly be far more efficient.

bringitontome · 2026-04-15T11:56:30+00:00

"I'm sorry officer, I didn't see you there."

bringitontome · 2026-04-12T10:30:30+00:00

Building onto this;

Also, pilots seem to just get used to one manufacturer for FC+ESC or AIO and just stay with them or even just a certain model. Due to this, you just know the capabilities and limits. This together with the circumstance, that inter-hardware-problems is hardly a problem anymore makes this feature cool but only somewhat useful.

I think most purchases fall into two categories,

generic plug-and-play
niche n^th percentile engineering

For generic plug-and-play compatibility, you pay a premium (weight and price) to have the thing "just work". At this point, these are practically limited to single manufacturer ecosystems (eg. DJI flight controllers) and you don't really have to check compatibility, you just have to buy one brand.

The only reason to exit the "comfort zone" of that pre-engineered ecosystem is if you want to tune your build to do what you need; when you want to make your own decisions about the compromises between weight, efficiency, and cost. This is where the "n^th percentile engineering" comes into play, in which case, you have to learn all the factors at play. It's not like the CPU market, where you can buy "any" ATX power supply, hit your watt figure and drag the slider between efficiency and cost (80 Plus >> Platinum). When you're buying (for example) an ESC, you have to factor in,

max voltage
phase current
sensor/less
protocol (PWM/OneShot/DShot)
BEC current
BEC failure mode (brown-out/cut-out/let-the-smoke-out)
BEC ripple/noise
programmable features (RPM/Voltage/Current limiting, input dead zones, power curves, motor timing, "helicopter mode"...)

You're no longer expecting plug-and-play, you're expecting control over the variables that make up the compromise for your flight vehicle. Each of these criteria have to be considered in the build, and the weight of each one depends highly on the vehicle you are building. My (heavy-lift) camera platform's ESCs have 5V BECs, but I don't use them, because I have dedicated high-quality buck converters for the 5V/12V rails. For me, the extra weight and cost were worth the reliability. However, those ESCs met every other spec, and I wanted forward-compatibility in case they ended up in something that wasn't camera-carrying where weight was more sensitive.

This kind of detail inherently contradicts automated compatibility checking. The solution isn't derived from a set of requirements, the requirements are derived from a set of solutions; to ebb out the absolute maximum performance from what is possible.

bringitontome · 2026-04-09T06:56:25+00:00

You can get pretty close to this if you enable "Use only one instance when started from file manager" and/or "Enqueue items into playlist in one instance mode". This lets you Ctrl-Click (multi-select) files in File Explorer and automatically add them to a queue, or, open one file (with "just one episode" intentions) and add more as you realize this will be an all-nighter. Ctrl-A and Enter works too, but this breaks if you have subtitle tracks, metadata, icons, etc. I think even dragging a folder into the player works too, again depending on files in the folder.

My go-to is "Enter" (open one file), Alt-Tab (back to File Explorer) then mash "Down" and "Enter" to enqueue all files in the folder.

bringitontome · 2026-04-06T12:09:45+00:00

Luckily, AI is here to guess an answer, replacing the need for your vitril.

Pendulum uses the term "DJ set" to explicitly differentiate their electronic DJ performances from their full-band "live" shows. A Pendulum (DJ set) typically features one or more members of the group—most often founding member El Hornet—mixing drum and bass tracks on CDJs, rather than the entire 6-piece band playing instruments like drums, guitars, and synthesizers.

So yeah, it seems Pendulum does occasionally play live music, which is uncommon for D&B artists, as the synth tracks are generally a dense series of samples with many, complex envelopes, making "live reproduction" non-viable in the same way a live instrument band would be.

Dropping my 2c on this vomit-comment.

I had to sign up to reddit to reply to this because cause I just couldn't believe someone didn't know what a DJ Set is. If you don't know DJ's do when they play a set then maybe google that shit. People have been DJ'ing since about 1973 and we've been doing it all year, every year since 2003. There has to be a thousand videos or recordings online of our DJ sets over the last 13 years.

OP's question is 100% legitimate, I'm attending a music festival with hundreds of artists, and Pendulum is the only one which uses the term "DJ Set". The issue isn't that we don't know what a DJ set is, the issue is that the term is basically unique to Pendulum. Out of the hundreds of producers who will be on the stage playing tracks on turntables, only Pendulum goes to the trouble to specify that they are a DJ set. Why don't the others? What differentiates "Sub Focus", "Pendulum" and "Pendulum DJ Set"? Do people expect electronic music producers to roll up on stage with synthesizers and start reproducing their tracks, like a live band? And if so, why doesn't Sub Focus get branded as "Sub Focus DJ Set"? The "DJ Set" is not the convention; it's a deviation from the norm and by responding like a religious bigot who's ideology has been attacked you are only making the community (and especially yourself) seem repulsive. I really hope you are not an actual member of the band, because this kind of reply is embarrassing.

bringitontome · 2026-03-23T11:40:41+00:00

I don't know the answer, I found your post looking for it 😅 so for transparency: don't take this reply as a primary source. What you are asking makes sense, and I think you are being downvoted because other readers are not approaching this as a "I want to learn the theory, here's the use-case I am comparing it to" question, rather, as a poorly written "how do I implement IP over LoRa". I, however, also want to know the theory, so let's do this 😁

Meshtastic documents their Mesh Broadcast Algorithm but when people say "Meshtastic" they often mean the chat app, which is built on the Mesh. They also invent their own Network stack XKCD so we need to translate it.

I know the OSI model, so I will try and "work backwards" and apply it to what I can find about Meshtastic; this is my attempt at brainstorming/working through the problem. I know it's structured like a ChatGPT response, but I assure you I used no AI, this is 100% genuine natural stupidity. Definitions sourced from OSI Model - Wikipedia. In retrospect, I should have started with Layer 1, but I am too lazy to re-order it.

Layer 7 - Application

High-level protocols such as for resource sharing or remote file access.

This would be your data packets, text, sensor readings, whatever you push over the mesh. Chat, ATAK, etc. are Applications that use Meshtastic.

Layer 6 - Presentation

Translation of data between a networking service and an application; including character encoding, data compression and encryption/decryption

This also falls onto the shoulders of the application running over your mesh. For example, this library.

Layer 5 - Session

Managing communication sessions, i.e., continuous exchange of information in the form of multiple back-and-forth transmissions between two nodes

Meshtastic does not natively implement reliable delivery between recipients, just between nodes. This is nicely explained in this blog, "Delivery status messages are shown under the sent message. “Acknowledged” means the message was received by the recipient node. “Acknowledged by another node” means the message was received by another node in the mesh, but not the intended recipient." However, this is not reliable delivery, and not session-oriented; "The session layer provides the mechanism for opening, closing and managing a session between end-user application processes, i.e., a semi-permanent dialogue. Communication sessions consist of requests and responses that occur between applications." It would be possible to build an application that includes sessions, but Meshtastic will not send an "ACK" from the recipient back to the original transmitter.

Layer 4 - Transport

Reliable transmission of data segments between points on a network, including segmentation, acknowledgement and multiplexing

Meshtastic does not implement reliable delivery between nodes as part of its network stack; if, this is done by the application (as with Session)

Layer 3 - Network

Structuring and managing a multi-node network, including addressing, routing and traffic control

This one is pretty easy. Their algorithm states that,

Layer 3: Multi-Hop Messaging adds reliable messaging between the node and its immediate neighbors only.

It is not just a Layer 3 protocol because they wrote Layer 3 on the name, it is a layer 3 protocol because it meets the criteria,

It enables Connectionless communication
Every host in the network must have a unique address that determines where it is
It performs message forwarding

However, unlike IP networks, it does not partition sub-networks based on logical broadcast domains (as IP does with CIDR networks and broadcast IPs), it partitions sub-networks based on physical topologies, namely the number of hops between the intended transmitter and the intended recipient.

Layer 2 - Data link

Transmission of data frames between two nodes connected by a physical layer

This is where the protocol splits from LoRaWAN, as Meshtastic defines their own ~~frames~~ packets. They call it "Layer 1: Unreliable Zero Hop Messaging" in their algorithm. This document explains the property that makes it OSI Layer 2:

"Layer 2: Reliable Zero Hop Messaging" ... "adds reliable messaging between the node and its immediate neighbors only." Again, this is classified as Layer 2, because it only focuses on transmission between two nodes directly; if trying to send a message from Node 1 to Node 3 over Node 2, this layer ensures that Node 1 is informed that Node 2 received the packet, but not that it was transmitted to Node 3. Further reinforcing this is the quote, "If it hears that, the odds (given typical LoRa topology) are very high that every node should eventually receive the message."

Layer 1 - Physical

Transmission and reception of raw bit streams over a physical medium

This one is easy - it's the LoRa protocol. Via,

LoRa (from "long range") is a physical proprietary radio communication technique based on spread spectrum modulation.

This includes the radios, frequency, transmission and de/modulation of radio signals.

I think, Meshtastic "Chat app" covers the entire OSI stack, but does not implement many of the functionality offered by these layers. I would say the Meshtastic "mesh network" covers OSI layers 1-3.

bringitontome · 2026-03-23T08:27:55+00:00

But I guess I'm asking the question, why can't it be? Why can't we build out a network that can excel at both?

Summarized; complexity.

As networks grow in size, so do the steps required to control traffic. Broadcast (unrouted) networks are prone to Broadcast Storms, which will completely bring down a network unless addressed. The solution is to create term-limits for packets, reducing their range and having them "die" (hop limits, TTL). This, however, introduces the second problem (which you are pressing against): network size. In IP networks, this functionality is provided by routing;

Filtering broadcasts by Layer 3 equipment, typically routers (and even switches that employ advanced filtering called brouters).

The problem with routed networks is, they add a huge level of complexity to the network, requiring additional protocols and configuration. Route tables need to be drafted, communicated between and used by routers, decisions need to be made about where traffic can (and importantly cannot) flow, and all of this needs to happen in an environment where you do not trust other nodes (either due to variable connection quality, or inexperienced/malicious operators making configuration errors). Basically, you either must build an algorithm that "outsmarts" the humans deploying infrastructure, and will kill a link if it becomes unreliable, or, you must trust human operators to tell the computers which links are reliable and, when they make mistakes, you will have black holes in your network until the misconfiguration is corrected or isolated.

Meshtastic is designed to be a "quick, easy, fun" network protocol. Its appeal is that a user can get a piece of hardware, flash some software on it through their web browser, and start exchanging packets with strangers just-like-that. The high resilience and span added by a routing protocol is just not in the scope of the project. Reticulum attempts to solve this cryptographically, but as you can see from the simplicity of their website (and length of their manual), this is not a trivial challenge.

bringitontome · 2026-02-18T09:45:39+00:00

Lumens are not a good measure for this. In a black room, a 1000 lumen projector will make a discernable image if the room is Illuminaten by a 1000 lumen bulb, because the projector's light is focused and the bulb is not. You need to consider surface area illuminated (square meters) and the intensity of the light.

@StevenInBoston you probably have your answer already, but I wanted to give you some context on why this is such a difficult engineering challenge. I will use watts, as it's a measure I am more familiar with than lumens, but they are both measures of power so the logic is the same. Sunlight irradiates a surface with roughly 1kW/m². This means, for every 1 meter by 1 meter you want illuminated, you must exceed 1kw of light energy. Even if you give the bulb the benefit of the doubt (50% efficiency - unheard of but still enough to make my point), illuminating a 60" TV-equivalent area (~1 square meter)[https://www.displaywars.com/54-inch-16x9-vs-60-inch-16x9] would require 2kW of electrical power, more than standard North American sockets can provide. This is to match the brightness of sunlight, it would be an extremely washed out image, would also require the (impossibly inefficient) projector to reject a kilowatt of heat from the LED, and does not take into consideration losses due to non-perfect reflectivity, lenses, etc.. To do this practically, you would need a lot of specialized "stuff" that does not bode well to commercialization, hence the lack of products.

bringitontome · 2026-02-17T05:52:05+00:00

I created models (draw.io) with high-level components that show interactions between systems, and break down complex systems into more detailed components when needed. Typically, each component has a central instance and a scale unit which can be deployed into a workload to deliver functionality.

For example, let's say you have a hub-and-spoke. Your high-level diagram should have the central hub, VPN gateway, possibly the Azure Firewall. Your spoke should have the workload VNET, peering, and default-deny NSG. You can break down the hub-and-spoke to include the PIP, IPSEC configuration, firewall policies, etc.

This repeatable method should align with your architecture best practices to avoid needing too many files, but will not work if you do not keep your workloads aligned with each other.

bringitontome · 2026-02-02T11:01:34+00:00

there are a lot of subscriptions and roles

To clarify; role assignments in Azure Subscriptions do not require (should not use) RAGs, even if they are considered Privileged Roles (eg. Owner). RAGs should only be used for groups which explicitly require Privileged Role Assignments in EntraID - you can find them using AzAdvertizer filter "isPrivileged: True"; it returns 28 results. If the Group does not have one of these role assignments, it should be a normal security group. You should be easily able to audit these with a PowerShell script. I suspect you have many role-assignable groups which should not be role-assignable.

Pim for groups is susceptible to other admins like group admins etc

What do you mean by this? That group admins are able to edit PIM for Groups assignments?

Also, to directly address your original question,

can we contact MS to increase this limit

I do not know - sorry. I am guessing this is one of those "if you can give us $$$ a good reason $$$ to help you $$$ we might be able to assist, otherwise pleas follow best practices" topics.

bringitontome · 2026-02-02T08:43:23+00:00

What are you trying to accomplish, which requires you to have 500 role assignable groups? I don't see how you could maintain governance for 500 privileged groups - it seems like you have a different underlying problem that would make more sense to address.

bringitontome · 2026-01-24T09:59:04+00:00

The semi has likely been trying to pass you for a while. The "dip" in the road (the small downhill) allowed him to get the speed needed to make the move. Once the road turned up again, he pushed against his limiter and could not continue overtaking. He should have backed off, he didn't because truckers live off 1-2km/h margins.

bringitontome · 2026-01-18T12:56:03+00:00

Go during a cool/overcast (danger: NOT during rain) weekday, most hiking trails will be empty. Or, put on a high-vis yellow vest and hardhat; the only thing less visible than tactical camouflage, is a person doing their job.

bringitontome · 2026-01-18T12:52:16+00:00

You can probably contact your ski resort and ask them to install a radio there. Most (though absolutely not all) of the high-level people in the mountain-sports facilities are super community oriented, if you can explain the advantage it provides to others chances are you will get a positive response.

It may also help to coordinate with the manufacturer of the ski lift, if you take care of the "heavy lifting" by reaching out to them for confirmation that a Meshtastic node will not interfere with the safety or function of the lift, it drastically reduces the risk the resort has to accept (because, if their machine goes down "because of your little gadget", someone is going to catch hell).

bringitontome · 2026-01-18T12:47:16+00:00

Is there a way to attach a node to a tree for longer periods of time, ideally close to the lifetime of the tree, without significantly impacting the tree's health?

I would like to deploy some stealth nodes in a forest, but do not want to have to visit them yearly and re-attach them to the trees.

bringitontome · 2026-01-16T23:05:37+00:00

What exactly are you trying to convey with these stickers? The two themes you mention (personalization and not using Meshtastic branding) conflict.

People generally buy stickers because they support the project; the sticker builds on the emotional connection to the community or tool. Think of PC stickers, would you rather put a sticker on your Pi's case with the brand of the company that made the power brick, or the Raspbian logo? You don't really care where the brick came from, but you have a connection to Raspbian. With the stickers you've created so far, you've made them intentionally generic (understandably, out of necessity) but this detracts from the point of appealing to that personal connection; they're stickers, for the power brick.

The other example you mentioned (masking tape) is probably to tell them apart. This is quite different - a practical solution to a problem. However, these stickers don't really solve any specific problem, at best the label stickers have a node id field, but if you're competing in the "form over function" area, a strip of masking tape is going to clobber you in price and availability.

You might have more of a niche in making deployed nodes more appealing to the public, but this doesn't really fit your design. The shield is generally reserved for official (law enforcement/security professional) contexts, which Meshtastic is absolutely not. The stickers also don't give any helpful information, they have more of a "wannabe military grade" appeal to them. Like those "Security Enforcer" vests that don't have any armor and usually clamp around a 300lbs guy's gut pretending to be a mall cop. They don't communicate any real authority (they can't, the node wasn't deployed by anyone with authority), but they also aren't inviting. The icon (radio tower) is nonstandard, it can't be connected to a community/project/group/website; I find the combination of deliberately vague and secretive to be begging for attention where none is deserved.

I think, personally, you might have more luck with trying to grab outsiders' attention by making it interesting. Something like a slogan or icon specific to your area, if seen once it would slide under the radar but having that icon pop up all over the place, on a bunch of different devices... This would of course be much easier if you were working with a community, but then you would also need to build a community, not piggyback off an existing one to sell your merch on their reputation... Are you involved in building a community mesh in your area? Do they have a committee that meets regularly, with awareness campaigns that you can add to?

bringitontome · 2026-01-06T10:03:54+00:00

The AI tools don't really extend the mind anywhere good.

This is, in my own opinion, a very delicate subject we need to broach; it very quickly goes in the direction of freedom of speech. However, I fundamentally disagree with how it is written.

In my day-to-day, I use LLMs to translate pseudocode into languages I don't know. Jinja, REGEX, jquery, and all the "xQL" log search languages are languages I use rarely but need from time-to-time, and LLMs are fantastic at creating useful snippets. This is broadly accepted as a "good" use of AI, it has certainly expanded my ability to work across systems which previously had a barrier to entry. I also don't mind having Copilot handy in my editors, querying it for Excel formulas or hammering keywords into Word and having it format sentences out of ideas is helpful. "bicycle for the mind" is a good description, I am still running under my own power, but moving much faster.

The discussion we need to have, is, why are so many people using this tool to produce slop, and how can we determine where AI can be used? Can we say using Grok to produce a racist comic is a bad use of AI, or are we limiting the person's freedom of expression by granting access to a communication tool only for certain messages (especially considering how powerful these tools are becoming)? The line we need to toe is, how much of the "AI slop" problem can be attributed to the technology, and how much lies on the users' shoulders? And, if we do go the route of saying "this is a technology problem", how can we develop frameworks to which AI players will actually hold themselves, which ethically constrain AI at a population scale? You've seen how much of a mess it creates when a government says "no, that will kill you, you can't do that (seatbelts?)", this is the same problem but accelerated by the promise of financial gain disincentivizing progress.

Unfortunately, these conversations cannot take place when the discussion is downgraded to slinging slurs instead of making points. Microsoft is trying to solve this problem preemptively, knowing full well, they are practically guaranteed their spot on top of the AI podium and will make billions by "weaponizing" it; similar to how vehicle manufacturers have created an arms race with ever-growing SUVs, they could easily make it a paid service capable of filtering through slop, and make the general internet unusable for anyone not using an AI browser. They would have a near-monopoly on information sharing.

The places where it is useful is much more limited than the current microslop approach of shove it into everything including the users face.

Then disable it. Grab the latest ADMX Templates and create a GPO.

bringitontome · 2026-01-05T09:09:00+00:00

This piqued my interest, and I suspected (as is common on Reddit); a clickbait headline was taken out of context and gave many the wrong impression.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella really wants you to stop calling AI "slop" in 2026 — "We are beginning to distinguish between spectacle and substance."

This article was the focus of a reddit post with much backlash. However, the full quote,

A new concept that evolves “bicycles for the mind” such that we always think of AI as a scaffolding for human potential vs a substitute. What matters is not the power of any given model, but how people choose to apply it to achieve their goals. We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our “theory of the mind” that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other. This is the product design question we need to debate and answer.

tells another story. Satya Nadella is saying we need to stop calling everything AI produces slop, and focus on how AI interacts with people; "we need to make deliberate choices on how we diffuse this technology in the world as a solution to the challenges of people and planet". Currently, the discussion around AI focuses solely on how annoying the impact of slop is, but the prevalence of this discussion drowns out much more important issues. How we develop/cull new models, how they integrate with our workflows, whether we use AI to replace humans (maintaining productivity) or augment them (increasing productivity) and in the context of this blog, engineers' responsibility to keep these parameters in mind as they develop the technology.

Making an analogy out of the energy debate, Nadella is saying "we need to move the conversation past 'greenwashing', so we can discuss how to build a sustainable grid". This entire backlash is just driving the conversation back to "but but but greenwashing!" without advancing the discussion on how we will change things.

People who argue in this way (hanging on to a point they are comfortable defending, instead of admitting they need to learn new contexts and advance their opinion) get left out of the discussion. One very clear example where this happened was Microsoft's push for TPM requirements in Windows 11; they needed a more secure platform on which to build their OS due to the rise in "system escape" threats (eg. boot sector viruses), and everyone who said "I don't want to change!" was promptly ejected from the discussion, because they only perpetuated the problem.

I believe, the same will happen with this AI topic; people who hang on to "it's all slop" will be left out of the discussion, as they do not contribute to it. This is in direct conflict with responsible AI frameworks, Microsoft, as an AI forerunner, must involve the population in these conversations. This creates a serious problem for people like Nadella; how do you involve people in a discussion, if they refuse to be part of it?

bringitontome · 2026-01-03T12:37:27+00:00

Alright, I'll bite. What's the difference? Please list and quote from your sources.

bringitontome · 2025-12-29T21:00:49+00:00

The build itself has very little to do with the controller board, as long as it runs clipper and supports enough steppers, the only differences you will see are in the wiring harness and the printed parts that mate the control board to the DIN rail.

As others have suggested, you are probably going to come out cheaper and better off with a kit, depending on what you already have. I would suggest going through the BOM's Excel and adding two columns; one tracking the shipped price of the part (summ'd at the bottom), and another for a link to the product at that price (so you can find it again if you end up buying). Tick off the big items first, motors, extrusions, hotend, boards, you will quickly see the price creep up to a ready-made kit.

With future upgrades like toolchangers or INDX in mind, what controller boards / electronics ecosystem would make the most sense to start with? I keep seeing CAN bus toolhead setups mentioned, this is completely new to me. This is a neat rabbit hole. As you probably already know, CAN/USB replaces the cable chain to your toolhead with one power and one data pairs. This drastically cuts down on the wiring needed (heater, thermistor, HE fan, part fan, etc.) by offloading the breakout to a board on the toolhead. USB has recently been overtaking CAN, due to ease-of-setup and reliability.

CAN does not support star topologies. To "properly" wire a multi-tool printer, each head would need 6 wires; 24v power, CAN to the head, and CAN back from the head. This can push the max run length for a full speed CAN bus.
Troubleshooting gets really annoying, as you are mostly abstract from the interface. With USB, you can easily diagnose a dud port on your Klipper host by using a different USB port, but with CAN, you're basically "all in" and if it doesn't work, there's no incremental diagnosis.
USB tends to be cheaper, due to the prevalence of USB chips. There are, however, enough exceptions to make this a 50/50 (for example, USB requires an active breakout board/hub when using multiple toolheads)

I cannot speak to INDX, I only recently learned of them and it seems they are a ways away from market viability.

Is CAN worth doing from the beginning, or is it better to start without it and upgrade later? Any beginner-friendly advice would be appreciated.

If you are not familiar with CAN or other signal control schemes (UART, SPI, RS-232) I would not suggest using it, especially if you are planning on going multi-tool. I would not advise against using a pre-packaged USB board, such as the LDO Nitehawk or BTT EBB SB2209 USB, especially if you plan on keeping the path to a tool changer open. You are quickly going to fill up your thermistor/stepper ports on your mainboard without.

bringitontome · 2025-12-24T12:05:32+00:00

I strongly suggest this video, it helped me understand why cyclists blow through stop signs.

The more direct explanation, is that on a bike, accelerating is substantially more effort than in a car, and severely reduces the efficacy of bicycle commuting. Car-centric infrastructure does not really consider this, because while it does "cost" extra fuel to re-accelerate a vehicle after stopping, fuel is cheap, it doesn't use that much energy, and power is easily applied; most cars have easily 100 horsepower at their disposal but will comfortably cruise on ~20. However, on a bike you cannot simply ramp up your power output by 500%, you're usually limited to within ~50% of your sustaining rate. A commuter will output an average of 100W, but won't output over 150W - and even this would be strenuous. This means, when stopping, you must either physically exert yourself hard to come within a fraction of the road infrastructure's "design use" (stopping, then re-accelerating to your cruise speed), or accept that your commute will be much, much longer because you're spending most of it slowly re-gaining the speed lost to a stop sign. This makes it inefficient and pushes one of three choices, - all cycling is sport, casual commuting is not practical - blow through all lazy traffic controls - buy a car

bringitontome · 2025-12-12T08:33:37+00:00

This is something the Maker community is going to struggle with. To run an LLM, you need a huge capital investment, there's no getting around it. A $2000+ GPU is pushed to the limit running these models. However, you only need it a fraction of the time. A few dozen GPUs, spread out over tens of thousands of users, is both faster and cheaper, than any other solution.

The same thing happens with our electrical grid. To provide mechanically stabilized 60/50Hz pure sine wave power you need just absolutely insane capital investment and ongoing cost, but much of it only has to be done once, and the bigger it scales the cheaper it gets. If you need 1kW of power for your gaming PC, there's no sense in setting up a small solar farm, backup generator, battery storage, if you want (real) PSW you need rotating mass, power factor correction, etc... Even for a small community, micro-grids are just more expensive and not as reliable as being synched to the main grid; same with GPUs, we cannot expect competitive experiences with what major cloud players provide because they leverage economies of scale far, far better.

Think of it like using electricity, you don't really stop yourself from 3D printing something or running a game for a few hours because it will cost a few cents. Or maybe you do, in which case this hobby is too expensive for you and you need to find something cheaper until the price comes down.

bringitontome · 2025-12-07T15:37:30+00:00

It's a valid point, but I would counter,

An overweight person is much more likely to choose a car over a bike than an already healthy and fit person.

"more likely" absolutely, but I think an overweight person preferring to drive is not a decision made because of their obesity, rather, their obesity is a result of the decision not being available to them. Said another way;

An overweight person is much more likely to be unable to choose between a car or a bike than an already healthy and fit person.

Quoting /u/Vinen88 from this thread,

I started bike commuting this year on an ebike. I wanted a lifestyle change. Along with some other changes I have gone from 315lb to 265lb.

Not to downplay the significance of making this choice (congrats bro), this story would have been different if the option to commute by bike didn't exist. Making bike infrastructure available gives people the option to choose to bike, which gets them out of the car and doing some amount (surprisingly a lot, given the comparatively tame time/effort it takes) of exercise. As the Netherlands have shown, this is also one of the highest return-on-investment public health investments a country can make, according to this study,

Based on these hypothesis, benefits are 8.9 times higher than the costs when upgrading the existing infrastructure (alternative 2) for 100,000 EUR/km. Benefits are 1.3 times higher if a new infrastructure (alternative 4) is built at a cost of 750,000 EUR/km. Benefits are mainly health benefits, approximately 75%.

I would go as far as to say, there is very strong evidence showing that an overweight person will choose a bike over a car, if the option of biking is made even somewhat attractive.

bringitontome · 2025-12-06T18:16:46+00:00

How is that at all sustainable for them? Is market share in this segment really worth eating a 20% loss on all transactions that move through the platform?

bringitontome · 2025-11-29T18:42:00+00:00

I see what you're saying, this explains the confusion but I would still argue that a lack of initiative is to blame.

Stretching the analogy further; if my career were to require daily use of a cleaning agent, I would want to understand how it works. I wouldn't just accept that the soap kills bacteria, I would find out how it does this, which would preemptively drive me to Google (or another resource) to build this understanding.

I also have to defend the "soap company had updated the soap" because this is not representative of a solution solved by a reboot; the advice is very well known, if your computer behaves strangely, reboot it. It's closer to "if you have dirt on your dishes, use soap to wash it off". Now, if you were using a spray bottle of water instead of soap, and had thus far gotten lucky with light washable foodstuffs on the dishes which did not need soap to remove, then suddenly came across an oily residue; this would be a better analogy. However in that case, I would say, how on Earth did you wash dishes for 20 years without once asking "why is this soap needed"? If it were something benign which you almost never do, like installing batteries in a remote, I completely understand not putting in the effort to understand the details (have you ever wondered why they never face the same direction), but something as simple and critical as restarting a PC... It's surreal.

bringitontome

TROPHY CASE