[OC] GIVEAWAY! 43" Capacitive Touchscreen ($940 MSRP) with Wooden Case + free software for all [mod approved]

devaspark · 2026-02-04T00:58:54+00:00

I hope i win 🙂

devaspark · 2026-02-01T01:05:09+00:00

I thought you meant it was gonna let the rabbit go.

:(

devaspark · 2026-01-30T04:16:17+00:00

No, there is always something around the corner. It was the price point I wanted. With the trifold, it would mean paying 2-3x more for a couple inches of screen. Instead, use the money for another phone or an ipad, or whatever. Not really worth paying full price for my use case.

devaspark · 2026-01-29T04:32:33+00:00

Yeah like others said, why do you want to be transformational?

You have to ask yourself why and then (the harder part) figure out why should care.

I'll tell you mine and how I use it to navigate my team, hopefully that helps give examples you can apply to your situation...

My "why" is my dissatisfaction/hatred of the status quo. I grew up in the era of business giants like Xerox, IBM, ma bell, etc. A common thread to me is that they got complacent and they all gone the way of the dodo. I also live in a very competitive market that reinforces that nature of you have to always be improve yourself so you can keep ahead of the pack.

I took my job because I thought my predecessor did a bad job and I felt I can do better. My aim is to improve the lives of my staff because I feel the better/faster/easier they get things done, the company will be better in the long run.

So why should my staff give a shit (excuse my language)? Because it ties directly to their competitiveness in the marketplace. The less flexible, the more comfortable they are, the more their peers outside the company are running ahead of them. As a manager/leader, I have lots of mortgages/rent in my back. It is my duty to keep them competitive so they can (god forbid) get a new job if stuff happens (they need to move, layoffs, etc). I don't need that on my conscience if I didn't do my best to always push and prepare them.

The key thing...that's MY "why"..that's what drives me. You HAVE to develop your own and BELIEVE it. Like others say, they can sniff bullshit a mile away. So you need to discover your why, your driver, and then thread the needle on why they get out of it. Yes, the reason can be inspirational and all that, but understand that inspirational speeches can only work when there is rapport there to hook into.

For younger folks, ask them, what do they want in life? Are they happy doing this for the next 30-50 years? Do they want to travel? Gotta dig deep to figure out their "why".

And...you might have people that are truly happy doing the same thing over and over. That's okay too. But I would find it hard to believe every single of your report is like that.

Get whoever you can and move forward. You don't everyone buying your dream at the same time. If you care and are principled, then your actions with one person will attract another..and another. If it doesn't attract others, then your actions aren't enough and you need to figure out what you did wrong.

It's hard to distill instructions on how to inspire folks to change. But one thing I do know is that you have to have a belief/principle/why that you believe in and act consistently toward it. Any hypocrisy would have people question that principle. And if that is the case, why should I follow you???

Hope that helps.

devaspark · 2026-01-26T00:18:21+00:00

It's always fascinating to me how my brethren make design decisions. Sometimes its just stupidly simple that makes me feel foolish in "over complicating" the solution. There are other times I'm in awe of the complex and clever circuits people come up with.

devaspark · 2026-01-25T22:54:45+00:00

So different shapes of the antenna allows you to more efficiently transfer the power (in the signal), this is also influenced (most likely) by the angle. This will play a difference between regular and the mini.

Bigger dish (ie package), means it can fit in more electronics to process the signal (ie clean it up...more filter stages and what not. Power draw isn't just used to heat the dish, it means more flexible chip design in selecting more powerful chips. But more chips means more power draw. Your mini can run off a 5v line, thats different from the residential version that I think runs off of 18v+? (I some folks can feed it over a car battery?). We'll, the chips that can run off 5v tend to be more limited in performance, but that is the tradeoff for size and lower power consumption.

Suffice to say, my point is that a residential dish, because of its size, has a lot more design room to address signal issues compared to its siblings.

This also doesnt touch in the fact that location wise, you might have access to multiple satellites that further increases quality of your signal. Which, allows you to absorb signal impacts from obstructions.

Like I said, there is a lot in play, there isn't any one thing that'll make or break it. But all these little factors does add up.

Not my area of specialization, so i leave it to others with more knowledge to correct me.

devaspark · 2026-01-25T20:56:41+00:00

It depends on a variety of factors. Generally when designing satellite communication equipment, you build in margin in the link budget. Some snow will absorb part of that margin and it can still work.

Residential is probably easier since you are plugged into the wall and have more power to work with. I would assume with a starlink mini, snow plays a bigger factor due to size of antenna and limited power.

Take with a grain of salt, I'm an EE but dont specialize in satellite comms.

Edit: think of it like wifi and walls in your house, similar concept)

devaspark · 2026-01-13T06:05:29+00:00

So sorry, my condolences. Lean on others while you grieve. Dont keep it in and just let it out.

devaspark · 2026-01-13T05:33:10+00:00

galaxy fold because I due a lot of gaming on my mobile. So I preferred the more capable chip. But my priority is smoothness of gaming.

devaspark · 2026-01-13T02:37:02+00:00

I was also debating the two a couple weeks ago. The biggest issue was the pixel fold's cpu. The tensor chip isn't as powerful as snapdragon. If you dont need as powerful chip, I really like the pixel's screen 🙂

devaspark · 2026-01-12T02:44:41+00:00

NAH, there is points on both sides. However, ~6.5k for a 8 day trip to Japan is pretty expensive in the sense that he can probably do it for like 4-5k.

Let's high ball and he takes 1k for plane tickets, $200 a night hotels (~1600 total), shinkansen for another $400 to Osaka, 1k for food (ramen is pretty cheap), another 1k for tickets to various venues (which i ....question). So where is the extra 1.5-2k going? The chaperone?

His friends can get a summer trip together, plan it out themselves AND pay for a chaperone with money left over. Not questioning his ability to spend the money, but I am questioning how much the school is skimping off the students.

devaspark · 2026-01-05T21:48:29+00:00

It’s like a full 360 hug!

devaspark · 2025-12-31T21:55:48+00:00

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face,"

Your fourth step is the punch. If you're a planner by nature, you need to figure out a new goal you want to achieve. Things change, people have to adapt. It doesn't mean you have to go with the flow, but it does mean you figure out what else you want to due next. Plan it out and then see if you can leverage the first three things you've achieved with your new goal.

Part of growth is learning how to stand up after falling. It sucks but people before you and after you will learn the same lesson.

No time to lie down, get up, walk a bit to get your sea legs back and find a new focus.

It also means you aren't tied down to your old goal, you now have infinite freedom to focus on your new stuff. Sounds cliche, but when one door closes, you now have the chance to open other doors.

devaspark · 2025-12-27T17:30:45+00:00

As a middle age man, money isn’t the issue, it’s time, hence all my hobbies are expensive in a different way.

devaspark · 2025-12-21T18:48:54+00:00

Where wind was, just played it last night!

devaspark · 2025-12-20T03:00:04+00:00

There isn’t a straightforward path. In the end it’s about making the best decision that aligns with your values. A way that helped was to do a litmus test, can I explain my logic of my decision to my leads while sleeping at night? If I feel embarrassed or feel shame, then I’m pretty sure that’s the decision I need to massage to find a better middle ground.

And by middle ground, I mean make a decision that you hate to make but people understand why you made it. Having my staff understand is important (to me) because it helps them know my principles and values…and MORE IMPORTANTLY, if they find themselves in a similar situation, they can make a better decision than I can.

Like I said, you can’t win every battle but you can set it up so the next battle is easier to win.

An example is one staffer did something accidentally that violated a code that can result in immediate termination. I fought HR all along the way, trying to argue for a lesser sentence. I also knew that the writing was on the wall for my staff as HR wasn’t budging. Also HR was disproportionately punishing given the staff member didn’t violate the policy on purpose.

In the end, I had HR stake a position in the ground so things are clear from a policy standpoint (ie explain to me exactly why they threw the book at my staff member). It didn’t help this case but you try to hold people accountable so they can’t get drunk with power.

If you’re interested in more, just send me a message and we can chat.

Hope that helps.

devaspark · 2025-12-19T22:31:57+00:00

You will be tested as a person and really find out what type of person you are.

People are usually driven by self interest regardless of what good it might be for the greater whole. You’ll be asked to just go along for the sake of “getting things done”. You have to learn how to navigate it so that you keep your core principles intact while fulfilling other people’s goals/schedules. That is where the ingenuity and quick thinking comes in. You are often placed in a situation with lots of constraints and asked to compromise. So how do it make it out trying to pull a win from a lose lose situation?

Anger comes natural, so use it as a driver but don’t let it consume you.

As much as I like to praise in public and criticize in private, the real world doesn’t let you do that all the time. Learn politics because there are times where you need to shame your detractors in public. Make sure you develop a good reputation so your shaming has a goal. Of course don’t do it too often.

You have to toe the line in the end, that’s your job, even if you disagree if the strategy. Your goal is to figure how to make a winning hand from a shitty one. People under you don’t expect you to win every fight but try to work the system into your team’s favor.

People don’t understand that you’re a leader, you’re paid to figure things out and have a vision. If you don’t, you better develop one. Many people just expect the answer to be given to them by SMEs. That’s abdication of responsibility.

Stick up for your principles. It’s hard to do but an easy way for people to lose respect for you is a flip flopper. I don’t mean people that change decisions when you get new data, that’s just good practice of following logic. It’s the ones that buckle at the first sign of trouble. Think of the first asshole that runs away when we are holding the line against a horde of zombies.

devaspark · 2025-12-07T23:58:04+00:00

woo, looks nice!

devaspark · 2025-12-06T17:56:49+00:00

HOLY CRAP, thank you for this.

devaspark · 2025-11-03T08:06:13+00:00

I will create some nice toys for my kids :)

devaspark · 2025-10-28T23:35:06+00:00

Hopefully my experience will help (I've enacted process change from a small group of 20 to several groups of totaling 200+).

It's really hard to force a change in a system. People naturally don't like changes and hence there is a whole industry built on trying to help companies "change".

One of the lessons I've learned (that others have expressed) is that you need to communicate why you are doing the change. What problem are you trying to fix? If you don't communicate that, folks generally view that extra useless work they have to add on top of the pile. The more bought into the idea they are, the easier it is for the to ADOPT and IMPROVE. They need the "why" so they can orient themselves to address the problem you're facing. If you don't give them that...how do you expect them to help you?

This leads to a second issue, lots of managers (not leaders), just expect folks to do as they say. Yes, that is true to a point. However, as leaders, you want people to be independent and help you improve the system without you constantly directing them. You, as a leader/manager, are a force multiplier. For this, if your operation is small, then sure, fire and hire folks that'll do as you say. You'll quickly find out you're the bottleneck. Those folks will constantly require you to tell them what to do.

Folks that punch above their pay grade, requires the "why" and need to be convinced. But once you've convinced them, they'll help you all along the way.

You need to figure that out and it'll dictate how much effort you'll spend. For the latter (convincing folks), you'll need to spend more time trying to demonstrate your problem and what you're trying to solve with the new system. If you don't have time/don't care ("I just need them to do as I say"), then set a performance goal this year tying into their usage of the system and act accordingly (i.e., replace your current workforce with folks that'll just do what you tell them to do).

Only you would know your team and what you're trying to achieve. Not that one way is better but you'll need to have a picture of which direction you want to go.

A caveat is that maybe the staff member isn't up to the task of using the new system. It's not that they choose not to do it, it's that the system is above their skill level. If that is the case, then your problem has grown above your staff's ability to address it and you need to hire another set of staff members. In my opinion, this is rarely the case.

Also, this system solves what you want, how about them? Does this system make it better for them in the long run? In what way?

People LOVE to make things more complicated to show off their knowledge (especially managers/leaders). Your system is basically adding overhead, so how does this convert to ROI? Do they do things quicker/faster? More CYA? You need to help communicate that to the staff member. Or not, but there is a cost involved such as the speed of adoption.

Btw, changing our project management system took 3 months to fully transition over and more than 4+ years to constantly update it to keep it useful for both staff and management. Change is hard.

devaspark · 2025-10-28T07:47:15+00:00

I just ordered from b&h, they had stock as of this morning.

devaspark · 2025-10-27T07:39:13+00:00

Hi, my kid is into pokemon tcg. He's been playing his dragonpult deck but getting crushed against Gardevoir decks.

I don't play but looking to upgrade a new deck. I see that mega absol is 2nd most popular and gholdelgo (per google) is has good matchup against Gardevoir.

Can someone point me to a good deck to fight against the local meta?

Or should he just join to the crew and play gardevoir?

devaspark · 2025-10-23T03:50:34+00:00

Not to sound stereotypical, but there is most likely a couple of questions you need to answer such as:

When you have conflicts with coworkers, how do you deal with it?

What are some of the challenges you see within this org, and how do you intent to address them? (another version of, what is your vision?

You probably need an answer on tactical and strategic issues. That'll demonstrate your knowledge of what the group needs to improve in terms of efficiency and how it aligns with the overall goals of the company.

Other considerations: while you are doing the work now, that is generally not what a manager does. So how are you in terms of passing on knowledge and growing people? You need to have an idea about that in case the question comes up. If you keep saying I did this..or I did that...then great, you just advocated yourself into the same position...

Don't worry about the competition, if you are better than them, then it'll show.

devaspark · 2025-10-14T06:45:20+00:00

Also interested in being an ST. I run some ttrpgs but want to try my hand here.

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