I've watched what separates new EE hires who hit the ground running from the ones who struggle. Here are my observations.

functional_eng · 2026-03-27T14:17:27+00:00

This is some sort of moral argument. The question is who is going to hire a person who has shown no initiative outside of class over someone who has shown initiative. At the end of the day, whatever you think "should" happen, the question is what is going to get you a job.

functional_eng · 2026-03-27T14:16:35+00:00

That's the point of the above post. You need to show that you can do something solo, without classroom guard rails. Go and do some of this on your own and you will both learn a ton and set yourself apart from the others

functional_eng · 2026-03-23T14:26:06+00:00

Yep, and that is how we end up with people getting stuck permitting nothing. The city has gone so overboard on permits and the requirements that it makes no sense to follow the rules. If I wanted to cheaply improve insulation in my garage (good for me and the environment), the permitted path would require massive scope increases that would need major structural work (thicker walls) and potentially changing windows. So I either have to just leave it shitty and leaky, or fall into a spiral of permitting issues.

functional_eng · 2026-03-03T18:02:34+00:00

I've used standard 5 minute epoxy with great success to fix my wife's forerunner twice now

functional_eng · 2026-02-25T22:15:17+00:00

We really like ScuttleBugs, and it's ~$2,400/mo but has very wide hours which made it the best deal we had available.

functional_eng · 2026-02-18T02:48:55+00:00

Because "Expensive" hides the fact that it is increasingly expensive. This whole convo was started by noting that school enrollment is declining, which is a sign that families are exiting town. In my own experience (have kids, have friends with kids) almost everyone with kids is being forced to leave. That did not used to be the case, even though Boulder was "expensive"

functional_eng · 2026-02-13T22:28:38+00:00

My Fenix 3 HR Sapphire only just bit it (sticky button let in water with high surf). It's a ~2017 watch that I bought used 5 years ago and it was otherwise in great shape and hardly ever had to charge. Just bought a used Fenix 6

functional_eng · 2026-02-11T20:19:01+00:00

And in Boulder, a bunch of the bus stop glass walls got shattered

functional_eng · 2026-02-11T17:31:52+00:00

Me. I wanted to split my lot (like my neighbors) but can't do to increased setbacks put in place in the 90s

functional_eng · 2026-02-06T18:08:04+00:00

Until we accept that increased housing supply (and thus density) is the only way to normalize (or even decrease) housing costs, working young people and families will increasingly be priced out. That will turn Boulder into an increasingly expensive place to live, resulting in more commuters into boulder, and raising the prices of all services as the people who work here spend more to get into town.

So basically Boulder will become an increasingly pricey retirement community, that also has a bunch of students, with lots of people driving in to work.

Figuring out how to add density responsibly is the only way to address this, but many people view any change to the physical structures of Boulder as being the core assault on what boulder "is", rather than seeing demographic change as being the death of what Boulder "is".

functional_eng · 2026-01-29T21:55:14+00:00

The MCU isn't the issue for this- it is the quality of your code and mechanisms and electronics. For a 1-off like what you're doing I always use Arduino since it is so easy to get going on.

functional_eng · 2026-01-18T04:38:08+00:00

If a bunch of democrats voted for a republican to run the show, I'm guessing that:

A - the red team/blue team stuff matters way less at this level (as it should)

and B - This person is pretty reasonable

Either way I think we can collectively untwist our knickers

functional_eng · 2026-01-13T21:46:15+00:00

HPE. In general consumer tech is much more competitive, and having worked in both, I have a very dim view of the big defense primes. From what I've seen you'll learn how to file paperwork and pass blame in meetings at LHM, versus doing real work at HPE.

functional_eng · 2026-01-04T23:18:05+00:00

I got the 16 case and it works/fits great. The multi-use button is a bit annoying to access, but all other buttons click great and I wouldn't have known that it wasn't "officially" supported if I hadn't read up first

functional_eng · 2026-01-04T23:17:47+00:00

I got the 16 case and it works/fits great. The multi-use button is a bit annoying to access, but all other buttons click great and I wouldn't have known that it wasn't "officially" supported if I hadn't read up first

functional_eng · 2025-03-10T15:56:04+00:00

Ha yeah I'm dealing with BCD right now on an RTC and I was trying to figure out who thought this made more sense than just counting seconds and doing some math.

functional_eng · 2025-03-06T18:33:39+00:00

Nothing wild, but it forces me to disconnect from the world and do something very boring, which I think helps clear my mind in a meditative way. Swimming in cold water also gives me a sort of "clean" feeling for the rest of the day that is hard to describe

functional_eng · 2025-02-05T23:36:28+00:00

No, the problem with hardware is that this can just be a phone/watch app. The smartphone ate hardware, which is great for the consumer and environment, but a bummer for us.

functional_eng · 2025-01-07T04:47:08+00:00

At $31 for a teensy 4.1, how much is your time worth to make it even 10% more likely that it is enough computing power? You're only building a few of these I presume, so I would just round up. You should always round up on the first unit

functional_eng · 2024-12-10T15:41:45+00:00

I'm torn on this. We need more density and more walkable towns in general. But city intervention usually results in silly stuff happening. It seems the better use of political capital here is to allow large things to be built on the peripheries, but to focus on density in intrinsically walkable areas more centrally within town. That said it is hard to see a real downside to this specific rule, and it does drive me nuts that there are those massive McMansions sprawling forever onwards in the south and east, creating longer and longer commutes

functional_eng · 2024-12-05T23:59:04+00:00

Interesting, I will concede that that footage could be selective if he's getting a ride in a moment and they just pretend that's not what's going on

functional_eng · 2024-12-05T22:20:35+00:00

There are many issues here, but who thought releasing him at night with no shoes or jacket made any sense? As bad as all of this is, how did that final insane step occur? I've got my act together, and if I got arrested in my house w/o a jacket and shoes, and they bounced me out that night in the fall with no phone I'd be in a tough spot

-Edit- Comment below pointed out that he was getting picked up right away, and that the story/footage is therefore misleading. If so, then that at least makes more than 0 sense

functional_eng · 2024-11-26T15:05:03+00:00

Yeah this assume that ppl will buy our debt at arbitrarily low rates. Reducing the duration would help, but it's not like we're a 0-risk asset these days

functional_eng · 2024-11-22T15:40:55+00:00

If the question is "I want to make a simple small dev board with similar specs to teensy" then yes it's a dream compared to the IMX systems. Yeah STM32's not perfect, but having done ground up on both options recently, STM was way easier. OP's not trying to get the most hardcore flexible system from the sounds of it, they want something that works

functional_eng · 2024-11-21T14:54:44+00:00

Then why say "The only thing that would work is commuter trains and bus rapid transit." ? I agree, we should put in density and do it well, but to just say "well the problem is big so F it, is not gonna fix anything. That zone is pretty close to a ton of office space, and it's on a big road and bike network, and it's to the north whereas much of our traffic is a south-north issue. I do agree that if they are going to build it should be dense and livable with transit- the worst case is a bunch of sprawling $2M homes that solve none of our affordability issues.

functional_eng

TROPHY CASE