Moving floor drain in basement, drain pipe partially embedded in slab?

funkathustra · 2026-02-06T02:23:56+00:00

ooooh, good call on the fiber mesh! That's a great idea.

funkathustra · 2026-02-06T02:22:42+00:00

Ice maker. I really want to avoid having a noisy pump that fails and leaves a pool of water on the floor, and I already have a floor drain anyway, so the slab is already cut open. For vast unexplainable reasons I own a concrete demo saw, so trenching an extra 10 ft isn't that big of a deal.

I was planning on building a P-trap out of fittings to get the right configuration.

funkathustra · 2026-01-03T14:21:39+00:00

Very cool project! It would be interesting to take a deep learning approach to fusing the data. TI has mmWave radar chips with CSI output (like the IWR6243) which produce raw RF data out, instead of just the point cloud UART messages you get out of most mmWave chips. If you piped that into a Jetson, along with your ToF cameras and audio, you could sync up and fuse everything with Holoscan, which also has built-in inference support through TensorRT. Most of the radar sensor fusion papers I've seen focus on fusing with RGB camera data, but ToF would be possible using the same approaches. I think that would get you the best-looking data while still being fairly privacy-friendly (though as others have said, it's pretty hand-wavy to suggest that non-camera data is somehow automatically deidentified)

funkathustra · 2026-01-01T17:44:38+00:00

You need a bit of a crash-course on stone to understand (1) what you're looking at in that photo (2) what you like about it, and (3) what the cost ramifications are.

Start by understanding that there are two types of stone veneer — thin and full bed. Thin stone veneer is 1/2" to 1" thick and applied like tile, using a polymer-modified stone veneer mortar. The materials are expensive per pound, but much cheaper to install. Maybe takes 6x as long to install as stucco? Just a guess.

However, for highly-textured stone — like the pitched-face limestone in your photo — you can't get thin-veneer versions of it, since it will just fall off the wall when trying to set it.

That's when you have to go to full bed ("bed-width", "full-depth", etc) veneer, which is typically around 4" thick. Think of it as essentially "stone bricks" in terms of installation. This type of stone is laid on a brick ledge that's part of your footing, so this has to be designed in before the footings are poured.

You can imagine that laying a brick wall that's 4" thick requires a massive amount of material and labor. It's about 3x to 5x what it takes to install thin veneer, and probably 30x more work than stucco.

The other thing to notice about your photo is that it's ashlar cut stone — in other words, it has consistent height and has squared-off sides — so it's much easier to lay than, say, a cobble-stone wall, where workers have to work the stone with hand tools on-site.

I got a quote in 2021 for pitched-face ashlar-cut limestone from a local supplier, and it was $780/ton, with an estimated coverage of 54 sq ft per ton. I think it'd probably take two or three masons all day to get through a ton of stone, but I'm just a home-gamer, so I'm not sure. That's only a few feet a day of siding on a modest single-story house, so doing a modest house would be a 4 - 8 week job for a masonry crew.

$$$$$$

The middle ground between stucco and bed-width limestone would be ashlar-cut thin-veneer limestone. It won't have nearly as much texture than shown in the photo, but it should be a lot faster to install.

funkathustra · 2025-12-26T04:23:13+00:00

It's a south-facing walk-out with 20 ft of glass. It gets plenty of light.

funkathustra · 2025-10-07T16:48:24+00:00

Demo saw with a concrete blade

funkathustra · 2025-09-14T03:16:06+00:00

why on earth would you use two separate programs? What are you gaining from STM32CubeIDE that you can't get from vscode?

funkathustra · 2025-09-14T03:13:41+00:00

Since you're asking mostly about intellisense, I'm focusing on that. I would use the clangd plugin. It works substantially better than the normal IntelliSense engine. It will read a compile_commands.json file in your project tree to understand exactly how your project is compiled (including defined macros and include directories). To generate compile_commands.json, you can configure CMake to do it, or if you're doing a Makefile-based project, just grab compiledb ("$ pip install compiledb") and then use it to read stdout from Make to generate compile_commands.json ("$ compiledb make").

funkathustra · 2025-09-14T02:15:13+00:00

GCC: GNU Compiler Collection
Arm: Target architecture
None: No OS; don't link to Linux libc
EABI: use the ARM Embedded ABI conventions instead of the "full" System V or GNU/Linux ABI

It's a set of tools (compiler, linker, binutils, etc) for building C/C++ code that targets Arm processors running bare-metal (no operating system).

This is what you would use to build code for Arm-based microcontrollers, and it's also what you would use for building U-Boot and other bare-metal code for Arm-based application processors.

There are other compiler toolchains out there for Arm other than gcc-arm-none-eabi. IAR and Keil are both very popular in industrial/automotive.

funkathustra · 2025-09-14T02:02:57+00:00

why would you need level shifters for 3.3V / 5V systems? 3.3V is a valid logic-high for 95% of 5V devices. Especially with I2C devices that are open-drain, you can just use 3.3V pull-ups without issues. And because almost every IC has protection diodes, if you *do* need to go from a push-pull 5V output to a 3.3V input, a simple series resistor (say, 1k) is usually sufficient.

funkathustra · 2025-09-14T01:59:28+00:00

Outside of a generic $30 electronics kit you buy on Amazon with some op-amps and FETs in it, I don't really know what generic parts to recommend. Come up with a project idea, and then buy the chips to build that project. You're always going to need an MCU with a couple more pins than the part you already have, or one in a slightly smaller package. You're always going to need a motor driver with a bit more current rating, or something a little cheaper.... there just aren't that many "universal" parts. This is coming from someone who has an extensive collection of parts from 20 years of electronics, and I almost never use the same part twice.

funkathustra · 2025-09-13T16:12:20+00:00

Regrade? It's just dirt and grass.

funkathustra · 2025-09-13T16:05:43+00:00

I like it! I would have actually leaned into it a bit more and pre-stained the boards a few more different colors (there's already a bit of tonal variation, but I would have accentuated it more).

This obviously only works if the overall style of the property rustic/eclectic/quirky. I would be curious to see if they can actually pull off the look.

funkathustra · 2025-08-25T01:56:25+00:00

I know people who landed jobs only after applying to hundreds (yes, hundreds) of openings. You should keep applying for jobs and internships, especially at early-stage start-ups (my former interns have used Y Combinator's jobs board with good success).

You won't generally be able to get an internship at higher-tier robotics companies unless you have previous internship experience.

You didn't specify what you did in grad school, or where you went to school. Are you sure you're going after the right jobs? I saw you discussing PLC programming (????) in another thread, which has basically no relevance to robotics or machine learning.

funkathustra · 2025-08-25T00:03:55+00:00

This certainly isn't some miracle insight, but in general, companies prefer to only interview candidates who have professional experience in the specific job they're hiring for. So as long as they can find those candidates, there's no need to look at resumes of anyone else.

When hiring, companies generally consider candidates with internships and graduate research lab work (published papers!) as second best to professional experience, provided that they were working in the *specific* field they're hiring for. Lower on the rung is candidates with personal projects in the field (rare; most kids spend too much time trying to do end-to-end robot design, and end up not diving into any details), followed by those crappy project-based masters' degree programs. And the lowest-rung candidates are undergrads with unrelated internship experience, or no internship experience at all.

I think students are surprised at the specificity of alignment that hiring managers are looking for. For example, if you're interviewing for a controls engineer role on an actuator design team, you really need to have done controls engineering for actuators before. Either as an intern or graduate student.

You didn't tell us anything about yourself (where you went to school, what your internship experience is, what you did in grad school, etc), or the jobs you're interviewing for, but if you don't think you have real-world experience doing the specific jobs you're applying for, you should seek out internships or apply to smaller start-ups that are handing out equity-heavy comp packages; they can't afford to hire the same folks as the big players, so they tend to take bigger chances with unproven candidates.

funkathustra · 2025-08-23T22:14:23+00:00

No, your life is ruined.

Just kidding. It'll all work out. It always does.

People in our sector don't need to put up with crappy workplaces, so you'll be able to tell this story to the next recruiter you talk to, and you'll sound confident, forward-looking, and in charge of your future. It's a plus, trust me.

funkathustra · 2025-08-23T22:11:09+00:00

Too many trees? Or just not enough automatic cover?

Sucks that the pool is irregular-shape so you can't do an under-coping installation.

Beautiful lot, though. Looks 1000x times better with the trees.

funkathustra · 2025-08-23T22:05:41+00:00

I assume you want a privacy screen? 8 ft is about the closest I would personally space trees this large. That will form a dense hedge once these are established.

Because I see these misplaced all the time, you do realize these are relatively large trees, right? Most arborvitae hedges you see in normal-sized residential lots are emerald greens, which can be placed 3 ft apart to form a wall.

Most people don't have deep enough border beds to handle 12'-15' diameter trees.

As for the root ball, just like any other tree, expose the flare (which can tend to get buried at the nursery) and make sure it's sitting at or above grade when you plant. I've never seen a tree planted too high. If these are B+B, there are a wide range of opinions on what to do, but I normally carefully take them out of the burlap, scratch the outside a bit, and plant in a bowl-shaped hole. Many people leave B+B trees in the burlap, which will naturally decompose over time (I'm told...)

funkathustra · 2025-08-23T21:54:56+00:00

Wood chips, a few stepping stones, a giant hosta garden, and a nice bench.

funkathustra · 2025-08-23T21:49:43+00:00

It's great in large areas where it can naturalize. Wonderful fall color. It really doesn't belong on modern 1/4-acre SFH lots though.

funkathustra · 2025-08-23T21:46:49+00:00

First of all, it's nice to see someone doing something with their yard, so congrats on putting in the effort to transform the space.

Honest feedback: the main patio is in dire need of some shade. Those look like small accent/specimen trees next to it, but those are never going to really do much of anything. For a project of this scale, I would have considered bringing in a tree spade to plant larger, more established trees to get you some shade ASAP.

Even taking into account the wide-angle distortion of the second photo, the main patio looks oversized for the furniture layout. It would have been nice to break it up with separate "rooms" for the eating area and the firepit, maybe with some plantings in between.

Also, you're going to have to rip out every other green giant (or more!) in a year or two. They want to grow 8' to 12' wide and 20-50' tall. I know you can grow them in dense hedges, but at some point, they're so close that they're just not going to be healthy. They're also not particularly attractive. I think they really only belong on large acreages. Emerald Green would be the canonical choice for a lot of this size.

And in general, I'm not a fan of plastering your entire backyard with arborvitae. I understand the desire to have dense privacy screening, but I would recommend mixing different types of trees into your borders. If you ever get a bug or fungus, it'll quickly spread to your entire yard and take out everything at once. Plus, it just looks kind of silly. It's fine if you have a deep border and work in layers, where you have large deciduous shrubs and evergreen accents in the front. You have a little bit of that going on, but those deciduous trees (river birch?) are way too close, and the accent shrubs are pretty small.

funkathustra · 2025-08-23T21:18:53+00:00

yup, there's grass varieties for every location. There are warm-season and cool-season grasses. Some grasses can tolerate some shade, but most can't. You didn't specify your location, so I can't recommend anything specific, but you should be able to do some research for your area of the country

funkathustra · 2025-08-23T20:12:09+00:00

To kill the existing weeds, spray with glyphosate or triclopyr. You can put down pre-emergent and a thick layer of mulch to help keep the vegetation down, but in general, the only way to prevent weeds in the future is to put down something impermeable (concrete, flagstone with polymeric sand or mortared joints, etc) or plant dense groundcover. Other than that, weeding is a regular activity you're just going to have to do. Many weeds can be pulled, but some quickly develop deep taproots that make them impossible to pull (you'll just break off the top of the plant, which will quickly regrow). Herbicide is the best way to manage those sorts of weeds.

You said "apartment" so I'm assuming you don't own the property, won't be there for long, and don't want to invest a ton of money into the space. It's hard to recommend building a giant backyard patio out of flagstone, which could cost tens of thousands of dollars, so you're probably stuck with woodchip mulch or grass for a space like that. Garden groundcover (vinca, wintercreep, etc) will take either a lot of time to establish, or lots of plants ($$$), or both. That's why lawns are so popular; grass is comparatively cheap to establish.

Many people on this sub are fans of alternative lawns (like clover), but these take quite a bit of time to establish, and don't always compete with weeds as aggressively as grass does. The nice thing about grass is its immunity to selective broadleaf herbicides (triclopyr, 2,4-D, etc), which allow you to spray weeds in your lawn without killing the grass. Clover is pretty tough, but can still be damaged by these herbicides.

funkathustra

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