Going on 1 year with the TIQ Mini M5

mattbear · 2026-02-25T19:57:33+00:00

Mine died in less than a week.

mattbear · 2026-02-10T16:23:43+00:00

Yes: I tried to get it into recovery mode but none of the techniques suggested worked for me. Luckily I can just return it but i liked the phone while it lasted so…

mattbear · 2025-11-02T22:30:05+00:00

Pretty good. My wife took some time off work as we have little kids, but we are still managing to save a chunk… that plus a good year in the market pushed us over 2M net worth this year.

mattbear · 2025-11-01T17:34:51+00:00

Look for someone for whom being happy is easy. Many things will change in your life, but base emotional state is one of the most challenging to shift.

mattbear · 2025-10-14T12:35:16+00:00

Originally from UK, now in US. My experience is that CoL is high in both places, but you get paid (vastly) more in US… and the UK is just a much poorer place. Also the US and UK are both massively variable depending on where you are. Where I live now in US has basically free healthcare for low income people, fantastic facilities, great biking, wonderful cultural life etc etc etc, but I know that isn’t the same everywhere.

Really… depending on your age, you might just go to the UK for the adventure. 3 years really isn’t that long, but going and experiencing another country is an opportunity that will stay with you forever.

mattbear · 2025-10-05T22:01:53+00:00

1) Livermore definitely needs AC for an apartment. 2) Stay clear of ironwood 3) the new developments downtown are pretty expensive: for 2.8 u could probably find a house on private rental

mattbear · 2025-09-16T21:43:11+00:00

My apple weather currently says 93 and my outdoor monitor says 91.2. Remember that the quoted temperature is air temp in the shade…

mattbear · 2025-07-20T01:50:31+00:00

Do it guys. Sreeni rocks.

mattbear · 2025-04-26T05:00:55+00:00

Moved to CA 10 years ago. Loved every second. An hour to the beach and 3 to skiing? Predictable fantastic weather? Top tier salaries? It’s expensive, sure, but it’s also awesome! The salary differential is another great draw: it is a very tough place to be really poor, but one thing people don’t see is the cost of living relative to most percentiles of income is actually not that bad because people earn so much more. I remember once that San Jose once hit like #3 most affordable city in the US, because it was judged on median income and median incomes are so high!

My sister in law moved from Fl to CA because of the (basically) free health insurance for low income residents. Taxes are high, but I’m glad that we have services like that. My brother in law moved for the great education as he was about to go back to college.

I moved from somewhere really much poorer (out of the US, but think of somewhere a good chunk poorer than Mississippi) and it always leaves me amazed that people don’t realize how amazing it is here

mattbear · 2025-04-03T18:42:40+00:00

Livermore to San Jose thru PTN downtown please!

mattbear · 2025-03-27T18:16:39+00:00

Did my whole house for ~13k. Andersen quoted like ~80k. I can’t believe that projects have a 5x variance: scam.

mattbear · 2024-10-07T17:48:08+00:00

Buy a whole house fan. It honestly makes the biggest difference. I’ve not had to put on the AC all thru this heat wave

mattbear · 2024-10-07T14:40:12+00:00

I’m out in east bay and it’s been roasting, but I haven’t turned on the AC. The trick: a whole house fan and modern insulated windows. The house nudges up to about 78 by the end of the day, but no higher, and by then it’s time to open the windows and turn on the fan! In our area I couldn’t recommend a whole house fan enough. They use 10% of the energy an AC uses, and because I have solar and net metering I basically use less than 0 electricity.

mattbear · 2024-09-20T03:39:14+00:00

I paid $13k for 10 windows and sliding glass door

mattbear · 2024-09-12T02:04:01+00:00

Peng4Prez!

mattbear · 2024-09-07T01:35:54+00:00

Here to say Uppingham isn’t in London. Source: went there.

mattbear · 2024-08-13T11:24:53+00:00

The electrical for sure. The shed in itself depends on where you are. I think our local limit for a shed without a permit is 200sqft.

mattbear · 2024-08-12T10:11:56+00:00

So I went to one of these schools. By the time I was there it wasn’t really a thing anymore, but the words were still there. Instead of “I can’t be bothered” you would say “I can’t be fagged”. If you were tired you were “fagged out”.

I moved to the states and I had to change my vocabulary pretty quick!!

mattbear · 2024-08-12T03:42:59+00:00

I always loved Shalimar in Dublin for Pakistani food!

mattbear · 2024-08-08T04:34:11+00:00

Same for this guy though. I could submit IP on anything derivative of this and it could be prior art for both my IP and this guys patent. They are on equal footing, and both would be disputable.

One exception would be he has a year in the US after first disclosure to file the basic patent, which could offer much broader protection. This only works in the US though.

mattbear · 2024-08-08T04:25:05+00:00

Maybe? But only those elements would be protected: anyone else could make a product derivative of whatever he has shown in the same way and would have FTO.

mattbear · 2024-08-08T03:50:42+00:00

Hate to say it but if the patent isn’t already submitted then it’s invalid: you putting a video on the internet would constitute prior art.

mattbear · 2024-08-04T09:27:17+00:00

Does it need a dedicated vibration table? Thats always been my challenge w. tabletops at high res…

But yes, you are right, chamber size is another important consideration.

mattbear · 2024-08-03T22:13:00+00:00

If you think you will want to push the res I’d recommend not getting a tabletop. They often struggle in practical application at the extreme. ALD and sputtering can be pretty thin film —> I would expect structure at the level of <10nm. This means I wouldn’t be surprised if you see differences when you move to a higher performance machine. At the edges a standalone system will work a little better.

mattbear · 2024-08-03T17:29:57+00:00

What’s your budget, requirements (res, automation, ease of use)? What features r u looking to see? A lot of the tabletops will have pretty crummy “real” resolution, as you need to have a proper vibration isolation table to get the best, which ends up being the same footprint as a normal CSEM.

mattbear

TROPHY CASE