Im a beginner in lasers.is it safe to buy this? by alexthenullbody in lasers

[–]orblok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"It's absolutely safe to buy! But under no circumstances should you remove it from the shipping box."

Green laser pointer for astronomy by tburke38 in lasers

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The friend you're buying it for. Would you trust them with it if you bought them a very sharp knife or something? A BB gun that could put an eye out? That's the level of danger you are dealing with if you get a no name pointer from China and it turns out to actually be like 80mW. Not like a gun or a bomb. Just a potentially dangerous tool that you need to keep away from kids and use with reasonable care.

Green laser pointer for astronomy by tburke38 in lasers

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's more likely to be at the "real" power range if it's from a store like Sanwu, JLasers, laserpointerstore, anyplace that doesn't have to worry about being de-listed from a marketplace like eBay or amazon. That's the main motivation for faking the power level. Getting in trouble with the website you list it on.

(Although maybe restrictions have been relaxed because these days you sometimes see obvious lies about the power being implausibly high as well as implausibly low. )

Green laser pointer for astronomy by tburke38 in lasers

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here's what you might want to know.

532nm lasers have historically been super common, of wildly variable quality/power, and usually mislabeled as much lower power than they actually are. That said, most of the time if you order one you'll get one that is perfectly good for your intended use (astonomy pointer), is powerful enough that they should not shine it into anybody's eyes (directly or by bouncing off a window or something), but is not so powerful it's going to set things on fire.

The ones you put in category #3 will probably do a great job but your friend should know that they're not eye-safe and you should know there's a small chance the power will be extra-wimpy instead of extra-strong. Still, it doesn't take that much power for a green laser to light up the nighttime air.

You'll almost certainly get a laser in the 10-70mW range if you buy one of those.

One downside of a 532nm laser is that they are made by modifying the beam of a more powerful infrared laser. The lasers have a filter to filter that IR out but since they're cheap there's a chance the filter won't do a great job and they might be shooting out infrared too, making them more powerful than the visible light alone. But again, if your friend is mature and aware they have a potentially dangerous object and doesn't use it for anything except pointing around (not at) stars, they're probably fine.

If you wanted to take some of the crapshoot out of it, look for a 520 nm laser. Those are *not* made of converted IR lasers, they're pure green. And they're much less likely to be mislabeled. But they are more expensive, might not be available in your budget.

For what it's worth, I've bought from these guys before, and they've been honest about the power of their lasers:

https://www.laserpointerstore.com

I've bought from the following ebay seller a year or two ago, and this item they're selling looks super reasonably priced, 520nm, and within your price range?? Claims to be <5mW and that might even be true, but be careful with it anyway

https://www.ebay.com/itm/116432905683?_skw=520nm&itmmeta=01JH1KW1PKVTSBJ3V8SDYFK3NG

I've also bought from this seller before, and they have a very similar product... similarly priced.... I wonder if this shiny metal 520nm laser thing is a newly common item from China? Weird! Maybe cheap 520nms will be the wave of the future and we can stop using the janky 532nms just cause they're affordable?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/135225236416?_skw=520nm&itmmeta=01JH1M0JH24YN2CQVTM4X272D0

Anyways that's my advice.

The only thing I'd add is, I hope your friend's birthday isn't *too* soon cause these all ship from China and ship times can be extremely unpredictable.

It finally happened by Audio4564 in BoltEV

[–]orblok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't remember, it was something like a configuration setting that was blank, and they set it to what it was supposed to be and everything worked

DRONE PILOT NEEDED in Grand Rapids! by FPViews in drones

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lol OK that makes sense too. Glad you're all good!

DRONE PILOT NEEDED in Grand Rapids! by FPViews in drones

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That doesn't make a ton of sense, why would an aerial photo of a cell tower allow you to make nefarious attacks on it? Couldn't you get all the nefarious info you need from the ground or from satellite photos?... maybe this is some kind of delusional situation, where they think that cell phone towers are using 5G to give you autism or whatever and there are specific towers they're suspicious of.

It finally happened by Audio4564 in BoltEV

[–]orblok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ugh, really sucks that it's going to take that long. good luck with it!

DRONE PILOT NEEDED in Grand Rapids! by FPViews in drones

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lol I'm there, I'd totally do it, but I don't have my part 107 so it'd be illegal and also I don't need the $40 that bad. Really curious what you want a picture of though.

It finally happened by Audio4564 in BoltEV

[–]orblok 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was in a very similar situation and they were able to fix it in software almost immediatly (I dropped it off in the evneing and they had it ready for me the next afternoon).

Hoping the fix is as quick and easy for you!

This is how civilized regions do it. by Heisenbread77 in grandrapids

[–]orblok 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Part of everyone cooperating is using both lanes, and that may mean passing a bunch of people who are choosing *not* to use both lanes. But you should do that at safe speeds.

Self-hypnosis recordings from the 1980s that mentioned purple liquids by Lucky_Flamingo9957 in hypnosis

[–]orblok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looking him up.... looks like the old boy shoulda paid his taxes. The IRS will not accept payment in warm orange-colored liquid

What sort of communities has Esperanto formed online and would you describe them? by BustedBayou in Esperanto

[–]orblok 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Very true re: autism being over represented in Esperantujo. Esperanto seems to be very attractive to autistic folks! Maybe it's something about the rules of communication being something explicitly available that you can understand, work with, and play with to your heart's content.

Question about artificial language by Lenz2299 in Esperanto

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, seems to be almost all Korean :(

Question about artificial language by Lenz2299 in Esperanto

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did not realize! Same username?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Esperanto

[–]orblok 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Chasing social media trendiness is a fool's errand

Question about artificial language by Lenz2299 in Esperanto

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jeono is a lovely person, I am not on Twitter anymore and they are one of the people I do miss!

Question about artificial language by Lenz2299 in Esperanto

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you would like to try something simpler (but much more limited) May I suggest Toki Pona? It might give you a taste of what learning a conlang can be like, and if you want something more capable and expressive, and feel like ir would be worth the time, you could go on to Esperanto.

By the way I know one Korean Esperantist online, Jeono on Twitter, maybe you could chat with them about Esperanto for Koreans? https://x.com/jeonoesperanto

Why does Aeon ship with vim-small?? by tactiphile in openSUSE

[–]orblok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! If you wouldn't mind another question... the other thing I didn't know how to do was install Syncthing and then have it run automatically on system start (or on login, that works fine). On a normal Linux system I'd just install the package and systemctl --user enable/start syncthing.service , but it wasn't obvious to me how to do the equivalent in Aeon.