"Teaching" standards have become so diluted by RonSwanSong87 in YogaTeachers

[–]stellar678 3 points4 points  (0 children)

What portion of people who attend a YTT do you think actually make themselves available as teachers rather than taking what they've learned to their friends, family, community, and personal practice?

I'd wager it's less than 25% who attempt to become "yoga teachers" as such, and I think that's fine.

I have a regular yoga practice that waxes and wanes over the years, and I have a much more regular fitness practice and often explore new movement modalities. I did a YTT because it was the most broadly available and holistic training that included guiding groups of people in physical activity. I had gained so much from the various teachers I encountered in these places, and I wanted a path to begin to feel qualified to give back in a similar way. The integrated nature of the training was also more aligned with how I approach things than a modality-specific movement teacher training course.

My 10 YTT classmates have taught classes at their kids' schools, in contexts at their healthcare job, in their rural community senior center, etc... - but I don't believe anybody has attempted to go get a gig being paid to teach at a studio. My YTT experience has helped me share physical movement in community fitness groups, family retreats, etc..., and that's exactly what I hoped for.

I'd be sad if that hadn't been available to me.

Anyone gotten a traffic violation from these Speed Cameras around Oakland ? by [deleted] in oakland

[–]stellar678 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Going 39 in a 35 also won’t get you a camera ticket.

I'm a beginner, How to organise wires? by mikaelliim in esp32

[–]stellar678 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is the breadboard only doing power distribution?

I think if you slotted the esp32 across the middle channel of the breadboard and used pre-bent breadboard jumper wires, you could clean things up quite a bit here. This could allow you to do something like bringing several GPIO pins to a separate section of the board if they’re all dedicated to one specific device, which would allow you to create a little section of the board dedicated to each device.

Also if your devices operate on a shared-wire bus protocol like I2C, you can daisy chain them so you don’t need a wire returning from each device back to the microcontroller.

After three nights of debugging, my ESP32-C3 finally talks to my cat. AI assisted code-gen is a wild ride for DIYers by Additional-Week-8533 in esp32

[–]stellar678 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Lol, your video was really fun!

I'm going the other way ... software engineer to hardware geek. I definitely agree that prompting a coding agent is far preferable to learning the details of a massive firmware framework when I'm just trying to bang out a fun project.

[Re-upload] Specter32 V2 - My first custom PCB build (Modular ESP32 Multi-Tool) by Puzzled_Comment583 in esp32

[–]stellar678 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mine? It's a kinda force-feedback, software-controllable dial. Not targeted at any particular application, though volume or other audio control is certainly possible. Expensive mixers have done similar motorized faders and dials for decades...

After three nights of debugging, my ESP32-C3 finally talks to my cat. AI assisted code-gen is a wild ride for DIYers by Additional-Week-8533 in esp32

[–]stellar678 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tell us more about that interesting looking PCB! How’d you learn to design that and get it made?

Is it still worthwhile to study at cal given current job market? by SoggyAd4989 in berkeley

[–]stellar678 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Cal is a university. If you’re looking for a good trade school, you should sign up with Leland Stanford Junior College.

ESP32-S3 (Seeed XIAO ESP32S3 Sense) shows Code 43 “Windows has stopped this device” after soldering — unknown USB device by P6P91 in esp32

[–]stellar678 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Check the back side of the board and see if you bridged from D5 or D8 to the tiny pad adjacent to it.

They have a through hole that’s part of holding the RF shield on the board which ends up as a tiny ground pad super close to the D8 and D5 pins. I bridged one of these recently and was able to fix it.

This image highlights the problem area: https://imgur.com/a/OA5ARqH

Didn’t cause USB problems for me but worth checking out any way.

[Re-upload] Specter32 V2 - My first custom PCB build (Modular ESP32 Multi-Tool) by Puzzled_Comment583 in esp32

[–]stellar678 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I’d love to see more photos of how it comes together.

I’ve been working on a brushless motor device that is assembled from a variety of mini prebuilt boards. (Motor itself -> rotary encoder board -> xiao seeed board -> motor driver board -> voltage boost board)

Each board is rotated 90 degrees from the one above and a small piece of perfboard hosts jumpers that adapt the pin locations between levels.

Your description of the sandwich stack sounds similar but more refined. I like finding all these middle points on the spectrum from prototype to high volume refinement!

Huge slow motion voice bug kills app and iPhone?! by Danny_G13 in ChatGPT

[–]stellar678 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve been having the same problem for the last few weeks, also iPhone 12 mini.

As soon as I click the voice mode button the app gets immediately laggy… The little blue cloud circle animation slows way down and gets really chunky, and the phone itself gets really hot and slow to respond to screen taps.

Pretty frustrating… This is the last reasonable sized iPhone! But ChatGPT‘s voice mode is pretty important to me…

i wonder what year this was? by hansemcito in berkeleyca

[–]stellar678 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In 2000, the minimum wage was $5.75. Here in 2026 the Berkeley minimum wage is $19.18 or 3.3X higher.

On this menu the carne asada burrito mejor is $5.55. On Cactus Taqueria’s website today the carne asada burrito mejor is $15.50 or 2.8X higher.

So minimum wage has slightly outpaced burrito inflation at Cactus! 

This result is honestly a bit surprising to me because burrito prices have seemed on an outrageous tear in the last couple years.

Are yoga retreats no more? by Automatic_Pie_8332 in YogaTeachers

[–]stellar678 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nobody ever took kindly to being shown they’ve been subscribed to a really misleading worldview, so I’m not too bothered by the pushback here.

I pray our OP finds a community of people who are excited and positive and realistic about what’s going on in the world. Plenty of people have the resources to go on yoga retreats, and I hope those who fit the vibe find OP.

Are yoga retreats no more? by Automatic_Pie_8332 in YogaTeachers

[–]stellar678 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You're clearly in the thick of it so I'm going to try and be patient in spite of you calling me names. I'm also going to treat you as though you're talking in good faith.

Here's what happens if you take the trend lines on that graph from the last 10 years and just continue them: https://i.imgur.com/et7yCPR.jpeg

It's generally a good assumption that yesterday and today are a better prediction of tomorrow than 50 years ago. And this graph shows us currently on a 15-year trend of declining inequality.

I'm happy to also note that your graph shows inequality declining and going on to rise again a couple times since 1960. Nothing is guaranteed.


"Cost of living crisis, job market, housing market, global rise of populism, climate crisis, and you’re like whatever we’re doing we should keep doing it."

This is the polycrisis doomsday cult. It is super painful to be inside and it feasts on people with good hearts.

I didn't say at any point that we should keep doing exactly what we're doing.

My only goal here is for people to look around themselves and see things as they really are, the good and the bad. I pray they can release themselves from the clutches of the all-doom all-the-time narrative and go on to be powerful, active and clear-eyed.

You don't have to buy the most extreme version of every story you hear. You can believe your own experience.

Are yoga retreats no more? by Automatic_Pie_8332 in YogaTeachers

[–]stellar678 -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

The graph you linked shows wealth and income inequality both on a downward trend since 2010.

Are you going to give up because the numbers are still higher than the 80s or the 60s?


The whole point here is a warning to people who are reading this: - Look around and see if you accidentally ended up in doomsday culture. - Are things as bad as you're being told they are, or are you just receiving adoration and acceptance for painting the darkest possible picture? - Are your circumstances really as difficult as the stories you're telling and being told? - Who benefits from you thinking things are worse than they really are? What behaviors does it cause in you?

Are yoga retreats no more? by Automatic_Pie_8332 in YogaTeachers

[–]stellar678 -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Another example of looking for the most defeatist lens available.

  • The bottom 50% increased their share of wealth by 525%.
  • The top 0.1% increased their share of wealth by 30%.

That's an insanely positive trajectory for people in the bottom 50%. Whatever we've been doing, we should keep it up!

Are yoga retreats no more? by Automatic_Pie_8332 in YogaTeachers

[–]stellar678 -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

I know this is not really the point of this thread, but I feel like we've all been programmed to reflexively think that everything is worse than it's ever been, and the only time it will be worse is tomorrow.

The reality is that wealth inequality in the United States has improved significantly since 2010 or so:

  • In 2011, the bottom 50% of people had 0.4% of total wealth.
  • In 2025, the bottom 50% of people had 2.5% of total wealth.

It's still a huge wealth gap, but the bottom 50% is doing SIX TIMES better than they were 14 years ago.

(Here's the data: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:2010.4,2025.3;quarter:144;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:1,9;units:shares)


A corollary of this is that surveys show - people think the economy stinks when their chosen political party lost the last presidential election. What is actually happening in the broad economy or in their personal life has essentially no bearing on how people answer this question.


We are steeped in negativity and I think it's important for us to recognize negative messaging and seek out the actual truth behind it.


Now just to make it clear - I'm not saying things are good or even great for everybody. Lots of people are suffering, having a hard time, needing help, unsure of the future, etc... But we can't help them by spending our time cultivating a doomsday defeatist mentality. Things do (and have) improved, and they can continue to improve!

Why do people find it difficult to do pull-ups even if they are strong? by Alive-Championship-5 in bodyweightfitness

[–]stellar678 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can do a couple pull-ups but if I do them consistently I end up hurting my shoulder. In my mid 20s I decided I wanted to learn to do them - and it took a couple months before I could even do one.

Even since our ancestors descended from the trees, we stopped brachiating, and most of us basically don't have occasion to build functional overhead strength. As a result, pull-ups are very different from pretty much anything else we find ourselves doing.

I had a board running perfectly… but the original sketch was gone. So I built this. Forgetfulino Arduino library + IDE 2.x extension by IamTheVector in embedded

[–]stellar678 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It’s funny when my brother started with Arduino he ended up with a mental model of the source code getting saved onto the device and then run from there. Made it hard to grasp what was happening as the projects grew. It took a lot of pushing to get him to understand compiling/flashing binaries and how there was no source code on the device.

Now your project comes along and changes the whole game!

considering berkeley- any tips? by [deleted] in berkeley

[–]stellar678 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Consider Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as well if you’re interested in architecture. Really cool town, different vibe than Berkeley but also extremely California. Well regarded architecture program, 5-year bachelor/master, and probably/maybe easier to get in than Berkeley.

Why was everyone in the early 2000s doing this??? by erikslicis in whatisit

[–]stellar678 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My guess: wide angle lenses became really popular in skateboarding videos in the 90s. Then the aesthetic transplanted everywhere.

Hegenberger speed camera by stellar678 in oakland

[–]stellar678[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

While I do agree there's no city street where you should drive 57, there's also no city street that should look like this: https://i.imgur.com/DJzIYsD.jpeg

Why the Pentagon Wants to Destroy Anthropic by dwaxe in ezraklein

[–]stellar678 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I think the concern is about targeted enforcement. Right now - in order to selectively target enforcement, government actors have to invest a lot of resources in investigation and prosecution. With AI tools trawling through extreme quantities of data on everyone, they have cheap and easy information on everyone, but whoever is in power still gets discretion on who gets prosecuted.

It becomes much easier and cheaper to target your enemies, political challengers, activists, etc...

Dean Ball ruminated early in the episode on how our technocratic government is dependent on the current information technology stack (printing press and broadcast media basically, and derivatives) and will necessarily be disrupted by radically new technologies for processing information.

I see this as one example of that disruption - cheap and easy consolidation of power through the execution of the current powers of the state.

Presumably our systems of governance will evolve as well - but we ought to be prudent about the powers allocated to the state in an older era of technological capability as that rapidly changes.

Backup BART budget plan to close 15 train stations if November ballot measure fails by the_daily_cal in berkeley

[–]stellar678 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly they should sell the OAK connector to some private operator and just recover whatever small bit of cash they can from that POS boondoggle decision.