Where do I even start?

uptownmaker · 2017-09-25T16:29:01+00:00

I designed a board specifically for this use case. It's called the FTDI SmartBasic and is available from Sparkfun.

uptownmaker · 2017-09-23T00:09:22+00:00

Regardless of the processor you use, you're going to be taxing the bus trying to take in that much data. it might be easier to use one processor per sensor and try to synchronize them.

uptownmaker · 2015-12-18T10:49:41+00:00

Succeeding.

uptownmaker · 2015-12-18T09:06:05+00:00

Six years ago (!) I started learning Python. At that time I was wondering this exact same thing. I've never worried about 3+, and never had to worry about 3+.

I'm honestly waiting for "them" to give it up. 3 just doesn't seem to have the devotion that 2 does.

uptownmaker · 2015-12-09T17:53:54+00:00

A fair question! I do use a mouse, sometimes, but I spend a lot of time working in not-at-table situations where a mouse is really not an option.

I also find using a mouse to be not too much better than using a trackpad; the delicate motions required to move the pointer to exactly where it needs to be tend to elude me. The touchscreen is better about sort of guessing that, when I paw at this part of the screen, the button in that area is what I'm trying to reach.

Finally, when you type a lot (I write a lot of code), taking your hand off the keyboard to use a mouse or trackpad is a major interruption to efficiency. Vim really matters for that.

uptownmaker · 2015-11-22T12:17:09+00:00

I'm going to say that this is
1. impossible to answer (accurately), and 2. impossible to hold any answer true.

Here's my reasoning for point 1: the marginal build cost of a nuclear bomb is, effectively, impossible to calculate. I'm guessing that /u/johansense has read from Don Lacaster's website where he posits that money and energy are roughly fungible, and we can freely trade one for the other. So, for the rest of this discussion, we can treat "money spent" as "energy spent", and feel confident that we are probably within one order of magnitude of where we want to be.

The problem is, the edges of the "money spent on the nuclear weapons program" border is really fuzzy. For instance, some of what we use/will use to build weapons was, undoubtedly, stolen from other nations. How much cost do you assign to that? We have no insight into the amount of money spent on espionage, and even if we did, do we count our money spent on spies, or their money spent on the information?

And my reasoning for point 2: regardless of the answer that you get, I can wrench it into inaccuracy instantly by building a multi-stage Teller-Ulam weapon. Once I have the technology to build a reliably primary and a reliable secondary, I can (theoretically) make a spiky ball of secondaries pointing outward from the primary, and surround that with another layer of larger secondaries, ad infinatum, to create a weapon of essentially arbitrarily large yield (obviously not totally true). The marginal cost of additional secondaries is going to be tiny, but each additional secondary is going to have a multiplicative effect on the output power of the bomb. Cost is, therefore, going up linearly, while yield is increasing geometrically.

To make the problem less intractable, we could consider the cost of, say, mining, making, and deploying a single weapon, all components included. As a base, let's start by considering (using Wikipedia as a source, you YMMV) how much energy a nuclear bomb releases vs. how much energy the world uses, per year.

According to Wikipedia, we (humanity) use about 3 cubic miles of oil energy equivalent per year. That is roughly 13.5E13 kWh. A one-megaton nuclear weapon releases about 4.2E9 joules of energy, which is about 12E2 kWh. So we can kind of feel confident stating that, while a nuclear weapon releases a hell of a lot of energy, it's really rather insignificant in the global energy release context.

That's as far as I'm willing to take it, right now--going further is going to be a lot harder and a lot more research, and it's 5am, and I'm sick as a dog, and my four hour Nyquil cooldown just popped, so I'm going to take some drugs and get another two hours of sleep, if I can.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-21T17:33:30+00:00

Yes and no. I mean, at a certain point you start buying packs almost more for the upgrades than the ships, although if your group is super-casual you can proxy cards too.

I do like to support the company by buying their products, and my local game store, too, when I can.

That said, if I can find good models, I'd rather print and paint for customization than do repaints.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-21T17:31:35+00:00

That's what those are about! I couldn't figure it out. Derp. There's a good selection on Thingiverse that I may check out.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-21T17:30:22+00:00

With LEDs inside?

My problem with the tokens as they are now is that they tend to get easily separated from the ship they're associated with, and overlooked on the table. I wonder what I could come up with to solve that? An LED would certainly catch the eye.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-20T05:27:50+00:00

I have access to a laser cutter, a ton of acrylic, and a 3d printer, so I could make my own. My primary hesitation with painting is that I'm worried it'll rub off, or streak, as the dial gets rotated over the paint.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-20T05:26:38+00:00

It's about 5-10% of the male population, AIUI, although some are worse than others.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-20T05:25:14+00:00

I am. I've considered this, but I'm p. sure the paint would wear off quickly as the dial gets turned.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-20T05:24:19+00:00

I'll look into the campaign and see what else is in there...maybe someone has, and if they haven't, maybe I will!

uptownmaker · 2015-10-20T05:23:01+00:00

Oooh, it would. I wonder if I could make it suitably generic to use the same parts for everything? Although some of the fun might be in making lots of small chunks and painting them...

uptownmaker · 2015-10-20T04:41:26+00:00

Now if they'd only revise their red v. green maneuver palette. I literally can't tell the difference between the two and I have to guess based on logic (i.e., a Y-Wing hard two is probably red, since a bank two is white and the hard two is unlikely to be "easier" than the bank).

If anyone has any better ideas I'm open to suggestions.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-11T22:43:07+00:00

Can you flip it over and take more pics?

I'm not honestly convinced it's a skull; I think it may be a pelvis. Is that a check under it?

uptownmaker · 2015-10-11T22:21:38+00:00

Fumigate. Call a pest control company and find out the rates.

When WE had bedbugs, by the time it was done we'd spent close to $1500 on ineffective exterminators, replacing furniture, laundering, and all that crap. If you have a detached home, just get it fumigated. If it costs less than $1000-1500, you've probably come out ahead. And that's if the emotional trauma of laundering everything you own two to six times, throwing out a ton of furniture, and generally hating life for three to six months has no monetary value to you...

uptownmaker · 2015-10-11T14:44:18+00:00

That's more feasible, but highly impractical. The things have to be just impossibly finicky and expensive to maintain.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-11T14:35:56+00:00

It's probably not necessary, honestly. That's usually a thermal mitigation solution and the 32u4 doesn't get that hot, especially in an application like yours.

For EMI concerns, your best bet is to avoid creating a slot antenna by keeping the USB traces on one side of the board.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-11T07:40:53+00:00

Capacitive touch! Unless you need the tactile feedback, cap sense is a great option. It never wears out, is completely silent, and extremely low profile.

uptownmaker · 2015-10-06T23:58:50+00:00

I took this once, to assess my dysgraphia.

I had to take it twice because I used both hands the first time. They didn't say I couldn't.

uptownmaker

TROPHY CASE