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Saigonauticon, to asklemmy in What is a beautiful concept or idea that continues to blow your mind?

I suppose you could model the Earth as a thermos, or some type of vacuum flask.

Saigonauticon, to asklemmy in What is a beautiful concept or idea that continues to blow your mind?

The Elitzur–Vaidman bomb-tester, specifically (en.wikipedia.org/…/Elitzur–Vaidman_bomb_tester).

Next, that I can buy and program a computer for 0.30 USD that’s half the size of a grain of rice (ATtiny10). There are cheaper too, but that’s the one I like.

Finally, on to the horrifying: Boltzmann brains. The idea that given a reasonable interpretation of the laws of thermodynamics, and long spans of time, the most common form of brain in the universe ought to be one that forms due to random fluctuations. It exists for long enough to have exactly one thought (e.g. recall a false memory), then dissipates.

This ought to be by far the most common form of conscious mind in the Universe. In a sense, you could say it ‘blows’ the general case of minds.

Since you are a mind, statistically, you ought to be a Boltzmann brain. You may not be, but are unable to prove otherwise, even to yourself. So either we have some things left to learn about thermodynamics, or the most probable outcome at all times is that you cease to exist immediately after having your current thought (although I hope you don’t). Sleep tight!

Saigonauticon, to askelectronics in Transistor particle detector not functioning as expected

Ah, by ‘particle’ in this context I mean ‘single helium nuclei traveling near the speed of light’. Not counting dust particles e.g. in a clean room.

If I’ve misunderstood the situation and I actually can use light diffusion in this context, I would love to hear more!

Saigonauticon, to asklemmy in Do you think there will be a future where your phone can automatically detect if you are trying to record police activity and disables your camera? What do you think the odds of this happening is?

Hm, uniting people in general is like herding cats. Uniting hermits? Sounds hard. I’ll stick to science :D

Being mercenary is largely overrated – better to try and live a calm and happy life filled with friends and family.

Many opinions have been offered on whether the most valuable attribute in warfare (and by this I mean business) is loyalty or bravery, but few people are willing to admit it’s actually just hunger.

Saigonauticon, to maliciouscompliance in I can guess what happened here

It probably is at that retailer – although that’s not that good of a price for a good pan locally.

The Vietnamese market is super demanding when it comes to these things, it really drives price down and quality up. I bought a large, quite good, enameled cast iron pot recently for less than this pan costs :D

Saigonauticon, to lemmybewholesome in [ALERT] Lemmy.World Compromised

That looks like something Imgur is doing then. Which is not surprising at all. If it’s a free service, you’re the product, right?

Honestly the sketchiest thing I found was the use of BTLoader, a self-described ‘adblock revenue recovery service’.

Saigonauticon, to lemmybewholesome in [ALERT] Lemmy.World Compromised

In the interests of being wholesome and helpful, I used a secure method to retrieve the contents of that URL without providing my own cookie info.

I accessed and extracted the .png image directly using a similar method, then dug through it with a hex editor. As best I can tell, there’s nothing particularly weird about the image itself or its metadata.

The HTML file pointing to the image contains a bunch of trackers from imgur. Google analytics, Facebook, scorecard research, etc. Those are certainly things to be concerned about, but I didn’t specifically notice anything unusual beyond the ordinary corporate-surveillance crudware (which was indeed written in JavaScript). None of these were in the image itself though.

Obviously it’s impossible to prove that anything is safe, and I only spent 10 minutes looking into this, so you should still follow the OP’s advice about not clicking on random links without thinking. However my quick analysis did not find anything particularly alarming.

Saigonauticon, to asklemmy in Do you think there will be a future where your phone can automatically detect if you are trying to record police activity and disables your camera? What do you think the odds of this happening is?

I’m some sort of mercenary science hermit. So take any statement I make about human beings with a grain of salt :D

Saigonauticon, to asklemmy in Do you think there will be a future where your phone can automatically detect if you are trying to record police activity and disables your camera? What do you think the odds of this happening is?

Haha, what a great idea! I love it! Sending me a signal about things you don’t want me to record!

I would build two things. First, an antenna that detects and (using multiple copies) locates these signals on a real time, public-access map.

Second, I’d build a security camera with a wide angle lens that turns ON whenever this signal is received.

Sure, 90% of people don’t know how to do these things – but I do, and I can put them in a store and the results on a website. Most people know how to buy a thing and plug it in, or access a website!

Then I’ll manufacture a ton of them at a factory here in Vietnam, and you will be able to buy them at a reasonable price. I’ll make a tidy sum, pay a bunch of taxes that will build highways and schools, and you’ll have more freedom than you started with.

We all win!

Saigonauticon, to askelectronics in Help finding value of burnt resistor.

Excellent news!

The science gets done, and we bake a fresh bun, for the people who are still alive!

Saigonauticon, to askelectronics in Help finding value of burnt resistor.

Those things are indeed more common!

However, if the circuit was in an abnormal state (e.g. the contact with the case), then a resistor could very well blow. It would not be surprising if it took some other components down with it, and that this damage is not obvious yet. “The transistor blows to protect the fuse” is a common fail-state, facetiously stated.

Another possibility is just… bad design. You could call me adequate at circuit design (I mostly design prototypes, not finished systems that have to last thousands of hours), but regularly see commercial products designed poorly with some stupid point of failure. For example, using a 1 watt resistor that is dissipating close to 1 watt, instead of designing a more efficient system that doesn’t require dissipating heat at all.

I spend a lot of time answering questions for people just getting started. Probably 75% of them boil down to a few things. Here is that list in case amusing / useful:

  1. Relays are not a great solution in general, and there are many better alternatives (MOSFET, SSR, etc).
  2. Output impedance matters: you can’t power a huge motor off a microcontroller pin.
  3. Back-EMF from inductive loads can burn out your control system unless you add a protection diode.
  4. Lead acid batteries aren’t a magic solution to power everything. Especially automotive ones. Understand and use lithium ion.
  5. Connecting LEDs in parallel then adding a single resistor will lead to failure pretty quickly.
  6. Generally, don’t pass significant power through a switch. Use the switch to control the state of a power MOSFET or similar.
  7. Button debouncing.

Most of the rest is refusing to do other people’s homework, help people build weapons, or do unwise things with mains power / high voltage / centrifuges. Occasionally people ask me really interesting questions though, so I don’t mind that the interactions are a bit scripted the rest of the time! I’ve noticed on Lemmy I’ve gotten much more interesting questions so far!

Saigonauticon, to askelectronics in Help finding value of burnt resistor.

Sounds like science! Let us know what happens.

Saigonauticon, to asklemmy in Atheists/agnostics of Lemmy, do you believe in the existence of souls?

It seems like a way to take all the things I don’t understand particularly well, and put them in a category that I fail to define precisely.

My preference is not to do that, because I have a hard time believing in something that I can’t characterize reasonably well.

Saigonauticon, to asklemmy in Why is my food making lightning?

You have angered Thor by putting metal objects in the sacred container.

Saigonauticon, to askelectronics in Help finding value of burnt resistor.

That sounds like a possible fail state. Also shitty design. It should use a resettable thermal fuse or something to detect faults without parts burning.

Consider maybe adding a fuse to the design?

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