l_one's recent activity
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Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's surveillance of cyclosporiasis in ~health
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Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's surveillance of cyclosporiasis in ~health
l_one Link ParentI thought attempting to air fry one of them might have some potential and be worth trying for science, but I lack an air fryer.I thought attempting to air fry one of them might have some potential and be worth trying for science, but I lack an air fryer.
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Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's surveillance of cyclosporiasis in ~health
l_one Link ParentYeah. I'm frugal enough (and have ingrained habits from when I was genuinely poor and would never waste food) that I don't want to throw out the salads - thus the sad stir-fry. I'll plan on...Yeah. I'm frugal enough (and have ingrained habits from when I was genuinely poor and would never waste food) that I don't want to throw out the salads - thus the sad stir-fry. I'll plan on something more appropriate for the current situation when I need to restock my veggies for the week. Probably alternate stir fry and some baked mix of broccoli/asparagus with oil/lemon/parmesan/pepper. I've made that last one before and it's yum - but I will miss the minimal-effort dump-salad-into-bowl & ready.
Higher calories due to the oil with fry and bake options (less with bake) but still healthier than just not having veggies.
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Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's surveillance of cyclosporiasis in ~health
l_one Link ParentFortunately where I am the tap water is clean. I still run it through a filter pitcher for what I drink and make coffee with, but that's more personal habit rather than necessity here. Icky...Fortunately where I am the tap water is clean. I still run it through a filter pitcher for what I drink and make coffee with, but that's more personal habit rather than necessity here. Icky experience you're describing, I wouldn't want to deal with that... especially if it literally smelled like shit. Ick.
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Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's surveillance of cyclosporiasis in ~health
l_one (edited )LinkI've been tracking this and it is such an aggravating and depressing PITA. Pun not intended but coincidentally very appropriate. Oh, and I live in Michigan, the state with the highest documented...I've been tracking this and it is such an aggravating and depressing PITA. Pun not intended but coincidentally very appropriate.
Oh, and I live in Michigan, the state with the highest documented concentration of infections. How nice!
My stepmother who lives with my father an hour north of me got sick with this, they were both eating Dole and Taylor Farms bagged salads (not confirmed as the cause) and I was eating a Taylor Farms bagged salad as part of my breakfast every day - it had been a great help in me improving my diet and lowering daily calorie intake. But bagged salads are one of the highest risk produce products you can get (I believe Raspberries are #1 due to the issue of crevices serving to resist effective washing).
One of the more eclectic YouTubers I watch sometimes, Farm to Taber, did a livestream about this subject yesterday and I caught the tail end of it. She is a small farmer / ex farm worker / crop scientist / former food safety auditor. Pretty informative and helps explain things like why tracking down the cause of the current outbreak is so difficult right now (big parts are a combination of 'do you remember everything you ate for all your meals from the past 2 weeks' and 'surely if we de-fund public health, food safety, federal enforcement of such and more nothing bad will happen, all that money was being wasted!').
I'm considering trying to stir-fry my remaining bagged salads and expect it to look soggy, sad, and wilted. Sigh. I really didn't want to deal with not being able to trust if the food I buy at a major grocery store is safe or not.
Apparently Cyclospora oocysts are incredibly resistant to washing and don't get inactivated / killed / removed with our standard methods like Chlorine rinses. Link to a study comparing various washing methods which cites the methods used, while reasonably to highly effective for other parasites, were drastically less effective for Cyclospora.
The only truly effective prevention method is to not introduce human sewage / human fecal matter into any point of the growing / harvesting / processing chain of our produce. And yes - specifically Human fecal matter. That was fun to learn - it's not that we're missing bird/insect/rabbit/deer poop or whatever - it's human poop. ...yay. Source example FDA.gov: "Cyclosporiasis occurs only in humans, the only known host for C. cayetanensis."
Update: I still had 4 Taylor Farms bagged salads in my fridge. I genuinely enjoy nearly all of their varieties, but I think the Dill & Radish is my favorite. Still want to have vegetables in my diet... with rock bottom expectations and already hungry what with my normal meal cycle disrupted by this and trying to figure out what to eat, I put some olive oil on cast iron and stir-fried my damn salad. Including the dressing, because the dressing has Dill and herbs are a high-risk vector for this. It looks like sadness. It... isn't the worst thing ever I guess... Some of the dressing flavor survived the cooking, and I am hungry. Remains to be seen if I can accept eating my greens like this or if I need to source different options.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
l_one LinkSo, I had a customer who purchased a function generator from me on eBay and we ended up having a conversation about electronics, in which they mentioned they were also looking for a frequency...So, I had a customer who purchased a function generator from me on eBay and we ended up having a conversation about electronics, in which they mentioned they were also looking for a frequency counter. I had some options, one was priced right for them, but I needed to do some work to refurbish / test it to make it ready to go out the door.
That ended up actually being pretty in-depth and I encountered various issues along the way - and I happened to be filming chunks of it to provide video documentation. Somewhere along the line I decided there was enough in the way of useful detail that I'd make it into a public video for my channel so other people could use it as a reference for the various common / uncommon / seldom known details for the care and maintenance of HPAK (Hewlett Packard / Agilent / Keysight) 531xxA series frequency counters.
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Comment on No, artificial intelligence is not conscious in ~tech
l_one (edited )Link ParentThis is a fair point of nuance. In my original post I characterized 'the wealthy' as being excited to revive the practice of slavery. If I restate that with less (not none, just less, I'm not...But I don’t think anyone considers this a good outcome and I think making up lies that people want slavery is malicious.
This is a fair point of nuance. In my original post I characterized 'the wealthy' as being excited to revive the practice of slavery.
If I restate that with less (not none, just less, I'm not going to claim I can fully step outside of myself here) personal bias and more objective viewpoint, it would instead be stated as 'the specific subset of those wealthy and powerful who are pushing forward hard in the AI space, but not a generalization of everyone who has wealth' being financially excited over the prospect of filling labor / job roles with AIs that they don't have to directly pay, or contribute towards health insurance, or get sued by for unfair labor practices, or need to allow for them only working 40 hours a week, or having human needs, etc...
In that more nuanced phrasing, slavery is not a desired goal in the first order, but more of a second order side-effect - if and when AI/AGI reaches the point of being conscious / being people.
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Comment on No, artificial intelligence is not conscious in ~tech
l_one Link ParentLooks like there may have been a misunderstanding. What I was referring to by 'slavery' and 'slaves' is the future potential AI/AGI that advances enough that it achieves consciousness / personhood...Looks like there may have been a misunderstanding.
What I was referring to by 'slavery' and 'slaves' is the future potential AI/AGI that advances enough that it achieves consciousness / personhood - and therefore that 'AI/AGI person' is someone who is being made to perform work without choice or compensation - and therefore a slave. From that we get corporations and wealthy individuals who are pushing forward in the AI space "getting financially excited about the new revolution in being able to own slaves again and have those slaves replace as much of their paid workforce as possible".
I was not referring to slavery in the specific sense of human beings being enslaved.
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Comment on No, artificial intelligence is not conscious in ~tech
l_one Link ParentAn interesting and horrible perspective is that we are racing towards AGI and the few most wealthy and powerful people in the world are ever so excited about... reinventing slavery. If we create...We're getting closer to creating consciousness than ever before, and if sentience is really the bar for consideration, then these AI labs are horror shows in the making.
An interesting and horrible perspective is that we are racing towards AGI and the few most wealthy and powerful people in the world are ever so excited about... reinventing slavery. If we create AGI, if it has 'consciousness' or 'personhood', then this all just devolves into the rich getting financially excited about the new revolution in being able to own slaves again and have those slaves replace as much of their paid workforce as possible.
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Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food
l_one LinkI cook with cast iron. It's not a big deal and you shouldn't worry too much over it. The seasoning gradually wears off from use and cleaning. I wash mine with soap and water in the sink and use a...I cook with cast iron. It's not a big deal and you shouldn't worry too much over it.
The seasoning gradually wears off from use and cleaning. I wash mine with soap and water in the sink and use a green scrub brush, and yes, it wears down the seasoning layer faster. Yes, it's getting water on the iron.
Water on the iron from washing is super easy to fix - put it on the stove until it's semi-hot and the water is gone.
The seasoning wearing down / off just means you lose some of your 'non-stick' effect. It can mean stuff sticks to the iron and you have to scrub it off - that's all.
Re-seasoning is just wiping a thin layer of high-smoke-temp cooking oil all over it and sticking it in the oven for an hour at around 400F.
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Comment on US battery industry cuts losses, shifts to new ventures amid electric vehicle bust in ~transport
l_one Link ParentAbsolutely. I'm here for you, and good luck. I hope you figure out a way for your needs and your wants in this regard to better align.I'll keep you in mind when I need to rubber duck some ideas about branching out and trying new things, if you don't mind.
Absolutely. I'm here for you, and good luck. I hope you figure out a way for your needs and your wants in this regard to better align.
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
l_one LinkMiracle of Sound and related songs on Pandora (when I'm in the field or driving and feel more like music than an audiobook. Recent favorites: The Tale Of Cú Chulainn The Irish RoarMiracle of Sound and related songs on Pandora (when I'm in the field or driving and feel more like music than an audiobook.
Recent favorites:
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Comment on What do you think the top three most used apps on your phone for the past week are? in ~tech
l_one LinkSmart AudioBoook Player (I listen to audiobooks constantly) Google Docs (I use it for all my work documentation when I'm doing field contract work) ChromeSmart AudioBoook Player (I listen to audiobooks constantly)
Google Docs (I use it for all my work documentation when I'm doing field contract work)
Chrome
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Comment on Iran war live: US, Tehran confirm ‘peace deal’ reached in ~society
l_one Link ParentNot surprised by this development. I will also be unsurprised if trump completely ignores it while insisting 'we totally have a deal guys' and just proceeds to give the IRGC regime everything from...Not surprised by this development. I will also be unsurprised if trump completely ignores it while insisting 'we totally have a deal guys' and just proceeds to give the IRGC regime everything from the MOU while they publicly say the deal is on hold.
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Comment on US battery industry cuts losses, shifts to new ventures amid electric vehicle bust in ~transport
l_one (edited )Link ParentOh, no worries, it wasn't a matter of seeking privacy, just anticipating there might be a lot we wanted to go over. But now I need to reassess an issue of personal emotional intelligence that has...Oh, no worries, it wasn't a matter of seeking privacy, just anticipating there might be a lot we wanted to go over. But now I need to reassess an issue of personal emotional intelligence that has been beaten into me by my girlfriend over the course of years (with high effort and only the most glacial of success):
"You don't always need to solve the problem. Often what is needed from you is to listen and provide comfort, a shoulder to cry on, and a sympathetic ear to listen - and then to say 'I'm sorry you are going through that' without offering solutions or things to try, because sometimes a person just needs to vent, and that is not the same thing as asking for assistance."
So, I'm sorry you are going through this (says the AuDHD person on the internet who has, roughly, the emotional intelligence of a cold unfeeling robot but emulates it from taught rote response).
With that said - I'm part of a community that includes a LOT of people who do independent repair or run their own small businesses based on such. I make a living doing what I do, they (many of them) are at different stages of building profitable repair businesses or are already there, and I can have a chat in our discord about what has worked for them and what hasn't in this field (I've actually already asked that question before I got your reply that I am replying to now with this block of text).
What I don't know is what outcome or ideal future you want for yourself in this context. If you want to keep at the work you are currently doing for the company you are currently working for, or if you had desires to do independent work, or to do both with independent stuff on the side. If you literally ONLY wanted to vent, or if you have any desire to look into and pursue options to learn more or do other repair work or etc... (options branch out further and further, etc...).
For computers and IT repair work specifically: my first decade working during and after University was computers / IT work. Support, break/fix, on-site support and housecalls, computer repair (including component repair like replacing bad caps on desktop motherboards), ISP phone support, talking with customers and building computers for them, virus removal / OS reinstall / data backup. All that IT support stuff. I do have to say that I did not see a path in that main role to making more than a modest income. There are some exceptions in the form of contract work where you go on-site for customers and provide the premium service of convenience - people DO pay much more for that, and you can make even more if you build a customer base that you have no middle-man with.
With that background and what we have previously discussed I will say that what I've shifted to (lab electronics / instrumentation) does reliably make more money per repair effort because the devices usually cost more, but also because of market stuff like supply and demand: there are A LOT of used laptops and desktops that get cycled onto the secondary market all the time from companies either upgrading hardware or going out of business, so that puts a hard upper limit on the value of any given computer, and from that the money to be made from computer repair. It DOES NOT mean you can't make a living that way, it just means you're looking at a moderate max ceiling of how much you can make per repair - not counting data recovery, that can be VERY expensive and people will pay for it. There is also the outlier right now of expensive GPU repair, which can also make good money.
For consumer electronics: many of my fellows in the YouTube Fixers community (Google will not bring up what I'm talking about, it's the name of our Discord channel) founded by JFIXX (that will come up in search just fine) do laptop repair and game console repair, and they do seek to make a living at it in different ways and to different measures of success. Some buy/repair/sell (that's what I do), some take customer repairs, some do both. There are specific repairs that I've heard are bread and butter like HDMI port and maybe also power adapter port repairs on game consoles that give a very reasonable repair-time-and-cost to profit ratio.
So that is some example of what I was thinking we could discuss. But it certainly doesn't need to be by phone, that was just a suggestion on my part if you wanted a faster back and forth to go over stuff.
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Comment on US battery industry cuts losses, shifts to new ventures amid electric vehicle bust in ~transport
l_one Link ParentI'd be interested in talking if you're willing. It feels like we could accomplish more in a more practical amount of time with a phone conversation (no couple-hour to 1-day pauses, a lot easier to...I'd be interested in talking if you're willing. It feels like we could accomplish more in a more practical amount of time with a phone conversation (no couple-hour to 1-day pauses, a lot easier to go back and froth with ideas and questions). Would you be interested in talking for a while? I could PM you my cell number.
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Comment on US battery industry cuts losses, shifts to new ventures amid electric vehicle bust in ~transport
l_one Link ParentCompletely fair. In that scope of work you can do a lot with a little (hand tools, multimeter, soldering iron, [cheap]microscope in that order), and the repair scenarios that would call for the...I'm in the trenches doing basic consumer electronics repair, so it looks like most of the stuff you process is a bit out of scope for me.
Completely fair. In that scope of work you can do a lot with a little (hand tools, multimeter, soldering iron, [cheap]microscope in that order), and the repair scenarios that would call for the use of more expensive / sophisticated / niche tools often align with the same situations in which COR is higher than RWN (Cost Of Repair / Replace With New).
I do want to give a caveat to that though - if you ignore the capital cost of said other equipment, and you also disregard the labor time needed for those kinds of repairs as another capital investment - this one in skill development - you absolutely can develop yourself to the point where you can do sophisticated repairs that 99.9% of shops / companies would consider to be 'financially unrepairable' while getting them done fast, cheap, and making profit.
Counterargument to the above is that if you have developed that level of skill you can make far more money repairing more expensive stuff than low to mid cost consumer electronics... A big part of this calculus is cost of labor. This is why I tend to see some self-taught consumer electronics repair techs of frankly incredible skill in countries and regions that are less economically developed / outright poor. Regional cost of labor is low enough, and purchasing power parity + average income is also low enough that consumer electronics can often be effectively more valuable with labor time less valuable - and people DO repair them, including performing quite sophisticated repairs, having taught themselves to do so with a combination of YouTube and the cheapest tools that can get the job done. And that leads to repair techs accustomed to unreasonable resource constraints that, frankly, demonstrate incredible skill.
Sorry, another tangent there.
I've had a hard time getting my employers to even buy soldering consumables, if that tells you anything.
YEP. 'Why would we want to spend money on you repairing stuff? You're supposed to make us money doing that, not cost us!' and 'What do you mean you need a replacement soldering cartridge? You have one right there. It get's hot doesn't it? Stop making excuses and get back to work.'
Ug.
It's been a continuous point of frustration for me how resistant the repair and recycling industry is to, you know, actual repair.
Yep. I see this with a number of companies - Keysight is one example of many. They make high end Test & Measure (they used to be higher end, in my opinion things have gone moderately downhill) that people all over use for service and repair as a fairly large percentage of their market (manufacturing is probably the highest single sector in their market, but S&R is still a big one) - and if a customer wants to, oh, I don't know, repair the instrument they purchased from Keysight then Keysight gets all 'we'll need you to sign a service contract and mail it back to us - if you open it up to try and fix it yourself you will be voiding your warranty'. Like, come on, think about what kind of people you sell your stuff to.
Aside from that example, Enshittification has infected so much of the world economy and many a company exist that view a device being fixed as a device that wasn't instead replaced with a new sale to them. Short-term profit prioritization thinking, aligning with the perverse incentives that CEO quarterly bonuses based on quarterly growth numbers result in. Why should they think with a long term view? Their incentives push them solidly at the very short-term.
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Comment on Tildes Survey #9: How optimistic are you about the future? (Results) in ~talk
l_one Link ParentYeah no kidding. I cannot properly express my depth of love for ST:TNG. It got me through high school. It fueled my passion for STEM which is a big part of what led into electronics for me. It Was...The people in charge of the economy seem way too eager to use them as a roadmap.
Yeah no kidding.
Just keep making more Star Trek: The Next Generation please.
I cannot properly express my depth of love for ST:TNG. It got me through high school. It fueled my passion for STEM which is a big part of what led into electronics for me. It Was A HOPEFUL View Of The Future And Of The Best We Could Be.
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Comment on US battery industry cuts losses, shifts to new ventures amid electric vehicle bust in ~transport
l_one Link ParentI typically don't give my self a plug to my store unless asked, but.. you did ask. My eBay store is here: https://www.ebay.com/usr/mehlisaa - but honestly I'm pretty slow at processing things for...- Exemplary
I typically don't give my self a plug to my store unless asked, but.. you did ask.
My eBay store is here: https://www.ebay.com/usr/mehlisaa - but honestly I'm pretty slow at processing things for sale on eBay since I'm kind of an inefficient perfectionist (must test / document every tiny thing including those 17 things that definitely don't matter to anyone or the God of Lab Electronics will judge me as wanting!!!!!!) I swear that's how my brain sabotages me sometimes.
Sorry, that way my topic-wandering way of saying I don't have a lot of my stock currently listed - which is always the case. I do as of a very recent organization project have an inventory of unprocessed stock set up as a google doc, you can look through it if you want, though it's just models and brief descriptions, not full effort listings. The use of this is you can say 'hey, does that one work and how much' and I could pull that specific item, test it, and give a price.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oJPP1vpp58g2XykFAl8ZVSYGIu6YSHL0SSwQdAfRapo/edit?usp=drive_link
I also sell on Craigslist / Facebook but those tend to be cash / in-person only. I also sell the larger/heavier items local-only due to prohibitive shipping costs. I mostly tend to do any business that involves shipping on eBay with a few exceptions, like people on EEVBlog in good standing or some of my fellow electronics YouTube people. We do have a good community here as well so I'd probably be willing to take a small risk off eBay for a fellow... Tildean? Tilderino? Tildenarian? (proceeds down rabbit hole wanting ever more absurd or hilarious names)
Or if you're interested in just having a conversation about some recommendations for what to look for on eBay in the cross-section of good and cheap, I'm not going to refuse to talk shop to try to box someone into buying something from me. I also talk about electronics a lot on my YT channel if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/@neverendingstudent/videos
If you're interested in shopping around eBay for a bench power supply: strongly recommend GW Instek. They are both good and cheap - they marketed heavily and successfully to the education market for years, so there's large volumes of their product on the secondary market, and their quality is very high. Advise going with the GPD generation and newer. My previous main bench supply was the GPD-3303S and it is outstanding. I have that specific power supply in my for-sale queue since replacing it with a newer Instek model - but you can find that same model on eBay for cheaper than I would sell mine, and while I know mine works perfectly and is dead on, I don't have much reason to think that a random one for cheaper on eBay (so long as the physical condition looks great) would be less stable and accurate than mine.
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Comment on US battery industry cuts losses, shifts to new ventures amid electric vehicle bust in ~transport
l_one LinkI've been watching this happen firsthand. My main income is from my home electronics lab and auctions. I buy / refurb / test / resell lab electronics like multimeters, lab power supplies, and...I've been watching this happen firsthand.
My main income is from my home electronics lab and auctions. I buy / refurb / test / resell lab electronics like multimeters, lab power supplies, and relevant for this specific topic: resistance meters and battery analyzers.
I've been watching EV component and EV battery factories go under left and right as I see their liquidation auctions come up. I have a bunch of stuff from some of them in my queue to be processed for sale right now.
It has been disheartening because I understand the implications behind those auctions. Thousands, tens of thousands of jobs. Jobs that supported a future that was doing its part to address climate change and the challenges of now and of our future. A cleaner, more electrified transportation system.
Hopefully we can get back on track soon.
Now that is a novel idea to me. I may give that a try, thank you for suggesting this.