#emfcamp idea: Mornington Crescent knockout tournament (Original Modern rules)

Status: in Total Recall mode with a wet tea towel wrapped around my head

I'm now mostly able to decode ADSB data from dump1090 and interpret them into tracks on the screen - I had some fun getting the data management to work reliably (I have no idea what I'm doing) but it's been running for a few hours Next step: getting the plotter to work with it

Me: I'd like to do a thing for EMF camp! EMF: we'd like you to do the thing Me: Shit

Passing on an invitation from my other half who is not currently engaged in Fediversal things: would anyone going to #emfcamp be interested in an informal session to learn about knitting a mitred square blanket? Also generally chatting about knitting? […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I just uploaded some new KiCad source and gerber files for a power supply circuit board to support high voltage servos on an EBB-based plotter (or EBB clone, or perhaps anything that needs a servo) and also the new printable mounting parts for a full size servo - I've been using a full size […]

Back in the UK after being in Switzerland since last Saturday: getting train envy to a startling degree as I bounce my way to Paddington

Talking to our youngest and I wanted to refer to the "Ski Sunday" theme that they, being 17, hadn't heard Rather than search for "Ski Sunday theme" like a normal person I decided to do the tune search thing so I whistled the tune and it came up with this https://youtu.be/vocfGD9xYak which is […]

The first PCBs that I've designed has arrived :) I've been running my #penplotter with a high voltage brushless servo for a while but it was connected with an awful hacked-together nest of wires, perfboard and iffy sockets. This should both be better for me […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

More NeoPixels than one man can conceivably wear #emfcamp

I took a photo of it next to a correct fork – I hope that you’re impressed I was able to touch it

St George Park looked nice last night. #Bristol

I do not want a meat tea bag Thanks for clearing up that worry for me, PG Tips

It has been 0 days since I had to tell someone that averaging the major and minor axes of an ellipse and multiplying by pi is not a good way to get it's perimeter

Is there a word for the anxiety that pops up when you see someone you don't know recommend your shitty videos/code/other to someone?

Parsnip found a sunbeam #caturday

Trying some new plausibly CMYK pens in a halftone plot. Before where I've found the right colours the pens have had very large tips so they're not good for detail. These (Staedtler ball 4320, 10 pack assorted colours) are ballpoints so perhaps the better […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Goose2 is installed!

Turning discrete math into art with the help of some industrial equipment -- the Gray Device! https://youtu.be/Z9X3dH5LjrM

Recently I heard of the "wug" test in linguistics and I was just reminded that when I was very small I was very, very insistent that a box was in fact a "boc" because then the plural would be "bocs" - one boc, two bocs At that early age I was apparently not prepared to put up with English's […]

We're remotely supporting an internal training course we run next week for our office in Bangalore - I count myself lucky that my bit is in the afternoon there so it's UK morning. Someone else in the team agreed to do a bit that starts 0400 UK time 😬

De-electrification, Philadelphia, PA, 2005 All the pixels, sturdier than they look, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/2155416560 #photography

Taking a lesson from my Nana today: if your cooking involves onions, do them first and do them early so the house smells lovely as long as possible for everyone waiting for the food (Lesson not taken: my Grandad would eat anything if it was covered in cheese and served on a pizza base)

Got the crankshaft counterweights tacked on, and mounted the starboard wing on the test stand. Not the most productive night, but it's all ready to get the drive wheel disk cut and mounted this weekend, which will (if all goes well!) validate the entire system.

Experimental 4 Colour CMYK plot with each colour being built with a different conversion technique: Yellow: fast marching method contours Cyan: strips where lines bunch up in darker areas Magenta: halftone dots made from spirals Black: large spirals where […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Latest phase of our youngest training the cat to do tricks: (all of the following prefaced with the usual cat qualifier of "if she wants to") for treats she will now walk over at the call of "c'mere", sit on "sit", lift her front paws on "jump" (when I asked why not "beg"? I was told "cats don't […]

LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER is the UK entry to Eurovision 2026?! https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TLOcas01wGc what the actual WHY WAS I NOT INFOR... sorry? Oh. I am being informed that I was, in fact, informed, which is how I know i'm so confused but WOT #lookmumnocomputer #Eurovision […]

today in "cursed aliexpress items"

So I'm in Montréal this week for a work thing and it's amazing. I'm in the ICAO building and it's got lots of fascinating art everywhere. It has also been the coldest place I ever went to, -22degC over last weekend However I made the mistake of flying KLM […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Well over a year after I started learning stained glass to make a light fixture, it's done! https://youtu.be/EarBm4tfMXs

The UK government may be looking to ban VPNs for children, effectively undermining the privacy they offer for everyone else - including adults. I've signed a petition to get them to reconsider this position. If you are a UK citizen, you can sign too […]

#Arduíno #cnc#Arduínopen plotter working* Made of PVC water pipes, a servo and two stepper motors. Still a lot of jiggle since the pipes have some gaps. But it was a fun project! *For certain definitions of work

Finished print(s) of the above darkroom session yesterday... Also nicely demonstrates the importance of the sensitivity to environmental factors and avoiding contamination of all solutions in the kallitype process. For the bottom one I tried using just tap […] [Original post on mastodon.thi.ng]

Starting a torture test plot for the new #penplotter brushless pen lift servo; or, as it's known in the household: "What the heck is that thumping noise? Oh. How long is it going to be doing that for?"

[Lots of line art eyes] Our youngest just showed me this sketch. I like it but also I don't like it, which was apparently what was intended and I thought I'd share it here (shared with permission)

Our 19 year old just got a phonecall, we were genuinely concerned that things were ok (everything was ok)

I've been planning on doing #penplotter brushless pen lift servo investigations for a while and it's nearly ready for a trial This is a cheap(ish) full size brushless servo which would replace the coreless micro servo I already swapped over to a while back […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I've wanted to get the Fast Marching Method working in Processing for a while so I can avoid using Python (which I don't really understand) to make some nice line drawings from photos for #penplotter art I found this paper […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer – That beast didn’t have unshiny nostrils! Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in Anglo Saxon meter: allthingslinguistic.com/post/1359368...

Making the Christmas food and listening to the Radio Orkney Scottish dance Christmas programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002nvv8?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Second batch of mince pies of the year, some standard and some with crumble tops - which I can recommend

Had an idea for a concealed lithophane model that I thought I'd test. After I'd adapted some #OpenSCAD code from a more complex past project I realised I'd just rewritten something that can be done in one line with a standard function The code makes a […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Want to know how fast something is spinning? Turns out there are a surprising number of ways to do that: https://youtu.be/FsaPIOYaPrg

"Hello, We're Firefox, The Only Browser That Hasn't Hit Itself In The Dick With A Hammer. For years now, folks use us because of our un-hammered dick. Now, you may be wondering why today we've brought this hammer and pulled out our dick. Well I'm glad you asked--"

I'm attempting to use the 50p unicorn biscuit cutter I bought today in the hope of making it (and some biscuits*) part of an office secret Santa gift Can you tell which end of the series I started at? * These are not the biscuits, these are experiments. I'm […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages James Iry; Thursday, May 7, 2009 1801 - Joseph Marie Jacquard uses punch cards to instruct a loom to weave "hello, world" into a tapestry. Redditers of the time are not impressed due to the lack of tail call recursion […]

Look at these pants my partner made me 🤩 These are #retrocomputing selvedge jeans!! With floppies on the pockets!

Just had a very interesting idea at work for an area entirely unrelated to mine Now I just need to find someone from that area so they can tell me that it was already invented in 1930 or something, ideally without making me feel like more of an eejit than strictly necessary Unfortunately most […]

New Hyperspace Pirate video! This one has added homebrew CT scanning: https://youtu.be/Ht9JzOryaKc

Making the video about it turned out to be almost as hard as the original hike, but the video covering my San Francisco Bay circumnavigation is finally up! https://youtu.be/1MUSqkcd7n8