Soldering up a #adafruit propmaker feather for some Halloween lightsaber fun.

If Colbert and Fallon don’t book Kimmel as a guest on their shows asap it’s a huge miss.

SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool

I do wonder how much of an invasion of the 4th Amendment Kavanaugh would see if federal agents were detaining and searching all white men, in suits, near business centers, speaking English with East Coast accents —because that is correlated with perpetrators of white-collar crime.

Odds Tuesday the old man declares a national emergency and martial law to distract from everything else? Too high.

Now just hear me out for a second. If that guy was a “sandwich artist” can his tossing of the sub not just be protected first amendment activity?

Trump is panicking because the economic numbers are giving a recession vibe. From the Chief Economist at Moody's.

I actually found this expansion pack the other day lol:

The kids finished the claw machine project with #circuitpython and some feather boards from #adafruit. I’m super proud of all they did to make this work and it was a huge hit with all the kids around here. #maker. A good mix of CAD/3D printing, woodworking, soldering and coding.

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Worth a watch: Head of Signal, Meredith Whittaker, on so-called "agentic AI" and the difference between how it's described in the marketing and what access and control it would actually require to work as advertised.

Llama model on a Raspberry Pi repeats token generation about its disconnected state until it runs out of memory, crashes, and starts back over again. I love projects like this, and it's only his second video! www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fNY...

So I guess Congress is just going to give up all its power and our democracy in about six months’ time.

A productive weekend. She mounted the gantry and the controls, now we just need to mount the last (y axis) stepper motor and belts and we can start moving the RP2040 feather, motorwings and lighting related electronics inside to start testing the kids’ code. #maker #adafruit

Kids finally wore me down so they have a new baby brother. #cavapoo.

So anybody know why soho is swarmed with plainclothes cops/ feds like crazy right now? Don’t see anything on the news…

Kids claw machine project getting back on track, as my son gets to play with all the bigger tools to build up the box.

April 28, 2025: Migrants are making SOS signs out of their bodies so drones can see them at our country's concentration camps.

Mack Trucks will lay off between 250 and 350 workers at its Lehigh Valley Operations center outside Allentown over the next three months, due to economic uncertainty caused by U.S. tariffs, a company spokesperson said Thursday.

People really need to stop parroting “reciprocal tariffs” for a bunch of arbitrary tariffs done on the back of an envelope to take net imports to zero. Framing matters, and it’s a disservice to ordinary Americans to misname what is going on here.

* CHINESE STATE MEDIA: CHINA, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA REACH A CONSENSUS THAT THREE SIDES WILL JOINTLY RESPOND TO THE U.S. TARIFFS @reuters.com

Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity Index for March comes in at -16.3 vs -5.0 expected and -8.3 in Feb. And now for the comments section. www.dallasfed.org/research/sur...

Part of a thread, and it is correct. DOGE's actions make more sense when you begin with: They don't want government services to be more "efficient." They want government services to end. Sure, they'll steal $ with "AI" contracts, but they don't intend for those to work either. They want to end it.

So I give it about 60 days until somebody tells Trump that Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and he gives it a try himself to start disappearing “radical leftists” who oppose his actions.

In which the gang learns that the rule of law is useful for M&A activity

The president has hardly any deeply held beliefs and so just throws everything against the wall and pivots to whatever sticks with his base. One exception: Tariffs- which he has always believed are the answer to all economic issues. The market is finally starting to understand this.

I’m guessing it’s not a great sign for the economy that the coffee and bagel cart in lower Manhattan is also selling loose eggs for people that can’t find/afford a dozen…

While I might have bricked the old #adafruit M4 Express (firmware overwrote bootloader bug) the kids did make good progress wiring up 3 steppers, the joystick, alphanumeric display, and some relay for lighting and the servo for the #clawmachine build. Quick learners! Now ordering rp2040…

Ugh just realized the old (salvaged) adafruit m4 feather I was using to build the claw machine with the kids had the old firmware with the bug. Bricked the board and need to reprogram it- but probably not worth it since I don’t have a JTAG debugger. I guess time to move to an RP2040 feather. Oops.

Kids making good progress in the claw Machine prototype this weekend- but it is starting to look a bit like a bomb from a 90s action movie I must confess. Stepper motors and countdown code all working now though- so that’s a plus.

Just finished reading Erik Larson’s Demon of Unrest — The parallels between how southern slave owners felt in the lead up to Civil War and how current MAGA hates DEI and feels “equity” is stealing their birthright and deserved wealth as white males… well it is astounding. And profoundly depressing.

This is a backdoor. Elon's coders are creating a backdoor into the US Treasury. This is incredibly dangerous both because of its intended use (by Elon and Trump) and the risk of other actors exploiting a major security vulnerability to cause a massive disruption to the US government.

My son learning to solder (headers on an adafruit featherwing) for the claw machine build.

Just FYI, administrative warrants (like the ones used by ICE) are not judicial warrants (used by cops, signed by a judge). You do NOT legally have to open the door for an ICE officer with an administrative warrant *no matter what the ICE officer says.*

Finding it odd how many people are giving the tech bros the benefit of the doubt - assuming they are bending the knee to the new POTUS by cutting fact checking, moderation, and diversity goals. I’d say what were doing BEFORE was the act, now the mask is off. They want max rage-engagement and $.

Decided to build a fully functional robotic claw machine with my (young) kids to learn some robotics and improve my pitiful abilities in computer programming. It’s also a great excuse to use some power tools and get the kids deeper into the Maker mindset.