Haven't been here in a while... I've taken a break from tech hobbies and just opened an Etsy shop. First listing? A Kumihimo disk that I designed for making friendship bracelets. underproofed.etsy.com/listing/4418...

No Kings Day in Ann Arbor, MI #nokingsday

It genuinely feels like the last decade has been less about "using tech to solve user problems" and more "using tech to extract sellable information" which is... just not what tech is *for.* It's the rot that is "businesses exist to maximize shareholder profits" fully hollowing out innovation.

So I'm generally not in love with google's automatic AI responses but this one was particularly unhinged. Thanks for giving this great example of a $2,46,256 loan principal amount.

Oh thanks, I really needed another clue that this timeline is cursed and I'm living in a dystopia (P.S. The headline leaves out the part about how 'screens everywhere' will incorporate AI 🙄) www.forbes.com/sites/paulla...

I like to make pizza. I started making Neopolitan pizzas after getting an outdoor oven a year ago. Then I learned how to make Detroit style. Now I've been trying my hand at NY-style. Friday is pizza night at our house 😁

Wonder if Elon could survive a week on the salary we make. While he burns through $8 million a day, the working class struggles—yet he paints us as the enemy.

To America’s 2.3 million federal employees: Don’t accept a buyout. Neither Musk nor even Trump has the legal authority to make such an offer. And even if they did, would you trust them to follow through on it? Sincerely, Robert Reich Former U.S.Secretary of Labor

OligarchyExpress

As time wears on, I'm increasingly disenchanted with technology in my life. I just got a manual espresso maker and I love it. It is slow, yes. But when I hand grind the beans and manually force water through the grounds, it awakens all of my senses. I really appreciate that. Easy ≠ good.

Found a 2.7mm thin Neopixel strip with a silicone coating and decided to cram as many rows as would fit ( turned out to be 5) onto a headband. Added a #pixelblaze Pico controller and an off the shelf holder for an AA-sized Li-Ion battery. I intend to be "light headed" for the holidays!

An inpiring article which captures some of the thoughts I've been wrestling with over the past few years. Tech used to be exciting to me but I'm developing a deeper appreciation for the social implications, and it's scary. Check out the comments for a non-paywalled link.

Ah yes, my annual reminder that Google hardware was designed to be used in the bay area. Can't wait to see this notification again and again over the next few months. Perhaps I should remove my doorbell and mount it inside the house?

This was one of my most popular tweets, I think mostly due to the clear macro photo I took. Footprint was P0.5mm vs 0.65mm. So IC couldn't be soldered down. I was able to bodge existing boards in 1-2hrs. While my friend spent 10min on the redesign (+waiting a week for mfg/ship).

This weekend I was able to more-or-less recreate my original electric prism code with MicroBlocks. Video attached! There are two different moving rainbow modes and a white light mode. A short tap on the touch pad changes modes, and a long drag across the slider adjusts brightness.

BTW, I also converted the Rigol DS1054Z #picoCAD model into papercraft! ✂️📄 If you want to try and make it, you can get the files here: www.arturo182.me/ds1054z_pape...

Day 2 of messing around with MicroBlocks on my Pi Pico project. Have added some rainbow action to my LEDs, and managed to get capacitance sensing touch pads working with a recursive filter to smooth the signal. I'm really liking this, @microblocks.bsky.social

Hey @microblocks.bsky.social thanks for following me! You inspired me to pick up my old pi pico project and install MicroBlocks on it. I had a little trouble getting started but now that it's up and running I must say that I'm impressed.

Went to a #Gashapon capsule machine store this afternoon. Pretty overwhelming. I love the niche ones (I'm looking at you, dental chair). They even had a photo booth setup.

I had a bad dream (nightmare?) that I spontaneously launched my drone next to an airport while an aircraft was landing. After I took off, I realized that I hadn't thought to check airspace restrictions, which would certainly not allow this. Yeah, I know, my bad dreams are pretty boring.

Saw this graffiti in Asheville, NC about 3 years ago. It hits even harder now. What has the United States become? Is this what our ancestors wanted?

I'm really enjoying the lack of an "algorithm" here. Mainstream social media content serving seems to be a confirmation bias machine that sucks you in and leads you to weird places, all while they capture that sweet sweet ad revenue. Kind of curious what monetization will look like here.

Made Japanese curry rice for dinner 🙂

Our local library is flying a trans pride flag. Awesome. This is a version of America that I can support. Thanks @aadl.bsky.social !

Steps to follow when drawing attention to some text in a graphic: 1. Draw a spline. Looks bad. 2. Adjust vertexes. Still bad. Delete. 3. Freehand draw a blob around it. Also bad. Delete. 4. Drag a rectangle box around it. Done. Vow to do this first next time. 5. Forget and repeat in a few months.

When I was a kid, history seemed boring and kind of irrelevant (yes, bad things happened. surely we will not make such mistakes again!) Surprise! Turns out my adult life is all about experiencing history repeating itself in bad bad ways. 😞

Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Elon Musk owns Twitter/X. When multi-billionaires take control of our most vital platforms for communication, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy

Take a look at this thread to learn more about this place! I'm excited about the future here after becoming super disillusioned with social media over the past few years.

I have done a lot in the past year or so, after giving up on twitter. One of those things was buying an EV! I bought a 2015 Nissan Leaf, which I view as an experiment to test the longevity of an "old" EV. So far so good - will post updates. 🤞

Kind of astonished by how easy it was to download my old twitter posts and load them here. Seems like I'm ready to say goodbye to that old twitter account. Good riddance to X. Hello Bluesky! github.com/marcomaroni-...

Anybody else see these weird ass AI generated wood carving images on Facebook? With an irrational amount of praise, probably from bots? I think I'm witnessing some kind of dystopian computerized social circle.

Thanksgiving / Black Friday / Cyber Monday: my annual reminder that consumerism is wrecking our world with another year of personal wisdom to prove that we will never experience the great life we think we can attain by buying things.

I enjoy flying my mini drone and also photography in general. This weekend I took some pictures over a lake in Indiana. It's cold and the leaves are gone but the water still looks beautiful from above.

Trying something new because the social media platforms that I used to frequent are terrible dumpster fires and massive advertising / influence machines. I have no connections here so I'll just start out by pretending that someone's around to hear me.

Yesterday, on 🐘, I shared an example of how to use #ChipsOnAStick to make an inline voltage divider. Check it out: https://t.co/Ol08gZiD3h If it looks interesting to you, check out the product page for #ChipsOnAStick in my @tindie store! https://t.co/nwg2zPfR0L

Has anybody succeeded in making their own custom bubble mailers? I couldn't resist trying a quick 3D printed stamp but I think this project was a fail. The texture of the mailer is probably too uneven for any type of stamp to work. Looks like I'll stick to plain mailers (1/2)

Received my first Tindie order for #ChipsOnAStick (🎉) and realized that I did not document the available footprints! Made a diagram tonight which I'm adding to the product page. The footprints range from 0201 to 1206, plus a 2835 footprint available on the back side for an LED

Just used @ScoppyScope to double check the peak voltage of an RC receiver PWM signal. Pretty amazing - a @Raspberry_Pi pico + an Android device + USB OTG cable and you have a scope for simple tasks like this. For a hobbyist like me, this is pretty handy!

My first ever product in my first ever Tindie store, "underproofed electronics". I hope others find this tiny breakout board to be as useful as I have! Really excited to see what the future holds as a Tindie seller! https://twitter.com/tindie/status/1608606350522875904

Several years ago, I had moment of frustration/clarity and decided to design a kind of tiny "breakout board" for testing passive SMT components on a breadboard. I called it Chip(s) on a Stick. I was excited to share it with the world and ordered a few hundred boards. (🧵)

After a year of struggling with a cheap all-metal hot end, I've decided to "upgrade" to the original hot end that came with my printer (a Creality Ender 3)

Repeatedly buying large quantities of micro servos seems indicative of a hobby, a problem, or both. In my case, I'm building a second Otto DIY robot for my daughter's upcoming birthday and the parts have arrived. Busy printing the other pieces now.

Thank you for sharing, @maketvee . I think I need to make one for myself. https://twitter.com/maketvee/status/1514986053496709128

#ElectricPrism cap sense position measurement is working pretty well with the @Raspberry_Pi RP2040. I'm using the LEDs to display position and intensity of touch. As is so often the case, this looks nicer in real life 🙂

I was today years old when I learned the interplay between R, G, & B channels in a rainbow pattern. I suppose the availability of RGB LED libraries prevented me from thinking about this. https://t.co/1SawgqzQaa

So far so good. Tried 'touchio' in CircuitPython and I was able to crudely sense the #ElectricPrism slider position with a few lines of code. Resolution is similar to what I had with the atmega328. Left to right seems a bit imbalanced but I'm not worried about it at this point.

After a loooong hiatus, I've decided to get back to testing the RP2040 with my #ElectricPrism board. The CircuitPython cap sensing implementation requires a high value pulldown resistor. I only had 0603 parts on hand but they fit nicely to couple these two pins to a ground. 👍

I picked up a sign for my home electronics lab today. It's dual purpose: a safety message for humans, and a friendly request for my future electronics projects.