qjkxbmwvz

joined 2 years ago
[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 1 points 5 hours ago

Coming from Debian, it was...not expected. I understand how and why it happened, but the user experience was surprising.

Debian keeps the previous kernel around, which makes perfect sense to me


in the event that a kernel update borks your system you can just load the previous one. This would probably only happen due to out of tree modules (looking at you, Nvidia...).

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 1 points 5 hours ago

Coming from Debian, it was...not expected. I understand how and why it happened, but the user experience was surprising.

Debian keeps the previous kernel around, which makes perfect sense to me


in the event that a kernel update borks your system you can just load the previous one. This would probably only happen due to out of tree modules (looking at you, Nvidia...).

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 8 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (4 children)

Linux distros can still do...questionable things. In grad school I tried Arch for a bit, and I once was late to a video call because I had updated my kernel but did not reboot. Arch decided that because there was a new kernel installed, I didn't need the modules for the old


but currently running!


kernel, so it removed them. So when I plugged in a webcam, the webcam module was nowhere to be found.

But yeah...somehow, still not as bad as Windows updates.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 44 points 2 days ago

Yeah, but do they like Huey Lewis and the News?

Hey Paulina!

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 45 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Our Internet went out for a few hours today, so naturally my smart switches, lights, cameras, motion sensors, door sensors, and power monitoring... continued to work as of nothing was wrong.

Home Assistant is great, and using local-only devices is awesome. If my smart home stops working it's my own fault, not some 3rd party.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 25 points 3 days ago (2 children)

OTOH, if you can afford basic necessities, hobbies are just a rounding error on top of them.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 2 points 6 days ago

Your numbers seem reasonable


more intuitive for me to work in terms of pressure. Atmosphere is (roughly) 1e3 Torr, good UHV can be around 1e-10, so that's 13 orders of magnitude, which is (roughly) the same difference that you calculated.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 33 points 6 days ago (4 children)

I am becoming increasingly more appreciative of the fact that I have root access to "my" company provided work device.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 32 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (7 children)

Aluminum foil is very common in physics labs. And a main use for it is "baking"! To get ultra high vacuum (UHV)* you generally need to "bake out" your chamber while you pump down. Foil is used same as with baking food


keep the heat in and evenly distributed on the chamber.

Sadly, it's usually not food grade aluminum foil, as that can contain oils, and oils and vacuum are generally a big no-no.

*Just how good is UHV? Roughly: I live in San Francisco, which is ~7 miles by ~7 miles (~11km). Imagine you raise that by another 7 miles to make a cube. Now, evacuate every last molecule of gas out of it. Now take a family sedan's trunk, fill it with 1 atmosphere of gas, and release that into the 7 mile cube. That's roughly UHV pressure.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 10 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Is he coping or just surviving?

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 40 points 1 week ago (4 children)

From TFA:

"I have failed you completely and catastrophically," Gemini CLI output stated. "My review of the commands confirms my gross incompetence."

 

People often complain about San Francisco's public transit


and to be sure, it's not perfect by any means (multiple separate agencies doesn't help). But the historic streetcars are pretty neat!

They're painted with the livery of various historic streetcars from all over the country (and a few international, I think). Best of all, they run alongside the modern fleet


same route, same fare.

 

Noticed a few days ago that Sutro Tower's red blinking lights are now white. Just asked them on their website form, but wondered if anyone else knows the story with this.

Personally, I miss the red ones!

6
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website to c/amateur_radio@lemmy.radio
 

Howdy!

I got my Technician in early 2000s, and last year finally upgraded to Extra. Looking to set up a very basic shack.

I'm looking for an HF setup, with most of my use probably using digital modes, but would like the ability to use voice.

Current transceiver is on loan from girlfriend's dad, a Ten-Tec Scout 555


50W HF unit with separate modules for each band. One limitation of this is that the modules set the mode, so it's LSB on 40m, making e.g. FT8 not possible (without some hacking of code or perhaps hacking the module).

Antenna is end-fed with an off-the-shelf 49:1. Currently only have 20m half-wave, but have just enough room for a 40m half-wave in the attic, which is the ultimate goal.

For digital modes, it looks like there are sort of 3 classes of radio:

  • "full digital" where the radio has e.g. a USB port and handles audio, transmit, and frequency set.
  • Some computer-control with RS232, but uses computer audio+adapter to transmit.
  • No digital, use adapter to transmit. This is what the current setup uses (and it works great!)

I'm leaning towards a conventional transceiver, e.g., something from ICOM, Kenwood, Yaesu, (or others) rather than an SDR unit. I'd like the ability to go up to 50-100W if possible.

I don't have a hard-and-fast budget; would like to keep it <$1000 if possible; mostly just looking at used transceivers. Something like a Kenwood TS-590 looks pretty amazing and very "plug-and-play" (but pushing up against price). Something like a Yaesu FT-920 looks pretty feature-rich too; and even something more affordable like an ICOM 706 or even a 725 is probably more radio than I need. Or just grab a new 7300 and call it a day!

Anyway...clearly, I don't know exactly what I want, but figured I'd ask folks with more experience if they have any wisdom. Thanks!

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