This (surprisingly) on HN today: $60 PC Oscilloscope Review.
$60 PC Oscilloscope Review
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Monthly Archives: February 2022
The Internet Was Designed With a Narrow Waist
This is an interesting idea: The Internet Was Designed With a Narrow Waist.
Open-source alternatives to SaaS
A list of open-source alternatives: Awesome open-source alternatives to SaaS
Fixing HB6317 bin
I got myself a few more of these HB6317 bin racks from Jaycar. The problem was one of the bins arrived damaged, the small extrusions which hold the bin in place had snapped off:
So I busted out my rotary tool:
My hot glue gun:
An old coat hanger:
And fixed my storage bin:
Bug fixed!
Raspberry Pi vital statistics
I have a few RPis on my desk but I had no idea what version they were. I ran these commands to find out:
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep Model $ free -h $ lsb_release -a $ ip a
Service sadness
I read this and it made me sad. Exposing CRUD API makes me sad. CRUD is for databases, within transactions, not services. Services should have query (GET) and submit (POST) only. Oh, and calling a service an API makes me sad. Calling a URL or its path an “endpoint” makes me sad. An endpoint is a computer which processes a message, it’s not a URL path. The idea of “routing” makes me sad. Using plurals in URLs makes me sad. Exposing hierarchies unnecessarily in URLs makes me sad. Business process which doesn’t cater for optimistic concurrency controls makes me sad.
Lab whiteboard
Got myself a whiteboard for my lab. It’s not a real lab unless you have a whiteboard!
Lab upgrades
So today I installed two shelves above one of my workstations. I also bolted a power board and an ATX power supply adapter to the wall:
Can’t wait for my bench equipment to arrive!
Continuity tester
I had a suspected short circuit in a cable I made (I think I used too much heat on the heat shrink and caused insulation to melt) and what I needed was a continuity tester. My multimeter is bollocks for continuity so I knocked together my own:
I used a green 5mm LED, a 68 ohm resistor, two AA batteries, some banana sockets, and a bit of wire. I used my rotary tool with drill bit, burr, and countersink to score the holes in the case.
I used this LED Resistor Calculator to figure out the resistor rating (~50 ohms). I used my M328 Multi-Function Tester to figure out the forward voltage across my LED (it was 2.1 V, the default).
p.s. the cable under test was shorted! Turns out its a bad idea to put heat shrink tubing over electrical tape! And now we know.
Molex power cable
I’m getting a RD6006W USB/WiFi DC voltage bench power supply with the S12D case. I’m gonna power it off an old ATX power supply. So I needed a molex to banana plugs cable, and I made one:
I threw a DC barrel power jack on the 5 volt line. Finished with heat shrink tubing, my new favourite thing.