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byb commented on Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android   holdtherobot.com/blog/202... · Posted by u/mikenew
byb · 4 months ago
I'm hoping more people will author articles about using these types of displays full time. There was an article posted a month ago about someone using XREAL ONEs with an x86 PC and a portable power bank. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43668192

I've done some cursory research on the XREAL Air 2 Pros because they are currently discounted at 299 USD. I'm interested in retiring a 4K 43" monitor which has been slightly too large.

My question to anyone who has tried XREAL's products is whether the more expensive XREAL ONE model provides a much better productivity experience for 499 USD?

So far, I'm not convinced the Air 2s provide a 'stable' enough image for productivity tasks as this article states. I found a Youtube reviewer who created a rendition of what it is like to use them for video editing - and they weren't enthusiastic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZhD8Dt6akY&t=316s

Linus Sebastian from LTT did go on Jimmy Fallon a few months ago and show off the XREAL ONEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=vybLi25Q8Fw

For me, I'm not interested in XREAL's Android offerings; I'm more interested in Graphine or e/OS, but would need to purchase a new tablet and a new phone with USB-C display output. I did pick up a Chuwi Hi10 X1 Intel n100 tablet a few months ago for about 200 USD, so that solves the battery problem for me. https://store.chuwi.com/products/hi10-x1-n150

If I didn't have that, and wanted to go the powerbank with X86 route, the company MeLE does have some very, very small mini pcs. https://store.mele.cn/products/mele-quieter-4c-n100-3-4ghz-f...

To many people asking about keyboards, I'd recommend simply getting a 60% with bluetooth, or an adapter which converts a regular USB keyboard into a bluetooth adapter. I'm also a trackball user, and the Japanese company DEFT makes some decent ones.

byb commented on /e/OS: A complete "deGoogled" mobile ecosystem   e.foundation/e-os/... · Posted by u/gaws
byb · 10 months ago
e/OS is the best. To anyone reading this, give it a shot - you can break from from Apple and whatever spyware garbage is installed on your Android phone.

I've installed it to three devices and have daily driven it since June 2023. I got tired of paying the Apple tax, so I picked up a Motorola Edge 30 (Dubai) for ~200 USD which was the newest non-Murena/Fairphone listed on the website - but it is no longer listed because they've shifted to the "easy installer". I've turned to community-built ROMs for my other devices, including a Xiaomi Pocophone F1 from 2017 - which works great - and a Lenovo Tab. I specifically purchased the Lenovo tablet because there was a ROM; there's a user on the forums who is creating a lot of ROMs for devices. I was looking for a tablet to serve as an e-reader and media consumption device, but it's powered off most the time.

The OS is very nice to use. It's very similar to iOS. The browser has automatic ad blocks, so some sites complain that I need to turn off my ad blocker, but this isn't possible. The privacy-first focus has helped me to avoid becoming a smart phone addict. I use it primarily for consuming hacker news articles on the go.

As far as errors go, /e/OS developers have stated they need to invest more time on tablet features, so the Lenovo Tab I have isn't an iPad competitor. Also, my Motorola Edge 30 was stuck on version 1.19 for about 7 months until I manually side-loaded the update. For the past month, App Lounge was having trouble anonymously connecting and updating apps. V2.5 was released a couple days ago and everything seems fixed.

I like being able to anonymously install apps using the "App Lounge". I tend to keep less than 30 apps on my phone and don't use it for gaming. The only Google App I've installed is Gboard for additional language input - other than that it seems like every other app is available. My bank and brokerage apps are supported. I did set up a Garmin smartwatch on the tablet so I could get offline Spotify playback. One negative is that Uber recently updated their app in the last 6 months which broke scrolling on the map, which makes it difficult to see how far away my driver is.

The only concern I really have is that the boot loaders aren't lockable, which could be a security risk if the phone gets out of my possession. Luckily, I have treated my phones as disposable for years.

There are only two things I dream of: 1. An open-source Samsung Dex alternative so that I could plug my phone into a monitor and keyboard and use it as a PC. 2. An /e/OS ROM for an e-ink device with support from Murena//e/OS developers for e-ink devices.

byb commented on Building My Resume in HTML Using Eleventy   michaelengen.com/posts/my... · Posted by u/michaelengen
byb · 10 months ago
I'd like to plug AsciiiDoctor-Web-PDF. Simple AsciiDoctor markup + the resume template and you get a really nice PDF and HTML output.

https://github.com/ggrossetie/asciidoctor-web-pdf

byb commented on PEP 760: No more bare excepts   discuss.python.org/t/pep-... · Posted by u/ayhanfuat
dopylitty · a year ago
They really are hard to work with compared to languages where you declare which exceptions you'll throw,. I always get angry when pylint raises an error for catching over-broad exceptions[0]

Of course I'm catching broad exceptions because I have no idea what kind of exception is going to be thrown 12 dependencies deep and I don't want it to completely crash the program instead of letting me retry or do something else.

0:https://pylint.readthedocs.io/en/stable/user_guide/messages/...

byb · a year ago
100% agree. Most of my bare except: are followed by import pdb;pdb.set_trace() so I can figure out what went wrong and then fix my code so that it never happens again, but I still leave it there because I I don't have time to consider the millions of ways my hastily thrown-together python script is going to fail nor do I want to game out how many different errors could happen. If Python would have been this hard to use 20 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to learn to program.
byb commented on Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch   blog.hopefullyuseful.com/... · Posted by u/ranebo
byb · a year ago
great read.

I have several Daikin split units and installed Faikins on them. https://github.com/revk/ESP32-Faikin

Having the PCBs made, flashing them, sourcing the connectors,and installing them was a bit involved, but setting them up in home assistant was one of the best things this nerd has ever done.

I wish there was an over-arching collective of hackers who would teach the principles, and help collaborate to decipher these protocols and help build software and microcontrollers to replace proprietary systems like the one Advantage Air has. I bet a simple ESP32 could handle this.

byb commented on Benchmarking latency across common wireless links for microcontrollers   electricui.com/blog/laten... · Posted by u/killcoder
skywal_l · 2 years ago
Something of a tangent but I couldn't find anywhere a way to wirelessly extend usb ports. Allowing you to plug a mouse/keyboard/Yubikey to a computer in another room with minimum latency and without the need of any software or particular drivers.

If one wanted to do something like that one would probably start by reading that article I guess.

Thanks for this very thorough work.

byb · 2 years ago
I've had the same desire to extend USB HID devices, but I want to take it a step further. Once a USB device <- Wi-Fi ->USB host technology is available, then a wireless USB switch should be possible. The research in this article is critical to understanding the impact of latency on the experience.

Several months ago, I built a project using USB host mode on a Raspberry Pi Pico, which uses a USB numpad to pass messages to an MQTT server. This uses the Rp2040's USB host mode https://gitlab.com/baiyibai/pico-w-usb-host-mqtt-numpad

https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_TinyUSB_Arduino

My implementation plugs in much higher into the stack and doesn't read the full USB bit mask output, which indicates how many keys are pressed/released.

From my limited understand ing, it should be possible to pass these USB messages from HID client to HID host and vice-versa. Then it's only a matter of sending this information over a TCP/UDP interface. However, from my research, it seems the TinyUSB library doesn't provide the full bitmask resolution necessary for all devices. The YouTuber Wendell from LevelOneTechs has also talked about the troubles of getting some devices working with his KVM products, so it may not be as simple as I'm suggesting here.

Overall though, a $15/endpoint is very attractive.

byb commented on Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks   flipperzero.one... · Posted by u/thatxliner
byb · 2 years ago
I tried using a Flipper with some NFC stickers so I wouldn't have to carry around so many FOBs and cards. It turns out that the Flipper does not excel at this task. It complained that the NFC stickers I bought were non-writable. And it couldn't read all the sectors on some NFC tags. However, I was able to use the Android MCT app to write to the same stickers and read the tags the flipper couldn't read. Cloning required copying strings to the clipboard, which is something the Flipper's UI is not really designed for.
byb commented on Can ultraviolet lightbulbs end the next pandemic before it starts?   vox.com/the-highlight/239... · Posted by u/tempestn
bsder · 2 years ago
As I understand it, the point of 222nm is NOT to sterilize organic tissue directly.

The point of 222nm is to able to use it for sterilization in things like air return ducts, industrial cleaning equipment, etc.

Since 222nm is relatively "safe", you don't have to worry some idiot opening up a system, giving himself a gigantic flux of UV in the face, and winding up in the ER for cornea burns.

Consequently, your maintenance people don't need special equipment or extra training.

byb · 2 years ago
This is the point of mechanical/electrical interlocks to prevent exposure to energized UVC. This is why I find the attempt to make 'far uv' safe in the public conscious even more dangerous.
byb commented on Can ultraviolet lightbulbs end the next pandemic before it starts?   vox.com/the-highlight/239... · Posted by u/tempestn
XorNot · 2 years ago
The far UV spectrum being talked about here is not the same as conventional UVC germicidal lamps, nor the same as UVA/B from the sun. UV is only dangerous because at UVC wavelengths it penetrates cell nucleii and damages DNA.

The interesting thing about far UV though is that while it will still damage DNA, it can't penetrate regular cells - it's blocked by the cell membrane/proteins. But viral particles don't have a cell membrane or a nucleus, so they have no protection against it.

Basically, far UV can't damage cells, but can damage viruses.

byb · 2 years ago
Personally I feel the use of the term "far uv" is very misleading because the 220 nm wavelength is within UVC, and not too far away from 254 nm germicidal UVC. It is always helpful to consult a chart:

http://www.drb-mattech.co.uk/uv%20spectrum.html

So, from a public health/public education standpoint, I find it troubling that scientific research, which the article points out, is limited in this area. For decades, general advice has been that all UVC is dangerous to all life. We don't know below which wavelength does UVC no longer become harmful to animal (human) cells. Nor do we know if 220 nm wavelength light damage/weaken other materials. I'm not a chemist/engineer so I don't know if theoretical calculations can be made or if a massive scientific effort needs to be done to verify the impact of 220 nm UV light on lots of materials/life.

If there is an animal/human cell safety region, perhaps a rebranding or subdivision of UVC into a "UV-D" is better than calling this "far uv". This has the added benefit of the "D" meaning "Death to germs/viruses".

YouTuber Big Clive has had several videos on UVC lamps, I'd like to see someone get a 220 nm light into his hands to see if he smells like burnt meat. https://youtube.com/watch?v=1m0TQjBRcFohttps://youtu.be/6DlfLthx89E?si=V4FD0DO4l09w2Wlr

Edit: maybe I am a bit alarmist, some comments did share additional information about products offering this technology... I still hold that the branding/messaging is a problem by lumping it all together

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u/byb

KarmaCake day28May 9, 2022View Original