183 karma · joined April 11, 2016
https://youtu.be/M91AYp3_x5k?t=122
He also has some small tabletop-sized coils that are really neat:
https://youtu.be/li3rGKFfQ1A?t=18
And here's the Ghostbusters theme at one of their performances while spectators are standing inside the cage:
All decisions at this point have significant downsides. There is no clearly correct answer. Politicians are trying to balance those concerns, and they're trying to do so with extremely limited data and awful models (due to the bad data - GIGO). I don't honestly think anyone knows what will really happen with either the virus OR the economy. It's clear they're just guessing and that's really terrifying.
There's enough confusion around these orders though that I believe some non-essential businesses were operating for curbside pickup anyway.
There's also a drive-in movie theater trying to open up around here but the government is saying no. Decisions like that just anger people because they don't seem to be based on common sense. The risk there is so low that the government would gain a bit of goodwill if they just said "fine, open it up and make sure to follow all guidelines".
Easy for many of us. Not always so easy for a small business owner. Even something turn-key like Shopify requires a lot of setup. Plus, you'd likely need to go to the shop to take product photos etc. which would not be permitted travel in some areas.
Even then, with a website up, how do they get any traffic to it? A sign in the window normally might work, but no one is driving by anyway since they assume everything is closed. Buying some ads may work, but now you're incurring even more costs when you're being bled dry already. Word-of-mouth is probably the best you can get. Plus, most people probably aren't going to purchase the kind of furniture you'd get from a boutique shop online - they want to see it, touch it, sit on it.
I've seen small clothing shops out there live streaming their products on Facebook and people buying via comments. I applaud their effort but also wonder how that can ever be enough. These stores exist today pretty much only because people want to buy this stuff in person, otherwise they'd just buy on Amazon.
The wheels need to start turning again sometime. Tax revenue is taking a huge hit which is also going to cripple government's ability to provide help now and in the future. I'm fearful that the economic impacts are going to be much worse and much longer lasting than we can even begin to imagine. I really hope I'm wrong.
Perhaps we should be thinking high risk and low risk instead of essential and non-essential. A hat store with appropriate distancing measures and cleaning protocols is probably low risk.
Given the decline in business, a small furniture store probably wouldn't have a lot of issues with customers maintaining distance. Most furniture stores are not crowded even in normal times. This would probably be true for many other types of retail stores as well. It's not zero risk of course, but nothing in life ever is.
Perhaps some shoppers would make a point of shopping to help out, or just aren't that concerned and want to get out, or want to furnish their new house/apartment that they've been in for the past 6 weeks completely empty.
More people are starting to wonder if there's a viable option between "full lockdown, groceries only" and "free-for-all". Since some states are relaxing restrictions I guess we'll start to find out.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1484482#p...
Apparent confirmation here (by mapping a different I2C bus?):
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1544123&s...
I have work apps on my personal device primarily for when I'm away from my desk during work hours. I disable notifications etc. outside of work hours.
I wouldn't say I'm really happy with it, but it does permit me some freedom to be away from my desk without the risk of missing something important during the day. It's a trade-off I've decided I'm willing to make.
Work also provides guest wifi which is conveniently configured by the Android for Work profile, so data usage while at the office isn't really a concern.
I use Android so I'm relying on the Android for Work sandboxing, but truthfully I don't know the exact details of what that does and does not allow my employer to access. It does bother me, but I don't feel like I have a whole lot of choice. Being able to respond to Google Chat messages at any time (when away for lunch, for example), is feeling more and more like a requirement/expectation.
Also, commuting on the train pretty much requires mobile Hangouts support (which Google effectively makes impossible to use via a website if you're on Android), unless you want to always be at your desk in the office prior to the first meeting each day.
It's the first - the GPS modules used for these purposes decode the time and then generate a digital pulse on an output pin at the top of each second (this is called a 1PPS output). A hardware counter counts the cycles from a local oscillator between pulses. The count between pulses is latched (this is all in hardware so far) and then the software reads the latched value. If your local reference oscillator is supposed to be 10MHz, your counter should report 10,000,000 ticks exactly. If it's high or low, the software can adjust the temperature of a little mini-oven that the oscillator resides in to speed it up or slow it down (some oscillators just use a voltage to speed up or slow down instead of an oven). Usually this is done in a PID loop or similar feedback loop. At this stage you can apply some filtering logic to help ride out certain errors (if you're suddenly off by 50% something else is probably wrong, etc.).
To ensure the GPS timing is as accurate as possible, you can have the GPS module survey its position for a lengthy period of time (since it is presumably mounted on an antenna mast somewhere and not moving) and average it out to establish a more accurate well-known location. The GPS can then use that known location to apply a correction to the GPS signals. Basically, if it's currently-computed position based on GPS signals is 50 meters away from the true well-known location of the receiver, it can figure out how far off the timing computation is and adjust. This is mostly handled by the GPS module itself, and is probably even more automated and accurate now than when I worked on it ~15 years ago.
There's also ways to increase GPS accuracy using supplementary broadcasts that contain localized offset correction information, referred to as Differential GPS (DGPS) run by many groups including the US Coast Guard and a similar technology called WAAS (wide area augmentation system) run by the US FAA. The GPS we were using didn't have the capability to use those sources but modern units probably do.
Without GPS, these reference oscillators can free-run for a while but they will eventually drift out of tolerance.
Basically, without GPS, most/all cellular/digital radio networks will fail in some manner after a while. Precise failure modes will depend on a lot of things including exactly what is wrong with GPS and the type of emission, how the base station software is written, etc.
I think the laws are different primarily due to the different pace of audio vs. video recording technology. Audio recording of phone calls etc. has been feasible for a long time so laws were written about that. Ubiquitous video recording has really only become a thing in the past 2 decades or so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_25
Public safety radio is a true mission critical service that moves slowly - equipment lasts years or decades and is expensive and not frequently replaced or upgraded, hence new technology adoption is slow. Vocoder choice is driven by a standards committee for interoperability (which has seen more emphasis since 9/11), and of course committees aren't typically known for working fast. Public safety radio is definitely not a place for a "move fast and break things" mentality.
Edit: actually they have a VEX Pro line too that's aimed at larger robotics too (primarily designed for FIRST and BattleBots).
Also, for the younger kids, VEX IQ Challenge is a great alternative to FIRST Lego League. It's even less expensive than VEX and the kids actually get to drive the robot (unlike FLL) - which is a huge plus for many kids.
Coincidentally, the VEX World Championships are coming up next week. Anyone thinking about getting into robotics competitions should check it out. They do a great live webcast of the events. Friday and Saturday (April 22-23) are the best days to watch. Webcasts and other details should be available here: http://www.robotevents.com/championship/