Last week, I set up my 3D printer through Home Assistant to notify me when it’s done or needs attention.

I forgot that I configured it to use a train horn as part of the notification. 🚂

Finally discovered an assemblage of garbage from my attic that works with the Pi Pico VGA Terminal for my #rc2014

No keyboard on hand works, except for this dirty old PS/2 keyboard plugged into this ancient Belkin PS/2 to USB A adapter plugged into this USB A to USB Micro OTG adapter. But it does work!

Oh and I happened to have a cruddy old LCD TV in a box that supports VGA. Sad that I got rid of all the old 15” CRT monitors I used to have, a few house moves ago

Also, the ESP8266 wifi modem works, so this is a BBS calling machine now!

I suspect the problem the terminal had with all my other USB keyboards is that they all have fancy lighting, so that's probably asking too much power from the poor little Pi Pico.

Weirdly, an old aluminum Apple USB keyboard I have didn't work either. But, I remember that thing unexpectedly drawing too much power from a Raspberry Pi 1 back in the day

Just rewatched the ST:TNG episode "The Measure of a Man" - which is amazing but also made me mad all over again at the plot of Picard, season 1.

Like, they took one of the most optimistic episodes of Star Trek and flipped it into a grimdark mess

@mos_8502 Yeah, but then they show that they synthetics are essentially used in slave labor, which was the thing they supposedly ruled against in "Measure of a Man"

I'd love to see the grimdark fad flip. Like, give us campy 60s Batman, good-to-the-point-of-cringe Superman, more hopeful Trek

@thomasfuchs @mos_8502 I am often surprised they never got back to that body snatchers plot line, as goofy as it was

@mos_8502 hmm, I don’t remember the non-sapience thing, but that probably means I just have to watch it again 🤔

@bryan @thomasfuchs You usually have to wait 3-8 seasons to get all that from a show!

@socketwench Oof, yeah I didn't see that at all, weird!

@earthshine Personally, I've been plenty happy with fastmail.com.

Took me awhile, but I guess the final straw to dump gmail was when they locked the developer of Terraria out of everything back in 2021

Started with $5/mo back in 2021, then switched to the $50/yr plan after a year of that. Never had a price hike.

For throwaway accounts, maybe Firefox Relay? https://relay.firefox.com/

@earthshine Maybe overkill, but I would also recommend pobox.com as a good spam filter & forwarding service.

I've been with them for (yikes) almost 20 years to handle mail from my own domain, forwarding it to multiple inboxes and making swapping email providers pretty easy

Found another PS/2 HHKB Lite to play Rogue and get killed by a purple worm #rc2014

@mavica_again I kinda go back & forth on that... Got my brain warped to use fn-layer cursor keys a long time ago, so it's pretty comfy to me. That, and I used to be a VIM & HJKL devotee (though not so much anymore)

(also you can see more Badtz-Maru stickers on this keyboard, if you look close. nearly all my early-2000s computing gear was plastered with that lil penguin)

Also, since I was in the attic, I dug up a couple stereo receivers to replace the one in the basement that conked out a couple weeks ago.

Trying to decide whether to use the prettier vintage one or the crappier plastic one that can be controlled with a remote control

Turns out this ESP32Cam takes a not entirely terrible picture, once you put lights in the enclosure

Using this firmware to integrate with Prusa Connect and automatically send snapshots to the dashboard

Oh shit it’s that time fuckery day. That’s why it felt too early to get up. Fuckin time bastards

@c0debabe :blobcatcomfnight: i am an indoor cat

Adding “fuckin time bastards” to the list of song titles on the album i’ll never release

Hmm, now I need to find a MOD player with a fun visualizer that I can screen capture into my live stream scenes

I was using Chipmachine for awhile, building and tweaking it myself from source. But my build env got lost a few OS re-installs ago and I haven't been bothered to reassemble it.

A neat thing that I almost had working was to have Chipmachine tell my Twitch bot what song was playing and the URL to download it, so it could announce it in chat

https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=67259

Lately, I've just been playing demoscene youtube videos in a little web view in OBS. But, that's a bit fraught at times for multiple reasons.

Blasting a playlist of public domain MODs with some pretty blinkenlights and graphics would be fun though

Drafting a blog post with thoughts on gen AI that I may or may not end up publishing.

But, worth noting it prompted me to track down this clip from ST:TNG