anniethebruce

Working on school. Was going to write up a discussion post early but Evernote, where my notes are, wasn't working for me last night. Should be able to get in soon enough though.

Been getting into Minecraft. The world it gave me has mountains and valleys and rivers and I get lost a lot. Mitigating that by slowly building a network of safe houses and roads and tunnels, and some buildings built to be absurdly tall to serve as both markers and shelters. I'm considering trying to build a tunnel under a river, that could be fun. I wonder what would happen if I lured a monster down there and then poked a hole in the roof?

Thinking of looking for information on config files to see if I can push settings further than the GUI lets me, because 400fps is rather excessive. Even if it's a trivial difference if I can make it look prettier I might as well.

Rewatched it recently.

It wasn't super well received, but I did like it. The commentary on obsessive fandoms was interesting.

Also, there's a point where they have to review some video footage to fill in a memory blackout. There was a segment that wasn't clear enough, so one character asked if it could be enhanced.

Most shows and movies today the tech would press a button and it would be cleared up. Not here. The video editor said something like "Sure, I'll have to redigitize it, it'll be a few minutes".

This is actually plausible. The cameras and tapes that were used, given the era and budget this person was working with would almost certainly have been analog. To work with it on a computer as they were doing it has to be converted to a digital format, and replacing a continuously variable signal with a series of discrete samples will necessarily lose data. It's fundamental to how analog to digital conversion works. If he'd used a preset optimized for speed or file size, there could have been room to digitize with other settings and get a useful increase in quality, since he could go back to the original source which had more data to work with. But it would take time, it wouldn't be pressing a button and magically having it enhanced, especially on late 90s hardware. Even professional workstations would take a bit of time to do that. And it didn't turn a freeze frame of video into top end still photography, it still looked like home video equipment, just a bit closer to the top end of what such equipment was capable of.

So it was interesting to see a bit of actual realism in that scene, and it didn't hurt anything. Plots that actually hinge on editing wizardry? It would be an active improvement. They could have handwaved this with random technobabble to get on to the weird shit, but they didn't. CSI and others have no excuse.

So the Missouri AG issued an emergency order imposing some harsh restrictions on transgender health care, things like at least 15 therapy sessions, at least 10 with the same therapist, over at least 18 months. Resolution of mental health comorbities(good luck without HRT), and other bullshit.

I've pretty much said "fuck that". Still looking into telehealth options, but some providers are unsure of what their legal status would be for Missouri patients.

There's a high likelihood I'll end up going grey market. Which is not ideal, I'd prefer everything above board and unambiguously legal, but there's no fucking way I'm complying with the AGs absolute nonsense. There is a partial grandfathering- you can stay on, but need to start complying to get your prescription renewed. Which means lots of screenings and therapy for unrelated shit. The idea that I should be expected to do that is just incredibly offensive, I'd rather just do crime.

The best grey market sources seem to all require crypto, which is not ideal but does make some sense given the legal grey area they operate in. Though most do allow Ethereum, which is now proof of stake- meaning "mining" is done by holding a certain number of coins in your wallet. Everyone with at least that much has a chance of getting a cut when more are minted. I don't like the implications of that for income inequality(one of the few ways crypto was good was, at least in theory, allowing people to get a little money just by leaving their computer on), but at least it's not burning the planet.

I would still advise any trans person who has reasonable access to above board HRT to go that route, but do what you have to do. Some their best option would be to suffer without, some will be to GTFO Missouri, some will be grey market, there might even be people who are best served by compliance(especially if they already have an extensive log of therapy sessions). Do what you need to do.

The whole situation sounds like "I want to do a genocide but don't want to personally flip the switch on the gas chambers". We can't let them win, whether it's stopping this order or bypassing it they can't be allowed to win this one.

I'll be OK even if after thoroughly exploring options I end up suffering without. It's not great, and may well get worse, but I'll be OK. I do have the long term plan set up for GTFO missouri, and having a light at the end of the tunnel helps.

The courses I'm taking right now for school are Software Test Automation and Quality Assurance, and Database
Analysis and Design. Learning all sorts of fun stuff... and then a note that MySQL which the course focuses on doesn't support certain features lol. Though a lot of the course material at SNHU is a little out of date, some of it may well be in current versions of MySQL. Even where it's not, understanding the concepts for, say, a foreign key update cascade can let me handle that in my application code. It would be ugly putting stuff that should be in the database schema into my application, but I can see at least in broad strokes how to do it. And if I isolate my database access code properly, the core application logic won't care if the database supports it natively or not. It will simply read and write data and do its job.

Well I just saw a post I had made back in 2020 about PC upgrade plans. Got it done last March.

Original post:
https://anniethebruce.dreamwidth.org/5186.html

What I ended up with?
Ryzen 9 5950x
Radeon RX6800XT
64GB CL16/DDR4 3600 RAM
1TB Gen 3 NVMe boot drive
1TB Gen 2 NVMe secondary drive
2x4TB 7200RPM HDDs in RAID 1
1440p/144hz display
mechanical keyboard

Massive upgrade from what I had, good workstation build with a solid secondary gaming capability.

I also upgraded my laptop from a 2008 MacBook to a used HP from Amazon. Ryzen 5 5500u, shipped with 8GB ram and 256gb storage, since upgraded to 32GB/1TB. Not a gaming system at all but for what I need from a laptop it works.

Oh yeah this place exists.

So I've basically decided that I need to revive my plans to get to California, which I largely abandoned years ago. Being trans in a red state is not a great situation. San Diego, though not the most liberal part of California, is far more so than Missouri, especially southern Missouri. I would be much safer there, the problem is, it's expensive. Like a 2500 average rent for a one bedroom.

Thankfully, I'll have a computer science degree in a year to a year and a half. If I can get a programming job, that could pull in 80k+ to start, though some amount of luck is involved. I'm starting work on a portfolio to help. A degree says I can pass classes, a portfolio will show I can actually program shit. Overall picture would be any language I've worked in, and think I could get up to speed quickly on the job, will have at least one program there. Maybe some other stuff if it shows mastery of certain ideas better. I do need to learn a bit more C, since I do have an interest in systems programming and C is huge there. And maybe get some bugfixes successfully submitted to some OSS projects, showing I can work with larger projects from other people.

It's kind of convenient that the fastest route to a paycheck that could make this work is a thing I was doing anyways. I got really lucky with that.

The rough budgeting I've done- only very rough now, more a feasibility study than a real budget- says this should be doable. Average entry level programming pay is enough to live on my own, assuming average rent for a 1 bedroom. There's room to accept a lower quality(thus cheaper) apartment, or a similar quality but downsize to studio if I end up with a lower than average salary.

I'm likely to try to get a remote position first. This would put me in average national pay ranges, which is a bit lower than San Diego specifically, but it would let me build up a moving fund and decent emergency fund before I make the move.

So I bought this as an Athlon 64 system a few years ago, the board died went to an i3, upgraded the GPU a couple times there(RTX 570 now), and most recently upgraded to an i5 7600k(yes the board will overclock it, I just set it on the AI tune rather than try to wring every last mhz out of it manually) and also went up to a 1TB SSD.

My next planned upgrade is case and PSU. My PSU works well enough, but it is getting old. 9ish years. Case works, but is leaky and so much dust comes in that at times I've had to peel it off the CPU cooler. The only hiccup is that I occasionally use my DVD drive. Cases with a bay for that are becoming uncommon.

Then another year or so I'm thinking I might upgrade the CPU and RAM again. Maybe GPU too if I can spare the budget. More or less planning to go with a Ryzen unless price/performance ratios flip over the next year or two. Might go as far as 32GB ram from my current 16.

All this happening in Minneappolis is making my head spin and my heart ache. Trying to come up with any coherent comment on it is pretty much not happening from me right now. It's not like it isn't worth my attention, it's just that one last thing on the pile of BS over the last few months that I'm having trouble engaging.

But to be clear:
The cops were 100% in the wrong. The cops involved in the murder need to be held accountable, and the department(and policing in general) needs to be looked at very carefully to make sure this doesn't happen again. Not just "oh, here's what went wrong in this specific case here's a rule addressing just that", but a ground up review of everything and disbanding departments and starting from scratch should be on the table.

Looting is nowhere near as bad as the state tyranny and police brutality that has provoked it. Sure, I'd love it if they could find a way to solve problems and draw attention without resorting to looting, but, well, they get branded as traitors for something as simple and peaceful as taking a knee... and their issues never get addressed. Eventually they'll strike out and take recompense where they can get it and draw attention however they can. Don't like it? Next time, make sure they are listened to before it gets to this point.

This country can be better than this, but I'm losing hope it ever actually will be.

Hmm. The capture device I got to turn my digital camera into a webcam is detected and supported by Linux.

I've never used this feature or inserted anythign into that socket on the camera, and the camera has not shown any other signs of being defective. NTSC or PAL mode both fail to work.

The problem occurs on my PC, and on my TV, even trying the audio connectors in case the cable is wired oddly.

Every conductor on the cable is confirmed working with a multimeter. The cable makes a good mechanical connection.

All in all my main suspect is the cable. An otherwise perfect camera having a never used feature fail is unlikely, though not impossible. The problem showing up on known good component ins on my TV, as well as the capture card, seems to rule out that end of things. That leaves the cable, which is a generic cable rather than the Canon part. If the plug is sized slightly off from the Canon spec, it might not make electrical contact. Like if it's a quarter millimeter too short or something like that. A small issue like this could kill the electrical connection while allowing a good mechanical fit, and would fit all the observed symptoms.

I think I'll buy the Canon cable once my available credit updates with Discover. It's not much more expensive, should have gotten the right one to start with.

3 episodes in to Picard.

I suspect there's more to Commodore Oh than has been revealed thus far. There is one huge reveal that I've seen(and had been spoiled on) but I suspect another is coming.

I think she is from the Mirror Universe.

She is Vulcan or at least a vulcanoid species. Vulcan was established many times to be a largely desert world. The areas of Mintaka III where the Enterprise encountered the Mintakans were also sunny desert. This is an evolutionary line that is selected for bright skies that humans would have serious trouble with.

So why is Commodore Oh not even taking the full brunt of the sun and wearing sunglasses? When a seemingly human character in full sun was not? This wasn't part of a disguise, she was if anything more noticeable like this.

Now Discovery S1 showed that Mirror Humans were light sensitive relative to Prime Humans. Perhaps this applies to vulcanoid species as well? Now, it's possible that Oh has a medical condition warranting sunglasses, but hell, that was Lorcas excuse too.

Perhaps i'll find out later this season, perhaps I won't.

Having seen clips in Combichrist videos, decided to rent "The Gene Generation" on Prime.

It's not bad. Not necessarily great either. Worth the $3.99 rental, but if I had to go to the bother of going to a theater, paying those sorts of prices, then maybe snacks and a drink I would have been severely dissapointed.

Plot is OK. A few small plot holes(like the thing wasn't supposed to need to sample DNA but it sampled DNA? did I miss where they explained what each mention referred to?), and things got a little messy towards the end, but the plot was serviceable and even supported a bit of a "those who hunt monsters" theme which was interesting. The family drama was also pretty neat especially since they sort of played with the whole responsible/irresponsible sibling dynamic when one of them sticks to their patterns too closely in a key moment.

Writing, acting were adequate.

Effects weren't terrible but were clearly low budget. One nice thing here is that they had a consistent level of quality, it wasn't like an Asylum picture where they might spend 99% of the effects budget on one shot and then try to cram a thousand other complicated effects shots into that last 1%. The consistency really helped keep me engaged.

A fair amount of gore including a trachaeotomy by gunshot and firehose arteries.

Some nudity.

Absolutely amazing soundtrack.

And, well, everyone loves the fetish club dystopia aesthetic which permeated basically all aspects of the movie.

I really shoudl check in here.

My Grand Am I've been loving for almost three years blew its transmission less than a week after I spent $366 on two tires and an alignment. Getting that work made sense at the time, but I wish I was psychic.

Spending a lot more than that replacing the car, my friend is selling me her 2005 Ford Taurus so I'm OK on that front, if a bit poorer.

Starting November I've been working on rebuilding my credit and decided to push to a good account mix with revolving and installment accounts ASAP, would help my average account age and get more positive history on my report and get out of thin file purgatory. The plans did in part expect my Grand Am to last another 6 months to a year, which was a reasonable expectation but obviously did not pan out. It's a manageable hiccup though. I have shot up over 100 points since November, though I did have a brief dip due to inquiries and a hit when the loan first hit my account. Three revolving accounts(Discover, Mastercard, and Firestone), two installments, that should have me set for a while. Just make payments, and my score will go up quite a bit. And then I'll be able to qualify for better cards and maybe even a good car loan. And in a few years, if I get the income to back it up, maybe even a mortgage.

Oh also I'm in a triad with two other trans women which is amazing.

Was watching a video by a vegan YouTuber I've recently subscribed to, and he claims that a whole food vegan diet is the most healthy possible diet.

Ok, fine, could be. What's the study? It's one thing I like about him, he cites his sources, and goes to the actual original sources in scientific and medical journals and whatnot. So I was expecting something interesting on the specific claim that it reduces the risk of coronary artery disease.

What did I get?

A study that looked at people already having issues, comparing people not on a whole food vegan diet to people who are. Just those two groups.

Was the first group vegans eating a lot of processed food? Omnivores? Carnivores? Vegetarians? Fruitarians? A mix of some or all of the above? No clue. I don't know if the referenced study went into this, but the video I was watching did not and it's sort of completely relevant so I'd be surprised someone who seems to know their way around scientific papers would miss that.

This, at best, establishes that under some circumstances, people can improve their health by switching from what they are currently eating to a whole food vegan diet. It does not establish the general case superiority of the latter. I just skipped the rest of the video.

So, I'm set up to play vinyl records again, at least for listening. The setup is... Well, it works.

I have a Technics SL-1200mk2 as the turntable, into an ancient stereo mixer I got for $5 at a flea market to provide the phono preamp. The speaker out from the mixer goes to my TVs component audio in. The TV needs a video signal too for the component in to be active, which is provided by a Playstation One.

Somewhat macgyvered, but again, it works.

So I bought a package of Beyond Burger patties. While the price of $6 for two patties is definitely a con, these are the first vegan burgers that both attempt to replicate beef and I genuinely enjoy. A few others I can tolerate, but this one I actually like. It's not exact, I don't know that I'd say it lives up to the hype, but it comes a lot closer than I previously have thought possible.

While based on pea protein, it doesn't have the overwhelming pea flavor that the companies beefy crumbles has. That experience put off me trying these burgers for quite a while, glad I got over that.

The price means I won't be buying these often, but I *will* be buying them again.

So it's looking like a conversion of Arcane Hierophant to Pathfinder will be an option in the campaign I'm playing. We need an Arcane caster, I already play a Druid. Yes, there's Mystic Theurge but AH is more of a Druid variant than the MT. And the GM suggested it.

The problem is that Arcane spells typically require Intelligence or Charisma, neither of which are in great spots to go heavy into Arcane magic. Some googling later...

Empyrean Sorcerer. Variant Celestial bloodline, notable for using Wisdom for casting. Which is what I already use as a Druid. This keeps all my ASIs in one place, or gives more flexibility in the event alternate paths to ability increases present themselves. Won't be "Oh, got that Wisdom some other way, it goes to Int then". It's "I got that Wisdom some other way, I can use my next levelup ASI on WHATEVER I WANT TO USE IT ON"

RP wise this also seems like it has some real potential to fit who I see this character as. Works well mechanically and RP? Sign me the heck up.

Holy crap you guys this just happened.

So, on my way home from work, I find myself behind a pickup truck with some white appliance in it. Stove, washing machine, something, I just saw it from behind. Not strapped that I could see, but I figured it would be fine.

The appliance I saw was, in fact, fine, and was undisturbed in the incident.

That sentence was specific for a reason, that reason being there was another appliance in front of this one. Which tipped to the left, then back, then right the fuck out over the tailgate and it cartwheeled across the road to the right not far ahead of me.

I hit the brakes, of course, which bought the thing time to clear the road before I hit it, but still, holy crap. I've never wanted a dash cam more than I have that moment.

So years ago I had an idea to make a synthesizer using 555 timer ICs as the oscillator.

Now, with an Arduino, this should be much easier.

I've got two main possibilities to control it- a resistor/capacitor network which I activate/deactivate parts of as needed, or a digital potentiometer.

I think the latter is the only viable way. Otherwise I'm looking at needing something like 40 resistors and that would be a nightmare to wire up.

Will do more research on this and hopefully come up with a good design by the time I'm ready to order the parts.

Some of these sensors are poorly explained. For example, what does an "Avoid" sensor do? Or a Heartbrat?

I have a sheet with pictures of each, with the name in English and Chinese. This is it. I might want, I don't know part data sheets? Part numbers? haha nope. Big Sound and Small Sound are presumably related to sensing sound, and the big one is indeed bigger than the small. What sort of capability difference do they have? No idea.

I guess skimping on documentation was a big part of why this kit with 37 sensors was affordable.

Working with these things might be interesting.

So I'm working on building a dice roller thing with Arduino. Technically, it won't roll dice, though I suppose I could work on something that does. But it will have the same effect.

The idea will be to select die size and count, press a button, and then it will generate an appropriate random number.

Some design notes follow.

Basic UI:
Die Size Selector: Two buttons, to scroll up and down through various die sizes from D4 through D100. In the initial version, at least, it will only support those die sizes used in Dungeons and
Dragons 5th Edition. Seven Segment displays will be used to display this information.

Die Count Selector: Same hardware setup. This will be the number of "dice" to roll. Selectable quantities will range from 1-99.

The seven segment displays will be two digits- ideally, actual two digit units but if I can't source those at reasonable cost I'll resort to paired single digit parts. Driven by a shift register to ensure output pin requirements can be satisfied with an Arduino Uno.

Die Roller: A single button to roll dice as specified in the above, displayed on a 4 digit 7 segment display, again driven by a shift register to keep pin usage within the Unos capabilities.

Unanswered questions:
Can 2 digit displays be sourced at a reasonable cost? I've got a thought to try to sell these things if they function well, and very small differences might be critical in whether or not I can make that work. Buying a couple for prototyping is nothing, but for production it might matter. But also worth considering in the paired single digit solution is the need for more shift registers.

Speaking of shift registers, do I chain them or run them independently? The former will mean the least demand on Arduino output pins, but, the latter will make it easier to keep code driving each display more thoroughly separated. Cost should be the same. Maybe a couple cents difference over multiple units for the extra wiring.

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anniethebruce

April 2023

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Recent Entries

stuff

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

Missouri AG order

Current courses

PC Upgrade

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PC upgrade plans

Minneappolis

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Star Trek: Picard- Commodore Oh theory

The Gene Generation

General life updates

Vegan nonsense

Vinyl setup

Beyond Burger

Pathfinder

Really wish I had a dash cam

Need more parts

Arduino sensors I ordered arrived today.

Arduino "Dice" roller