I highly recommend supporting the Standard Ebooks project. 📚
«Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, free of copyright restrictions, and free of cost.»
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I started pepysdiary.com 20 years ago and that means… On 1st January, Samuel Pepys' diary will start for the third time!
Read the website (or RSS feed) or get it:
* Daily by email buttondown.email/pepysdiary
* Through the day with @samuelpepys
* or samuelpepys on Twitter
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Oggi è duodì 12 nivoso 231, giorno dell'argilla.
Auguri a… @0ciX_reloaded che con l'argilla fa cose stufepacenti che dovete assolutamente vedere (meglio ancora se le comprate) 
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For Christmas (actually it arrived in my hands on the evening of the 30th) I've received a very beautiful handcrafted #dipPen and yesterday I tried it.
The first surprise is that the nib (which they declare is a vintage one from the early 1900s) seems to be glued inside the pen. waitwhat? Don't they know that nibs get ruined with use and have to be changed?
Oh, well, I've tried it with my fancy nib test setup¹ and it's a beautiful fine/extrafine flexible nib that writes smoothly. Sadly I can't know which nib it is, but I guess that when it will get worn down I can try to pry it out and find out.
And then in the package there was a small bottle of black ink. That I tried with my fancy ink test setup² and was really horrible and hard to use even with a rigid nib, never mind the flexible one on the pen.
And ok, I get it that most people who buy a souvenir pen at a tourist attraction (like this one was) do so to keep it unused, but really, it's a pen, it's a tool! why can't they make a tiny bit of effort of making it usable for the few people who would want to actually try to use them³? It wouldn't take much, just a cheap off-brand german fountain pen ink (maybe they require too high a quantity to allow for rebranding? but there must be a solution that is still cheap)
This way they are going to spread the myth that writing was really hard in the past and we have to be thankful for having ballpoint pens (UGH), and discouraging young people who may have shown interest in writing with the tools that are actually nice to use!
And now, off to check whether that ink is usable on fancy paper, because this specific kit. WILL. BE. USED!⁴ :D
¹ a random scrap of paper and cheap but trustworthy Pelikan 4001 black ink.
² a consistent piece of the same printer paper (not fancy, but known to work decently with average liquid inks) and a variety of nibs (rigid extrafine, lettering, flexible)
³ I mean, other than the enthusiasts who are already well equipped with their own favourite inks, fancy paper and everything :D
⁴ At least the pen. the ink is probably not worth too much effort, except as much as I'm having fun being stubborn over it :D
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10 Image #CaptionTips from a transcriptionist:
1. Any words are better than nothing.
2. You don't need to say it's "a picture of…" screen readers will already say it's an image.
3. Start with the framing or format (i.e. close up, landscape, meme, text).
4. Think about the reason you're posting the pic and describe that first, add background details if you have time.
5. Pretend you're talking to someone on the phone and want to tell them about this cool thing you're looking at.
6. Transcribe any and all text in the image, even if it's the only thing you do.
7. If you've described the image in your post, you don't need to copy and paste it again in the caption. But again, don't leave it blank, just put something like "as described."
8. You can add small subjective notes, but don't give too much interpretation of the image in your own opinion.
9. Caption jokes are fun, as long as they still describe the image objectively.
10. Use punctuation, and capitalize words properly. A lot of us have interacted with this tech when calling customer service or talking to Siri, so keep in mind that you're writing for a computer to read, and it needs all the help it can get.
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also tagging #AltText
pagan.plus/@Cat_LeFey/10956959…
10 Image #CaptionTips from a transcriptionist:1. Any words are better than nothing.
2. You don't need to say it's "a picture of…" screen readers will already say it's an image.
3. Start with the framing or format (i.e. close up, landscape, meme, text).
4. Think about the reason you're posting the pic and describe that first, add background details if you have time.
5. Pretend you're talking to someone on the phone and want to tell them about this cool thing you're looking at.
6. Transcribe any and all text in the image, even if it's the only thing you do.
7. If you've described the image in your post, you don't need to copy and paste it again in the caption. But again, don't leave it blank, just put something like "as described."
8. You can add small subjective notes, but don't give too much interpretation of the image in your own opinion.
9. Caption jokes are fun, as long as they still describe the image objectively.
10. Use punctuation, and capitalize words properly. A lot of us have interacted with this tech when calling customer service or talking to Siri, so keep in mind that you're writing for a computer to read, and it needs all the help it can get.
Whew! Thank you all so much for the boosts, what an awesome community!
I'll take this opportunity to add clarification on some of my #CaptionTips:
2. The reason not to start with the words "image" or "picture" specifically is because the screen reader will announce it with those words, so it will sound like "image image of a cat." Not a big deal, just sounds a little odd. Instead, I suggest starting with the format (photograph, portrait, chart, Facebook screenshot, text, all of these are good!)
10. When a screen reader comes across a comma or period, it takes a little pause, to mimic natural speech. So just put commas and periods where you would naturally pause when speaking. And if you, like, use too many, it's better than not using enough. Capitalize after a period, then use caps sparingly. Capitals are read out letter by letter, so ask yourself if that's how you want them read.
Today I unexpectedly received a box of #ArtSupplies. I had sent the order on boxing day, expecting it to arrive next year, and I hadn't received any notification of it being sent.
Anyway, one of the things in the box is a big (A2) picture frame. I distinctly remember putting it in the chart months ago after carefully measuring *something* (possibly it was two or more matching somethings), so I kept it in the chart when ordering thinking “oh, well, while I wait for it to arrive I will see the thing(s) around the house and remember why I bought it”.
so... any suggestion on what was supposed to go into it? it's probably not something I painted, since I mostly do A6 or smaller, and it's definitely something that I already have.
YES! I've found what it was!
It wasn't two big things, it was 12 small things! the pages of a desktop calendar with cat drawings!
now I can sleep and not lie in bed thinking about it :D (ok, I don't think I would have done it. maybe. not the whole night, at least)
Now, the real question is: does the Descriptivism flag that I keep waving have a specific shape, or everybody uses a different one as long as it has a few features among:
* rectangular in shape;
* made of shapes in bold distinctive colours;
* with a more complex design in the middle;
* insert other typical flag features here :D
Ma la vera domanda è: la bandiera Descrittivista che continuo a sventolare ha un disegno specifico, oppure ciascuno ne usa una diversa purché riporti alcune caratteristiche a scelta tra:
* ha forma rettangolare;
* è fatta di forme in colori distintivi;
* con uno stemma più complesso al centro;
* aggiungere qui altre caratteristiche tipiche delle bandiere :D
Now, the question is: is this Mazzini or Vetinari?
Picture taken at the Museo del Risorgimento, Milan
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#SillyCuratorPrompts #WoobleWednesday
I didn't read the description, of course
OTOH, a voice in my mind has been saying “you can't comb a hairy ball” for the whole time it took me to paint this :D
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#mastoTip On the fediverse, nothing punishes you for adding links to your toots.
And you don't even need to shorten them: mastodon counts all links as if they had the same (small) number of characters, no matter how long it is.
So, if you're talking about something, *do* post a link to it, don't force people to google for it and hope they're getting the right result!
Some caveats.
* Check the rules of your instance: some of them don't allow links to proprietary social networks, or to commercial services, or they may have other custom restrictions.
* Speaking of commercial services, even if it doesn't violate the rules of your instance, if everything you do on the fediverse is posting spammy links to your own commercial service people will block you, but the usual practice in most parts of the fediverse is that sporadic links to your own commercial things among other things are fine, or even welcome if you are a small artisan selling the things they make or something similar.
* Some platforms may show a preview of the link, so please add CWs as appropriate.
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#mastoTip (pss, don't tell people about this, but you can also post a link to the permalink of a toot, hint, hint :D )
(there isn't anything technically wrong with that, but remember that the mods are human, and in most cases they will know if you're doing it with the intent to harm, and act accordingly)
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TIL: to find out what is attached to a device in /dev/ you can use:
udevadm info -q all -n /dev/<device_name>
especially useful for things like /dev/ttyACMx if you connect more than one of them :D
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It;s 16:23 in the afternoon, and the shirt I want to wear tomorrow is already ironed and lightly starched (spray starch, not the real thing).
What is going to go horribly wrong?
(for context: usually I would be ironing it in a hurry 30 minutes before I have to wear it, while also doing something else like baking bread)
filed under #costuming , because, really, nobody else is going to wear a starched shirt at the family gathering tomorrow.
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@Rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua I *am* going to bring a lot of starchy food, does that count :D (bread, my contribution to the meal, and ideally to a couple of days of meals for the hosting family, is bread :) )
(and most of my relatives are nice, I'm not dreading the day spent with them)
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Da un quotidiano locale:
“[Regione Lombardia] esteso l’offerta gratuita [del vaccino antinfluenzale] a tutti i cittadini *fino* ai 6 mesi di età. [enfasi mia]”
ah, beh, allora siamo a posto :D
(lo so, è un refuso, può capitare)
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On this snapshot of undebatable rarity (ca. 1924), #JoanMastodon is seen manually moderating the local timeline of the first test instance, plucking white-supremacist content with her bare hands.
Further elements of her long-lost biography depict the untolerable suffering #JoanMastodon endured, as the poison insidiously made its way through her body, due to prolonged exposure. (Since then, mandatory use of gloves and goggles has been mandated for all moderation-workers handling such content)
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After trying some materials I had at home and not finding anything satisfying, I did a panic buy of #macrame cord to be used in the drawstring backpacks I'm making as gift wrappers, from an online shop.
Since I was already late and didn't have time to get another delivery if the one I bought didn't work, I selected a few different types, just to be sure.
Of course, the type I had most hope for worked just fine, so now I have ~100 m balls of 3 different types of macramé cords I don't have a project for.
Right now I should be finishing my breakfast, taking care of the laundry and finishing the last drawstring backpack.
Can you guess what I'm doing instead?
Why, of course I'm attempting a macramé chatelaine bag.
No, I'm not using a pattern.
No, I haven't done macramé before (but I've done lots of friendship bracelets in the past).
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tea has been had.
a handle has been made.
the laundry has been taken care of.
and I've even taken a shower!
and I've tried to take a picture, but the phone isn't being helpful :(
The phone released the two pictures I've taken yesterday
I believe I've done something wrong, since I've used way more rope than the internet tells me is typical for an average project, so I'll either have a lot of leftovers, or a result that is denser than usual.
As a learning thing, I'm fine with either.
If you are considering running your own Mastodon server (or similar service) and it will be hosted in the United States, please read this general best practice guideline from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/user…
#eff #electronicfrontierfoundation #law #legaladvice #bestpractices #fediverse #dmca #digitalmillenniumcopyrightact #section230 #corynnemchserry #rights #anonymity #copyrightlaw
A growing number of people are experimenting with federated alternatives to social media like Mastodon, either by joining an “instance” hosted by someone else or creating their own instance by running the free, open-source software on a server they c…Electronic Frontier Foundation
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now #sewing: drawstring backpacks¹ in simple cotton as #reusableGiftWrappings, and it's really nice being able to pin the heck out of it, instead of having to be extremely careful when doing them in waterproof fabric :)
#MYOG
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@zephyr my default giftwrapping solution are furoshiki: cut a square of fabric, hem the borders, wrap and knot it around the gift, and then it can be reused in a lot of ways.
Unless I'm feeling lazy, and I buy dishcloths that are already hemmed, and will be reused as dishcloths or small tablecloths :D
But sometimes I prefer to do something different.
I've just added the character 🗞 to my .Xmodmap.
After copypasting it from the output of ``unicode newspaper`` something like once a day on average for, I think, years.
I think that there is some kind of antipattern at work here.
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/me, a few minutes ago
“this bread is addictive, especially when fresh or stale”
waaaaait
Un articolo (in inglese) scritto davvero bene su perché mastodon.art ha chiuso le iscrizioni durante i boom di nuovi iscritti e in generale su come e perché per il fediverso è molto meglio avere tante piccole istanze (anche sugli stessi temi) piuttosto che delle megaistanze.(nel caso in cui su altre piattaforme non arrivi, questo è il link diretto all'articolo, quello sopra è il post sul fediverso che lo annuncia) patreon.com/posts/76099798?pr=…
I was going to make this as a thread but then the words became Many and I figured I'd do it as a Patreon post instead XDOn instance scale and federation scale:
patreon.com/posts/76099798?pr=…
I posted yesterday that .art closes registrations to protect the growth and health of our community and some people asked why we'd want to limit how many people are here. This explains why. :)
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Epicyon ActivityPub serverActivityPub server written in Python, HTML and CSS, and suitable for self-hosting on single board computers I may have found a Fediverse server I want to run Epicyon is …Paolo Redaelli
@Paolo Redaelli @Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator :masto: effettivamente sì, mastodon ha alzato di molto l'asta su cosa venga considerato piccolo rispetto alle altre piattaforme storiche del fediverso.
Però Welsh Pixie e gli altri mod di .art hanno un bel po' di esperienza nel gestire con successo una comunità vivibile con moderazione forte, per cui mi fido quando forniscono numeri che lo permettono.
Detto questo, io sono su un'istanza da quattro gatti con moderazione debole (perché le iscrizioni sono chiuse, e quindi bisogna moderare solo quel che arriva da fuori, e di solito non c'è neanche davvero bisogno di farlo a livello di server) e mi ci trovo molto meglio (ho risposto alla tua domanda? :) )
I was going to make this as a thread but then the words became Many and I figured I'd do it as a Patreon post instead XD
On instance scale and federation scale:
patreon.com/posts/76099798?pr=…
I posted yesterday that .art closes registrations to protect the growth and health of our community and some people asked why we'd want to limit how many people are here. This explains why. :)
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I wish more websites had RSS feeds. As it turns out, Feedly + RSS allow to bypass both geoblocks and censorship, thus keeping internet connected and providing access to information.
Although, maybe, that's not a top priority for surveillance capitalism these days. :)
/me, pouring water in the transparent teapot: this green #tea is really pale, it will probably be very delicate
/me, 3 minutes later: wait, that water is *really* pale
looks at the still sealed bag of tea
(and it's not even a *morning* tea, here it's afternoon)
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Over on Twitter, we needed to use euphemisms for Elon Musk to avoid getting attacked, dogpiled, and perhaps even targeted by Musk himself.
Mastodon doesn't do full-text searching, only hashtag searching. Speaking his name here will not summon him or his defenders.
Derisive nicknames feel fun, but:
There is a real Space Karen. Karen Nyberg fought to become an astronaut, and sewed the first stuffed dinosaur in orbit out of scraps.
Muskrat? Muskrats are chill unless disturbed.
Festering garbage hole billionaire? I'm sorry, you need to be more specific.
Don't break people's filters. Speak his name. Become a demonologist and command him. Bind him within a circle of silver and chains of ash. Compel him to clean your chimney with your old toothbrush.
Or, you know, just don't let him live in your head rent-free. Mourn what you lost, yes, but move on.
[ETA: Yes, I'm guilty of this too. In my defense, he truly is a Comic Book Supervillain.]
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@Michael Lucas¹ :flan_molotov: and nothing prevents you¹ from writing a post where you spell out the original name once, and then use creative euphemism for the rest of the post: the filters would still work, and you still get to express your creativity.
except for space karen, that's better left unused (except to refer to the real space Karen)
¹ generic you
your point is good, but I must especially applaud your proper use of footnotes. 
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Remember the real reason for the season, kids.
#homoousios #homoiusios #theology #stnick #Christianity #Christmas
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The hot air soldering station set at 260°C worked quite nicely to warm up a pair of needles to bend them for coptic #bookbinding.
Better than using a candle flame, I'd say, as there was no soot to clean up afterwards.
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@Sibylle I wouldn't mind. the phone minds a bit more, at this hour in the night¹ :D
The white part is a reflection of the light, they are just regular big sewing needles (size 2 sharps - I believe that bookbinding needles should have a rounded tip, but right now this is what I have)
Now that I've tested them, I believe that they will have to be bent a bit more, especially the top one.
I don't think tomorrow I'll have time to shoot proper pictures, but I hope in the weekend I will.
¹ it's not really night, it's just dark :)
uops, apparently it's not safe for me to go to the haberdashery to buy just a spool of buttonhole thread.
No, I don't know what to do with it, yet. maybe on a skirt? maybe on a capelet? maybe on a decorative apron of some kind? right now it will go in the stash until I find the right fabric and the right project.
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#REMINDER (specially in this foocking season)
CW on food pics is not just to respect people with eating disorders or vegan people.
It is also to RESPECT PEOPLE WHO CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY FOOD.
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@Wolfram Rösler @Rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua
IMO food, and especially holiday food, is a stronger case because it's deeply ingrained in one's culture and personality (or maybe that's the italian in me speaking? but I believe it's valid for many other cultures elsewhere in the world).
Volete portare più visitatori da qui al vostro blog?
Non metteteci un indirizzo nudo e crudo, ma fate un minimo di riassunto.
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Yesterday we went for a walk and @Diego Roversi took a few pictures of the flannel shirt I've just finished (and I forgot to button it up completely before the pictures were taken, uoooops)
The pattern is always sewing-patterns.trueelena.org/… , but I've cut away the excess material in the front rather than pleating it.
#sewing #HistoricalSewing #1880s @sewing group #FreeSoftWear
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@Rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua I've never really used the pockets in shirts, so no (not yet?)
there are two pockets in the skirt, plus access to the detached pockets below it, of course.
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Project red shirt has started!
red as in Garibaldi, not as in Star Trek, and right now I've only done one cut, and then moved on to other things (it was time for tea :D ), but I plan to finish cutting most pieces tomorrow and then start (slowly) #sewing
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I've stopped procrastinating sewing in the sleeves!
ok, technically I'm procrastinating right now, by writing this comment, but I'm going back to it *right now* :D
(oh, and the collar is finished, and the two side seams have both been felled)
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straight part of both sleeves done!
now I have just a bit more time before dinner, but do you think i'm going to press the seam and move on to the gathered part?
nope. brain off. front hem.
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gathered part of one sleeve done, the next will be sewn hopefully tomorrow. Very little hemming done.
I'm starting to suspect that on New Year's Eve I will be making buttonholes while waiting for the new year, rather than wearing the shirt :D
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This morning I took a break to visit the Risorgimento museum in Milan (and spent something like 15 minutes in the small room dedicated to Garibaldi :D ), but still both sleeve seams have been felled!
Tomorrow hem and reinforcement patches (have I ever told I much I hate them?), saturday buttonholes?
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I guess you'll have a lot more fun here:
@Rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua I've already been there, can confirm :D
We still have to go back and visit the last couple of rooms that we didn't have time to visit because the museum was closing down, but we keep postponing it because it's just two rooms, and what if we get lost rewatching everything else, and still miss those?
(no, we've never been thrown out of a museum because it was closing. we always left them with good grace after the second or third announcement that it was closing, *before* they actually have to come and grab us with force :D )
(and it's not because we get there late :D )
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today I sort of got distracted by polymer clay, but I did finish the hems!
also, I found that the reinforcement patches I've cut are too small, so tomorrow I'll cut new ones. and then buttons and buttonholes.
The plans for the evening (meeting people online) have changed, so there is a decent chance that the dress code will be “evening dress, i.e. pajamas”, but wearing the new shirt on New Year's Day looks feasible.
Also, there is still a bit of thread on the spool, probably enough for the patches.
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aaaaand done! the patches have been added, the shirt can be worn!
I still have to cut and sew at least one detachable collar, but that will happen later, now I think I'll move on to the jacket project and ideally the Augusta Stays.
I hope to be able to take proper pictures of the shirt this weekend!
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I've decided I need to do something vaguely useful with a few microcontroller boards I have, use some of the simple ESP8266 ones to collect temperature and humidity data from various rooms of the house to a MQTT server, collect that data in a RRD and show the current values on an epaper panel together with the current time and weather forecast.
Current status is:
* the MQTT server at home is no longer working (uops, that's why I wasn't receiving other unrelated notifications. I believe I know what the reason is, and how to solve it, but not today. I have mosquitto installed also on the laptop and that one is working)
* the python library I wanted to use to read data from MQTT is broken in debian testing (bug opened at the end of november)
* I can't find the ESP8266 boards. I know that they are around here somewhere, but WHERE???
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Then, with the board nicely sitting on a breadboard, a stable 3.3V and no ratnest of jumper cables I've seen that the code I wrote last week works: the board turns on, connects and sends the temperature and humidity data from the DHT22 on mqtt, sets a timer and goes into deep sleep.
As long as you don't use Serial.flush(); before going into deep sleep, otherwise it will hang on it until it *gets* a serial, or something, and it will not have a serial while running on battery (uooops).
(yes, the DHT22 seems to be working fine on 3.3V, probably as long as it's close enough to the board that the voltage isn't dropping. and I'm not going to have 5V while on battery, so 3.3V it is)
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The Bag of Random Sensors that had the DHT22 also gifted me with 3 (THREE!) BMP280 (temperature and atmospheric pressure, I2C or SPI).
While playing with them I've learned:
* The #esp32c3 can use #i2c on any pin; the default I believe is 8 and 9, but they are also used while programming, so meh
* You can change the i2c pins in #arduino by calling Wire.setPins(I2C_SDA, I2C_SCL); before any Wire.begin();
* There is an example sketch called Wire -> WireScan which scans for i2c devices (you will have to change it to use the pins you want to use with a call to Wire.setPins) which is a godsend.
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aaaand, temperature and pressure have been read.
for some reason, however, right now arduino isn't compiling the sketch twice in a row (with the error “panic: runtime error: index out of range [9] with length 9”).
But I'll look into it probably during the Christmas holidays, for today I'm ok with this.
oh, right. I was supposed to look into the arduino failures.
instead, I've looked a bit at the python side of things, and surprisingly what I did worked fine, even if it wasn't much.
The whole ESP32 family can do hardware I2C on most of their bidirectional GPIO pins. I2C is a relatively simple protocol that can be simulated in software on any GPIO pin on any MCU (FYI):
github.com/bitbank2/BitBang_I2…
A software I2C implementation to run on any GPIO pins on any system - GitHub - bitbank2/BitBang_I2C: A software I2C implementation to run on any GPIO pins on any systemGitHub
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Hey fellow 🔞 NSFW artists: please add caption text to your images.
Yes, it's embarrassing, and you will rather want to crawl under a rock and die than to describe exactly what you drew, but it's for the sake of the entire community here.
Folks who need those captions deserve smut too. 👍
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Parola filtrata: nsfw
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Here's why it's worth the extra effort to purchase #handmade work directly from the #maker :
E-commerce site algorithms surface listings that make them the most money. In practice this means mass produced products are often promoted as "handmade" & out-compete real made-by-hand work. Buying directly from the artists' own sites helps them avoid corporate marketplaces that take a large cut of profits & often use them to promote items that are mass produced.
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They've found an unpicked dress and reconstructed the way it has probably been remade four times from an 1740s original into possibly the 1940s.
Fragments of yellow silk discovered in a bag have been reconstructed into a historically accurate 18th century dress, thanks to a collaboration between the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and the National Trust (NSW).National Trust
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Catherine RW
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •Elena ``of Valhalla'' likes this.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Catherine RW • •@Catherine RW fountain pens are nice, and excellent for day-to-day writing, but they are still a very different thing than dip pens, and if somebody is interesting in writing the way people in the past did a dip pen is an easier introduction than going directly with quills and/or reed pens.
With small ink wells, good ink¹ and a bit of care it isn't hard to completely avoid making a mess (unless you drop the ink well, of course).
Of course it depends a lot on the age of the niece, I expect that for a 1st or 2nd grader a fountain pen with cartridges is a much better choice, of course.
(I started using dip pens for fun in 4th grade; in my whole life I can remember only two dropped bottle incidents, and only one of them left permanent traces)
(and of course, this means that there will be another big dropped bottle incident tomorrow? :D )
¹ not *fancy* expensive ink. I've had good experiences with many cheap fountain pen inks, they only require either testing or asking somebody who has already tried them for recommendations.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •Mre. Dartigen [maker mode]
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •It's sounding like it might not even be proper fountain/dip pen ink at all.
Out of curiosity, what's the consistency like? What's it doing when you try to use it?
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Mre. Dartigen [maker mode] • •@Mre. Dartigen [maker mode] yeah, that's also what I'm suspecting, that they've taken a random cheap liquid ink and bottled that.
and it's very liquid, spreading out (and down to the other side) as soon as it gets close to the paper.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •I told a fountain pen user friend of mine about this and he told me of an even worse story: his first *fountain pen* came with a bottle of ink. luckily the shop he bought it from knew what he was selling, and also gave him a bottle of cheap pelikan 4001 and the recommendation to never use the ink from the box, because it wasn't fountain pen ink. it was for dip pens only. The kind that will clog and ruin a fountain pen.
At least, if you put something inadequate in a kit with a dip pen you have to make a really huge effort to ruin it.