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Today's Daily News highlighted a post about a home project with 10,000 of hours invested. I'm so happy to hear that other people put thousands of hours into home computer projects. I've certainly had a few over the years. Lots of small computer projects, but a few that raised to the 1000's of hours level. Since I retired a few years ago, its home built telescope mounts controlled by Arduino's, Raspberry Pi's and phones. Way too much fun. I'm several thousand hours in, with no signs of letting up. I have to be diligent to avoid spending an unhealthy amount of time at it. My approach is to make sure I get some exercise (yard work, bike ride, dog walk,...), do something productive (bills, groceries, home maintenance, help Mom, ...), and do something fun (play with computer, ...) every day. I'm interested an anyone else's approach to maintaining some balance and not spending too much time at this stuff.
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I don't know what I'm looking at. Maybe two sub woofers on the floor? Tube amp in the middle. That's a big guess. Where do you plug in the guitar? Looks like fun.
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Yes. Two REL T/5x sub-base the term I prefer. A recent addition to the system per numerous recommendations. I may attempt return as its use did not add to my enjoyment and barely noticed any base extension on the few deep thumps in Stravinsky Petruska and Firebird Suite though they are not ideally positioned. Also I longer understand the logic of sub-base additions to a system as it is documented few symphonic orchestra instruments reach the sub-base spectrum and only on occasion. I am happy w/ the Spendor A7 speakers as they cover most of the symphonic bandwidth. Also it seems to me two un-aligned sources of the same spectrum can only muddy the sonics. Yes a tube amplifier Jadis Orchestra Black. Its replacement of the inexpensive Cambridge Audio SR10 Receiver on the top shelf which I thought excellent left me thinking stunning. I wish I were skilled in music playing in addition to listening however I enjoy providing my upstairs neighbor w/ free concerts.
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I like your daily goals, and plan to adopt a similar approach when I retire. I've less than a year to go.
Before I built software for a living I did it as a hobby, but not since. There is one major coding project I have in mind, but most of my fun time will be spent creating music and stained glass, and while I can maintain enough mobility and stamina, exploring more new caves.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)
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I like your plan too. I've also invested 1000's of hours into learning to play music, but never really reached a desired comfort level. Closest on claw hammer banjo these days. My favorite music partner passed away, and that hobby is kind of in a lull at the moment. It could work its way back to the top at anytime. Fortunately being retired, we have time to do all these things. Retirement is great - hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
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If you're retired, and your hobby isn't detrimental to your health, why would you try to avoid spending "too much time" at it? Isn't that the point of retirement? Do things you enjoy?
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The only limit is the health hazard of spending too many sedentary hours in front of computer. Hopefully the daily exercise goal addresses that risk. Otherwise, agree completely - do things you enjoy!
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BBar2 wrote: Lots of small computer projects, but a few that raised to the 1000's of hours level.
I commend you for such an accomplishment. Regardless of what it may be, dedicating your time to something for thousands of hours is a difficult thing to do.
BBar2 wrote: Since I retired a few years ago, its home built telescope mounts controlled by Arduino's, Raspberry Pi's and phones.
That is awesome!
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Thanks - The astronomy projects came from reading about a simple home made device to follow the moving night sky, called a Barn-Door-Tracker. I thought if the simple Barn-Door approach worked, then a stepper motor and some cheap gears could do wonders. It worked, and I learned a lot, but exposed the limits of cheap gears. Now I'm on version 2 of that project using higher quality gears, and I have a new astronomy hobby on top of it all. It's easy to spend time on it, because I really enjoy every aspect. Playing with computers. Coding. Building little devices. Now the astronomy element. Too much fun. That's why I have to work on the life balance element. I get lost in this stuff.
p.s. Your post got me going this morning. I tried out your link. That looks like a fun project. I know you can put serious hours into building something like that. I wish more environments embraced that clear menu based format. I miss that in modern software.
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 BBar2 wrote: The astronomy projects came from reading about a simple home made device to follow the moving night sky, called a Barn-Door-Tracker. I thought if the simple Barn-Door approach worked, then a stepper motor and some cheap gears could do wonders. It worked, and I learned a lot, but exposed the limits of cheap gears. Now I'm on version 2 of that project using higher quality gears, and I have a new astronomy hobby on top of it all. It's easy to spend time on it, because I really enjoy every aspect. Playing with computers. Coding. Building little devices. Now the astronomy element. Too much fun. That's why I have to work on the life balance element. I get lost in this stuff.
I know I said this before, but that's one of the most awesome projects I've ever come across. It's no wonder that you've put so many hours into such a thing. I could see myself spending
10,000 hours with a project that is as fascinating as this. I must have been around 8 years old when my parents bought me a telescope for Christmas. It was a Celestron refraction telescope. I'd spend hours looking and studying at everything I could. I used it from home, at the airport to watch planes take off, in an open field, at the houses of other people, and just about anywhere else where I had things to look at.
In college, I took an Introduction to Astronomy course. I didn't think it would be such a difficult class. However, I did think it would be one of the most interesting college courses that I have ever taken. Turns out that I was right about that.
BBar2 wrote: That's why I have to work on the life balance element. I get lost in this stuff.
My work-life balance is so lopsided that the scale bends sideways and falls off the table. I don't have any answers, but it is interesting that we've both invested thousands of hours into a project. I sort of just accepted that it's the price I pay for immersing myself into an endeavor that requires so much dedication.
Thank you for posting this question about work life balance. I hope it provides some answers.
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Greetings Kind Regards
I have been unable to submit Visual Studio "Report a Problem" due to authentication failure since VS updated w/ a new better authentication method. The only mode of communication which does not result so is "Provide more info" and "Submit a comment" to a previously submitted problem report. Having done so fully describing my authentication fail complete w/ video the response by the Microsoft engineer is "And for issue βauthentication failsβ, please open new feedbacks for it, thanks!"         
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Send me your credentials and I'll check on my side.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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Visit https://my.visualstudio.com. Does it accept the credentials that you're trying to supply to VS itself? Does it accept any other credentials?
If so, try to leave feedback from there.
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I want an IoT ecosystem that's as cross platform as possible, but even then I have some code that is for some MCUs specifically - generally driver stuff, or things that take advantage of one off features of an MCU like integrated WiFi. The ESP32 is a popular target of mine. The ESP32 targeted things can either run under Arduino or the ESP-IDF, so there are still cross platform considerations, since the ESP-IDF and Arduino frameworks operate in fundamentally different ways.
I recently built a project that runs on Arduino or the ESP-IDF, and runs on one of two devices - The M5 Stack Core 2 and the M5 Stack Tough. They share much of the same hardware, slightly different wiring, and most notably a different capacitive touch panel controller.
Eventually I modularized the configuration for the project, restructuring it so the shared libraries were grouped together, and then it had specific libraries for each device separately. I've pasted the result at the end of this post.
Anyway, I developed a good portion of this over the past several days, and/or upgraded existing code to be cross platform. Those shared library dependencies are the same for Arduino, and the ESP-IDF, and work the same across those two devices. There are only two libraries each that are specific to the device - its power chip, because despite both being an AXP192 they are wired differently on each device, and then the touch panel controller.
There are very few and very brief forks in my actual application code either, and it compiles and runs under Arduino and ESP-IDF on both devices.
I don't know how practical this accomplishment is, but I wanted to share it with someone, and everyone around me is asleep right now.
And yeah, I wrote an article about it today, but it didn't cover this bit.
[common]
core2_com_port = COM10
tough_com_port = COM20
lib_deps_shared = codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_esp_i2c ; i2c init
codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_esp_lcd_panel_ili9342 ; screen
codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_uix ; UI and Graphics
codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_esp_wifi_manager ; wifi
codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_esp_ntp_time ; NTP time service
codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_bm8563 ; real time clock
codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_esp_ip_loc ; IP geolocation
lib_deps_core2 = codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_m5core2_power ; AXP192 power chip
codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_ft6336 ; touch screen panel
lib_deps_tough = codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_m5tough_power ; AXP192 power chip
codewitch-honey-crisis/htcw_chsc6540 ; touch screen panel
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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A little OT, but I suspect that you're the one to ask...
I've got a system of 14 RTUs on a rs-485 chain, and I need to monitor and record the data passing back and forth among devices. All I can find are tools that want to actively query devices, not just passively listen. Do you use such a tool in your IoT activity, or know of one that I might be able to use?
Will Rogers never met me.
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I've never needed to do that. I have a serial UART probe that handles that kind of thing for me, and a logic analyzer when that doesn't work.
But sniffing wires? That's outside my wheelhouse. Could you splice into it?
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Yes, I can splice into it or just wire a logger into a terminal block on the chain. A logic analyzer would do it, but I'd really like something that understands the MODBUS commands and can list what commands have been sent to each device, and report the responses, if any. I suppose I'm looking for a rs-485 MODBUS equivalent to an Ethernet port sniffer, but I'm not having any luck finding one. [sigh] Oh well, just thought I'd ask. Thanks!
Will Rogers never met me.
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Good luck!
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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If you are comfortable with this sort of thing, a homegrown protoboard approach is an option. I'm currently working on a project where several Arduino devices communicate over a rs485 bus. I use Max3488 chips to switch between balanced rs485 lines and the Arduino's single ended Tx/Rx signals. For troubleshooting, I run an Arduino and Maxx3488 8 pin DIP on a protoboard. Once you have that, you can snoop on the 485 bus with a very few lines of code and a serial monitor.
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That's a definite possibility, and have a few Arduino boards lying around here. Trouble is, I have no time to play anymore! Grrr!!!
Will Rogers never met me.
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Wordle 1,090 5/6
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Wordle 1,090 3/6*
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"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Wordle 1,090 3/6
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