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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • aren’t you still limited by ambient air temp because the hot side of the Peltier needs to be cooled by air anyway?

    No, that’s why the baby fridge works. The peltier TEC in the fridge can produce temperatures below ambient, but generally not below freezing. Computer chip TEC coolers would go farther and push more power through the TEC and do things like water-cooling the hot side instead of a little fan.

    The reason they don’t get used anymore more complicated. It’s my understanding that basically TECs have a sort of limit on the amount of heat they can push from the cold side to the hot side, because moving more heat means more energy used and thus more waste heat. Apparently most modern chips are past that limit. IIRC, TECs can only move something like 100w of heat - past that and they start to heat themselves up because of waste heat. Modern chips can be like 300w.

    Sub ambient cooling also comes with a bunch of issues like condensation, so no one really uses it day to day. Also, chips are run so close to their limits now that cooling like that doesn’t get you nearly the performance difference it once did.







  • To be honest, they seem to be taking a very media literate approach (impressively so, they definitely learned some stuff about YouTube and how to do this kind of thing) to this whole thing, so I kind of get the “farming for views” stance.

    But I get it since that means they are actually getting traction instead of just being a thing that drama YouTube talks about for a week and gets swept under the rug. The video notes he’s a very powerful figure in a relatively small town, so they need media pressure on their side.


  • Ill post this comment here too since it’s the same video, but you might want to put a content warning on this video, it’s pretty rough.

    The first video is largely about him running illegal lotteries, which is pretty terrible given the scale they operate at, but it’s something that the average person might not know about or really think about it being essentially child gambling.

    This second video is an interview with a former employee who was put in solitary confinement for a video that never made it to YouTube because it was actually just them torturing him. Like, legitimate Geneva Convention war crime torture. Constant noise, no idea what time it is because you can’t see the sun, constant lights so you can’t sleep, constant monitoring, and him running until his feet bled.

    If any of it is anywhere near true they need to be sued off the face of the planet in addition to going to prison.


  • Custom keyboards took off because of mechanical switches. Back in the day people wanted mechanical switches because they last longer than membrane ones, and so you wound up with a bunch of companies producing relatively easy to manufacture mechanical switches. Those switches all felt and sounded a little different so you got people who wanted a specific feel and sound and it grew from there.

    There hasn’t really been the same push with mice because even really cheap ones work really well. Optical sensors are way harder to produce than key switches, and while there are a few different ones on the market other than dpi and polling rate they kind of all act the same - it kind of either tracks right or it doesn’t. There’s no differentiation unlike switches that are “tactile” or “linear” or “scratchy”. And because of size restrictions you can’t really have the same kind of switches as keyboards use for the buttons. And unlike the really niche keyboard people who do their own PCB and machine their own case, making a good mouse on your own from scratch is way more difficult. They’re weird shaped and it’s much more difficult to change things like optical tracking algorithms compared to macros on a 40% keyboard. You can do a run of 100 super niche keyboards and make it work, but just the injection molds for one mouse mean you need to make 10000, which stops it being a project and makes it a business.

    There are premium mice manufacturers, but in general they either are going super light, super ergonomic, or super functional - and honestly they have a hard time competing with a company like Logitech that can produce really similar features for a fraction of the cost and have a decent reputation to boot.





  • As far as I’ve found, they’re both right. You shouldn’t have to wash your mushrooms, but it’s not a bad idea if you’re not buying fancy mushrooms.

    The generic button mushroom variants you’re probably getting at the grocery store are grown in compost, which often contains some manure - ie poops.

    But before growing mushrooms it’s pasteurized. Mycelium is picky, and fairly easily out-competed by other stuff, so to make sure you’re just growing mushrooms and not bacteria you basically have to sterilize the medium they’re grown in.

    But those mushrooms are often grown in open beds, and harvested by hand. And that means they get that poop dirt right up on them. Will it immediately give you super botulism? Probably not but it’s still kinda ick.

    Fancier mushroom varieties from smaller cultivars are the ones that actually don’t really need washed and often shouldn’t be. They’re grown in highly sterile environments and they fruit out of a container, so they never touched the poop. And that’s if they even used compost - lots use straw or wood.

    If you do decide to wash your button mushrooms it’s not a big deal, they aren’t actually sponges, and they don’t absorb as much water as some cooking shows say. If they get soggy it probably means they’re old, try putting them in the fridge for a few hours uncovered. It’s basically a dehydrator.


  • It entirely depends on how much and what you’ll use them for. They’re going to be around $200 USD all in, so if they’re for occasional use probably not. If you’re going to use them a lot like for work or a regular hobby then it’s not a crazy amount to spend. They tend to be more comfortable than flange earplugs, and a little better than foamies, but for me at least I don’t want them in for more than 3 hours.

    Etymotic makes a few different ones for general noise, sleeping, music, and they also do ones for their earphones.


  • Look for a local print or embroidery shop that you can get like work shirts and business cards and whatnot made. Unless you’re really in the middle of nowhere, there’s probably a local print shop that will at least be able to point you in the right direction. If you want a one off instead of a small batch look for a place that offers embroidery - it sounds more expensive but because they can just throw whatever on the machine and do a one off, it’s usually actually less expensive than traditional screen printing. Specifically for hats in not sure if you can get them digitally printed in most smaller local shops.


  • If you are working with a specific company to produce a personalized / custom product, they will generally have at least one person on staff that can do design, or at least deal with any file conversion and technical stuff like that. They should be able to quote you a price.

    If you are working with an artist first, they may have a company they’re familiar with to have the item produced, and if they do, should be able to handle most of it themselves. If they don’t, or you would like it produced somewhere specific, just let the artist know - most places will have all the information the artist will need on their website, or the artist can just get in touch with them directly.

    In general, if you’re going to an artist or design shop they should be able to give you some kind of quote with a very rough idea of what you want - especially if they do this professionally, talking to people who don’t have an art background is basically half their job. If you want to be specific it’s much more useful to send something like a mood board or a collage of similar things than a bunch of text. It’s also generally a good idea to be open to their ideas, as they often have experience that may be helpful and will see some problems much quicker than you might.