Tweets
Replying to @davidskeck and @Radiolab
Besides catching up on @embeddedfm @liftoffpodcast @WeHaveMECO and @TheAmpHour, one @SongExploder episode drove me to tears this drive. Loved the John Lennon + Shins eps. Also gave @planetmoney’s great series on oil a re-listen with my traveling companion: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/26/491342091/planet-money-buys-oil
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Replying to @davidskeck and @Radiolab
Listened to this one on my road trip, so good!
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Replying to @josecastillo
Day 17: a boat ride to Mexico.
Day 18: art.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Full disclosure, @PCBWayOfficial was kind enough to offer a sponsorship discount for this first test panel. Still, I’m going to keep tweeting / oversharing my process as normal throughout :)
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Replying to @josecastillo
And just like that, as I’m leaving the mountains, an email appears.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Day 16: hikes in Big Bend with my grad school mentor and dear friend @donnadecesare.
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Replying to @crulge
actually, shit.
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Replying to @crulge
if he hadn’t run for president, I sense that a certain washed up reality TV host would be all over this.
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Sensor Watch use case: camping log! This will eventually be a post or an update during the @crowd_supply campaign, but briefly: I tossed the watch outside my tent last night and turned it into a portable weather station, all deployed from my wrist.
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talking to my board house in shenzhen from a campground in the chisos mountains in west texas; reviewing production files and sending emails via the one cell tower on emory peak (which you can walk to and touch, if you’re willing to hike up there). point is, the future is v cool.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Day 15: another 480 miles, and a sunset.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Battery test, day 37: back to 2.99 volts? I know battery voltage is tied to temperature, but this is interesting: the night I chilled the watch to 34° (camping in the back of the truck), it dipped to 2.94 volts. Ever since then, it’s been running 2.98, 2.99 volts. very curious!
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Replying to @edderagdev
Love this! the specular highlights on the button pushers are just *chef’s kiss*
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RT @edderagdev: F-91W 32x32 #aseprite #pixelart
inspired by sensor watch project by @josecastillo
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Replying to @NorthAllenPoole
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RT @sethmpk: anyone flattened in a warehouse by a tornado while doing wage labor did not “pass away,” they were killed
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late-night watch notes:
• battery life and temperature; back at 2.99
• slow clocks for low power
• event system and DMA; work the limbs, not the brain
• “we want the hermit wren to keep her eggs even during the storm”
• you can’t have it all.(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
Day 14: pizza and a beer with two old friends.
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Lot of understudies. https://twitter.com/ajbauer/status/1470750167632646145
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Replying to @NiVZ and @sqfmi
Iconic!
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Replying to @arturo182
let lessons = ∑(mistakes)
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Replying to @_ChrisEdie
I absolutely plan to return to both the Pi Pico book and the Open Book Feather in the new year; right now though, the last 10% of the watch is going to be my focus at least through the first quarter of 2022.
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Replying to @_ChrisEdie
Alas, I had to put some of the Open Book work on the shelf while I finish up work on the watch project. OSO-BOOK-C1-00 is an absolutely working version of the Pi Pico book if you want to build your own, but the MVBook sketch may require some tweaks to run. https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book/tree/main/Open%20Book%20Abridged
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Replying to @bitshiftmask, @sulfuroid, @anne_engineer, @VXO, @BeBoXoS, @ladyada and @adafruit
this obligation is if anything more urgent for technologists than those in other fields, because for better or for worse, we can deploy world-changing ideas at scale w/ little review. if we don’t think deeply about what we’re doing, our impact is mostly going to be for the worse.
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Replying to @bitshiftmask, @sulfuroid, @anne_engineer, @VXO, @BeBoXoS, @ladyada and @adafruit
yes, and: as technologists I think we have an obligation to think critically about the technologies we’re exploring. yes nifts are a pyramid scheme with a bad climate footprint, but more broadly, “sexy” tech has failure modes that can destroy lives and damage society irreparably.
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Replying to @VXO, @sulfuroid, @anne_engineer, @BeBoXoS, @ladyada and @adafruit
Sorry @sulfuroid, your watch design does look *extremely* cool, but I feel that it’s a moral obligation to try to dissuade folks from working in the coin and nift space.
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Replying to @VXO, @sulfuroid, @anne_engineer, @BeBoXoS, @ladyada and @adafruit
yeah one of the joys of working on something with a super constrained power budget is opting out of this whole hype train. One nift transaction uses 17,000 times the annual power budget of my watch design. Wasteful + dumb in general, but orders of magnitude morerso for my thing.
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the USA is sliding backwards in a number of ways (rise of fascism, etc.) but one that I discovered while listening to podcasts on the drive home: sometime this decade, after the ISS deorbits and at least until 2027, America will no longer have a permanent human presence in space.
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Replying to @anne_engineer
The race is on :)
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Replying to @ajbauer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpN_RjIaVw8
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Replying to @josecastillo
also shockingly, just by tweeting and DM’ing and emailing from gas stations and rest stops, I’ve managed to advance the work both days long. By inches for sure, but hey: it’s a game of inches. Inches make the difference.
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Brooklyn to Austin: 1,759 miles in 37 hours. I forget if that’s a solo record, but either way, it feels like just yesterday I was having a bagel in Bushwick.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Day 13: 979 miles.
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Catching up on podcasts this drive; ICYMI, last month Planet Money checked in with the five employees of the Thief River Falls regional airport. They spoke to Joe who, among many jobs there, keeps the the runway plowed to make way for our @digikey boxes :) https://overcast.fm/+YsPSqw02Q
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Replying to @josecastillo
also, as of Birmingham Alabama, my Apple Watch battery has given up the ghost; so from here on out, Sensor Watch is the only gadget left on my wrist.
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Replying to @Henri_cz
Thanks! And re: an internal antenna, i don’t know enough about NFC to know the answer to that one… I’m unclear what the surface area requirements are for a PCB antenna, but the area available inside the watch case is pretty small.
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Replying to @arturo182 and @mntmn
Oof yeah that’s not great. my other wild-eyed mini keyboard idea would be to try and reconstitute a 1980s era foam and foil type design, all with 3D printed parts, springs and mylar tape. Seems like a very iffy idea 😬
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Replying to @arturo182 and @mntmn
I used these years ago for a small project; never found a proper part number for them, but I wonder if there are similar tact switches with a softer feel that could work for something like this. https://www.adafruit.com/product/3101
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Replying to @Henri_cz
It would have to pair with a more… aggressive modification. There’s no room for an NFC antenna inside, but there may be room for one outside? This thread has some notes: https://mobile.twitter.com/josecastillo/status/1430949154646335495
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Replying to @Henri_cz
I haven’t had time to assemble it yet, but I did order an NFC tag sensor board and it’s sitting on my bench waiting to get built. (1/2) https://mobile.twitter.com/josecastillo/status/1430239042029895686
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Woke up to sunrise, and to frost on the window of the camper shell. Frost everywhere, really. Weather app says 25° F outside; Sensor Watch gave me conditions inside the camper: overnight low just shy of 34 degrees. (It was much warmer inside my REI Magma sleeping bag 😊)
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Replying to @josecastillo
Cold night; far from home.
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stopped at a starbucks in Harrisburg where they are NOT playing christmas music and I’ve simply given up on understanding the world. https://twitter.com/josecastillo/status/1446507637672120325
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Driving through SoHo on the way out of the city and it occurred to me: the last time I did this drive out west was March of 2020, the day after the NBA canceled their season. I headed back east that July, but still: Ghost hasn’t seen the open road in quite some time.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Day 11: a pull request from @willianpaixaoo!
Day 12: coffee and a bagel with two old friends.(original)
I said this mostly in jest, I think, but honestly it would explain so much. It would explain the NFT craze! https://twitter.com/josecastillo/status/1402804888720089088
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Replying to @josecastillo
Day 10: three prototypes (outgoing).
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Replying to @josecastillo
like: they tried a coup. Literally less than a year ago. If you’re a patriot, you vote for the Democrat. If you hate America, you vote for the Republican. It’s seriously never been easier.
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I’m so sorry; I’ve had this meme in my head all day.
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Replying to @joshu and @DanielZarick
this reminds me of a line from a James Mickens talk; paraphrasing, “the short answer is, think before you do things; the shorter answer is: Don’t.”
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