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Interesting stuff. My first thought was "this is topaz" but if the font is bookerly, that makes less sense.

There's this old patent for earlier kindle web obfuscation, which used CSS layout to scramble text https://patents.google.com/patent/US8700991B1


Interesting, hadent seen this before, thanks!


Oooh, which one has a keyboard?


t-deck has a keyboard and is ideal for a personal handset.

A G2 Basestation or rak device is ideal for node to node communication to act as a base station for range extension.


There's a handful of Windows game emulators taking off for Android. Using a modern snapdragon GPU, folks are playing Witcher 3, GTA 5. Some suffering gamer is playing through Dark Souls 2 using touch controls


Problem is, I assume, being stuck relying on some brittle apps that might or might not still run after some OS upgrade or after buying a new device. Like the DOSBox app I use on my Android phone is amazing but knowing that eventually it will suddenly expire (when the developer abandons it), like the previous one, makes me enjoy the games a lot less than I do when I have a more stable platform set up like when playing using some fully open source emulator on a rpi or x86 desktop pc.


Wait for a sale, they happen regularly and you'll want the DLC bundle


https://steamdb.info/app/916440/

Looks like there were around twelve -80% sales last year alone.


Just started playing the game a few weeks ago. It's very pretty.

From a game perspective it can seem pretty simplistic at first but there are a lot of interesting systems with hidden depth


It will load up many plates for you to spin, don’t worry! Especially with the DLCs, you end up with essentially 5 or 6 maps to simultaneously play.

This game is an incredible time sink; I can lose entire days to it because there’s always “just one more thing” to do.


I got actual nerve damage from playing Anno 1404 crosslegged for a 16 hours a day for a few days straight a decade or so ago...


Last time I was in SF I took 3 waymo rides and attempted a fourth. The attempted one was cancelled after 15 minutes of waiting for it being 2 minutes away. As best as I can tell, the waymo was stuck at an intersection where power had been lost and didn't understand it needed to treat it like a 4 way stop.

2 rides went fine though neither was particularly challenging. The third though the car decided to head down a narrow side street where a pickup in front was partially blocking the road making a dropoff. There was enough space to just squeeze by and it was clear the truck expected the car to. A few cars turned in behind the waymo, effectively trapping it in as it didn't know how to proceed. The dropoff eventually completed and it was able to pull forward


EMT conduit isn't a great support material if you're handling human weight loads. The picture on the front page showing off the strength is visibly bending. It's kind of an awkward load profile, lower weight like an awning you're probably using ABS, higher weight you're using 1 1/4" system like steeltek or keeklamp


Right. There are many structural pipe fitting systems. Here's one.[1] Grainger, McMaster-Carr, and larger hardware stores stock them. Usually, they use bigger pipe. Fittings are really cheap on Alibaba.

[1] https://www.easyfit.com/catalog


What are the right keywords to use when searching for the fittings?

My ali efforts often get flooded with nonsense.


If it is structural I'd buy from a big place not Ali. Unless you have the ability to verify the material really has the claimed properties you need you should stick with a major trusted supplier who will either verify the factory produces fittings to spec, or test everything for you.


If it is to support a human I would tend to agree, but for desks etc. I have found local supplies (Canada) have declined in quality to such a degree they need the level of QA on arrival the Chinese ones do while costing 5-10x as much.


unfortunately the big box stores do not check quality. mcmaster which was pointed out above does and is a similar price. I am not sure about granger.


Paying big bucks for a paper trail is almost never cost or time effective compared to just adding safety factor for "normal applications".

And by "normal applications" I mean "please nobody be intentionally obtuse and start nit picking about aerospace applications and connecting rod bolts and whatnot".


I would nit-pick about your cantilever worktable failing because of a crappy fastener, killing your cat. Child even?


There will always be a weakest link. At some point you just gotta be an adult and not build things to within an inch of their lives for the use they will see and then have the self control to not push the limit. Resources are limited and engineering tradeoffs are everywhere. These discussions always devolve into absurdity very quickly.


It just isn’t very absurd to worry that the question mark brand of load bearing fasteners are properly rated.

I avoid the issue by not buying them, a lesson learned from my experience working in the QA field. I wouldn’t expect a teenager to have learned this lesson.


“Don’t buy fittings made from Chinese pot metal” is a simple way to avoid catastrophic failure due to substandard materials.


I don't need the paper trail just the quality it provide. That is often available for much less.


If you're buying hardware that has any possibility of harming someone or doing any amount of non-trivial damage if it fails from AliExpress or Amazon, you're doing it wrong and should reconsider whatever it is you're doing. Even the hardware from HD is generally pretty shitty these days. If you can't afford or won't go buy it from Fastenal or MMC or somewhere reputable, where you can expect the hardware you're buying actually adheres to a stated grade or spec, you just shouldn't do it.


I don’t know what you lot think is so dangerous about a few supports for netting that keeps the squirrels off the vegetables. Please spare us the safety lectures, we are adults.


Pipe racking connector

Modular pipe connector

Those do okay without you getting hundreds of irrelevant air hose fittings


Agreed. EMT exists to keep wire from getting damaged by accident. It isn't even considered self supporting let alone structural.

You can easily bend 1/2 emt by hand.


But 3/4" is also readily available, and much stronger. And of course larger gauges are available as well, just more difficult to bend with a standard manual bender.

I wouldn't use it for scaffolding(!) or anything supporting dynamic loads in the human-scale, but I've sistered three 3/4" EMT pipes together for an extremely strong, rigid, and inexpensive support pole.


Sure, you can use it for stuff, just don't expect it to hold anything real in any meaningful span.

Here's some real values for you:

2ft 3/4 EMT has an expected failure force of about 3300lbs (some studies found actual is around 3900-4200lbs).

4ft 3/4 EMT ha an expected failure force of about 2000lbs.

8ft 3/4 EMT has an expected failure force of about 450lbs.

So it is non-linear.

This is the point at which it fails catastrophically, not the point at which it starts sagging.

They are also not permanent load ratings, include no safety factors, etc.

Cost wise, 3/4 EMT costs 11 bucks for a 10ft piece at my home depot.

I can go to my local metal supply and get 3/4 square structural steel tube for < $1.00 a ft.

This is relatively in line with online suppliers so i believe it's not an exception: https://www.onlinemetals.com/en/buy/square-tube

This is structurally rated steel tube - it will hold much more than the EMT, it is meant for holding things, and being square, it's often easier to work with.

So i just don't know why i'd use the EMT.


EMT is light weight, readily available on weekend evenings, inexpensive, cuts easily, bends easily, is reasonably rustproof, and good enough for many applications.

It is "appropriate technology" for some applications, but of course there are better options when the requirements approach its critical limits!

I've used EMT to build big hoop trellises for growing vines. Bends smoothly into pairs of 10' arcs (using some ad hoc jigs), weighs almost nothing, requires minimal paint protection, supports more curcubits than our friends and family can consume, and lasts ~forever.

One of the tricks with EMT construction is to leverage the design for structural rigidity. E.g. geodesic domes with short members are extremely strong. Anything in compression will do well. If you need resistance to deflection across a long unsupported span, then I definitely agree -- EMT is not your material of choice!


(steel tubing is available on weekends and evenings too, fwiw)

I agree it's good enough for random aesthetic stuff, but even outdoor stuff is silly to use it for if you care about aesthetics. It really does rust pretty quickly these days. I have plenty of EMT that is 20 years old and not rusted, and plenty next to it that is 5 years old and rusty.

The latter is from different vendors, too. The specs over the years have gotten worse because nobody really uses EMT outdoors without painting it unless they are willing to accept it rusting to crap.

For your case, you could just use pvc pipe, cheaper, bends easier, cuts easier, can be glued directly, will never rust, you don't care about weight limits.

However, if you remember where we started, this article is about "structural pipe fittings" for EMT.

That is a horrible horrible idea.


PVC pipe does not survive outdoors, and the failure mode is messy.

"Structural" does not necessarily mean "very strong".

I think we mostly agree here though. I've used EMT for lots of things, and it has never ever let me down even slightly. I have also chosen square steel tubing for (less frequent) cases.

Choosing carefully is the key. When EMT fits, it's great stuff and preferable in many ways.


> PVC pipe does not survive outdoors, and the failure mode is messy.

That's just not the case - thousands of pool owners can point to 20+ year old PVC pipes and fittings in exposed pool equipment decks...


I hear this in other comments, but I cannot reconcile it with my own direct experience with brittle white PVC pipes.

There are a few grades of white PVC, including Schedule 40. There must be a subset of options which are appropriate for outdoor use.

[Edit: FWIW A superficial web search agrees with me that standard white PVC will degrade in UV. A common recommendation is to use "furniture grade" PVC, or to paint or wrap the pipe to protect it. In this context I'm mostly thinking about options available at ordinary hardware stores, not special order stuff, but apparently there are options.]

Other reasons to choose EMT though: thinner, more heat-resilient, less prone to sag, stronger by thickness, subjectively more attractive.


Add to that list: recyclable (PVC, not so much).


Do you have a good source for these load calculations. I poked around on the site but didn't see anything representing an L/360 or other strength rating despite these fasteners being large enough to hurt people doing things if they don't know any better.

It would be great to just have one nice calculator to lookup trustworthy load data on standard home depot materials.


And that’s even with his feet on the ground out of frame ;)


they have a video where they stress tested a table made out of EMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCEMd4v9B4


Wild stuff. You can see the bottom horizontal trusses bending when loaded. EMT is just too thin walled for serious structural applications


Good to know, my first thought seeing this way. I could build a raised bed. You save some lotta time


Emt will eventually rust if not painted as well, depending how much you care. It is really mostly used in open commercial/industrial settings (if you go to home depot or Costco you will see emt running everywhere). Aluminum is your obvious metal winner for this sort of thing outdoors (cost wise). PVC, even thick wall, becomes brittle pretty quickly in sunlight.

This is why you see wood or outdoor plastics for raised garden beds


Petrol tax directly incentives fuel efficiency


Trying to understand his legal situation by analogizing with US law understanding strikes me as some real Dunning-Kruegering. Surely someone like Preston Byrne has someone he can reach out to to get a better understanding of the actual French legal situation Durov is in.


+1.

Reading the article I was baffled to see all this talk about section 230 of communication and decency act. Telegram moved from Russia to Dubai and Durov was arrested in France.

Using the US hammer on a foreign nail gives vibes of Team America - World Police parody.


Yeah, a lot of people, commentators, HNers, Redditors invoke US laws and procedures as reasoning and for comparison. Which is bordering on the useless - okay, you think he wouldn't have been arrested in the US, cool, what does that actually tell us about him being arrested in France? Nothing? You didn't even bother to look up how warrants and arrests and criminal proceedings work in France? Thank you for wasting my time with your commentary.


The article was written for the benefit of Americans with business operations in France, so understanding why America is way better than France to run a social media company is relevant information.

That the article wound up being circulated to a bunch of Europeans who thought it was an article about French law after someone posted it on HN is something of an accident; the article isn't for them (unless of course they're planning on starting a social media company, in which case leaving Europe and setting up shop in America on a permanent basis would be recommended). The very fact of his arrest is enough for Americans to know to steer clear of the EU going forward.


> so understanding why America is way better than France to run a social media company is relevant information

Without any information on the legal background for France, how can anyone seriously make that claim?


There is plenty of legal background for France (and Europe more broadly, eg the German NetzDG) there if you'd care to read the piece, including reference to numerous censorial provisions of French law which make France suboptimal vis a vis the U.S. for social media operations including Loi no. 2020-766 du 24 juin 2020, the EU DSA, and the applicable French aiding and abetting statute, the last of which would not have been usable against Durov in the U.S. absent specific intent to commit an unlawful act.

The conditional immunity under the DSA is also not as comprehensive as the broad immunity under Section 230, but that was out of scope so I didn't get into it. I do admit the piece assumes some familiarity on the part of the reader with the existing problems around the EU regulatory schemes relating to speech and content removal.

If you have any constructive suggestions I'll be happy to consider including them and giving you appropriate credit, just chuck them in the comment section. tl;dr though, in my view, France is not a great place to incorporate and run a social media company.


[flagged]


People who whine about Redditors are like people who whine about anime being for pedos. They're almost always what they complain about.

You managed to avoid being supposedly insufferable by refusing to parrot that Dunning-Kruger has been disproven, yet you still insisted on being actually insufferable by doing this whole performative holier-than-thou dance, to then end on a strawman (no, they did not say what you or the author can or cannot talk about).

Why? Do you legitimately not have even a shred of self-reflection? Or should I allege you're an "NPC", if that's maybe closer to your vernacular?


Been running a Meshtastic node for awhile now. Really amazing piece of kit. I regularly make 2 mile distant contacts in an urban area with an indoor antenna. Soon I hope to be able to have an exterior mounted one.

Hope they're able to protect their bandwidth


It's a lot about height + antenna selection. I've had better luck with Rak stuff than the more popular and super cheap Heltec V3 (but the V3 is a great little gateway into Meshtastic, and isn't too bad in certain areas).

I feel like Meshtastic is a lot like what ham radio felt like 50ish years ago. People experimenting with antennas and radios... dealing with the FCC and band allocations...

I do find there's proportionately more "prepper" types on the mesh, at least here in the Midwest, than I encounter online. Makes sense, though, considering how a lot of it is described.


I've got a mix of LilyGo and Rak devices, and a sew Station G1's. LilyGo gets criticized, but after I switched to Rak antennas on them they work great.

The meshtastic discord definitely leans pepper as well. I live in a coastal urban area and the nodes here seem to be more general hobbyist.

I'm hoping to have some sort of automated BBS type node to play around with


Antenna selection is less important with LoRa than other mesh networks, which is nice meaning you can have a meshtastic watch for example.

The link budget is massive (150 dB) meaning getting a really nice antenna is less impactful than bumping your speed down a notch

Edit: LilyGo devices for 900MHz are notoriously terrible, and getting a $3 one will see a definite improvement


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