я річка @river@toot.cat

Choosing a river

Before you decide on a river, you need to decide what it is that you want out of your trip. There are trips available from two to 12 days on different rivers, all offering dramatically different experiences.

First, don't believe that just because it's a river it's going to be wet 'n' wild. Some rivers, such as the Sun Kosi, which is a full-on white-water trip in September and October, are basically flat in the low water of early spring.

Mass production is not environmentally friendly, because, as Einstein showed, it uses a tremendous amount of energy.

A meditation centre sign:

Teaching available. Inquire within.

Where do JLCPCB get their FR4?
Nan Ya business.

(https://support.jlcpcb.com/article/64-certifications)

#electronics

I would like to commend chillies as an autistic special interest. They have many aspects which make them and the subject suitable.

Taxonomy: Research! Collect! Sort! Classify! Label!

Growing: Many variables to optimise and experiments to do. Soils, fertilisers, light, temperature, humidity. Hydroponics for extra nerdiness. Design sensors, measure things, automate, do electronics and software, make graphs.

Eating: Stimmy!

Also generally branches out into learning about: light, photosynthesis, plant physiology, soil: structure, composition, organisms; measurements, sensor design, history, cooking, flavour / tasting, breeding and genetics, ...

I am now onto learning about left-handed metamaterials and getting on for designing a vector network analyser to measure soil moisture and salt content.

#chillis #gardening #electronics

"Left-handed materials have
electromagnetic properties that
are distinct from any known
material"

More evidence microwave engineering is black magic.

So today I stuck some VNA probes in a plant pot. Also briefly confused words and thought I was potting plants in potting compound. Which is sort of right I suppose.

Me: I wonder how wet my plants are.

The Library: "This article presents a time domain transmissometry soil moisture sensor (TDT-SMS) using a dispersive phase shifter (DPS), consisting of an interdigital capacitor that is loaded with a stacked four-turn complementary spiral resonator (S4-CSR)."

And now we seem to be doing RF engineering. It's got edge mount SMAs, VNAs, and looks proper microwavey.

Was toot.cat down for a bit just now or was it just me?

Chilli plants are rather like cats. They like warms, sunny spots, and don't drink much water because they evolved for dry places. They are amusing to keep in your house, but also they can hurt you.

This is starting to look like it will be ready soon.

#gardening #electronics

Ok so see how I'm using Neutraface on a PCB? I need to make something with a mains input so I can do this: