iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

I keep looking at this souvenir from my trip to LA and I still have a hard time understanding it’s real and not a sci-fi prop

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

John Coltrane centennial birthday Wednesday. Until then, a continued all-Coltrane playlist on www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/wkcr

John Coltrane B&W photograph from Wikipedia

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2026

Flying while tall. Signore in front graciously agreed to not recline

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/08/2026

Hmm, #KiCad Altium import still not quite ready for prime time. Is this bug really 6 years old now? gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/work_…

Kicad schematic showing what should be four capacitors in parallel, but the capacitors are rotated incorrectly and don't connect to the wires

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/08/2026

Weird flex, #Microchip, not sure I'm OK with this >:(

Documentation illustration suggesting you plug a 6-pin RJ11 plug into an 8-pin RJ45 receptacle

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026

Found picture of my cat, sadly gone, at magic hour for #Caturday

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/07/2026

Staying at a mid-end hotel and the headboard has a cassette theme? The future is weird, man.

Beige headboard against a wall with a repeated cassette tape motif cut into it

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/07/2026

Found fossil (ammonite?) in a NJ mall

Close-up of a textured surface featuring a cracked circular design, resembling the outline of an ammonite fossil, on a light-colored stone tile

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/07/2026

My friend Mathew Kneebone is displaying California electrical utility outages on this giant display in Ghent, Belgium. (I helped him wrangle the data: he originally wanted to display European outages but there basically aren’t enough to be interesting :) Credit 019-ghent.org/neighbor

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2026

Come to San Francisco we have the gay lasers. And fog.

A nighttime cityscape featuring various skyscrapers, with a prominent blue light beam shooting straight upwards into the fog.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/05/2026

That thing where hoarding seamlessly transmogrifies into retrocomputing with the simple passage of time

The back panel of a computer with multiple ports, including a VGA port, next to a blue VGA cable and a black and white HDMI to VGA adapter cable.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/05/2026

Hmm, why is the battery discharging when it is plugged into the charger? Spot the moment I realized the cable was fscked and replaced it with a good one. The culprit cable has been Widlarized.

Battery state of charge over time. The lightning bolt ⚡️ indicates connection to the charger, yet for most of the graph the battery charge is declining. In the right of the graph the battery quickly charges to 100%

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/05/2026

Are the neurotypicals OK? Because the color coding here is not...

Knockoff "Wago"-like wire connectors; the spring levers are color coded but they do not match the wire colors

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

New fuses, works again. If only everything was this easy to fix (props to 30-year old design: fuses did their job!)

Front panel of amplifier showing indicator lights working

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

Pretty dusty inside, surely did not help

inside of amplifier, with dust and bits of plant matter

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

Neighbor spilled water in their amplifier so I said I would take a look. found the schematic right away: Rotel RA-1060

Rotel audio amplifier with schematic, can of component cleaner and a small paintbrush sitting on top

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/04/2026

this one’s in better shape! threw Kubuntu on it because that’s my daily driver, think it actually has enough oomph and I won’t need lubuntu

The image shows a small computer system connected to a monitor displaying a command line interface. The monitor shows system information from the Linux distribution Kubuntu. The hardware setup includes a barebones mini PC with visible internal components

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/04/2026

Attempting resuscitation of some cheapo salvage NUCs for a pal. No ram on this one and I don’t think it was rated for underwater

Close-up of a damaged circuit board featuring corrosion, possibly from liquid exposure, with various electronic components and connections visible.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/03/2026

Bay Area peeps: tonight they relight the Bay Lights!

Event poster reading

Celebrate of the return of The Bay Lights!
LITE UP
THE NITE
FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2026 • 6pm - 9pm • FREE
Walk between the sculptures, Corpus at Pier 14 and Atabey's Treasure at Brannan Street Wharf.
Wear your lights, bring your people, and celebrate the return of The Bay Lights with music and family activities.
FREE RSVP: luma.com/baylightsreturns
WEAR YOUR LIGHTS • COUNTDOWN AT SUNDOWN

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/02/2026

The lowpass filters the AC and reduces the amplitude by 20dB -- a factor of 10. So 120VAC in becomes 12VAC out. This goes to the classic bridge rectifier and smoothing cap. 3/3

Lowpass filter Bode plot, showing -20dB attenuation at 60Hz

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/02/2026

You will notice no transformers. That's a 300Ω resistor and the big brown cap is 560nF. That makes a lowpass. It's not the L-topology RC filters you may have studied -- the C is not to ground, it's in series. 2/3

Circuit diagram with an AC excitation source, a 300Ω resistor in series with a 560nF capacitor and a 500Ω load.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/02/2026

Oh hey another janky AC-DC converter like the one spotted in @mossmann ‘s shredder. How does it work? 1/3

cheap LED bulb taken apart. the socket is on the left; two wires go to a janky AC/DC converter in the middle; two wires go from that to a round OCB populated with LEDs

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/01/2026

#freecadfriday Knob has an internal groove to be captured by fingers and spin freely. Took a few iterations to get fingers that don't break off as knob is forced on.

A CAD-generated knob and a plate with mating fingers shown in a 3D slicer view.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/12/2025

What the heck was that overhead? Quickly moving train of lights in the sky. Way too bright (city light pollution) to be starlink?

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/12/2025

This is a perfectly fine layout, but I think I am going to redo it without the 45 rotation because vibes #kicad

PCB layout of four connector headers around a central IC which has been rotated 45° from the horizontal. There are many red traces indicating PCB connections, and blue lines indicating unrouted connections

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/12/2025

The weirdness of the latest Juana Molina album cover is not quite apparent from the thumbnail so here it is full size (Source: juanamolina.bandcamp.com/album/doga)

Album cover that enigmatically looks like a dog with a weirdly human head

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/11/2025

@liaizon OMG kind of fixated on that one since I tracked it down as a (enigmatically modified) prop from an episode of The Prisoner

Vintage Olivetti mechanical calculator with odd Greek symbols on what are normally number keys

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/11/2025

Found this schwag from interviewing at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center back in the day. (Wonder what life would be like had I taken that job?)

A small brown notebook with a textured cover featuring the IBM motto "THINK" embossed in black on the front.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 31/10/2025

Needed to calibrate a load cell and remembered I inherited my great-grandfather’s set of analytical weights. A little tarnished after more than a century, but the 100g will do perfectly

An antique set of chemist's weights, featuring a labeled lid, various brass weights, thin metal plates, and a pair of tweezers.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/10/2025

Keyboard fanciers will appreciate this custom job built for (by?) Florian Schneider to play a voice synthesizer. Umlauts are a hüht! www.juliensauctions.com/en/items/20… #Gorton

Custom keyboard with German phonetic symbols ("ER", "ÜH", "Ü") built for (by?) Florian Schnieder to play a voice synthesizer

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/10/2025

@attoparsec Got my emacs finally set up the way I like it

Giant organ console with 7 manuals and what looks like hundreds of stops. Photo credit https://www.flickriver.com/photos/144565528@N08/8615727622/

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2025

#freecadfriday Made a holster for my workbench so I can be Quickdraw McGraw with my wire stripper

Knipex wire stripper in a plastic holder (not yet attached to workbench)

3D model of a rectangular hollow object with screw holes

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2025

Experiments towards building a physical model of a spinor — each axis will need a motor, at least two. Starting to think that a flexible shaft stiff enough to transmit enough torque is too stiff to flex off its axis. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinor

An abstract white structure with a cubic shape, sitting on one of its corners. A smaller cube is inside connected to the centers of the outer cube faces with rotating shafts. The base is smooth and flat.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2025

Memories of this neighborhood in the 1980s being almost entirely gritty urban decay makes this scene even more science fictional. (Not shown: dystopia as predicted)

The High Line in NYC, a former elevated rail line converted to an urban pathway lined with greenery. In the background, sleek modern buildings reach toward the sky.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/08/2025

Hacker conference? I have no idea what you are talking about.

A yellow traffic signal box covered in various stickers, including “CYBER,” “MAKE DRMA FELONY,” “I2P,” and “HACK” with an Empire State Building graphic.

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/07/2025

Why did we let them take this from us

Image of a 70s era "Synare" drum synthesizer: a round rubber pad on a flying-saucer shaped enclosure with control knobs extending around the edges

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rrmutt @rrmutt.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/07/2025

Friend whose federal job got woodchippered by DOGE got a free laptop after they wiped it. Unfortunately the Feds have locked down the BIOS enough to resist my puny hacking skillz (Any advice? Dell Latitude 5450)

Virtual Assistant web response:

“Thank you for providing us with those details. Unfortunately, we cannot assist you with your issue due to federal contractual obligations.
For assistance in resolving your computer issue, contact the Federal Support Team at 1-800-822-8965.
You may find additional country-specific phone numbers for our Federal Support Team here: https:// www.dell.com/“

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