Indeed. I appreciate your open mind.

I just didn't have the heart to do that, plus Linux just seemed like this wild land to explore. My last windows box was 7. I was never allowed admin privileges at work and it was a constant source of frustration for me. Once I started learning Linux I was hooked. I hear you though and have heard that from other wise folks.

The first (biotech) real startup I worked for let me be my own IT dept. I ran Debian stable on a p52 and ran windows in a VM so my laptop could talk to the instruments in lab. It was great. I still fire that old VM up occasionally to use the instrument specific software if I need to for consulting.

These days I'm moving more towards learning to use LLMs to both build software and learn programming & security best practices. Doing this in a Linux environment is much more comfortable for me. The telemetry and embedded AI in windows is quite scary.

I have been a Debian user for years. These days I run Trixie on my main workstation and multiple Pis and Sid on several other boxes, plus my laptop. My node runs Trixie and my Pi5 with openclaw runs ubuntu server headless. My ancient beagleboneblacks are now running trixie.

In general, stuff just works, and Sid gives me access to more fresh packages, even if it is a headache sometimes for constantly filling up /boot with new kernels, not working with more conservative stuff I use like Rstudio, etc.

I'm genuinely curious about some other more hands-on distros like gentoo or arch for learning and more control. Plus the whole Cali age-verification thing for dbus has me concerned and looking preemptively for alternatives.

I'm not a dev per se, but I like hardware (think homemade antennas, sensors, etc.) and writing Python tools. I do some bioinformatics for work. I came to Linux based on a loathing of windows, being somewhat of a control freak, and wanting to learn. I am eternally grateful that it exists as I interact with it nearly every waking day.

Thank you. Likewise!
Hopefully you get your printer sorted out.
If I learn anything when I troubleshoot by blobbing problem, I will share.

The freezer doesn't work. When it is 'freezing' at the beginning it stays near ambient temperature. The vacuum pump seems to work although we had to replace the oil after a relatively short while. What seems weird is the coolant compressor seems warm, but doesn't seem to be running.

I did extend a run that seemed almost done until the morning so I could go to sleep. It looked like some water made it down to the pump the next morning, but we cleaned all that out. The no-freezing part we noticed on the next run before the vacuum would be on. I need to allocate some time to troubleshoot. It seems like a fairly simple system, much like the lyophilizers I have used at lab.

I'm no dev, but I love using my imagination (and a basic understanding of systems, CS, Python, etc.) to indulge my enjoyment of tinkering and building things. Nothing that I have released, but I may at some point share.

I'm interested in a making a transaction explorer/tracer with good visualization that uses only queries to a local full node.

Also playing around with BLE sensors & a Pi or old beaglebone to collect environmental data (temp, pressure, humidity, etc.), store it in a SQLite db & make visualizations. For me this has practical aspects since I'm trying to grow things at a remote site where the actual temps are more extreme than the NOAA data from the nearest weather station suggest.

AI is such a great and fun tool. I used to do similar things with books & stack exchange and now it is just way faster and more focused on the ideas and architecture.

Honest question: how do you feel about linchpin libraries like secp256k1?

Is that support? My printer (a kossel pro that I built) prints most things pretty well, but recently I tried printing part of a meshtastic board case.

One of the parts required support and my printer kept blobbing up while trying to do the support structures. I have always tried to do my designs to not require support, but this is someone else's .stl file.

I spent some time with an LLM doing research and it seems like there are things I can try (e.g. slow things down, make the supports have a bigger footprint, et al) to tweak in how I slice the print, but I have not had time to get back to that project.


On an unrelated note, our freeze drier decided to stop 'freezing'. We had a whole batch of bananas turn out with a chewy texture. Do you know of any good resources to troubleshoot? It sounds like the relay is clicking but the compressor is not coming on, even though it feels warm to the touch. Same model as yours, I think.

I'm in a similar boat, needing to raise funds for day to day activities while I try to find a decent job in science. Rolling month-to-month at this point, supplementing with other assets when I can.

My pleasure. Happy to find interesting, positive folks here!

I've been saving copper pennies for years. In 1982, they were mixed, so a non-destructive way to tell is weigh them: Zn pennies are 2.5 g and Cu pennies about 3.1 g

I've also been saving all my nickels, which are 75% Ni & 25% Cu.

Today, a copper penny has almost $0.04 of copper and nickels are worth around $0.07

Being both a sound money enthusiast and somewhat of a metal head, I figure some day I will melt these down (separately) and cast a cool piece of art. Or use the pennies in a project that needs copper to conduct electricity or heat.

My partner's kid is into pennies since they are being phased out. They get all my zinc ones, but I did gift a 1964 50 cent piece for xmas that has done nicely since then.

Super cool!