The board is part of the CI pipeline for the OS. The kernel is built in the normal CI pipeline, unit tested, etc. then platform-specific images are built.
Those are picked up by GitHub CI runners (could be anything but I'm using GH for now) that pull those image artifacts and send them over the internet to the board, which stores them on the microSD slot.
Then the board will boot the device-under-test (either by enabling a USB VBUS line, asserting PS_ON and pressing the power button, whatever the device needs) and will serve the image either a via USB mass device or by switching on access to the microSD card directly via a ribbon connector/custom microSD PCB and ribbon cable.
The kernel then communicates over serial back to the Link, which proxies that back up to the CI runner for evaluating test runs, etc.
Everything is configured using MQTT and mDNS. Using async Rust via Embassy for the firmware.
5-pin on the bottom left is for power - 5V 2A 'always on' supply (on the ATX24 adapters that's the 5vsb line), 5V 3A aux line (for VBUS, optional and not otherwise used to power the board itself), a sense line for the aux power (board will shut down and display an error on over-current of the main line if not sensed), active-low aux line enable signal (PS_ON for ATX24 sources), and ground.
This means that it's used to cut power on x86 machines, or to use a stock desktop PSU even for arm/riscv dev boards. In the future I want to make this all rack mounted and have a dedicated power supply for multiples of these.
Unable to find the article quickly, but, I read a compelling perspective recently: DoD vendors seeking to restrict use of 3d printed replacement parts that they would normally supply. There was some speculative tie-in with the recent wave of consumer level regulation.
“We’re basically saying, ‘Hey colonel, hey general, you have to make the decision. If a door handle is broken on an ISV, you need to get it into the field. If you think that replacement door handle is sufficient, send it out.’
“A lot of howitzers are down right now for very simple pieces that we could 3D print and have known how to 3D print, and actually have the design files to 3D print, but we haven’t done it,” Driscoll said. “So we, the Army, have kicked off a very aggressive approach to that.”
It completely eliminates the physics and durability considerations of firing pin design.
For chemical primers there is a non-trivial lag between the trigger breaking and the firing pin being accelerated to sufficient velocity such that it ignites the primer. The mechanics of maximizing acceleration of the firing pin is adversarial to durability, reliability, and precision in a number of respects. In automatic weapons it is made worse because the same physics must run in reverse to support the desired rate of fire.
With electronic primers, you mostly only need to worry about switching electric power fast enough (trivial). The relatively fragile firing pin mechanics don't need to exist. But you do need electronics, which has its own issues.
How should people who live in allied countries that the US has recently threatened to economically annex or invade feel about US military contractor oligarchs being attacked?
The way I see it, the pragmatic choice is to prefer to see Americans attack themselves because a divided America is less of a threat to my country.
Sometimes less civilized countries fall into civil war, sometimes they invade neighbours. If you're the neighbour which would you prefer?
How is a person from a nation that the US President has threatened to annex or invade supposed to feel about seeing domestic violence in the United States? From their perspective a divided United States is less of a personal threat to them.
All this talk about how 'we can't have this in a democracy!' forgets that many of us don't live in that particular democracy, and that particular democracy is threatening other democracies.
What should my response be if a North Korean General is executed? Or if a Russian oligarch 'falls out a window'? Or a corrupt Mexican politician is beheaded by a rival cartel?
These American oligarchs aren't my countrymen, They don't have my best interests in mind, they fund the people who threaten my country, and now they provide the American military with technology that it can use to attack my country.
Their lobbying and campaign contributes have resulted in a Mad King waging an unwinnable war that has severely damaged the global economy and has made my life demonstrably worse. I have never done anything to these people and yet they callously did this to all of us for personal profit well beyond what any human being could never need in a thousand life times.
At the end of the day the less cohesive the American tribe is the better off my tribe is. I wish our incentives were aligned but they just aren't and I am not in any way responsible for that.
I actually had this 10 guy sort of thought last night:
There was a point where an organism became self aware, and then there was a point sometime after that where an organism realized that it was the first that had become self aware and all the implications of that.
To me that's a demarcation point in all of life -- the moment a creature realized that it was different from all the things that had come before it on the earth, whether they be non-living or living, as if there was a third category, living and self-aware.
I wonder if it considered it important to spread self-awareness or if it lamented that it had more important things to deal with like just surviving.
And what kind of organism was it -- was it a mammal? Or was it something that came before that?
You're being completely melodramatic and hypocritical here likely because you have some sort of personal or business relationship with Altman.
Be honest with yourself -- underneath your admonishments against people here is a personal policy that promotes and enables far worse things than a molotov cocktail or more against Sam Altman.
People talk about war and advocate for war all the time here. Y Combinator itself funds arms companies, and surveillance companies. Altman himself is a defense contractor! How many climate change deaths is Sam Altman personally responsible for?
I live in a country that America has threatened to annex. I live in a part of that country where America money is pouring in to fund a separatist movement to facilitate that annexation. My country is allied with another country that America has threatened to invade.
I'm content to live my life and do my own thing with no intent to cause harm to others, and the goal of minimizing the harm I do cause but apparently that is a luxury I am not afforded in life. So what do I do? I just keep living my life the best I can and hoping something changes in the national dynamic in America.
If that means Americans start squabbling and attacking their oligarchs instead of attacking me so be it. It's not the world I want to live in either, but it's better than a world where Americans are focused and united on attacking me.
Have you ever shed a single tear for a Russian oligarch who 'falls out a window onto a pile of bullets?' I doubt it. That's how I feel about Altman.
Just be honest Dang. We're all living in sin here. We're all entwined into an economic system that is built off of slavery and theft.
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."
If I understand what you're saying it's that as rich as they are, the amount of money the ultra-wealthy own just doesn't add up to nearly enough to give everyone a quality of life that they deserve / once had?
Perhaps what's happening is that in their attempts to reach a personal all-time high in their bank accounts the ultra-wealthy are destroying value and economic systems en mass with little regard to the efficiency of their money siphoning process?
It's kind of like a drug dealer selling brain burning addictive substances to a few people on a street. Sure they're going to extract a person's life savings to date and whatever money that person can steal once they're addicted but that value pales in comparison to what that person could have made over their career, what it could have made if properly invested, the cost of law enforcement to deal with these addicts, the cost of the stuff that they destroy in their quest to get money to buy drugs, the opportunity cost of them not raising their kids to be productive members of society... like it all just snow balls all so some asshole can make a few bucks...
The ultra-wealthy are doing that shit where people burn acres of pristine forests to get some biochar -- but to the entire world.
Isn’t it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
And each must make-
Ere life is flown-
A stumbling block
Or a stepping stone.
As I understand it Iran requested that Vance conduct the negotiations.[0] The speculation is that they did so in order to tarnish his image in the American people by attaching his name and face to the conflict which is something he appears to have been desperate to avoid.
If this is the case it seems like an extremely effective way to kneecap the eventual successor to a very unhealthy 79 year old man who may die in office.
One would hope that even tangential involvement in this war would be the kiss of death for any political career in the US but it's hard to say. The American electorate is a fickle creature. It always finds new ways to surprise and disappoint.
One thing that's repeatedly impressed me throughout the war is how effectively the Iranians have been able to tailor their PR and diplomatic strategies based on their deep understanding of American domestic politics and the West in general. I had always assumed that the Iranian leadership would have a closed-off and insular mindset, but many of them are highly educated and have spent years studying the West and Western diplomacy, have studied at Western universities, or otherwise spent long periods in the West. A few examples:
- Iran's foreign minister has a Ph.D in political thought from the University of Kent
- Iran's deputy foreign minister has a BS and MS in civil engineering from the University of Kansas, an MA in international political economy and development from Fordham University, and a Ph.D in political science from the University of Bern
- One of the main advisors to Iran's negotiating team grew up in Richmond, VA, has a Ph.D in English literature from the University of Birmingham, and is the former head of the North American Studies graduate program at the University of Tehran
I bet that there are people in the US defense department or intelligence community who have a similarly deep understanding of Iranian domestic politics, but I doubt that anyone in the US negotiating team or the current US political leadership in general really cares to hear what they have to say.
It's frustrating how genuinely effective Iran's management of the information war has been. This, the Lego things, the front-running of TACO moments. They understand the White House decision-making process better than the White House does[1].
And let's be clear: that's very bad. Iran is a bad actor. Iran does bad things and an empowered Iran is a disaster for the region. Yet Iran is able to keep goading Trump into making everything worse.
[1] Because obviously the WH doesn't have a clue what's in the president's head. He announced a blockade this morning, seemingly, literally because he read it in some pundit article.
Silver linings if Iran does in Trump, erases Vance's chance, and gets oil to $200 so people will finally start to feel pain for continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Also, what's that large five pin connector in the bottom left for?
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