Viewing profile — jcrabtr

Here's a speech of Berry's, entitled "Local Economies to Save the Land and the People," that serves as a quick introduction to his thinking. http://inthesetimes.com/rural-america/e…

I just finished "The Art of Loading Brush," which makes many of the same arguments with some modern updates. Highly recommended.

The killer app for open-source hardware is scientific components and apparatus. It improves accessibility and repeatability, and can deepen your understanding of experimental resul…

My favorite from python are decorators, especially the built-in ones like @property. They can improve readability immensely, so the don't feel extraneous.

There's a huge number of people involved in the design of the rpi. The antenna is a great example of a subsystem designed by a separate team; another is the new PMIC for the 3B+[1]…

According to [1] (which has more info on the antenna design), the resonant cavity antenna was designed by a company called Proant [2]. I remember reading the the antenna is the sam…

Seconded. While Art of Electronics is the classic text, this one is a bit more accessible. It has less depth but more breadth, and is less intimidating because of it.

Right. Why play an acoustic instrument when we can accurately synthesize its sound, or use a tube amplifier when we could use a digital modelling amplifier that perfectly simulates…

Cool project! This reminds me of an idea that you're awfully close to: optimized small-volume part kitting. I can order boards from OSHPark and stencils from OSHStencils, but figur…

"[T]he stuff I was making was really weird, because I didn't have real-world, existing examples to work from. I mean, they were around, but I guess I wasn't interested enough. It j…

For personal finance and investing, the Bogleheads forum ( https://www.bogleheads.org ) ticks all the boxes. It definitely has many helpful, knowledgeable participants. Since it's …

The craft fair in Boyne over the 4th of July is a good place to buy trinkets made with Petoskey stones like the ones in the shape of the state that someone else mentioned. We didn'…

Fun fact: Claude Shannon, father of information theory, was born in Petoskey, MI [0]. He grew up not far away in Gaylord, MI, where you can now visit Claude Shannon park [1]. [0]: …

It's not how simple the product is or whether it's open source that determines regulatory requirements, but what it is and where and to whom you're selling it. For a quick primer o…