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My Business Card Runs Linux

thirtythreeforty.net

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Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#91

Post by jaclaz »

foldr wrote: post #40
jaclaz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the lead may cross one or two layers of cloth and migrate from the pocket to your skin and bite you. More considerate would be to provide the card in a protecting sleeve (that would protect from all the bad, bad substances it may contain) or just use a good, ol' plain paper business card, posibly printed with "bioetical" ink.

>Sure, the lead may cross one or two layers of cloth and migrate from the pocket to your skin and bite you. You get it on your hands and then ingest it when you eat. (People don't usually wash their hands after touching a business card.)

>You get it on your hands and then ingest it when you eat. (People don't usually wash their hands after touching a business card.)

I was referring to the parent poster that talked of people putting them in their pockets.

Anyway, ROHS (or lead-free) is a good thing, but it is not like you get lead poisoning (or saturnism) because of the once in your lifetime you touched sometthing contained lead and then - if you eat with your hands - you managed to ingest it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning

You need to drink from lead or lead soldered tap water or water contaminated by lead to become poisoned by lead.

In the case of the Linux business card the exposed surface that would eventually contain a minimum amount of lead - pre-ROHS soldering tin contained in the common eutectic Sn-Pb alloy 37% lead - is in the below 1 square mm range.

You would nead to actually lick hundreds or thousands of such cards to ingest any meaningful amount of lead.

And lead free soldering tin may contain (in minimal amounts):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder

bismuth and antimony.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#92

Post by thrtythreeforty »

mikece wrote: post #64

Maybe I'm twisted but my first thought if that if I were a pen tester I would want business cards exactly like this. And yes, they would run Linux... and some other things. :-)

Ha someone on Reddit suggested this. See the thing is, they have my contact info printed on them, so I'm really easy for the police to find after everything is hacked!

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#93

Post by thrtythreeforty »

jaclaz wrote: post #10
nilsb wrote: post #3

While it's a fascinating project I'd have some security concerns about plugging someone's USB business card into my computer.

Well, it is appropriate as a business card for an embedded systems engineers, not so much for a system security one! More seriously, I never managed to understand the "obsession" with ROHS (this here is just an example): >I made sure to have a lead-free process—the boards, parts, and solder paste are all RoHS—so that I wouldn't feel bad about giving them to people. I mean, you are creating something that (besides bei…

This is true, but given that I'm creating it, why _not_ use a lead-free process, especially given that lead is known to be very soft and toxic?

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#94

Post by macintux »

hvasilev wrote: post #66

I wonder what world would we be living in if people like this fellow were actually focusing on automation and not on making business cards that run Linux. Maybe we wouldn't be living in such a lowly automated reality, using concepts from the previous centuries. Robotics might even make sense...

I read a story once about a fellow in, I believe, St. Louis who devotes all of his energy to rescuing stray dogs. It’s an obsession.

People ask him why he doesn’t apply that energy to helping the homeless instead.

As he says, there are plenty of people tackling that problem (debatable), this is his passion, and I imagine he asks, or should ask, the questioner what they’ve done to help the homeless recently.

Follow your passions.

(Plus, as others have pointed out, this is a personal project and he does this stuff full-time, so yours is a particularly odd complaint.)

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#95

Post by jaclaz »

pkolaczk wrote: post #62
jaclaz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is appropriate as a business card for an embedded systems engineers, not so much for a system security one! More seriously, I never managed to understand the "obsession" with ROHS (this here is just an example): >I made sure to have a lead-free process—the boards, parts, and solder paste are all RoHS—so that I wouldn't feel bad about giving them to people. I mean, you are creating something that (besides bei…

I don't get this lead-free hatred on internet forums. People say they can't solder with lead-free, and that it is terrible, and that joints look dull. So much hatred that I actually tried it out. And I found the process is basically just the same and there is nothing to be afraid of. Just set the solder iron temperature a bit higher and that's it. Works like a charm.

My note was not at all about lead-free hate, actually, since several years, everyone in EU (and I believe in US as well) has been using lead-free solder (ROHS is 2003, if I recall correctly).

As you say it is just a matter of slightly increasing the soldering iron temperature, but it doesn't end there and there may be issues further on (JFYI):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy)

It seems like lead-free alloys tend to be more problematic in these - fortunately rare - cases.

But because it is more than 15 years that ROHS came in force, I read in 2019 "and I made it lead-free" like I would read "and I buckled my safety belt" or "I put my helmet on", etc. I see it as "the normal" way, nothing worth a mention (nowadays).

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#96

Post by thrtythreeforty »

zyngaro wrote: post #86

The author: did you think about creating a course on embedded hardware and software design and launch a funding campaign on Kickstarter. I would definitely help fund it.

I have thought about it and I am writing one entitled "Mastering Embedded Linux." Its goal is to take you from zero to expert with hacking embedded Linux systems.

https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/08/mastering-emb...

Hopefully the next installment will come out today. The holidays are letting me catch up on writing.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#98

Post by axegon_ »

I rarely keep business carts, typically I scan them with my phone and throw them away but... If I hadn't read the article and someone handed me that business card, my jaw would have dropped all the way to the other side of the earth.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#99

Post by jaclaz »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #93
jaclaz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is appropriate as a business card for an embedded systems engineers, not so much for a system security one! More seriously, I never managed to understand the "obsession" with ROHS (this here is just an example): >I made sure to have a lead-free process—the boards, parts, and solder paste are all RoHS—so that I wouldn't feel bad about giving them to people. I mean, you are creating something that (besides bei…

This is true, but given that I'm creating it, why _not_ use a lead-free process, especially given that lead is known to be very soft and toxic?

Hey you are the one that made that nice card!

Good to see you here, congratulations for your idea and creation.

I replied to that in another post, ROHS is 15 years old or more and most available parts and solders are ROHS compliant, I believe you would have had a tough time to intentionally make something that was entirely non-ROHS compliant.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#100

Post by thrtythreeforty »

jimhi wrote: post #2

I am astonished just reading this, what have been some reactions handing these out?

Author here. It's a really good conversation starter. I've given a couple of them out and the reaction is always that I bought it somewhere, and I have to explain that no, I really did the entire design from start to finish!
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