ComPhys @comphys@qoto.org

@coldwave It's a bit old now so, some things might have changed, but this tutorial is excellent https://python-packaging.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

@Lwasserman I used to do voluntary tech support for Firefox on the forums. 95% of the time this happened it was because of extensions or weird setting mods rather than Firefox itself. I recommend you run the FF profile manager, make a clean profile, don't install any extensions and see whether the problem persists.

I haven't written a blog post for a long time. Although I'm aware that I never posted the magnetostatic solutions, my next post is going to be a bit different to all my previous ones. I'm going to introduce conformal mapping with a very simple example, then demonstrate finding the characteristic impedance of a coaxial cable where the inner and outer conductors aren't concentric. I've done the maths and written about half of it :)

What is everybody's view of the FCC project?

The opinions on YC seemed pretty critical in general. While I see some validity to the point that it's a shot in the dark, I also think that shots in the dark might be the best way to go. We know there are problems with our current model of the universe and aren't sure how to resolve them, maybe it'll give us some direction. The final price tag €21B sounds like a lot, but that is spread over a number of years and across multiple governments. Finally, if we don't fund a large project now, then 50 years into the future when we need a big collider for something specific we won't have the skills or expertise to build one. To me, that seems like reason enough to build something.

@freemo No flex, I'm not really into calligraphy although I certainly wish I had beautiful handwriting. With that said, I love my pen. It's so smooth, I don't have to apply even a touch of pressure. Works well for maths, which in was originally concerned about. Being able to try different inks has made writing a bit more interesting & I've enjoyed it. I've also got a few J. Herbin rollerball pens. They take standard cartridges and are cheap enough to have a few for different colours.

@freemo I use a Faber Castell e-motion fountain pen and my wife has a pen from Beaufort which is also very nice. Currently using pelikan brilliant black ink, which I'm very happy with. Originally I bought it so that I could stop throwing away plastic bics every month, but now I love it and would never go back.

@design_RG Casio, ZR1000, the docs just say "USB AV"... I've found some eBay items which say the same thing as you .

@design_RG afraid not, I've had the whole cable drawer out!

@freemo apparently it is a non-standard port by Casio. But it seems you can get them https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CASIO-EXILIM-EX-ZR1000-DIGITAL-CAMERA-USB-CABLE-BATTERY-CHARGER-/254591417490

@marwe Ah, it's my wife's and I've never bought a camera so i had no idea the ports wouldn't be standard :') Thanks for the info.

Does anybody know the name of this type of usb connector? (Not the HDMI)

@freemo @lupyuen I'm in a funny situation. In my work we use classical EM to make detectors/pickups and kicker magnets etc, but these can be at very low frequencies. For example a couple of years ago, I found an unwanted resonance on a kicker magnet at 6MHz. The PCB I mentioned to you was for phase matching signals from a bunched particle beam at 200 MHz. At very low frequencies (~100 kHz) fields leak through conductors, which can also a potential concern for me. It feels a world away from typical modern RF/electrical engineering, but clearly there is overlap. I'm always interested to read your EE posts :)

@freemo thanks, I'll check it out. Ultimately I'm going to put this into a grounded box with sma connectors on the front, so I'm inevitably going to have them connected somewhere.

@freemo It worked out okay. I struggled to keep my RF and power grounds separate, and I learned about stitching capacitors. I made a board with a 16-way splitter and a variable phase shifter on each output. Went 6 layer PWR,GND,Input,Output,GND,PWRGND. The input and output will both resemble microstrips with their adjacent GND planes.

@EVoCeO @design_RG PyCharm is great, but perhaps not easy to use. It is built from the ground up with things like virtual environments and reproducible builds in mind. If you're just getting started, I can see that being somewhat overwhelming. I would personally suggest that something like spyder might be better, for somebody getting started. It also has syntax highlighting and code completion, but will just use your default python installation and pip installs. I would also suggest that you go back to pycharm when you're thinking of starting your first serious project.

@freemo I'm learning to make multilayer PCBs with KiCAD. Never used PCB software before. Seems like I'm going to need to start making some footprints.

@freemo I'm usually an open source fan, but nothing comes close to sublime text. It is similar to atom, but its a native application and so speedy; you'll never want to touch an electron editor again.

@freemo @M0YNG Indeed, so I suppose the original post was valid. Even in academic environments I hear people say "books? I don't use books I use google" it's something that concerns me, so I suppose I jumped to make it about that.

@freemo @M0YNG Papers are generally expensive if you aren't at an academic institute and they are also not a great place to learn a new topic. I often find technical information on places like wikipedia either totally inaccessible or so simple its unusable.

Honestly I don't think I've seen anything that comes close to replacing a good textbook. The information is probably all there on the internet, but not nearly as accessible or curated.