As of 02024, #Rust’s assert!, assert_eq!, etc., are checked in release builds as well as debug builds; there’s a separate debug_assert for when you don’t want that.
Dhasharath Shrivathsa: Software Engineer · Distributed Systems · Startups
#ebook #PDF on #USSR computer #history, A Chip in the Curtain, by David A. Wellman. Public domain I think. Not a great scan
The grading-pottery-by-weight parable was sort of true but actually the class was a photography class; James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) asked Ted Orland, who wrote Art & Fear (where the parable first appeared in print) and divulged the real story in email. The class was by James Uelsmann at the University of Florida.
In 02021, #Moonchild and Matt A. Tobin used the MPL’s revocation provisions to shut down a port of #Palemoon to Microsoft Windows by Feodor2.
#Zeynep wrote an NYT piece warning about the #hantavirus outbreak a few weeks ago, which now seems to be under control. #news
#Styropyro #video blowing up all kinds of stuff with 400 car batteries, and running into kink instabilities in solid copper. Longish, a few seconds under two hours.
#EEVblog #video about a #TI NE5532 (but not NE5534) revision that sounds like TI stopped caring about quality. They cut the absolute maximum voltage from ±22V to ±18V and cut the slew rate in half from 9V/μs to 5V/μs, and also entirely dropped the specs for things like crosstalk. Dave also says they’ve changed the frontend topology from npn differential pairs to pnp differential pairs, which seems like it could affect a lot of things like the common-mode range and the sign of the input bias current. It’s probably among TI’s top 20 sold op-amps. It’s like a supply-chain counterfeiting problem, except it was launched by TI against their own customers! Whenever you order TI NE5532s you won’t know if you’re getting the old higher-quality parts or the new parts that may blow up on ±20V rails.
#CNLohr has new #CH32V006 porn on his channel, featuring its supposedly 1.7Msps ADC in a TDR use case. Apparently its DMA can schedule future I/Os, apparently even to memory-mapped I/O addresses, and you can control the timing of ADC samples to within a single 48MHz CPU clock cycle, although you can’t sample at 48Msps. The ADC is astonishingly clear, especially when he uses an external quartz crystal to get more precise sample times; the code works on the #CH32V003 ADC but has worse precision, but the ’006 has a problem lacking on the ’003 — a discontinuity in the count at multiples of 512 (large DNL?). Oh and apparently UIAPduino SBCs powered by a CH32V006 are available for ¥290 in Tokyo vending machines? Which also sell Raspberry Pi Pico 2s for ¥1060‽ And, holy shit, he can actually very clearly visualize the reflections back and forth from a roll of coax cable with the opposite end open-circuited. He plots it with debug printfs and his "dyngraph" program. #video #microcontrollers #electronics #hardware
#CNLohr’s program #dyngraph using #rawdraw for visualizing real-time waveforms reported by #microcontrollers. #electronics
#PDF #FCC “Notice of Unlicensed Operation” on a #ham #radio band, addressed to a Jack Gerritsen, responding to “multiple complaints from licensees in the amateur radio service concerning an unlicensed radio station operating on 146.415 MHz in Los Angeles, #California and causing harmful interference to licensed operators in the amateur radio bands.” I’m curious whether there’s a public list of all of these? #communications #RF
Blog of #FCC enforcement actions, including the Jack Gerritsen Notice of Unlicensed Operation, which seems to be the only NOUO they’ve issued since April 1, when they issued another one. Also they issued three NIPRBs in April (“pirate radio” notices, similar to NOUOs), but two of them seem to have been about two #radio stations in Jamaica, New York, on 90.1MHz and 91.9MHz. #communications #RF #law
#PDF of one of the three “notices of illegal pirate radio broadcasting” (NIPRBs) the #FCC issued in April. #communications #RF #law #radio
#PDF of the #FCC’s penultimate NOUO (“notice of unlicensed operation”), from April 1, to Conifer Communications: “The San Francisco Office of the Federal Communications Commission’s (Commission’s) Enforcement Bureau has received a complaint of an unlicensed radio station operating on frequency 10.915 GHz located in Moccasin Peak, California. On September 24, 2025, Agents from San Francisco Office confirmed during an on-scene investigation that Conifer Communications was transmitting on 10.915 GHz from Moccasin Peak, California, with a license that had expired on February 12, 2024, and was not renewed.” #communications #RF #radio #law
#PDF of the #FCC’s antepenultimate NOUO from March 25. This one is quite a bit spicier than the Jack Gerritsen and Conifer Communications ones: “The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) received a complaint from Allegheny County Pennsylvania Emergency Services (Allegheny County) concerning interference to its 911 emergency communications channel operating on 470.4375 MHz in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On July 30, 2025, Agents from the Columbia Office of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau (Agents) conducted an investigation and determined, using direction finding techniques, that the source of the interference to the Allegheny County system was a signal emanating from the residence of David O. Knudtson (Knudtson), licensee of amateur radio station KD3ASC. After the Agents notified Knudtson of the interference issue, he produced a handheld radio (identified as a BTech UV-Pro). An examination of the radio determined that it had been modified to monitor the Allegheny County channel, and its “Audio Relay” feature had been activated. This feature turned Knudtson’s radio into a simplex repeater that was retransmitting the Allegheny County channel. Knudtson surrendered the radio to the Agents. Subsequently, the Agents verified that the interference to the Allegheny County system had ceased.” #communications #RF #radio #law