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wejn

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Svalboard is the next generation Datahand.

In other words, a keyboard with zero hand movement, optical switches, and mostly querty layout (or Dvorak, Colemak, if you want it).

Unlike DataHand, it’s available, hackable, and the finger positioning is more fine grained.

Hmm, that's an interesting point.

I would encourage them [= someone who only spent a couple of hours on Unix] to dig further... broader. Mostly by demonstrating that there are real world problems for which Unix is better suited than competition.

IMO in Urbit -- there was not much more to explore after the few hours. Short of digging even further into the guts of it... and that was very unappealing.

Other people here in the comments mentioned that there's no killer app for Urbit. So my intuition was probably correct [to stop digging].

Interesting. I thought that I was tearing down the fact they took the brilliant new idea, and bastardized it beyond recognition, and in multiple ways.

I loved the promise of Urbit, and was disappointed by the execution.

Thank you for the compliment.

I can wholeheartedly recommend starting. Just about anywhere, really.

I'm a total noob when compared with real electronics engineers... but it doesn't stop me from trying things out. [it helps that I have extensive IT experience, tho]

And it all gets easier with time, as long as you're willing to get your hands dirty.

And if you want a few pointers, then EEVBlog (on YT), hackaday and adafruit are all fantastic places to help you get started with tinkering.

And if you want to start on a budget, then get a few basic things from china. Or -- the "elegoo" arduino kit (that I got on Amazon for ~$40 a while ago) has plenty of projects to tinker with. And if you go through all of them, you will have plenty of experience under your belt... and it will sort of rub off on you. :-)

If I were in your shoes (and I often am, in various other contexts), I'd get the cheapest SDR dongle, and then use your favorite search engine for tutorials (there's plenty).

First two hits for "how to get started with sdr" on duckduckgo give you awesome starting points: - https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-quick-start-guide/ - https://hackaday.com/2012/06/27/getting-started-with-softwar...

From there, figure out what device you're going to target. The 434 MHz devices are quite ubiquitous (and easy to understand) -- door bells, old school thermometers, remote switches, what have you.

Even without your own device, I'm sure you will find plenty of traffic near you (if you live in a reasonably densely populated area), so you can at least practice.

And then it's down to grinding it out -- read docs, experiment, repeat. :-)

HTH.

That’s a good way of looking at it.

And yes, it is one of the unvoiced assumptions: as long as I heard two devices speaking, I can’t be breaking any EULAs or what not. Decompiling something would be another kettle of fish entirely.

Not to mention that often times apps (even Java/Android apps) are obfuscated, which might make the reversing much harder (than sniffing traffic).

I like this reasonably paced expose of "cool".

Because I take some words for their implicit meaning, I had immediate disagreement in mind when I started reading. Because in my mind "cool" was more akin to "interesting/exciting".

So it's nice to see it properly defined (and put in proper context). And I like the "grace under pressure" as a close cousin.

What I'd say, though, is that while this article might very much reflect the US experience, other places (e.g. Europe) might be at a different spot on the curve.

I'd go as far as to say that "cool" ain't dead yet (in Europe), even if without supporting evidence. :-)

Btw, yes, I can find many examples of the "someone lighting a cigarette with a Zippo, imagine someone who pays no lip service to being health-conscious, imagine someone who keeps a low profile and an ironic knowing distance from the world and has zero interest in sharing their life via social media" in my social network. Most of those folks might be a bit further along than in their teens, but they do exist.