Patch Arcana

[He/Him] Hacker | Writer | 無☸️ | Junkyard Dog | Syncretic Vitromancer at
@ArcanaLabs@twitter.com | This account not rated for consumption by minors or managers.

I like making things and witnessing other people make things. Myself I do #EmbeddedDev and #Programming alongside a fair amount of writing and TTRPG design. Dipping my toes into pixel art and eurorack modular synthesis.

I am actively trying to curate a feed of people who make things, build worlds, and spread peace.

portfolio site: https://www.arcanalabs.ca
books: https://www.sanityline.net
Ko-Fi: https://www.ko-fi.com/ArcLabs
everything else: https://www.zadammac.ca

Public Key

npub1vnzk9s963d898c0uzqgnz3zwdwasc2cxkktt6y5f6rrh08qk0hlqzvj9ar

NIP-05 Address

patcharcana_at_furry.engineer@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxf3tzczagknjnu87pqyf3g38xhwcv9vrtt94az2yap3mhnst8mls9sml7z

Author Public Key

npub1vnzk9s963d898c0uzqgnz3zwdwasc2cxkktt6y5f6rrh08qk0hlqzvj9ar

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Last Notes

2024-08-29 16:06:26

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Alright, that's a fair point.
I should have said "memory safety in single-purpose systems like Dumbass Embedded Toys" couldn't matter less.
Memory safety in someone's gigapet clone? Pointless posturing.
Obviously reliability and security is much more of a concern in, as you say, health appliances. Or keyboard microcontrollers.
Topic with *nuance* for sure.

2024-08-29 16:00:45

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To add: memory safety in single-purpose systems COULDN'T MATTER LESS.
"I could get arbitrary code execution on your little embedded thing!"
"Go for it, be sure to do a cool blog post of it, I'll signal boost it with you."

2024-08-20 15:54:12

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That looks really sharp, makes me realize just how horrid the routing on my dev boards is.

2024-08-17 23:46:37

"Yeah but girls get makeup. If you're ugly you're fucked, dude."
Skill issue.

2024-07-22 01:31:02

I may have just solved my issue in software. Which is a deeply "Patch Arcana" way to address a hardware problem.
"Can't figure out where you're getting phantom extra keystrokes per row? Fuck it, debounce based on rows now. When are you ever going to deliberately press two keys on the same row within 25 ms of each other anyway!?"

2024-07-22 00:19:35

I've hit the "read the documentation for the firmware" portion of running down the hardware issues in my handwired keyboard.

2024-07-21 18:26:50

... I take one goddamn nap

2024-07-16 01:54:31

Why, in the fuck, do I know or care which horse's ass sits at the resolute desk?
... Why do I know it's called the resolute desk?

2024-06-04 16:21:27

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If you can't see indra's net for what it is, that's a skill issue, sis.
(I kid, but not really. Perceiving reality accurately is a skill; and most people's score in it is lower than they'd be comfortable knowing)

2024-06-04 16:19:46

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There is a skills gap in the techboi space where very few people actually understand the consequences of information disclosure.
You don't control a system you don't touch, and you don't disclose to PEOPLE unless you're having a face-to-face conversation; you disclose to systems.

2024-05-21 19:11:53

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Sci/Tech category on Twitch, though I'm sure someone else is going to follow up and preach a federated alternative.

2024-05-20 20:43:10

Is anyone aware of a portable word processor that's NOT the flippin' freewrite?!

2024-05-17 15:00:43

The point of writing safety regulations in blood is to run out of blood to write them in.

2024-05-15 23:27:41

I might have under-estimated how much I'm going to want to have the ability to do drums with my synth.
I wonder where I can fit a drum machine around here....

2024-05-14 20:32:12

I was thinking of ways to reduce the dopamine-farming problem on a phone, and something I came up with was the idea of a phone that isn't fully online. It has the ability to run web-facing applications and to be a phone, but to do the former it has to be within a geofenced area - originally, I was thinking like "on its special mat".
HotSync. I was envisioning PalmOS's old HotSync feature.

2024-05-14 20:25:32

If you had like, a really fine router, like a dremel-bit router, and a steady hand...
Could you make a wooden-substrate PCB?

2024-05-14 20:20:58

Just realized that my salty afternoon was me refusing to directly process that I - a senior engineer - can't even get a laptop financed, much less afford one outright.
(Do I need a second personal computer? no. But it would occasionally be nice to take my ideas somewhere else to work on.)

2024-04-21 17:56:00

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Anyway there's gonna eventually be a blog post about this, but yeah, sometime in the near-ish future, over the next few months, anyway, I'm going to publish my first *finished* RPG ruleset for y'all.

2024-04-21 17:53:35

Huh.
I wrote a whole RPG ruleset in a week. The trick, as it turns out, was not trying to make a Universal Ruleset.

2024-04-16 17:30:15

While I'm complaining about office software behaviour, "send this email during your colleagues' work day" is also a useless feature.
Email is by definition non-urgent, 2-3 business day communication. There is no good reason to wait for a special window to send it.

2024-04-15 19:50:36

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That's servicable, and I'm impressed.
Though I do have to wonder how long that'd take; I bet having to stop to do it would be a significant setback to your day.

2024-04-15 19:48:07

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Yeah, and even the skillset needed to make fairly simple "traditional" shoes if you could somehow access the processed materials is a trade and a half in itself.

2024-04-15 19:45:35

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The secret learnings for me of the last decade of turning my "I should learn to do X" impulses into actually learning the damn thing is that everything, literally everything, is far more complicated and involved than anyone thinks it is.
Folks out there reckon they'll be okay with some spare parts and canned goods in the basement, and will be in for a huge shock the first time they wear out a shoe.

2024-04-15 19:44:20

Huh. TIL that in the past, making barley malt and making the things you make from barley malt were two different professions.
You'd have a malthouse that supplied their client breweries or distilleries.
Neat.