hp Instant Ink Tehpwnzriation

So I’ve known about the HP Instant Ink program for a while and I always hated it. Basically it gives you DRM encumbered ink cartridges as a service, which HP can disable at any time… Yeah uh… No thanks

This requires the printer and/or drivers to phone home to hp all the time, I never really thought of the mechanics of this until I saw someone post this response from Fiorina-Shenzhen, I mean, “hp” support ….

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I don’t even have words to describe how terrible an idea this is and how terrible their product design is if it requires this. And yes… I’m sure that firmware can be exploited rotten for entry and lateral movement upon your network once you fucking DMZ your goddamn inkstortion device. Have I said fuck enough times? No. Fuck this actual shit!!!

Picture somehow related, I’m sure

Oh hi there

Mutual boop!!

Choco-Derp

A wonderful “The Emperor’s New Groove” meme that Facezuck banned as spam

I’m sure there’s a way that these are installed to the grounding system normally. This certainly is a way. I’m not sure if it’s a good one, but it’s certainly a way.

pelicans are just entirely illogical
No, it doesn’t work
My advice on how to program one of these drives: ensure that programming one of these drives is a task scheduled for when you’re vacationing entirely off grid in another state
One of these days I’ll figure out how to change the vertical scale on this thing. It’s easy on the FSH3, highly… elusive… on the FSL… Though it will automatically change when you switch to OBW measurement… ??

I dunno… 73 and good night. Just felt like posting nonsense.

visualizing data, irritatingly

Which looks sillier to an uninitiated observer, the results of this butt-dial Google search or my mess of a DMR radio codeplug?

In other news, buzzard puke alert! Changing the “Radio IP Address” field in Motorola TRBO CPS is not how you change the repeater’s Ethernet IP, it’s just how you get it to throw blank error messages with no explanation. Well that’s a solid block of fnord.

You just broadcasted cringe!

Yesterday I noticed while at the hall of suds that CNN was kinda awkwardly taking someone else’s network feed from the CPAC conference* to air leading to a kinda Dueling Chyrons situation.

Given a little more thought, I don’t blame them, would YOU want to attend that crap? I’m pretty sure among other things it’s an absolutely guaranteed COVID-19 superspreader event, but then it’s… just ew.

* pure uncut cringe.

Anyway let’s just continue shitposting things

Meow

Can you just lob these filthy things in the wash? I wish.

Nice

Nice

grumble grumble blower vfd not configured to automatically ride through and restart after power glitch grumble

Brand HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Oh, I have such a love-hate relationship with some manufacturers.

Now… I had previously made a vague shitpost while working on a Harris Apex A2X exciter. This would have dated back to, well, when they were Harris Broadcast before the spinoff that left them independent as GatesAir, with another division becoming Imagine Communications

Imagine Communications…. Because they aren’t necessarily ever going to work outside of your vivid imagination

Anyway let’s just get right into YELLING IN BROADCAST ENGINEER. First stop: The Apex M2X oscillator board.

Frequency stability is vital to generating a good solid digital TV broadcast signal. The Apex M2X features a disciplined OCXO (Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator) with several options as to how to ensure proper longterm calibration – it has a GPS receiver, 10 Mhz external reference, and 1 PPS external reference options provided. More on OCXO references here (this describing a more basic, free-running one, without sync inputs). However, the OCXO itself is, uhhhhhhhhhhhh


uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

h.

 

hhhhhhhhhhhhh

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

WHAT DID YOU DO HERE

WHAT IS THIS

WHAT IS ANY OF THIS

WHY

YOU GUYS JUST GLUED A BLOB OF PACKING FOAM OVER THE OSCILLATOR AND A LINEAR VOLTAGE REGULATOR WHY DID YOU DO THIS

LOOK AT THAT BULGING CAPACITOR OF HAPPINESS ALL UP IN THERE OH BABY

I wanted to peel this crap off but I was fairly confident that if this is anything like the antistatic foam that ICs used to come packed in, it may have broken down and corroded parts under it and I’d be faced with irreplaceable parts that went out of availability two years before they sold this exciter crumbling to dust. So I left it alone. It only has to last about another year, if even that. I hope. Did I mention HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH? Because HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So. Let’s move on to the power side.
The power supply is along the left wall of the exciter. On GatesAir’s admission, the power supply pretty much expires and becomes a ticking time bomb after 5 years – power it off and it will never ever start back up again.

But that’s unrelated to, uhhhhh, The Internal UPS Thing Of WEIRDNESS

For unknown reasons they felt the need to give the unit battery backup. It does not fully power it, like, the RF output disappears once it’s on battery. I think all it does is keep the controller with the RTAC data* in memory alive, and keep it from having to entirely run through the several minutes long boot process following a momentary power glitch.

It is, however, FUCKING RIDICULOUS.

On later versions it uses a lithium ion battery which consists of three 18650 cells, but rated at only 1.5 amp hour, which suggests… some 18650s of hilariously low quality. Behind the board is a charging / BMS circuit that steps the battery voltage up to 12V to keep the exciter powered. On earlier versions, they went through all the trouble of building this elaborate charger/step-up board, similarly…..
And then, waaaait for it—–

 


Ok, take a good look at this, and prepare yourself for the description of what you’re actually looking at: someone… went through the trouble of getting a spot welder in house and welding tabs to unmatched dumpshit tier** Energizer retail packed NiMH cells.

Because, uh, only the finest with Brand HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Picture…….. related.

There is another memory backup battery, but I’m guessing that’s mostly just for the realtime clock.

* Sorry, I am not currently in a sufficiently coherent mental state to describe what RTAC does, other than that it is Fucking Magic and if the Fucking Magic doesn’t work, the signal comes out on air as distorted non-decodable dog turd
** only slightly better than Duracell

The Holy HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Grenade

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Every now and then the gate operator at my apartment complex either leaves the gate open forever or opens like eight inches and dies so I have to get out and shove it open. This explains why.

Also, hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

* just imagine an angy possum hiss

Shitpost #3141592

In honor of whoever the holder of mysterious Dogecoin whale account is having made deposits of 420, 69, 420.69, and 3.141592 coins just to show off. (who the hell are you?)

Today I found out this mysterious BK Dynascan component tester/curve tracer was also sold as the Polar T-1000 or T-1200 so I finally have a manual! Woo.

And with the posting of Milkwalker, I dedicate the rest of this to shitposts and random memes.

Read more “Shitpost #3141592”

You wanted actual pixels? (Panasonic BT-S901YN)

Well, if you look up the brochure for this thing they say up to 300 lines resolution…

Thing’s so fuzzy when I first plugged it in I thought it needed a focus adjustment. No… It just needs…… actual resolution.

Seriously, what were you thinking, Panasonic? I’ve got dank memes with more pixels than this.

How many people came away from using these monitors with a lifetime of eyestrain?