zool

research engineer, occasional crafter, open source hardware interest, fitness teaching, pickled radish stan

pronoun.is/404

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npub1s9dw0fmy2j6x8nsjvckjcuv464720mrmqk2lu0dzj0p8lxg28d2qwvzur5

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ultrazool_at_mastodon.scot@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqsgzkh85aj9fdrrecfxvtfvwx2a2l98a3ast9078k3f8snlny9rk4qpp4mhxue69uhhjctzw5hx6egpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfdu84t8dt

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relay.damus.io

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Last Notes

2025-11-24 05:35:24 UTC

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Now Cycling UK say "we’re considering new ways to champion diversity and inclusivity in cycling."
The result of this is the erasure of all women by erasing trans women. Stuffing the news coverage with diminishing word choices like "biological". Making sure the controversy surfaces in search results before the campaigns do.
Burning out activists who are doing a lot (which I'm not, only using my nerd skills to support people who are). Burning goodwill between people working for a better world

2025-11-24 05:28:55 UTC

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A decision like this isn't taken in a vacuum. One assumes a cycling charity would only seek legal advice about the terms of their arbitrary award if someone had threatened them with legal action first.
They ran a big campaign on womens' safety, cycling at night, coordinated mass rides, lots of local news coverage. Cited @npub1qlw…e5jh as a leading inspiration. Maybe the buildup to, and the coverage around that, helped put them on the radar of well-funded gender-crits in the habit of legal action

2025-11-24 05:02:49 UTC

Plans are well afoot now for Edinburgh's trans solidarity bike ride, involves a few women-led groups, on Dec 14th - parallel to this one in Bristol, but including a shorter/flatter option https://www.komoot.com/collection/3981455/-solidarity-ride-10am-14-december
Past the "burst of productivity" phase into the "wrangling over statements" now. Trying to tune down any sense of attack on Cycling UK, because you want it to be a positive, supporting event. But also aiming to avoid toxic positivity, you want to be able to tell people they're wrong

2025-08-20 18:45:37 UTC

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yes, i appreciate the splurge thankyou!
C&C you know Rob, i don't know what handle they go by in the hacklab, we are colleagues tho haven't had the chance to work directly together. They love to make bird recordings, and hope to trial a build-a-birdbox workshop and take it to EMF.
I'm hoping my small fund can support that, we'd need to get some ecologists along, but could keep it small and friendly
Meetup in the lab soonish to discuss?

2025-08-20 16:20:17 UTC

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the sample files i've been issued have GUANO metadata saying they come from here https://www.pippyg.com/pipistrelleprev.html which looks wonderful but is all in a "non-commercial" grey area, no schematics, future development now in these hands https://www.apodemus.eu/nl
of course @npub1eg6…a5fm has experimented with one https://mastodon.me.uk/@libbymiller/114870236050202877
goodness i have a lot to learn quite quickly rn

2025-08-20 14:08:05 UTC

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rotfl these are wonderful! Now how does one squeeze all this onto it:
https://circuithub.com/projects/OpenAcoustics/AudioMoth (requires registration, frustratingly!)
(Don't really tell me, i would love to understand how to do it properly for myself :))

2025-08-20 10:55:53 UTC

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bat-shaped PCB definitely, how can we get funding for this

2025-08-19 19:12:53 UTC

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i'll hold you responsible for the naming scheme if this works, and @npub1eg6…a5fm please consider becoming a "stakeholder" :)

2025-08-19 19:08:41 UTC

I'm sure the PI will agree to rename the bat call data syndication project "BatSync" after seeing this naturally occurring promotional trailer
#BatSync
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/115/056/988/275/507/502/original/61f1d49aaf7446a6.mp4

2025-07-27 16:42:50 UTC

Synthercise, the chiptune dance fitness experience, is on for @npub1ux8…hm28 !
This is a beginner-friendly dance and exercise session, runs early Saturday afternoon in the Party Area.
Think "Zumba, but with chiptunes" or "live action Just Dance" - open licenced, designed for @npub1fak…rg6c last year, has some new tracks added for WHY 2025.
Wear comfortable clothes and drink water. You don't need to think of yourself as fit to enjoy dance fitness :)
#synthercise
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/114/926/143/075/608/159/original/57b32d7df63cf01e.mp4

2025-05-12 17:58:12 UTC

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there's a universe of terrible ideas inherent in this line of thinking, telling myself i'm better off doing yoga, dancing, etc

2025-05-11 21:36:41 UTC

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not saying i ever liked the applications, part of the endgame of revolting tech, but still, please send links, Barry

2025-05-11 20:45:24 UTC

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this wee thing, it was a bought board, has USB power supply and an adapter for 3.5mm audio jack, three wires to connect to electrodes on each temple and one on your neck. all i ever did with it was record my brainwaves to a wav file, plot them with matplotlib and think "that's interesting"
the idea was an attention management feedback loop for all sorts of things. don't go too easy, don't go too deep. pick out anomalies and reflect on them, but not too much
the pack even has spare electrodes
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/114/491/121/545/875/489/original/2778e5362a283fbd.jpg

2025-05-11 20:01:24 UTC

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learned today from a mutual acquaintance that the person who helped me design and prototype this electrode kit is now dead.
we'd formed a closer friendship during lockdown then had a nasty falling out, one in a pattern of many for them, that was briefly terror-inducing for me
they had a repeated MO of trying to drive women off the edge while claiming to be there to hold them. perhaps you can imagine how it backfired, trying that trick on me
fuck! thought they'd just gone to ground. RIP

2025-05-11 19:45:08 UTC

11th of #mayke a fayled attempt (so far) to get a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor reading out values to an Adafruit Feather M0.
don't specially care for data about temperature and humidity but this was an early exercise on day 2 of the field electronics course that my work runs
https://mastodon.scot/@ultrazool/114187991015676014
So many things could be wrong, my wiring, the sensor, the breadboard itself? Made an LED flash differently, the wee circuit board is ok. Distracted myself with art installations instead
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/114/490/905/676/363/363/original/c8a3f4a8d0e61981.jpg

2025-04-01 17:45:00 UTC

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with some design help i made the electrode half, got as far as recording my brainwaves, plotting them in matplotlib and talking about the aims (attention tracker evasion/compliance), then more than one person tagged in qdot, the @npub1c0p…at59 guy
started thinking through the why, sketched out half a dozen applications, then deleted the project repository in horror, stuffed the kit back in the bubblewrap envelope where it belongs
the affective touch applications make me think it was benign

2025-04-01 17:36:39 UTC

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i don't want think i'm intrinsically bleak! who doesn't want to be a childlike, carefree soul? but i've spent half my time on this planet staring bleakness in the face.
had an art concept once for a lockdown CfP, which thankfully wasn't funded. the call was for critical responses to Zoom culture. the concept was a set of electrodes linked to a small piezo shocker. your brainwaves raise above, or sink below, a threshold of lightly maintained attention and shock!
it got halfway to prototype

2025-04-01 17:26:58 UTC

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went out to Les Mills Shapes for the small-muscle-group equivalent of a deliberately bad time and even that hasn't helped
don't want to have a deliberately bad time, or cause anyone else to have one.
understand that there are people who do, that their drives are empowered by people in power. the products of the reactive textile line of invention are full of horror. it's enough to make you want to stay where we are
don't know where to safely articulate this. a CW is just a gesture

2025-04-01 15:08:20 UTC

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definitely time to stop thinking for the day

2025-04-01 15:04:10 UTC

more reservations than mixed feelings about this "library of affective touches in soft robotics" workshop at the Open Hardware Summit
https://mastodon.social/@oshwassociation/114263149331309995
v. interesting work. perhaps being generally touch-averse (except in highly selective circumstances) makes the anti-human applications clearer for me. coercion, conditioning, imprisonment, passive training, unpleasant forms of teledildonics, worse. spasm of ick-induced clicks just attempting not to think through it. am i warped in this?

2024-12-18 07:16:09 UTC

Last night's @npub1rtx…w6hk meetup featured a surprising amount of knitting machine hacking!
The recent adventures of @npub1urh…hamz and @npub18vp…pwxu include persuading a robot arm to knit a scarf for itself
https://pointinthecloud.com/2024/12/15/empisal-knitmaster-hacking/
the sentence 'I rather like the accidental "glitch art" scarf the robot knitted for itself!' is going to take some exceeding

2024-12-12 17:44:47 UTC

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were you involved in the Mathematics for Rewilding seminars? I've passed your toot along to an Edinburgh-based colleague who was, and contributed to the paper, there's probably alignment

2024-11-28 13:17:11 UTC

just had a test ride of an e-assist cargo bike with trailer, having offered to haul the soundsystem on tomorrow night's @npub1qlw…e5jh ride
the first few seconds of getting back on the Brompton felt like so much effort, had to check what gear i was in.
amazing. hope i don't end up becoming one of Those E-Bike People

2024-10-19 14:49:55 UTC

#Siwa #soundscape #audiofoto of a plaintive song, a solo singer, playing from a speaker in the covered porch of a scrap merchant on the main road, interspersed with the rumble of trucks passing by
recorded while wandering to the bank for cash, in case of the likely event they run out for the weekend - inflation is heady - intended to complete negotiations for the gaudiest, blingiest imaginable ceremonial blanket in the souk, really a wild object. the interesting tea only added to its effect
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/113/334/606/428/291/708/original/e3fd6af5a72c4de4.mp3

2024-09-13 04:40:53 UTC

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also @npub1urh…hamz and @npub1dqf…sy9k
there's not loads of hacklab crossover on here but there's a very active Discord - https://discord.com/invite/ZkURV7epnh

2024-09-08 15:47:40 UTC

mushroom composition #LichenSubscribe
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/113/102/707/726/545/218/original/3567a723859ffc3a.jpg

2024-08-27 20:16:50 UTC

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:) i've already handed it over to the kid, who was very pleased, rolling it a hundred times and sending a hundred text messages with the outcome might be the sort of thing he'd do though

2024-08-27 18:25:41 UTC

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the electro-dice, it lives!
resoldered the diodes and Costa showed me some visual debugging technique, found a place where the two pins of a transistor were joined by a bit of solder
proof that it rolls a 3 @npub14su…09w8 :)
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/113/035/377/432/150/374/original/09375920fadb059c.mp4

2024-08-25 18:12:09 UTC

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i would have to refer you to @npub14su…09w8 for that! in short, there was an inkjet printer whose reusable cartridges had been refilled with the sublimation ink. the design was printed out backwards and pressed on the PCB like a transfer, with a _relatively_ affordable home heat press. There was an option to directly paint with the ink, backwards onto the transfer sheet, which i'd take if i ever did this process again!

2024-08-25 16:04:24 UTC

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it felt like jewellery-making, the process of bending and assembling the components and precisely soldering everything together
definitely want to see that "craft magazine in the style of an electronics magazine and vice versa" cultural mashup prompted by @npub1urh…hamz now ...

2024-08-25 16:00:27 UTC

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All the schematics and parts listings and the template for drawing on are here https://rc2014.co.uk/OSHCamp2024/
thank you again @npub14su…09w8 for running such an approachable workshop for those of us at early stages of an open source hardware journey :)

2024-08-25 03:23:40 UTC

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really hoping to find a space in your workshop, my kid would get a kick out of being presented with a custom-printed Rubiks-themed electronic dice thing :)

2024-08-15 12:29:32 UTC

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who do i know apart from @npub1eg6…a5fm and maybe @npub1ppu…54uj doing hackspace-adjacent things with LoRa, cf recent posts on https://planb.nicecupoftea.org/
on the open hardware tack for every kind of environmental sensing... i remember the Flood Network having a strong offering years ago, but they've closed down... https://flood.network/

2024-08-15 12:10:32 UTC

keep getting recommendations to apply to the @npub1h6c…ymfw SSI Fellowship programme
the remit is heavy on communications and organising, you get issued a £4K fund, mainly meant to cover workshop and event organising and attendance costs https://www.software.ac.uk/programmes/fellowship-programme/apply-fellowship-programme
could do a lot worse than have a sustained think about what i'd do with an SSI Fellowship, probably make for useful material even without pursuing one...

2024-08-03 04:14:49 UTC

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i thought that was what the Mapping Edinburgh's Social History project that ended up contributing _so much_ to local OSM was aiming for!
There were simultaneous attempts to text mine old Post Office Directories and these gave not only the names of residents but also their professions https://digital.nls.uk/directories/browse/archive/91049140
and a UoE professor, name escapes me, with a big archive and long term plan who's probably retired now... remaining EDINA folks would know