Timon 🛠

"My Electronics Therapist" - Kate

Freelance Embedded Systems/Electronics R&D for work.

Hardware hacking for fun
Liker of birbs 🐦‍⬛

name/he/they 🏳️‍🌈

Blog: https://timonsku.zip
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/timonsku.zip
All the stuff: https://linktr.ee/timonsku
Hackaday: https://hackaday.io/timonsku

Last Notes

2025-06-05 00:39:05 UTC

wtf NXP
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/627/965/449/234/434/original/bf40f171c2475de1.jpeg

2024-08-31 14:52:55 UTC

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Torvalds is the least of the problems these days. He gotten better and seems to be pro Rust in general, if anything the issue with him is more that he is not actively advocating for more substantial changes and lets his sub maintainers handle it.
The Kernel middle management that screams at people in talks because they grew up with a childish yelling Linus is the bigger issue.

2024-08-31 12:26:04 UTC

If not for the merrit of a safer and more suitable language, writing a compatible Kernel from scratch could be worth it just for the cultural reset.
There are so many problems with the way Linux Kernel development functions right now and what a massive uphill battle any progress has been even when just talking about the C code base. I just don't know how you could ever fix this in time.
This is not a technical battle, its a cultural one.

2024-08-29 23:30:43 UTC

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All the Rust infra for embedded looks very cool but unless it does it all its only of use for some very limited bare metal'ish things with simple peripheral use where support is likely there and less prone to being incomplete.
Classic chicken and egg problem and I don't see the dinosaur vendors getting heavy into Rust any time soon.

2024-08-29 23:28:29 UTC

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thats actually what I hear most of the time. If people use Rust its in a green field project thats Rust only. Which is by far the easiest place to start using it I think.
If I think about embedded the only place where I can see me starting to use it is in projects like the Linux Kernel if that ever wins the fight or in Zephyr potentially at some point where people are less weird about third language support.

2024-08-29 23:06:36 UTC

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Which I think is probably the biggest reason for the divide. I know extremely few people who regularly write both C and Rust. People are usually either Rust only or C only. So there is a divide in communities and you don't get that much exposure to practical Rust if you are not a Rust enthusiast.

2024-08-29 23:01:35 UTC

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Which is probably the main reason why Zig kinda seems attractive from a distance. It seems to be ridiculed a lot so not sure if its a *good* language but it tackles that issue head on and would make it far easier to just start with without needing to abandon my life and become a Crustacean full time.

2024-08-29 23:00:04 UTC

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People are so weird about languages.
Yes Rust does not seem easy to pick up but thats not the reason why I don't use it productively. If its worth the effort I'll suck it up and learn it.
The main reason I don't use it is because C inter-op is very cumbersome.
If I don't want a very hard life it seems either go full Rust or no Rust and I have no choice 99% of the time to have a massive amount of C code to interact with.

2024-08-22 21:27:06 UTC

Today in weird stuff from AliExpress. USB-C cables with a tiny screen that tell you the power it charges with and if its using Power Delivery or not.
Even crazier that they cost like 3$?!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/007/789/715/030/491/original/935d567d1380e746.jpg

2024-08-22 19:19:41 UTC

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USB4 legitimately scares me, I can't imagine needing to actually implement that in a feature complete way.
I feel like there will be like one Intel implementation and one from Synopsis and thats it because who would do that to their brain and budget.

2024-08-21 19:58:22 UTC

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spots like these make me think HDPE because they look pretty eww with all that fringes. The inner pocket looks really nice though so yea hard to say if those are just from usage.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/001/774/927/731/539/original/2fadd12ea15b9251.png

2024-08-21 19:55:18 UTC

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could be HDPE, the holes look a bit gummed up in a way that I often have when I mill white HDPE. It looks super similar to Delrin/POM, I can usually only tell by scratching it.

2024-08-18 13:37:39 UTC

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Apart from the silly term and all, companies like that tend to not pay 10x the salary either. Not sure if they realize that if someone can actually do the expected workload of several engineers that engineer has a better deal by just working multiple jobs/clients if they wanted a hustle life.