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What did you do today?

ChainedHope

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 5, 2016
306
459
My basement is being renovated and along the edge of the main room and along the stairs there are tack strips. I step on one every other day lol, im kind of a klutz and dont watch where im going so its totally my fault but man it hurts.
 

Soul_Est

SFF Guru
SFFn Staff
Feb 12, 2016
1,536
1,928
Not actually "today," but rather over this past weekend:

I negotiated leaving my current work after having a pretty long chat with my dad, who is also my employer. It was pretty heavy and emotional, but we finally were able to relate on where I am rather than where he wants me to be. I've been struggling with that a lot, because even though I slack off a lot, I'm a really big asset to the company with a unique skill set. (Among my coworkers, and the general population where we're based out of.) So, it never made sense for him to let me leave like I wanted and having such a secure and comfortable full-time job made it hard for me to seriously pursue any other opportunities. (And I live in the middle of nowhere, where there aren't many opportunities.)

Which, I've got a high school diploma, some IT certs, and have dropped out of college and trade school a few times, so It's hard to groom that resume.

But, dad finally accepted that being "stuck" where I am isn't working for me and my mental health has been declining over the past few years. He put a lot into the company, so he always hoped I would grow into it and take over, but it's just not happening and we're both unhappy about that. But it is what it is. I'm finishing up with obligations I've made to our customers and trying to ease the transition, but in the near future I'll be unemployed. It's scary, because I've been in a 'guaranteed' routine and ever since I reigned in my spending, I've been on a pretty good course towards getting a house and doing all that grown-up stuff.

That's not really for me, either, though, I don't think. So, my current plan is to relax and try to figure out if I've got some kind of calling. I'm thinking about trying to make some SFF-related and other nerdy content. I'm also looking a lot into either moving into some sort of camper or camper conversion (I've been interested in that for a while), but it's also apparently really easy to travel the world for pretty cheap if you plan things out carefully and reach out to the right folks. Both of those which could inspire their own SFF-related (/minimalism and efficiency-oriented) content. Every day, I'm going to contact at least one person on HelpX about opportunities on there, where accommodations like a place to sleep and food are provided for ~2-5 hours of work five days a week. If it looks like that sort of thing will pan out, I might just invest most my money and travel on a shoestring budget for a year or so!

Sorry for the long, personal dump. Not a whole lot of people around for me to share that with! Haha
That took a lot of courage and I'm proud of you. It takes a lot to make such a change and as much to tell us about it. We're rooting for you!

Sometimes we need to stand up and voice our emotions and thoughts to take that next step. Good on you zovc, it's only upwards from here :)

My day: Accidentally dragged a wooden pallet up my big toe (through my shoe.. really should get the company to buy me protective footwear!) and snapped my toenail in half (cringe >.<), cue swearing and blood. Then proceeded to sweat all day at my day job - our facility is basically a giant industrial shed converted to retail/ distribution with no aircon or insulation, and I work a very physical job in distribution in the warehouse. Think 30 Celsius, humidity in the 90% range and very little breeze until later in the day. Ugh!
OW! I hope that you do recover soon. How much do steel-toed shoes or boots cost? They should at least be willing to help with covering the cost of them. Barring that, they should bar you from the site or give you other tasks to perform for safety reasons. You getting seriously injured or worse is no good.

My basement is being renovated and along the edge of the main room and along the stairs there are tack strips. I step on one every other day lol, im kind of a klutz and dont watch where im going so its totally my fault but man it hurts.
Ouch. Are they on the edges or further in?
 

ChainedHope

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 5, 2016
306
459
Ouch. Are they on the edges or further in?

The strips run against the wall, stairs, and doorways to the other rooms. The ones I step on are the ones that run by the doorways to get into the laundry room and my hobby room. They are about a half inch wide so if you dont step into the room and instead step into the doorway they will poke the bottom of your feet. Feels like a few tiny needles stabbing you in the foot, not unbearable but painful.
 

EdZ

Virtual Realist
May 11, 2015
1,578
2,107
Get a wooden dowel (handle of a hammer works well) - or heavy (clean!) metal cylinder if you happen to have one - and slide it across the area where the tack strip pokes up through. The tips of the tacks will fold down against the carpet, preventing it from lifting and keeping the sharp tips pointed away from your feet. The downside is that if you ever need to remove the carpet, there is more resistance to lifting it than when it is just laid straight down over the tack strips.
 

ChainedHope

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 5, 2016
306
459
Get a wooden dowel (handle of a hammer works well) - or heavy (clean!) metal cylinder if you happen to have one - and slide it across the area where the tack strip pokes up through. The tips of the tacks will fold down against the carpet, preventing it from lifting and keeping the sharp tips pointed away from your feet. The downside is that if you ever need to remove the carpet, there is more resistance to lifting it than when it is just laid straight down over the tack strips.

There is no carpet right now, thats why the tacks are sticking out lol. We are renovating and will have new carpet installed in a week or two. Once the carpet goes down it wont be an issue. But with me putting some things ahead of finishing renovations it has been sitting there for like ... 6 months? with the tacks poking me the entire time lol.
 

GuilleAcoustic

Chief Procrastination Officer
SFFn Staff
LOSIAS
Jun 29, 2015
2,996
4,443
guilleacoustic.wordpress.com
Ultimately, wear this and nothing will scratch or stab you at home anymore :D

 

nero626

Average Stuffer
Dec 8, 2016
66
226
Today I got a project that I've been messing around for the last few days working, it's an extremely novel approach to path finding using convolutional neural network, the novel part is that I've used only 1 training data which is a map that I drew in MS paint, with pink dots as the ground truth:


Which then after 2 mins of training on a 750ti, test running the network with some other maps that I drew again in MS paint:
Path 1

Real time output:

Path 2


Real time output:

Path 3:

Real time output:

In this path it went off the course a bit when turning left, but overall the network with no pre-existing knowledge but only 1 poorly drawn map, I was very surprised that it even managed to go straight not to mention actually staying on track, I can explain more about the methodology and how everything works if anyone is interested but I don't know if this thread is the right place. anyhow I'll try to train it with a couple more better drawn courses to see if it performs better, and this has been a fun exercise to do some random machine learning project
 

Biowarejak

Maker of Awesome | User 1615
Platinum Supporter
Mar 6, 2017
1,744
2,262
Speaking of nails, once had a little one in the arch of a running shoe. Every time I landed hard or got up to speed, I got a prick. Took far too long to figure out what was going on, the lack of bleeding helped in that.

Today I'm supposed to get my very own internet service installed, since my roommate's been ripping me off on that for months. Yay, adulting!

-Edit-

Today I got a project that I've been messing around for the last few days working, it's an extremely novel approach to path finding using convolutional neural network, the novel part is that I've used only 1 training data which is a map that I drew in MS paint, with pink dots as the ground truth:


Which then after 2 mins of training on a 750ti, test running the network with some other maps that I drew again in MS paint:
Path 1

Real time output:

Path 2

Real time output:

Path 3:

Real time output:

In this path it went off the course a bit when turning left, but overall the network with no pre-existing knowledge but only 1 poorly drawn map, I was very surprised that it even managed to go straight not to mention actually staying on track, I can explain more about the methodology and how everything works if anyone is interested but I don't know if this thread is the right place. anyhow I'll try to train it with a couple more better drawn courses to see if it performs better

That's awesome!
 
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VegetableStu

Shrink Ray Wielder
Aug 18, 2016
1,949
2,619
Gonna have to work weekend this week. ex-boss (a friend) couldn’t find help. Agreed to, but I gotta prepare a bit afterwards because I don’t think I can help out afterwards

Also had to return an item of two parts that was with the proxy shipper. Was preparing A to be sent back and waiting for B to be made shippable.

Guys sent away both A and B ._. Not sure what Amazon would do when they get back an item I didn’t return
 

ChainedHope

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 5, 2016
306
459
Today I got a project that I've been messing around for the last few days working, it's an extremely novel approach to path finding using convolutional neural network, the novel part is that I've used only 1 training data which is a map that I drew in MS paint, with pink dots as the ground truth:


Which then after 2 mins of training on a 750ti, test running the network with some other maps that I drew again in MS paint:
Path 1

Real time output:

Path 2


Real time output:

Path 3:

Real time output:

In this path it went off the course a bit when turning left, but overall the network with no pre-existing knowledge but only 1 poorly drawn map, I was very surprised that it even managed to go straight not to mention actually staying on track, I can explain more about the methodology and how everything works if anyone is interested but I don't know if this thread is the right place. anyhow I'll try to train it with a couple more better drawn courses to see if it performs better, and this has been a fun exercise to do some random machine learning project

Looks great. I spent some time working with OpenAI's Gym and Universe as well as some basic python neural networks, reinforcement learning, and natural language processing. Its a really cool field and opens up a lot of possibilities. Unfortunately I don't have much time to do much of it anymore, but it was a fun few weeks while I was playing with it. Theres a pretty good sized group of people using Universe and Gym to create a self-driving AI in GTA5 to test on a real self-driving car. They figure that GTA5 is close enough to use as a baseline with all the random things that happen in the game.

As for me, I spent the day going through imports from china and testing some LG 18650 cells. Looking at maybe doing an EV conversion on an old broken down motorcycle. Frame and electronics are good, just the engine is seized and I dont feel like wasting time with it. An EV conversion is something on my project list, so I figured id give it a go.
 

AleksandarK

/dev/null
May 14, 2017
703
774
I spent the day playing with Oracle's VM VirtualBox. I needed Linux, because proffesional development on Windows suck!
It is super easy to use and maniputate. There is a reccomended setting for RAM and storage space, but it is a slider, so you can change it quite easly.

Also, had some problems with my ISP, as every cookie i had from any website remained cached for days, without refreshing. They fixed it and now works fine.
 

VegetableStu

Shrink Ray Wielder
Aug 18, 2016
1,949
2,619
Finally received my first SATA M.2 stick. For some reason every time there's a hardware change, the motherboard decides to go bF (overclock-related issue). I don't have an overclock for over a year now ._.

Gonna figure out how to install windows 10. once I find the stupid OEM DVD I left somewhere

EDIT: Oh, right. Amazon didn't note the extra item in the return box. I'm seriously considering other options to cart a Cerberus over ._.
 
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AleksandarK

/dev/null
May 14, 2017
703
774
I worked on learning how to write Verilog test benches. It looks scary and complicated, but the easiest way to get it is to split each test bench into parts and determine what part does what. Than just code what the module it, its signals, stimulant and time of run. There is a reason why verification takes 75% of the projects, while design takes 25%!