The anti🚫-derailment🚃 & thread🧵 hijacking🔫 thread🧵 ⁉

anon3825968 · July 21, 2021, 2:28pm

I hate to rain on your parade, but strictly speaking you don’t know that. It might be slowly releasing something nasty in your bloodstream unbeknown to you, and you’ve had zero problems so far.

I don’t wish you any nasty surprise, and I trust Haworth knows what he’s doing and tries his hardest to make his creations safe. But there’s a definite element of risk your enthusiasm is downplaying a bit too much I think.

Incidentally, the same can be said of anything DT makes. It’s not an indictment, just a statement of fact.

Backpackingvet · July 21, 2021, 3:59pm

Sadly he only has the same ones available, as he did 3 years ago.

BUT! The mini stars are on sale.

don't do this as I will, I have a bit of schooling on it.

I might have to try a selfo on that one in my wrist

.

Devilclarke · July 21, 2021, 4:39pm

Yep I already plan on taking it out once it’s no longer bright but I’ll be keeping it and probably framing it (I’m sad like that).

Honestly it’s my favourite implant it glows with no power and no input from me in the future I may look at a hayworth thing but for now I’m happy.

Zwack · July 21, 2021, 4:44pm

Don’t get me wrong, I would do the same thing too. I have an old (old when I bought it) US army compass with tritium vials all over it. Some are still ridiculously bright others are almost impossible to see. (I also have a WWII RAF compass of the model that would have been fitted in a Spitfire).

I just don’t think I would implant one myself. I am not knocking those who do, but I am glad, for your sake, that you carry a scalpel in case.

darthdomo · July 21, 2021, 6:02pm

Since I’ve discussed other PINE64 products in this thread, and I’m decently happy with them (especially the Pinecil soldering iron), I thought I’d discuss another product from them that I got in the mail yesterday. Hoping that someone will at least find it interesting.

It’s the PineTime. It’s an open-source smartwatch, works on android, iOS, or Linux. There are several community firmwares, but the most popular by far is InfiniTime, based on FreeRTOS. It’s meant to be an open-source replacement for the Pebble. It has support for notification sync, music controls, timer, stopwatch heart rate monitoring & pedometer, and navigation (although the navigation is a WIP). It has a few games and other toys (such as a metronome), but all of the “apps” must be compiled into the firmware at the moment. No app store.

I currently use a Fitbit versa, but I only use it for notifications, clock, and music controls. I tend to use my phone for exercise tracking anyways, as I often forget my watch. So, the feature set is pretty close to what I need.

It’s surprisingly snappy, and there’s never any UI lag or anything. It’s all instant.

It comes either as an individual sealed watch (for waterproofing), or as a dev kit, which comes with two watches. One sealed, one unsealed. This is nice, as the unsealed one has the SWD pins exposed.

While it supports OTA updates and flashing over Bluetooth, if you’re trying to develop your own firmware, it’s necessary to have the programming pins to recover from a brick. So, test on the unsealed watch first, if all is good, flash to the sealed one. If you’re just planning on using existing firmwares, InfiniTime includes a lightweight recovery environment and a robust bootloader, so bricking is unlikely.

The single sealed unit is $27, and the devkit is $50 (comes with a basic programming jig, too).

IMO, a platform agnostic open-source smartwatch is a neat idea, and I’m really happy with mine so far. I really miss my old Pebble, and this fills that gap for me. It also already works with the PinePhone, thanks to a linux companion app. On android, it uses Gadgetbridge, which is also open-source, available on F-droid.

A little bonus: Since I was already paying for shipping from china, I picked up a few other goodies, including a clear casing for my Pinecil. The little plastic screen cover had also gotten cracked on the old casing in transit, so I needed a new one anyways.

I think it looks really cool I also picked up one of their PinePower 65W USB power supplies. Wanted this as a supply for my pinecil since I was just using my laptop charger before, and it’ll also be a good backup in case something happens to my laptop charger. It’s also really nice for the price, recommended if anyone is in need of a supply. It has two type-Cs, and one type A. All of the ports can deliver the full power (not all at once), so you don’t have to constantly check which port to use.

I also picked up 2 silicone type C cables for the Pinecil, so I don’t have to worry about catching a fabric cable on fire, or melting a rubber one. They were only $4, figured why not.

Zwack · July 21, 2021, 7:35pm

I am curious about the pine time but as I already have a mi band 6 it seems like apart from the open source aspects it provides less functionality than my current “watch”.

Thanks for the review.

Coma · July 21, 2021, 8:58pm

My mom came to visit, and she had cake - so, sorry for the delay

It definitely depends. In summer time, when it can “charge” a lot, it keeps on shining pretty much all night long. If I wear longsleeves or have little exposure to light, it shines for some hours at least. But it’s not thaaaat bright - I mean, in a dark room, it’s super visible and bright, but if there is some external light, it’s definitely less visible. Dunno if it can be seen in a club, for example - thanks to f*ing covid, I had no chance to try that out yet
If you charge it with a UV-lamp or something like that, it’s definitely very visible even in a normally lit room

Totally true. Thing is, I know it’s not radioactive, that one’s for sure
About toxicity… well. I’m pretty sure it’s okay, but I can’t really say what material it’s made of - but at least it’s covered by an extra layer of “normal” silicone, so the glowy stuff is not really touching my body. And to be honest, I finally decided that if my artist says it’s okay, I’m just gonna trust him.
But yeeeah, you’re right with your statement, I admit that

Outer or inner side? On the outer side it might be okay, as the stars are very flat - a small incision should suffice, plus a little pocket. And you usually know what you’re doing
On the inner side, I personally would be careful because of all the important stuff there…
Oh, and I’m definitely not sure if the stars will shine through skin, since they are so flat - my artist said they are mostly suitable for hands or head placements only. But if you try it out, please keep me updated on how it works!

Eriequiet · July 21, 2021, 10:15pm

Did you check it?

That’s the fun about radioactivity… it’s quite invisible
And unless you have a Geiger you’d never really know

I know you trust your guy, and his process… just saying most people don’t realize bananas or concrete are radioactive

Those negative ion products @amal found are terrifying…

Zwack · July 22, 2021, 12:14am

I remember the British government advice on Chernobyl fallout that should be considered low level waste was so wonderfully cautious that it basically included garden soil.

But if the glow on this fades overnight and recharges when exposed to light then it probably isn’t using radioactivity to cause its glow. (And no, that doesn’t mean that the implant isn’t. But it is not deliberately radioactive)

amal · July 22, 2021, 12:25am

nope its silicone doped with a standard phosphor powder

Eriequiet · July 22, 2021, 12:27am

I wasn’t saying that it IS
It’s probably just using aluminum strontium or something similar

Just musing on the “I know it isn’t radioactive”

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Backpackingvet · July 22, 2021, 12:58am

Like the thin skin of my wrist. Palm side.

Sounds like you do too. Pretty much my plan. Buy a #11, go through the skin, pocket it in a bit with a taper, and tuck the star in. Shouldn’t have to make to big of an incision at all.

Judging by the pics, I wasn’t either. I figure my best chance is in that area.

miststlkr · July 22, 2021, 2:24am

Oh neat. I loved my Kickstarter Pebble so much I bought a second one… I was very sad to see it die and have to “upgrade”, but I have a Samsung Frontier S3 now and it’s… reliable. and huge. the bloody thing has been a brick tied to my arm for the last 5 years…

NoUsersLefft · July 22, 2021, 2:31am

I bought a pebble on ebay not long afterwards and loved that thing, was sad the day I ate shit on a longboard and fucked it

I did and am really considering purchasing one after your review

miststlkr · July 22, 2021, 2:48am

Yeah, for that price it’s worth trying out even if you are just mildly interested…

NoUsersLefft · July 22, 2021, 2:54am

After seeing @darthdomo 's and others talk of the Pinebook I was going to preorder the Pinetab as I’ve been looking for a decent tablet and figured I’d give it a shot over spending $300 minimum for a decent android tablet. But alas they were out of stock before I could

darthdomo · July 22, 2021, 3:05am

Honestly, I think that’s for the best sadly. It’s got the same hardware as the PinePhone I believe, but a large screen and no modem.

While I find the PinePhone to be a really interesting device, and fun to mess with, IMO it’s not at all ready for daily use for the majority of people. It can’t even really play youtube well in my experience.

I can respect the effort to get a tablet working too, and while it might be interesting with the keyboard for doing command line stuff, it would likely be awful for normal every-day tablet uses.

It is getting better though, and I hope at one point they can get it to the point of being usable. A lot of the work left is with software optimization, which can be and is being worked on.

darthdomo · July 22, 2021, 3:18am

My Pebble 1 sadly suffered a long and painful death, due to the screen failing. Black lines started to appear, I think (it’s been a long time). I got mine a while after the Kickstarter days, at Best Buy. Think the Pebble Time had already released.

I really loved it, it had a charming but utilitarian feel to it. Especially compared to the comparatively laggy and bloated Android Wear watches I’ve tried, it felt a lot nicer.

The PineTime recaptures that feeling for me. It has a little bit of a ways to go in terms of matching the featureset (mainly with loading user apps), but otherwise, it feels similar to me. The developer of InfiniTime has been posting regular updates, so hopefully it’ll just keep getting better.

My only issue so far has been with the Bluetooth low energy connection on my Pixel 4a, running the Android 12 beta. It’ll occasionally cut out and not want to reconnect. This was especially annoying when I was trying to load the newest firmware over Bluetooth.

I’m fairly certain this is a bug with the Android 12 Beta though, as I used my mom’s Moto G7 Power running android 10 I think, and it had no issues at all (that’s how I ended up getting the firmware loaded). It comes with a very old version of InfiniTime at the moment, although Pine64 is reportedly loading a newer version on the individually shipped watches (not the dev kits).

I’m planning on rolling my phone back to Android 11 anyways, so hopefully that’ll fix it. I’ve had a lot of Bluetooth-related bugs on Android 12, hopefully they get solved by the time of final release.

Pilgrimsmaster · July 22, 2021, 4:22am

I also have a frontier, and I love it, I dont find it large personally, but I have normally worn bulky dive watches over the years.

I am not a huge fan of Tizen as the OS but I have heard that the Galaxy Watch 4 will run android.

I totally get the Pebble and PineTime concept, I considered one myself but I am equally happy with an out of the box does that does everything I want.
There is a huge price difference though…

You could buy ~26 PineTimes for one Samsung Galaxy Watch 3

darthdomo · July 22, 2021, 4:30am

tenor