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As a pianist, I use Calendar on macOS and iOS to plan each day’s practice. On heavy days I may have over a dozen practice blocks, so the calendar gets crowded quickly and it becomes easy to miss non-practice events. A calendar that looks like this makes the problem obvious:

What I really wanted was a quick way to toggle a group of calendars at once on macOS. In my case, that group is the set of works I am currently practicing (for example, specific Brahms and Schubert calendars). Your grouping might be completely different, depending on your purpose, but the same approach applies.

This is why I created KiCadBoardOutlineGenerator, a script to generate board outlines from dimensions you specify.

Facebook and Reddit are blocking access to a site that unmasks otherwise anonymous ICE thugs. F*ck you Reddit and Facebook.

So here are the resources being blocked:

• ICEList - the goal is to unmask these thugs. Crowd-sourced identities of ICE Nazis.
• Article about ICEList in The Guardian - this is the article that Reddit is blocking

Although I’ve used Indigo — the macOS home automation ecosystem — for over a decade, I never picked up on the fact that Actions attached to Schedules, Triggers, and web UI elements are not executed sequentially. The application user interface strongly implies sequential execution, but not only is that not guaranteed, the app actually attempts to execute the actions in parallel.

See this note buried in the documentation:

Important! While you can order the actions in any order you like, Indigo will attempt to execute all actions in parallel. It’s not always possible for various reasons, but that’s the intent. If you want to order the execution, then you’ll need to add delays which will delay the action’s execution from the time of the event. So, if you have 3 actions and you want the first to execute immediately, the second to execute a minute after the event, and the third to execute two minutes after the event, then add a one minute delay to the second and a two minute delay after the third.

This is just a quick post on how not to initialize a GPIO in ESP-IDF. A tutorial on Embedded Explorer discusses GPIO use in ESP-IDF and suggests initialization in this way:

#include "freertos/FreeRTOS.h"
#include "freertos/task.h"
#include "driver/gpio.h"

#define LED_PIN     GPIO_NUM_32
#define BUTTON_PIN  GPIO_NUM_36

void app_main(void)
{
   gpio_set_direction(LED_PIN, GPIO_MODE_OUTPUT);   
   gpio_set_direction(BUTTON_PIN, GPIO_MODE_INPUT);
   
   while(1) {       
      if (gpio_get_level(BUTTON_PIN) == 0) {  // If button is pressed
         gpio_set_level(LED_PIN, 1);         // Turn the LED on
      } else {
         gpio_set_level(LED_PIN, 0);         // Turn the LED off
      }
      
      vTaskDelay(1); // Add 1 tick delay (10 ms) so that current task does not starve idle task and trigger watchdog timer
   }
}

This of course works, but I wanted to clear up matters because I think this takes some major shortcuts. Here is what I would suggest instead:

The Bambu AMS 2 Automatic Material System is a peripheral unit that provides multi-filament selection and feed management for several Bambu Lab FDM printers. I use it with a P2S printer and have generally been satisfied with its operation. However, as with any printer, filament breakage does occur. Because filament in the AMS 2 is routed through a complex network of PTFE tubes, drive gears, and internal manifolds, removing broken fragments can be substantially more difficult than on single-extruder systems.

This is a proof-of-concept for scripting Shelly relay devices in an Indigo Python action.

I’ve used the Indigo macOS home automation software for many years. It’s a deep, extensible and reliable piece of software. Among the extensible features of the application is its suite of community-supported plugins. There is a plugin for Shelly devices, but it supports only earlier devices and not the current units. As I understand it, the author does not intend to update the plugin. In this post, I’ll show a method for controlling these devices without plugins. The shortcoming here is that the Shelly device doesn’t have a corresponding Indigo device, and everything is handled through action groups and variables.

Until this month, I’m not sure I had heard of Charlie Kirk. Now the entire world has.

First of all, to any MAGA people reading this: No one on the progressive side wanted to see this man dead. That actions of the alleged murderer were his alone and don’t represent the views of practically anyone on the Left. So stop pretending otherwise. You’re not helping. The gunman’s motives are poorly understood and much more evidence must be collected in order to understand his political ideology. I’m not even sure he has a coherent philosophy. So attempts to reduce this to some vast left-wing political conspiracy is a ridiculous cognitive shortcut.

Growing Capsicum sp. in general is a challenge in cooler climates because these are all relatively long growing season plants. Hot peppers, particularly certain varieties, present an especially complicated challenge because their growing season greatly exceeds the number of suitable days available. I live in Ontario, Canada, and without many weeks of indoor preparation, growing my beloved hot peppers would be impossible. Instead, with some planning and preparation, we can grow exotic varieties like the RXM SLP shown in this post.