Nsherwin

And that's a wrap for Act 3. Let's do a status report on the state of this project and others, as I'm trying to ignore how I'm a complete wreck.

Will there be an Act 4? Not for at least a year or two. Ale and I are tired. Flat-out bone-weary exhaustion. There's a thrill that comes from working on these projects and that keeps us going, but AGAHF is the dark story where I actually kill off characters and it's...hard, really really hard...to work in dark mode right now. I want to come back to it when I'm in a mind which allows Josh to take full advantage of his new position.

But! Starting on Halloween (31 October 2025) we're starting a Patreon-exclusive comic called FAMILY DEMONS. It's what happens when someone opens a Hellmouth and nine brilliant people immediately set up a grift...and then their kids have to reverse the heist in order to save them. Anyone who backs at the $1.00 (one US dollar) tier and up will have access to it. I'm reworking the higher tiers to figure out what new bonus content I can offer, too.

Ale and I continue to work on SIDEQUESTED, our more lighthearted comic about a young librarian who has accidentally tripped and fallen into multiple plotholes while breaking up a royal engagement. Things are going great.

And if you need more AGAHF, OACET's adventures continue in the Rachel Peng novels! INSIDE THREAT, the sixth book in the series, is now available for preorder.

Thank you so very much for coming along on this ride. May you find joy, and may it find you.

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If you'd like to be updated regularly on our ongoing projectsyou can find me (and artist Ale Presser!) across multiple social media platforms.

the Joyce special

USB port protection from EMI and ESD, a good app note from Würth Elektronik introduce you to their common mode chokes and TVS diodes solution. Whole article here in PDF.

The USB-Interface might be the most distributed PC interface in the world. The usage in industry applications is more and more common. Let’s have a closer look to the special environmental conditions of industry applications. That there are real concerns regarding the robustness against EMI and ESD is written in Intel’s “High Speed USB Platform Design Guidelines”. Intel recommends the usage of a common mode choke for EMI suppressions and another component for protection against ESD pulses.

Jan Henrik wrote this Instructable detailing the build of his DIY USB oscilloscope with signal generator:

In this project I want to show you how to make an easy and cheap USB Oscilloscope.
Specifications:
Price: 20$
Frequency: 2-20000HZ
Resolution: 16 Bit
Voltage range: +-7V / with probe +-70V
Channels: 2
X-Y Mode
Signal generator: Sine, Square, Triangular and Sawtooth 0-20000Hz

Carlazar posted pictures of his simple soldering iron driver (SSID) with Arduino PID control in the project log forum:

Main features are:
- Any thermocouple type irons.
- Additional control mode: On-Off controller (besides PID PWM).
- External power supply: Some standard Notebook power supply DC 19V, 4.74A.
- Small dimensions: It fits into 90mm x 110mm x 45mm (WxDxH) box.
- Easy to assemble.
- Simple design: only a few components (besides Arduino).
The HQ soldering iron HQ20/HQ30 (24V, 48W) was used. It has the E-type thermocouple built in (68uV/degC) but you can change that value in software according to the soldering iron that is used (for example K-type is 41uV/degC).

And a third simply don't bother with secured networks at all

Wireless security across London remains flaky despite the well-known risks, according to an infosec bod who has been riding his bike all around town identifying insecure wireless networks and highlighting shoddy user behaviours that could be exploited by rogue hackers.…

PHd student Karl Koscher and software engineer Eric Butler have teamed up to research phone SIM cards and how they are used to run small apps. At the DEFCON 21 conference they presented their methodology and results. “This talk, based on our experience building SIM apps for the Toorcamp GSM network, explains what (U)SIM Toolkit Applications are, how they work, and how to develop them. We will explain the various pieces of technology involved, including the Java Card standard, which lets you write smart card applications using a subset of Java, and the GlobalPlatform standard, which is used to load and manage applications on a card. We will also talk about how these applications can be silently loaded, updated, and interacted with remotely over-the-air.”

The PDF of presentation slides is available for download.

Here’s a breadboard programming cable for ATtiny85, ATtiny88, ATmega328, ATtiny2313, and other AVR MCUs by Nerd Ralph

For programming AVR MCUs, I use a USBasp. Initially, I would connect the USBasp header pins to header pins on the breadboard with individual jumper wires, then jumper the appropriate pins on the MCU. Then I noticed a repeating pattern in the pinout of many AVRs. Here’s an example.
Notice the pattern? MOSI, MISO, SCK, & VCC are all in the same order. Then I found this page with instructions on building a programming cable for an Arduino mini. I decided to build a simpler programming cable that would work on a number of AVR MCUs and Pro Minis with a minimum of jumper wires.

Lightweight Linux-lovin approach blows the doors off of typical virtualization

Containerization expert Docker has slurped $15m in filthy valley lucre to help it push its tech further into data centers under the leadership of a new, experienced chief executive.…

Here’s a cool DOTKLOK by Andrew O’Malley, an open source Arduino-based clock that displays a series of unique time-telling animations:

A fanstastic Open Source Arduino-based clock that can display the time in many different ways: if not enough, one can also add his own personal animation.

Via Open Electronics.

forbiddenhex has written an article detailing how to turn a TP-LINK TL-MR3020 into an Audio player:

This time i flush the TL-MR3020 with Openwrt. After couple of usb packages and audio packages i just plug in the USB sound card (which was given by whoknowz – to the router.
When the USB sound card is detected from the linux, you can check by command dmesg. Then install the madplay or any player you prefer.
I installed madplay because it play audio streams and play local files.
For test i played the audio stream from atoll radio and it works great. Just ssh the router and pass this command wget -o – http://radioatoll.serverroom.us:7088/ | madplay -

Bajdi built an Arduino MP3 alarm clock and wrote a detailed explanation on his blog describing the build:

The idea is simple, an LCD that shows the date and time. A couple of buttons to set an alarm, and an MP3 module and small speaker to play an MP3 when the alarm goes of.