today's leftovers
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Open Hardware/Modding
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Arduino ☛ Affordable fixed-belt CNC plotter runs on Arduino
To keep costs down without sacrificing capability, tuenhidiy chose to use an Arduino UNO Rev3 board for control. That reads GRBL G-code files through a microSD card module and controls the stepper motors through a CNC shield with A4988 stepper drivers. There is also a simple Arduino Nano-based controller interface made with a 16×2 character LCD, button, and rotary encoder.
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Audiocasts/Shows
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KDE: More Icon Updates 🔗
I took some time last week to work on these icons some more. Here are the results: [...]
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Reason ☛ How John Deere Hijacked Copyright Law To Keep You From Tinkering With Your Tractor
Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), any individual who produces or uses a tool designed to circumvent software intended to keep them out of a system faces five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $500,000. Those penalties double for each subsequent infraction. This means software developers who build tools to get around John Deere's software blocks could receive a 10-year prison sentence and a $1 million fine for each time they distribute their tool. Although the Copyright Office has implemented a narrow exception to the law for certain circumstances, a farmer who purchases such a tool could also end up in federal prison.
The Copyright Office technically has the ability to implement broad, permanent exclusions to Section 1201 but has so far refused to act absent expressed congressional authorization. Fortunately, there are some in Congress that recognize this issue and have proposed solutions.
In 2022, then-Rep. Mondaire Jones (D–N.Y.) sponsored the Freedom to Repair Act, which would exempt all maintenance and repairs from Section 1201. More recently, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R–Ind.) introduced the Farm Freedom to Repair Act, a much narrower proposal that would permanently exempt "the diagnosis, maintenance, and repair of digital electronic agricultural equipment" from Section 1201. Either proposal would be an improvement over the status quo, but the Freedom to Repair Act's comprehensiveness presents a better solution to the issues posed by Section 1201.
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Francesco ☛ Are settings a design failure?
To maximise the user experience, it’s important to don’t add new stuff for the sake of it, therefore keeping the number of options to a minimum. A preferences panel is not an excuse to drop in there anything you don’t want to take a decision on.
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