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8 results for “cliffle”

1. 

   cliffle @cliffle

   2026-10-24

   So the UP5K-based SoC is working, but the routing fabric on the ICE40 "UltraPlus" (lol) series is much slower than on the HX line. The SoC generally closes timing at around Fmax=23MHz; I'm running it at 20MHz for simplicity.

   The prototype using an ICE40HX was at 40MHz and boy howdy I sure can feel the difference. Display repaints are visible. Recompiling the system takes 1m25s (admittedly with the slowest combination of options, using the software emulator).

   From past experience with the ICE40UP parts, I'm unlikely to get this faster than 24 MHz, so I guess I'll just need to be patient if I want the convenient QFN package with built-in SRAM.

2. 

   cliffle @cliffle

   2026-10-24

   I figure if I flag "weird computing" hard enough, people will eventually come out of the woodwork.

   Need the smalltalk balloon on a hanky (right side)

3. 

   cliffle @cliffle

   2026-10-24

   Before making my own UP5K board, I made an adapter for the Upduino eval board I already had. It works! So I now have a self contained CFM system using the PicoCalc's body.

   The back of the case won't fit over it, which should motivate me to make the real board.

   This was the most through hole soldering I've done since I built my RC2014 back in 2021.

4. 

   cliffle @cliffle

   2026-10-23

   Over half of my close friends are out of work, and some haven't been able to find jobs for over a year. It's super privileged to be pushing back on recruiters like this. I know this, believe me. But that's also why I think it's important.

   Some people seem to be excited about hiring me, and (while I'm not looking for a job) this might give me a small lever to nudge them in the right direction. I did this at Oxide, and that's worked out okay.

5. 

   cliffle @cliffle

   2026-10-23

   Sending this one was a _lot_ easier.

6. 

   cliffle @cliffle

   2026-10-23

   Even though I'm not actively looking for a job, the "I don't join companies with no women in leadership positions" recruiter response is still scary to send.

   Like, on the one hand, I want them to receive this feedback (I see what you're doing over there, with your page of faces that look suspiciously like mine). On the other hand, it's still scary to close off potential work, even though I'm employed.

7. 

   cliffle @cliffle

   2026-10-23

   On a similar note, when I'm in England or Scotland, I wind up shifting a bunch of my vowels around and introducing more tone changes in my speech. To me, it sounds like I'm doing a bad accent. To the guy at the coffee shop, I'm speaking clearly -- it makes it a lot easier to understand what I'm saying in a hurry.

   There was this "Mid-Atlantic Accent" thing in the early 20th century, but curiously, the vowel shifts that seem to matter the most aren't the ones that it shifts. (I strongly suspect that the mid-atlantic accent was more about class signifiers than being understood.)

8. 

   cliffle @cliffle

   2026-10-23

   I was helping a friend figure out why Spanish speakers have a hard time understanding him when he uses Spanish words. The answer is a property of English.

   Or, American English. Or, particularly, eastern seaboard American English. There's a very, very strong tendency to downgrade an unstressed vowel to a schwa. A schwa is that lazy unshaped vowel that sounds like "uh."

   So when this guy from Philly says "plátanos" it comes out "PLAHT-uh-nuhs" or even "PLAT-nuhs" and he gets a double-take, even though the person he's talking to speaks perfectly good English. Maintaining the vowel shape on unstressed vowels turns out to be an important tip that I hadn't really thought about (having grown up in a Spanish speaking area).