no shade, but truly. I hope Lindsey Graham died doing what he loved: getting absolutely railed by a hot young escort a quarter his age.

AT LONG (LONG) LAST: Open Book Touch is LIVE on @crowdsupply.bsky.social! Launched this morning and already I'm overwhelmed by folks' support. Back it now, or just subscribe for updates; this is going to be a jam-packed six week campaign. www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specif...

Open Book Touch

A pocketable, front-lit, open source e-reader — for every book, in every language

crowdsupply.com

inside you there are two wolves. (both of them are powered by AI)

“Gen Z daters want deeper connections, but they’re struggling to start the conversations that build them. The good news? They’re ready to bridge the gap with curiosity, vulnerability, and AI.” hinge.co/newsroom/202...

Hinge’s New D.A.T.E. Report: How Gen Z Daters Can Close The Communication Gap in 2026

Hinge releases its second annual Gen Z D.A.T.E. (Data, Advice, Trends, and Expertise) Report: “Closing The Communication Gap,” a new research-backed resource created to help Gen Z daters match their d...

hinge.co

This is maybe the biggest FINALLY in my career as a purveyor of Oddly Specific Objects: Open Book Touch is in prelaunch at Crowd Supply! Now with WiFi, plus a higher-resolution display, warm/cool frontlight, and capacitive touchscreen. Subscribe for updates here! www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specif...

Open Book Touch

A pocketable, open-source backlit e-reader

crowdsupply.com

wow okay there are dark patterns and there are DARK patterns…

The story of our time is this: the bad guys win, and it's not even close. Remember the whole "It gets better" campaign? That was wishful thinking: a hope, not a promise. It Does Not Get Better. YOU get better at handling the bad thing. The sooner you embrace this reality, the better off you'll be.

Well folks: I think the party may be over when it comes to quick-turn circuit board fun. “For avoidance of doubt, duty-free de minimis treatment under 19 U.S.C. 1321 shall not be available… on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on February 4, 2025.” www.reuters.com/world/trumps...

Trump's Canada, Mexico, China tariffs suspend loophole behind fentanyl shipments

President Donald Trump's new tariff orders against Canada, Mexico and China all contain clauses suspending a duty-free exemption for low-value shipments below $800 that is widely seen as a loophole that has allowed shipments of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals into the United States.

reuters.com

when it comes time to assemble this thing, future-joey owes me a beer for being so thoughtful

wait so you’re telling me the NFC championship game is sponsored by TurboTax… and the AFC championship game is also sponsored by TurboTax… which means that no matter who loses, TurboTax wins? Again: this feels very on the nose.

Ladies and also ladies, I have good news…

God grant me the courage to change the things that I can change, and the serenity to accept that the things that I cannot will require more effort.

Solving a Sensor Watch motion problem: sleep looks like long periods w/o motion, but so does taking off the watch. By adding one more signal to the mix, I think we've got it: a long stationary period generally means sleep, unless accompanied by a rapid temperature drop. Then it's an off-wrist event.

Last week I finished my final code for the Sensor Watch accelerometer. Just plotted the data I gathered at 5 minute intervals — orange represents orientation change events, and blue represents minutes without any motion at all — and I'll be damned if that doesn't look like sleep & activity tracking.

Samples of a last-minute change to the accelerometer board arrived last week. Been wearing it ever since; seems all good! This morning I finished a self-test procedure that lets me quickly validate all the functionality of manufactured boards, and just like that, an order for 2000 more is in flight.

found while digging around for an Arduino. This is not my handwriting.

Need a distraction from Election Day jitters? At 2:00 EST (11:00 PST) join me and Alex Glow for a Hackster Café livestream! We'll be talking Sensor Watch Pro, my new, MORE hackable board swap for the Casio F-91W that's on Crowd Supply now. That's in 2 hours; set a timer! https://youtu.be/G85LlKGHFdc

I will be bringing a couple dozen of these with me to Hackaday Supercon. The "Sensor Watch" SAO is not Sensor Watch — hence the quotes — but it is an I²C segment LCD driver that's easy to control with MicroPython. To get folks started, I have once again put copious documentation on the back side :)

…and for Patreon subscribers, today was a twofer: for business-tier patrons, a dive into Oddly Specific Objects' Q3 financials: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114640593 and for everyone else, mechanical drawings of the custom spring connector we're having made: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114641633

For this week's Sensor Watch Pro backer update, I wrote about the new accelerometer sensor add-on, and how I'm using it for sleep and activity tracking: https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-watch-pro/updates/sleep-tracking-with-sensor-watch-pro-and-the-accelerometer-add-on

Life Pro Tip: How to install a package using homebrew: brew install package [Ctrl] + C HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 brew install package

Last night I finished a sleep tracking proof of concept for Sensor Watch Pro: it counts orientation changes & motion events per hour. Adds 600 nA to the power budget. Sensor Watch data at left; Oura data at right. Note the period of Deep Sleep, and that period of low motion counts from 1:00-3:00 AM…

see, if I were cleverer I would have used my return-from-the-void post to share an actual photo of Sensor Watch Pro, and mention that it's live on Crowd Supply. But hey: better late than never. www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specif...

Testing, testing: is this working? I'm going to try to be active on all the non-Twitter socials, thanks to an app that lets me cross-post stuff. Anyway here's a gadget: today's work power profiling Sensor Watch Pro's new accelerometer add-on.

I could have sworn I posted something here once before!