IMO, it was a matter of time.

Crossposted from https://suppo.fi/post/11683338

Not sure how credible this is, but it seems more credible than that Finnish company's claims. This one comes from an established battery manufacturer and according to the article the cells have survived puncture tests etc. already.

After achieving a breakthrough earlier this week, Greater Bay Technology said it aims to launch the world’s first mass-producible all-solid-state battery this year.

China ramps up solid-state EV battery production

Greater Bay Technology (GBT) is a battery manufacturer backed by China’s GAC Group. The battery startup focuses on developing ultra-fast charging and solid-state batteries.

It even set the world record for the “fastest charging technology for electric vehicles” in 2024 with its Extreme Fast Charging (XFC) batteries, which recharged from 0% to 80% in just 7.5 minutes.

On Monday, the company announced it had hit another major milestone, with its first A-sample all-solid-state battery cells rolling off the production line.

The A-sample battery cells contain no liquid electrolyte and successfully passed needle penetration, extrusion, and thermal shock tests without a fire or explosion.

GBT said the breakthrough enables all-solid-state EV batteries to move from the lab to industrialization as it aims to begin mass production in 2026. According to Chinese news outlet, NE-Time, GBT aims to launch the “world’s first mass-producible all-solid-state battery” with GWh-level mass production and in-vehicle use by 2026.

The new tech overcomes the hurdles that have prevented all-solid-state batteries from hitting the mass market with a new organic-inorganic composite ESC all-solid-state electrolyte system.

GBT’s battery tech has already been reviewed and is receiving support from China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

With a single cell energy density of 260-500 Wh/kg, considerably higher than traditional liquid lithium-ion batteries, the cells enable a longer driving range, faster charging, and more interior space.

The new tech enables stable 2-3C fast charging, which has been another major barrier for solid-state EV batteries. It also showed minimal cycle-life degradation during long-term, repeated charge-and-discharge cycles.

Many people have already discussed the technology side of this saga, so I thought I should bring a different angle. Aki Pyysing isn't a battery expert, but he seems to know about investing and scams. In this video, he looks at this saga from an investor's point of view, and I think he has some interesting things to say.

The video is basically a podcast episode, so I don't expect you to actually listen to all of that. Also, the YT subtitle translation didn't work, so this video will be inaccessible to pretty much everyone. The link is there so that you don't have to take my word for it, but be prepared to play this game in hard mode. If you have the time, energy and skills, you can do your own research with the material.

However, I used https://wayin.ai/ to translate and summarize the video, and here are some relevant parts of the summary. To me, the most interesting parts are about the way Donut Lab is being funded.

00:03:21-00:04:51

Donut Lab's claims of revolutionary battery tech, promising to make lithium mines obsolete and be easily mass-produced, raise serious doubts. The speaker argues that an invention of this magnitude would attract investment from major entities like Morgan Stanley or Elon Musk, rather than relying on cold calls to individual investors.

00:04:51-00:07:05

The speaker explains Donut Lab's approach of offering convertible bonds to private investors with promises of 5x returns. This tactic, he argues, is typical of fraudulent schemes. Genuine billion-dollar innovations attract funding from established banks or venture capital firms, not through unsolicited calls to individual investors.

00:41:16-00:46:42

A true, groundbreaking invention wouldn't require cold calls to investors or rushing fundraising. Legitimate innovations are typically kept confidential until ready for presentation to relevant, established investors, unlike this company's approach.

In this video, Aki Pyysing claims that Donut Lab is contacting small investors instead of large investment firms or banks. If you can find another source to verify this claim, don't hesitate to share it. Regardless, this sounds like an unusual funding strategy to me. Consider that a red flag.

TL;DR
I sold my old laptop and MacGyvered my own cardboard packaging for shipping.

Long version
I sold my old gaming laptop online and had to ship it, but the original packaging was long gone. So, I improvised with waste cardboard from other electronics, scissors, and tape. It worked! I’ve always admired how companies like Dell and HP ship their electronics. Some of their boxes have really elaborate custom cardboard inserts to protect the contents. It’s amazing what they achieve with just cuts and folds. Inspired by that, I wanted to try something similar. My goal was simple: ensure the laptop survived the journey in one piece. Unfortunately, I don’t have a degree in cardboard engineering, so I used what I had and improvised the rest.

Step 1: Prevent Vertical Movement
First, I needed to stop the laptop from shifting up or down. I made four corner pieces—essentially cardboard pillars with cutouts to cradle the laptop’s corners.

None of this was measured. It was all eyeball once, cut 5 times, and repeat until it fits. It took a few iterations though.

Step 2: Protect the Edges
Next, I needed to keep the laptop’s edges from touching the box walls. I improvised some edge supports:

Here’s how they look installed:

I also used tape in a few spots to keep everything secure.

Step 3: Final Assembly
Here’s the laptop, reasonably well-supported in the box:

I added extra padding here and there. It's just rolled-up cardboard and tape, nothing fancy.
Note: The box itself was originally for a display, so I had to adjust the length significantly. The charger isn’t visible in the photo because I tucked it under the laptop.

The Verdict
The buyer sent me a photo of the laptop upon arrival. My arts and crafts project worked as intended! 😀

18! = 6 402 373 705 728 000

It was so satisfying. No egg shell crumbs to clean up. Feels like I’m playing breakfast in very easy mode.

Edit: It happened again, but this time I got a better photo.

TL;DR
Switched from Windows → Debian → Bazzite. This is part appreciation post, part personal journey. Bazzite just works, and I love it.

Long story
Over the past few years, I had heard great things about Proton and Bazzite, so I decided to give them a shot. Over the course of about 6 months I migrated my gaming rig from Windows to Debian, and eventually to Bazzite.

I was stuck with Windows for years because, let’s face it, games are built for it. But I knew most titles ran just fine on Linux, and I was curious to see how it actually holds up. I started with Debian since I've used it on other machines and didn’t want to deal with extra admin work when I just wanted to game.

Of course, I hit a few snags, mostly thanks to Nvidia still deserving the middle finger, and my fancy gaming mouse pulling some weird non-standard click shenanigans. After switching to AMD and a simpler gaming mouse, Debian actually worked pretty well. Initially, I thought I was stuck with Steam games, but Heroic Games fixed that as well. Things have really gotten a lot better in Linux gaming!

Well, almost everything worked. Space Engineers 2 was the one holdout. I tried every trick in the book to get it running, but eventually realized I was spending more time troubleshooting than actually playing. That’s when I backed up my saves and took the plunge with Bazzite.

I've always kept secure boot disabled, but Bazzite’s modern installation made me reconsider. The official guide didn’t fully solve my issues, but I winged it and got it working anyway. Turns out, ignoring secure boot for years meant I had some learning to do. Better late than never.

First boot into Bazzite, and of course, I had to tweak KDE to feel like home. Still love how customizable it is after all these years, and Wayland support is surprisingly solid now.

And guess what? Space Engineers 2 just worked. No hackery or trickery required. Kudos to the Bazzite devs. Keep it up!

Lesson learned
Sure, you can game on Debian, and it's perfectly fine for most games. If you want it to just work, Bazzite’s the way to go.

Crossposted from https://mander.xyz/post/47982843

Gnome tweaks and dconf say right-click resizing should work. It does, but only with the touchpad buttons. If I use my Logitech G603, it refuses to cooperate. Took a while to figure out why, so I’m sharing in case someone else is banging their head against the same brick wall.

Turns out, the Logitech G603’s right click triggers both BTN_RIGHT (273) and BTN_EXTRA (276) at the same time. A normal mouse would just use BTN_RIGHT, with BTN_EXTRA reserved for a separate physical button. Apparently, Gnome can’t handle this kind of messy double-input nonsense and blocks right-click resizing, which is mildly infuriating. I've tried this mouse with three different Linux computers, and the result is always the same. This is clearly caused by the mouse, not the system.

Side note: I absolutely love that sort of smooth resizing. If you haven't used it yet, I highly recommend trying it out. I can’t believe how Windows users live without it. Imagine trying to aim for the 1 pixel wide edge of a window every time.

Anyway, if you’re running into the same issue, check what your mouse is actually sending when you right-click. Install libinput-tools and run:

sudo libinput debug-events

My output looks like this:

event7   POINTER_BUTTON               +1.688s	BTN_RIGHT (273) pressed, seat count: 1
event7   POINTER_BUTTON               +1.688s	BTN_EXTRA (276) pressed, seat count: 1
event7   POINTER_BUTTON               +1.935s	BTN_RIGHT (273) released, seat count: 0
event7   POINTER_BUTTON               +1.935s	BTN_EXTRA (276) released, seat count: 0

As you can see, a single right click produces four lines corresponding to pressing and releasing two buttons. If I can disable the BTN_EXTRA (276) input, I’ll stick with my Logitech. If not, I'll probably switch to one of my backup mice.

I'm planning to test those later this week. Hopefully, they know how to behave. Next time I'm buying a (used) mouse, I'll definitely test it this way before paying. I don't want my hardware to require extra troubleshooting just to do basic things.

I'll be looking into that tweaking side later as well, now that I know what to look for. If you have any tips, tricks, and sources to check, feel free to drop them in them here.

Update: G305 and Corsair Harpoon RGB Wireless Gaming Mouse don't mess around with the clicks like that. Those have a completely normal right click. Only the Logitech G603 is doing something weird here.

I usually describe my cooking style as "minimal effort." Throw things in a pot, apply heat, read Lemmy posts, stir occasionally, watch videos, and eat it when it looks sufficiently edible. Nothing fancy.

This time, though, I somehow ended up cooking three things at once. If you had seen me, I probably looked like someone who thinks they know what they’re doing but is actually just winging it extra hard.

Here’s how it happened:

I was hungry, so I opened the freezer. Five fish fingers and some frozen veggies. Tossed them in the air fryer. Done. But then I realized that wouldn’t be enough for everyone.

Checked the pantry. Canned tuna, beans, crushed tomatoes. Good enough. Threw those in a wok pan with some oat cream. Technically a meal, I guess. Eh, close enough. Should be fit for human consumption.

Then I realized one family membrer always wants pasta. Fine! Boiled some pasta in a small pot.

And that’s when it hit me: I was cooking three things at once. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Still not a chef, but for a moment, I felt almost competent. Is that normal? Anything like this ever happened to you?

Green, Sencha okumidori
some random Chinese oolong
White, bai hao yin zhen

Edit: The oolong was pretty good. Mildly floral and fruity. The okumidori was just as good as I expected. Worth the price IMO.

Which is roughly 6.7*10^540.

I know I’m late to the party, but I’ve finally achieved something quite satisfying: a house with only USB-C cables. Phone, tablet, laptop, headphones, earbuds, power bank, etc. Even my kitchen scale has joined the revolution. No more hunting for the right cable, no more “Wait, does this one fit the headphones or the tablet?” Just one cable to rule them all. The transition period is finally over!

Unnecessary details:
Here are some of the possible scenarios I considered:

1. Always buy new. The annoyance would have started in 2018 with the first iPad with USB-C and finally ended in 2023 with the iPhone 15. That would have been five years of cable chaos. No thanks! Over the years, there would have been gradual steps toward USB-C as more devices switched, and eventually, I would have had only one Lightning cable for my phone. Avoiding that frustration was the goal of this planned cable transition.

2. Always buy used. Stick with the older buds and iPads as long as possible. As soon as the iPhone 15 became reasonably cheap, switch all the devices at once. It’s a lot cheaper than option 1, and it minimizes the frustration period.

In reality, though, the transition period actually started much earlier than that, because I did have a few USB-C electronics long before 2018. For example, my work phone and my proper headphones started using USB-C very early. Fortunately, they didn’t need to be charged frequently, so the cable annoyance was minimal.

Over the years, I’ve also accumulated quite a few USB-C cables, but I never really put them to use. After all, I had only a few devices, and they didn’t even need frequent charging. Nowadays, though, everything comes with the same universal port, which means I can finally start using those old cables that have been sitting in a cable box all these years.

Here’s liminal space in a highway intersection. Just switched from one bus lane to another one, so I had to walk through a space like this.

Conditions

Porridge left unattended on a stove at low heat (setting 1/6). The operator was distracted due to being engaged in unrelated digital activity (consuming social media caontent on Lemmy).

Duration of neglect: over 500 s, sufficient for thermal degradation of the lower porridge stratum.

Outcome

Lower layer closest to the electrical heating element exhibited significantly increased viscosity and adhesion to the pot surface. The material had transformed from a slurry to a semi-solid substance. No signs of combustion detected, but structural integrity severely compromised. Upper layers remained nominally intact, although clearly dehydrated.

Remediation Attempt

Immediate cessation of energy input (stove setting adjusted to 0). Introduction of household grade H₂O to the pot.

Volume: ~200–400 ml, determined through optical estimation.

Manual agitation applied.

Initial results: partial rehydration of upper layers; lower stratum remained non-compliant and semi-solid. In the upper layers, porridge consistency trended toward excessive fluidity.

Secondary Observations

Pot left on a gradually cooling stove plate for approximately 500 s while the operator continued to consume unrelated social media content. Upon reassessment, lower stratum demonstrated reduced adhesion and reintegrated adequately with the rest of the material upon mild agitation. Overall viscosity returned to baseline parameters. Upon sensory evaluation, no major defects were detected.

Verdict: fit for human consumption.

Conclusion

In cases of thermal over-exposure, controlled hydration may restore functional properties of starch-based foodstuffs, such as porridge.

Note: Hydration effects are time-dependent. Immediate results should not be expected. Food chemistry remains unpredictable and fiendishly complex, but simple interventions may mitigate adverse outcomes.

Conjecture: Reaction kinetics likely play a role in amount of time required for adequate remediation to occur. However, a more significant factor could be found in diffusion kinetics instead. Due to the elevated density of thermally mildly dehydrated starch and protein matrix, H₂O will be will only be able to enter the sample matrix at a significantly reduced rate.

Limitations

1. Sample size (n=1) precludes statistical significance.
2. Lack of control group (e.g., identical porridge batch intentionally burned for comparison).
3. No baseline measurements of moisture content, starch gelatinization, or protein denaturation.
4. Potential observer bias, as the researcher was also the individual responsible for the initial neglect.
5. No ethical review board approval was sought, as the experiment was unintentional, unscheduled and involved no human subjects beyond the researcher.

Recommendation

While this incident does not meet the any criteria of even an observational study (n=1, lack of controls, absence of peer review), let alone a controlled study, it does provide anecdotal evidence that hydration may mitigate thermal degradation in starch matrices such as porridge. In order to provide additional clarification to the reaction kinetics of porridge, further study in a controlled environment with replication is required.

References

Burns, R. U. (2018). On the adhesive properties of overcooked oats: A retrospective analysis of kitchen catastrohes. Journal of Culinary Mishaps and accidental splatters, 12(3), 45–67. https://doi.org/17.02823/burntoats

Stirwell, A. G. (2020). Hydration as a remediation strategy for thermally compromised starch matrices. In Proceedings of the 15th Annual Symposium on Domestic Food Salvage (pp. 112–123). Institute of Gastronomical Desperation.

Potter, H. E., & Kettle, B. L. (2021). Diffusion kinetics in the context of "Oops, I forgot the stove was on": A practical guide. International Journal of Kitchen Physics, 7(2), 89–101. https://doi.org/11.94723/stovestress

Crossposted from https://piefed.world/post/448188

Just realized you can stack these metal tea boxes. Turns out, the dimensions haven’t changed over the decades.

Top tin: Fortnum & Mason Royal Blend, bought around 2018. I ran out of the original tea years ago, so now it’s filled with Taylors of Harrogate Assam Black Tea.

Bottom tin: A vintage tin I got from my grandma — probably from somewhere between the 1950s and 1980s. It’s currently home to some cheap, low-quality pu-erh from my local Chinese shop. Surprisingly tasty for the price.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/43197679

Unlike lithium-ion batteries, vanadium flow batteries use electrolyte solutions containing vanadium ions to store and release energy. The technology offers a number of advantages for grid-scale storage: high safety (non-flammable), long cycle life (over 15 years), and the ability to decouple power and energy capacity, offering greater design flexibility.