I self-published my first (and only so far) novel last year. It's an amazing feeling when you see your printed book. I still sometimes wonder to myself, "did I really do that?"
Pinecil: Would you recommend this if the soldering job were more than just a few wires (e.g. circuit assembly)? I've had a couple of cordless soldering irons in the past and they were a bust - took too long to heat up, didn't hold their temp very well.
Yes, for any basic PCB assembly it works as well as, if not better than my Hakko 888 (70W) and TS100 (60W). It also works as well as the $2000 soldering station I have access at work (admittedly that has a lot more features such as desoldering).
It's not cordless/battery power but rather uses usb-c power delivery directly. It's up to 60W on "normal" usb-c, but supports up to 88W with newer usb-c standards your charger probably doesn't support. I think even higher if you really want to push it. Even using it at 45W with a usb-c battery pack, it heats up in a few seconds. And since it has an OLED screen, you can understand what power it's getting with your battery pack and change settings like temperature and idle temperature easily.
It's also based on RISC-V and you can get a $4 breakout board to turn it into a dev kit.
Finally, it's $26. Don't forget to add a high-temp silicon cable ($3.50) and extra tips (4 for $25). I'm so excited just writing about this I think I am going to buy 5 or so as go-to gifts for nerdy people.
John, thanks for the detailed write-up. Much appreciated. Unfortunately, they are out of stock now. I have the tab pinned and will refresh it daily until it's available. Did you order the last 5? :-)
I have a Hakko 888 as well and while I like it, there's a bit of a set up as I'm limited on space. So when you said it's as good as your Hakko, you sold me on it.
I published my book via Scrivener - both print and ebook. I'll admit it wasn't straightforward but once I "learned" it, I saved that away as a template for my next book. There's a fair bit of customization and not very obvious how it works. I relied on the forums for hints/tips and even then it took some trial/error attempts. I'd say in total, I spent a full weekend figuring it out. I wonder how much of that memory is now lost and will need to be relearned when I publish my second book (template and all).
This has triggered a memory, whereby I had spent probably a similar amount of time getting a custom template done - then, by the time my book was finished, there was an upgrade and the template vanished/became unusable - and then the whole templating system seemed to have changed dramatically, and I didn’t have the energy to burn another 2-3 days re-learning it all… Anyway.
If you leave your sunglasses in the open in the car, it might be collecting the offgassing from the plastic - that same haze that accumulates on the inside of your windshield. I keep mine in a closed container and it seems to do just fine.
I'm very surprised that this submission didn't get any traction. Google and Meta will fight this, of course, and their lobbyists may be able to help. I do wonder if we've reached a tipping point of negative consumer sentiment making it easier for Congress to pursue such a bill.
This reads/feels like an AITA thread on reddit. I used to enjoy the MarketWatch questions until I reached a tipping point where I believed they were all fake. Sigh.
Looking closer, the "Learn More" link under Single Developer says "Allow Highcharts to be used with an unlimited number of SaaS projects, web applications, intranets, and websites for you or your customers."
Although the "directly or indirectly" is annoying: 1 developer working on charting integration and 5 working on e.g. database administration? Need a 10 seats license.
They basically want you to pay based on team size. However, I'm not sure how this sort of licensing would be enforceable though. I know of of multiple companies who use HC for free for commercial purposes on the basis that all the charts are behind logins and feel that's ok. If they had a more straightforward pricing scheme I have no doubt most would just pony up the cash.
The other problem with per developer is maintaining compliance. So every time I hire I have to remember I need to get another licence for this on any other products I have that uses this type of stupid boxed-software model. It adds unnecessary overhead that isn't justified for such a small piece of component software. This isn't Visual Studio we are talking about here.
Honestly their pricing is the only reason I'm not using them.
https://www.amazon.com/Not-Gentle-Book-One-Discovery-ebook/d...
Mark's writing style really pulled me in and I'm bummed he didn't finish the series. I still have hope that he'll get back to it one day.