Salamander
- 160 Posts
- 428 Comments
Salamander@mander.xyzMto
Science@mander.xyz•Why this $10 spectrometer chip could bring real-time chemical sensing to wearables
1·6 days agoYes, there is a lot of potential. There are micro-spectrometers available covering this range, like the MEMS-FPI type spectrometer or the multi-pixel arrays with filters (example: https://www.mantispectra.com/products). But this new kind of detector seems to come with higher resolution, faster readout than the MEMS-FPI, and more sensitivity. It is quite exciting, I’m curious to see if they commercialize it soon.
Salamander@mander.xyzMto
Science@mander.xyz•Why this $10 spectrometer chip could bring real-time chemical sensing to wearables
2·6 days agoI am not 100% sure, but I think that the designer bears the cost of the wafer yield.
The PDK is specific to the manufacturer, and I imagine that the risk associated with specific features is known and the yield range can be estimated. A design with more and riskier the features would lower the expected yield, and it makes sense that this risk gets passed onto the designer. The contract may have some protections for the case when the yield is significantly lower than expected because of the manufacturer’s fault. Just a guess though, it would be great if someone with real experience can answer.
Salamander@mander.xyzMto
Science@mander.xyz•Why this $10 spectrometer chip could bring real-time chemical sensing to wearables
3·6 days agoVery cool!
I also like that they included a device cost analysis. I think they used some aggressively optimistic assumptions (100% yield from the wafer) and large-volume procurement prices that I am skeptical of, but if true it is valuable info.

Thanks! :)
Thanks!
The way submitters didn’t played by the rules
It is not that the submitters did not play by the rules. The ‘rules’ of the instance set the scope of the kind of communities that belong here, but I would not expect users from other instances to be aware of these rules. So, it was a mistake on my end not on any poster’s. It would have been better to react sooner, but better now than later.
There are ways this community could have been both science
From the name my impression was that the community was about more aligned with futuristic sci-fi, which would be a bit on the edge of the scope but acceptable.
Salamander@mander.xyzMto
Reptiles and Amphibians@mander.xyz•my babies morphed into their final form!!!!
5·8 days agoThat’s awesome!! Are they in a terrarium or outside?
You can have a look at some communities that often have content where science intersects politics:
https://mander.xyz/c/academia https://mander.xyz/c/earthscience https://mander.xyz/c/publichealth
Minimizing politics does not strictly mean being extreme about enforcing the no-politics rule. Posts that are about the interaction between politics and science generally contain enough overlap with science that it is acceptable. But that is not the case in this community, it is mostly general topics and politics.
Haha, thanks but no worries, the wound will heal 😁
The instance has had this policy for over 4 years. The sidebar reads:
The main focus of this instance is the natural sciences, and the scope encompasses all of the STEM fields.
Please keep politics to a minimum. When science is the focus, intersection with politics may be tolerated as long as the discussion is constructive and science remains the focus. As a general rule, political content posted directly to the instance’s local communities is discouraged and may be removed. You can of course engage in political discussions in non-local communities.
The goal when creating this instance was to a place to discuss about scientific discoveries, post pictures of nature, and have a set of communities for this while avoiding polarizing content. If someone wants to discuss politics they can click on ‘All’ and go right to it. The scope is explicitly anti-politics because I do not want to moderate a politically charged or polarizing environment, and I know that many people with interests like mine will also appreciate such a space existing because they see enough pictures of Donald Trump and polarizing discussions elsewhere.
y’all are a science community and science is being hunted down and destroyed systematically and your response is to try to become less political?
I do not disagree with you broadly, and that is to an extent why I use common sense and do not enforce the “no politics” rule religiously. There is quite a bit politics that gets through. Although I do prefer to offer users of this instance a politics free experience, if no one complains I usually let it go.
In this case: I have noticed posts in the front page that have nothing to do with science lately, and they came from this specific community. I then saw some US politics characters attached to articles that had nothing to do with science. I looked through the community and most of it is off-topic, so it makes more sense to lock the community.
I’m sorry this upsets you, I should have removed the community as soon as it was created, but I did not realize what it was.
I could see the credits for “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” in Deezer, but I am not sure about how exactly Deezer determines this: https://www.deezer.com/us/album/951602381
Salamander@mander.xyzto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•Best way to share audio files with tech noobs?
2·12 days agoI would make use of a VPS to serve a directory with the files using Nginx. The VPS is ~$5 /month. You can share the ip or buy a domain name for ~$10/year. If you are not opposed to vibe-coding, you can probably generate the Nginx + HTML config to play through the songs without having to click them individually with little effort.
Salamander@mander.xyzto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•Do you change the default luggage code from '000' to another code?
1·12 days agoWait what, how do you know my code?
Salamander@mander.xyzto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•What's something you used to dislike and what made you change your mind?
1·12 days agoAlso: I use the timer very often, and I find setting a timer on a phone to be more awkward.
Salamander@mander.xyzto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•What's something you used to dislike and what made you change your mind?
2·12 days agoSport watches.
Combination of two tings: I used to think that wearing a watch was irrelevant because I could always see the time in my phone. And I did not want to have an app knowing how many steps I take.
What changed a few years ago: I stopped having a phone on me most of the time, so a watch became extremely handy for knowing what time it is, and I found out that Garmin watches work perfectly well without an app. So, now, I really like my watch. I am considering getting a fancier one with solar charging, and I even got a chest strap to improve measurement accuracy while running.
Very interesting! Thank you a lot for finding and sharing that, I couldn’t find any good info myself via online searches.
The song Everything’s Gonna Be Alright is a cover of the song from Sweetbox (1997) that goes by the same name and is based on Bach’s Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3…
I think that the rest are originals. Not 100% sure. I am surprised by how little information they made available, they just randomly dropped this with no context after almost a decade since the previous one. I ordered the physical album so hopefully it comes with some additional info haha.
Salamander@mander.xyztoData is Beautiful@lemmy.world•U.S. hantavirus cases rose from 13 in 2022 to 38 in 2025, a 192% increase and a 6-year high, driven largely by western statesEnglish
7·1 month agoWhat is the justification for selecting the range 2022 - 2025? I suspect that this is cherry picking.
One of the data sources they reference is: https://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/data-research/cases/index.html, this site has data up to 2023 (I could not find 2024 - 2025). Here is the plot of the total hantavirus cases in the US vs year:

The number of cases vs year is rather noisy, and 2022 was a particularly low year. Saying that there is a ‘192% increase’ might be technically true but misleading.
All volunteer efforts are welcome, and using AI tools to support volunteer work is completely reasonable to me.
I personally value well-crafted human-made art more highly than AI-generated art. If someone wants to invest the time to create original icons and donate them, I am always very happy to see that!
That said, requiring unpaid contributors to meet a craftsmanship standard before they are allowed to help does not seem constructive to me. Volunteer communities usually work best when people contribute with the time, skills, and tools they actually have available.
A middle-ground alternative to AI-generated work is searching through Creative Commons assets, but even that still takes time to source, filter, adapt, and integrate. Expecting volunteers to always provide fully custom artwork or spend significant additional time curating assets does not seem like a fair expectation to me.
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