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Michael Pavone

@retrodev.com

110 followers 230 following 440 posts

Author of BlastEm, a high-performance accuracy focused emulator for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive: https://www.retrodev.com/blastem/ he/him Build more housing! Berkeley, CA

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 7h

On high solar production days, batteries are the largest power source for 2-3 hours in the early evening. Most recently on October 5th. We've got a ways to go before we have enough capacity to last the whole night, but that's more of a deployment problem than a technology problem at this point.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 19h

*Sees a bunch of Saturn games in the background* That looks like a really cool thrift store! Is it local?

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 23h

Kristi Noem on an outdoor display in City 17 with Citadel 17 in the background

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

So many rich guys just totally cooked their brains during the pandemic

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

Amusingly, the Dai in Daihatsu comes from the kanji 大 which means "big". Though it's associated with the company because it's also used in the name of Osaka (大阪) where the it was founded.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

There were also a lot of bills from the end of session to get through. But yeah, this is a pretty high profile bill so you would think he would want to sign it early unless he was planning a fancy signing ceremony (which did not happen) or he was on the fence.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

California has no pocket veto. Unsigned bills that hit the deadline become law (though apparently Newsom has not passed bills this way previously). There was some reporting when AB86 got vetoed that implied the other bills were dead, but it was misleading

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

Has he vetoed more? Last I heard it was only AB86? Looks like he signed AB727 today. The other LGBTQ Caucus priority bills are still pending as best I can tell

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

I don't think this one is 100% correct or at least not 100% up to date on some of the changes needed to get the bill over the line. It shows Contra Costa county as an "Urban Transit County" with a number of stops with upzoning, but the bill doesn't really apply there at all now AFAIK

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

So on a day like that, it's best to start charging as soon as I have about 1 kw of solar surplus so the house battery doesn't get full too early. However, on a sufficiently cloudy day I might struggle to get enough production to charge the house battery enough for the evening peak period.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

I only have a Level 1 EVSE for my car (we don't drive very far in a typical week) and at the lower 8 amp setting it only charges at a rate of about 1 kW. On a low-usage sunny day, this is not nearly enough to absorb all my excess production when the house battery is full.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

Initial look into whether National Weather Service skycover forecasts would be helpful for predicting my solar production for the day is not looking too promising so far. Doesn't look like much correlation between the forecast and how good my production is compared to the ideal

Graph showing solar production in watts in blue and the most recent forecast for a given hour in purple. Production starts off strong, but gets very variable around 10:20 due to intermittent cloud cover. A bit before noon it dropped down to around 1000 watts due to overcast conditions before recovering somewhat around 2 PM.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 1d

This will probably get me canceled by the true Daft Punk fans, but I think while their other albums have some good singles there are filled out with a lot of really boring tracks. The Tron: Legacy soundtrack is literally the only one of their albums I like enough to own.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 2d

I wonder whether this "limited run" is because they think demand is limited, because it's not actually profitable at this price or if it's some kind of marketing tactic

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 2d

Hybrid version of the Kia Niro might be a reasonable comparison too, though it has larger passenger and cargo volume

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 2d

Based on news.gm.com/home.detail.... and www.toyota.com/prius/featur...
It's 11.5" shorter, .5" narrower, but 8" taller than a Prius. Pasenger volume is 5.4 cubic feet bigger, but seats-up cargo volume is 7.6 cubic feet smaller. Base model Prius starts at $28,550 so a little cheaper

It’s back: Introducing the 2027 Chevrolet Bolt

By popular demand, the Bolt returns, offering the most range in an EV under $30,000.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 2d

I think at the minimum scanning speed, the difference in length is in the neighborhood of 277nm and at the maximum scanning speed it's around 324 nm. Your pixels would need to be small enough to capture size differences on that scale.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 2d

From some further reading, it looks like between each 14-bit EFM pattern there are 3 merging bits that ensure that there are no fewer than 2 and no more than 10 zeroes between each run. This yields a total of 9 possible pitch/land lengths the exact length of which has some variance within the spec

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 2d

Note that these are small enough that you start getting into weird diffraction issues (which is why they have that sort of rainbowy appearance). IIRC, CD drives actually depend on diffraction to a certain extent. That said, I think this can be photographed optically with the right lens

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 2d

From the visual side, pits are apparently about 500nm wide and range from 850nm to 3500nm long (at least according to this: volga.eng.yale.edu/teaching-res... ). You need to recover the pit length and distance between pits well enough to match the correct EFM entry for decoding

Application: CDs and DVDs | Ismail-Beigi Research Group

volga.eng.yale.edu

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 2d

I think there's two ways you can try to estimate this. From the encoding side, you can start from the raw size of 74 minutes worth of PCM at 44.1 kHz. Then you need to add in error correction and EFM encoding overhead. Every 192 bits of audio becomes 588 bits after these (roughly 3X)

Reposted by Michael Pavone

Californians for Electric Rail @calelectricrail.org · 2d

This one highway is projected to cost 85% of what CA has spent on high-speed rail over 15 years and hundreds of miles. If we can afford this, we can afford high-speed rail.

Alfred Twu @alfredtwu.com · 3d

The entire proposed Highway 37 Solano-Marin super bridge is estimated to cost $11 billion, all to replace an existing road between a couple of suburbs. And it's proposed at 114 feet wide.

For comparison, the Golden Gate Bridge is 90 feet wide.

Warren Wells, AICP @warrenjwells.bsky.social · 4d

Caltrans has released a cross section for the ultimate (raised viaduct) version of SR-37.

Now maybe I'm just being paranoid, but if you were building a road that you planned to keep at 4 lanes wide, I don't think it would look like this.

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 3d

My impression is that restaurants in this area are mostly doing okay (though not Babette's obviously), but the overall retail situation has gotten pretty dire. Three of the 4 corners of the intersection with University are vacant now

Reposted by Michael Pavone

Alfred Twu @alfredtwu.com · 3d

Another batch of California bill signings - nothing significant, no new vetoes either. www.gov.ca.gov/2025/10/07/g...

Keep making those calls for SB 79 and the LGBTQ rights bills! 9am-5pm, or message anytime at www.gov.ca.gov/contact/ 1/

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 4d

The part about the veto is not misleading, but the part about the fate of the other bills is misleading. Article makes it sound like they're dead, but he both still has time to actively sign them (deadline is the 12th) and they will become law without his signature unless he vetoes.