15 years ago, there was Snowmageddon 2010. About 8 years after that, we got Snowpocalypse 2018. Last night, 7 years and a couple weeks later, we have Snowpocalypse 2025.
It’s a bit sketchy with n=3, but this almost seems like a trend.
It started a bit later than I expected based on the forecasts. Closer to the coast this year’s snow event started with sleet but further inland it started with ice pellets falling at the house.
A couple hours later, it was a full on snow that went through most of the night.
By the time I got up this morning, the snow had stopped and there was a pretty significant accumulation of the stuff on the ground. There wasn’t quite as much as Snowpocalypse 2018, but still considerably more than we typically get (which is none).
A ruler stuck into the snow just off the relatively sheltered front porch showed just about 3.5 cm of snow and ice accumulation.
About 3.5 cm of snow and ice accumulation
There was a little more on top of the car, probably because it was higher and a bit more out in the open, and catching a bit more snow and ice being blown around and off the roof.
About 5.5 cm of snow and ice accumulation on top of the car
Further out in the driveway, I suspect there would be a similar amount.
A couple months ago, I decided to try out the Dexcom Stelo blood glucose biosensor to see what kind of near-realtime feedback about my blood glucose levels I could get (more about that in a future blog post, probably).
These are small plastic devices about 23 mm x 27 mm that are supposed to last about 15 days. After they’re spent, you take it off and replace it with a fresh sensor.
Dexcom Stelo blood glucose biosensor
Naturally, I wanted to see what was in them so I took one of the spent sensors and got some x-rays of them.
For my first image, I x-rayed a spent Stelo using a regular radiographic unit at about 5x magnification, 80 kV, 1 mAs.
Decent enough image that shows what appears to be the battery (the round object), the Bluetooth antenna (the trace toward the top), the sensor wire (the straight horizontal wire near the middle) and some of the traces on the circuit board.
I wanted a better image so I used a mammography unit. 38 kV, 40 mAs with about 1.8x magnification.
X-ray image of an intact Dexcom Stelo blood glucose biosensor
Now we see the traces on the circuit board much clearer. The round object is definitely a battery, and there are signs of at least a couple of microchips.
Time to liberate the circuit board from the casing, which turned out to be a bit of work. It looks like the Stelo is built by injection molding (or some similar process) plastic around the PCB. With a process like that, these are definitely waterproof. After some work with a knife and cutters, I was able to liberate the board.
Printed circuit board extracted from a Dexcom Stelo blood glucose biosensor
The battery turns out to be a CR1216 coin cell and occupies most of the back side of the device. The microchip on the right is marked N52832 and is a Nordic Semiconductors nRF52832 that takes care of the Bluetooth. It boasts some pretty impressive specs for such a small device. The small silver rectangular thing below and to the right of the nRF52832 is probably a crystal oscillator. It was marked with T320 MnKC.
The other chip is marked DCG7 (probably a custom designator, maybe standing for DexCom G7, their other continuous glucose meter), would likely be the brains of the device. The gold circles on the board are test points.
With the battery out of the way, an x-ray image of the PCB reveals much more detail.
X-ray image of the PCB from a Dexcom Stelo blood glucose biosensor
The BGA pads on the left side of the battery terminal would be for the nRF52832 chip while the QFN pads on the right side would be for the DCG7 chip. Aside from a bunch of other surface mount passive components, there’s not much else to the Stelo.
Advent of Code is a fun set of Christmas themed programming puzzles that has been going on from December 1 through December 25 for the past 10 years now.
Advent of Code is an Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like.
For 9 of those years, I’ve been following the puzzles and thinking “I should give these a shot”. For a variety of reasons, primarily lack of time, I never got around to doing them.
This year, I decided to tackle the Advent of Code 2024 puzzles. I chose to use PHP and Laravel Zero because it’s what I know.
The puzzles generally start out simple, and then become more complex as the days go on.
My programming skills are pretty rudimentary, so I had to spend a good amount of time thinking about how to go about solving each day’s puzzles. The easier puzzles I was able to solve, mostly using brute force methods. The more complicated puzzles I had to skip because they were beyond my current skill level.
I thoroughly enjoyed spending time working on this year’s Advent of Code puzzles and had a lot of fun. There were lots that I skipped, but I was honestly kind of surprised that I was able to solve as many as I did. The solutions were probably far from elegant, but they worked. If I get motivated enough again, I may go back and tackle some of the ones I skipped this year, or perhaps work on puzzles from previous years.
Advent of Code 2024 is over for the year, but all the puzzles are still there for this year and all the previous years. Anyone can go work on the puzzles they didn’t complete, or start from the beginning anytime they want.
While browsing around my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore a week or so ago, I came across a Pickett slide rule case sitting on one of the shelves. Got super excited, and then got super disappointed when it turned out to be just an empty case. It was priced at $10, which I decided was a little too high for just an empty case, so I decided to pass on it.
Fast forward to today, the case was still there on the shelf. With a 50% off holiday sale going on, I decided $5 wasn’t a terrible price for the empty case, so I bought it.
It’s a black case, worn but still in pretty decent shape. The Pickett logo is partly worn off but still readable. No other identifying marks on it though.
Now I need to find another Pickett slide rule to put in it.
It’s Thanksgiving day, the days are considerably shorter than they were a month ago, leaves are falling off some of the plants, but the jalapeno plants are still going strong.
A couple weeks ago I harvested almost 2kg of jalapenos, and there are still lots more left on the plants. I’ll wait a few more weeks to harvest those. Flowers keep popping up, and I’m finding new jalapenos growing just about every day.
It’s been a good year for jalapenos.
The fig plants have become quite tall, and are still continuing to fruit even though a lot of the leaves have fallen off. I’ve observed that if I lop off a branch near where a leaf had grown, more leaves start sprouting from that leaf bud. Seems like this will be helpful for managing the height of the fig trees.
The last remaining butternut squash plant keeps producing squashes. Most of them ended up failing, but there’s one small one that’s hung on and may be ready to pick in a month or two if the cold doesn’t get it first.
A failed butternut squashLast butternut squash of the season
Weather is supposed to be turning cold for the next few days, with lows just below 0°C and freeze watches.
