Should we ban information?

I wrote about the shooting in Christchurch. The New Zealand government has more or less banned the possession of the shooting video as well as the manifesto written by the shooter.

Is that the way to go?

I agree that spreading the video and the manifesto may expose more people to these ideas, which have no place in our society. But at the same time, it brings attention to them. This lends support to those warped ideas, but does not allow access to information which can be refuted to expose the fallacy of those ideas.

And if banning is the way to go, the New Zealand government may have to start banning all news coverage of Trump. Because his words spread hate along similar lines. They expose people to similar ideas.

Not giving an avenue to spread such ideas is one thing. But is banning the way to go?

Or is openness, and with it, the availability of information for people to learn, and criticize, a more balanced approach? Because in this day and age when information moves at the speed of light, unlike a time when people and ideas spreading dangerous ideas can be physically contained, any idea that has been launched into cyberspace can never be retracted back and contained.

Do we shut off people from things that we think may negatively impact them so as to protect them, like a protective parent?

Or do we expose them to the world even as we guide them along, for them to learn on their own with the support of the wisdom of others?

Update 3 on ESP32 3D printer control board

Another update on the MRR ESPA 3D printer control board based on the ESP32.

The smoke that came from plugging in the board to 12V power was narrowed down to... insufficient trace widths. The trace widths for the heated bed and hotend were too thin. So when they start to draw current, the traces get hot, and melt the PCB, giving off smoke. So that's the problem with the heating side that will need to be fixed.

Otherwise, the motor movements seem to be okay. Tried homing and it works. Connected it to an inductive sensor, and that triggered fine too. Here's a short video of it doing some test moves using gcode that basically makes it draw a square.

I keep having problems trying to get my MKS TFT32 touchscreen controller to work on the AUX1 connector. After troubleshooting, I think the problem could be my MKS TFT32 is... a bit fried. It may have some issues on its TX/RX pins. Because when I use other microcontrollers (a M5Stack, and an Arduino Nano) to send and receive gcode with TX/RX pins, those gcodes went through okay. I think, in my previous rounds of testing, I could have damaged my MKS TFT32. Oh well...

The next update will resolve the trace width issue. The bidirectional level shifter will also be dropped to use a simple voltage divider on the ESP32's RX pin. Hopefully, I can get the next version sent for PCB production and get it by early April.

Note: Issue fixed. Pre-launch version now available here. Some information on this has been updated here.

Shooting in Christchurch

Everyone knows. There was a shooting (or rather, two) in Christchurch today, where gunmen attacked two mosques and shot people there.

I saw a video of one of the shootings. The shooter actually broadcast his entire attack live on Facebook.

It was nothing short of a methodical massacre.

All religions share common teachings: universal love for humankind, and punishments for one's own bad deeds. So the indiscriminate killing of people belonging to a certain affiliation (be it race, religion, work, play, or any other ways we can group people) can never be taken as "punishment". In fact, such deeds only show a person's lack of faith, lack of religion, lack of humanity.

Religions warn of demons, of devils. This is what they are referring to.

Those who claim to act in God's name are acting for themselves, acting in the name of those demons and devils. Because an almighty God does not need mortals to act on His or Her behalf. In a more ignorant age, where information was less readily available, I would find it hard to blame people for believing in lies and becoming terrorists, instigated or self-radicalised. But in an age where information is so readily available, why do people still choose to fall into ignorance?

Why do people still choose to believe in demons and devils, instead of the teachings of their religions?

Why do we continue to discriminate against people who are different from us, instead of accepting the diversity that is humankind?

Why do we continue to be weak and fall to temptation, instead of standing tall in faith?

We pray for the fallen, but more importantly, we should ask ourselves, "What can I do to make sure this does not happen again?"

Update 2 on ESP32 3D printer control board

v0.9 of the 3D printer control board I am working on. Named MRR ESPA. ESPA because it is based on the ESP32, and "A" since this is the basic version of the board. If anyone has better suggestions for naming these boards (there will be an advance version of the board featuring the use of I2S, once this version is sorted out), please leave them in the comments. Otherwise, the advanced board is going to be called ESPE. 😅

When I tested it with a small 12V PSU (6A), connected with a heatblock to simulate the heat bed, it kind of worked. The E0 heating worked too.

And then I connected it to my test printer (a FLSun Cube frame modified into CoreXY mechanics), flipped on the switch, and saw a thin line of smoke rising up from the IRLR3034 MOSFET for the heat bed. Wow! Somehow, it seems the heat bed MOSFET has failed in the open mode, and was basically trying to heat up the heat bed at max power. So I disconnected the heat bed (as you can see from the picture) to carry on testing.

The hotend heated up fine. For once. One time. I set 60degC, it went to 60degC, and maintained it. Then I tried to set 120degC. Nothing happened. The LED indicating power going to the hotend went off. Nothing. Rebooted, nope. Powered down and up, still couldn't get the hotend to heat. But the fan, which uses the exact same setup as the hotend, continued to work. No issues.

I went through the schematic and PCB layout, and it doesn't seem to be an issue with these. My gut feel is an issue with the bed MOSFET and the voltage shifter for the hotend. The MOSFET was reused from a previous version of the board, and could have been faulty in the first place (which, thinking back to when I connected a hotend to it, seems to be so). The issue with the voltage shifter could be bad soldering. I guess I should get better quality solder paste, instead of dried up one which I tried to revive using flux.

Next step: solder a new board based on the current schematic, using new parts. If the problems persist, then it is an issue with the design and I will need to rethink everything. If not, and it works, then hurray! On to the next stage of testing.

Note: Issue fixed. Pre-launch version now available here. Some information on this has been updated here.

Protecting Trump, a catch-22

For those thinking of perjury in order to protect Trump, I guess the dilemma is this.

Conduct perjury, get caught, and be found guilty. Then hope to get a presidential pardon to avoid going to prison.

But, when caught for perjury, Trump's presidency may be endangered, and if he loses his office, he can no longer grant that presidential pardon. But Cohen's case has shown that coming clean doesn't mean "stay out of jail."

Take a gamble that Trump remains in power, and continue to protect Trump? Or swing the other way, and possibly still get thrown into prison?

Truly in between a rock and a hard place. 😅