TTYM #3

It's about time you heard about Tailscale (and clear view camera lenses and the asteroid belt). Your projects will thank you and you'll thank me!

Stuff that I find online as I go about my life as a maker, electronics engineer and overall proud nerd. You’re getting this because you registered on the supertechman.blogspot.com blog. I was a nerd before it was cool.

Tailscale why do I use it and why do you need it?

Tailscale is a user-friendly tool for creating secure, private networks over the internet. It simplifies the process of connecting devices, servers, and services across different locations, making it ideal for remote work, IoT, and hybrid cloud environments. When I say simplifies, I really mean simplifies.

Remember when you had that device on your internal network (maybe a NAS, a pi or an ESP32) that you wanted to connect to from the outside and you had to go to your router, open a port, redirect that port internally to that machine while at the same time using a service like ddns.net to link your dynamic IP to some sort of fixed TLD? And don’t let me get started on the security implications of doing that.

A Tailscale point-to-point mesh network minimizes latency. Source: https://tailscale.com/blog/how-tailscale-works

Well, that so common scenario is as easy as 1, 2, 3, (4, 5) with Tailscale. Each device runs its own Tailscale client (and there’s clients for everything, including your dog). The client creates a virtual network interface and bam! you’ve connected them all together on your own VPN. Maybe you didn’t quite grasp it like I didn’t when I first started using it: devices on any network will be present on your VPN, no need to open any ports, no need to do anything to the gateway. That means that if you configure a device on your home network and then take it to a hotel and connect it to the Wi-Fi there, it will still show on your Tailscale network as if nothing had happened (and without you having to non-ethically hack the hotel network to open it to the outside).

Apparently, there is much more to Tailscale then I use it for (exit nodes come to mind), I still haven’t used any of those advanced features, but I have friends that swear this is the coolest thing to ever exist after the invention of gluten-free bread. Ah, and did I mention that (at least what I use it for) is completely free?

They did the math - we comment on the quote.

The following quote is from the treasure trove of deep knowledge that is Reddit, specifically it was one of the comments on this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/tkm0yr/what_are_some_really_fun_facts_about_space/

The average distance between asteroids in the asteroid belt is twice the distance between the Earth and Moon. You could fly through the asteroid belt while texting or even taking a nap without fear of hitting anything. Think about that next time a movie shows flying through an asteroid belt.

u/ChrisARippel

Our comments: the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter, contains millions of asteroids, but they are spread out over an enormous volume of space. The average distance between asteroids is about 2 to 4 million kilometers (1.2 to 2.5 million miles). For comparison:

  • The distance between Earth and the Moon is about 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles).

  • This means the average distance between asteroids is roughly 5 to 10 times the Earth-Moon distance, not just twice as stated in the quote.

When you fly your spacecraft through the asteroid belt, the chance of hitting an asteroid is extremely low. The vast distances between objects mean you could easily navigate through without encountering any asteroids at all (boring!). If you were to stand on an asteroid in the belt, you likely wouldn’t even see another asteroid with the naked eye because they are so far apart.

NASA's spacecrafts, such as the Pioneer 10, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and New Horizons, have all flown through the asteroid belt without any issues or collisions.

Verdict: this quote is correct!

What was that thing on TTYM #2?

On the last TTYM issue we were all confused about that round thing on the window of that train (original image here again on the left). Well… that’s a clear view screen: a glass disk mounted in a window that rotates to disperse rain, spray, and snow. Here’s the source of all this information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_view_screen

And see below for another application of the same concept: a self-cleaning lens for cameras that makes it possible to shoot clear footage in rainy or snowy environments (make sure you take the time to watch the demo video they have on their website. Coolness factor: 100%). See here: Gyro stabilized systems.

That’s all folks!

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