Right Amazon. Either they need better search results, I need better terminology, or I need to roll my own. I’m voting roll my own.
Because that’s the way I roll.
Got a couple projects in the back of my head
First, I want to build an auto-roller for thermal printed labels. It’s a long story where I, due to my sense of discretion, must be vague. I’m thinking an Arduino, probably swapped with a smaller sibling after proof of concept. Add a small servo or stepper motor, dowel with a slot to put the head into, a start-stop switch, and a contact switch to tell it to advance. I might need to look at tensioners but still, better than the current setup.
Secondly, an immersion cooler. I watched the Brewing TV episodes with Wil Wheaton, and I knew I waited a lot of water when I need but watching them talk about it to was revealing. I guess that beer making can be bad as 20 gallons or something of water to a gallon of beer. I don’t think I was that bad, but still, even five to one isn’t chill.
So, immersion chiller. Copper coils of pipe circulating cold water, but what then. I’m thinking of building a (Derp… little pump thing, no contact with liquid…) pump to circulate the water in a closed loop, on the opposite side of the system from the beer, use a peltier element with all my heat sinks I have from scavenging. For proof of concept, I could skip the pump and just manually do it with a bucket… I do need () pumps anyway though for other projects. Whatever.
Oh yeah. I also want to build a mostly scavenged cold coffee thing. Make had a write-up from Instructables on one that was hilariously over done. Why the () do I need to buy laboratory grade glass or carefully cut and sharpen copper pipe. The only two things I need to buy are two stopcocks. Maybe a bit of rubber.
Notes 070615
An after-action report is often handy, I did perpetrate quite a few actions this weekend. I got a lot done, but nearly everything I want to and not to my standards at times.
When I’m downtiming and watching a show, I need busy work. Tonight, or soon, I should reverse engineer a pair of pants and make a pattern.
Speaking of pants, I need to fire up ye olde sewing machine. I’ll start with hemming the one pair of trousers and work from there. Later practice will probably be on my spare canvas.
Should I call them trousers, slacks or pants. I know there is probably a difference between the three, just not sure what.
Do I have a linoleum block that’s unused? If so, I need get my logo carved and start printing; if not, maybe I’ll start looking more closely at my rubber rollers. Or should I look at the rollers first?
I need groceries tonight. I’ve now managed to burn myself out on frozen foods to the point that I want to cook. Note to self: eggs, potatoes, cheddar for a start.
I should recreate the pictures of Patient 98 last night with the Nikon. While it seemed like a good idea to use my phone for those pictures, it means that the resolution and image noise is horrendous. Since I’m using imagemagick after the fact to reduce and colour, I should be going with maximum resolution in case I ever decide to do more. I should probably mange a better template with slugs our whatever they’re referred to in the picture world. Also, why doesn’t imagemagick like to do batches? I threw in the towel far to early on that last night.
I got a lot of dishes, laundry and other cleaning done, unfortunately I have a lot more to do. During quite hours I need to get the rest done. I got an itinerary after all.
Patient 98
Patient came to me as a John Doe. The only identification that I’m able to do is the prominent 98 on the front and rear of his shirt, and the word Lions on the front. It is assumed that he was formerly part of a paramilitary organization.
His helmet, while superficially damaged, appears intact. Any loss of brain function is most likely due to blood loss or concussion.
Torso on left side has a gaping wound, either from a large beast or explosion.
Right torso has a large glistening growth. Upon further examination, it appears the growth has formed some form of parasitic bond entering the region of the patients liver.
While removing it should be a simple cut, there remains to many questions on its purpose. Possibly the growth is the only reason Patient 98 is any shape to enter the program rather than an incinerator. Further research will be necessary.
A rubbery paralysis currently reigns throughout the body, with all limbs attempting to return to their extended configuration, though no bone mass is evident anymore, leaving no leverage for 98 to exert the leverage to enforce the body’s will.
I’m on this
I woke up so rested I figured it was noon. It was only 8:45, which meant it would be three hours until Don Lucho would be across the street with Peruvian sandwiches. I decided to use this time well.
Totally not sarcasm. I drink beer; I get sleepy. I drink whiskey; I’m doing.
Dick neighbor busts your fence.
Bam.
Weeds overtake everything.
Weeded.
Den looks like a war zone.
Well. Progress. Iterative improvements and stuff.
I have a floor. That’s a start.
Motivation
Every time the Wif is away, and I do mean every time, I lose all self motivation. I have plans, but then I sleep a lot and play video games and watch tv. This weekend was no different.
This time though, I almost feel like I’ve already burnt out on that. While I don’t have motivation, I might have rampant boredom. Now it just waits to be seen if my boredom outweighs my demotivation.
Got an Idea
The Wif and I were going to the Pet Expo and we detoued to get coffee. Since we were next to Top Pot, I recommended there so we could get donuts as well. Of course, this made me realize that I couldn’t have a beer rather than coffee, but no worries as we could get donuts. Seemed legit. That’s when it hit me. I want to make cold brew coffee by pouring cold beer over a basket of ground coffee. Of course, the Wif pointed out I would need to pull a shout to infuse into the beer. She’s recommending I use my Aeropress. Maybe I should do that and consider following up with a nitro system. Important thing: code infused beer. Go.
Weekend after a long week
Right. Goals. Plans. Build. Trigger. Reward.
I keep thinking of Resident Evil 2 (movie) andor (btw, I now use this word) Ghosts of Mars when whichever gentleman pulled out a dope brace of guns and said “My shit be custom.” For two pretty bad movies, they’re pretty quotable that way. But in all seriousness, I want to Mange things to the point where someday someone asks where I got (item) and that’s totally how I would respond. Of course, the key is having a unique bit of branding on something to sucker in the rubes.
Doing it myself
By it, I mean most anything. I have certain standards of workmanship, redundancy, security, aesthetics, and morality. Very rarely does any one item meet all of the above qualifications. The only solution then is to do more things myself as opportunity avails itself.
This cane to mind this morning. I had two beers I wanted to rate last night, but I was too lazy to blog them like I occasionally do. So, once I reached home with its joyful and bountiful WiFi, I installed Untapped. This morning I fired it up and started to register. That’s where I stopped; I stopped right there. Username, password, email: sure, that’s registering. First, last, dob, gender, country: that’s totally marketing. I appreciate that I will see advertisements to help me buy beer easier, but all that other information is entirely built around selling demographics, directed advertisements, and profiling. Of course, that’s all just my humble opinion.
It’s not like I’m a ninja our something. Anyone who wanted to could look up my name through ICANN or whoever. Using a name and address, with a little work, we have a birthday. However, when I volunteer to give that information with specific buying habits, the conglomerates have won.
So really, on my to-do list, easy beer ratings. Go.
Derp
Just realized the goal versus timeframe in that last post. The Wif will be out of town on the 24th, and I’d really like to build fun things during that time. This means I need to trigger the reward phase early enough to not pay exorbitant shipping. This weekend is totally booked, yay working on the weekends! However that leaves me a solid week and a weekend to spare. I don’t have any studying to do for now, which means teh building is on. I can do this!