Made it to Friday! I was ready to be done with this week well before today, but I made it, and I kept the pace up as well, grinding through the work. I made all my significant milestones, and even got more in that I hadn't planned for, at work.
Came home today feeling like my psyche had been beaten with pointy sticks, had a brief nap, and then wrote my Chladni article. It came out at 1,900 words (out of a thousand) so then I cut it viciously down to 1,200 words. Make will just have to cope!
The article is pretty bare bones, however, the project is really cool (I think) and the results are better than I had hoped for. So, all is good!
While writing the article, I chilled four 20-oz Grolsch bottles of the Sahara Cherry cider. Once done, I tested one ... not much carbonation; if I want fizz I'll have to add a few grains of champagne yeast. But tasty. I brought the other three bottles to Odd Friday and have a marvelous time sipping on it and sharing, and just hanging out with friends.
I miss Marla - she is with family this weekend - but my friends are delightful even in her absence. I feel much better now, in fact.
Tomorrow -- class, then a trip out to Dripping Springs to get a new tool, then home, then... stuff!
Should solder on the Tesla, should work on the class project, should do this and that. I'll end up doing _something_ I'm sure.
Alright! It was never a sure thing, in fact, I didn't know if it would work until a little less than three hours ago...
Had to miss dance class (again! Sorry Richard!) -- but I promised the article to be in tomorrow... which means I have to write it tomorrow!
But tonight I painted the disk and square, mounted it all on the little plastic cup (really) which is my new speaker coil, and drove the things at various frequencies to get... awesome Chladni patterns!
I'll have YouTube of it up this weekend and a nice hires Flash variation off of Simreal too probably.
Oh yeah, that's a relief. I didn't even melt the new coils, though they got pretty warm at the lower frequencies / higher powers.
Very very awesome. This all goes into Make 14 or something, dunno what yet.
Oh, and at work? I was behind at the start and caught up by the end.
Tomorrow should go well.
And next week? Keep your fingers crossed!
Ferris Wheel
Hem Lengths
Sun
Moon
Edwin's Energy Levels
(list of things that go up and down regularly)
So, my plan for today at work was to tidy up the flash checksum stuff; to update my cartridge management to match current desires (oh look, I need to send an emergency message here too), and to then start on the dummy modules and startup validations.
Unfortunately, it turns out that while I can successfully send an emergency in response to some request, when I'm just idling there minding my own business the emergency broadcast system seems to get all introspective and lost in navel lint.
Or maybe the master is just ignoring my shouts for help.
Dunno. Lost the afternoon trying to find out. Will lose more of tomorrow doing the same.
Went to Tai Chi today after skipping last week. Feels like it's been months, and not just 14 days. Body likes the exercise, but I get all stressed about remembering the form and stuff.
My mind doesn't DO memory of stupid random shit. It just doesn't. Yeah yeah I know the mnemonic tricks. It's all crap. Sorry.
Anyway, I'm tired and cranky, and need to make drinks and eat dinner.
OH my goodness but yesterday was a grinding slog through tedium, but I got it all working by the end of day. Today, tidy up and formalize it for actual use.
Last night I had to re-cut a couple of PVC bits, cut a few new PVC bits, and then I assembled the frame for my Chladni. It's almost exactly right!
Tonight I hope to test it, which means tomorrow and Friday to write the article. If it works. Which isn't guaranteed. Cutting it damn fine here.
Started a spirited technical discussion yesterday at lunch with a couple of fine fellows who have interesting ideas on internal representations for Connect the Dots.
Did some dishes.
Watched some Anime.
Slept.
Woke up just ahead of the alarms, quite awake and full of energy.
There is no rhyme or rheason to this! Bah! I remember one year, my mood/energy swings followed very tightly with the weather, with the onset of stormy weather EVERY TIME bringing on a crash.
Hmph I say. Hmph.
Well, did some real work today at work; made a minor fuss at how I've been unable to do real work during much of Feb because of distractions (support, meetings, stuff). Manager guy will give me fewer meetings for a bit I think.
After lunch, dragged through some hacking-style explorations, trying to see if a feature would pop out for free. No such luck. Gonna have to spend a bunch of tomorrow doing it right.
After work, napped some -- I'm just in the low cycle again, I hate that. I've spent way too much time down this year, not enough up.
Tried to put some dancing stuff into Google Documents, discovered their 500K size limit by exceeding it with the Foxtrot notes. Damn. Gonnna have to use the Wiki format after, even if it is ugly. Maybe I can tune the style sheets some. Later.
Did some ChaCha at dance lesson -- poked at my Paseo, got the Circles into my notes (if not entirely into my brain; but I can do it; just my brain is broken).
Was going to work on the Make article tonight afters but I just can't arse myself to do anything at all. Gonna veg, watch a movie, eat food, sleep. Try again tomorrow.
Ugh.
Is it Friday yet?
I'm at M's right now... downloading a version of XCode, 'cause the one I installed just now off of DVD fails to run. Hmph. That's so un-Mac.
I came here at 1:30 or so, and ate pie. And more pie. Meat pie. Egg pie (er, quiche). Sweet pie. Less sweet pie. More sweet pie.
I can't move.
But there's more pie to eat!
Ugh.
I'm making good progress on my article project. I think my home-wound speaker coil is going to work! And I can mount it to the plate too! Maybe!
Mmm, pie.
I should go work more. But there's still pie.
It's almost Sunday now... midnight is creeping up.
Class. Flipside meeting. Played dominoes with friends. Spent about two hours total at home today.
Tomorrow is Pie Day -- but I also need to get this project for Make in. Oh, I'm in Make 13, major project, photo even of me! My favorite photo... no photo credit in Make, though, but it's taken by Sandy Carson. I need to use it more often so her credit gets spread around more!
Oooo, there is a web renderer in the new Trolltech Qt beta 4.4! I am going to have to prototype the Connect the Dots application as an app, that would be useful.
In my copious free time.
Yah know.
Yeah! Actual work that actually involved me programming and solving bugs! It was awesome. Yup. I roxored.
Anyway, hellofa week, glad it's at the tail end.
Did a little shop time tonight, fixed up a new end-cap for the flaming tripod. I can test the color injectors this weekend maybe -- and I want to make a nice top-cap for it too, a cone or something; there are some neat effects around the sheet metal one I tested with.
The DigiKey parts came in for the Tesla! That was the bulk of the order. I think I'm missing a ferrite toroid, and that's about it. Ummm, maybe one other thing. I need to check my e-mails. But anyway, I doubt I'll have time to do much, MAYBE solder some stuff into the boards Sunday, MAYBE. Probably not; gotta do some housework, gotta do some accounting.
Oh, also did some shoptime around the Make article; testing out a plan-B, winding a new coil around the busted former on my busted subwoofer. I think I can make a new coil&former that will work! Right now, there is a layer of silicon on the wires drying -- that will have to be covered with something w/o much friction. I am thinking of using aluminum tape on the inside and outside to bond the wires and create a new former. I don't know if I can make that an un-shorted winding or if it will end up a shorted winding. We'll see. A high-power metal coil form has a slot in it, so it doesn't turn into a single turn in a nasty transformer. Without the slot, it's a "shorted winding" and can generate a lot of hassle.
I want to wrap up this article Sunday... Monday at worst? Tuesday? And not run it out to March 1st or 3rd. We'll see.
Also have games (might miss), also have Pie Day (can't miss!). Also have sick Marla, but she's getting better.
Oh man, a busy week -- or month... or something.
Supporting something like three or four people using our product now -- the guy writing tests, the guy working up the manufacturing validation, the guy hooking it up to the motion module, some random guy I don't know who, our tech sometimes, the manager.... okay, that's like six.
Doing support work for calculations and feasibility for our product use in BIG SCIENCE (millions of dollars of opportunity) and in AUTOMOTIVE (I can't even count this high, in terms of profit potential).
Meetings! We are meeting more now, and hashing out detailed tricky issues, which I take it upon myself to clarify as best I can on paper, so everyone is working with the same brain.
And work itself, you know, finishing this product so we can make our bazillions of dollars in it. That's suffering a tad, but it's moving.
This Make article, dammit, I was really running under a wrong theory of how I wanted to do part of it -- I'm going to have to cop out and use a speaker to drive it (I really wanted to wind my own driver, but it's truly astonishing how much heat a speaker coil has to dissipate! Not to mention I have the wrong magnetic environment; my theory was bad).
So, umm, and my Saturday is GONE; class, flipside planning, game playing. I could theoretically buy a few hours and skip games at seven, and just do "pie day" Sunday.
I dunno.
Tomorrow is Friday.
I'll do more experiments then and see. Mark wants this article soon; he seemed stressed. Of course, he always seems stressed!
The human mind is an annoying mush of crap.
I'm fighting depression and despair to day, far too hard -- no good reason.
I long ago gave up any illusion of "free will" or "consistency" or "stability" with regards to the human state. I've seen how a person can go from sane to raving looney, just from some internal chemical imbalance.
Bah.
Work blew by fast; bought my tesla components during lunch (four suppliers! rare discontinued parts!), put in my IFTF receipts at the last second, did stuff, damn, where did the day go?
Spent a few hours with Silona and Rob, laying some foundational notes for a proposal that is due end of day TOMORROW. Dang. No time! No strong direction, so I mostly tried to form ideas that could be condensed in into bullets or expanded into details as needed. Building a narrative, it's what I do.
Marla is sick, so swung by the HEB to get some sick person palliatives, plus a quickie meal for me, came home and ate it while poking more notes for Silona and Rob.
Hope they have something for me to poke at more tomorrow morning.
Right now, thinking about early sleep. Tomorrow, work! More work! Will it never end? And then Taiji. But I have to do the Make project, too... hot coil! Cool copper! Aaaaaaaa!
Stay tuned -- will Edwin go insane? Will he drop out of society and become a hermit? Or will lightning strike and he'll finally get hooked into the hot topic on the information uber highway? Or is high voltage electrocution on his looming horizion?
Held late at work a bit, just a half hour over, then home, a light snack, and experimenting with the chladni drivers.
Tested the resistance of the coils I made this weekend at work, they vary from 0.5 to about 6.5 ohms. Made a few more coils today, too, playing around.
The amplifier puts out up to 100 volts! That's some POWERFUL big current, even at 70V RMS, through a tiny little coil. Seriously hot, like 300 degrees F hot.
I ganked a voice coil out of a "real" speaker and ran it at half volume for a while, and it got up to 140 degrees or so itself, even though it had mighty fine wire on an aluminum former.
I think I'll end up with a single layer (double tops) of very fine wire-wrap wire (30ga) on a copper pipe "nipple" (short length). This will dissipate enough heat, hopefully, to keep it all good. I may even add heat fins! Stylin'.
After that, a light dinner, shopping, and them home to bottle the two batches of ginger cider. Batch one was very dry, showing something like 0.970 on the hydrometer; batch two was less dry at 0.985 or so. Very nice, both of them, but the second was much tastier, and had a much bolder ginger ambiance.
Hope they carbonate! I'm dying to break into the cherry to see if it got fiz yet, but I'm waiting more.
Then, after all that, an hour or two about working on the Connect the Dots proposal... Silona is hitting pay dirt on this, it seems, and needs to float a more formal definition of the project out this Wednesday.
Damn. I got no time! I'll smack it around some during lunch tomorrow (and in dead moments at work, but it's been very very busy there lately so that may be small), and we are meeting at 4:30 after work to try to put it into shape. And Rob, too, I hear.
I'm dying to get resources on CtD; and my visit to Palo Alto only reinforced my belief in this project.
Wish us luck!
I had a pleasant couple of hours with Derek today, exploring the world of inductivity and stuff.
Late start in the morning; slept in till 9, but then, I needed it.
A few hours, then, of coffee and of trying to wind some stinking solenoid coils. Dang, that's hard, without a decent jig. I had two indecent jigs -- I modified the rotating spark gap prop to try a really SLOW wind, too slow -- and I clamped some stuff into my drill press for a really FAST wind.
I went with fast and crappy. A 1" long and a 2" long; 30ga (I think; leftover from the firefly project) and 24ga wire, respectively.
After Derek, some tests on the coils. NOT doing what I wanted them to, and most specifically heating wayyyyyy too hot. They will work, in a different configuration than I planned (but a better one, a cleaner one; physics is conspiring to help for once!), but only once I solve the heat problem.
I could do some more testing and thinking on that one, except I can't find my multimeter. I've got a BIG multimeter that I've fried the heck out of (hmmm, they don't like 15kV? who knew!), and a small one that is gone.
Lost.
No resistance testing for me.
So, after fiddling with hot, smoking coils a bit more, went to bottle beer. Cooked up some priming sugar, started setting up for the sanitizing and.... no bottle capper.
I know I have it, I _saw_ it. But it's gone too.
Look, you stupid gnomes, I know it looks like my house and shop are a mess, but I do have an underlying system. I can usually find things, even though it sometimes takes some looking. I know where I put things, where things of a given type go. So just because it looks chaotic, doesn't mean it really IS (except in certain cases, but those are specialized and isolated)... you can't be stealin' my stuff and thinking I won't notice.
But I'm on to you. Next stop, Gnome Poison. I mean it.
Unless you return my tools.
Right now, though, I'm annoyed and frustrated, blocked from doing things that need doing. I can't even borrow a capper, 'cause Matt is out it seems.
Anyway, the fire thing is kinda pretty, and I may even get my Chladni thing done in time (IF and ONLY IF I can solve my heat problem). I really really don't want to use a speaker for the driver; I really really do want to coil my own.
I guess I'll have a beer, and sleep or something. I don't have any books I want to read even right now.
I really just don't have enough time to do the things on my lists. And I don't know what I'm willing to drop off of it.
Okay, so Thursday I put together the technical aspects of a proposal at work that could bring in, I dunno, millions of dollars. So that's neat.
After work I flew to San Francisco and took the most amazingly expensive taxi ride to Palo Alto. Went to bed, slept, woke up every two hours or so until it was time to get up and go be smart for a day.
THAT was interesting! A couple wired guys, a couple O'Reilly (Make) guys. Some makers of different levels. A total of a dozen folks about, and we got paid for brainstorming! Well, -will- get paid.
I went in with very definite ideas about "the future of making" (our topic) and I pounded that drum a fair amount during the show. I definitely was _not_ playing the role of wallflower. More like "annoying guy who won't shut up", but hey, they wanted my ideas. They got 'em. Can I help it I have connections, ideas, and experience with damn near everything?
What it _did_ do was reinforce in my own mind what is changing right now, even as we sit reading the 'net. It's not human nature. It's not, on a ten-year horizon, the tools we are using (tools run on a 20 year horizon typically). What it is, is the nature of the connections between people, and how we are communicating.
The social networks, yeah, I hate 'em for the most part and am not interested (but yet, here I am in LJ and my own journal, writing and reading; I'm mostly annoyed at the proliferation of profiles and logins, sick of 'em).
But things like Make, Instructables, Wikipedia -- it's easier and easier to find information. And the social stuff, well, it's easier and easier to stay "in touch". We are a distributed world; we fractured the atomic family with the industrial revolution and that is not going to reverse short of global catastrophe. And it took a hundred years (A HUNDRED YEARS!) to find the new tools to re-create community.
Not perfect yet, but we see light.
Anyway, my vision for the LoTV's "Connect the Dots" tool is pegging my internal future-meter. This _will_ happen, it _has_ to happen; if I'm part of _making_ it happen, it will be good. If I'm not? Who knows? It could be better, or it could be worse! But dang, the next layer of the 'net needs to happen.
The 'net guys KNOW this too. They have been working on the semantic layer for the web for over 10 years now! Yeah, really. But, sadly, they are doing it entirely wrong, totally shooting at the wrong target.
It's almost embarrassing, really.
Anyway, spent Friday there talking future stuff. By the way, just in case you wanted to know, Ikea embodies many of the characteristics of the future. Who knew? Not me!
So, flew out of San Fran (went to the wrong airport, talking to Bunny of Chumby Labs, nice guy; then found the RIGHT damn airport) then ended up in Las Vegas. Weird place. Made my connection, then SAT in the damn connection for an hour and a half with this totally gonzo flight attendant guy. But it was okay. Napped fitfully, but the tiny airplane seats make my joints hurt.
Landed in Austin again at 5am, drove home, slept for I dunno, two hours, got up, made coffee, did welding class, and then did some exploratory shopping for my Make article project. Mark F. was all, "when can you be done?" He always seems so worried. It may be a New York thing, or a Mark F. thing, or maybe just working for media gives a person ulcers. I'd believe that.
Anyway, did the exploratory shopping (is there ANYTHING plumbing products CAN'T DO?) and then finished the work on my fire pillar thingy. EVEN FIRED IT UP! Oooooo fire.
Not as tall a flame as I want, but it is quite variable in its character and it does in fact color gracefully. I'm pretty happy, 75% happy at least. Not bad.
Tomorrow, Make project, Derek and Tesla; invoicing expenses to IFTF; maybe even tidy house some! Rack my ciders to bottles. Ummm... and probably something else.
Wish me luck.
Now I'm getting about 50% of my tasks addressed at work as well as at home! Though maybe home is down to 30% now. Dunno.
Last night, Marla and I had a pleasant sushi dinner at Koreana; didn't eat too much, and went home pleasantly full.
I printed some stuff out for my trip today. Had a hassle with the printer on the network but it finally came to life. However, this morning I woke up to the network being down. Dang. Marla's machine backed up at 10:15 or so successfully; mine failed to backup at 10:45 or so -- so it died around 10:30.
My computer didn't Time Machine backup for 10 days or so; found out it was because the cat had unplugged our central server. Dang cat.
Right after work today, I fly out to San Francisco, then taxi or van to Palo Alto, to participate in a workshop for the Institute for the Future. Neat!
Hit ground on Saturday about 3am, then a 9:30am class. Then a nap, then work!
Gotta do stuff for the snake, gotta rotate the catbox litter; want to fire up my fire pillar (it's essentially together now); need to test the chladni plate coil design I have; probably more stuff I don't remember right now. Tesla parts order. Ummm. Yeah.
At work, I'm working on a technical proposal that could result in our selling some millions of dollars of this product I've been working on, so that's cool too.
Wish me luck!
Spent an hour and a half last night hanging out with Oliver and Joe, of Austin singing Tesla coil fame; that was fun.
Oliver made for good conversation, and Joe dropped in a word or two now and than (and the words were good ones, worth remembering; I'm afraid I was mostly incoherent, as I often am in person as opposed to writing; my brain is wired funny, what can I say). And they gave mad props to Steve Ward, one of the inventors/perfectors of the dual-resonant solid state tesla coil (DRSSTC).
I'm sure out paths will continue to cross over time.
My first coil, though, will be a Dan McCauley miniBrute, just because I have to start _somewhere_ and this looks like a good enough place as any. Then I'll move up to something massive!
Heh.
Well, I _think_ I'm on a "gentleman's contrace" (e.g. oral agreement) to do a major Make article for March 4th (though I meant the 3rd, and they asked for the 1st -- it's all the same more or less). So this weekend I was going to do the first bits of the project.
Oops!
I didn't; so subtract one goal from the weekend. So, I'll have to work extra hard on it during this week, so I can get a full weekend on it next week.
Except I'll be a bit dead next weekend. Flying out to Palo Alto (they are paying me to be smart!) for a day; leave Thursday night, fly back Friday night, don't get in until 3am. And then I have class at 9:30 Saturday! Fortunately, Matt has been driving us, so I don't have to be too conscious.
This weekend -- class. The art welding class sucks down a lot of time! However, my project is turning out pretty neat. I tack-welded (so far) a flat-stellated (Stellated, but the points don't protrude) Icosohedron, and I made hinges and clasps for the bottom pentamid (pyramid, but with five sides) so it can open and close.
Inside of this platonic iron cage, I am going to suspend one of my large silicon brains, and I'm going to wrap _that_ in fine bell wire, and I will attach _that_ to ... a stun gun! Or the guts thereof.
I did some testing today on the concept, and I can get good sparks around the brain, and with the right spacing, there can be several discharge points that move around the wiring.
All I have to do now is finish the welding, mount the brain, and find a way to trigger the electronics so it doesn't run all the time.
So I did that. After that, I worked on the Tesla schematics some (learning MultiSim still, and entering the McCauley schematics). I think I will just buy his circuit boards, but I wanted the circuits too, to play with and to modify for later work. I was hoping to get the rest of the circuits in and verified against the part list, and then sent to my partner in crime (Derek), but no, didn't happen.
Then, Saturday evening, we had "old school" gaming. I pretty much played Mexican Train Dominoes all night -- did really really well for about the first four hands, and then did pretty meh for the rest. Ah well, we had fun, drank beer, and hung out. It was good.
Sunday - some running around to buy cat furniture supplies and new pens, and an accordion file for this year's receipts. I also wanted to get new grid pads, but they are really hard to find! The Office Whatevertheheckitwas that I had a coupon for didn't have any reasonable grid pads. I'll foray out again to the Ofice Otherplace and get some later.
Then, I worked a bit on the fire pillar thingy, and then spend a few hours building the cat bed - slash - scratching post (it looks really good; this is the add one) and then I finished the legs for the fire pillar. They also look really good!
Didn't get the legs mounted (drill three holes, tap three holes, bolt into place) but that will be easy enough later. Didn't fire it up either. Dang. Things are going too slowly. I hope I get _something_ done before flipside!
Between classes and social commitments, my project time has been pretty reduced. I'll still get stuff done, I always do, but it won't be as much as I would like.
But then again, what else is new?
Stoopid software crashes too much.
Been using MultiSim instead of Eagle right now. Yeah, I have a license for an old Eagle, and could use the free one, but I find the MultiSim interface is actually nicer than Eagle (I think, after going back and forth a half dozen times exploring) and has a differently-abled library of parts (less connectors, more odd inductors and transformers I think).
Also, it's NI software, so I get access to the full meal deal, including PCB layout, SPICE simulations, and other fancy value-added stuff.
But it crashes too much.
Like, about once an hour.
I just set it up to auto-save every 5 minutes so I won't lose 45 minutes of work... again. I find when I'm doing mouse work (e.g. circuits) I don't Ctrl-S that much; no hands on the keyboard! When I'm coding or writing, it's like a twitch, I save constantly. But when my MultiSim crashed, I was dismayed to find I hadn't saved even once.
Now it's bedtime.
Stoopid software.
Ugh, the last couple of days I've been totally ground down by work, but the worst of it appears to be behind me now.
Mon, Tue, Wed -- I did about a half day of real work, a half day or more of just meetings, and then a bunch of side-issues dropped onto me that yeah, needed doing, but really wasn't what I wanted to do. Part of that was over half a day wasted trying to get the master stack to work, but there was other stuff too.
I fixed my fragmented protocol issue, yay! It should have tested clean on Tuesday but I don't know why it didn't. It tested clean yesterday when I poked it, which means it works.
Now I'm actually moving on to what I expected to be doing Tuesday -- validating protocol and conformance stuff.
Next week, the Shanghai guys reappear, so more soul-sucking is in store I'm afraid.
Last night, though tired, I went to Taiji and it was good. Need to do more, though; a bit out of shape. Tonight, dancing the Hustle! Fun! Aerobic!
This coming weekend I want to get the legs and fire onto the fire thingy and see how it behaves. I think I need a bigger blower. Also, metal class. Also, maybe, a visit with the tesla guy -- I may have to actually use the phone, ick. Also, game playing Sat night.
Tomorrow, a birthday party!
Oh, and I've committed to another major Make Magazine article, 'cause I'm insane and love doing that stuff. It's a project I wanted to build anyway, so it's all good. Except it is due March 1 or 4 or something. I said I'd do it for a due date March 4, giving me an extra weekend; I meant March 3, but whatever.
::sigh::
This day job sure slows me down. I need a sponsor! Win the lottery! Something!
Ummmm.... who is Cengage Learning and why do they distribute my books now? Oh, they have Delmar! But Thomson Learning used to have Delmar.
Goodness.
The things you learn from 1099-Misc forms.
I guess I changed publishers? Nice of 'em to tell me.
Another sucktastic day at work... well, the first half went well, got my computers settled in, but the last half was a complete and frustrating waste of time, as the "procedure" to install the Master Stack (actually, several "procedures", some bits of which include various installers, other aspects of which involve manual operations and animal sacrifices; Shanghai, go figure) completely failed to get me a working install.
Instead, and for several hours, we got the same cryptic, unusual, and useless error message, much to the bafflement of my entire group.
Of course, China is on vacation all week.
Also sucktastic, craptastic, and generally full of shititude (since I'm in a mood to bitch) is SPAM.
Unsolicited garbage on blogs is a particular pet peeve -- that nonsense is the internet equivalent of spraypainting graffiti on your house or business. It is NOT TO BE TOLERATED.
E-mail SPAM is, at least with the advent of Google (may they forever remain un-evil), pretty much a thing of the past. Of the 300 to 400 spams I get a month on this one account, maybe 4 get through. And as far as I can tell, I lose very few (if any) valid e-mails.
Even paper SPAM is evil. Electronic SPAM steals my time, wastes the Internet, and so forth. Paper spam inures me to valid mail. When you get a number of stupid, useless envelopes from credit card companies every week, each disguised or generally mutated to "trick" you into "oh my goodness, I accidentally signed up for a credit card" (which is just retarded)... then when you get a REAL letter from a USEFUL credit card company holding, ohhhhhh, for example, your new PIN number or your new credit card for the new year... it's really really easy to toss it out with the rest of the dreck.
Almost did that just now. That would have sucked. It looked like garbage, but I dug deeply enough to find the plastic card (another bullshit fake card, right?) and then discovered... dang. This is my new Visa! Harumph.
Then there is the Domain Registry of America (may they forever rot in hell) who, regular as clockwork, send out a "OMG your DOMAIN IS EXPIRING RENEW NOW" mail to me whenever I have a domain expiring. Sure. At TWICE what I pay now, and to leave a domain company that I love and respect (DirectNIC)? Annoying. How many people fall for this fake renewal notice, I wonder? Especially as smaller domain companies shift and melt away with time.
Evil, lying, useless, filthy bastards. All of 'em.
Go learn a skill you retards, and provide some value to the world. Or go suck on a car exhaust. I'm easy either way.
Spent the day in the workshop today. From 9:30 am to 7:30 pm with a brief break to eat a bagel, and to zip by Lowes to get a few parts. I actually got my fill of workshop time this weekend, a lovely blissful relief from previous weekends where I got almost no workshop time. Ahhhh.
Didn't sit in the house and play with inductors like I planned, but that's okay. I'll fiddle with my Tesla plans tonight as I'm watching Zatoichi 18, where he gets caught up in rival gangs and/or is harassed by Yakuza, and he has to kill twenty or so people to get out of the hassle. Also, he'll meet and develop strong feelings for a girl or child and leave them so they don't get caught up in his horrible lifestyle. And he'll eat messily at least once. Yup. All 17 so far have been this story line. But I love 'em anyway!
Lesse, in my last post I think I forgot to mention I did some minor repairs on Marla's spinning wheel. Bought a cap nut for one part, and threaded another part to take the cap nut I bought for it.
My progress in my own project was excellent.
I made four rings (it took some trial and error to get the material length right for ring making) for supports in the fire pillar. I have two more "ring" starts that are scraps now really. These rings were loving welded into continuous circles, with decent size variation seeing as how they are 1/4" steel strap on a 4.5" inside diameter.
Making the rings, I used my roller-bender. I forgot, though, that when the wood storage (melamine-coated shelves that I use for various purposes) shifts behind the roller, the wood is JUST IN PLACE to cheese-grate the skin off my knuckle. My right index finger center phalange is now... skinless. Well, it didn't slice down to bleeding layers, but it still stings 'cause the nerve endings are all exposed. I wore gloves for the rest of the ring making.
Each ring also has three holes in it, equally spaced (more or less) for bolting onto the pillar.
The pillar itself has four pivoting doors on friction pins (one of which snapped off, as I mentioned earlier I think) and four narrow upright supports. I tack-welded the supports in today.
Fitting the bottom ring on the bottom of the pillar, I decided I would prefer to have it "C" shaped and not a welded circle, so I cut a 1/2" gap out of it, around the weld. Ah well. The welds were decent, but I'm not up to excellent welds in 1/4" material yet.
I drilled and tapped three holes for the bottom ring, and I have yet to actually fit it and clamp it on. Hope it fits. Oh, four holes. The first one I tapped as coarse threads, before noticing that all my bolts are fine threaded. Ah well.
I also cut the 4.5" holes in the top and bottom of my air chamber (e.g. a small metal trash can with lid) and rolled the edges to a tight fit on the pillar. Nice work, if I do say so myself (though not beautiful. Just nice). Also, cut and epoxied the air inlet (a lovely shopvac nozzle) into the side of the air chamber. It's ready for use!
The inlet cap is a 4" (trade size, really 4.5" ID) PVC cap which I cut about 1/2" off the end to give me more slack (what a pain! I may not want to do that on future ones). I then drilled a hole in the center of this and fastened a complex series of fittings into it, the end result is a 1/2" pipe rising up from the center of the cap and a propane quick-release fitting descending from the bottom. Once I figure how to make it less of a tight fit (file the cap, or sand the pipe? Decisions, decisions) I can drill and tap the locking holes for THAT.
What is left, is to drill and tap the holes for the top ring; to spin a (solid, certainly) ring as a leg support; cut three legs; weld the leg assembly together; and the assemble!
Hmmmm. I may want to make the leg ring separate from the air-chamber closing ring. Which means three rings per pillar and not two, which means I would need to make two more rings (for the second pillar). Hmmmm.
I'm about a half-day of work away from firing up a test pillar. That will be very cool.
Soon.
But now, Tesla notes and dinner!
End of day here. Busy! Long. Did stuff.
Woke up, made coffee, drank it, read my onlines, got dressed, went to welding class. That was fun! We have to use 25' of round material in a project. Mine is going to make sparks, I think.
Coming home, I ran into a few obstacles. My last few days have been all about obstacles -- the wrong documentation from Germany on the communication protocol (so much thanks there guys, mmhmm, let's get it right next time m'kay?); the Ethernet card blew up at the end of day Friday just as I had to do stuff for people, costing me two hours overtime; the wrong bandsaw blade size (64.5" 24 tpi, 64.5" 18tpi, 93" 14tpi yeah, I didn't notice the 93 the first time, good layout guys); my drill press has a 13" throat and I needed to drill a 16" piece of material.
That last one was actually kinda fun. I looked at the problem at first and said to myself, "oh dang, the drill press won't fit this piece of material."
Then I thought again and realized I had mis-stated the problem. The correct statement was "... drill won't fit this material as it is currently designed."
I took the drill press apart a bit, put it back together a bit differently, and I could drill my tall part! yay!
All of the pieces are cut now for the main fire pillar pipe, and all drilled, and even assembled. I snapped one of the friction fittings off (it wouldn't go in the hole; I _did_ drill all the holes, right? Mmmmmmaybe), but that's not a big deal. The mobility of the vanes is temporary anyway.
Tomorrow I can weld it all together! Maybe even make the tripod stand and air chamber. We can only hope!
I moved my ginger cider to secondary tonight. Tasty! Very very ginger. Had some vapor-lock problems siphoning -- kinda fizzy I think. Wasted a wee bit, but got most of it across. It tested out as about 1.000 gravity, and 10% alcohol on the vinometer. The taste test was "yum". Gonna be very very nice, and lightly sweet.
No Tesla work today, maybe tomorrow. Also, need to do accounting and maybe some more kitchen cleaning.
There's a Pendark meeting tomorrow night at 8pm, for a show he is putting together. I think I'll have to defer on that -- wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy too busy right now.
Less than four months to flipside!
But now, I sleep. Mmmm, sleep.