Fusselman.org

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Lathe'd Again

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New Template

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Two in One Day - Auto Linker

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Big Changes in the works

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PHP vs Russian

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I got Lathe this weekend

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A Break from furnace making

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Finally a new update

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Monitor Gantry Mk. 2

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Scrap Heap Challenge

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Oil Change

Finally changed oil in the Jetta last night. It's really not so bad, once you've forked over the $40 in materials... It took less than an hour, including prep and cleanup. The Rotella oil I used this time doesn't seem to come in quarts (at least, locally), but is pretty reasonable, at $20/gal. The unfortunate part, this time, is that I had to buy a whole second gallon, for about a half a quart...

National Pi Day

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Door Problems

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Man Purse

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Scope It Out

I finally bought an oscilloscope. I found it on craigslist and went to check it out tonight. It's a naval surplus DuMont that seems to be roughly equivalent to a Tektronix 4000... dual channel, 50mhz... It's built like a tank, but not as heavy as I'd thought it would be. It's in nice shape and came with a 1x and a 10x probe for less than $100. Pics to come.

Anniversary Pi

It's been a while, as I've been busy around the house recently, but here goes... The Bike is on hold, pending batteries, which hopefully I'll be able to fix, if I can acquire an oscilloscope tonight to build a desulficator. Becky and I were in KC this weekend for our 3rd anniversary. We stayed one night with friends, and one night at the Hyatt, which was pretty nice for the $75 Priceline charged us for it, but totally not worth the $225 sticker price. Becky wrote a post about this also.

Something Nice About Apple

I was reading over at Holy Scrap Hot Springs the other day and noticed that a variety of their Flikr pictures were taken with an iPhone. I further noticed that the EXIF information for said shirts includes the GPS data from the phone. I knew EXIF had fields for it, but I'd never seen it implemented. Anyhow, my conversation with Dave went something like this (paraphrased, since I misplaced my chat log):

Dead Presidents

Well, it's Presidents Day again, where we honor some guys who used to be in charge. Sure, they did some good stuff, like flee England and run the Civil war, but the point is, they DID STUFF. To celebrate, I'll be doing stuff all week including: Electronic rust removal, finishing finishing the datacenter and generally cleaning the garage and office. If I can ever find an oscilloscope, I'll be building a desulficator to get the electric bike project back on track.

Taking a break from lots of things

I've worked in the garage and Datacenter almost every night this week... I think tonight I'll generally hang out, watch some BSG, and maybe play some games. In Weather, it snowed about a foot here today. It was crazy. No clouds at 10pm last night, clouds but no snow by 8am, and by noon, like a foot of snow. Now, by like 5pm, the snow is stopped and already melting in places... Not to mention, it was like 55F not 5 days ago. Go figure.

The wheels on... Well...Everything

I've spent some time in the garage the last few days, since it's been so warm out. The Datacenter Closet is painted and now just needs some finish work to complete the look. The Bike is basically just in need of batteries (and I'm in need of a 'Scope to get there) and I have a few new wheeled implements. I have this idea that my garage should be rapid-reconfigurable, in that I can move shelves, benches, etc easily to make the space fit any given project. To that end, I've taken to wheeling various benches and stuff. My toolbox has been on wheels from the get-go, as has my rolling worktable. I'm finally getting around to putting retractable wheels on my workbench, and building a 4-wheeled Platform Cart to haul heavy things around the shop.

Pressing Words

Finally sold Becky today on having her "own" web page not directly related to a service. Her site, Growing Into Rebecca, runs Wordpress and is generally pretty slick. I've got a bit to learn about hacking Wordpress, but it seems pretty straight forward.

Getting it all under Control

Well, I've been busy this week, starting with some major work in the Datacenter on Thursday night. Richard was over to cut up some bar stools (they needed to be shorter) and I figured I'd have him help me carry a server. We ended up decommissioning the old UPS, and moving my existing 1500 downstairs, as well as actually installing the server i the rack. We then discovered that I had some sort of wiring weirdness (the newer APC complained), so we solved that. This week, I'll finish cleaning things up and take some pictures. I also did Over-Cabinet Lighting in the kitchen. It ended up looking really nice. 73 watts of CFL and about $20 total parts (including 6 CFL bulbs). Not too shabby.

Projects, Projects Everywhere

It's been a while since my last update (16 days to be exact) but I've been crazy busy with stuff. In the past few weeks, I've got the new file server up and running (complete with 1.8TB of formatted, RAID5'd space), done some general home improvements (They didnt bother to finish resealing the windows after having replaced them last fall) and done some other stuff around the house. Perhaps more interestingly, I've made additional progress on my bike, having fabricated and installed a working chain tensioner and the battery box this last few weeks. On the downside, I learned that at least one of the batteries I had earmarked is trash, drawing down under a volt under the motor's load. So back to the battery pile to try to find a pair... At worst, I'm hoping to salvage some batteries in the process of my Datacenter Remodel, as my current UPS isn't terribly functional ATM. I'm considering ordering a 2nd APC BR1500, so I have one upstairs and one downstairs, but that's another project.

It's ALIVE!

The "bike" lives! There's still a few bugs to work out, mostly related to keeping the chain tight, but the rear wheel spins under it's own power. Check it out.

T'was the week after Christmas...

I've been really lazy about updating, or doing much of anything productive with Christmas and whatnot. I'd thought I'd have an opportunity to play some Anarchy, but it wasn't to be. I got some nice things for Christmas, including an auto-dimming welding helmet, which is, in fact, the most awesome piece of technology ever. It's super convenient, especially in working on small, detailed things, where you're "checking" often. This statement implies (Correctly) that I had a chance to weld something.

New Hacks in the Cold

It's December and it finally got cold around here. That leads to things like snow, ice and preglow. Yea, it's true Diesels don't like the cold very much. Since I replaced a failed glowplug last winter, I don't have problems

Power Games

Last night, Dave, Richard and I whipped up a new Gaming Table for use when we play D&D at Richard's place. It turned out pretty good, for less than 5 hours of work.

Campaigning

On Saturday night, we finished up the first of 3 "campaigns" in Dave's Eberron game. 13 sessions. It was a blast. Anyhow, on a gaming note, Richard and I are going to be doing some construction, building a gaming "table topper", as he doesn't think his table is large enough. I've found a few links with ideas:

Projects

Been crazy busy lately with work, work, and stuff around the house. The Carputer has tested beautifully, and now just needs final installation. My "bike" has been the sink for most of my spare time lately, but I've accomplished a ton. I expect to be finished with the major mechanical aspects within 2 weeks. In the meantime, check out my progress.

Starting Up

With the Carputer in final testing, I've turned some attention to my power assist "bike". A friend got me the hookup for some "junk" bikes at a local bike shop; In my opinion, they're not such junk, with a bit of work. I've completed most of the disassembly and a mockup of how the finished vehicle might work.

5 Years of Fusselman.org

Last Friday was the 5th anniversary of my owning the Fusselman.org domain name. I did some looking back and there doesnt seem to be any Archive.org pages for it, since, until it started mirroring my "Real" site Fozzee.net, it didn't really have any content. Next year, for the 10th anniversary of Fozzee.net, I'll be chronicling a bunch of old content from there.

Tying up Loose Ends

It's been an insane week, attempting to tie up some loose ends in the shop. I'm attempting to implement some "project management", to help things actually get finished, instead of partially done forever, and then discarded. The projects I've been focusing on are my Digital Photo Frame and the Media Laptop for the car. The first project ended in (relative) failure, since the display quality is so poor. I'm sure something will come of it, but it's just unfortunate that it didn't come out better.

Into the Fray

Spent a few hours this week (like 10) fixing my brother Justin's Jeep's power windows and locks. It's a cool ride, if a bit silly as a daily driver. Anyhow, we found the problem, and it's better now. Hopefully, the next project will be more fun.

Tons of Fun!

We've been comparing cruises and ships recently. It got me thinking about Cruise Ship Tonnage relative to the number of passengers aboard. Heavier ships fare better in rough weather, and carry more amenities. Smaller ships seem to have better routes to the places we want to go (must be that we go places that less people want to go). Anyhow, enjoy the writeup. Amazingly to me, smaller ships seem to have more tons per passenger than larger ones.

Improvements

I'm currently working on a number of improvements to the website, mostly in the form of various useful MediaWiki templates. In particular, I'm working on a widget using Parser:XML that will allow me to render dynamic XML content directly into the site's pages. In related news, the site is pending a redesign, to look less MediaWiki-ish. That's an "As Dan has time" sort of thing, though, so we'll see when it happens, as he's a busy guy. I'm also considering templates for "Currently Reading", as well as a Twitter-esq thingi, except geared toward Mobile Web, instead of SMS.

Resolved!

Finally got the UPS back into service, having finally assembled my battery string. Built a Rolling Worktable for the shop, which I'll be detailing here soon. Also, finally put into writing my knowledge / feelings about Monitor Resolutions. Hopefully I'll be doing some more useful projects in the near future; I just really had to get caught up on some housekeeping stuff, which included actually working on the house. Let's just say I'm not cut out to be a painter.

Untitled

Not much doing tonight; Got my UPS back in action, mostly... I'm still having some trouble finding a 48v battery string that all works. Testing batteries from my pile is slow business, as I have only one charger, and want to charge at 2A to avoid damaging what I believe to be about 20ah batteries. To this end, I did throw together a Battery Load Tester as a sub-project to both my UPS and Light EV projects. I also did some updates and rearranging to the Jetta pages, mostly adding part numbers for my personal reference.

Dish'n it Out

So we switched to Dish this week for our TV service. The whole HD-OTA thing didn't quite work out, so far as integrating with Tivo. Tivo wanted us to buy new digital unit and some stuff, and we decided that it just wasn't a cost-effective option. We scheduled our install, and they sent out a guy (sorry, I don't remember your name!) from Blue Sky Satellite to do the install. This guy's work was amazing. He did a nice job hiding cable, and whatnot, and overall just did a very good install. Much better than I'd expected.

I Saw it Again

Another busy week. Did quite a bit of work rebuilding my UPS, which trashed a second set of batteries. I'm redesigning it to run only on an external pack, to help keep the pack cool. I also intend on adding a cooling fan or 2, and the case has been resized so there's no empty space where the internal pack used to be. I'm currently pending a second test, as the unit can't cold-start (IE start with no AC power), as the inverter wont stay engaged.

Antiquated Technology

I was at Borders the other day and found myself a bit overwhelmed. There's something inexplicably emotional about a room full of ground up dead tree. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm revamping my personal organization system a bit, and was actually considering buying a hardbound, blank paged book. A bit more thinking reminded me that my handwriting is almost entirely illegible (even to me), so that even if I were to commit things to this stack of dead tree, my ability to retrieve that data would be severely limited. I was surprised again while browsing the business section (hey, I was there a while), which is laid out such that the books are stacked to the ceiling. There was something comforting about being in that narrow aisle, surrounded by all kinds of knowledge that I mostly didn't care about. Someday, when I have a real office, it'll have shelves of random books taller than I am. On a somewhat related note, Jason recently got my wife a shirt that reads "I don't need Wikipedia, my spouse knows everything"... I suspect this feeling has something to do with that. The book resembles an empty table, while the shelves represent a database, packed with relatively useless information... So I guess I can relate :)

Going Crazy

This week seems like I'm going crazy. Have spent more time outside (with the dog) in the last two weeks than I have in two years (not literally). On the upside, my laptop works great out here :) I've recently taken to reading David Allen's Ready'>http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FReady-Anything-Productivity-Principles-Work%2Fdp%2F0143034545%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1220061964%26sr%3D8-2&tag=fozzenetfusse-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Ready for Anythinghttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=fozzenetfusse-20&l=ur2&o=1"; width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> which has reminded me of many aspects of GTD, from when I read thathttp://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FGetting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity%2Fdp%2F0142000280%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1218848104%26sr%3D8-1&tag=fozzenetfusse-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">that src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=fozzenetfusse-20&l=ur2&o=1"; width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. Point is, I need to work very seriously on completing my task inventory, so that I can use my free time to maximum potential.

The Dog Days of Summer

For those of you who haven't heard, Becky finally got her Dog!!! Lil' Molly is pretty cute, now that she makes less messes in the house. I did manage to rewire the TV and whatnot, and added an external HD tuner. Jason came over and we built a pair of HD Antennas (which are really the same thing as any other TV antenna, just tuned for the HD range... Tonight, I put in some time disassembling my UPS and doing some experimenting for Ron's Foam Cannon. Neither went so well.