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Skyline tin buildings

Dave Farquhar Toy trains May 8, 2020May 7, 20201940s, 1950s, american flyer, billboard, cardstock, lionel, Louis Marx, marx, tin, toy train, train layout, train show, wyandotte 0 Comment

In the 1940s and 1950s, Skyline of Philadelphia manufactured and marketed a line of toy train-oriented building kits. Actually, there were two lines: One was a line of building kits made of cardstock and wood, and one was a smaller line of lithographed tin buildings, similar to the inexpensive toys made by the likes of Louis Marx, Wyandotte, and countless others in the days before ubiquitous plastics.

I’ve long suspected the two product lines came from the same company, but had no evidence to prove it until Ed “Ice” Berg produced scans of a Skyline catalog containing both paper/wood and tin litho buildings, side by side.

What to do with an unsolicited offer to buy property

Dave Farquhar scams May 7, 2020May 6, 2020real estate 3 Comments

Another day, another unsolicited offer to buy property. Maybe it’s a postcard in the mail. Sometimes it’s a letter. Or an unsolicited phone call or text. Why are they bothering you, and what can you do about it?

It’s a little bit easier to block the phone calls than to stop the junk mail. But until the real estate market cools down, investors will keep calling you if you match the profile of someone they think might be willing to sell. There’s very little you can do about the junk mail except recycle it. You’ll learn to recognize its hallmarks pretty quickly so you don’t have to waste time opening it.

Budget folding rig

Dave Farquhar Hardware May 6, 2020May 4, 2020 1 Comment

After running Foldingathome for a few weeks and watching my friends pull away and leave my machines in their dust, I decided to throw a little money at it and see if I could build a budget folding rig that wouldn’t embarrass me. While you can spend thousands of dollars on one, you don’t have to. Let’s see what we can do for a more modest amount. Like $200.

You can build a folding rig that can pull in 300,000-400,000 points per day for around $250. The trick is finding a decent minitower with a PCIe slot and a used graphics card.

How to fix a sticky door knob

Dave Farquhar DIY May 5, 2020May 13, 2020 0 Comment

If you have a sticky doorknob, you don’t have to replace it. You can fix it in place relatively quickly, and with minimal effort. Here’s how to fix a sticky door knob.

Sticky door knobs are almost always due to dirt or improper lubrication. But if you use the right lubricant, you can clean and lube the door knob in one step.

Pretty print JSON in Python

Dave Farquhar security May 4, 2020May 1, 2020 0 Comment

I do a lot of work pulling data from systems via API, then doing things with parts of that data, whether it means feeding it to another system or creating a report. Some of these data structures are huge and unwieldy. Here’s how to pretty print JSON in Python so you can make sense of those data structures and get on with your code–without using an online pretty print website and potentially exposing sensitive data.

While json.loads is the key to getting your JSON data into a Python data structure, there’s a corresponding json.dumps to print it back out. It doesn’t sound like it would pretty print, but that’s what it does.

Technical difficulties

Dave Farquhar This weblog May 2, 2020May 2, 2020 0 Comment

In doing some routine maintenance today, one of my key plugins, Yoast SEO, started throwing error messages. Yoast issues can cause various other issues, such as new content not showing up on the front page, so this may be a problem.

Yoast’s knowledge base article isn’t helpful, just telling you to get a new web host. I’ve been hosting my own WordPress site for nearly 10 years (and another nine before that using other blogging tools) and this is the first time a plugin author has questioned my competence.

I’ve opened a ticket with Yoast. More than 50 other people have reported similar issues, so I’m thinking this one isn’t me. But at least I am able to publish new content, so I’m having fewer problems than some Yoast customers.

Louis Marx: The bygone toy king

Dave Farquhar Toy trains May 1, 2020April 25, 2020 0 Comment

Louis Marx was the founder of the toy company that bore his name. His larger toys became staples in Christmas catalogs for generations, while his smaller toys dominated the discount stores of their day.

Louis Marx was first and foremost a toy salesman, but he lived an interesting life. He counted President Dwight Eisenhower among his friends, and Daniel Ellsberg, known for the Pentagon Papers, married his daughter.

Can Gamestop survive?

Dave Farquhar Retail April 30, 2020May 4, 2020 0 Comment

Gamestop, the venerable video game retailer, announced in April 2020 it’s closing 300 stores. Rumors of Gamestop’s demise are rampant, and have been for a long time. Can Gamestop survive?

Changes in the way people buy video games has made life more challenging for Gamestop. I believe the company could survive, but it will have to change its business model and improve its customer service a lot in order to do it.

Does undervolting damage your GPU?

Dave Farquhar Hardware April 29, 2020April 26, 2020 0 Comment

Some enthusiasts will undervolt their GPU to save heat, reduce power consumption, and make their system run quieter. But does undervolting damage your GPU?

Undervolting can lead to stability issues, but when you get it right, it can actually be good for your GPU. Running cooler generally leads to longer life expectancy for the GPU chip and the graphics card as a whole.

How to disassemble a Sharpie

Dave Farquhar model railroading April 28, 2020April 26, 2020 0 Comment

My wife and sons asked me how to disassemble a Sharpie. They were working on a craft project and wanted to recover the ink from some dried-out markers. It wasn’t immediately obvious how to do it, but with the right tools, it’s not difficult. Here’s how to take apart a Sharpie.