David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Insulating electrical outlets and light switches is a cheap way to reduce your energy usage. I insulated mine in 2004 and it’s a quick, easy project to make your house more energy efficient that will pay off for years to come.
The last few days I’ve been having a really hard time concentrating due to headaches and stuff like that. So although I’ve had time to sit down and write, I haven’t really been able to actually sit down and do it.
I’m going to see the doctor on Monday. I’m really hoping that my osteopath will act like an osteopath and do OMT on my neck this time, rather than giving me more harsh drugs.
If you ever need to etch something out of metal–building lettering for your model railroad, funky lettering or a custom fan grill guard for your l337 modded-up computer case, or anything else that floats your boat, here’s a link you’ll want to bookmark:
Cheap photoetching, step by step.You need little more than a bottle of photo etchant from Radio Shack ($4), a can of lacquer thinner ($3 at Kmart), some aluminum cans, a permanent marker (I’ll bet you’ve got one of those), and a handful of other household items.
One tip: The author suggests using a permanent marker to color in the side opposite your drawing. Depending on what you’re wanting to make, that could take a while. You might want to invest in a spray can of the cheapest paint primer you can find, and use that for the opposite side.
Just keep a few cautions in mind when working with this stuff.
Aluminum cans are very light gauge. If you’ve ever sliced your hand open while working in a $12 computer case, the hazards are the same. Wear work gloves while cutting and handling the aluminum prior to etching.
Lacquer thinner is nasty, nasty stuff. One chemical commonly used in it, methyl ethyl ketone (a.k.a. MEK) is alleged to cause cancer, and its fumes are bad for your liver. It would be prudent to wear rubber gloves and a mask while working with it, and only work with it outside.
The most evil of evil software companies, SCO, has finally made good on its threats to sue a big Linux user, filing harrassing lawsuits against AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler.
Of course, SCO has yet to prove it even owns the copyrights it claims it owns, not to mention it voided any claims it might have by distributing Linux under the GPL. But that doesn’t seem to stop them from filing frivolous lawsuits.
The enemy of your enemy is your friend. Support freedom by shopping at AutoZone, or if you don’t have an AutoZone, buy anything Mopar that happens to fit your car, such as spark plugs and oil filters.
Gatermann sent me a link to something today, something whose existence shocked me.
Affordable gigabit Ethernet, from a mainstream, second-tier manufacturer.That manufacturer is D-Link. Their 8-port gigabit switch costs $130 at Newegg.com. It wasn’t even five years ago that I paid that much for a Netgear 8-port 10/100 autosensing hub. And it’s a real, honest-to-goodness gigabit switch, not one of those 8-port switches with 7 10/100 ports and just one 10/100/1000 port.
Meanwhile, Netgear is weighing in with gigabit NICs at $31 a pop.
Gigabit’s a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have. Yes, it’s nice for your network drives to be about the same speed as your local drives. No, it’s not necessary sharing an Internet connection and it won’t make the network printers any faster. But if you shuttle large files around your network…
If you get the feeling I really wish I didn’t know this information, you’re right. So I’m sharing my pain.
I can see this becoming very common in households, however. Gigabit means no one has to fight over who gets the monster hard drive. Buy that $250 300-gig drive, then put it somewhere, share it out, and map it on all the computers in the household. Then everyone gets the upgrade.
I saw an article in the Toronto Star in which Steve Ballmer was, um, well, talking gleefully about the city of Munich’s highly publicized and controversial migration to Linux, server to desktop, costing more money than expected.
So I suppose Mr. Ballmer is prepared to reimburse one of my clients for its unexpected expenses in migrating from VMS to Windows then, eh?
I haven’t had a lot of free time the past couple of weeks, and as you’ve probably gathered, I haven’t been spending a lot of it in front of a computer. I’ve been in the basement, learning how to make stuff for the train.
Along the way, I’ve learned a few things, mostly from experience rather than from books. I still have a long way to go.Not all paints and finishes are compatible with one another. When I tried to spray one brand of glossy finish atop a different brand of black paint, the paint crinkled. Spraying paint thinner on it would have done less damage.
Aside from the hard lesson on paints, clones of the old 6-inch 4-wheel Marx train cars are very simple to build. That must have something to do with why they cost 59 cents when they were new.
The look of lithographed tin can be reasonably approximated by printing a design on, of all things, plain paper, then spraying it with the same glossy finish that ruined the paint job on the first car I built. Attach said paper with spray adhesive, and only the very observant will notice your car isn’t tin litho.
Styrene plastic is very easy to work with. You can build simple things from it very quickly, so long as you use an MEK-based solvent, rather than the cement that comes in tubes. Solvents give a stronger bond, and after holding the joined piece together for two minutes, you can continue to work with it.
Aluminum is essentially free, and can be cut with scissors, but joining it is a pain. Joining two pieces with solder is very difficult. Epoxy is easier, but it’s harder to work with than the plastic solvents.
Tin and brass are extremely easy to solder. I now know why so many hand-built metal models are made of brass. It’s strong, reasonably easy to form, and not terribly expensive.
Sheet metal is dirt cheap at onlinemetals.com, but the $3 worth of brass that it takes to make a train car will cost $10 to ship, even if you have them deliver it by stagecoach UPS ground.
It’s very easy to end up paying $12 for a rustbucket Marx train car on eBay, and it’s more satisfying, if you have the requisite ability, to watch cars you made yourself go around your track than to watch cars you sniped with four minutes left. (I’ve only done that once. The rest I bid the way nice people do.) So most of the time you’re better off with your $13 worth of brass, whether you bought it online or at the local hobby shop.
You can fabricate your own Lionel- and Marx-compatible axles using 3/32-inch brass rod from a craft or hobby shop, cut to 1 3/4 inches in length for Lionel, or 1 7/8 inches for Marx. Put a dab of solder or epoxy half an inch inside to keep the wheels from going in too far.
I still haven’t fixed the calendar (I’m a slacker) but I’ve got two other important things working. For those of you who use RDF/RSS, my feed is working (the link’s in the lower right), and for those of you who use blo.gs to track your favorite blogs, I’ve got my blo.gs update working now too.
I saw a great e-mail signature line today. Like all great lines, it summed up something that everyone has thought a million times in a single brilliant sentence.If you receive something that says ‘Send this to everyone you know,’
pretend you don’t know me.
If you haven’t thought that today, it’s probably because you haven’t opened your e-mail yet.
Funny how now that the New York Yankees have added the most expensive sports contract in history, Alex Rodriguez, to their already outrageously priced roster, suddenly the freespending Boston Red Sox, owner of the second-most expensive sports contract in history and the second-highest payroll in baseball, are calling for a salary cap.