Category: Leisure

February 7, 2024 – My Good Pen

February 7, 2024 /

How many more items like this do I have? That’s a good question, I don’t really know. I really do take care of my things and they seem to hold a lot memory associations with them. This Cross pen below I received from my Aunt and Uncle for my high school graduation in 1993. I also got a check for $50 that went into my war chest, otherwise known as a savings account. Boy was life different then, we had a home computer but still the majority of all work was done by hand and I do mean handwriting.

I dubbed this pen ‘my good pen’ and so I didn’t use it much. In fact, it probably spent 15 years in my day planner. For those of you that don’t remember or know, a day planner was an oversized book size calendar. It was meant to carry with you and keep track of all things on a day by day basis. I really wanted to use a day planner, in fact I bought several. But I wasn’t disciplined enough to write everything all the time.

The day planner became an item of clutter shortly after getting it setup. And with it, my pen sat zipped up and protected. I carried that planner around for years in case I needed to take a note or something but I never really did. I finally threw the planner away several years ago.

Writing in this blog is not the only writing I do. I keep a journal that is mostly about planning and productivity. Now this pen is used to keep a weekly log of what I did for the week and what I am planning for the next. About two weeks ago, it stopped writing. Finally, after 29 years it ran out of ink.

The good news is that I can still order a refill, which I did. I like the idea that items have a story. So, while the refill cost $8 and I could buy four good writing pens for that, it was worth it. My good pen is going to live on.

I have to be honest, some of today’s disposable pens are more ergonomic and actually write better. This pen is thin and a little slick. While it works perfectly fine, it isn’t the easiest to hold for long writing sessions. It’s best function is signing things and writing checks.

One of the weaknesses of the pen and design is the clip. Mine is slightly bent because it is soft metal and it got squeezed in that day planner I spoke of earlier. I thought it was so neat to have an expensive pen, I bought my girlfriend (now wife) one for Christmas. Hers is sprung more than mine. I don’t know how, but I know that is a weakness.

Ten years ago, when I did a lot of looking a gear list for survival packs and such, there was a ubiquitous Fisher Space Pen on most of the lists. This was a pen that developed for the space program. The ink was pressurized so that it would write upside down or any position. This is probably the gold standard for pens.

That being said, I heard an anecdote that the Russians decided to use pencils. It is kind of like Indiana Jones facing the guy with the swords and then he just shoots him. Why re-invent the wheel? The reason this pen is special to me is because of the memory, not because it is high tech or even expensive. Heck, I am pretty sure I still have writing instruments that I found in the high school hallway too.

End Your Programming Routine: This actually wasn’t the only pen I received at that event. I got another pen with a $100 bill. It was a more inexpensive pen, but I probably have that as well. I know this is what drives me crazy when my kids ‘borrow’ something and lose it or break it. Here I have kept and used so many things for thirty years only to have no regard for an item.

January 25, 2024 – Practical Performance

January 25, 2024 /

I have wanted not just make energy measurements but also to see practical performance this year. This means that I need targets that represents practical or real life situations. Many years ago, I occasionally liked to visit a site called The Box O Truth which seems to be a forum these days. It started out as a guy that would build targets and test different loads against them.

I decided to build my own Box of Truth. Not necessarily to duplicate what already has been done but to satisfy my own curiosity. I built what represents an interior partition wall to see if it will stop air rifle pellets. If not, is there a pellet weight or energy that will be stopped? This is a question of safety, what happens when a projectile hits an interior wall.

There are all kinds of variations that could be built. Instead of two sheets of drywall, I could add sheathing and siding representing an exterior wall. Since my pellet trap has a 3/4″ sheet of plywood for the back, I already know that it cannot penetrate that thickness. But, if I was testing firearms, that might be useful information. You could also build several of these things to represent the penetration of several rooms.

From top left to bottom right is Crossman Copperhead (3.5 ft/lbs), Crossman Piranha (11.6 ft/lbs), Gamo Blue Flame (16 ft/lbs) and H&N Slug HP (12 ft/lbs). The BB was from the Crossman Legacy 1000 at four pumps while the remaining pellets were from the Crossman Optimus. All three pellets penetrated the ‘wall’. The BB did not. I know that because I could feel them embedded in the first layer with no indication of back penetration.

What I have learned is that an errant shot or a deliberate shot into a partition wall offers no safety. While there is never an excuse for negligent discharge, it should give you pause for self defense and where your shots go including a single family dwelling or neighbors in a attached living scenario.

Nothing is ever perfect. This is a test that is basically two layers of drywall. There could be pipes, wires or structure in those walls causing unpredictable results but not in my case. In addition, I put insulation between the walls because I had it laying around from my duct work. Many partition walls have no insulation and there are different types of insulation densities as well. Each one the variables along with luck makes a difference. What is hard to measure is the exact energy or potential harm after the projectile goes through the wall. Just because it penetrates, doesn’t mean it is lethal but it is foolish to assume otherwise.

In the future, I would like to do some more deterministic testing. That means developing a target that shows how energy relates to depth of penetration. There are some homemade ballistic gelatin recipes and techniques that I am interested in investigating. But, I am not quite ready to do that yet.

End Your Programming Routine: Data really means nothing without correlation. Ten ft-lbs versus 20 ft-lbs has no context unless it can be applied to something meaningful. If 20 ft-lbs can go through 1/2″ plywood but 10 cannot, then you have information to be able to make decisions under those variables. My test really didn’t prove anything other than don’t shoot at your walls, but then you shouldn’t be doing that anyway. Really, the next logical step would be to find out how much energy would be required to penetrate both layers.

January 9, 2024 – Adding a USB, PCIe Expansion Card

January 9, 2024 /

All of my USB ports are full. It was possible to unplug things as I need them, but that was inconvenient. It is also possible to add a USB hub, however my computer is so old that it only has USB 2.0 ports. So, not only was this for convenience but also gives added performance.

One thing to know is that these cards are considered a USB hub. This means that you are not going to be able to charge 7 different devices each plugged into their own port. Cards or ports that perform the full USB capability are significantly more expensive and you may need an upgraded power supply to do so. Investigate specifications based on your own needs.

Here are a few more tidbits. The card that I chose has 5 USB, A-style ports and 2, C-style ports. Part of why I did this was to try and future proof this machine as long as possible. This desktop computer was purchased as a refurbished computer in 2012 so we are going into the 14th year of use. Pretty good as technology goes.

You can purchase cards that have less ports and by proxy they are also cheaper. But again, I was trying to future proof this as much as possible. So my particular card is the value compromise, the most ports for the cheapest cost. Here is how it was installed.

This video was also edited using a new software OpenShot. I am not sure why Microsoft keeps making video editing worse. The old Windows Media editor was the best, then I was using Pictures, and I have played around with ClipChamp. Each version was more difficult to work with then the last. So, I tried OpenShot.

It works fine, but it may not have the features that I actually want still. The transitions are a little clunky and there are no screen or text editors. So, maybe practice is what I need first before I move on to another program. Also, with two videos with my new action camera, the audio is definitely poor. I need to investigate a separate microphone or just relegate this to voiceover type videos.

End Your Programming Routine: I cant say again how much better plug and play life is. Plug the card in and start using it. This is miles from having to assign the drive in the BIOS and then re-install the service pack (for those of you that remember NT). This was after setting the jumpers on the card, etc.

January 3, 2024 – What Does Time Off Look Like?

January 3, 2024 /

At one point in my life, I had watched every episode of This Old House. I suppose that this is one of my few, guilty pleasure TV habits. I lost track of the show on the switch from analog to digital broadcasting format in 2010. This is because I used to record the show when it was live and watch it later at my convenience.

Around 2016, I realized that it was being streamed and so I started picking the show up again with the episodes that I could. Not every show or season was viewable. In fact, the show had significant technical issues like not enough server bandwidth and clunky commercial interruptions that sometimes never came back. I fought through it picking off hours to watch and restarting.

Somewhere around 2020, I just forgot about it. I think that I was hot and heavy remodeling then I transitioned into driving for Amazon with an irregular schedule and then I started working again and my free time was devoted to writing to AltF4 as well as all the other things I needed to do. Right before my Christmas break, I remembered that I was years behind. A large part of my break was binge watching the last four years of This Old House episodes.

I now have a gap of seasons (I think). Some of my gap years are behind the paywall and so I remember things about certain projects but I can’t actually view them to confirm. I don’t know if I caught an episode here or there during normal broadcast and now I am misremembering things. I have a feeling that I am going to pay for a short subscription so that I can catch back up.

Not all of my time was spent in front of a screen. I did a lot of cooking, reading, and something that is a small family tradition. We usually do some sort of puzzle. This year we bought a very large and expensive Lego set that we spent several evenings building. I also got my electrical run so that I can move my keezer and get started in earnest with my wine cellar project this year.

Home improvement was definitely on the mind. I had the siding in front of my house removed. We have had a leak in the front picture window every since the siding was done in 2015. It has gone on long enough that I was beginning to worry about the damage that it was causing. This actually occurred before Christmas but I had already had many articles queued before my break. I also plan on discussing this more in detail soon.

What I didn’t do was a lot of thinking about AltF4. This was by design. When I need to take a break, I need a real break. I have learned this about myself over the years, I do not give up easily. Because of that, I tend to keep after things too long. That is to say we all reach a point of diminishing returns and it is necessary to take a step back. I have solve many a programming problem in the shower after a late night of working much longer than I should have.

End Your Programming Routine: My break was closer to two weeks than one since I had most of the week before Christmas already written and published ahead of time. I don’t know if that is actually enough time because right now I feel charged and ready to go. That feeling waxes and wanes throughout the year and hopefully this isn’t a veneer. That being said, happy to be back and ready to go.

December 19, 2023 – A New Camera: Coleman Conquest 3

December 19, 2023 /

Not long after I started my new job in September, I got an email saying that it was employee appreciation month. As such, they were going to be drawings for prizes. I of course didn’t have anything better to do so I registered for the drawing. About a week later, I was sent an email saying that I had won a prize. Truth be told, I forgot about it because it didn’t arrive for several months.

What am I going to do with this? Well, I thought that I would try it out and make videos. One time, I used the kids’ GoPro to make a video and it was nice to have two hands free rather than trying to hold the phone in one hand and do the rest of the work in the other.

In the box that it came with were straps to mount it to my person. A waterproof case, a remote control, different mounting platforms to put the camera on handlebars and pretty much wherever you want to put it. I have a planned a video for tomorrow so that I can break it in.

I am under no illusion that this is equal to the GoPro in performance. It was stated that any gifts over $100, we (the employees) would be taxed on the value of that prize. I think the stated value was $99.99. It is still cool and it is still better than nothing. I would say that if this proves to be worth it, I will use it until I reach the limitations and then at that point consider upgrading to a more refined device.

The question might be asked, do I feel appreciated? The truth is that I suspect every person that entered got a prize. In the application process, I selected all of the things I didn’t want which were largely things that I already have or don’t really need or want. I will test my theory next year and potentially get something that I might give away. But, to answer the question, not particularly appreciated because they gave me a gift. That being said, I have never had anything like this happen before.

The truth is that my phone is starting to get tired. I have had this iPhone X for five years now. I find lately that the lens is smudgy and shows a glare on many of the pictures that I take. This causes me to retake them. Additionally, transferring the raw clips are very cumbersome. It takes a lot of bandwidth to move them from my phone to One Drive where I keep all of that stuff and start editing. I often have to do this in multiple iterations for all but the smallest of clips. I welcome the ability to take content directly from the device via a wire.

End Your Programming Routine: As of the time of writing I haven’t done anything but charge the battery and power the camera on. I have no concept about how well it will really do, but like I said I will use it until I see the limitations. But hey, it is better than a stick in the eye (or a pink slip). So, I can appreciate what new dimensions this will bring to AltF4.

December 14, 2023 – And Now, Performance

December 14, 2023 /

I was looking through my stuff and I realized that I had six different cans of white spray paint. I don’t exactly know why that is the case but I was going to paint a project that I was working on white and I wanted to see what I had. As it turns out, three of those cans started spraying and then plugged up. I tried to clean them and figure out their day had passed.

I was going to throw them away, but I didn’t want to do so pressurized. I also didn’t want to poke a hole in them pressurize because that is a good way to have white paint sprayed everywhere. So, decided to shoot them with my pellet rifles. I thought I would use the same pellet in three different rifles to see the performance difference at three different power levels.

What I learned was actually not as much as I thought I would. All three rifles shot through both sides of each can. I have the energy calculations for each combo but when that exceeds the standard, it doesn’t tell much about performance. For a while now, I have been thinking about how I would test performance of these difference rifle/pellet combinations.

I have the pictures in order of power where the first one to the left is the lowest. One other thing you might observe is not every shot is dead center. This is because I don’t have every rifle sighted in for this pellet weight. But, I will say that this is an honest to goodness, three shots. There were no misses.

The first shot (left) was the most fun. When it hit, it twisted out of the box and sprayed paint all over the place. This is why the term reactive target exists. The target is hit and reacts. I thought that all three might do that, but that wasn’t the case. Since I have shot spray paint with 22lr before, I was kind of expecting it. This is why I had them inside a box to contain the mess.

I have heard from others that cans of shaving cream will do this as well. The advantage of those is the foam dissipates with the addition of rain. In my case, the small amount of paint on the grass will eventually get mowed and collected. But, if you are going to do something like this, be sure you have a good radius between your target and anything you wouldn’t want sprayed with paint.

End Your Programming Routine: I will continue to collect energy information and that is a good baseline to know. But I will also continue to look for a way to quantify what energy means against some sort of target. It appears that spray paint cans are not the answer, but I kind of wish that I had some more.

December 7, 2023 – Networking and Power Over Ethernet

December 7, 2023 /

One of the projects I got completed over the Thanksgiving weekend was installing outside, wireless mesh router. If you might recall, adding this unit was an attempt to add internet to our Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) also known as ‘the apartment’. The theory was that part of our mesh included the ADU and so I needed to have a strong signal between the two buildings.

The lowest box you see on the wall I actually put in in 2017. I have stub outs for conduit so that I could trench to the ADU. I was waiting for better weather (and time, money and desire). Believe it or not, everything is terminated in the box already as well.

Part of my testing included placement and power of the wireless router. I started it much closer to the ADU but then I realized that I have this unused hole in the wall. It would be nice if I could utilize it for part of it’s purpose. Plugging the router into this box put it quite a ways away from electrical source outside. I read that this particular router could be powered using Power over Ethernet (PoE). The DC power runs from the switch over the ethernet cable to the device. That is pretty cool.

I thought that I would also pass this on. I run cable every time I have the option to do so. The majority of my network is Category 5e. Since Category 6 has become the predominant standard, I have switched to running Category 6 wiring when I do new runs. I was under the belief that that Cat 5e was only rated for 100Mb speed but that is actually not true. Cat 5e supports gigabit speed up to 45m runs.

I don’t know if I will ever go back to Category 5e, but it is good information to know. I don’t like putting out temporary or obsolete effort. But, I still find Cat 5e cable significantly cheaper and easier to find. Also, I find Category 3 cable almost impossible to find. You can use either 3, 5 or 6 if you are terminating phone extensions but why pay the premium? And sometimes, I use what I have on hand.

I used to have a big contractor box of Category 5e. I would pull two runs whenever I had to pull one. That gave me the flexibility to have two drops or a even backup capability. I probably won’t ever do that now that those boxes of Category 6 are $250. But, believe you me if I ever do pull wire to the ADU, it will be two Category 6 cable because I want it to be the only time I do it.

Before I leave this topic today, I want to go back to PoE. You need to look at your devices power requirements before selecting a switch. My mesh router requires 17W. The switch I picked provides 65W power. But, you have to divide the total output by the port number. The switch specs say that each port can provide up to 18W of power with a 65W maximum. This means that the switch I picked worked with the specs required.

I did make one mistake. I was looking at price so the switch I purchased is only a 10/100 switch. I cant take advantage of that Cat 6 wire that I ran. This brings me to the last fact in today’s story. At least with my mesh router system, the devices communicate wirelessly (this is what works for me in the first place). They do have ethernet ports on them and the purpose of those ports is for backhaul.

What this means is that those devices are not on an island. They still need to see signal of the master router and the stronger the better. But, if you have a strong connection, you can increase your wireless experience by having a wired backhaul. Users are not limited to hopping router to router for internet but can go straight to the source via the cable. This means that the range isn’t extended but the reliability and bandwidth is.

End Your Programming Routine: I have had this one banked for a while now. As life kept pushing us around, I kept pushing this back because I knew it was something I could do without a lot of effort. It was kind of like my testing of this outdoor unit. I just needed to plug things in and check the signal but other, more important things came up. The testing took about a month to complete, not because it was hard or time consuming, I just needed to make it a priority.

November 29, 2023 – My Newest Woodworking Project

November 29, 2023 /

I haven’t even brought this up, but I have quietly working on another sofa table. My wife wanted to steal the one I made for my office the minute I brought it into the house. I promised that I would make her one and I finally got around to it. It had to come after the summer projects but we are now into the shop time of year.

As a very infrequent woodworker, I am lucky if I get one project done let alone the chance to duplicate a project I have already done once. This was an opportunity to really see if the reason it took so long to build the first one was my problem or it was really that difficult. I knew the answer, but I still wanted to see how fast I could do it. This picture was two weeks after I had drawn up the plans.

As it stands in this picture, this is about 20 hours of work. This includes drawing the design out on graph paper and picking out the boards from the stack. So, it is definitely my problem. I find myself falling into the trap that I don’t have time to do this or that and so things drag on months and months. When I am most productive, I say to myself either ‘I have to get this done today’ or ‘I have thirty minutes, how far can I go?’.

Back when we lived in South Carolina, my wife wanted a mantel built by Christmas. It was about 4AM Christmas day that I finished. I really don’t recommend that kind of effort unless this is your career or have nothing better to do in life but other’s having deadlines is also a good way to not end up flaking out on a project either.

I did have some help on this one that I didn’t have before. I used the taper jig that I built for the first table and I have about the same height of legs. Instead of chiseling out the mortises by hand, I just cut them with the router this time. The first time, I wanted desperately to prove to myself that I had the knowledge to do fine woodworking. This time, I took the pragmatic approach that I had nothing to prove and that was a much faster way to do things. Practicing is a sure way to do things much faster than the first time.

I almost used pocket screws instead of mortise and tenon joinery. That would have knocked at least four hours off of my time. I didn’t think the joinery was actually necessary but I thought that the practice would be good for me. I also think in the end, it made a better final product. By better I mean that the joinery was more likely to stand the test of time then screws. Everyone that has ever had Ikea furniture knows that the first move is when things start to go south in the durability department.

At first my wife was wanting different legs and I thought that I was going to get an opportunity to buy a wood lathe. As much as I would have loved to add that to my tool collection and skills, I convinced her that duplicating the shaker style legs I used on my first table was the fastest way to get this project done. I have other things in the queue besides this table, not to mention my long anticipated wine cellar.

End Your Programming Routine: My Toolbox Fallacy is real. ‘I can’t do this, until I do/get that’. Sometimes I figure out that I bought stain in a color that I already have or I already have the sandpaper. Then I figure out that the thing I was using as my excuse to not do something was there all along and I really had no reason not to work on projects. I am happy with the results and I feel even better that I learned things that really helped me with this table. On to the next project.

November 28, 2023 – Didn’t Even Know That This Was a Problem

November 28, 2023 /

I was pretty diligent when I went to add my new wireless card to my old Windows computer. I saw that it needed a USB connection to the motherboard to make the Bluetooth work. I checked it before I ordered it. I also educated myself as to all the different types of PCIe slots and if I had the right ones.

When I did the second one for the Linux machine, I wasn’t quite so diligent. I new that computer was newer and I knew that I hadn’t added any cards to it at this point, So, I went on the assumption that if I had all the space I needed on the old one, the newer one would be just fine. Well that wasn’t the case.

I did have three PCIe ports but all of my USB connections were taken. At first, I just disconnected the front ports to make sure that the wireless card was working, but it bothered me so I started looking. I discovered that there is a way to share these motherboard connections. See the video below.

Now, everything is right in the world. Since I was looking for this video to share here, I also discovered that there are devices that can add more motherboard ports if necessary. That is also good.

The one thing that wasn’t quite right was that my Linux computer already had an imbedded wireless card. I ran the right commands (I think) to check if that was the case. I got no return on validating a wireless card which is why I ordered it in the first place. However, when I installed the new card, it enabled the imbedded card. I had read that wireless driver installation can be tricky on Linux and I guess this is what I ultimately encountered.

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that the plug and play worked. But, I kind of wish that I had known that there was already an imbedded wireless card. I don’t think it had Bluetooth capability which is what justified me keeping the card installed. I may have deprioritized it.

When I spoke about my network configuration a few weeks ago, I stated that everything that can be wired is wired. That is still true. I want wireless capability on my Linux machine as a test tool. I want to know if I can connect wired but not wirelessly or on Linux versus Windows versus iOS. Adding the additional Bluetooth connectivity seemed like an inexpensive luxury at $20.

Since I have been slow playing the Software Defined Radio scanner experiment, I heard somewhere that I needed two different radio receivers to make the thing work. The problem is that I am running out of USB connections outside of the computer. So, I have been looking at USB expansion cards. They do exist and they are pretty inexpensive. Believe it or not, they don’t require and USB connection to the motherboard, just a PCIe slot. So no worries there.

End Your Programming Routine: This is why I love techno junk. I would never spend $400 on a new, super duper graphics card but I would spend $20 for an enhancement. The fact that I can get 2nd or 3rd generation technology for a song makes a big difference on me wading deeper into the fray. Like I stated before, I have been out of the hardware game for a long time, it is nice to know that things work much smoother than they used to.