| Thursday, September 22, 2022 |
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One of these things is not like the other
by brian @ 12:55:16 - [perma-link]After power washing my patio and furniture, i realized that the broken center leaf still works, it just doesn’t fold or stow properly. It was under a bunch of plants, so i didn’t wash it.
The rest of the table looked like that yesterday. I’ll pull that piece out next time I use the power washer. For now it makes a nice before/after. And I can cover it with plants until i clean it.
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| Monday, September 19, 2022 |
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9/11 Tomatoes
by brian @ 08:16:10 - [perma-link]I planted 11 tomato seeds, of 3 dwarf varieties, before i left on vacation. I came back to find 9 of them sprouted! I’ll let them go a little longer, the put the best one of each variety in my aquaponics grow box.
These dwarf plants should only get about 12-18” high, instead of “indeterminate” size, which was way too big and sparse for the aquarium. These ones should look better in the planter, and will probably make more, tiny tomatoes.
The two in the back are yellow, then 4 red dwarfs, and 3 black cherry in the front.
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Space-flavored Egg Salad
by brian @ 19:11:04 - [perma-link]I hard boiled a bunch (flock? Mess?) today and I wanted egg salad for dinner. But I’m out of mayonnaise! Instead of going to the store (again), I decided to make my own.
I googled some recipes and checked the fridge. 3 ingredients: an egg yolk, some lemon juice, and some oil. Should be easy.
But I’m out of lemon juice. And lemons. And limes. And i almost bought limes today!
What else can I use for 1 tbsp of acid? How about the half-bottle of Coca Cola Starlight I was drinking earlier?
It’s only a tablespoon, to a whole cup of oil and a yolk. Then two big spoonfuls of that mixed with 4 eggs (I didn’t eat all of it!). The mayo itself is pretty sweet, but I cant’t pick up the flavor. I really don’t taste the Starlight in the egg salad at all, but i know a speck of it is there. Space flavor is pretty subtle. Almost faith based at this point.
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| Saturday, September 3, 2022 |
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Volunteers!
by brian @ 10:42:22 - [perma-link]I ran out of potting soil to fill this metal tray, so i scooped up some dirt from my compost bin. The chard seeds I planted before the last heat wave didn’t make it, but plenty of volunteer seeds from the compost popped up last week! I moved about 8 tomatoes elsewhere, and then these mystery sprouts popped up. I’m thinking kale or arugula (and maybe one chard that didn’t sprout two weeks ago).
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| Thursday, August 25, 2022 |
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Roasting Coffee
by brian @ 12:35:27 - [perma-link]Today's roast was 309 grams of Mexican Comunidad de Coatepec espresso beans.
The beans started green in the dog bowl. They turn yellowish brown after about 6 minutes, and start darkening. The last video is in second crack, right before I turned off the heat and cooled the beans with a fan.
I went a little long into second crack, taking a few short videos to try to capture the popping sound. These came out a little darker than I have been roasting lately. Roasted for 13m:51s at about 6.75 on the heat gun.
The beans are off gassing (or whatever) in the open can until tomorrow morning. I have just enough Espresso Monkey left for tomorrow, so I will seal the lid tomorrow and try these out on Saturday.
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| Saturday, August 13, 2022 |
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HomeKit Drape and Shade Control
by brian @ 22:18:02 - [perma-link]Today i got the right gendered RS-232 connectors to hook up an ESP8266 to my motorized drape controllers. Now my drapes and a few more window coverings are controlled through HomeKit. It will look better with some sort of case, but it seems to be working well.
I copied one of the examples for controlling a Switch, and changed it to a WindowCovering, with more HomeKit Characteristics. That worked in one room, where all of the blinds are connected on the same circuit, and not individually controllable.
My bedroom has drapes on two walls and a window shade, all on separate circuits. For that i needed to use a bridge and multiple accessories. I hacked together a hard coded version, rather than trying to make one that scales to the number of devices available. Now that I have both of them working, that’s probably how it will stay. It was frustrating trying to get it to work with virtually no debugging info available.
I think it finally worked after I added a few more entries to each accessory information section. Or maybe having different names for the ummm…. Info and service sections? I don’t know. The devices would appear and disappear. Once i added manufacturer and model, they stopped disappearing.
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| Thursday, August 11, 2022 |
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New pancake technique!
by brian @ 07:31:31 - [perma-link]Flipping the giant fake-fluffy pancake in the rice cooker! No more one side cooked, one side still drippy!
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Tesla Keyfob Fix
by brian @ 18:29:46 - [perma-link]I went on a trip this weekend, and was minorly inconvenienced by my Tesla key fob not working. I changed the battery before I left because it wasn’t reliably unlocking the car. At the first charging stop, the key fob was no longer detected. I went the whole weekend having to use the phone app to unlock and enable remote start every time.
Today i checked the new battery, and it was dead. I also noticed some corrosion in the battery area. I took the keyfob apart and cleaned all of the pieces with vinegar and a toothbrush. All of the blue flaky corrosion is gone. After letting the parts dry for a while, I put it back together, and it is working great!
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| Wednesday, July 27, 2022 |
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3D Printed Dyson accessory holder
by brian @ 19:13:36 - [perma-link]I’ve wanted something to mount the extra accessories with the vacuum. I like this solution, but it doesn’t lock the accessories in. I wonder if a different model has the clip/button on the accessory instead of the vac.
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| Saturday, July 9, 2022 |
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New seat for the racing sim
by brian @ 17:09:46 - [perma-link]The actual seat is an old one, out of one of my rally cars. The mount is new. I’m no longer driving a dining room chair. The seat mount is a different brand than the wheel stand, so they don’t connect together. I have a 25lb dumbbell on the front to balance the wheel with the steep angle for this less-upright position.
I don’t have anywhere to mount the other hand brake, so I’ve set up the shifter as a handbrake instead. The old handbrake was on a separate riser that interferes with the seat and the shifter in this position. I only use the handbrake in Dirt, and I use the paddles to shift anyway, so I’m all set.
I just raced around the Red Bull Ring in Assetto Corsa. I like sim racing the F1 tracks on race weekends, to get a better feel for the track, and know where things are happening when I’m watching the real thing.
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