2022-01-22 When You Age

Telomeres. So they tell us that these caps corking each copy of our dna eventually wear out per copy... When you get injured, sick, or just regular day to day cell recycling. Whatever the reason, cells have to be replenished. I guess it was earlier in our evolution that DNA was forced to adapt favoring those organisms that did not have run away growth LOL. Today I can have several maladies afflicting me at the same time:

Slow Digestive Track
Sprained wrist
Epoxy Allergy
Weakened Leg Vein Gates

This is on top of more long term things like hair loss :) and injuries not healing as fast.

Anyway, I made a home made splint out of elastic bandage, velcro, a thick stick to lay across the wrist up to the palm , and a towel to wrap it cause it is hard !

2022-01-20 Exhausted from Language

When communicating verbally it is common to ask for clarification and re-clarification when the concept being described is not understood. In order to understand the description we have to mentally build the object. If the details being delivered are unclear, trying to build the complex object in ones mind over and over again is quite frustrating. A feeling of futility sets in. When something is THAT complicated, it is best sit down and draw a picture. You will otherwise, never get those hours back again ever. Imaging trying to describe the following in a conversation. Don't!



Visual Paradigm Online
Sketch Board
Sketch Board

2022-01-19 Too Much Code

Most days when I look at other people's code I find parts of it are so beautiful and some of it is so verbose. I think software people should take time and write code for people to read. Unfortunately prose in code is lost to deadline pressures.

2022-01-16 Etherville Model To Cope

Since 2010 I started putting together a really large HO scale model world. It was a means to escape the terrible and scary real world of my father suffering from health problems.

2022-01-15 Secret of the Dizi Flute

Beginners and non flute players do not appreciate the central role the bamboo membrane plays in the chinese dizi flute. It is essential! However many people ignore it or get it wrong.

uploads/2022-01-15/story.json

2022-01-14 Beautiful Old Music Now New

Saw this while browsing youtube for classical chinese music in which to put my flute. This does not quite fit , but it was so incredibly beautiful I had to point it out here. It has taken the concept of a traditional chinese painting and added acted scenes. The musicians are using all traditional instruments. The production value of the video is very high and the musicians are great at what they do.

uploads/2022-01-14/story.json

2022-01-13 How Are you?

It is true, we all struggle to answer that question sincerely. Entire books have been written about how not to faux pas that answer. I saw this as a reply from a discord karaoke server i frequent:

2022-01-12 Screws are always not available

It was more than a couple times that that trendy towel bar gouged into my arm as i passed a narrow entry way into my bathroom. I wanted something curved so nothing can possibly catch onto it. The design was hard to find on amazon for some reason, bad search terms - amazon does not understand my words :)

After a few days I found something that was close. A towel bar of the right size and it fits onto a door of some kind. Unfortunately the screw was only long enough for those thin glass shower doors and not for a wooden door. No documentation about the size or kind of screw! I took a measurement and it was 1/4-ish so i guessed it was empire and not metric. ( Yeah there are at least 2 worlds of screws) And yes I am that stubborn and that specific in what I want. The screws arrived today and they fit.

Smooth Towel Bar @ AMZN
Alternative Screws @ AMZN
Skills Required: #skill-measuring, #skill-screw-usage, #skill-ecom-search, #skill-paint-matching

2022-01-11 Adapting A Flute

The chinese xiao vertical flute is played by pressing the chin onto the top end of the flute and then angling your lips to blow air at a 45° angle over the hole. Doing this too many times scratches the chin! Not Good. Adapter and holder in TPU to the rescue:

Xiao Adapter @ AMZN
Download Fusion 360 File
TPU Filament @ AMZN

2022-01-10 Fixing a Toy

A aircraft carrier toy was tossed around and of course its more delicate parts will break. It's a toy! I approximated in my mind what a carrier antenna would look like and here is what i came up with:

Download Fusion 360 File

2022-01-09 Frustrated and Feeling Dumb

I tried to find how to make my bash scripts less complicated and take advantage of things i already wrote. I ran into someone explaining how wrapping functions can make things better:

Written by someone with the combination of not being a native english speaker and not explaining things with sufficient detail. How does this prevent my large script from inadvertently changing something global?


Skills Required: #skill-programming, #skill-googling, #skill-teacher