January 26, 2014
I cleared a shed and couldn’t figure out what to do with my scrap lumber pile. This weekend I put some of the scrap to use along with some cheapo caster wheels and slapped together this lumber cradle. Makes good use of the empty floor space too.
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January 12, 2014
I’ve been searching for a fluffy paleo sandwich bread recipe, maybe this one’s a winner? The trouble is I quit my browser without saving it. If it’s as good as i looks I’ll post it later when I find it again.
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January 5, 2014
(server crashed and restored from a backup so lost original from Nov 13, 2013)
I’ve been wanting to build this for a loooong time. When my parents came for a visit I decided it was the perfect project for father son bonding to get me off my duff. I got the plans for the Micro Compound Lever Biomass Briquette Press from Engineers Without Borders.
Why do this? Well, I’m a bit obsessed with finding uses for waste. Food scraps go to the chickens or compost. Paper/plastic/metal in the recycler. I read in a novel you can make phosphorous from urine though I haven’t tried that one. So what about all those yard trimmings and leaves? Aside from conservation I want to prep for the inevitable zombie apocalypse by familiarizing myself with alternative fuel sources.
So here’s the finished press…
… and here are some pucks.
Don’t those look tasty? Actually they’re not nearly dense enough. The material that comes out of my wood chipper is too large, it doesn’t break up leaves and brush well enough for it to be packed tightly. The bottom right briquette is the best but that’s because it was bottom of the batch with lots of paper and sawdust.
So that’s the next project I think, something to grind up brush into sawdust. I also want a plastic granulator so I can re-melt plastic junk into filament for a 3D printer. Engineers Without Borders has a design for a biomass grinder but I’m not too impressed with it. I bought inexpensive plans for a DIY hammer mill but that will only work for brush. Still looking for a solid DIY solution that covers all the bases.
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February 19, 2013
OK let’s see what other magic I can make…
Still more stuff to try…
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February 11, 2013
Grain free crackers, salmon salad, goat cheese
We’re experimenting with grain free crackers. These came out great so… crackers for dinner!
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February 10, 2013
Drobo, Router, Airport, Roku, Onkyo, Phillips, Pogo, Mercury, Express, Samsung
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February 4, 2013
I had a bit of a gadget binge over the holidays between presents received and “presents” I bought for myself. One of the items is a PogoPlug™, a tiny Linux unit with an ARM processor, ethernet port, and 4 USB 2.0 ports. Out of the box this thing pretty sweet, you can access files from whatever drives you plug into it over the internet using a web interface. There are apps for Android and iOS to play music or movies from your drives. You can mount them in OSX Finder (by running their software).
Drobo with Airport Extreme: 9Mb/s write, 10Mb/s read
I’ve been doing TimeMachine backup, iPhoto and iTunes storage with a Drobo RAID plugged into my Airport Extreme router. It’s sloooow… I read somewhere that the USB processor on it is a dog. I want to stream music and movies to my new Roku player. I want a network DVD drive for those rare times I need one.
Connected to the Airport Extreme the best speed I can get is 9Mb/s write, 10 Mb/s read. Directly connected to my Mac with USB it’s 18.5 write, 25 read… how close can I get with PogoPlug?
Speed measurements were taken with BlackMagic Disk Speed Test.
There are a couple ways to get more software onto your PogoPlug. ArchLinux ARM is a great resource with lots of useful information and an active community. I decided not to use it because I want to keep the existing features of my.pogoplug.com and ArchLinux completely replaces the OEM software.
Mistake! I ended up screwing around with Optware/ipkg for days. I could never find the right combination of packages, compiling, configuration, etc to get disks mounted reliably (by label or GUID) and to get AFP sharing working. Once I switched to ArchLinuxArm everything went much smoother because they have an active community and lots more packages.
I’m using an old USB hard drive for the OS and backing it up to a thumbdrive.
W00t! Drobo with PogoPlug: 10.5Mb/s write, 15Mb/s read
The article on the archlinuxarm site is out of date so use this instead: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Netatalk. It doesn’t say anything about setting up users but I went ahead and created one because other articles suggested netatalk wouldn’t permit the root user. Perhaps this is no longer the case.
All set! The TImeMachine preference pane found the drive with no trouble.
Now that I have this working (with a tasty speed bump) I’ll try out some other things…
Home automation? Security cams? Endless possibilities!
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January 20, 2013
DIY Necklace Display - Mirror Plus Drawer Knobs
Lynell saw things like this on Etsy for upwards of $40. Time for some DIY! She got the mirror second-hand and the drawer pulls online. I countersunk the holes on the backside and clipped the bolts so it won’t scratch up the wall.
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April 24, 2012
I’m so proud… my wife Lynell is writing for the Austin Post about our adventures in London and the UK! She has her second article up today, A Good Egg is Not So Hard to Find: Locating the Bare Necessities in London.
Lynell is herself is a “good egg” of the rarest and best variety. 🙂
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February 19, 2012
Content removed by request. Please accept my apologies for any disruption I’ve caused by discovering and blogging about the scripted solution.
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