totm aug 2023 What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

[adsii1970]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

If the MS Outlook could be improved so easily...

But we would miss the random messages such as "Outlook has stopped responding..." 

This morning my cat woke me up at 2:32 a.m. by patting my face. So, checked his food bowl and he still had food. Checked his water dish, too. It was fine. Felt a little flush and light-headed. I checked my blood/glucose levels and it was 55 mg/dL.

Anything under 60 (or above 135) is bad. If I had gone much lower, could have had some serious problems. 

My cat, by waking me up, kept it from going any lower. 

[Geonovast]

My brother's been wanting a dedicated PC to run an ARK: SE server on so that he doesn't need to fire up his computer or worry about using it otherwise when his wife wants to play their shared save.  So I got him one as a late Christmas present, setting it for him now.  Look at it!  It's so tiny!  It's smaller than the 2-in-1 laptop thing I use for the map on my game, yet it has a socketed desktop i5 in it.

 

[Entropian]

2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

 

Is that a F9 I see in the background?  If so, where did you get it?

[Geonovast]

30 minutes ago, Entropian said:

Is that a F9 I see in the background?  If so, where did you get it?

I printed it!

https://www.thingiverse.com/make:582432

[Entropian]

2 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

I printed it!

https://www.thingiverse.com/make:582432

Thanks!  Out of curiosity, what type of printer did you use?

EDIT: Nevermind, I see it's a depositional.

Edited December 31, 2020 by Entropian

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, Geonovast said:

My brother's been wanting a dedicated PC to run an ARK: SE server on so that he doesn't need to fire up his computer or worry about using it otherwise when his wife wants to play their shared save.  So I got him one as a late Christmas present, setting it for him now.  Look at it!  It's so tiny!  It's smaller than the 2-in-1 laptop thing I use for the map on my game, yet it has a socketed desktop i5 in it.

Stats/price plz? The old gaming rig I’m using for our security cameras & weather station is reaching its last legs, pretty case or not. This looks like a nice, simple (wall-mountable?) solution. 
 

Oh and I just noticed I have that same funky sideways mouse, too. 

Edited December 31, 2020 by CatastrophicFailure

[cubinator]

Today I made a graph of me watering a plant. I'm learning how to store data to an SD card from an Arduino.

[Delay]

So...
Just watched Terminator 2 for the first time in complete, on DVD. I've seen small snippets of it every now and then on TV, but now I've seen it in complete, uninterrupted.

No other movie that I have watched so far made me want to rewind the player all the way to the beginning to watch it again. None. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this was the best movie I've seen in my life.
I cannot even think of anything to improve. The humor is spot on (for me), the effects are outstanding and I enjoyed every minute of it without exception.

Spoiler

Well, there are a few horrific scenes, like the ending of that phone call near the beginning. Not necessarily the most pleasant thing to watch, but it establishes the T-1000's abilities quite well.

 

[Vanamonde]

Yep, T2 is one of the best action movies ever made. Possibly #1. Was your DVD the extended version? It doesn't add a lot but it's interesting. 

[Gargamel]

On 12/30/2020 at 7:13 PM, Geonovast said:

I printed it!

https://www.thingiverse.com/make:582432

Ohhhh....  Might have to try that one.     Just ordered a new printer a couple days ago.   Creality CR10 V2.   I guess the V3 just came out, and that would explain the really nice deal I got on this compared to the MSRP.   And since it seems to be well reviewed, and my old one is broke, figured it was time.   Looking forward to the larger print volume too.  Old one was 200mm^3 (which was one of the larger hobbyist printers out there when I bought it), this is 300x300x400mm. 

[Gargamel]

New Framed Poster Arrived:

[CatastrophicFailure]

10 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

New Framed Poster Arrived:

Not... sure... if this should be rotated or not... 

[Gargamel]

2 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Not... sure... if this should be rotated or not... 

Yeah I thought about it, but the Roci is in landing orientation, and she lands vertically.  And the majority of the text is right side up, so.....

[kerbiloid]

So large nozzle, so short legs.

The clearance is clear.

[TheSaint]

Late news: Bought the spousal unit a new used car on Saturday. Went with another Honda Pilot, just a (much) newer model. We almost went with a Subaru Ascent, but there were a few practical strikes against it, and it was half-again more money. Too bad, because it was much more fun to drive.

Anyway, now she has a new car to drive, and I have the joyful task of cleaning the old one and selling it on Craigslist. Woot. It really is the end of an era for us, though. We've had this car for over ten years. We've made multiple cross-country road trips in this car. It's the car my kids grew up in. I brought my baby girl home from the hospital in this car.

[Shpaget]

2 hours ago, TheSaint said:

It's the car my kids grew up in.

Jeesh, let them come inside the house.

Anyway, I got a new job offer. Starting on Monday. I've spent more than quite a few years at my current job and I was getting a bit tired of it, changes in the work life, etc. Decided to pull the trigger and send out some CVs. Got an invitation for some talks over the last couple of months and finalized the deal yesterday.

[Ultimate Steve]

I tried to build hot air balloons!

Mk1: Candle and Walmart bag. Was way too optimistic with lift, did not lift off.

Mk2: Ground based paper heat source, 13 gallon trash bag. Flew! Also the only successful flight I got, but it didn't carry the year source with it so it doesn't really count. Unfortunately the bags are very susceptible to heat shrinking and can only be used for a few seconds before needing replacement (use in a non wind shielded area seems to solve this, but more testing is needed to be sure, but wind produces many more problems).

Mk3: took the mk2 and suspended burning paper below it in an aluminum foil tray, and added landing legs/basic launch platform. Did not work although felt noticeably lighter at peak heat.

Mk4: New frame, new envelope. Focused on making the frame as light as possible. Eliminated wooden dowels in favor of straws, made aluminum foil as thin as possible. Designed awesome fancy launch platform and tether system that I ended up scrapping for a few reasons. Flight attempt 1 didn't lift off but I could feel it getting very light. Flight 2, with more burning paper, I helped off the platform and it hovered half a second before descending. Flight 3 with a whole 3 sheets of paper as fuel lifted an inch and got stuck on the launch pad. I helped it up but the fuel spilled out and the whole thing crashed and burned.

Mk4a: Same frame as mk4, new envelope (old one shrank), new fuel assembly method, made tether lighter and dropped lego man payload to save mass. Attempted launch in garage due to increased wind speed. For some reason, no lift was felt, and the balloon suffered the most drastic melting of any balloon so far. I don't have an explanation for the lack of lift, but as for the melting, maybe the slight outside breeze helped with carrying away some heat from the outside of the envelope. The frame of Mk4 is still intact and I might build a mk4b because I was so close with mk4.

Mk5 was a radical departure from the bag design. The trash bags simply couldn't take any heat, let alone enough to lift without deforming. So I looked at alternate envelope materials. Mk5 was a 3x1ft rectangular prism of wax paper. Flammable but able to take higher temperatures before being destroyed. Also way heavier. I eventually gave up on trying to get it to fly with just the gondola fuel and started piling paper under it in hopes of getting it to lift off. At about 10 sheets cumulative I saw one corner lift off but it might have been an illusion. I'll never know, because a second later the whole thing caught fire and was gone within seconds (I keep a water bucket around for these situations). It was a much bigger flame than I thought it was going to be.

I'm going to bed now but I have three possible next steps.

1. Build mk4b to attempt brief flight before deformation. Should be possible as I almost got there on mk4 flight 2.

2. Build mk6 using a different envelope material, possibly newspaper. Still has the flammability issues but it might be lighter than wax paper. Tissue paper may be an option but I'd have to go out and buy it.

3. Build mk6 as a 3ftx3ft cube of wax paper. This will allow a bigger gondola capable of carrying the fuel necessary for the design to lift off assuming the 10 sheet figure is accurate for the previous design. The walls will be further away from the flame which helps with flammability. And square cube laws and closer shape to a sphere mean that I'll have 2.6 times better volume to surface area (lift to mass) ratio than the previous designs. However I am very sketched out by building something this big, and flammable, next to a flame, especially after seeing how big the mk5 fire was.

Another option is switching fuel sources but idk if I have any substitutes readily available.

 

 

[Geonovast]

I found a use for stock Intel coolers.

[Vanamonde]

14 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

I found a use for stock Intel coolers.

I don't get it. 

[TheSaint]

38 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Jeesh, let them come inside the house.

LOL. Trust me, it looks like they've been living in the back seat for ten years.

38 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Anyway, I got a new job offer. Starting on Monday. I've spent more than quite a few years at my current job and I was getting a bit tired of it, changes in the work life, etc. Decided to pull the trigger and send out some CVs. Got an invitation for some talks over the last couple of months and finalized the deal yesterday.

I need to look for a new job. I'm not a good fit for this organization anymore.

[CatastrophicFailure]

59 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Another option is switching fuel sources but idk if I have any substitutes readily available.

Have you considered dioxygen difluoride? Everything takes off better with dioxygen difluoride. 

[TheSaint]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Have you considered dioxygen difluoride? Everything takes off better with dioxygen difluoride. 

I know I take off when I see dioxygen difluoride....

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I tried to build hot air balloons!

Mk1: Candle and Walmart bag. Was way too optimistic with lift, did not lift off.

Mk2: Ground based paper heat source, 13 gallon trash bag. Flew! Also the only successful flight I got, but it didn't carry the year source with it so it doesn't really count. Unfortunately the bags are very susceptible to heat shrinking and can only be used for a few seconds before needing replacement (use in a non wind shielded area seems to solve this, but more testing is needed to be sure, but wind produces many more problems).

Mk3: took the mk2 and suspended burning paper below it in an aluminum foil tray, and added landing legs/basic launch platform. Did not work although felt noticeably lighter at peak heat.

Mk4: New frame, new envelope. Focused on making the frame as light as possible. Eliminated wooden dowels in favor of straws, made aluminum foil as thin as possible. Designed awesome fancy launch platform and tether system that I ended up scrapping for a few reasons. Flight attempt 1 didn't lift off but I could feel it getting very light. Flight 2, with more burning paper, I helped off the platform and it hovered half a second before descending. Flight 3 with a whole 3 sheets of paper as fuel lifted an inch and got stuck on the launch pad. I helped it up but the fuel spilled out and the whole thing crashed and burned.

Mk4a: Same frame as mk4, new envelope (old one shrank), new fuel assembly method, made tether lighter and dropped lego man payload to save mass. Attempted launch in garage due to increased wind speed. For some reason, no lift was felt, and the balloon suffered the most drastic melting of any balloon so far. I don't have an explanation for the lack of lift, but as for the melting, maybe the slight outside breeze helped with carrying away some heat from the outside of the envelope. The frame of Mk4 is still intact and I might build a mk4b because I was so close with mk4.

Mk5 was a radical departure from the bag design. The trash bags simply couldn't take any heat, let alone enough to lift without deforming. So I looked at alternate envelope materials. Mk5 was a 3x1ft rectangular prism of wax paper. Flammable but able to take higher temperatures before being destroyed. Also way heavier. I eventually gave up on trying to get it to fly with just the gondola fuel and started piling paper under it in hopes of getting it to lift off. At about 10 sheets cumulative I saw one corner lift off but it might have been an illusion. I'll never know, because a second later the whole thing caught fire and was gone within seconds (I keep a water bucket around for these situations). It was a much bigger flame than I thought it was going to be.

I'm going to bed now but I have three possible next steps.

1. Build mk4b to attempt brief flight before deformation. Should be possible as I almost got there on mk4 flight 2.

2. Build mk6 using a different envelope material, possibly newspaper. Still has the flammability issues but it might be lighter than wax paper. Tissue paper may be an option but I'd have to go out and buy it.

3. Build mk6 as a 3ftx3ft cube of wax paper. This will allow a bigger gondola capable of carrying the fuel necessary for the design to lift off assuming the 10 sheet figure is accurate for the previous design. The walls will be further away from the flame which helps with flammability. And square cube laws and closer shape to a sphere mean that I'll have 2.6 times better volume to surface area (lift to mass) ratio than the previous designs. However I am very sketched out by building something this big, and flammable, next to a flame, especially after seeing how big the mk5 fire was.

Another option is switching fuel sources but idk if I have any substitutes readily available.

 

 

Hmm, interesting design problems. Some ideas off the top of my head which may or may not be useful:

Envelope: Can you find some old nylons, if your frame can keep it stretched?

Fuel: How are you burning the paper? I'm thinking it should burn well if rolled into tubes and banded together in a honeycomb-ish fashion to get that chimney effect going. Not sure how many tubes you need.

[Gargamel]

6 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I tried to build hot air balloons!

As moderator, it’s statements like this From you guys that make me wonder if should notify PD/TTi Legal department before reading any farther.    

very nifty experiment though.   

[Ultimate Steve]

Re: safety concerns, all balloons are tethered, and I have water on hand at all times, not that I've ever had to use the tether lol. If I do get them to fly, I have no intention of letting them fly freely unless I take them out to the middle of a field with no wind and a very limited amount of fuel.