Month: October 2018

Progress on many things.

• • Got my @ManifestButter -style patch made, and I’m pleased thus far with how it turned out. Time to make more!
    

     

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    A post shared by Tim Calvin (@nothingfuture) on Oct 19, 2018 at 3:27pm PDT

  • Built some new wool felt pouches for better organization of my bike riding tools & parts. Inferred how to make better labels from @ryannagata and added those, too.
    

     

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    A post shared by Tim Calvin (@nothingfuture) on Oct 21, 2018 at 10:06am PDT

  • I’ve been doing a better job of making videos- and while my production values haven’t gone up (per-se), my frequency has, and that’s something. I’m figuring that instead of endlessly mucking about in an attempt to some day make one “perfect” video isn’t an especially good route. Instead, I’m trying to make less than perfect videos much more regularly, and I’m wagering that the higher volume of production will improve my quality.
  • I’ve been shown the neat keyboard work of Andy Clymer, and now I kinda want to order some boards and build some periphery input keyboards.
  • I ended up on a mountain bike ride with a high school team over the weekend- totally unexpectedly. I bumped into them on the trail, and I happened to know two of the adults leading the ride, so that was kinda fun. It was only my second ride with platform pedals, so that was… interesting. I was not at my best, let’s say.

On the mend.

• The Pi Hole kit from Adafruit came- it’s up and running now, though I still have some configuration of the display screen to finish and whatnot. Still- a lovely thing. And considerably better experience web browsing for everything in the house, now.
• I finally bit the bullet and ordered a dropper post for my mountain bike (and some platform pedals). I’ve gotten back to the point of comfort and control on the bike and I’m now hindered by the equipment- so it was time to join the modern masses. I’m cautiously optimistic about it. Now I’m thinking about a (still) shorter stem, too. I’m at a 100mm right now, but having reviewed the numbers on my frame (and some current-geometry frames), I’m thinking about going shorter.
• I’ve been making videos more regularly again- so that’s good. I’m still sorting out a decent workflow and method- what the general process for a shoot for me should be, but it’s nice to have a creative project like that going.
• I’ve taken yet another swing a building a camera strap I like. I struggle with these for some reason (despite their apparent simplicity). This one is adjustable with a strap adjuster, and I’m hoping that makes the difference. It’s attached to my Canon EOS M that I use for video work, and I’m hoping to make it easier to carry it more often (with the vague hope that bringing it with me more often will mean I shoot more often).
• I’ve become somewhat enamored with the folks at Manifest Butter. They’re doing one-of-one design work on all-weather jackets, and all of those things are super interesting for me. Now it’s got me researching what sort of markers and paint pens are the right move. Testing testing testing to follow. (and, clearly, none of the paint markers I already own will possibly work for this)

Horrors.

• I’m sick, again. Bronchitis this time (though I suppose I should be happy it’s not yet-another-round of pneumonia). I’m hoping to be back in one piece in a couple of days.
• I put up a new riding video (for the first time in months). It was nice to get out a ride a bit- though in retrospect, it seems I was likely riding while pretty sick. That’s my excuse for my slowness while riding. So that’s good. I’ve been focusing on body rigging my GoPro for better dynamic shots, but I think it’s time to start including both static shots and dynamic- a combination of what I used to do with what I’ve been doing. Optimal results await, I’m sure. Fame. Glory. Etc. I think I’m also going to experiment with external audio recording, too- it might make it easier to narrate when I’m riding.
• I’ve been fixing some speakers that were given to me- a set of Boston Acoustic A40’s. They are/were lovely bookshelf sized units, and they cam with a pretty nice NAD receiver/amp, so I was excited to put them to use in my studio. They were making terrible noises, and that’s when I realized the foam surrounds on the woofers were gone- a typical outcome for speakers of that time. So: with kits to re-foam them difficult to find, I put my plotter/cutter to work and ran some tests. Plain 1.5mm sheets of EVA craft foam sealed properly, but were far too stiff and were hurting the speaker’s performance. Also, my first glue-ups were less than optimal. So I ran some tests with using my cutter to stipple the foam (to give it more flexibility), and that seems to have worked. Tests on one speaker yielded much better performance. The second unit is drying right now, actually.
• I just ordered (at the recommendation of my Dad) an Adafruit PiHole kit- that’s a Raspberry Pi 3 B with a case and screen that functions as an internal DNS server- which seems unnecessary. But: when your computer sends it a DNS request, it simply doesn’t query ad sites- so the request for data never gets sent. It’s better than an ad blocker because it’s invisible, and it’ll work on any device on your home network. Pretty excited. I’ve been running the Ghostery extension on my browsers for a while, and it makes some sites useable (that previously would be very, very slow).