The latest blog posts.
The quick opening context: I had some spare computer memory lying around. After RAM prices were almost perfectly flat from early 2023 to mid 2025 things got wild. The common narrative is that many companies, in a drive to build new AI systems that they can charge money for, drove demand for memory up significantly. So from April 2025 to April 2026, RAM prices nearly tripled. This reminded me of…
All things being equal, I'd live a "no gifts between adults" life. But among other things, my sister wants to set a good example for my nephews, so last xmas I ended up with a 3M headlight restoration kit. Something I've heard good things about, had been thinking about for a while, but never quite bubbled high enough on the list to buy it myself. Yes, last xmas. I knew I didn't want to bother with…
Where I'm living now is only a few miles from a major airport. Overall I'm surprised and pleased that the noise is no big deal at all. But I do notice patterns some times, which got me curious. When I lived in NYC a coworker had set up a system with an antenna that gathered data about planes flying nearby, and I thought about doing something similar. Long story short: this is ADS-B (Automatic…
I have the good fortune to currently be living very inexpensively in a home that's been in the family for seventy years or so. An older, barely-post-war, home. I don't know for sure but I suspect that thermal insulation is minimal to nonexistent. In looking for my own more permanent home, concentrating on an at least slightly newer one, guessing that more insulation will be one of the things that…
I'm not totally sure where and when I first got it, but I know I've got a DYMO LabelManager Plug N Play Label Maker . A nifty device; unlike your typical label maker with a low quality built in keyboard and tiny display, this is a small and sleek unit with neither. But it does have a USB port (original USB A, i.e. "printer USB") for plugging into the computer. Do so and it presents as a USB drive…
Back in 2016 I got my first 3D printer . It's a minor hobby for me, but I keep using it every once in a while. It came with, as was very typical at the time (and not unusual still today) a version of Marlin for its controller software. In fact, part of the assembly/installation instructions involved downloading the source for it, tweaking the source, and compiling it. As far as I can tell, from a…
Almost exactly three years ago I was moving and needed a vehicle. I was interested in getting an EV but not excited about paying new vehicle prices, and unsure if I could expect (post move) reliable access to charging, so an EV as my only vehicle might be a risky prospect. I eventually decided on a used plug-in hybrid, with a bit of EV only range but also a regular gasoline engine for longer…
I just posted about my stray cat friend Marmalade . It's getting to be winter time and it's really too bad Marmalade has to stay outside in the cold. People sometimes make little shelters, a cathouse, for outdoor cats to stay in over the winter. Last trash day some across-the-street neighbors were throwing out a ruined old chest of drawers. I snagged it to be raw material for making one of my own.…
Back in early June I was reading a book on the porch. At some point, a cat wandered into the yard. Thanks to another cat I had run into a few times not long before (this a lost cat, chipped, returned to owner via county shelter) I had some cat food on hand. I popped inside and made up a bowl of food and was happy to see that the cat was still around when I came back out. I scared it away as I…