Mostly a hobby blog
I have two condensers: one is nice and quiet and the other is insanely loud. I thought it was just the compressor itself and so I put a sound blanket around it. I was sad that it didn t seem to make much difference. So then I thought maybe it was the fan motor bearings and Continue reading Quieting my loud air conditioner condenser
In July 2002, I purchased an ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 7500 with an RF remote, a TV tuner, and analog audio/video inputs. I used the analog inputs with an ancient Sony handicam from the 80 s as a webcam and for some early digital video capture. I have a few files created from the ATI Multimedia Center Continue reading Recovering/converting old ATI VCR video files
The built-in backup camera in a Grand Highlander shows the ground pretty well but doesn t show things up higher. This can be a problem backing up e.g. in a short parking garage with lots of ventilation hanging down. Also, front/rear dashcams are a necessity in the modern world, and for some reason, some new cars Continue reading Tapping into the backup light in a 2026 Grand Highlander for a…
I have a pair of GoldenEar Triton 2 tower speakers that are truly awesome. For years, they have played well and received excellent support when needed from the company. However, recently the company ownership changed and the service situation has shifted. The speakers have integrated powered subwoofer amplifiers in them which seem to go out Continue reading Bypassing broken subwoofer amplifiers on…
I moved into a house that has two sump pumps dating back to about 2017 from Mid-Atlantic Waterproofing, a company that is no longer operating. During some plumbing, I became aware of the fact that at least one of them doesn t work at all. I guess this is partially a good thing: I haven t actually Continue reading Figuring out my old Mid-Atlantic Waterproofing sump pump controller
I just upgraded a machine to Ubuntu 25.10 and started seeing the following error messages from sudo (which is now infamously using sudo-rs implemented in rust) $ sudo ls /etc/sudoers.d/jellyfin-sudoers:23:30: unknown setting: 'requiretty'Defaults!RESTARTSERVER_SYSV !requiretty ^~~~~~~~~~/etc/sudoers.d/jellyfin-sudoers:24:28: unknown setting: 'requiretty'Defaults!STARTSERVER_SYSV !requiretty…
I bought a 2021 EGO electric lawnmower on Craigslist 7 months ago. It s been mowing my 1/3-acre yard just fine since the spring. But yesterday when I started it up, the light blinked green once and then blinked yellow or orange a bunch of times and made just a little click and failed to start. Continue reading My EGO+ LM2130SP Lawnmower blinks orange and won t start
I had a lot of fun installing an industrial outdoor pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera on my roof in Seattle. Whereas most townhouses built today have rooftop decks, my townhouse has a curved metal roof. Being near Lake Union, it has a phenomenal view from the top of the roof, showing the city, the lake, and even Continue reading The Eastlake Skycam
I love my System76 Lemur Pro laptop and use it a lot. But the keyboard started dying recently. The F and R keys got really finicky, basically not registering most of the time. If I mashed them really hard sometimes they d repeat like 15 times. It was not good. I started using an external keyboard Continue reading Replacing the keyboard on my 2020 System76 Lemur Pro lemp9 laptop
Autunite is a beautiful and rare uranium mineral that s common in Spokane, WA. That s a four-hour drive from my home in Seattle. However, in the 1975 out-of-print book Minerals of Washington by Bart Cannon, there is brief and ambiguous mention of some closer to Seattle in King County! Marten Creek, eh? This one sentence appears Continue reading A casual failed attempt to find Autunite in Marten…
There s a dog park under the I-5 interstate in Seattle s Eastlake neighborhood. It s here on a map. Many dog lovers hate it. It s been called sketchy, dystopian, horrifying, and so on. But it s not all bad. This post describes it a bit. As you re entering you ll see a bit of graffiti, ripped up Amazon boxes, Continue reading Seattle s I-5 colonnade off-leash dog park in Eastlake
I wanted to try out a camper van for a vacation to see what it was like to van life it. I found a pet-friendly local option in my area (Seattle) called Indie Campers that rented out vans. They were pretty pricey, but a lot cheaper than like, buying a van. So I went for Continue reading Do NOT(!) rent a van from Indie Campers
This is a legacy post, written originally in 2005. I, Nick Touran, built a bubble wall. You can build one yourself if you want. You can follow my example. What is a bubble wall? Basically, a bubble wall is a thin, clear wall of any size that is filled with water. Bubbles rise up throughout Continue reading The Bubble Wall
There are some really nice art tiles at the Lynn Street Mini Park in Eastlake neighborhood of Seattle. They were made around 2002. I took some pictures of them. You can find them here: Lynn Street Art Tiles Photo project Preview:
Seeing radiation with your own eyes is incredible. It wows everyone who sees it, and is a perfect hook to bring people over to your nuclear education table. “Hey, you guys want to see some radiation?” I ve used a normal dry ice cooled cloud chamber many times in science demos at corporate family nights, at Continue reading Making a cloud chamber to see radiation without needing dry ice
Being a nuclear engineer, I thought it d be fun to find some Uranium in the wild just out there in the nature, sitting somewhat dormant since it was made by neutron star mergers and giant supernova billions of years ago. I just wanted like a tiny rock with some uranium ore in it. I found Continue reading A failed attempt to find some Uranium in Washington State
I don t like the concept of decorative combustion that much, but I do have two tiki torches in my yard. I fired them up and checked my indoor vs. outdoor air quality sensors from my weather stations. Here are the results: OOF! That is not particularly awesome.
I have a Logitech Gamepad F310 USB controller, a computer, and a Amcrest Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) camera that supports the ONVIF standard. I wanted to control the camera s motion with the joystick. So I did. Controller and Camera Reading the joystick in Python is super easy using pygame. I ran the demo code toward the bottom Continue reading Controlling a Amcrest PTZ camera with a joystick
A family member upgraded his stereo and offered me his Peachtree Audio Decco as a hand-me-down. I couldn t say no because my previous hand-me-down has recently become buzzy. But, in order for it to work with my home automation setup, I needed to be able to turn it on and off, switch inputs, and change Continue reading A LIRC config file for the Peachtree Audio Decco IR remote control
The Tonga eruption on January 14, 2022 sent a big shock wave out in all direction in the atmosphere. I had once read about how the Krakatoa eruption shock wave was measured 7 times going around the world, so I wondered if I could measure it with my weather station. Sure enough, I could! I Continue reading Measuring the Tonga eruption pressure wave with a home weather station