Dull Men's Club

Somehow it's been running (but roughly) for the past 2+ years or so, with all three wires to the CKPS missing molten/dryrotted insulation and intermittently shorting out.

I really don't know how his vehicle ran as long as it did with such a faulty part, like that's the sensor that tells the spark plugs when to fire and the fuel injectors when to spray..

Now it's running pretty smooth again, still a couple minor hiccups here and there, but nothing like it was.

My credit card has expired and thus my youtube premium with it.

I received some alerts from YT before it happened and now the subscription has been terminated and the first video I watched without the premium had 3 ads in 5 minutes.

3 ads. In 5 minutes.

I'm disgusted. My hatred towards the greedy corporations has been gradually exceeding the boiling point for the past couple of years and now I experienced how YouTube tries to force it's users to pay the tribute.

I'm using YT a lot so I'd take no issue paying if it just improved the experience, but not if it's the only way to use the "free" app. I'm not gonna get my money extorted by a fucking corporation.

Fuck them, intalling ReVanced now.

I went to one of my fave thrift stores today - The Habitat Store (Habitat for Humanity) and poked around. They have so much crap - always great fun. I wasn't looking for anything in particular but sometimes will be inspired to buy something anyway. It was one of those days - they had a Microsoft "Ergonomic" 4000 v1 keyboard that looked almost pristine for $3. Probably 20 years old. USB. I already have a MSFT "natural" keyboard - the original from the mid-90s and it's still going strong. I didn't need another keyboard but hell, $3!

Got it home, wiped it down, plugged it in, and it seems to work fine. Test driving right now. Seems like the key spacing is a little greater than the original Natural and the keypress force needed is greater as well. I'm not sure if I'm going to get used to those things, touch-typer that I am. The force needed for the space key is particularly great. I might keep using the Natural and put this 4000 in a closet in case the former breaks.

After I got home I did a quick web search on the board and saw remarks about how M$ is no longer making these and how prices have spiked on used ones. I checked ebay and yep, they're all listed for $30+ and usually with absurdly high shipping charges. Looks like I got quite the keyboard bargain though I don't plan on flipping it so that doesn't really matter.

After that I went to the local food co-op and got a great deal on my favorite yogurt, Brown Bear chocolate, 5 for $5. I've seen these in regular markets for as much as $1.80/ea.

Before:

After:

The crab grass went crazy and got out of control. On the upside, we've got some wild flowers coming in!

Current summer tires are getting worn, tread is at 2,5mm, legal limit is 1,3mm, minor dry cracks noticed, yeah, tires are getting old and will be replaced ahead of the summer season next year.

I opened it up, and it turns out the speaker was measuring full open when the printed text on the component suggests 8 Ohms. I had an old Bluetooth speaker that never worked very well and tore out the similar 10 Ohm speaker that isn't quite the right part but it's kind of close, soldered her in, and it works like a charm! Sort of.

Turns out though that the old speaker is glued in so well that I can't get it out. I had to make a hole to let the speaker hang out of the case because otherwise I couldn't get the cover back on. In the process, the antenna cover wouldn't go back in either because I damaged it drilling the hole.

It's much quieter now and with poor sound quality. I wouldn't risk using it portable either. It technically works -- just not very well. I figured this community might appreciate my lame repair.

My 77 CJ7 has run for years without any attention, not that I put any great miles on it. This summer it decided it was going to be difficult, so now I have to remember how a carb works, with very small success.

I took it all apart and cleaned it, and blew out the jets. Put it all back together and tried it, no dice. When I come off of throttle, it dies unless I very carefully feather it down to idle. I'm clueless about what's wrong, and have run out of dead chickens to wave over the necromantic device.

I think it would be less trouble to pull the engine and put in a spare 4.0L I have on the shelf.

Today I mistakenly deleted the file I was working with on the last few months. On Ext4 FS, so I got some new white hair while experimenting with the r-linux recovering tool.

Advice: on Ext4 most probably the name of the file is lost, but date of the inode might be intact, so sort by time and look for your data in those thousands of inode76569u468 files. Better than just straightforwardly losing the data though.

Now I have automatic backups.

@dull_mens_club Today I made toast. I spread it with peanut butter, English Marmite (marketed here as "OurMate"), and an everything butter with a Vogels bread theme. No wait, that was yesterday. And the day before. No toast today (yet). I'll keep you posted.

I quite like this #threadiverse community @dull_mens_club

I was tired of living in darkness. I am excited about the bigger space but sad that I have to start over on my new garage after having my old one just right.

On DVD of course. Fans of Rutger Hauer seem to think it's one of his best, and no, it's not that SciFi one (which is one of my favorite films of all time). I got it on inter-library loan from a library on the other side of the state. Now I have three weeks to watch it, though I could of course rip it and just watch whenever.

Today I got a bunch of laundry and food shopping done. At the grocery store I asked for cash back and the magnitude of the ask seemed to surprise the cashier a little. I got two $50s, which doesn't seem like a big deal to me, so maybe it was just having to handle currency that caused her a momentary bout of confusion?

A few days ago I took a long drive to a small city (a college town) where I recalled there being a cool used bookstore. I turned out it was still there though the Main St. as I recall it (from several years ago) had changed quite a bit - small indie coffee shops taken over by big chains &etc. Things were very quiet in the summer off-season. I browsed for maybe an hour, chatted with the elderly shopkeeper, and scored three deals on books, one a hefty hardcover (with perfect dust-jacket) by a famous Soviet-era writer that would easily sell, on eBay, for 5x what I paid.

I asked the shopkeeper for one of their bookmarks and I received one. Nice, but it's of lower quality than their earlier versions - this one is flimsy and made of uncoated paper and only about 5" long - not of the necessary bookmark length for large hardcover tomes. It was free though.

Today I also mowed the lawn with the battery-powered mower. I say "lawn", but there's been little rain so it's just a smattering of tall, resilient weeds that got mowed. I'm still impressed by how much the mower can do on a single charge with just one battery.

A construction contractor declined to bid on my house re-siding job because I wouldn't accept a "time & materials" so-called "bid" and wouldn't pay $anything in advance of the work being done. These guys are all snakes. I may just have to paint over the crummy siding or learn how to do the work myself which would honestly be a good thing (for me - learning) though that's probably too interesting to talk about here.

I tried to hollow it out as much as possible to cut down on weight, while still making sure it’s overbuilt enough to support the corner of a 2000 kg pickup truck. I’m planning to use 98 × 48 mm lumber.

Open to suggestions on how to improve it. My only concern is the stop block - it’s not any higher than the previous steps. I could make the tire sit deeper in that “well,” but that would reduce the overall height.

Hundred year old built in cabinets are wonderful but were completely sealed...not anymore

I was going to buy a new one, but decided to try and fix it. I just had to replace a $7 capacitor, and it worked! I might still replace it anyway (maybe next year), since I hate the hum of AC fans.

Been on my list of things that are urgent for like 4 years. Finally had the money to do it today.

Thank you, thank you