Yeah, 500 is a lot. I’m guessing you could probably fit a few dozen on the bed at once, then either scan the whole bed into one enormous image or scan each one into a file, but either way it’s placing a lot of things on the bed repeatedly.
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My dad used his digital camera to take pictures of all his slides, hundreds of them.
If you have a camera with a filter ring (and a good macro mode), you can get an adapter that attaches to the lens and you put a slide into and take a picture of it. You just need an even light source to point the contraption at.
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I will look into that, thanks Marty.
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What do you guys think is the most foolish but probably effective cure for this simple problem?
So, I have this notebook computer, and the screw near the bottom, by the power input, is out.
Normally, I leave all the screws off the bottom so I can get to the guts, the battery if needed, etc.
On this particular model, though, it needed a firmer “closure” to make the housing secure when flipping open/down the lid.
No big, right? A few months I put in a screw there, where it was designed to go, and it solved the problem.
Hmmm…not so anymore. It seems that the stress on that one screw caused the actual threads of the hole (or whatever the correct terminology is) stripped that hole. It’s like butter in a canyon, I guess.
The other adjacent fasteners work fine, and they’re in place, thanks to a few minutes of screwing them in.
How can I fix this one, though? I have a decent Dremel-style tool, with a bunch of bunch of attachments around…I just know I don’t want to try to “weld” the acetate or whatever plastic housing with various glues, cements, or epoxies.
What would Jesus do if he weren’t a carpenter, but were instead a computer gadget nerd?
I mean, yeah, I could drill it out and try to create a new set of threads, and figure out what sized screw would work (is that “tapping” or something? whatever it’s called). Gotta be something simpler.
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For small striped screw holes not under much stress, I’ve had some luck with superglue. A small drop will fill the gap between the striped out hole and the screw, and hold it secure.
You probably think it won’t ever come apart again, but…
Superglue has tremendous holding power against pulling forces. It has considerable less strength against shear. Depending on the screw length, you should be able to unscrew it.
If you do take it apart, you will need to clean out the hole before doing it again. Superglue is basically plastic, and you’d basically be molding threads inside the hole. They won’t stand up to repeated use.
I’d suggest doing a test or two on mockup.
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Sounds like no harm, and easy enough.
Yeah, I have no doubt I’d be able to remove the crystalline bond of superglue with just a soft turn of a screwdriver.
I have a few different cynoacrylate types around, so I’ll probably go for one of the more viscous types such as to not make a giant mess and just go like that.
Probably work just fine.
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I scanned a box of racing slides my dad took at Road America and Indy in the 70s in the early days of the pandemic?
Canon makes a few scanners that include holders/adaptors for slides/ film that work well (at least mine did?)
I just sat down and scanned about 30 a day then tweaked the exposure/brightness/contrast a bit for each…
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This makes me smile. The most ridiculous and unnecessary addition to something as mundane as thermal paste, yet I would totally buy it.
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Why not just hang a car air freshener in front of the cooling fan exhaust?
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Because I want my machine to smell like hot bananas forever!
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Here is a fascinating article about the first practical consumer vehicle navigation system. Why is it interesting? It was built in 1985! That’s before supercomputers in your pocket, before gigabytes of storage bought from a pharmacy on your keychain… before GPS.
One factoid: the arrowhead in your navigation app that represents your position? It was probably lifted wholesale from Atari’s original Asteroids.
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End of the line for the classic z80. Licensees (::cough:: TI ::cough:: ) are still going to make their own, but the DIP and several other standalone packages are being discontinued by Zilog.
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This is sort of electronishy and gadget-y.
If one wanted to create or purchase a lock for a front door…just, you know, regular front door, no glass panels on any side of it…
That one couldn’t defeat by just drilling through it, like a locksmith might, or trying to pick it, like a locksmith looking for a bigger paycheck by padding his time might.
I can’t think of anything for a regular domestic…I guess Kwik-Set is my brand now, probably from home depot…but you can just drill through them suckers. And in middle school at least those took me well under a minute to pick with homemade tools (basically a homemade rake and some spring steel)…thank you Anarchist’s Cookbook! Ah…good times.
Doesn’t need to be shotgun-secure…just to lock out somebody who has the key and enough acumen to drill or hire a locksmith should she want to.
And, no, we’re not doing “man-traps” or any kind of drastic measures. Just keep the fiend out who will be unwilling to break windows (probably) but will be willing to drill through the lock (or even any portion of the door).
Ideas?
Oh…I wouldn’t rule out this…individual…taking a Skilsaw and just cutting around the lock area…or even carving out a person-size hole in the door.
Oh, man, this is getting more difficult by the second the more I think about it. Sheet metal…probably mess up a sawblade pretty good…easy to tack on from the inside.
/* dammit…since this person has the keys as well, and I’m not waiting for no locksmith, I’m going to have to put a drill with a good battery and a few good bits in my car in case I have a “surprise” one evening. (And safety glasses! momma didn’t raise no fool!)
This person is my sister, if you’re wondering. And, yes, her psycho-genius husband once changed the locks on her when they were having some kind of marital dispute only a few years ago…about what I have no idea…so…she’s smart…only like mensa-smart, but pretty good…so, she’s undoubtedly learned how to do things with locks, such as change them ( 
)…I’ll give her that much credit!).
She legally holds the deed to my (our) condo, and, Napoleonic code blah blah Brando…I have papers on my side, all that, plus general tenant rights, but she might try to evict me. Her deranged husband, most definitely. Especially since I basically said (some) of the worst things I could about her to her in person and in public, which includes her psycho husband’s in-laws, and all of her friends, and all the friends of the family, and all our extended family, who read facebook like flies read…shtuff.
They can never rent the place for anywhere near 1/3 market value after what I’ve done to it after fifteeen years or so, though, so there’s that!
All new carpeting. The kitchen and bathroom is outdated from the beginning. Toilet needs replacing.
So, floors and painting…that’s normal.
But I smoke like a 19th century … I dunno…gymnast? Pipe tobacco, cigarettes. Has popcorn ceilings…yeah, they’d need ozone treatment. And, also, bedbug infestation treatment,
They ain’t renting this 2-bedroom mofo for more than four bills a month, unless they find some crazed hobo who doesn’t know jack.
I know where all the bodies are buried, and have become an expert at mitigating bedbug migration to … erm…the bed. And all that.
In addition to the “fun” electrical experiments her husband the engineer from Harvey Mudd, no less, introduced into the condo circuitry. It’s always a delight. Thanks, Tom. I really enjoy those handmade power receptacles.
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Anybody know much about Active Noise Cancelling headphones?
The noise is getting to be intolerable at my place…and, yes, I used to have an apartment at the intersection of two major interstates, where they were also building a twenty story building not twenty feet from my window. Just as bad here.
Not so much into listening to music on these…I have singular tastes and don’t want to be forced into playing music when I don’t wish to concentrate on the music…I have shooting earmuffs that do an OK job…and, obviously, all the regular industrial-type foam earplugs of all sorts.
The one thing I’ve heard is that the ANC can be so sensitive that if one accidentally (or on purpose) taps the exterior shell of the earbud design, the results can be upsetting, or unnerving.
This is the model I’m looking at, based on a recent review from TapeOp magazine, which emphasizes the strength of the ANC properties, the range of fit possible within the ear…some minor issues reported with the “multi-bluetooth” pairing option, but I have no interest in ever using anything beyond a single audio source, if that. And don’t really care about the Android app…at all.
These seem like the ones if one wants complete silence…no frequency scoops or boosts when it comes to the ANC capability…if these are on, believe you me, I do not want to hear jack from anyone or anything. As much as technically possible, that is!
Like a padded dungeon room for one’s ears! Concerned about the interference caused by contact with the outermost-facing housing when ANC is on…sounds unpleasant and not very conducive to, for example, sleeping, especially if one flops around a lot whilst sleeping.
/* VERY late edit…it seems ANCancelling is only effective for low tones (I forgot which frequencies). Anything higher, like dogs barking, people talking, a power drill penetrating soft, yielding wood…then it’s down to the “passive” noise reduction provided by the physical blocking of the sound itself.
Looks like it’s foam earplugs all the way for me, or shooting earmuffs.
Oh well, it was a nice idea while it lasted. */
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Check out this little beauty.
After I return this cheap looper pedal tomorrow, it will be paid for by my visa rewards and I’ll put in the order.
It records, has a built in speaker, all that.
But it will also loop any track you input, whether from a recording or fed from whatever source directly.
And it will slow down without loss off pitch any recording.
And it has a chromatic tuner (it works off the microphones…so…kind of skeptical…and I prefer to tune my guitars by ear any way off a tuning fork…but kind of handy).
Yes, any of this can be done with a computer or a phone…but I get sick of looking at screens all the time, and this one travels with ease.
Pairing it with a Samsung PRO microsdxc 128GB (max supported).
Can transcribe solos in the car with my mini Yamaha Reface CP, have an abundance of rechargeable AA batteries, which both devices are happy to run on, and this device has a built in little speaker.
Self contained, no phone, no screens to look at.
I’m very excited to make this a part of my current ultra-portable practice/fooling around rig.
$89.99 - my 10% employee discount. Nice.
/* late edit I just figured out sometime last night: AND I have a little lavalier clip-on mic, so when I’m gathering data at work, I can just speak into the mic various timings and data and go back and retrieve it easily enough without bothering with pen and paper.
That is, when the unit arrives Monday, and if it is functional out of the box. */
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Can anyone tell me exactly what uses most people put something like this to?
Comes with 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD…the processor…it seems fine, quad core Intel, and 8MB of Cache Memory seems like a lot to me, which is good.
Seems about perfect for primarily a media consumption device…any peripherals can always be attached, of course, but the small screen built in is a nice touch.
I suppose it’s meant to be a mini-gaming type thing, for people who don’t want to fire up their big rig, but I’ve got no idea.
Could make a fine home server, but kind of overkill for that.
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Eh, Plex/Kodi/Jellyfin transcoder/server, digital signage (might be overkill, but if it’s cheap enough…) — stuff that needs more oomph than a Raspberry Pi can muster but doesn’t need a killer GPU. It has standard Intel graphics, so I doubt it’d be that great as a gaming rig, though.
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Thanks!
Yeah, I’m thinking it could be an alternative to yet another notebook computer for at-home use.
As well as a platform for upgrading and experimenting with the guts, in a way that few, if any, notebooks are truly suited for.
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