Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Perhaps the original owner, one “E Dunbeck”, scribed his name on the back. Perhaps he gave / sold it to Mad Phil, who passed it on to me. Although I may not use it much, it has a place of honor in the tool cabinet…
You could get a new 185 Time Saver direct from Starrett, with the front and back sides reversed: same holes, mostly the same printing, just flipped.
Back in the day, long before the environmental movement got any traction, the Poughkeepsie waterfront along the Hudson River used to be an industrial hotbed. That tapered off and, after a while, only the Dutton Lumber treatment facility remained; they manufactured classic CCA pressure-treated lumber. Quite some years after (IIRC) they went bankrupt and abandoned the facility, various buildings burned and the site seems to be slated for redvelopment into condos and suchlike.
The wisdom of siting condominiums along a tidal estuary, just a few meters above the current waterline and well below the future projected flood stage, seems dubious to me, but, then, I’m not a developer.
Anyhow, a recent ride across the Walkway showed that they’re sealing off the contaminated soil under what was once the lumberyard:
An excavator moves gravel from the barge, which probably came a few miles upriver (or downriver, depending on the aforementioned tidal flow) from the Tilcon quarry at Clinton (no relation) Point, into the dump trucks:
Before washing the bedroom windows, I moved the garden tool rack and a bunch of clutter away… only to find a remarkable amount of litter below the plastic base:
Litter under garden tool rack
One of those lumps consisted of tightly packed fluff, much like the mouse nest inside the barbie a few years ago, so this was surely a winter home.
But it seems at least one mouse didn’t make it through the winter:
Dessicated mouse under tool rack
Given its dessicated nature, I think the poor critter probably expired during the depths of the winter freeze.
I mentioned to my doctor that, if I were of malign intent, I would now have complete control of every PC on their network. That didn’t make much of an impression, as the same thing happened on my next visit.
Of course, moving to electronic records makes a lot of sense, but if you think they’ll be any more secure than any other online personal information, you’re wrong.
This looked like a wad of chewing gum stuck on the grocery store wall where I leaned my bike:
Moth – on painted brick wall
But it’s actually a moth with subtle decorations:
Moth – detail
The poor thing would be much less conspicuous snuggled into a tree, but I suppose it’s doing the best it can with what’s available.
A quick riffle through the RTP Moth Book didn’t reveal any likely candidates, but there are a gazillion little brown moths in there, so I probably missed it.
Turns out that there’s no difference between the Mac and PC versions of the Logitech Dual Action Gamepad:
Logitech Dual Action Gamepads – Mac vs PC
I picked up a Mac version cheap from the usual eBay seller and discovered that LinuxCNC / HAL was perfectly happy. That wasn’t too surprising; they have the same model and part numbers. Most likely, the only difference was the CD and maybe the Quick Start Guide that I didn’t get in the opened retail box…
So now I have either a hot backup for the Joggy Thing or one for a different box.
Most likely, it was cheap because nobody wants a blue-and-black peripheral next to their shiny white Mac…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 