Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
For the record, it is possible to get a piece of paper jammed so far inside the duplexer rollers in the back of an Epson ET-3830 Multifunction Printer / Scanner that it is not only completely invisible from the inside, but that it cannot be removed without disassembling the duplexer:
Epson ET-3830 duplexer jam
It jammed while attempting to print another batch of Geek Scratch Paper with a semilog grid, without actually duplexing the sheets. The specs say the printer can handle 4×6 paper, so I assumed 4.24×5.5 paper would be Close Enough. Apparently not.
Print ’em two-up, chop the sheets down the middle, pad and glue, and it’s all good:
OMTech CO2 laser power supply – bandwidth tests – semilog graph
Which is immediately belied by the situation at the other end of the bag:
Dano Leaf Bag – crimp line typo
OK, it’s just a typo that could happen to anyone, but it first appeared last year and seems to be continuing. Possibly the Town of Poughkeepsie bought a lot of bags and we’re working through the stack.
However, the built-in gashes along the sides of some bags were a new feature this year:
Which frosted Mary pretty severely, as she recycles the used bags as garden path pavers after distributing their contents as mulch, so she’ll be stripping plenty of tape next year.
Although I’m not privy to the Town’s dealings, Dano’s chart suggests the bags cost about 40¢ in truckload lots, about as much as Lowe’s charges for similar bags in retail five-packs. Surprisingly, you can also buy the same Lowe’s bags from Amazon fora lot more, suggesting some folks live much further from a Lowe’s than we do.
From the living room window, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on out there, but halfway down the driveway it became obvious:
Car Fire – arrival
The bright spot underneath the car came from liquid fire dripping on the asphalt. For one terrifying moment I thought we were about to take delivery of a lithium fire, but later developments showed it was a just an ordinary fire in an old-school gasoline car.
A few minutes later, fire equipment blocked the road in both directions, with more vehicles out of sight:
Car Fire – overview
From what I overheard, multiple 911 calls resulted in firefighters chasing the car from one of the fire stations along either Vassar Rd or Spackenkill, the driver finally noticed the lights, and pulled over as the sirens spooled down in front of our house. It had a Georgia plate, so maybe this was near the end of a really long day.
The first operation got a water lance under the car to knock back the undercarriage fire:
Car Fire – first water lance
Then they punched through the tail lights to lance the trunk:
Car Fire – trunk water lance
Smash the windows and chop the trunk lid open to flood all the interior spaces:
A clipping from the Harrisburg Evening News, probably in 1962, shows more enthusiasm for vaccines than we have today:
Sabin Vaccine Doses – 1962
It emerged from a fat folder of space exploration articles / maps / booklets / clippings with dates from 1959 through 1962, when I would have been around nine years old. Most likely somebody older collected everything and gave the box to me a few years later. The other side had a hagiographic article about John Glenn, explaining why this side is minus a few paragraphs.
From everything I read about Long Covid, I don’t want to give Short Covid even a little bite at my apple. In particular, fast-forwarding through a decade of neural degeneration isn’t going to put me closer to my Happy Place.
The bonus “Volunteer Fireman Convicted of Arson” article could come from any decade.
Letter to Mrs Harry Shope – 25 May 1945 – EnvelopeLetter to Mrs Harry Shope – 25 May 1945 – pg 1Letter to Mrs Harry Shope – 25 May 1945 – pg 2Letter to Mrs Harry Shope – 25 May 1945 – pg 3Letter to Mrs Harry Shope – 25 May 1945 – pg 4Letter to Mrs Harry Shope – 25 May 1945 – pg 5Letter to Mrs Harry Shope – 25 May 1945 – pg 6
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 