The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning
Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Who’d’a thunk it?
It’s the season for large insects, but this Praying Mantis came as a surprise:
Mary spotted it on the outside of the window screen in the front bathroom. We watched it for ten minutes as it strolled around the screen, all the while keeping at least one compound eye aimed at us.
If humans were half as tall, those things would be terrifying!
This being caterpillar season, we put a mystery egg mass on a Swiss Chard leaf into a small container:
I think the darker egg was a dud, because two days later they all hatched and ate their egg cases, leaving that one behind:
Mary deported them to the trash, put two on a leaf in an aquarium on the kitchen table, and, eight days later:
They’ve been chowing down on spare garden greenery; unlike Monarchs, they eat what’s set before them.
One has dark “fur”:
The second is lighter:
A third caterpillar escaped the trash can apocalypse and also resides in the aquarium, albeit stunted by its ordeal:
They’re too bristly to be Wooly Bears. I’m sure they’ll turn into nondescript brown moths.
Monarch butterfly eggs occur in onesie-twosies on each milkweed plant, but Tussock Moths carpet-bomb the leaves with eggs that hatch pretty much all at once:
With a population density like that, the plant doesn’t stand a chance:
A few hours later, they were gone and so were the leaves! Presumably, they’re traveling across the ground to the adjacent milkweed plants; one or two may find our patio.
Despite all the egg-laying we saw, we haven’t seen any Monarch caterpillars out there.
I just got a new pair of Wasabi Power NP-BX1 batteries for the HDR-AS30V helmet camera, charged them up, and ran them through the CBA:
Huh.
The new ones (H and I) cost near twice as much as the 2-1/2 year old previous pair (F and G), while delivering less energy at a lower terminal voltage. Tested ’em twice to be sure and the curves overlay just about perfectly, so it’s not a fluke.
The rep assures me the replacement cells will deliver their promised capacity. We shall see.
Amazon may toss lithium cells into a cardboad box without much care, but chocolate requires attention to detail:
An ice pack, with a lump of ice in the middle, snuggled under the chocolate carton. The box arrived UPS Next Day from Amazon’s Kentucky distribution center, with the carton inside still cold to the touch.
On the average, I suppose, Amazon’s packaging averages out, but I’d rather they paid more attention to protecting hazardous material.
The picture shows a reenactment of actual events, because we were in the middle of something else when the UPS truck arrived.
The mandatory warning stickers leave no doubt as to what’s in the box:
You can imagine my relief when the lithium cells arrived intact:
FWIW, the ATK lithium cells arrived in a small box, snugly tucked into a form-fitting foam block:
As long as nothing happens, it doesn’t matter, right?
You’d think Amazon would have learned something from their day in court, though …
The main cicada season has only begun, so these two may have emerged slightly too early:
They’re “ordinary” cicadas, not periodical cicadas, which certainly matters more to them than us.
They’re completely harmless, but definitely don’t look it:
Their topside armor would look great on a robot:
Found ’em dead on the driveway, alas.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 