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?
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.
Either Mama Frog picked a bad location or these little critters fell over the edge, as I found a handful in the big stainless steel bowl Mary uses for spot-watering some of her plantings:
The bowl curves inward over their heads and their feet didn’t seem sticky enough to get them up and out, so I dumped the lot of them into the flower bed. May they live long & prosper!
We found this critter keeping a watchful eye on the construction at Adams Fairacre Farms during our most recent grocery trip:
I think it’s an undocumented alien that entered the US stowed away in a tropical plant, because it was affixed to the array of ceramic pots outside their (open) greenhouse windows:
To the best of my admittedly limited herpetological knowledge, none of our native lizards / geckos / whatever have such a distinctive dorsal frill / fin / ridge. I have no idea how to look the critter up, though.
We left it to seek its own destiny. Unless it’s a mated female (hard to tell with lizards), it’ll have a lonely life.
Perhaps it practices rishratha, which is entirely possible.
It’s apparently been a good year for mushrooms at Vassar Farm:
My eyeblink reaction was “Wow! Those grew fast!” but they’re an Art on the Farm installation.
The two knockoff Neopixel test fixtures went dark while their USB charger accompanied me on a trip, so they spent a few days at ambient basement conditions. When I plugged them back into the charger, pretty much the entire array lit up in pinball panic mode:
Turns out three more WS2812 chips failed in quick succession. I’ve hotwired around the deaders (output disconnected, next chip input in parallel) and, as with the other zombies, they sometimes work and sometimes flicker. That’s five failures in 28 LEDs over four months, a bit under 3000 operating hours.
For lack of a better explanation: the cool chips pulled relatively moist air through their failed silicone encapsulation, quietly rotted out in the dark, then failed when reheated. After they spend enough time flailing around, the more-or-less normal operating temperatures drives out the moisture and they (sometimes) resume working.
Remember, all of them passed the Josh Sharpie Test, so you can’t identify weak ones ahead of time.
These mailings generally carry a “trash before reading” interest level, but this one stands out:
The Terms and Conditions feature some gems:
The first few sections suggest their past behavior has required some … admissions … to avoid future issues.
Section 9 says the laws of Florida apply and the “agreement is performable” (whatever that means) “at United Directories’ address located in Jacksonville Beach, Florida”. They’re so afraid of their customers that the only address appearing on the mailer is in Atlanta, Georgia, but a bit of poking around suggests their HQ is inside what looks like a beachfront house across from Joe’s Crab Shack or a biz building up the street.
Section 11 says your “listing” will be renewed every six months at $396, so you pay nigh onto 800 bucks a year for a “customizable web page” nobody visits.
Section 12 tells you “Unpaid accounts will incur a 10% late charge” and “Any credits will be applied to the next subscription period.”
This will come as no surprise:
Searching for obvious keywords + scam won’t turn up any surprises, either.
Sad fact: they actually have some listings.
I wish no ill will on anyone, but if somebody’s gotta be under the next meteor strike, I have a short list of candidates …
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 