As expected, the mis-assembled cart corrals in the Walmart parking lot remain that way. One corral has an additional feature that’s surely been there since Day 0:
On the upside, that’s a high-reliability, high-availability trash can.
Category: Oddities
Who’d’a thunk it?
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Cast Iron Pan Electrolysis: Anode Fragment
Sacrificing a scrap EMI shield from a junked PC as the electrolysis anode, I grabbed a tab with the battery charger clamp:
Cast iron pan electrolysis – bucket Turns out it didn’t survive the encounter:
Cast iron pan electrolysis – anode front That white blob extends around to the other side:
Cast iron pan electrolysis – anode rear Yeah, it got hot enough to melt a blob from the 6 gallon plastic bucket before burning through.
I tossed that into the garage so I wouldn’t forget it aaaand here we are …
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Mother In Law’s Tongue Plant: Flower Season
Both of us began sniffling and sneezing in early October, long after the outdoor flowers faded away, and finally remembered to check the Mother In Law’s Tongue:
Mother In Law Plant – flowering It’s that time of the year again: we’re both wildly allergic to a houseplant with weird flowers. Even after cutting the stalk off and deporting it outdoors, we’re still sniffly.
The blossoms produce so much nectar that the droplets near the base of each flower eventually fall off, making a mess on the floor if the stalk tilts over far enough.
We kept it when we helped Mom move out of the Ancestral House, long ago, and it’s still going strong.
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ATM Error Message
Saw this after fat-fingering my PIN at a drive-up ATM:
ATM Screen Display Error Message That’s off-putting, isn’t it?
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Monthly Image: Hawk vs. Squirrel
A hawk, perhaps an immature Red-Tailed, landed on a branch outside the kitchen window while we were eating lunch.
After a minute or so, a squirrel ran up the maple and began taunting (?) the hawk:
Immature Red-Tail Hawk vs. Squirrel – approach The hawk obviously had no clue what’s going on inside that critter’s little brain:
Immature Red-Tail Hawk vs. Squirrel – faceoff The squirrel alternated between inching out on the branch, closer each time, and dashing back to the tree trunk, for maybe ten minutes. It eventually reached the rightmost patch of lichen, a foot from the hawk, without suffering any damage, after which it ran down the tree and away. We have no explanation.
Perhaps this is the same squirrel as before? All we know: (over)confidence goeth before gibbage.
Taken with the DSC-H5 near the end of the adventure; it took me a while to deploy the camera. The first picture looks diagonally upward from the kitchen, through three layers of 1950-era glass. The second comes from the back door, zoomed about 10x, with no tele-adapter. Obviously, good color correction didn’t happen here…
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Pi Measuring Tape
This clearly demonstrates that the world is even more weird than I imagined (clicky for more dots):
Pi Tape I don’t measure that many big cylinders that I can’t figure out their diameter by hand.
The prices suggest folks who need Pi Tapes need them bad.
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Monthly Science: Time-release Pills
I left a time-release melatonin pill in water for a day:
Time-release melatonin – 24h water Perhaps an acidic environment would be more to its taste?
Here’s another pill after a day in vinegar:
Time-release melatonin – 24h vinegar In both cases, poking the somewhat dissolved pill separated it into gummy chunks, so it’s probably working as designed. I suppose the usual stomach churning would help.
This being a quack nostrum, there’s no way to tell what’s inside or how much you’re getting, but I didn’t expect to get way more B6 than you’d expect from the large print on the label. Lesson: always read the fine print, no matter how well it’s concealed.
0/10 – would not buy again.
As before, the results do not differ significantly from placebo, so this is a triumph of hope over experience.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 