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.

Category: Oddities

Who’d’a thunk it?

  • Houses Are Trouble: Terwilliger House Windows

    Imagine “updating” these windows with modern high-efficiency glass:

    Terwilliger House - parallelogram windows
    Terwilliger House – parallelogram windows

    That’s the end wall of the 1738 Terwilliger House on the Locust Lawn site. I’m sure the woodwork doesn’t date back that far, but the glazier demonstrated genius-level mastery.

    We were on a fascinating behind-the-scenes tour, marred by a visitor who knew the rules about not touching the exhibits didn’t apply to her. My parents ran a restaurant / gift shop and, to this day, my hands automatically find their way into my pockets when I enter a store, let alone a museum.

  • Making the Asterisk Visible

    Spotted a new sign at the Van Wyck Road entrance to the Dutchess Rail Trail:

    DCRT at Van Wyck Rd - ATV Patrol sign
    DCRT at Van Wyck Rd – ATV Patrol sign

    The tiny print on the top sign still reads No Motorized Vehicles, but the bottom sign makes it explicit that that particular prohibition applies only to ordinary citizens.

    Which matches up with the Sheriff’s ATVs I spotted a weeks earlier:

    DCRT - Sheriff ATV Patrol - Page Park
    DCRT – Sheriff ATV Patrol – Page Park

    As of late May, the No All Terrain Vehicles signs were still up. Maybe they still are.

    According to the New York Times style guide and other reasonably erudite sources, the plural of ATV should be ATVS (or, if you have the luxury of mixed case, ATVs), not ATV’S.

  • Monthly Science: Mystery Chip

    Dragorn of Kismet gave me a handful of identical mystery chips that might date back to the 1980s. They’re surprisingly large and covered with contacts:

    Mystery IC - overview
    Mystery IC – overview

    There are no logos or identification anywhere on the chip. The back side is blank silicon.

    The visible patterns don’t suggest anything obvious:

    Mystery IC - detail 1
    Mystery IC – detail 1

    The metallization layers aren’t particularly intricate:

    Mystery IC - detail 2
    Mystery IC – detail 2

    Surely there’s something tucked under the top metallization; I have neither the materials nor inclination to dissolve the thing one layer at a time.

    I gave a sampling to our Larval Engineer, who says she may turn them into fancy jewelry. I’m sure the solder bumps contain lead, but …

  • Bring Enough Gun: M110 Self-Propelled Howitzer

    Spotted this in Salamanca NY:

    M110 Self-Propelled Howitzer - Salmanca
    M110 Self-Propelled Howitzer – Salmanca

    According to Wikipedia, the M110A2 8 inch / 203 mm Self-Propelled Howitzer became obsolete when improvements in smaller guns matched its range and firepower. The double-vent muzzle brake is diagnostic for the A2 model.

    It seemed an odd decoration for a town inside an Indian reservation; we didn’t stop to read the plaque.

  • Vector Mechanics at Work

    Spotted this at an Ohio rest area along I-90:

    New Rules and Regs Sign - orientation marker
    New Rules and Regs Sign – orientation marker

    The slanted stake isn’t a normal vector for the sign surface, but you could derive one…

    For whatever it’s worth, Ohio wins the Interstate Highway paving quality award, hands-down, in comparison with New York.

     

  • Relic of the Empire: Telephone Room

    Within the memory of those yet living, these rooms had a purpose:

    Chautauqua Lake Rest Stop - Phone Room
    Chautauqua Lake Rest Stop – Phone Room

    That’s at the fancy Chautauqua Lake rest area on eastbound I-86.

    The majority of NY Interstate rest areas are, suffice it to say, far less ornate. Their walls now sport bare phone mounting plates and cut-off cables.

    They don’t have any phone books these days, either…

  • Geek Scratch Paper: Historic Edition

    An embossed sheet of my Geek Scratch Paper carried the valve knob sizes home from the garden, which prompted a comment from Mike about The Good Old Days in sunny California. Because I’ve disabled comments on old posts due to the spam load, here it is:

    Ed has made references to his “geek scratch paper”… which brought back memories.

    Gullivers Restaurant in Orange county, CA has been around since at least 1974. Back then they catered to the moderately expensive out-for-dinner crowd in the evenings and on the weekends, but during lunchtime they had a businessmans luncheon special in the main dining room that was oriented towards a decent meal and in-and-out-in-an-hour. The side rooms were for those that were doing longer lunches or business deals over lunch.

    The key was that Gullivers was smack dab in the middle of Orange County’s tech region and right across the street from the large airport (now called John Wayne Airport). It’s also very close to Interstate 5, Interstate 405, and state highway 55… all 4-lane-each-direction major freeways.

    During those lunch hours it was not unusual to see ID badges from over 20 companies in the main dining room. Several new products and at least one new company were formed over those lunches.

    But the topic was “geek scratch paper”… well… Gullivers lunchtime paper placemats back in the 1970s were printed with graph paper on the back side!!!

    Imagine: Geek scratch paper at every table provided by a thoughtful restaurant!!! And this was forty years ago!!!

    I worked at one of the design houses in the area for over two years. I personally know of at least four new circuit designs, a half dozen new sheet metal designs, a number of circuit board re-designs, several new or modified software routines and at least six Product Change Notices and Engineering Change Orders that were started on the back of a Gullivers place mat (or three, or four…).

    For a long time my resume had a bullet point that read “Able to convert lunchtime scratch paper engineering sketches into formal documentation and engineering change orders”.

    I’ve not been inside Gullivers since 1981 – in over thirty years I’ve not been in that area except to drive on Interstate 5 on the way from Los Angeles to San Diego. The restaurant may be gone or remade itself into something else. But the next time I’m in that part of southern California I’ll make a special stop and check, and if their placemats still have graph paper on the back side, I’ll email you a photo or three.

    On a different but similar topic… At one time the local ham radio club members used to choose which restaurant to migrate to after the monthly meetings by which ones had a blank back side on the place mats…. especially for the planning sessions prior to major events.

    Mike WA6ILQ