Category: HerpDerp

Notice: Please beware of the undulating pavement

  • March 22, 2018
Categories
HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter We'll go much more a roving
Why go to all of the fuss of repairing “undulating” pavement if you can simply tape up warning notices about the issue and call it a day? In one industrial neighborhood we visited today, identical copies of the helpful sign shown above were taped to the I-beams sunken into the cement ridges bifurcating the sidewalk.

Looks like a worthwhile use of GPUs to me!

  • March 21, 2018
Categories
HerpDerp Personal Firsts The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Count the ZOTAC GPU boxes. Don’t forget to smile and wave at the surveillance camera pointed at the open door. It and the street-facing windows are open to facilitate a cross-breeze for free, or at least cheap, cooling. I’m looking for workshop space. It’s Hong Kong and we’re dealing with Hong Kong real estate agents […]

Bodge of the week: replacing a naked piezo buzzer

  • March 20, 2018
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Two specimens of the same model of timer. Top: an as-yet-unused timer, opened up to show its innards. Bottom: my good-enough-for-now five-minute fix: soldering an SMD pieze buzzer to two of the leads on a transistor inductor. A few days ago, a dual-clock kitchen timer we’ve had for years stopped making much noise when its […]

Lead-free solder recommendation: Kester K100LD for shiny lead-free solder joins

  • March 6, 2018
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things Personal Firsts Sodding soldering
Can you tell the difference between the joins made with a type of SAC305 solder (top) and the K100LD solder (bottom), both from Kester? It occurred to me recently that I had no idea how much solder remained on the spool I’d been using, of the SAC305 alloy (Indium Corporation’s CW-807, a SAC305 (96.6% Sn, […]

Proof of life: Have 2.0mm-pitch pin headers, 2.0mm-to-2.54mm adapter plates, and LoRa transceivers—Will solder

  • March 2, 2018
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering
My soldering is still, gradually, improving. All four of the LoRa transceivers above have had 2.0mm-pitch pin headers attached. Two of the transceivers above are slotted into female headers on pre-made adapter plates which I purchased from an online vendor. THe other two have been soldered permanently onto bare adapter plates to which I fitted […]

Dupont crimp-on connectors marathon!

  • January 22, 2018
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things
Can you spot the little faces in this discarded, mangled length of Dupont connector reel-end? Tonight, I’m helping my better half with a work-related project. Nearly a hundred and fifty 4-AA battery holders and the same number of mini speakers need to have breadboard-friendly connectors affixed to the ends of their leads and I have […]

2018 is Coming! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

  • December 24, 2017
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things
All of the little odds and ends that I kept after disassembling a laser printer toner cartridge. S. and I have returned home after having possibly our finest Christmas Eve lunch yet (chicken biryani and a mango lassi for her; palak paneer, creamy red lentil dal, and beef curry with a banana lassi for me) […]

Curious markings on a Bosch Sensortec BMP280 sensor: “117 YP”

  • August 2, 2017
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Handheld-magnifier view of the BMP280 barometric pressure sensor on my CCS811 sensor breakout board. A sensor breakout board which I recently purchased features a CCS811 sensor (designed to detect and quantify ambient indoor levels of VOCs) and, to supply the data needed to correct its readings, two additional sensors: a SI7021 (relative humidity and temperature) […]

Being John Searle inside the Chinese Room

  • August 2, 2017
Categories
HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Google Translate gives Spot as the meaning of 现货, but it actually means in stock merchandise. I was asking whether they could fill an order for a list of specific items and they were answering in the affirmative. Squeaking by on a good-enough level of communication with Taobao sellers via Google Translate and a text […]

I Put on My Robe and Wizard Hat [photo]

  • June 6, 2017
Categories
HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Is the piece of headgear depicted in these stickers a wizard hat or a sleeping cap? With no way of knowing with any certainty, I’m nevertheless rooting for the former. These stickers featuring Doraemon wearing a star-studded sleeping cap or wizard hat called to me when I saw ’em on Taobao. Related: Does Doraemon really […]

I don’t always rack up 10k steps a day, but when I do…

  • June 6, 2017
Categories
HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter
Yes, the wording of this post is a hat tip to a meme: The Most Interesting Man in the World. I don’t always rack up 10k steps a day, but when I do… I remember that the ten-thousand-step goal is an arbitrary number and a relic of 1964 Tokyo Olympics hoopla.

The dishwasher-safe mug that wasn’t

  • May 8, 2017
Categories
HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter
For a cup or dish, a trip through the dishwasher probably represents an inanimate household object’s version of medieval trial by ordeal. A couple of years back, we bought a bunch of mugs and all but one have passed the dishwasher test with flying colors. The mug shown above, however, has been found wanting.