nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Month: February 2008

Flag Waiving

Flag Waiving Souvineer Money

Sometime last year (or maybe the year before) my coworker Brian brought me some rather odd souvenir fake dollar bills from somewhere in the UP. I’d intended to scan these for a while, and tonight I finally got around to it.

Go ahead and click on the image up top to see ~300dpi versions of them.

They were scanned 600dpi, adjusted to not look washed out, cobbled together, and exported 3000px on the maximum axis, so the non /2 resizing took care of moire.

found thingsmoved from livejournal

NC3134/NC3135

Compaq NC3134 / NC3135

The NC3134/NC3135 set purchased via eBay for the Trashwall arrived today. It’s in such good shape (likely new, as described) that it threatens the Trashwall idea. Thankfully it clearly wasn’t wanted by someone so they let it go for cheap…

Now…

# ifconfig | cut -f1 | sed '/^$/d' | cut -f1 -d":" | paste - - - 
lo0     fxp0    fxp1
fxp2    fxp3    fxp4
fxp5    fxp6    fxp7
gem0    enc0    bridge0
#

That’s a lot of network.

I also took a few photos of the various bits (photo gallery retired), including the G4Port (1, 2, 3), all the ports on the back of the case, all the NICs in the case, the console cable, and a few other things (photo gallery retired).

Many of these photos were integrated into the main Trashwall article, and now I just have to wait for the CF reader so I can finish putting it all together.

acquired thingscomputersmoved from livejournal

TiVo Go Boom

When I went to use my TiVo for some audiovisual entertainment while eating dinner, I’d found that it was stuck at the starting up screen. It was stuck here for a while, so I pulled the power cord and put it back in. After not very long I received the error shown above.

I then proceeded to watch a bunch of broadcast TV (some thing about Viet Nam on THC, I think) while eating. After finishing eating, the TiVo seems to have fixed itself. This is probably good, because I was so unhappy with the advertising and such on TV that I was about to go sort out grabbing torrents via RSS feeds. (No, I don’t know how to do this.)

At least it’s working… for now…

computersmoved from livejournal

Apple AirPort

Do any of you happen to have an old Apple AirPort card you’d like to sell (or give) me? I’m looking for the old PCMCIA one with the white label which was used in older iBooks, Power Mac G3s and G4s, and other machines like that.

I want to use it in the Trashwall to provide an open, public access point.

Thanks!

(A similar Orinoco card will work too, provided it can fit inside the Power Mac G4 AGP and use the internal antennas.)

acquired thingscomputersmoved from livejournal

Caffeine

700mg of Caffeine

700mg of caffeine in a glass vial sure looks questionable, doesn’t it?

If I can find a use for it, I’ll just order a whole 8oz from from United Nuclear. It’s only $16 plus shipping…

That means that this is six or seven cups of coffee worth of caffeine is only worth $0.05. Personally I’d rather have the coffee, as it tastes better.

foodmoved from livejournal

OpenBSD Serial Console

Serial consoles are cool, and OpenBSD on a machine with Open Firmware makes it easy.

First, I came across these directions for making Mac to PC (MiniDIN 8 to DB9) null modem cables and made one out of a spare connector from the Honda Music Link work, some CAT5, a new female DB9, and a old DB9 shell.

After hooking this up and starting PuTTY as VT220 on COM1 at 57600 I booted into OF and ran the following commands:

setenv input-device scca
setenv output-device scca
reset-all

After this the box rebooted, the monitor stayed blank, and the OpenBSD bootloader showed up on the serial terminal. One of the many nice things about OpenBSD macppc is that it’s bootloader and kernel boot messages automatically go to the output to the OF console. All I had to do was ensure that this line was in /etc/ttys and the first serial port becomes a real console:

console "/usr/libexec/getty std.57600" vt220 on secure # for serial

Oh, and in case you’re wondering how I got a serial port on the G4 AGP I’ve been fooling with: I picked up an old Griffin G4Port on eBay. This is a drop-in replacement for the modem which provides an old MiniDIN 8 Apple-type serial port on the back panel.

I’m going to write up a lot more about this box on my main site after it’s up and running.

computersmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

Creaking Bike

Also, I need to figure out why my bike is creaking. The sound appears to be coming from the center of the top tube when weight is shifted between the seat and pedals. Online research is saying that it may be a seat post in need of lube.

cyclingmoved from livejournal

Winter Cycling

56 minutes, 8.1 miles, most of that through snow, about 1/4 of that through snow-covered fields and front lawns where people don’t have sidewalks.

I’m a bit winded.

Only bottomed out once, where a pile of snow along the edge of a curb dropped about 16 inches to the road, and I got stuck on it.

cyclingmoved from livejournalweather

Pork.

Yesterday Danielle and I trekked over to Zingerman’s Deli to pick up the half-pound of jamón ibérico which she ordered. Total for that was just about $60.

That’s it right there, sliced thin, and wrapped in paper. We then took it to her parents house where it was shared with her parents, grandma, and her grandma’s best friend. There was also chorizo served, although I didn’t have any of it.

I’m still not sure how much I liked the jamón ibérico. The fat melts in the mouth and is extremely strongly flavored, almost too much for me. The muscle parts were just… excellent and sublime.

I’d also picked up some cheddar; 1/4 pound each of both Keen’s Cheddar and Montgomery’s Cheddar. The Keen’s has an incredible bite to it, almost stinging the roof of my mouth while eating it. The rind is really powerful, and I’m not quite sure it should be eaten. The Montgomery’s is a bit softer and creamier, but still wonderfully powerful. Mmm. I can’t get over how absolutely excellent it is.

We also decided to get some lunch at Zingerman’s, and while I was originally going to get a bacon-riffic sandwich, the guy cutting the cheese for me suggested that I grab a #99, the Randolph’s Grand Début (scroll down). It is described as:

The Deli’s take on a classic Parisian croque monsieur – Arkansas peppered ham, Switzerland Swiss cheese & Dijon mustard grilled on farm bread with an extra layer of butter & Swiss cheese grilled on the outside.

Yes, that’s precisely what it was. Cheese. Fried. On. The. Outside. Here’s photos of the whole thing and after eating half of it.

I then had a latte after eating and Danielle had a small cup of hot chocolate with chilis and cinnamon in it.

On the way home from Danille’s house we stopped by IPM where I actually played some silly records while other folks played less… campy stuff. At least I got to hear Kyper’s Tic Tac Toe and some Chaka Kahn. Yay!

I can’t stop eating this cheddar. At least I can refuse to Rent-a-rim.

foodmoved from livejournal