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

More Bike Stuffs

February 9, 2008

Bike in Stand

Today I ran by Fraser Bike with Danielle and picked up second bottle cage for my bike. While there I asked if they also sell the stands used on their floor models, and it turns out that they do, for $41.99. This stand, the RK-B RAKK STORAGE STAND is just a nice, simple roll-in stand which is extremely stable.

You can also see the rear rack, snap-in bag, light, and second bottle cage there.

I questioned getting the rack and bag (and basket) for a while, but it’s pretty light weight and seems to work out quite well. Unfortunately that bag there, the Topeak RX TrunkBag EX, is the smallest one which will latch into the rack. It holds everything I’d want to bring with me (spare tube, pump, Cliff bar, multi-tool, patch kit, phone, wallet, keys, lights, etc) with plenty of room to spare, so (for now) I’ve had to stuff a inflatable packing bubble thing in there. At least it’ll be good when going for multi-hour rides down the trails near here. I can stick a sandwhich or whatnot in there and stop to eat a bit before continuing on.

Now I think it’s time to go get some dinner. I’m thinking some decent beer, and maybe pizza… although… that’s not sounding so hot either. Hrm.

acquired thingscyclingmoved from livejournal

Tires, etc.

February 9, 2008

New Tires!

On Wednesday I left work at about 11:00 PM, and took almost an hour to drive home, turning my car almost sideways on M-59 twice. It was only once I got home that I noticed the main reason: my tires are down to the wear marks, leaving very little tread.

So, I hurriedly sorted out getting new tires and had them installed Friday morning. By the way, if you are in my area and need car work done, I suggest Shelby Tire over in Utica. Their prices are reasonable, and they are an independent shop which does both tires and other car repairs. This is where Danielle had a new wheel bearing done as well, and the price was good and the service was really quick (~2.5 hours).

Anyway, here’s a bunch more moblog photos which I uploaded this morning:

· Mushrooms on toast, farmhouse cheddar, and cheap red wine. This is the perfect dinner after working until 11pm. Danielle prepared the mushrooms while I was at work.
· The Burger King breakfast menu board, as I stopped on the way to work after getting new tires on my car.
· My car at about 11pm after leaving work really late one evening in the middle of a snow storm.
· Lil Tater! at Penn Station in Rochester, MI.
· Two hunks of farmhouse cheddar, a dulce de leche brownie, and some jamón ibérico, all from Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor.
· The coffee roaster at Nino Salvaggio in Troy, MI.
· Sending the lens for Danielle back to the person I bought it from via eBay. It doesn’t work right (front element is loose).
· Wow. A Mac running OS 9. I haven’t seen one of these in years. (In Bob’s basement at IPM.)
· Inside of the U of M Dearborn SLRC, where Danielle works.

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Flag Waiving

February 7, 2008

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.

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NC3134/NC3135

February 5, 2008

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.

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TiVo Go Boom

February 4, 2008

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

February 4, 2008

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.)

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Caffeine

February 3, 2008

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

February 3, 2008

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.

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