Cider…
September 17, 2005
Ahh, I just pitched the yeast into the cider and gave the carboy a shake. I hope it starts fermenting before I get home…
(This is mostly a note for my own timestamping purposes.)
Cider…
September 17, 2005
[Cross posted to
Click for more…
Well, despite my original plans to get the hard cider started today, I actually did it last night. It (and I imagine wine) is surprisingly easy. Much easier than making beer…
So what did I actually do last night? In short, I heated one gallon of cider to 100°F, stirred in a bunch of things (honey, yeast energizer, yeast nutrient, lactose, and maple syrup), dumped that cider in the carboy, added a chemical called potassium metabisulfite (used to sanitize liquids) and left it to sit. Monday after I get home from work I’ll be adding the yeast, and hopefully things will begin fermenting then. Woo!
If anyone is interested in the recipe I put together for this, it can be found here. It’s a bit of a take-off from the recipe I originally got from
Anyway, if you’re interested in seeing more of the pictures from the getting-cider-ready session, just click here (photo gallery retired) or on the photo up above.
Booze of all kinds…
September 16, 2005
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After a stop at both Cost Plus World Market for spices and Linens ‘n Things for a citrus zester, I swung by Yates Cider Mill and picked up six gallons of cider. Mmm… Guess what it’s going to be? Hehe…
Hopefully I’ll get everything mixed up and sulfited (to kill off any organics before I add the yeast) sometime tomorrow. It’ll likely involve warming a gallon of cider, stirring in the honey, maple syrup, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, and lactose, then putting that gallon plus four and a half more in the carboy, adding sulfite, stirring the hell out of it, and letting it sit for three days. Then after those few days I’ll go ahead and dump the yeast in, and hopefully ferment properly.
I’ve got quite the sugar high from the doughnuts I purchased at the cider mill. Wow. I also had to remember to wash my hands after petting the sheep and goat at the cider mill before eating the doughnut. Wool tends to be quite dirty, probably because it’s really good at soaking things up.
Anyway, here are some other pictures from today:
· Dixie Crimson Voodoo Ale, which I purchased because I believe the brewery has been completely destroyed.
· Linens ‘n Things seems to be selling the Speck iGuy. They are really cute in person.
· Pictures of sheepies and a goat from Yates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
· The apple press inside of Yates.
Oh, and yes, I know the cider is pasteurized… I’m fine with that, as it is quite tasty, so it should still be pretty good. It has no preservatives, so I have to make it quickly.
Duct Tape!
September 15, 2005
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Well, I thought making a duct tape dress form was surreal. Nope… Kneeling beneath said form as it sits on a stand, stuffing it and attempting to establish a posture and appropriate body lumps is surreal.
That said, the dress form is done, and I’m glad… I’m really, really tired, and I think it’s time for a wee bit of dinner.
There are a few more pictures of the dress form:
· Detail of the base of the stand. Yes, it’s a modified Christmas tree stand.
· The PVC tee which supports the form from the shoulders.
· My bathrobe on the form to show that it can hold some weight. It had no problem with this fairly heavy piece of clothing.
Printing from XP -> OS X 10.4
September 13, 2005
[Cross posted to
Last night I ran into an interesting issue with regards to printing from an XP machine to an iMac running OS X 10.4, and I thought people here would want to know about it.
First, the Mac has an HP Deskjet 952c connected to it, using the queue name which was automatically created when the printer was plugged in.
Second, the client machine is running XP SP2 and has simply mapped to the printer over the network and has the appropriate driver loaded.
The problem I was observing is that the XP machine would send a print job, and the Mac would report it as completed, but nothing would have actually been printed.
The solution to this problem is to access the CUPS web-based management stuffs (http://localhost:631) and edit the printer so that it’s queue name has no spaces in it. In my case I just removed the spaces and replaced them with underscores. Next I deleted the mapped printer on the XP machine and reconnected it, and everthing was fine.
I’ve been told by a friend that OS X Server actually warns a user about such potential issues when creating a print queue, but I can say that the client version of the OS doesn’t present the user with any sort of notification.
So, yeah. I hope that helps someone.
Pagefile on OS X
September 12, 2005
[Cross posting this from
Does anyone here have any pointers to good info on OS X’s pagefile? It appears that it is all handled by dynamic pager (8), but I’m having a hard time finding info beyond simply moving the pagefile to another disk.
The reason I’m asking is because, in my experience, one can greatly improve paging performance by allocating pagefile space on multiple spindles. As I’ve got a pair of disks in my G5, that’s exactly what I’d like to do.
As it is, it looks like dynamic_pager can only take one argument for the base filename for the pagefile. Hopefully this isn’t the case…
Inwood Hiking Trails
September 12, 2005
Click for more…
In one of my usual fits of wanderlust, I decided to head out to the Inwood Hiking Trails and do some wandering. So I swung by the Jimmy John’s at 23 Mile and Schoenherr and grabbed a veggie sub (no mayo, of course), swung by a party store and grabbed a bottle of water, then I headed up to the park. While I haven’t calculated the whole route yet, I’m estimating that I walked somewhere around five miles of slightly hilly trails ranging from gravel to through-the-woods.
There are a bunch more pictures here (photo gallery retired) if anyone is interested in seeing them. Here’s what are, in my opinion, some of the more notable photos:
· A typical trail through the more wooded areas of the park.
· Quite a bit of the path runs along these power lines.
· I’ve had this backpack since high school. It’s traveled most places I’ve gone. And it still makes a good day pack.
· The mosquito-filled Inwood Lake.
· A sign that has been quite shot up by… someone.
· The source of a low, distant noise throughout the park. It appears to be a generator running a pump of some sort.
· Towards the end of the day I noticed a hot air balloon floating above.
· The moon was alos out and looking quite nice.
· Along the way I found some piles of bones: 1 – 2
· The shadows were getting long, so it was time to leave. My camera battery also ran out right after I took this shot.
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Oh, also, my manager doesn’t seem too happy with my taking 2.5 weeks off of work in one go. We’ll see, though… She still hasn’t said no yet. I’m also looking up heading to the UK at this time, as the airfare would be $450 for non-stop DTW->LGW then LGW->DTW via Northwest.
iSight Tripod Adapters
September 9, 2005
Click for huuuuge…
Yeah, production work sucks, but once things are done it’s pretty damn gratifying.
Well, I’m not completely done, but I have finished assembly of all fourty iSight Tripod Adapters. Yep, that’s what’s in the picture above… All fourty, plus the original one I made for the writeup / Make article / prototype / my use / whatever.
Tomorrow (or whenever) I have to figure out the best method for packaging them. I picked up forty zip-top plastic bags today, and I think that bundled up they will fit nicely in the US Postal Service’s smallest Priority Mail box of which I ordered 50 (they are delivered free!) pieces, along with 50 labels and 50 delivery confirmation tags.
Also, before packaging them, I need to photograph one of them and write some text which will hopefully entice people to buy them. They all also need a quick wipe-down with isopropyl alcohol in order to remove fingerprints, any dirt that may have gotten on them, and any wee threads of glue.
Oh, and they also all need to be tested. :\ That’ll be a bit of a chore.
Anyway, they are done. And I am sleepy. There is another photo of the stack of finished adapters here if you’d like to see that one as well. < shrug >
Blah. Yeah, I’m sleepy. And a bit lonely feeling. And the dishes in the kitchen are kinda stinky, but I’m too lazy to do them tonight. Goodnight for now.
Food and such…
September 8, 2005
So, yeah. Me again. Guess what? A post full of photos… Imaagine that…
First, the thai food pictured above. After being inspired by the people over in #llamasoft I decided to get some thai food for dinner and take pictures of it. It is a quite tasty and very spicy Gang Dang from Bangkok Cuisine Express over on Garfield in Clinton Township, MI. If you’d like to see the photos, either click here for the whole album, or on the following highlight photos:
· See how much food one gets?
· A tasty Bell’s Third Coast Old Ale accompanied the meal.
· There it is, all the food I ate tonight.
· There is always a lot of food left over. Enough for two meals, in fact.
After eating dinner I started working on the iSight Tripod Adapter project some more. I sat at my workbench for a bit, filled some more of the adapter bodies with hot melt, and set aside the finished ones. There are still quite a few more to finish, though.
Oh, one last interesting shot. It seems that I somehow left the cap to my PVC cement opened slightly and it dried out. Well, I decided to pull the applicator out, and what came out with it? All the dried cement from the bottom of the can, with a wonderful POP as the air rushed past the glue and allowed the bottom of the can to return to shape. There’s a shot of the nifty dried glue here.
So, yeah. That’s it for now.
Hot Melt Glue Sticks
September 6, 2005
It appears that, at least at Michael’s, hot melt glue sticks are no cheaper whether you buy the large or small ones, short or long. The only way to save is to buy a larger quantity. And as the larger guns work in a 40w gun (as opposed to a 10w), it’s likely that the larger sticks will melt faster.
Yes, I did stand in Michael’s with a calculator (in my phone) and calculate the volume of each type of glue stick, then the total volume per bag, in order to come to this conclusion.