The Buffmeister's Chronicles

Monday, January 30, 2012

Home made alcohol stove and stand

Been developing a home made alcohol stove lately. Made from old cans and a little secret sauce. Boils a pint in about 4.5 mins in my basement, using Heet or denatured alcohol. The stand is built in, but I show it with a stand I made for my Trangia and other home made stoves. Droppers are from RiteAid.

Monday, January 09, 2012

Trackstand...

Some skill required !!!

Monday, December 26, 2011

87 Ritchey Commando...

All XT and Ritchey Logic, Specialized tires and rims.

Friday, October 07, 2011

Oh shit!!!...

So, I had honed the blades on my Leatherman Wave multi-tool to within an inch of their lives, so shaving sharp, and was using it today to cut the weather stripping in our doors to length.
The tool dropped, point first into/through the fleshy part of my left hand, from about a foot or two.
It stuck there momentarily as blood started pumping out a shade of red I had forgotten existed. Time does compress in those circumstances.
Just time for an "Oh Shit!!!" before I rushed to the nearest sink and ran it under cold water.
A butterfly stitch later (knew there was a reason I bought them 10 years ago and brought them across country with me) and all is well, but it's a very strange feeling watching a blade go into one's hand, and vital fluids pump out.
Luckily it missed the tendon of my left index finger by half an inch ;-)

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Final prototype...

Here are 2 pics of my final prototype iPod Touch stand. Made from a single 14 gauge stainless steel bicycle spoke, and a couple of short lengths of shrink-wrap tubing. The angle it holds the 4th generation iPod Touch varies from 43 to 75 degrees, and because I carefully balanced the whole pivoting feature, it stays in position anywhere between those two extremes.
Also in the pictures is the stylus I made for my Jornada 728, an Ebay purchase that was missing its stylus. It's made of tubes of Brass, Aluminum and Copper, with a handmade stylus point from acrylic. It's quite a bit heftier than the plastic original. Nice!

Nice knife...

Crocodile Dundee would be proud to own this knife.
The image came from a post on the EDC Forums, where an owner had gutted a Victorinox Swiss Army knife, then buffed and polished it beyond belief, and then reassembled it with a bunch of polished titanium hardware, liners, toothpick and tweezers.
It's a work of art.

The new travel rig...

Here's a couple of pics of my iPod Touch resting on a stand that I made recently from an old bicycle spoke. In front of it is the Apple bluetooth keyboard that I just bought (2nd hand, but looks unused) from a member of the Ars Technica Classifieds.

Here's a breakdown of the weights of the components in the system:
iPod................................3.56oz
Stand...............................0.3oz
Charging cable and power adapter....2.0oz
Keyboard...........................11.4oz

Total..............................17.46oz

It would be hard to find any system that offers such capability, good looks, and such a low combined weight. Bear in mind, that an iPad alone weighs 21.3oz, and then you would be typing on a sub-optimal virtual keyboard.

A few things to note.
1...Apple says that the Bluetooth Keyboard has a minimum system requirement of "an iPad". Whatever that means, rest assured that it pairs with, and works with, an iPod perfectly.
2...Almost all of the special function buttons on the top row of the keyboard work perfectly with the iPod. Just a couple don't work, and that's because the iPod simply doesn't have the equivalent function built-in.
3...Pairing is almost instantaneous, there is also zero lag time between a key press and the result appearing on the screen.
4...There is an "eject button" on the keyboard (the top right button on the keyboard). This is essentially a toggle between the Bluetooth keyboard, and the on-screen iPod Touch keyboard.
5...I built the stand with the ability to change the screen angle. This is useful when setting it up for optimum viewing, whether typing, or watching video.

Monday, August 15, 2011

What's on my iPod...

Here's what's in my playlist in the "Podcaster" app on my iPod Touch, 4th generation:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cnet/conversations
http://cravepodcast.cnettv.com/
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/cnet/digitalcityvideo
http://rss.cnn.com/services/podcasting/fareedzakaria/rss.xml
http://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio
http://feeds.feedburner.com/hypercritical
http://revision3.com/lifehacker/feed/MP4-hd30
http://leo.am/podcasts/mbw/
http://feeds.feedburner.com/motr
http://feeds.pbs.org/pbs/wgbh/nova-video
http://www.hbo.com/podcasts/billmaher/podcast.xml
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TEDTalks_video
http://revision3.com/tekzilla/feed/quicktime-small?subshow=false
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cnet/applebyte
http://feeds.feedburner.com/thetalkshow
http://feeds.feedburner.com/tii
http://twit.tv/node/8741/feed
http://feeds.feedburner.com/atd/mossberg/video-feed
http://feeds.pbs.org/pbs/weta/washingtonweek-video
http://leoville.tv/podcasts/ww.xml

Try a few, there are some excellent podcasts there.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

iPod Touch or iPhone stand...

I had a few spokes from a bicycle wheel I had disassembled, and thought I would try making a stand for my iPod Touch.
After a couple of tries, I came up with this. Note that it allows for viewing at two different angles.
Simple, easy, and uses recyled materials: what's not to like?

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Bread...

This was in the window of Albermarle Baking Company on Main St, Charlottesville, VA, this morning. Photo courtesy of Kervin.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Pocket-sized PC tips

On most of my HPCs, the best-working Google site is google.com/dirhp

Saturday, July 23, 2011

firmware update

http://www.netgate.com/info/miniPCI/Prism/Firmware/help.html

http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Nice campground

Just a mile or so from P-Town

http://dunesedge.com/?dunes-edge.com

Thursday, May 26, 2011

So, take...

...an iPod Touch, 4th gen. Sign up for a free account at ustream.com. Download and install the ustream app for the iPod. Stream live video anywhere you have a wifi connection.
Even if you don't have a live wifi connection, you can shoot the video and stream it when you are connected.
It's amazing how the barriers to doing this kind of stuff have fallen over the years.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Bridge Winners

One of the best Bridge blogging sites out there. Check it out:
Bridge Winners

Monday, May 16, 2011

ARNOVA 8 Android tablet...

Just picked one up, they literally just came on the market with the capacitive screen. Previously they were resistive.
Anyway, build quality is impressive for an inexpensive tablet, however, with the original firmware the device was a little sluggish, scrolling was quite jerky, selection of screen items hit-or-miss, and worst: whenever the tablet put itself to sleep it froze. This required the reset button to be pressed, and then it would boot, but after that you'd still have to go through the screen calibration again before you could use it. As it's supposed to be "instant on", that's a definite downer.
Last night there was a firmware update posted on the Arnova site, so I installed it. It fixed, or really improved most issues, yet the tablet still requires the reset if it is allowed to sleep for more than about 30 minutes.
So I have 3 choices:
1...return it.
2...wait for a firmware fix that will cure the problem, or
3...try a hacked firmware from arctablet.
As it's such a new machine I am obviously loathe to try hacked firmware at this point, so I guess I will wait a while and see if Archos (Arnova is a brand of theirs) can come up with the fix.

Update: tried putting the tablet down for sleep, and connecting it to the power supply. It still blanks the screen after a minute of course, however, for the next hour or so, providing the unit remains plugged in, a press on the power button (or home screen button) wakes it up immediately. For about another half hour after that it'll still wake ....but now only using the power button. About another half hour after that, and it's back to needing the reset button pressed.
So, my guess is that something is happening during the different levels of sleep that the tablet is entering that eventually causes it to be unable to wake.

Last update: Returned it to the supplier. Archos seems to have a real history of never-quite-fixing-their-junk-yet-nevertheless-putting-it-out-on-the-market. Google reveals all.

Monday, May 02, 2011

Frankenbike...

From Gizmodo...
This could be the ultimate "bike." If bikes running off two car batteries plus an electric power drill is considered a bike. The DIY badboy has a seat fashioned out of an office chair, eight wheels and three bike frames.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Bicycle wine storage...

File it under the "just in case" category...

Friday, April 29, 2011

Wild ride...

Sent to me by my friend Karl.

VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo.

Monday, April 04, 2011

Canoe building...

Spent a very pleasant afternoon with Dave and Dave (2 boyhood friends), a few miles north of here. Their passion is building canoes and small wooden boats, and sometimes renovating old canoes.
I got to see some pictures of their work, and it's quite impressive. In a large barn there are about six canoes and small sailing boats that they have worked on, but all these pictures were taken in an adjacent workshop, where they were working on a canoe that was about half-built.
I'll let the photo's speak for themselves.