Other What currently makes your life awesome?

PBS one mate. It's bloody brilliant, but has brought me to tears quite a few times. Mostly when they shot a prisoner in the head in broad daylight in Saigon and just the general sadness of it all.

I didn't study war in any shape or form. My grandfather's stories (and believe me they were MILD compared to what he saw) gave me nightmares. My main fear as a teenager? being called up for war. A war I would not fight in. Platoon gave me nightmares for weeks.

So in history lessons I would just swear, make a nuisance and get kicked out. I really did not want to learn about it. Fast forward 40 years, three overdoses and accepting death? yeah, now I can watch stuff like that. So last year I spent three months watching stuff about WW2, but mostly about Auschwitz and so on, and this year it's Viet Nam. I had no idea just how much of VN was filmed. God, it's shocking.

 

I'll tell my wife, as she's really interested in the 'Vietnam' war.
Last year she took a 6 week paid sabbatical as a long service award to Vietnam / Cambodia / Laos, having enjoyed Thailand 30 years ago.

She knew very little about the conflict and came home amazed by what happened across all 3 countries. The Killing Fields / S21 was traumatic, as were a couple of Vietnamese museums. A real eye opener seeing the other side of teh 'American' war told by the locals.

One incredible thing that she brought home was jewellery made from melted down decommissioned American munitions sold to help mine and cluster bomb clearance, which is still vital decades after.

 

It's literally on the ground with the troops, blood guts and all. Tell her she will need a bloody big box of tissues. But yeah, secret phone calls to and from Johnson (the president) and so on.

I was always told in the USA that Nixon was the asshole. Little did I know the reason. He committed treason for votes. It's truly sickening. Tell you what though man, those little buggers would have fought until the last man was standing. Amazingly strong and resilient.

But yeah, crucial viewing dude. I've been glued to it all week.

 

Still watching the docu. I can see why Nixon was so hated now.

Just finished fitting and wiring up the loft lighting. That's all cable managed and so on.

Next step put the sound bar on the wall. Will need some concrete bits for that mind.

 

Fiiinally got around to routing out the desk properly, so all the edges are now rounded, and the perspex sheet over the DOOM pentagram sits flush with the desk top.

Also bought a second hand QWERTZ K70 just to get the key caps because apparently RGB keycaps are rocking horse **** in QWERTY, and hens teeth pulled from rocking horse **** in QWERTZ.

So now I have a barely used K70 for sale with a used QWERTY key cap set.

...Yes, it would have made more sense to change the keyboard completely, but the board I got was blues and I prefer reds, and I've velcro'd the cables under the desk such that the keyboard ain't coming out without a fight.


If only the LED strip retainers had arrived, I could have also installed the back lighting behind the desk too, so I only have to wire in the Gledopto controller when it arrives.

Oh, also hung a curtain so I don't have to keep rolling the shutter down on the window in this room.

Edit:



Twatted around with the arduino, and sorted the light bleeding around the edges.

I'm pretty happy with it as it is, but I'm waiting on some fire retardant stuffing for teddybears to see if that makes me even happier with it. Then it'll get stuck down, and one more aspect of this overly complicated desk will be done.

Oh, that's a video of sorts, it just doesn't auto play. Which is probably good for the bandwidth.

 

Strawberries & cream Chocolate Digestives - they were nice.

 

That moment you realise your ceiling light is a ghetto ass lamp hanging upside down LOL.

 

LED Battens? They've revolutionised lighting at work for me.

 

Yeah 5 footers.

They'll work once I wire in the wall socket but I have to build two bikes to get them clear before I can do that.

 

We've got a 5 foot tube light in the kitchen. The led tube is 28W down from 70W for the fluorescent tube, yet it's also much brighter.

 

These are 5ft 45w. There is a reason they are aimed upward lol.

 

Result

connected up an old phone I hadn't used in over a year, found out it has a 128gb Samsung card in

 

Time for investigation, migration & re appropriation...

IOW - "What's on it, do I need to keep any of it... what else can I use it in?"

 

Pure unadulterated FLAC pron lol. It's all music dude. Which is handy, given I will be connecting it to a sound bar lol.

 

Landlord is kicking out three troublesome flat"mates".

Good riddance

 

My torque wrench and new seat arrived. I can finally start prepping my rider

 

I got a pile of wood today, and promptly made a stand for my Thunderhammer, so I have a little more motivation to finish the damned thing.

Which, now, also includes leveling the heads better because.. Well. They're on the piss.



But there's an ambient light for that corner of the room now, so.. There's that.

Edit: The LED strip clips arrived today, so the desk light is secured to the desk. Now, if only the Gledopto controllers would show up..

 

Just received & completed the paperwork necessary to have an electric car chargepoint fitted at home when lockdown eases.
I pay £50 to have a mini consumer unit fitted as my main one is full.
The government will pay either £300 or £500 towards the chargepoint, Renault will pay the rest.

EDIT:
Government lower price is £350 not £300.
I believe the form I filled out is only valid for 6 weeks. If lockdown runs longer than that, I'll have to do it again.

 

More scraps to the rescue. I added a "floor" to my ghetto homelab "rack" so everything slides in and out of the little nook nicely, I also mounted up the fans and power switch for said fans. Although I might want to work out how to use a relay to power those.. We'll see when I've decided on the hardware. Which, for now, is looking like USFF machines, because they can be had far cheaper than NUC's with hardware on the VMWare compatibility list.

Edit: The Thunderhammer heads aren't on the piss anymore.