Tweet archive

I can’t believe this thing can just cut through metal like this. Dremel skills might be the most exciting thing I’ve learned over the whole project. https://t.co/Ge0aYIsaPq

For the master node SSD bracket, I ended up having to cut it so screws with normal sized heads would fit, which looked very cool. Used a Dremel with a fiberglass cutting wheel, and some eye protection of course. https://t.co/Ki3vVE2TDD

(Also, look how uneven the two terminals are - they came in the same pack on amazon lol.) https://t.co/uRdTMpbOQp

In other cases, like the screw terminals, most of the screw heads I have are too BIG to fit, so I had to go hunting for 6-32 screws with smaller heads. (A normal screw is leaning against the right one for comparison in this pic.) https://t.co/WRmlE3qdy1

To make matters worse, only the very longest of the screws I had on hand would go through a washer and bracket and into the brass insert, so I really had to hunt for the right ones.

But you can see the washer underneath it - that’s because the screw head was small enough to fit in the hole on the black corner bracket I got. Sigh.

Attaching it to the other side started to show a minor flaw in my screw plan - I had wanted to use 6-32 threading for the brass inserts, thinking I could use the hundreds of computer case screws I have lying around. That’s the silver screw going into the backboard. https://t.co/phOsVE7ogA

Then yesterday I finally got to start ATTACHING COMPONENTS OMG. Here’s the 12V power supply - those corner brackets weren’t the MOST nice thing I could have used, but they did have the advantage of already being in my house https://t.co/fyTPcz9AHO

But it’s sturdy and it works!! :)

That corner bracket isn’t my most precise work... I marked the holes for screws (which are smaller 1.5” wood screws) before attaching with the framing screws, and that attachment is 1/16” from flush, so it’s a bit wonky

Ended up using 3.5” framing screws to go from the face of the switch back board into the edge of the main back board (first photo in last tweet). Tested first on a piece of scrap, which is good because I learned that my impact driver would split the board 😬

Finished attaching the back board for the switch to the main back board on Friday ✨ https://t.co/HoZwBRYWxc

Drilling into the boards was causing significant splintering so I sanded around the inserts, and on the edges and corners too. The boards I got are nice and flat, but the plywood layers seem a little brittle. The cut against the grain for the small board caused some damage.

This board will attach to the side of the main back board, and the switch will attach to it. Had to do it this way because the switch needs to lay flat against what it’s attaching to, but ran out of room on the main board. https://t.co/g5Gb0E71j7

I finally Committed today and installed all my threaded inserts. A few are slightly off - they’re a little hard to install straight and it’s hard to drill by hand as precisely as some of my components have been manufactured :( ... still, was able to confirm everything will fit! https://t.co/KumYA1EWup

@ra6bit I like Hugo a lot. I started with Jekyll but everything ruby kept breaking; maybe it’s the Go language or maybe it’s something else, but with Hugo it’s been easy for me to come back to an old site after not touching it and have everything work.

Is there a better solution? - no touch security updates - allows custom plugins - my own domain - zero user tracking - sane content backend, eg markdown where easy stuff is easy but supports full HTML - iOS editing - comments a plus but not required - HAPPY to pay

I liked https://t.co/hP6cyalbqw a lot but it had no custom code support (for understandable reasons)

I’ve sort of messed around with Ghost, but IIRC tracking was either hard to turn off or omnipresent in themes, and I’d need to just run a VPS with auto updates turned on and cron a Ghost update, which maybe is ok but seemed fragile.

I currently use Hugo on GitHub Pages, which I really like for fully static sites, but I would really like to run code server side for plugins, and add some iOS editing support (maybe possible for Jekyll based GH Pages, but a pain for Hugo or anything else that isn’t GH default)

I have tried Wordpress. Not what I want - not impressed with their ancient PHP support prohibiting modern security, don’t want to write customizations in PHP myself, plugin ecosystem is horrifying, everything includes Google Analytics (and maybe others) by default

Question I find myself coming back to all the time but never get a satisfactory answer to: best blog platform that allows custom plugins/code but is easy to automatically update/keep secure, markdown native, BYO tracking/no default tracking, etc?

This SHOULD be the “final” layout... not that I didn’t immediately start thinking of how I’d expand this in the future. https://t.co/Lya25akbHs

Turns out I don’t have the drill bit large enough to drill the pilot for my threaded inserts :(. I did lay out where all the inserts will go though.

Never used these before either but it was really important that I could remove a component to fix or replace it without needing to screw a new hole in the plywood every time. And it’s convenient that they come in 6-32, considering I have zillions of those screws lying around.

And now I’m super tired. Wanted to also install some of the threaded inserts I got which will let me attach/remove components to my back board repeatedly using standard 6-32 computer case screws... but I’m not doin that shit tonight. https://t.co/a47P6OeKgV

(Not that it *really* matters, since the ugly grooves will be hidden by the HC2s on top of them. Except for the extra one 😔 and the two grooves for nodes I haven’t decided to buy yet 😔.)

I used the straight edge guide with the drill bit for this, which seemed like the right thing to do? based on the Dremel kit I have. However, maybe I could’ve made a jig and used a circular cutter for more precision.

Time for more amateurish Dremeling. I finished all the grooves for the 6 possible HC2 nodes (I only have 4 currently), plus an extra one in the middle because I fucked up my reference point :( https://t.co/lFotAQXcEf

I did all that work just holding the Dremel in my hand, with the plastic pieces in a vise. I didn’t have any guide for the Dremel to make straight edges - not sure if there’s a way I could have, this is my first time ever using one.

And here it is put together with a port for the wires. The wires will carry AC power from the inlet to my two PSUs, which will convert them to 12V DC for the HC2s, switch, and router; and to 5V DC for the XU4 and USB hub. https://t.co/64kOLEZeep

But it does look halfway decent with the power inlet module installed!! https://t.co/ON6DscdsL4

Some Dremel work today. Worked on a project box to house my wall plug receptical. Clearly I’m no Dremel artist. https://t.co/9s7VYSwNtE

Wrote a crappy lil script so you can hit a special key combo and the keyboard will type the (base64 encoded) source code to the firmware that generated it https://t.co/HTgJ3kttat

RT @ifosteve: The plural of regex is regrets

That way the HC2 nodes will lie flat on their sides. I’ll use little bracket things like this to hold each node in place but allow it to be removed for troubleshooting, hard drive replacement, etc. (There’s no groove in this pic, so the nodes are a leaning a bit.) https://t.co/DDmoSFLwcy

That last photo was taken with the board rotated 180 degrees from previous photos. Shows the layout of where the HC2 nodes will go. The switch is on the left, and there will be a groove over the lines with X through them - to fit the groove on the side of the HC2 enclosure

And then this evening I started to lay out the board in pencil. (I went, well, back to the drawing board.) https://t.co/MKgyEOlMzW

More recent layout, with the longer screwdown terminal present for 12v, and new 5v PSU present next to it’s shorter screwdown terminal. https://t.co/q0SKzT09pU

Some first draft diagrams when I thought I’d use as 12v to 5v converter of some kind, before I realized I’d be better off with a separate 5v PSU for the XU4 and USB hub (ignore the “12v->2v” typo, it should be “12v->5v”). https://t.co/BgZq6Dy5ry

The XU4 really sped this project up until RSI and the holidays really slowed it down. Made some more progress recently though.

3/ Now fast forward however many decades. You're walking down the street and your back hurts. Your posture is bad. So you try pulling your shoulders back, or you puff out your chest, or you pull your stomach in. You back still hurts. These are all the wrong thing.

4/ There's nothing that you can *do* to get back to your natural walk, because every form of conscious interference is another kind of wrong. Your conscious mind isn't the part of you that walks naturally, it just involved itself in walking at some point in your development.

5/ The way out of this trap is to stop interferring. Stop doing all the wrong things. This is a difficult but learnable skill that applies in all areas of life. When you get out of your own way, you liberate your unconscious processes. This is the route to ease and lightness.

1/ Refering to "when you stop doing the wrong things, the right thing does itself." What does this mean? Here's an example: allowing yourself to walk without imposing your idea of what walking is like. Some people might recognise what follows as Alexander Technique. (thread) https://t.co/LZKA1v0D7P

2/ When we learn to walk from a young age, we follow a natural process of learning by doing. No three year old knows how they walk, they just get interested in something and move themselves towards it somehow.

@m_ashcroft What's been the 80/20 of this in your life?

When you learn how to stop doing the wrong things, the right things do themselves. https://t.co/84oy5ivqTB

In one tweet, what is one big idea that has meaningfully impacted your life?

https://t.co/9BIcgRAuWd