Life-Sized LEGOs

These have seemed hard to do. Lots of things have. There’s lots getting done too, but it’s been a busy time, and I stepped out to WI in the middle of it. Then I came back, pushed hard to catch up, and needed 2 days of staring at nothing to get back to normal.

Tried to organize a grand heist but couldn’t provide the necessary security on short notice, which is a disappointment. But it was nice to see you imagine it for a minute – imagine doing something big and unproductive and spontaneous – even if it’s ultimately not what you wanted. I hope someday there’s a version that feels safe enough. I think there’s still a boots and coat heist to be had, if I can make the bribe work correctly. At a minimum there will be tubing, and that feels like a win by itself.

Sent out all the packages we’ve been cooking. I’ve been doing care packages for a while now but this was a lot – my first year imagining my participation in Christmas – and poorly aligned with my recent schedule. There’s still one or two for personal delivery, but I think we’re back to normal art projects next week, which will be a relief. And a chance to get back to bits I’ve been excited to work on – props for HA4H, among other things.

My amplifier started yelling this week, about constant mode changes. The serial interface, at 9600 baud, was losing bytes. Just collapsing symbols out of the stream. It turned out to be a bad USB serial adapter; it was the same one I’ve had for years but replacing it immediately resolved the issue. But I had to watch the actual byte stream to even guess what was happening. Not the sort of failure I expected from that sort of microcontroller-driven equipment.

Went to robots and handed our an assignment for petty crime as a gift. Gave Stochastic one of my paintings and some zip ties and told them to attach it to something they did not control and send me the location. They could use someone to remind them that there are no rules and doing good things often means breaking the law. But it also terrifies them when I describe it as graffiti or as a misdemeanor, so it will be plenty of challenge for them.

S is retiring in like a month. Not interested in working for a company that no longer makes planes they say. I read it more as finally being okay with their youngest being unemployed when they retire – they definitely were worried about that before. But it’s probably good for me in any case. They started growing a beard shortly after that announcement, and I commented on it today. They then told me a 6 minute story about how it’s frustrating that no one says anything when you make a change like that. I restrained myself from pointing out that they their reaction to my anime blue hair was to pretend not to notice.

Made progress on the pendant today after we finally were able to talk about colors and the parametric representation thereof. Some cries but we did take a step that had been holding us back. Maybe C will watch me solder the bits together tomorrow night and we’ll be ready to type those parameters.

I’ve got to hit some SRs and an SDLC doc before the end of the year, but I’ve got none other day job plans. I already put up a snarky OoO message and everything. Looking forward to lounging through tomorrow and maybe firing up some Rimworld. Another day or two of staring at nothing still feels useful.

ZiB


Sent from a phone.