Sawdust & Shipping

Got through the day job today, but just barely. I’m feeling good about it through, in terms of being ready for next week. I got to feel smart about actual code today, which my job doesn’t let me do much anymore, as part of helping someone else with their bugs. I still haven’t had a chance to start my BZ report but I am prioritizing it next week, assuming the queue lets me. But I’m good on releases and SRs and whatnot, which is nice.

Headed to robots and groceries and robots and Dog and packing and hopefully sleep before late. Lots of things to do between now and then. Also supper, which I don’t have a plan for yet. And if possible I’d like to try daily Screeds again, but I’m going to choose sleep over writing, at least for to tonight, if there’s a conflict. Tomorrow will be a lot if start out exhausted.
V is making good progress on things like school and clothes and other parts that had been too much to handle. I’m proud of you, for finding ways to chip away at many parts even though the whole still feels overwhelming. Incrementalism FTW. I hope you find something cute today, and that you might be up for being seen tomorrow.

I’m making progress on a lot of parts at home, though it’s a little hard to see with my recent schedule. But I’m up to date on laundry and dishes and email and even imagining how I could advance the paint project before Shanda is back. I’ve still got to get to the vet next week, and maybe mount the door closer and latch, but I no longer feel like things in my short list have been pushed into the “later, when I have time category”. I’ve got some travel booking to do too, but that’s actually a chore I like because I’m excited to have fun plans. And I can do it from bed.

I want to get back to care packages. For lots of reasons they slipped from me. I was legit busy, but also felt like I had run out of guesses of things to send, which was both technically true and a manifestation of other bits of people feels stress. But now I’m feeling confident again, and I’ve invented another recipient. I should try to get J going on this again, now that it’s finally back on my list.

Regular robots went fine. Mostly just screwing around. Talked with Stochastic about 3D printing and learning the robot control system. And about piercings, including more speculation about piercings as mount points for things like a monocle ¹I feel like this should already be a thing but it looks like the main commercial market for monocles is old white women who are afraid of the concept of reading glasses, but not of ugly necklaces. – either steampunk or maybe even motorized. A little strip of LEDs ²like these https://www.adafruit.com/product/3039 could also be cool, and could maybe be wired to an earring battery pack and controller, like the ones Shanda and I have already built.

Got a ride halfway home with S, where we talked about mini lathes. I’ve always been intrigued by lathes. Multi-axis CNC systems are cool robots but I like the way lathes do exactly one thing but can produce a huge variety of work. And I like the way the shape of the workpiece emerges out in the open, always getting more round, 5 thou at a time. It’s not the next tool on my list – I want a new printer first – but maybe I can get S to buy one.

Grabbed groceries on the way home, and shortly afterward C arrived to work on his robot. We got done with his class despite a broken ultrasonic sensor. Then we fought with his new gaming rig, which wasn’t linking to his video card as expected, and which wasn’t booting Windows. He had one of those AMD CPUs with an integrated (but pretty fast) GPU. Unfortunately those CPUs use a bunch of PCIe lanes for the internal GPU and you can’t get them back even if you disable it, so his actual GPU will only link at 8x instead of 16x. I also fought with the Win10 disk creator for like 30 minutes, because why would there be an image you can just bitwise copy to a disc.

I was happy to fix the computer and hang out with C, but it did eat most of my night – they didn’t leave until after 11. Had some pasta salad and a doughnut for supper – I had planned to make fried chicken sandwiches but it was already far later than I wanted to deal with cooking.

I did eventually get back to V, who vented at me earlier in the day. They were catching up on some of the things that had been on their short list but hard to accomplish. Both logistical bits and some work on building a new identity. Some of it was difficult but you did great, and you stayed with some of the feelings instead of being overwhelmed by them, which will definitely make the future better.

Headed up to the robot party now. Did fun head colors but haven’t had a chance for a good picture yet. And I’m going to send this before it becomes yet another multi-day saga.

ZiB

—
Sent from a phone.