Smalt

Posted on May 9, 2017 by kimerer_brian

“Smalt”. That is a really cool word. It is the name of a paint color that I just found.

Smalt

The original Smalt is made from ground up Cobalt Glass. This paint is called “Smalt Hue”, which means that it is the same color as Smalt, but the actual pigment is not really Cobalt Glass.

Smalt is the color that I was looking for to use in my new painting palette. I have been devising a new palette using muted colors, and I was having trouble finding a blue that would fit. Red was easy, moving from Cadmium Red to Burnt Sienna. Yellow was easy too, going from Lemon Yellow to Yellow Ochre. But blue is blue is blue. Blue is in-your-face.

Then I was out at the Golden Paint* web site, and I found Smalt. It seems to be close to what I was looking for, and is slightly less in-your-face blue than Ultramarine, Prussian, or even regular Cobalt Blue. We shall see how it behaves on the canvas.

*I use Golden paints, but I am not selling them. I paid full retail $$$ for that tube of paint. But they do have a very interesting web site where you can interactively mix their paints and see what they look like.

http://www.goldenpaints.com/mixer

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Another Seuss Plant

Posted on May 3, 2017 by kimerer_brian

We have another Dr. Seuss® plant blooming.

The Plant

At least this one doesn’t smell like rotting flesh.

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Quiet

Posted on April 28, 2017 by kimerer_brian

This blog has been quiet lately, and that is because I have gone off on another project to build an instrument. I am building a dulcimer this time. Here is what it will look like.

The Plan

I am documenting every (mis)step in the process. You can check it out on my web page at http://www.thekimerers.net/brian/dulcimer/index.php

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22 Years

Posted on April 12, 2017 by kimerer_brian

Wow! 22 years! That went by fast. That’s how long those LED light bulbs are supposed to last.

However… today we had one literally fall apart while we were using it. The bulb was in this desk lamp.

Lamp

I turned the lamp on, and the glass globe that covers the LED’s fell off…. onto the floor… and shattered. Look at this.

Broke

It appears that the glass was glued in place, and the glue let go. The light was still on after the globe fell off. So I turned it off an took out the remaining bits.

As you can see in the photo, I have this funny habit of writing the dates on things like batteries and light bulbs when I install them (ya… go ahead…. call me crazy). So when I took out the remaining part of the bulb, there was the installation date.

In case you can’t see it in the photo above, here is a closeup.

Closeup

By my reckoning, the life of this bulb was about 3 1/2 years, which is approximately 15.9090909091% of its estimated life span. That doesn’t sound like a very good deal to me. And to top it off, another bulb of this same brand failed last week. It was installed on 2015/01/04 in an open ceiling fixture. That was just over 2 years ago. These are store brand bulbs from a major HarDware store,  which shall remain unnamed to keep me out of trouble with the lawyers.

In case you were wondering what is inside those new-fangled LED light bulbs, I took advantage of the busted bulb to snap some photos of the guts.

Star Wars

Now, that’s a Star Wars® looking device. Here’s a closeup of the business end of the bulb.

LED's

Those are the actual LED’s, hooked onto their heat sink. There are 20 of ’em. They are even numbered….. or maybe that is Alien Speak for “Take Me To Your LEDer”

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Fox in the Henhouse

Posted on April 2, 2017 by kimerer_brian

We don’t have a henhouse, but apparently we do have the fox.

Fox

This guy showed up early in the morning and was poking around the house, probably looking for breakfast.

The crappy, double-exposed photo is because I took it through the double pane glass door on the slider, early in the morning and with no flash. The crappy, depressing blue-gray color scheme is because it is still Winter here, even though it is April. C’mon, already. Where’s Spring?

Similar to the hawk in my previous post, once the critter caught sight of me snapping its photo, it took off in a blur.

Fast

This time, I caught it in the act of leaving…. well sort of.

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Hawk

Posted on March 27, 2017 by kimerer_brian

We had a visitor today. He showed up in a tree out back.

Hawk

He spent some time surveying the place, probably looking for squirrel lunches.

I spent some time snapping photos.

Looking right

There he is, looking regal and checking out the back yard.

Looking Center

OK, more like owning the back yard.

Looking left

Uh oh! Busted!

Busted

After he spotted me, he took off. Camera shy, I guess.

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Nixie Clock

Posted on March 19, 2017 by kimerer_brian

So, what do old programmers do after they retire?

They write old programs, like a Nixie Tube Clock program.

If you don’t know what a Nixie Tube is, then you are not an old programmer. They are neon glow bulbs that have 10 elements in them in the shapes of the 10 digits, 0 – 9. They were used on old equipment for numerical displays. You can read all about Nixie Tubes on the Wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixie_tube.

I have always liked Nixie Tubes, and my computer used to have a Nixie Tube Clock display on it. Somehow I lost that clock program and cannot find it.

So I wrote one myself. Here it is on the computer monitor.

Desktop

It is up there in the upper right corner by the X-Eyes. Here’s a closer look.

Closer look

I made it real big below so you can see what the Nixie tubes look like.

Full size

Those are pictures of the Nixie tubes, of course, not real tubes. In the real tubes, the numeral elements are layered inside the tube front to back. As the numbers change, you can see them jumping back and forth inside of the tube. Psychedelic!

But the software version has a nice, warm glow.

I was surprised that you can now buy Nixie clocks again…. real ones…. not just pictures of tubes….  real tubes…. check it out.

What is old is new again.

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Nasty Storm, Indeed

Posted on March 17, 2017 by kimerer_brian

That wind/snow/sleet/rain storm on Tuesday took a toll on our Chickadee house.

Crooked

The house is looking kind of sad and hanging at an odd angle. Here’s a closer look.

Hanging

It looks like the front tiedown has broken. And yet, the Chickadees appeared at the house yesterday and looked into the front door of their old digs…. and chased away the Wrens that had the same idea. I hope they don’t think that the neighborhood is going downhill. We will have to fix that problem after the frozen tundra goes away.

But honestly, the birds don’t have to fight over the house. There is that other house down there.

Next door

See it? It’s there. Here’s a hint.

Hint

See it now? There it is. Here’s a closer look.

Closer

That one is hanging straight, too.

Telephoto

Looking good. You would think there would be more interest in the newer, better-looking property.

But, I guess it is a bit more of a commute to the birdbath.

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Nasty Storm

Posted on March 15, 2017 by kimerer_brian

Hurricane wind, a foot of snow, followed by sleet, followed by rain, followed by a flash freeze. Storms don’t get much uglier than that. But, the Augernaut came through and threw it through and through.

Throwing snow

It started on the first pull too.

Don’t cha love it when the technology actually works?

Now…. back to that tablet…

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I Did It.

Posted on February 26, 2017 by kimerer_brian

I did it. I reset the Tablet back to its Factory Defaults. Just in case you decide you need to do this yourself, here is how I did it.

First of all, I wrote down all the stuff I had installed on it so that I could remember what to put back.

Everything

Then, I wrote down all of my passwords since I will have to set everything up again.

Don't even think about it.

Yaaaa. I blurred it all out. Duh. I wasn’t born yesterday.

I charged the Tablet up to 100% while it was still off.

Good to go

Well there’s an excellent photo fer sure. I think the camera focused on my reflection instead of the screen. It really does say “100%”. Trust me.

Next, I rebooted the Tablet (slowly…. it always works slowly now).

Go into Settings. That is the picture of the gear.

Gear

That takes you to the Settings page, where you scroll down to the menu item “Backup and restore”.  Take your finger and touch “Backup and restore”. That takes you to the page where it says “Factory data reset”. Both are circled in red in the image below.

Almost there

Touch on “Factory data reset”, and that takes you to the “Dire Warnings and Scary Statements” screen. It has the button called “Reset Device”.

Scary

This is where it tells you that all your stuff will be gonzo if you do this. Don’t read it. It will scare you. Just do it.

Click on “Reset Device” button, the one inside the red oval…… are you ready?….. just do it…. you know you want to….. and…..

Gak

Oh. Wait. There’s another one. This one says that if you do this all your stuff will be gone… really really really (really)…. I really mean it….. really !! gone!. The button says “Delete all”. So click on it!

The Tablet shuts down.

Shutting Down

Then, it starts erasing stuff.

Erasing

It showed me the S^msung screen for quite a while….and then…….. it went dark. Dark dark dark. Creepy dark. Dead done dark.

Moment of truth. I turned it back on.

Back on

Yay!

It made me sign in to The Google again and answer some questions about what to call it and what language to use and stuff. But it did come back up. It took a long time after it booted to update itself. In fact the Google Play Store automagically re-installed a bunch of the apps I had on it in spite of the dire warnings “All your personal information and downloaded applications will be deleted and cannot be recovered“. So much for Truth in Advertising. It told me after it was done that it had updated 22 things.

But there it is. That is a pretty empty Tablet there.

I put some of the stuff from my list back onto the main screen. I don’t think I will clutter it up quite like I did the first time.

Stuff

It seems to be running again. I don’t know how long it will last, but it is running.

OK. Now it is YOUR TURN. C’mon! Grab your phone! Let’s go….. You know you want to do it!

NO! WAIT! STOP! That was a joke! Don’t do it! Put it down!

Jeepers. That was close!

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