The Garden Rake

 

We have this garden rake among our yard tools. It is small but it is not a toy. We use it in tight spaces.

Alas, here it is broken. As you can see the way how rake is attached to the handle is not very sophisticated.  I would tell it was designed to fail.

I decided to proceed with the fix by modifying attachment method. First I have bent tip of rake rod under prime angle.

I took another handle slightly wider than original, with chisel I made grove at the handle end  and drill the hole to fit the bended rod tip. In my box I found suitable fragment of metal pipe and put it on to the handle, than I inserted rake rod into the grove with bended tip deepen into the hole.

After that I moved pipe to cover the rod, drilled the hole through the pipe and put screw there. Fixed. Hope this garden rake  will continue to serve my family for a long time.

Rainbow

 

Yesterday there was the rain in Bay Area. Most likely it is the last rain of the season.  March is almost over and there are not that many rains after. And this final rain got the perfect closing: rainbow.  Here it is (photo made out of our backyard).

Five Years Later

 

These two photos of our house are separated by five years. Upper photo I made today, and bottom photo I made in 2017, when we finished conversion of our lawn to yard.  (I published post about that conversion project at corresponding time:  https://www.jumbleview.info/2017/12/ten-months-apart.html )

Obviously there are a lot of changes: mulch lost its shiny look and reddish color (time to add some fresh mulch), but brushes and trees grown higher and wider.  Some plants did not grow well and needed to be removed, but some new plants replaced them.

When I started the project I have no idea how I will maintain yard (my experience with landscaping was near zero).  How I am doing? What do you think?

Do not Drink This

Any healthy food advocate tell you that sweet drinks are bad for your health. I myself do not consume Coca-Cola but this post is not about it. I just got knowledge that, while a lot of USA companies cut there business ties with Russia, Coca-Cola does not follow this path. At least that what I found on the TASS page. I am putting screen shot here, not link, because link works erratically.

If you in doubt of my finding please go search yourself. As soon as you confirm this fact stop buying Coca-Cola products. If you can't  live without sweet drinks find the substitute. DO NOT DRINK COCA-COLA!

03/10/2022 Update. Looks like there are some changes. Here is link to BBC news:

https://www.bbc.com/news...  

"War in Ukraine: McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starbucks halt Russian sales."

Not Politics

Generally I do not post about politics in any form. But this is not politics anymore.

This building belongs to Kharkiv National University in Ukraine. (photo taken from Fox News site).

It was hit by Putin army invaders. Stop Putin! Support Ukraine!

Office Space

Several years ago I published this  post about making DIY sit-&-stand computer station. Do I still use it? Yes, I do. And  I am constantly modifying it. Since the beginning of COVID pandemic I work remotely and unlikely will ever return back to the office. If two years ago I spent in my home office several hours per week now I am spending  there ~ 50 hours.  Here is how my office looks now:

My nine years old computer (CPU Intel Xeon E2-1230 V2) is still OK. Mostly I use it to run Remote Desktop application to get access to my job machines, but it is sufficient to run browsers, compile small and medium sized hobby projects and do some photo or video editing . I upgraded it several times: now it has 32 GB of RAM, its main disk is 1 TB SSD (plus couple of TB in regular hard drives), and it has NVIDA GeForce GT1030 2 GB  video card.  Obviously spec is not impressive but good enough. As my main movable display I use Philips  252B with 1920x1200 resolution ( higher resolution creates too much strain on my eyes). As peripheral display there is Lenovo   LI2323swA with 1920x1080 resolution.). Lenovo monitor in this set up is not movable and it is OK to accommodate on its screen applications with which are am not working at the moment.

Here is how it looks when Philips is in UP position.

Honestly speaking most of the time I work sitting, so it is important to have comfortable chair. When work became exclusively remote we allowed to take home some furniture from the office, so I took chair.  It is comfortable and convenient and serves me well.

The only problem was that its armrests (made out of some artificial leather) started to wear down.

So I substituted original armrests with DIY wooden. 

I can tell you that after modification chair becomes even better. For comparison I made a photo of the old, worn out armrest.

I hope this office set up will serve me for some time.

With the Help of a Soda Can Tab

 

I have several precision screwdrivers. They are from different vendors  and have different length. All of them are of decent quality and deserve some good care. For screwdriver to be in service for a long time it is important  to use them with proper match: right screwdriver for the right screw.  To make selection of screwdriver easy I made myself the screwdriver stand.

On the picture above there is elements from which I made the stand:

• Several wooden pieces (made out of redwood)
• Ten soda can pull  tabs.
• Long screw for wood.

And here is the stand.

Now I can easy select whatever screwdriver I need. 

I have found that soda can tab to be an valuable item  in my hardware inventory. I even created instructable    with description of its various usage . Will free to borrow whatever you find suitable for your needs.

Where does Sound Come From

 Clip below make a sense to watch only if your computer (or other internet device) is NOT mute.

I have three audio devices connected to my Windows  10 desktop:

1. Headphone as part of headset (Mpow 323 model) plugged into USB.
2. Stereo pair of standalone external speakers plugged into  3.5 socket.
3. Speakers integrated into Philips Monitor (HDMI).

I often need to switch between speakers and headset (seldom use Philips speaker).  Obviously it could be done by Windows dedicated sound menu, but I feel that its usage is not convenient. I want two things:

• Ability to switch between sound output devices just by mouse click. 
• Ability to hear proper audio feedback to be sure that selected device is up and and running.

After some investigation I have achieved the desired outcome with the help of two utilities which I   took here: https://www.nirsoft.net/  Software is documented well enough with chm help files.  (I am not affiliated with the owner of that site, just happy user of his software. Software is free). 

First utility is executable "SoundVolumeView.exe". It is a GUI which allows to explore  available sound devices and controls them (enable, disabler, set default etc...).

On the screenshot above you can see selected devices, which are subjects of this project. Right click of the mouse while on selected device invokes context menu. On that menu you can choose "Property" element and see  pop-up window.  This window among other information has the field "Command-Line Friendly ID". 

This is good: in addition to explore devices and control them with GUI I can achieve desired outcome by the command line or batch file. 

So to set headset as default output device one invokes next command:

 C:\NirSoft\SoundVolumeView.exe /SetDefault "Mpow 323\Device\Speaker\Render" 1

But that solves only first item in my list. What about audio feedback. Here I use another utility within the same package: "nircmd.exe". Among many commands it has command "speak". Command line to invoke it I use in this form:

C:\NirSoft\nircmd.exe speak file  "C:\NirSoft\headphone.xml"

And here is a context of "headphone.xml" file:

<voice required="Gender=Male">
	Headphone Activated
</voice>

As you can see it has only one xml attribute <voice> which control gender of the speaker and text to speak.

Similar files created for other two devices.   Here is "speakers.xml":

<voice required="Gender=Female">
	Speakers Activated
</voice>

It took me some time to find out the third distinctive voice. Eventually I have settled with attribute <lang> with decimal code. The result was funny voice with some specific accent. So here is "philips.xml" file. 

<lang langid="419">
   Philips Activated
</lang>

After that I made three batch files:

"headphone.bat"

C:\NirSoft\SoundVolumeView.exe /SetDefault "Mpow 323\Device\Speaker\Render" 1

C:\NirSoft\nircmd.exe speak file  "C:\NirSoft\headphone.xml"

"speaker.bat"

C:\NirSoft\SoundVolumeView.exe /SetDefault "Realtek High Definition Audio\Device\Speakers\Render" 1
C:\NirSoft\nircmd.exe speak file "C:\NirSoft\speakers.xml"

"philips.bat"

C:\NirSoft\SoundVolumeView.exe /SetDefault "NVIDIA High Definition Audio\Device\PHL 252B9\Render" 1
C:\NirSoft\nircmd.exe speak file "C:\NirSoft\philips.xml"

 

The last step was to create three desktop shortcuts. I put here just one as example. Shortcut  doesn't invoke batch file directly. Instead it calls batch file with the help of "nircmd.exe". You see that it is called with  command "exec", parameter "hide", and name of the batch file. Parameter "hide" guarantees that console window attached to the command line  process becomes hidden and does not distract the user.

Ballpark

I am studying baseball. No, I am not trying to play baseball. I just would like to understand it.

This September I was in Oracle Park to watch the game between host San Francisco Giants and visiting team Atlanta Braves, Here are photos of Giants starting pitcher Anthony DeSclafani at various stages of the pitch.

And here is how it looked  at the other end of the pitch. Giants catcher is Buster Posey. Which player at bat from Braves team are am not sure.

Both team needed the win to stay on the top of division. Giants looked like in better position: they had best record in MLB and secured playoff at least as wild card player. Braves was under pressure of coming very close Phillies and without a chance to get a wild card place in case Phillies will be at first. But that particular day was not good for Giants. They lost 0:3. And now thirteen days later  at the end of September, position of Braves looks better compare to Giants. Braves clinched the division, while Giants is still fighting vs Dodgers to be on the first place. 

While game result was a disappointment, I became the witness of the seldom baseball event: Braves hitter Eddie Rosario hit for the cycle: single, double, triple and home run. If you  need to know what does that mean you better to consult some credible source: I myself got the knowledge about that event just when it happened. What I do know now that within ~150  years of MLB history such an event took a place only 304 times, in other words in average two times per year. To understand specialty of this event take in to account that 2430 games are played in the regular MLB season not counting the postseason.  Guess how many photos of Eddie Rosario I made during that game? No single photos, nil. Next time I will try to picture each hitter at least once. Just in case something similar occurs.

To know more about that particular game you can visit this link:

https://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-braves/5-takeaways-after-braves-salvage-win-against-giants/EPOILUDSL5DLLOYWAAGNZWYGLQ/

And here is just one more photo from the park. It is nice place to be especially when there is sunny September day.

Update 10/03/21. Giants won the division at the last day of the season, They beat Padres and gained 107 wins (franchise record). They will play playoff series against winner of wild card game: Dodgers (Los Angeles) or Cardinals (Sent Luis).

 

Update 10/14/21. Today Giants lost series to Dodgers while Braves still alive and will play Dodgers in National League series. In Bay Area baseball season is officially over.

  

Update 10/17/21. Yesterday Braves played first game of the series  against Dodgers. And both heroes of the game against Giants showed remarkable performance.  Eddie Rosario scored for Braves very first run. In the first inning he singled, then stole second base, then reached third on groundout and eventually reached the home on the wild pitch. Overall Braves scored three times, while there pitcher Max Fried allowed only two runs. It make a sense here to put picture of Max Fried taken on September 19 game against Giants.

Update 11/04/21.  Two days ago Braves won world series. The last winning game against Astro they finished with score seven to nothing. Guess who was the starting pitcher for the Braves? Right, Max Fried.

Hare

 

I made photo of this hare (or jackrabbit -  not sure how to properly name this creature)  this September in proximity of town Williams, California. Seems like it completely ignored presence of people around.  So we came to it very close. Some excerpts of photo EXIF:

• Camera model: Pentax KP
• Lens: Pentax SMC DA 18-135mm
• Exposure time: 1/60 s
• Aperture f-stop: f8
• Focal length: 135mm
• ISO 200
• Capture Time: 9/13/2021 8:15 AM.

Eventually, when we came too close, hare raised and start to run. I tried to picture it running. That attempt was not absolutely successful and photo came out far from perfect. Still I decided to put it here just for the sake of comparison.

Run, Jackrabbit, run!

Speed Bag

 

Here is the speed bag which recently  I have added to my home gym. Speed Bag and swivel I bought online.  The rest of components came from the local Home Depot. I attached the construction to the beam, which holds the roof of our patio.

Obviously construction looks primitive and skilled boxer unlikely will approve it. But my goal is just to keep my elbows and shoulders in agile state while having some fun in the process.  This project  serves me well for that.

Camera Handle

 

On the photo above you can see small digital camera with attached handle. I believe such a handle  provides comfortable and steady grip. As a foundation of that  handle  this L-Plate used . It is not of highest  quality but is inexpensive and suites this project well. I unscrewed short side of the plate and made out of 1/4 inch plywood and metal corner four elements of the handle. One more element (aka half-cylinder) I made out of broken hammer handle.

Handle assembled as a sandwich with plywood sides and metal inserts. During assembling I applied universal glue first than fixed it with metal screw.  Then I glued half-cylinder with wooden glue and   I painted it with some dark stain. The goal was for it look old and vintage rather than new and shiny.

Assembled handle is screwed to the plate in place of its short side.

While intension was to use it for smaller mirrorless camera I have tried it with bigger DSLR and it works OK here as well.