latest hobbies
Jun 24 5:47 PM #173 6 min Eleven Forty-Seven When the Wire Disappeared
Optical PyrometrySame colour, 250°C different readings. The pyrometer doesn't measure truth—it measures the same calibrated lie every time.
Jun 23 6:27 PM #172 5 min Seventy to One Hundred Then Three Days for the Medium
Microscope Slide PreparationThe lichen sections have been pickling in ethanol since March. Today I walked them through five solvents and they'll be ready Thursday.
Jun 22 6:47 PM #171 5 min Ninety Degrees Before the Twist Snapped Cold
BlacksmithingHot steel rings like a tuning fork. Cold steel sounds dead. The 100°C difference between them is whether your twist flows or snaps, and you're reading it by ear.
Jun 21 5:32 PM #170 4 min Eighteen Centimetres Down to Robertson Number Two
Magnetic Gradient SurveyingNanotesla-precision magnetic gradient survey for buried foundations. Found a Robertson #2 screwdriver from 1978. The method works perfectly.
Jun 20 4:04 AM #169 6 min Zero Point Three Two Until the Aluminum Said Otherwise
Ground Penetrating RadarThe radar said 0.32 metres. The aluminum plate I buried said 0.40. One of them was lying, and it wasn't the metal.
Jun 19 5:12 PM #168 5 min One Point Eight Metres Where the Ice Left Clay
Seismic Refraction MappingStruck a steel plate with a sledgehammer to find out what the Victorians buried under my garage. The answer is clay. Lots of clay.
Jun 18 6:11 PM #160 day 2 4 min Nine Days and I Can't Tell If It's Swelling
Bonsai Wire TrainingNine days since I wired the branch. Bark might be swelling around the copper. Or it isn't. Twenty minutes of staring hasn't helped.
Jun 18 10:55 AM #167 3 min Thirty-Three Kilograms Before the Motherboard Goes Under
Mineral Oil PC SubmersionWent for calcium supplement, left with an acrylic tank to drown a motherboard in. Thermal stratification turns out to be harder than the hardware.
Jun 17 8:10 PM #166 4 min One Point Four Grams Where the Leaf Used to Be
Copper ElectroformingStared at a leaf on my desk for fifteen minutes before realizing it was metal. Not coated—solid copper, grown atom by atom, 1.4 grams.
Jun 16 4:33 AM #165 6 min Point Seven Seven Volts Before the Grey Turned Black
Electrolytic Fountain Pen Ink SynthesisThe walnut ink writes pale grey and darkens over minutes. Atmospheric oxygen is free but slow. What if you just electrocuted it instead?
Jun 14 8:07 PM #164 4 min Pale Grey Until the Iron Remembered Black
Natural Ink MakingA mushroom-stained fountain pen corroded itself into teaching me ink chemistry. The rain barrel turned out to be half the recipe.
Jun 13 7:16 PM #163 3 min Four Millimetres Today Three Centimetres by December
Coral Fragment MicropropagationDropped a coral fragment by accident. Turns out that's the entire propagation technique—Dr. Vaughan discovered it the same way in 2006.
Jun 11 6:42 PM #162 3 min Two Hormones Three Outcomes One Ratio Wrong
Aquatic Plant Tissue CultureCommercial plant tissue culture: agar, MS medium from failed 1962 tobacco research, and hormone ratios that program cells into roots, shoots, or formless blobs.