"Captain Kangaroo"

And since the garden is now done, I'll have to annoy sammy_b0i with one last post. Hey, it's my thread, I can crap in it a little... fertilize the garden so to speak

I admit I did have a little help, but I mostly did it all myself. Proud of that.
My helper...



The finished garden bed. For now at least. There are some native ground covers in there that I hope will eventually hide all the dirt and prevent weeds without mulch and weedmat and poison etc. Otherwise they are Banksias and Grevilleas, native shrubs for honeyeating birds.



I wont post a garden update for a year now, I promise

 

So the Edifier MR5's have arrived. I have them running in the cave at the moment with the T5 Sub on the Audigy X4 in 2.1 mode.
I was fucking kidding myself about those cheap Mevosto's. This is a world apart!! These things would be fine with no sub or other speakers, though a sub does add just a little more depth to them. And they pump !!!
I'm becoming an avid Edifier fan, I haven't had a bad product from them yet.

The Edifier MR3's I was planning on using as rear speakers were out of stock, and I've cancelled them. I could get them elsewhere, but I've reconsidered anyway.
Since they are only rear speakers, they are maybe a little overkill, and kinda in the way. They'll protrude a lot from the wall, which is an issue for me.
Instead, I'm going with 2 pairs of Edifier G2000's, and going 7.1 with them.

I'm going to shelf mount the rear speakers on the rear wall, and hang the side speakers from ceiling mounts. Protrusions from walls and shit on the floor is all anathema to someone in a wheelchair of course, hence the desire to have smaller speakers and no speaker stands.
I obviously need to use bluetooth to 3.5mm adapters to the X4 since it doesn't do bluetooth, but I'm feeling good about the potential result.

 

And while I argue with bluetooth speakers that won't connect to aftermarket 3.5mm>BT adapters... I've gone back to 5.1, I couldn't work out a way of installing side speakers without them either hanging from the ceiling or being in the path of my wheelchair. It remains as above, only I'm only using one pair of the Edifier G2000's on the rear.



In the meantime, I've been upgrading my cave PC... the old Optiplex 6500T is no longer satisying me.
I had some issues with the new build, the secondhand mobo and chip were both faulty and the ram that came with them was always going to be upgraded. Seller is dealing responsibly though so no complaints.

So for now, it's a brand new Asrock B550M WiFi SE.
Internal USB 3.2 type Y 20GB via PCIE adapter (because the board doesnt have one and the case wants one for front USB C) with additional 3x rear 10GB USB C.
2.5Gbe LAN via another PCIE adapter. The board only has 1Gbe and my connection is 2000/500.

Those two items are the obvious drawback of cheaping out on a motherboard when you aren't sure what's actually broken in the PC . Turns out it was BOTH the board and CPU, I probably should have just cut my losses and replaced both with things I actually want....

Coolermaster 1300W platinum PSU
2x16GB Corsair c16-3600.
9060XT 16GB.
1TB Crucial T500 for now, with external USB HDD.
Thermalright M10 case.
Thermalright Warframe 360 cooler.
4x120 Thermalright case fans

The chip, which I bought for troubleshooting, is a 5600GT, but that's temporary . The board is no powerhouse but it will do what I need it to do for now, even with a better chip in it. I doubt I'll be overclocking it.
I'm in search of a better chip already though.

It hasn't been moved into the Optiplex home yet, so no speakers or 43" IPS screen until (tomorrow?). Just the old 27" 1440P and mouse and keyboard, enough to function and install windoze.

 

You can't trust these young computers. You leave them alone for a couple minutes and their mates all turn up!!!

7500F, 32GB 30-6000, 5070. Someone turned up needing money this morning and sold me this 2 month old prebuilt for an insanely low price

 

Lol how much is insanely low? Looks like the recent techfast sale that was for $1350 or so plus postage. One of my mates got one

 

Cheap enough that I am confident he will be back tonight trying to change his mind. Unsuccessfully, I was adamant that it was a one way and permanent transaction, he agreed.

I clearly explained to him that I would be taking advantage at the price, but I couldn't afford more and advised him to just take it to Cashies so he could at least get it back. Cashies would have actually lent him more than I paid, no problem !!

Nope, he wanted money NOW !! Sigh OK but don't cry about me ripping you off, because that's what I'm doing if you really want to do this.
What is a man to do? He walked away happy with his cash, at least until remorse hits him.

I did however establish that he doesnt use it anyway, so at least I'm not leaving him without a gaming rig. He is a PS5 guy.

 

So I'm still messing with the sound, at the same time as redesigning my garage. It's fucking hard to do woodwork on a normal bench from a wheelchair, my whole garage is being remodelled accordingly. That's the basic holdup with the watercooled rig, room to do the woodwork.

As far as messing with the audio goes, I have an interesting quandary. If I want surround for movies, and I kinda do since I've already gone otherwise dramatically overboard, I need rear and centre speakers. And they need to be active, since I'm just using an Audigy X4 and separate powered sub and bookshelf speakers.

I decided to just go with 5.1, side speakers would just get in the way.
The rear speakers I bought are Edifier G2000's. Not spectacular, but sound pretty decent and they are after all only rear speakers. They have bluetooth and AUX option, for them bluetooth is ideal to save on cable mess.
For a centre speaker I had to settle on a JBL soundbar. That could be either AUX or BT, I don't care much.


The X4 does not of course transmit BT, so I bought a pair of 3.5 <-> BT adapters to run from centre and rear 3.5 jacks on the soundbox. And I'm fucked if I can get them to connect to either the rear speakers or the soundbar
The rears work fine on AUX, but cables....
The centre speaker would be fine on cables, that wouldn't matter.. but it doesn't have that option .

So a different soundcard that can transmit BT too? Better transmitters? Different centre speaker? Which way do I go?

And in the search for different speakers, I came across these somehow... I don't think they'll suit me though .

https://addictedtoaudio.com.au/coll...oducts/goldmund-theia-active-wireless-speaker

And further to the super bargain RTX 5070 rig.. my BFF Jen has a 15 year old son who right now is the most well behaved teenager on earth for awhile. He has barely been seen for the last week, because I gave it to him for an early XMAS present...

and the insanely low price was...

Spoiler

$350 !!

 

The garage almost looks usable. Hopefully I'll be done by the end of the weekend, and I can start back on the woodwork. Literally the only thing thats holding me back with the desk rig is a decent workspace for woodwork. I'll post a pic when it's officially no longer embarrassing.

In the meantime, I'm still messing with the aesthetics in the studio. I thought some nice thin EL wire might fit the bill. Hot glue seems to work .

The power socket/TV plug space will be concealed by a small curtain, with all the wiring, plugs, adapters, controllers etc attached to the wall in the same space, along with power for the rear speakers. All of the EL's are originating from that space with that in mind.
Thoughts? Apart from FFS buy a new phone Kev...

 

That's cool mate

 

Remember these?



10x 240GB Crucial BX500 drives. The point of these (not being an avid gamer I may be totally off base here but fuck it ) is to have each game and all data pertaining to it on it's own drive. This should? make things faster, I gather many games load maps from spinning rust and shit? Or at least have some data on a separate drive?
If not, who cares.. I'm only doing it because I can. Worst comes to the worst I have a crapload of scratch drives for editing or even overflow for the main 4TB data drive. I won't be installing any mech drives in this machine of course.

That's not what this post is about though. I just found I need a cheap drive to drop a backup on temporarily. Since I paid $30 each for these a couple months ago, they fit the bill.
Except today, a couple months later.. they are now $55. DOUBLE the price, near enough. This NAND problem is going to be an issue for a long time again. I'm so glad I have RAM and drives running out of my ears.

Its sensitive data, I didnt want to put it on an old drive, despite only needing it to be there for a week or two. But I'm not paying $55 for a fucking BX500 !! So I guess I just make 3 copies on old drives instead for now.

 

I've decided to buy a laser etcher/cutter. Specifically THIS ONE unless someone wants to give me advice to the contrary. It's a cheapy but everything I can research says it should do the limited shit I need it to.
I'll practice on a few old case side glasses, then try to do the front panel on the cave PC, then maybe? be able to do something nice with the desk glass. I also have plans for it as a cutter .

Looking at youtube vids, even though it's toughened glass it isn't going to be terribly hard to etch if I do it right. I just watched some guy etch a pyrex dish with a 40W laser.

So what will I etch? I'm thinking a rat of course... at least for the cave PC.
I asked Gemini to draw me one, specifying I wanted to laser etch it on glass. After about 6 amendments to my original prompt, this is what I got. I like it. Not necessarily the image I'll use but it's the right concept. It's making a cool new avatar at least
I have to say, although I fucking hate AI when it comes to social media, youtube and news, it certainly has genuine uses. I can't draw for shit.

 

I can actually walk by the way. I'm just not very good at it yet. This was a couple of years ago in my old house, my new house has no stairs

 

Years ago, we bought a very nice coffee table for the lounge room, and it looked really good in there. Few months later one day the watching TV it was a bang and the top of the table fell into a thousand pieces. Hope that glass table of yours is a better-quality glass like mine was. One of mine friends bought a beautiful black glass cook top, that went the same way. Soo, I 'm just saying.

 

Nah this stuff is almost bulletproof

 

I thought I'd add a display to the cave PC. There is actually a factory item, pretty cheap at Scorptec but I wonder what it's worth at Ali Express? Do they even have one?

Yeah they have one.. its on Black Friday sale too !!!!! 61% off !!



Hmmm maybe better to go with Scorptec on this occasion..

 

bet ali has way cheaper ones tho

 

I've actually bought a couple from there, an 11" long thin one and a tablet sized 11" too. They both ran on MicroB and miniHDMI, which is annoying. And the MicroB on both of them is busted. All of the connectors are pretty ragged, they aren't well made . I think the long one was like 60 bucks and the tablet sized one was 90. They are both 1080P equivalent (for their form factor) IPS, non touch but reasonable screens. Just poorly made.

This hopefully being the actual brand thing would be better, but when I can get it down the road for an extra buck and a half I'd be crazy not to..

That's something about ALiExpress you notice immediately. Apples to Apples, they aren't really any better and sometimes WAY worse, to trap the suckers. Where they shine is having the little weird things that you can't find in OZ or cost a fortune, they'll always have a cheap knockoff.

For instance, I like PC speakers. I like hearing the post codes . I can buy them in packs of 10 for a couple bucks from Ali, I'm not in a hurry.. hell yeah.

On post code beeps.. I miss the days I spent literally hours watching Windows representation of Defrag in action. Small things amuse small minds

 

The garden pitchfork hanging on the wall in the cave, about 8m from my sub, is definitely tuned to 30-35Hz. It took me ages to work out wtf was happening


I've been messing with Gemini again, as evidenced by a new evolved avatar...


Also, shit is in the way so I'll post relevant pix.. but I ripped everything off the sound wall in the studio. The plastic tiles were melting with the hot glue, the EL wires weren't holding properly, and I had always hated the total lack of acoustic mass in the tiles.

SO I ripped it all off. Along with a bunch of paint and some bits of gyprock .

Que sera sera. I may or may not repair the damage before fitting the new wall, because it will be fitted after being built as a separate thing, and slightly larger so all damage would not be visible anyway.
I've switched to a hanging wall, composed of a couple of layers of 10mm foilboard 3.45m long and 2.1m high, braced with some timber particularly at the mounting points. It will be hung like a picture on an ingenious system I've designed . The original set of panels covered 3.3m x 1.8m.

I'm using all black foam pyramid tiles, to be pva glued to the foilboard. I've worked out a way of inserting EL wires anywhere, fixing them well, at a consistent height and extremely easily, without any glue or fixings at all. And I kinda have a bunch more EL wires too now... out of control as usual.

The powerpoint on that wall is going to be recessed and lower on the actual wall, meaning the hanging wall will need no access panel for power. The hanging wall will not be attached at the bottom, it will be as simple as reaching a hand under the base of the wall and flicking the switch, with easy 6-12 inches of safe give to get a hand in there.

The double power point runs a USB 6 port 100w power supply for the EL's, and the rear speakers. There are a LOT more than 6 runs of EL's happening though, so there is considerable splitter action happening too.
The speakers will also be mounted directly to the hanging wall, not the actual wall.

I do have this pic however. This is the only area I have available large enough to actually build the wall. This is the full size, first one layer and a second layer plus wood is locking it all together. The first sheet of the second layer is about to be applied in this position, the white is uncured PVA glue. Just needs turning upside down.

I had to do it this way because of course you cannot buy a single sheet as large as this wall in any thickness in any practical material, and the practicality of having it removeable I have decided is actually quite important if I want to make any changes. I'd prefer not to pay staff to do this shit, it's my personal project, and it will be nice to be able to bring the tall bits down to my height if desired.

 

The removed panels...



The power point will be about 400mm lower, recessed and upside down so the switches are at the bottom.
The original power points wont fit a standard recess box, they are super large for accessibility. I've just realised the double power point I bought has an extra switch I can't have been paying much attention. I'll find something to dedicate to that switch... maybe a laser etched backlight glass sign or something? 40W laser etcher/cutter is on it's way, it's a thought..



The wall needs a couple more bits of wood. It's only 12mm tassie oak, not heavy. You'll see the mounting system soon.
The rear panel intentionally doesn't cover the entire back. The edges of the oak border will have a continous RGB strip on it, shining out as a backlight around the entire wall. I'll probably paint that rear outer section white if I get a Round Tuit.

It's awkward and bulky, but I estimate it currently weighs only about 10-15KG. Plenty to add to it still though, like a few more bits of wood and 80 acoustic tiles..



I went for some proper tiles this time. 2 boxes of 48 x 300mm², the new dimensions mean I need 80.5 tiles so I have a few spares to stick in some other places I have in mind . I went for this particular style because it can be easily cut into smaller bits without disturbing the pattern. You can see some of the 7 half tiles I've cut to suit the new dimensions. One tile taller than previously (7 v 6), half a tile wider (11.5 v 11).

Hey, and the best way to cut this shit is with... a pizza cutter !! Works pretty well on foilboard too

I liked the striking contrast between black and white on the other tiles, but that's about it. I'll make these pop with lighting instead of contrast . I couldn't find white foam tiles to match, and I'd be dubious about how long they would stay white anyway..

 

A language question for you. In English, why do we say won't, or in the modern apostrophe free world wont? Shouldn't it be willn't or something? What does the wo part mean?
The answer is readily googleable (is that a word either? ) but I'm curious to know if any of you know without researching. Words are my thing, it's my native language, and I certainly didn't know.

I've heard it said that English is particularly hard to learn, I can understand why. For instance, when I just said 'googleable'. It would be googleable (if that's a word) if I used Google to do an internet search and got an answer, and I certainly did google the question about wont.

Now I know that I've just used the capitals in the right places, because Google the website and search engine is not a verb, but to google something IS a verb and does not get capitalised. I also know that Google is a company, an app, etc, and DOES get capitalised. Does everybody though? Do they even teach english in the same way as they used to, I don't know?

So much of English is based on context, it must be an absolute bastard to learn. The classic 'there, their and they're' thing. And yes, the I in their does not come before the E despite the lack of a C... "I before E except after C" is bullshit, there are nearly as many words the opposite as follow that rule.

The ONLY way to learn ALL the nuances of English is to grow up with them I suspect. And even then I doubt many people have. I certainly haven't and I've been speaking it for 73 years.