Making Ice
I’ve been helping maintain the village’s rink this year. It’s been fun to learn the ropes and of course, play hockey.
Recursive Drawing is out
It’s only available on the “pro” facet of Mandalagaba. Oh yeah, Mandalagaba has been broken down into several facets for the purpose of simplifying and focusing activities. The facet where all the brain hurting stuff goes is the pro one. Pro is where one can draw a “radially symmetrical tessellation recursively”.
I tried to keep the menu simple and icon based but it’s still the most complex. Thankfully we have words to describe all that these things do.
Along with recursion, https://plant.mandalagaba.com is out too, using recursion, symmetries and a newly developed center placement to create plants & trees. This one still needs a bit of polish but the main idea is working. I touched a lot of the core engine of Mandagaba to introduce all this, development went pretty well. It was nice to test the flexibility I gave myself during last Winter’s rewrite for a major feature add.
Quails & Masks
The porcupine is still alive and kicking, its tracks are in the usual spots on the land. It picked a new pine tree to spend the night feeding in this Winter, very much in the same area as last year’s. Definitely a creature of habit, it’s been living in the same house, following the same habits for as long as we started paying attention 5 years ago.
We set the trail cam at the entrance of the collapsed barn where it lives.
The poor fellow wasn’t expecting my deep track on its usual path and stumbled into it 🙂
5 minutes later… Really cool animals.
A couple more for the road
Pretty fun, the result is less compelling than the experience of making them.
Getting there on recursion, there on recursion, on recursion, recursion
I still have a lot of details to figure out but I almost have recursion nailed. It’s a pretty brutal mental exercise to combine it with the existing radial symmetry & tessellations. As I’ve said before, one of the effects I seek in particular is that of a growing plant. In fact, I plan on dedicating a facet of Mandalagaba to guided drawing for just that. The adjustment of parameters which is very specific for getting a plant will be taken care of, and only the fun parts will remain. A perfect tool for the slacktivists who wants to feel like they’re helping greening up the world while staying glued to their screen.
I sometimes feel bad that so many people find stress, anxiety and even depression relief drawing mandalas on Mandalagaba. I feel like an enabler for giving them such a meaningless escape valve, on a screen at that. As much as I love a plant growing effect, I’m worried people will use it to get their virtual green fix while further removing themselves from nature. Get off your screens, grow an actual plant if you want to grow a virtual one.
Thermosiphon Butterflies
The thermosiphon has been proving itself this whole Winter. It’s quickly becoming one of the best features of our house design and it’s not hard to imagine why. 100% passive & efficient air circulation taking heat from the stove to every nook and cranny of the house. No power, no fan, no duct.
As a bonus, it animates decorative butterflies. Now I don’t really care about the butterflies; I only like seeing them as an indicator of the free work our house is giving us. They’re a great analog anemometer.
Web Omnipresence with Docker, VPN & Squid proxying
Here’s a method for having several browser windows proxying through several countries concurrently.
Demo
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Working Principle
Requirements
- a VPN service supporting OpenVPN as a client (this example uses vpntunnel)
- Docker
- Firefox
- MacOS isn’t a requirement per se but this guide & accompanying scripts are written for it.
Setup Steps
- Download this package containing Dockerfile build instructions & some scripts.
- Populate the directory “openvpn_config_files/” with the ovpn files from the VPN service you use.
- Edit the script called “vpn” and replace <VPN_SERVICE_USERNAME> and <VPN_SERVICE_PASSWORD> with your username and password.
- Run with “./omnipresence.sh <name_of_ovpn_file>”
What’s for breakfast?
Chainsaw
Recursive Drawing Sneak Peek
I’ve been working on implementing recursive drawing into Mandalagaba. There are many, many tunables which can be implemented to facilitate recursive drawing. It’s tricky to pick the ones which make for a fun drawing experience. One of the effects that I seek in particular is that of a growing plant.
Popped a Couple of Windows in among other things
We went to a window store once and were quoted $2200 for a single window. More than we paid for all our windows combined. I really don’t mind paying for nice things but I never understood how windows were so expensive. Also annoying, why I need to deal with catalogs & resellers. I avoid resellers like the plague in any context. Give me a website, I punch in my measurements, pick a few options and click “Go”.
There’s no way we’d pay this much for a window. Thankfully there’s plenty of second-hand ones out there. From recover stores to word-of-mouth. The ones at the recover store are in high demand and fly off the shelves pretty fast. The word-of-mouth ones don’t show up when you need them so you need to store them until you do.
I found this one next to a “free” sign along with 3 others. I pounced on them and they’ve been sitting in storage for a few years until today. Most second hand windows need a little TLC.
Definitely not $2200
Making a hole for another window 
This one only costs ~$100 new, we’ve got several in the house and I really like them. They’re clearly not the nicest looking windows but they’re good bang for the buck weather shielding wise.
We have daylight 🙂 We’re trying to figure out what to do with this little alcove.
This living room is going to be my master piece. The experience I’ve acquired these past few years is starting to show. Our house is a great timeline of my progress working with wood, it’s crazy to think I even got something together with no experience and lack of proper tools. I now possess so many routines, tools, subconscious movements which all add up to perfect walls with no mistakes or swear words. Now I’m sure this will change when I do the ceiling.
Construction in the Dark
I’m pushing hard for a living room. It’ll be a while longer before it’s ready but I can already tell it will signal once and for all the end of tiny living.
I didn’t open the windows or run lights yet, so I’m working with a flashlight. It’s surprisingly a non-issue.
Construction baby doesn’t let a few nails get in a the way of a good nap.
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First Firing
I finally hooked up the new stove to the chimney. I wanted to have the room finished, the hearth complete; in reality though, the room is dark and the hearth missing finish masonry work. Still it was cause for great joy to give our second stove, the Alpiner, its first firing. Our first cookstove, the Sweetheart, which covered us for 3½ years will be able to take a break. We won’t have to fire it so hot on the really cold days.
It’s a big deal for us, this represents a lifetime of super nice and free heat, hence the celebration.
The Alpiner is a really nice stove, it has a lot of mass. Chimney draft seems to be perfect, we didn’t have to warm it up and the smoke went right where it was supposed to.
Caving
I spent a week end head inside a wood stove I’m restoring.
It needed to be re-bricked, but un-bricking it was an excruciating pain as most of the bricks had been cemented onto the stove surface. In fact it simply wasn’t possible by hand so I acquired an incredible new tool I didn’t know existed before: a rotary hammer. It’s meant to drill holes in concrete and other hard materials. However, it can be set to just hammer (not turn) and you can give it a chisel bit; thus turning it into a tiny jack-hammer. I’m a fan.
Tiny Jack-Hammer! Takatakatak!
Ice on the stairs? Tiny Jack-Hammer!
Definitely a fan…
Almost done
Squeaky clean
It’s going to be very nice when it’s refinished. I’m lucky enough to have spent time in Alps, which is where some of my ancestors are from. This stove is a nice reminder; not that I give much meaning to one’s ancestry. The Alps though, sometimes they call me, but I’m not leaving the Appalachians.
I figured out what it is about snow
Every year you can tell me what snow does, how deep it gets, and what it looks like. I know, I’ve seen it before. Yet every year, my jaw drops in disbelief when it hits.
