Ask Lemmy

My desktop that was powerful enough to do most things died a few months ago at the worst possible time; it came on the heels of emptying a lot of my savings on vets to find out that my girl had advanced bone cancer, and then even more on sending her over the rainbow bridge and getting her cremated.

So both as a way to save some money and a way to keep my mind off of her, I've been putting together a new computer using a few spare parts that I have had laying around. Truth is, my old computer, though old, had been upgraded up the wazoo through the years to the point where most of that stuff could just transfer over (750 watt powersupply, Nvidia 3060 12gb card, max amount of RAM that it could take, etc...)

All I really needed was a new mainboard and processor. As long as I bought a used one that used DDR4 instead of 5, I already had everything I needed.

The "Project" is adapting my second-to-last PC case to accept newer components. (upgrading the front USB ports, things like that) Because it's an OEM Acer case, I can't simply order in an upgraded swappable unit, so I'm having to get creative with soldering.

It'll probably fail and I'll have to buy a new case too, but oh well. It's fun to try. I have so many old computer parts laying around, let's see how Dr. Frankenstein I can go.

Just recently got an upgrade for my desktop computer by getting one from a pawnshop. Had to, a little begrudgingly, get a new monitor and HDMI cable since the TV I have been using as a monitor is too old for this new desktop.

Started getting things set up last night and still have a ways to go to make it feel good, like my laptop does.

I revived an old car that has sat in my mother's yard for several years. Didn't need much to get going, just a jumpstart and some fresh gas, but now I've got a set of wheels I don't have to care about. Might turn it into a Lemons racer.

After many years, I finally found decent LED lights to replace the incandescent bulbs on my two McIntosh amps (MC7108, MC7100).

Not a huge project, but it was something that I had been wanting to do for many years.

Here is a photo of my MC7108 with the new lights installed.

Did timing chains on my partner’s car. Getting ready to change out the bathroom fan and run some cat6.

Don't know if you'd call it a project but the wife and I have gotten probably 500lbs of metal out of the rivers near us. I'm keeping the wagon wheel. The pile in my truck was just the first trip to scrap.

I'm on the planning phases of an origami exhibition. At the moment I'm still selecting the figures, and more importantly practising them in order to have exhibition worthy folds.

Inspired by the !superbowl@lemmy.world community I want to showcase how owls are portrayed in origami. Some of the models are complex, so I expect it will take me quite some time to learn them.

As a part of university club, I am building autonomy for a rover than will go for championship.

I had a cracked phone screen (which made ~half the screen unusable) and after an absolute debacle trying to get it fixed at a phone repair place, I finally just ordered the parts and did it myself.

I was intimidated because I haven't messed with phone repairs before, but it came out great and works as it should.

Its not a major project but it was a weird stress and I feel much better having it fixed.

The project of cutting my dissertation down into a short book is almost done, and I’m hoping to start shopping it around to publishers soon.

I’ve also recently started laying out the bones for an open access textbook for one of my classes, which will be my summer project.

I've been preparing to run a TTRPG called Death in Space for my friends, and I have poured dozens of hours into map making for one of the bigger locations of the setting. It's called the Iron Ring, and it is a giant orbital structure built around a yellow moon called Inaro.

This screenshot of the map is approximately 150,000 square meters. I plan to have about 5 more locations this size.

I restored my families old cast iron dutch oven and tried to make brownies in it. Weeks of scrubbing and different chemical solutions before I finally got it stripped. Now 8 coatings deep of flax and its looking fantastic. Brownies did not come out so hot the first time though...

We're northern prairies Canadian for context, so my bigger projects are on hold until it's finally warm enough outside not to hate being alive out there. Basically starting tomorrow! Hopefully no more false starts to spring weather.

My father wanted to stop paying Americans for his media consumption, especially sports but has not much tech literacy. He's better off than most of his peers at age 68 but piracy isn't part of his knowledge base and my mother was against pirate devices in their house until...well, Trump 2.

So I built him a mini PC for his TV and taught him how to use/update Stremio on Debian and the necessary plugins/debrid service. He has to write down instructions but rarely does he get stuck and ask for help so long as the GUI of anything he's using doesn't suddenly change drastically on him. Having no blackout games and video on demand recordings of recent games without having to manually DVR if he misses one live has him ecstatic.

It's set up to use the Stremio beta Flatpak while browsing using web.stremio.com instead of actually using the app frontend because the built in players are utter crap. Now everything just opens in external mpv with an ideal .conf file we made.

I built an ebook reader out of an old heltek since I have an abundance of those recently. It was fun.

Been making loquat bread. Basically take any basic white/wheat bread recipe and replace any sugar with loquat. Its VERY good and tastes almost the same. At some point, my wife and I are planning on making loquat wine (and/or fruit juice?). We have two mature trees that produce enough that the whole neighborhood gets the fruit and we still have left overs!

I had time to work on another song! Originally, I started this song to use it in a bigger project that I'm working on but it slowly evolved into its own thing. So, technically it's not finished but it's finished enough

What do the soil boxes look like?