Talk nerdy to me :D
Aperiodic tilings! Just a couple of years ago someone discovered a single tile (down from the set of ~20000 that was first used to prove that aperiodic tiling was even possible) that can completely cover an infinite plane without ever falling into a repeating pattern.
The use of “aperiodic” is somewhat loose here compared to what I would expect. Like… I can instantly see several places with the same pattern just on that small sample…
Aperiodic, in this sense, doesn’t mean that there aren’t any bits that repeat. In fact, if you pick any patch of tiles of any arbitrary size, that patch will be repeated infinitely many times. What it means to be aperiodic is that if you slide the whole tiling over so that one of the patches aligns with the repeated bit, there will still be something outside the patch that doesn’t align. Compare that with, say, a repeating grid of squares, where if you slide one square onto a different square then everything lines up, all the way to infinity; it’s impossible to tell that it’s been slid over.
Old mechanical things.
The Japanese have a myth called tsukomogami. It’s the idea that things get a soul after 100 years.
And while I don’t believe that’s technically true, per se. It’s fundamentally based on something that I adore, and that’s the fact that mechanical things all age individually and that it’s something that we’ve lost with modern technology.
My go to examples are always typewriters and vintage camera lenses.
Each typewriter will age differently. Different keys will become sticky, it’ll become misaligned in different places. They develop individual personalities as they get older. So much so that forensics can actually pinpoint when a specific typewriter typed a specific note.
In terms of camera lenses it’s much the same thing. Different lenses will wear differently depending on what aperture/focal length, etc… that the photographer uses most often. Mold and discolouration between the glass elements will eventually form a unique look to a specific lense.
It’s magical (to me) and something that I am sad that we are losing with modern consumer technology based on on “throw it away and get a new one”.
Sorry. Longer than I intended. But you asked for it.
I have a lens in that age range, and you are on to something.
Machine spirit 40k lore
I’m super into mechanical watches for the reasons mentioned. Quartz (battery operated), not so much. But I’ve got a growing collection of mechanical watches and they’re some of my favourite possessions. Not because they’re flashy and make me look rich or whatever but because of the mechanisms inside.
I’ve come to the conclusion that if you’re buying tools, you should go for the sets. Take a socket set, for example. Realistically, you’re probably using the ratchet, an extension, and three to four sockets the most. At some point the cheap ratchet breaks and you replace it with a high-quality one. You may also lose or break a few of the most commonly used sockets and replace them with high-quality ones. In ten years you’ll have a set with a high-quality wrench and a few high-quality sockets that you commonly use, plus the rest of the other sizes you’ll only touch once every few years.
Had you gone for the high-quality set right away, you would have paid even more - and now you’d have a 4mm made-in-Japan socket you spent 10 euros on that you’ll never use.
I guess I am a tool nerd as well. Currently live in a tiny studio and have no driveway. Have a tool box as tall as me plus a LOT of cordless tools.
My socket sets and wrench sets are old USA made Craftsman stuff I’ve had for over at least 30 years.
I still have a few of the old Craftsman USA screwdrivers. Most have disappeared.
I’ve stood by the philosophy of buying cheap tools and replacing what breaks with better quality.
The proliferation of 10000 different battery standards has made this a little more difficult recently, but it still works most of the time.
Pick one of the battery ecosystems and carry on. I bought a Ryobi starter set about 20 years ago when they were still using NiCad batteries. They switched to lithium ion batteries but kept the connector the same. I bought the new style batteries when my old batteries died. All the old tools work the same.
I believe Makita and DeWalt follow the same philosophy.
Harbor freight does not.
This is antithetical to the original proposition.
I bought a Ryobi sander with its battery and charger for $20 at a garage sale to do one small job, I have a bunch of Makita tools and batteries but it would be completely foolish to buy a new Makita sander for one job.
I have a greenworks battery system and love my electric lawn mower, but when the stupid edger finally broke, I didn’t buy the same stupid tool that takes a giant 4AH battery because I’m tied into the system, I bought a lightweight Makita edger that shares the battery with my drill driver.
When I need cheap battery tools for one job, I buy Ryobi. When I’m upgrading, it’s probably Makita.
When I needed to cut down a few damaged trees, I bought a wired chainsaw and a long extension cable.
If I just stuck to Makita because I have that battery system, I’d be sitting on thousands of dollars in Makita tools I’ll use once a year at most.
Do you follow me from the 9/11 post?
Mixology and movies are probably the top 2 for me. But unfortunately both of these things can be deceptive in conversation. So if I start talking to someone about either one, the enjoyment of the conversation will depend on how deep down the rabbit hole the other person is. But in those rare moments when they seem to be on the same page, I could talk for hours!!
Some things that have been exciting recently: I wandered into a Binny’s and saw a whole shelf full of Chartreuse which I have not seen in many years!!! On the movie side of things, I’m very excited for Yorgos Lanthimos latest upcoming film! The trailer looked great and he always makes highly interesting films!
Several things, but for a while it’s been stand pipes. They’re everywhere, and fun to find and point out on buildings. On vacations I like to get my picture by them and my kids laugh when I stop to check them out. Eventually I want to make a parody song about them.
As in plumbing vents or piezometers?
As in wet/dry systems to get water into builds for firefighting.
Western philosophy/existentialism and Scripture, but the former makes people feel insecure/bored and the latter is a sensitive topic. I’ll nerd out about Dune too, and whoever has read the series will understand my interest. 😅
libraries
Just came here to say that I love how engaged people are with their hobbies. Keep going!
I feel like I’ve found ✨️my people✨️
Weather! It’s just so interesting. I love clouds and adore thunderstorms (although unfortunately I live somewhere where they’re rare).
Watches bro!
Digital watches are fine & the battery operated ones are cool too, God speed to them, but I’m talking about the Analogue ones.
Specifically Automatic ones.
Fucking piece of assembled metal parts and it will go all tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick on its own from the moment you put it on your wrist.
It’ll continue to show you the proper time. Some will also tell you what day of the week it is or what’s the date. Heck, I’ve got one that tells me the day, date, month AND the moon phase!
On top of this, these nuggets are built such, that they will last longer than your poor ass on this planet, still blingy and going tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
You know those make Seikos and Citizen? Those mfs put bloody gps AND solar IN.A.FUCKING.WRIST.WATCH!
Why you ask?
So that when your dumb ass gives up on adjusting to the local time after you get off the plane in a different time zone, it will do it for you. That shit is too posh for your fumbly fingers to try to set the correct time, so it says, “Hold on, let me look at the sky real quick and I will set the day,date & time myself, you are too dazed and hungover. Please save your filthy fingers for your disgusting Doritos.”
You know the best part? They look more gorgeous than Kate Winslet’s porcelain titties embellished with a diamond neck piece.
It’ll cost less than your monthly groceries. Don’t miss out bro, get one.\Radio transmitting. Its a quite large rabbit hole. Right now i upload some data of ships i receive with a small setup and earn a test crypto currency.
But you can do loads and loads of things, rtl-sdr.com is a nice cheap start.
Oh and locally running AI models. (Via GPT4All) Insane how far we are.
Locally running AI models is interesting to me - do you have any recommended links or tutorials where to start?
(I looked into radio transmitting a couple month ago but it was way too overwhelming and I settled for a different hobby lol)
ollama is the usual one, they have install instructions on their GitHub i think, and a model repository, etc
You can run something on your cpu if you don’t care about speed, or on your gpu although you can’t run any more intelligent model without a decent amount of vram
For models to use, I recommend checking out the qwen distilled versions of deepseek r1
Like i said, look into GPT4All. At least for text gen. Open source and really simple. Download, install, choose a model (for mediocre laptops 4-8B ones are a good size) and chat.
For radios, there are some cheap beginner devices as starting point. Look for the rtl-sdr blog v4 usb dongle for about 40€. You can receive ~1-1700mHz with it, which are loads of interesting frequencies. You can buy a 30€ quansheng uv k5 or uv k6 (which is the same model somehow) with custom rom for a great handheld vhf/uhf radio. You can buy a 30€ SI4732 based ATS-Mini as “world receiver” also with custom roms like hjberndt’s.
You could invest some more and get a flipper zero for around 250€ which is a neat tamagochi like IT-Swiss-Army-Knife.
Or a portapack H4M (the new cliffort heath version for the best hackrf one clone) for about 200€. Its the “big brother” of the flipper zero with fascinating capabilities like scanning surrounding ships and planes.
Dont forget proper antennas which can escalate quickly.
Rucking, lifting, Wing Chun, Star Citizen, Stoicism (the og version). I try not to monologue too much on them but it takes restraint.
I feel like this would be an appropriate place to monologue a bit.
Characters. I love designing characters and doing a deep dive into who they are and why they’re designed the way they are. For example, I did one recently about a girl who is a mechanist in my Victorian modern world who works on robots and airship but likes to go to a dance club at night. She keeps her goggles from work since they’re seen as fashion in this world and wears a distinctive hair clip that was given as a gift to her from someone dear to her before the war. And, then there’s another guy I did that is basic rich kid egotistical. Looks like and ultra Chad and has the dance moves to show for it. Basically, he’s like the ultra Chad meme in this world.
Korean cooking, specifically their use of fermented and preserved food and how it relates to their climate of very hot summers and very cold winters and also their history as tributary state to Ming China and later under Japanese occupation.
Ice, ice, baby! I love fancy ice. Have gear to make crystal clear big ice for whiskey, and also a countertop ice maker for what the kids call “the good ice”.
It’s just such a cheap upgrade to any drink.
I recently got a clear big ice maker and read into directional freezing. It’s pretty cool (pun intended) and nice that little waste and if something doesn’t work, you can just try again right away.
