The Great Wave I have always been a fan of Hokusai's “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” and got reminded of it again when I saw it on “Great Art Explained”. With the “original” being a colorized wood print, produced in the thousands, I thought why not get a modern print for my self?… ▶

Podcasts Thanks to my Bluetooth Hearing Protection I can enjoy listening to podcasts while I muck around in my workshop. Time to share a list of my current subscriptions in no particular order. If you want, you can import them all at once into your podcatcher using this [OPML file].… ▶

Splashbacks! It's nearly two years since we have moved into our house and we finally came around to tick of another thing off our todo list. The one thing that was missing in the kitchen were splashbacks behind the counters. As a “temporary” solution we had a piece of plastic wrapped plywood leaning against the wall behind the stove. It was high time to finally fix this properly.… ▶

DIY Disk Sander (again) First I failed, then succeeded to build a disk sander and everything was good. For about a year. Then something failed catastrophically and the disk flew in a high arc through the workshop 😱. When disassembling the remains I found one of the M3 bolts that had secured the vacuum motor. It probably came lose from the vibrations and the spinning disk ran into it? I don't know. But I knew I needed a new sander.… ▶

Scroll Saw Adventures I'm slowly extending my set of tools in the workshop. One tool I always coveted for finer detail work was a scroll saw. The problem with scroll saws is that there is no real middle ground. There is basically one type of saw that everyone sells. The models are so similar you could believe they all come from the same factory in China… ▶

Syncmaster 2443BW Repair I own two 24“ 2443BW Samsung screens from 2009. They still use DVI instead of HDMI but otherwise they are perfectly fine monitors. That is until yesterday, when one of them suddenly turned off and refused to show any sign of life.… ▶

Noise Cancelling Headphones compared While the pandemic isn't over, it seems to have become somewhat manageable for now thanks to vaccines. And that means that occasional office commutes become more common again. And commutes need headphones. My old Philips Bluetooth headphones are dissolving, so I need a new pair. And why not go a little fancier and have Active Noise Cancelling (ANC), too?… ▶

Casa Hedgehog A while ago I took part in a study that observed wild animals in the city. We got a automatic camera for a couple of months and could see what animals are walking through our garden at night. I thought I had downloaded the best photos but I cannot find them anymore. I also don't really remember when that happened. Sometime in the blur of the pandemic… ▶

Humidity Control with Home Assistant Our basement tends to be humid. Too much humidity is bad. So regularly airing it is important. But when is the best time to open a window? Answering this question is surprisingly complicated. Generally speaking you want to exchange humid air inside with less humid air from outside. Now all you need to know is the humidity inside and outside - question answered. Right? Well… ▶

Home Assistant again Ever since we moved into the house, my old Home Assistant setup lay dormant. My old port forwardings in the router were missing, so it was unreachable, many of the set up devices did not exist anymore and it was in a really bad state overall.… ▶