A blog about various interesting things
I updated the blog software as the previous one stopped working. I think I screwed something up, because now there’s funny letters all over the previous posts (Something to do with the coding? Now it’s utf8, no idea what it was previously.).
Here’s some pictures of the house. Hover over a picture to get title, click to get description.
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There is something sad that happened. Tanttu, our beautiful turtle died. That put off things a bit. We made a nice coffin of 100-year-old wood and a gravestone with copper plate on it. She was 20 years old. We noticed one day that she was breathing heavily. Only one week later it was over. She had liver fattening. We have begun to feed the others less and we’re trying to offer them more vegetables.
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Hello, it’s Liisa, the wife, blogging for the first time.
It’s been two months now living in our home. We even got a number for the house as it was just addressed as “previously the School”. And our own mailbox often storing a postcard or two thanks to my postcrossing hobby which I warmly recommend to anyone who likes sending and receiving postcards all over the wold! And the compost box I’m so proud of even though it’s uncertain whether it really works.
Feels like home although the renovation is ongoing. In any rented place you wouldn’t take it, but in your own place it’s okay to have pieces of plastic as doors, floor boards in place but not attached or going to the toilet or the camping-like shower almost by your front door. And everything is covered with the almighty renovation dust. But in our room we have everything we need: the turtles, or terrapins in their tank (and the upgraded filtering system!), our computers, the bed, the microwave oven and the heating stove which is working well.
Naturally it’s not all rainbow’s end. Waking up too early, hoping your clothes look civilized enough for work, biking in the dark (and I mean dark without streetlights half the way) on those sandy, snowy or icy roads fit for tractors rather than bikes, hoping the train is on time so you don’t have to freeze at the station. It’s now obvious to me that it’s not only the lack of public transportation which makes us country dwellers grab the wheel. But I’m still fighting not to grab it!
The kitchen stoves just don’t work properly sometimes and show a smokey temper completely unclear for us – luckily the one in our room works fine. Taking terrapins out for their daily walk means watching them closely as Leevi in particular sometimes finds her way through the plastic door and the pile of shoes covering the doorway and out of the room where it’s just too dangerous. Leevi is of course certain that Eldorado awaits behind the door.
Liisa is wrestling with Tanttu. Ralph wants to join in. On the backround there is an ultra-sound mouse repeller. We had to do something since there was a mouse running every morning, day and night on the ceiling paper making a lot of noise for such a small creature. You could see the paper move sometimes (we don’t have ceiling boards yet either)…
Things are a bit crowded at my present living place. I live at my parent’s, actually it is a small cabin next to my parent’s house. I work the days at the school. I’m determined to make it faster now. In the evenings I’m too tired to do anything – at least clean the place, writing the blog is ok. The turtles don’t mind it though. At least they don’t complain about it. They live in the bathroom. Sometimes they even seem to enjoy all the messyness. They’ve got all kinds of things they can climb on – they love climbing on things. Shoes, bags, logs, you name it.
But Tinttu really made it. My wife suddenly screamed: “What the….?! How did you get there?!” Look at that turtle:
Tinttu climbing
Turtles. They are at least 210 million years old (at least older fossiles have not been found yet). That’s almost half of the time there’s been animals on Earth, even simple kind. They are approximately as old as crocodiles and sharks and they haven’t changed much during that whole time. They existed before the dinosaurs. Actually they were the first dinosaurs. The apes that stood on their hind legs and evolved into modern humans some 100,000 years ago lived about 10 million years ago. 10 million years is only about 2% of the time there’s been fauna on Earth.
There are tortoises who never drink and can survive months in blazing hot deserts without eating. There are turtles whose blood doesn’t freeze until it reaches a few subzero degrees and still they survive if half of their bodily fluids freeze. There are tortoises who are the slowest creatures on the Earth, but there are also turtles who have the fastest reflexes on the planet – one species is recorded to have caught it’s prey in 1/100th of a second. There are turtles who scour the seven seas and log hundreds of thousands of kilometers during their lifetime. The oldest of tortoises – who knows. One individual in Calcutta’s zoo was said to have been 250 years old when it died. I heard the oldest tortoise of all times lived in a French military fort – don’t remember the age. It didn’t die in old age – but because of an accident. Poor old lad had poor eyes and fell into a trench breaking his neck. These are the most wonderful and amazing creatures on the planet. Now that we are experiencing a mass extinction of species thanks to humans, it is my belief that if the turtles are lost, everything is lost.
Tinttu may be the future of turtles – a mountain turtle. She’s got very, very sharp nails and she loves using them. I’ve experienced that quite often. One more look at the route she took climbing the Mount Clothes (as a red line):
Respect.
I’ve owned a tractor for about nine months now. It’s the little old grey Ferguson -54, whose exciting story of acquiring I’ve written about earlier. First I made a snowplow for it. It’s good for pushing and pulling snow since the plate can be turned around and to a few angles. Although when the snow is wet, tyres lose traction easily. I’ve been planning to get snow chains for the tyres.
 Snowplow
Snowplow can also be used to move around dirt, but it’s not really good for it, because usually dirt is so tight packet and it’s hard to get it where you want it in tight spot. I made a ground “scraper”/scoop which I’ve been using to scrape hard packet ground to piles:
 
 Scraper/scoop
This is a funny looking thing. Basically I just attached a scoop to an old potato planting tool. There are still three plows for making grooves and seats for the people who were throwing seed potatos – I didn’t bother to remove those. Besides if I ever get into potato business I can turn this tool back to potato planting tool by just unscrewing the scoop!
When you’ve got the piles of dirt, you need a scoop to lift it, move it where you want it and to drop it. This one I finished just yesterday – took three days and about 100€ to make:
 Back scoop
You can see the arm to release the load. It’s still a little bit too long – I keep hitting my head in it.
 A closer view
The scoop is hinged to a three point attachment thing (again a part of an old potato planting instrument – removed the plows from this one though 
) at the bottom and at the top there is a release mechanism.
 Release mechanism – light to use
I tested the scoop yesterday and yes, it’s better than snowplow for moving the dirt around. If you fill the whole scoop with dirt, the front wheels get up quite scaringly when driving forward. It’s got other tricks to use too but with a little practise and persuation the good will come.
One of my hobbies is stained glass. I heard somebody had said, when told about my hobby, that it’s not very masculine. He changed his mind when he was told that I had made a picture of a motorcycle with stained glass (actually that picture – it’s a window, in fact – is still unfinished).
I’ve noticed that in some cases you would need a third hand when soldering. Generally those situations are when you’re working on 3D objects and edges of plane objects. It would be nice to just hold the pieces of 3D objects in your hand and solder with the other one without having to make a styrofoam support or taping the pieces together first. And it would be great to just hold the picture you’ve made in your hand and solder the edges without building support to make the picture stay vertical and edge horizontal (solder is an easily flowing fluid and drips as little hot drops otherwise). But no, you’ve got a bar of solder in the other hand and a soldering iron in the other.
These problems in mind I made a soldering gun for stained glass. There are references of this kind of guns having been for sale but they’re out of market (I guess they couldn’t sell them enough?). There are guns for electronics but I suspect their solder wire is too thin for stained glass.
And here it is – after some planning, making it and making some refinements:
There’s the iron on the top and the solder wire goes through the thing to the tip of the iron. Frontmost clamp – attached to the trigger – moves the wire forward when trigger is pressed and the rearmost clamp stops the wire from moving backwards. On the side of the gun there’s a syringe which has a piece of cloth at it’s tip. It’s used to apply soldering fluid. You fill the syringe and use the cloth at the tip to spread it on copper foil (stained glass edges are coated with a special copper foil before applying solder).
 Spreading soldering fluid.
 Soldering.
By the way, I used a similar small flower, than the one I’m holding in my hand above, to make a birthday gift for my sister (it was the 40th). I put some white led lights inside and made the basis and leafs of rusty old iron sheet metal and the stem of an old greenish copper pipe. It’s a poor picture, sorry:
Nonpareil art again (this post is a little bit late). This time it has two colors:
My friend gave me a “nice” present. A small action hero figure. Later I noticed that there were chocolate easter eggs for sale which had those figures inside them. The bastard had eaten the chocolate and gave me the toy!
An electric drill can be used to make lifts on a construction site. My father made a lift which we used to haul roofing bricks on my parent’s house’s roof and I made a similar lift for the school which I’m renovating (see earlier posts). It had a ramp, at the top of which there was an electric drill with a long drill bit attached. A rope was tied around the drill bit and the other end was tied to a carriage. Bricks were put on the carriage and the drill pulled the carriage up on the roof. That instalment cost nothing and took half a day to make. It would have taken half a day to get a lift from a tool rental company also and it would have cost a lot, too. We pulled all the bricks on the roof in a few hours.
Recently I made scaffolding to work on the ceiling of the school. I made a detachable lift for it also. I can lift heavy boards to the roof level and so that I attach them to the ceiling without the help of a second person. Scaffolding has wheels at the other end to help moving it around (I made them of thick plywood). It’s small enough to be moved from a room to another through doors, but the lift has to be detached first (it’s attached with four screws to the scaffolding). The principle is pretty much the same as with the brick lift: drill pulls a rope. Here’s a picture:
Tietokone on kone, joka käsittelee tietojen mukaan luettelon ohjeita.
Ensimmäinen laitteita, jotka muistuttavat nykyaikaisia tietokoneita päivämäärän väli-20th century (noin 1940 – 1945), vaikka tietokone käsite ja erilaisten koneiden samanlaisia tietokoneita jo aiemmin. Varhaiset elektroniset tietokoneet olivat kooltaan suuri huone, kuluttavat niin paljon valtaa kuin useita satoja nykyaikaisen henkilökohtaisia tietokoneita. [1] Nykyaikaiset tietokoneet perustuvat tiny integroituja piirejä ja niitä miljoonia miljardeja kertoja enemmän pystyy samalla miehitysjoukkojen murto-osa tilaa. [2] Nykyään, yksinkertaisia tietokoneita voidaan tehdä tarpeeksi pieni sovi osaksi rannekello ja virtansa osoitteesta Kellon akku. Henkilökohtaiset tietokoneet, eri muodoissa, ovat kuvakkeita, Information Age, ja ne ovat mitä useimmat ihmiset ajattelevat, “tietokoneen”, mutta yleisin muoto tietokoneen käyttö tänään on upotettu tietokone. Sulautetut tietokoneet ovat pieniä, yksinkertaisia laitteita, joita käytetään muita laitteita – esimerkiksi, ne voivat olla löydetty koneiden vaihdellen hävittäjiin teollisuuden robotteja, digitaaliset kamerat, ja lasten lelut.
Kyky tallentaa ja suorita luettelot ohjeita kutsutaan ohjelmia tekee tietokoneita erittäin monipuolinen ja ne voidaan erottaa laskimia. The Church-Turing thesis on matemaattinen julkilausuma tämän monipuolisuuden: mikä tahansa tietokone, jossa on tietty vähimmäismäärä valmiudet, on periaate, joka kykenee hoitamaan samoja tehtäviä, että mikään muu tietokone voi suorittaa. Näin ollen tietokoneiden kanssa valmiudet ja monimutkaisuus vaihtelee jonkin Personal Digital Assistant-supertietokone ovat kaikki voitava suorittaa saman laskennallisen tehtävät annetaan riittävästi aikaa ja varastointikapasiteettia.
Vedin vielä tuon piruuttaan korsoraattorin läpi:
Ensimmäinen laitteita, jotka muistuttavat tiätsä nykyaikaisia tietokoneita päivämäärän väli-20th niinku century (noin 1940 – vittu 1945), vaikka totanoin tietokone vittu käsite tiätsä ja erilaisten koneiden samanlaisia tietokoneita niinku jo aiemmin. Varhaiset vittu elektroniset tietokoneet olivat kooltaan totanoin suuri huone, kuluttavat niin vittu paljon valtaa kuin useita tiätsä satoja nykyaikaisen henkilökohtaisia tietokoneita. niinku [1] Nykyaikaiset vittu tietokoneet perustuvat totanoin tiny vittu integroituja piirejä ja tiätsä niitä miljoonia miljardeja kertoja niinku enemmän pystyy vittu samal miehitysjoukkojen totanoin murto-osa vittu tilaa. [2] Nykyään, tiätsä yxinkertaisia tietokoneita voidaan tehdä tarpeex pieni sovi osax niinku rannekello vittu ja virtansa osoitteest Kellon totanoin akku. Henkilökohtaiset vittu tietokoneet, eri tiätsä muodoissa, ovat niinku kuvakkeita, Information vittu Age, ja ne ovat totanoin mitä useimmat vittu ihmiset tiätsä ajattelevat, “tietokoneenâ€, mutta niinku yleisin muoto vittu tietokoneen totanoin käyttö vittu tänään on tiätsä upotettu tietokone. Sulautetut tietokoneet niinku ovat pieniä, yxinkertaisia laitteita, vittu joita käytetään muita laitteita totanoin – esimerkixi, vittu ne voivat ol löydetty tiätsä koneiden vaihdellen hävittäjiin teollisuuden robotteja, digitaaliset niinku kamerat, ja lasten vittu lelut.
Kyky tallentaa totanoin ja suorita vittu luettelot ohjeita tiätsä kuzutaan ohjelmia tekee tietokoneita niinku erittäin monipuolinen vittu ja ne totanoin voidaan erottaa laskimia. The Church-Turing thesis vittu on tiätsä matemaattinen julkilausuma tämän niinku monipuolisuuden: mikä tahansa tietokone, jos on tietty vittu vähimmäismäärä valmiudet, totanoin on periaate, joka kykenee vittu hoitamaan samoja tehtäviä, tiätsä että niinku mikään muu vittu tietokone voi suorittaa. Näin totanoin ollen tietokoneiden vittu kans valmiudet ja tiätsä monimutkaisuus vaihtelee jonkin Personal niinku Digital Assistant-supertietokone ovat kaikki vittu voitava suorittaa totanoin saman laskennallisen vittu tehtävät annetaan tiätsä riittävästi aikaa ja varastointikapasiteettia.