The true story of how I spent 4 months trying to make a waffle is now up!

Making animations for my videos has gotten SO much better since I stopped trying to be extra professional by using the professional tools, and realized I could do all the design work in Inkscape (which I love) and just use Illustrator (which I despise) to convert it to a format After Effects (which I tolerate) will import.

@trevorflowers Hell, I'd just be happy if CAD packages could add draft reliably.

After re-imaging the Pi Zero about a dozen times, I finally have the HyperPixel Square display working! Next I have to get the alternate I2C interface working, alternate because this display is sitting on the normal one. (Or find some other way of letting it read the state of the 11 buttons and 6 punch card bits, I don't actually care how.)

The second and final dial of the day, this one in the far less toxic (to the best of my knowledge) Webster Park in Ballard. A nice little bronze equatorial that really makes its alignment with the Earth's axis explicit. This makes about 12 km for the day, and I won't deny I'm feeling it a bit in my right hip. Time to head home and work on the script for the custom waffle plate video.

More sundial trekking today, first to the top of the prettiest not-quite-a-Superfund site around, Gas Work Park. This is a fun, if visually cluttered analemmatic sundial, where you serve as the gnomon as long as you stand in the right place (Most people weren't, as far as I could see, probably because it's so visually cluttered.) It also serves as a canonically great place to fly a kite and get a great view of downtown.

Image descs aren't working on my app atm, so:

A complicated art installation set into a large concrete pad at the top of a grassy hill, made of textured/colored concrete and cast bronze inserts.

Fish's shadow pointing just shy of the 2 (PST) marker, taken at 3:11 (PDT).

A gorgeous view of downtown Seattle across Lake Union on a cloudless day. Boats are out on the lake, people are picnicking on the side of the grassy hill stretching down to the water, and the Space Needle is visible to the right.

It's official, I'll be one of the speakers at Ignite Seattle #48 on May 22. I've done a couple ignite-style talks with the Long Now, but this will be my first actual Ignite talk! 5 minutes total, with a slide advancing automatically every 15 seconds. Tickets are available now, if you want to see me condense the entire Ten Hundred keyboard project into 300 seconds of terror:

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/igniteseattle/1595549/r/mc-speakers

Well, that took longer than I was hoping, and a lot more tilting of the plate back and forth because waffles are not precision-leveled surfaces. But it was, actually, pretty meditative!

omg omg omg

Still tearing in half, but MUCH better. I'll let it go a minute longer next.

Got the waffle iron "repaired", in that the blown thermal fuse has been bypassed and it heats up again. (Don't do this at home, kids!) Also got the plates cleaned up, and I cut the missing 2 mm recess on each one to allow for the connecting bits of waffle. The lathe has never smelled so good!

I'll just need to re-season the raw cast iron on the plates, and we'll be ready for another test run.

Waffle iron disassembly pareidolia

We needed a steel plate to attach some mag bases to for a big demo coming up at work, so I volunteered to make one. 1/2" / 12mm plate was probably a bit overkill, but I had some on hand, so a couple hours of plasma cutting and milling and rubber feet attaching later...

In other news, I think I'm going to be able to make a delightfully silly cyberdeck thing with this old kid's toy. The black square is a full 720x720 display that entirely fits within the "screen" recess, and still leave room for the punch cards to be inserted behind it. Originally those determined which of 64 different sequences the buttons had to be pushed in, to teach counting or words or whatever the card had printed on it. In mine, that will be what accesses different modes. Want to see the weather report? Insert the weather report card. I think it might actually be an interesting experiment in a more deliberate, intentional form of mobile computing.

Well, that didn't turn out great. I think the waffle iron cooked itself -- the lights went out and haven't turned back on even after cooling down. So it's not fully cooked, and I can't really evaluate if it will release properly. And I now realize I forgot to cut the inside of the plate surface down by a few mm on either side, to leave room for all the connecting bits of the waffle. I'll have to wait to see if the iron is truly dead before deciding how to proceed.

Back on the trail today, walking up to Capitol Hill from the U-Dist to find this little wall dial. It's notable for being the oldest extant dial in Seattle, and being on a mansion on the national historic places register, but the design itself is pretty mid.

Probably heading back to the shop after this one, though, as some rain is picking up.

I finally finished the milling of the retention slots on the second waffle plate, and bolted some very simple tabs on both so that the spring-loaded latches could hold them in place. I then did a smoke test, which did smoke a good amount since I hadn't properly cleaned the plates, but the waffle iron survived and did manage to get up to cooking temp after 11 minutes. The back of it was 130 C in places, which was a bit alarming, but I didn't see any discoloration after. It's a cheap iron and might just get that hot normally. I'm still not super happy with either plate, but I'm going to go ahead and try making waffles with them soon.

I had an errand in the area, so I was able to stop by the Montlake Library at solar noon, as marked when the orange disk lines up with the dots in the floor. (Ignore the shadow line in the disk itself.)

I've been working my way through all 5.5 hours of Napoleon (1927) the last few nights, and honestly the pacing wasn't bad until we got into the courtship with Josephine. Come on, invade Italy or something.

I milled the restraint slots and the batter gutter in the first plate, the one I tried to cut with a tapered end mill that didn't work very well. Good thing I did, too, as it turns out I need to reverse the order of the mill and lathe finishing operations to make mounting it on the rotary table a lot easier. And 3/8" is too wide for the batter gutter, I think. But it fits in the waffle iron, which is the important thing. All that is left is a small catch to be screwed on underneath, for the plate release latch on the iron to grab onto, and it would be usable.