You are currently viewing all posts tagged with micro.

The pandemic has demonstrated the value in stocking a wide supply of spare bike parts.

The effect is evident when looking at the Amazon price history graphs provided by CamelCamelCamel. For example, take the six-month price history of my preferred chain:

Or the six-month price history of my favorite tires:

Fortunately, I have a long-held policy of stocking spares.

I've started mounting my bike lights via shock cord.

The previously mentioned Orfos Pro LED flares ship with Velcro One-Wrap for mounting. This works well enough, but lately I’ve decided I prefer using shock cord and cord locks. The cordlocks add a little weight to the system, but this setup mounts to all the things I want to mount the lights to, and makes it very easy to tighten. After tightening the lights don’t move around at all, where with the Velcro they would move a little on a bumpy road. This system is also quick to attach and detach, which I appreciate when parking, and can be more easily manipulated when wearing full-fingered gloves.

Orfos Pro Shock Cord Mount

  • Orfos Pro Shock Cord Mount
  • Orfos Pro Shock Cord Mount

I published my script for creating optical backups.

Optician archives a directory, optionally encrypts it, records the integrity of all the things, and burns it to disc. I created it last year after writing about the steps I took to create optical backups of financial archives. Since then I’ve used it to create my monthly password database backups, yearly e-book library backups, and this year’s annual financial backup.

It's been a while since I've regularly run with a weighted rucksack.

In the past two weeks I’ve been getting back into the practice. To setup the bag, I remove the Control Panel 1 and Transport Sleeve that I normally EDC in my FAST Pack Litespeed and replace them with an internally mounted Transporter Tail. This is used to secure a 30 lb Hyperwear Steelbell. On the outside of the bag the only change I make from my normal setup is the addition of a prototype FAST Stability Belt. With the bag weighted down I lash on my sandals, fire up my antisocial activity tracker, and it’s almost like it’s 2011 again.

Rucksack Run Equipment

Baking soda has approximately 37,000 uses around the home.

I use it to occasionally supplement my all-purpose cleaner when washing dishes, use it to clean produce, and sometimes dump some in with my laundry.

I store baking soda by the kitchen sink in a Progressive Prepworks Mini Prokeeper. This had a good, tight seal that keeps the baking soda fresh and dry, and has a little dusting insert for easy shaking. The 1.5 cup capacity is meant to hold the contents of a standard sized cardboard box of baking soda, but I don’t buy those.

For the past three years I have purchased 13.5 pound resealable bags of baking soda. I bought my first bag in January 2018 and found it lasted me exactly one year. I have purchased another bag each subsequent January. The bags are cheap (I pay an average of $8) and keep the bulk baking soda fresh and dry for the year. I fill the Prokeeper container from this, and otherwise keep the bag sealed.

Bleach has a shelf life of 6 to 12 months.

After one year the sodium hypochlorite will have broken down into salt and water, which will not be helpful in your battle against the Black Death. According to the University of Nebraska’s guidelines on chemical disinfectants for biohazardous materials, “bleach loses 20-50% of its sodium hypochlorite concentration after 6 months”.

Bottles of Clorox bleach are stamped with a date code which when properly decoded will indicate the date of manufacture. The first 7 characters in the label on one of my bottles are A819275, indicating that it was manufactured in plant A8 on the 275th day of 2019, or October 2nd. The previously mentioned dateutils proves its usefulness here.

$ datediff 2019-275 now
169
$ datediff 2019-275 now -f "%m months, %d days"
5 months, 17 days

A simple shell function may be used to decode the date.

jul () {
    date -d "$1-01-01 +$2 days -1 day" "+%Y-%m-%d";
}

$ jul 2019 275
2019-10-02

I've been training to be socially distant my whole life.

This may be my moment.

COVID-19 Occupied Union Square, San Francisco

And now for a reminder from Dr. Rollins on the dangers of Nerve Attenuation Syndrome.

Persons with a history of repeated instafacetweeting may be predisposed to the Black Shakes. Consult your doctor today.