Author: Adam Wolf

Small Guitar Hook

I bought a pretty nice three string guitar before the holidays this year. It’s made by a company called Loog. They were a Kickstarter, actually filled their orders, and are now a pretty cool business. (Also, folks, I am not affiliated with Loog beyond being a happy customer!)

I wanted to show my toddler, Henry, someone working hard to pick up a new skill (and I wanted to learn how to play the guitar!)

Henry fell in love with it, and we realized we needed to put the guitar out of his reach when we weren’t playing with it. The neck is pretty small, so I didn’t know if it would fit in traditional wall hooks.

I downloaded Fusion 360, spent a few hours learning and prototyping, and designed this small guitar hook. It works like a dream.

My main goal was to make a wall hook for my guitar that would keep all parts of the guitar from rubbing against the wall, while being strong enough for me to trust it. I didn’t want “explosive delamination” to send my guitar to the floor. I used a static load of 3 times the weight of my guitar hanging from the hook to test the strength, and it lasted more than a week without any visible deformation.

I took a few CAD classes in college, but all my 3D printing experience before this had been with OpenSCAD. This was my first project using Fusion 360. I wish it was open source, but it certainly got the job done.

The hook has been used daily for more than six months, with no visible signs of wear.

If you make one of these, please be cautious! Increase your infill, and do testing before you hang your wonderful guitar using this! The last thing I want to see is a person’s guitar in pieces because they downloaded my hook and it didn’t work for them.

I posted the files for the small guitar hook up at Thingiverse–go take a look!

Thinking hard, or hardly thinking?

Even Swaps

I first encountered the idea of “even swaps” a few years ago, in an operations research class I was taking for a graduate degree in systems engineering.

Even swaps is a systematic technique for thinking about complicated choices with multiple different tradeoffs.

Rather than write another summary of it, I’ll point to a pretty good write up (although it is a little wordy):

https://hbr.org/1998/03/even-swaps-a-rational-method-for-making-trade-offs

Thinking hard, or hardly thinking?

Weight Loss in 2015

This is what I looked like in February 2015.

This is what I looked like in February 2016.

I lost 45 pounds over the year. At first, the primary thing I did was to stop ordering french fries at restaurants. I noticed that I often switched from choosing a healthier option to a less healthy option because the less healthy option came with fries–so I just stopped ordering them altogether. Within a month or two, this wasn’t something I wanted to really overindulge in so I didn’t have to completely abstain.

My wife signed us up for a CSA, which was a *lot* of vegetables, so all summer, my meals were almost entirely vegetable based.

I replaced my work lunches with protein bars, which are basically candy bars with extra protein marketed to men who want to get swole, but they do a pretty good job of tasting good while being filling.

I increased my physical activity, but I definitely avoided anything that qualifies as “working out”. I did a lot of walking, and would walk to go pick up lunch with my work buddies (without getting anything, of course.)

It’s been nice–I saw some people who I hadn’t seen in years at Maker Faire MSP a few weeks ago, and one person didn’t even recognize me until I talked, and he said, “Wow! You lost like… half a person!”

So, where does that leave us now? I’m not 100% satisfied with where I am right now, but I’m definitely more in a maintenance mode than last year. I have a goal for where I want to be by the end of this year, and I’m working hard to make it!

Reading

“Loot” by Jude Watson

I really enjoy heist movies, and con movies, and it definitely leaks over into which types of books I like to read. Whenever I see a good heist for kids book, I put it on my list.

Last week, I finished Loot by Jude Watson. I know her work from the 39 Clues series. Loot is a pretty good kid’s con/heist book. It isn’t my favorite one–that honor currently goes to The Great Greene Heist, but it’s pretty good.

The plot revolves around a boy who travels the world with his jewelry thief father. It opens as the boy’s father plummets to his death, with the boy watching, during a heist gone wrong. He gives the boy a few cryptic sentences, and the story begins!

It isn’t as dark as this makes it sound, but it’s not super light either.

Reading

“The Steerswoman” by Rosemary Kirstein

Post author By Adam Wolf
Post date May 6, 2016
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“The Steerswoman” by Rosemary Kirstein is great. It’s the first book in an ongoing series that is great.

The series follows Rowan, a “steerwoman”, in a vaguely medieval setting. Steerswomen wander the world, making maps, collecting knowledge, and figuring things out, until they get too old to travel–at which point they go back to the Archives and help organize and train.

A Steerswoman must answer honestly any question asked of her. However, anyone who lies or refuses to answer a question that a Steerswoman asks is placed under the “Steerswoman ban”, which means no Steerswoman will ever answer your questions again.

The Steerswomen are well-liked, and everyone considers them helpful and good, except for the wizards. All the wizards are under the ban, because they refuse to discuss how their magic works.

At the beginning of this novel, Rowan decides to investigate these flat purple and silver jewels that have started to show up. Before long, the wizards are hunting her down. WHY?! WHY?! YOU’LL HAVE TO READ IT TO FIND OUT.

Thinking hard, or hardly thinking?

Budgeting with a buffer

I’ve realized that having a buffer in my availability is more and more important. By having extra time in your schedule, extra willpower, extra cash, whatever, you enable higher quality in the things you *do* choose to do.

What this implies, is that an activity that is only a possible or good choice if it fills the entirety of your availability, isn’t actually a possible choice!

Whoa.

Reading

“Shades of Grey” by Jasper Fforde

Post author By Adam Wolf
Post date April 8, 2016
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“Shades of Grey” by Jasper Fforde is legitimately the weirdest novel I have ever read. A few chapters in, I discussed what I had already read with my wife, and I said, “I think this might be from the point of view of board game tokens.” (It’s not.)

It’s pretty easy to get spoilery about this. The society is repressive, and something bad happened in the distant past, and sentence by sentence, page by page, you, as a reader, realize a little more about who they are and how their world works. This isn’t a happy book, but it certainly was fun.

Reading

“The Library at Mount Char” by Scott Hawkins

Post author By Adam Wolf
Post date March 25, 2016
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Wow.

I read quite a bit–about 100 novels a year, now that I have a toddler. I read “The Library at Mount Char” a few weeks ago, and I keep thinking about it. It’s engrossing, and dark, and pretty disturbing. It’s definitely not for kids.

The main character is the adopted daughter of … a God, basically? He’s probably the third God, and he’s been God for something like 60,000 years. He “adopted” a handful of children during the Carter administration (kinda), and has been training them in a particular school–like medicine, or languages, or war. Time is weird, but a little before the start of the book, he goes missing. His now adult children come together–a little–to find out what happened.

I weaselworded that quite a bit, as the book is pretty twisty and turny. I wouldn’t say it’s confusing, but it isn’t completely straightforward.

Anyway, 5/5, even if it is a little darker than I usually read.

Projects

Inexpensive Airtight Box for Storing Filament

Post author By Adam Wolf
Post date January 25, 2016
No Comments on Inexpensive Airtight Box for Storing Filament

Sterlite makes a plastic box that is pretty great for storing spools of 3D printer filament. There’s a gasket to make it air tight, which should help keep your filament fresh and dry longer.

I can store about four 1 kg spools, with some extra space.

I found mine at Target for $6.99 each!

Thinking hard, or hardly thinking?

Bags and Purses

I enjoy a good bag and a good purse. I have no qualms about being a man who wears a purse, and I’ll usually correct you if you use some silly word like “man bag”, “man purse”, or even worse, “murse.” I’m not Adam West.

I currently use the Tom Bihn Ristretto as a purse.

I’ve been using the Ristretto since 2012, and I still really like it, 4 years later.

I use the Tom Bihn Brain Bag when I need waaay more space, or am traveling.

I had tried a Tom Bihn Synapse 19, but it was just a smidgen too small for the work travel I was doing, where I needed two laptops and some equipment. The Brain Bag is big–really big–but it shrinks up better than you’d think if you don’t need it fully expanded.

The Synapse 25 wasn’t out when I bought my Brain Bag, but it’s probably the next bag I’ll try.

When I was in college, I had a Maxpedition Neatfreak and a Timbuk2 laptop backpack.

The Maxpedition Neatfreak was pretty durable, a good size (it’s bigger than it looks in this photo), and worked well, but I didn’t really like the look. It looks a little too military/prepper for me.

I’m not 100% sure which Timbuk2 laptop backpack I had, but it fit a 13″ laptop and a few thick EE textbooks just fine. It had a main pocket, and two side pockets. It lasted about five years before tearing apart.

(Photos taken from the respective product pages. Go buy the Tom Bihn ones. They’re awesome!)