Here’s an HDD synth project for that very thing I saw the other day! Though probably won’t work for your use case, admittedly. It’s intended for retro systems and goes in an ISA slot, and isn’t available for sale yet anyway.
YouTube video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sASOfpzPjxg
Project page: https://www.strifestreams.com/hddsynth
I have a PC that I use as a router. It’s power setup is inverter > lifepo4 battery > battery charger. Relevance here is that it’s a “dumb” setup insofar as the PC can’t manage the battery.
What I did to help with battery health is figured out how long the battery should run the PC and have a scheduled disconnect of the mains power for about half that time once a day. Not as good a solution as something that can maintain a ~80% charge, but better than leaving it at 100%
It’d work for an old laptop too, and can be accomplished with a cheap aquarium light timer.
I got a chuckle out of “swap boil”
I know some folks in the SCA. Which I had no idea stood for “Society of Creative Anachronism” until just now. It’s a bit too much for me, but I’m glad they exist.
TIL the UK has publicly available hygiene ratings. I like that.
There’s one in my neck of the woods too. And I’ve gone before. Been a while though, didn’t even occur to me as an option. Thanks for reminding me!
Are there any you’ve gone to in the Midwest that you thought were particularly exceptional?
Thanks for all the recommends!
California Extreme looks cool! I live not too far from a retro barcade and it scratches this itch a little. I bet I’d enjoy this. I’ll keep an eye on it.
I do like board games and tabletop RPG’s. Not sure if I do enough to travel out to one of those but it made me think there are probably some in my neck of the woods I could check out, and indeed there are. So, still helpful!
I think I would love DEF CON. But the price of admission is pretty steep. But that helped me remember a friend telling me about SAINTCON. Also a Cybersecurity convention, in Provo Utah. Not cheap, but about half the cost of DEF CON. Provo is most certainly not Vegas. But I don’t need it to be. I can go to Vegas pretty much anytime. Was just there this past weekend, in fact.
That does appeal to my interests! And I love Portland and have some friends that live there too. I’ll try to make that happen.
This looks awesome! Thanks for the recommend.
In fairness, before I speak to it. I haven’t been to any type of gaming con/expo, big or small. But I’ve seen pictures and some video of PAX and it gives me the same kind of vibes as comic con, which made me iffy on those types of events.
Your description piqued my interest so I checked them out. I want to go! A month is a bit too soon (just got back from a trip) but I set myself a calendar reminder to check it out next year.
Edit to add: The con is April 17 – 19 @ Crowne Plaza for any curious passersby.
I’m accustomed to the imperial system. But agree that metric is better.
Some metric stuff I have no trouble with. I have a good spatial sense of the distance of a mm, m, and km. And can do a rough miles to km (and vice versa) conversion in my head. I have a good sense of how much a kg is and similarly can do a rough conversion to and from lbs in my head. But while I understand that a gram is 1/1000 of a kg, if handed a small object and asked to guess how many grams it is, I’d fail miserably.
Celsius I can’t ever remember the conversion, but I’ve had enough exposure to it that I understand if it means cold/cool/warm/hot weather.