Lots of people are linking to the latest “wacky Japan” story, about a man who died smothered under his six-ton hoard of dirty magazines. The Daily Mail version doesn’t give any source, but an image search made it possible to trace it back to the Japanese tabloid Nikkan Spa.

So, take this cautionary tale with a grain of salt, or at least a box of tissues.

My preferred form of coffee is best described as “liquid pie”. That is, a sweet hot creamy beverage with a mild coffee flavor. Gevalia’s Mocha Latte k-cup with “froth packets” is perfect for this, once I’ve added two Mini-Moos and two or three Splendas. When I stir it all together before hitting the go-button on the Keurig, it looks and smells exactly like cupcake batter.

Suddenly, Safeway stopped carrying this. Coincidentally, Starbucks (which has a mini-store in every Safeway around here), has recently released their own direct competitor.

Since it was there and the Gevalia wasn’t, I tried it. Despite having twice as much sugar and twice as many calories, it wasn’t sweet, or creamy. In fact, it tasted exactly like cheap, gritty dark chocolate powder mixed with burned coffee. Which it is.

“​…it’s just someone else’s computer.”

In case you were wondering where my site’s been all morning, Amazon S3 flaked out all over the US, and I host all the images and a few key bits of Javascript there.

I’ve moved the Javascript temporarily, so at least the page loads, but pictures won’t show up until S3 is back online.

[Update: it’s back for read access, so my pictures are online again, but apparently they’re still working on the write functionality, which must be painful for the many services that rely on S3. I don’t need writes unless I’m uploading new pictures, so I’m good. Amusingly, one key item that was broken all morning was Amazon’s service status page. Because it’s hosted on S3. Someone had to make some manual edits just to provide basic info about the problem.]

Between crude sketches, OpenSCAD, and playing with scrap wood, I think I’ve nailed down (so to speak…) the way I’m going to connect my parametric Takadai together.

1. Instead of connecting the inner and outer arms (gedan/jōdan) with a small arm attached to the legs at one point, I'm using wedges cut from a 1x6. This is actually the "traditional" method in Japan.
2. To stabilize it front-to-back, I used 1x6 stretchers a few inches above the ground. I can't put them at the top like table aprons, because the bobbins would constantly bang into them.
3. To stabilize it side to side, I replaced the rear crossbar with a 1x6, which means the rear "wedges" are part of a solid board attached to both legs.
4. That makes the biggest, most visible change possible: the torii and makitori-bō are now firmly attached to the frame by 1x6s. They can stand up to any amount of weighted bobbins, and the finished braid collects in an easy-to-reach location.
5. Even better, that provides a perfect spot for the ratchet and pawl, replacing the chopstick brake on the makitori-bō.
6. That rear 1x6 also made it possible to lower the hyojun-bō so that it doesn't sit on top of the gedan like an afterthought, and completely eliminate the sword pads. With a 1x6 back there, I can just cut out pads on each side and round them off.

Next up, building a tabletop version with 5/8-inch square dowels and 0.5x3-inch hobby boards. To keep it compact, it will only support 4 small koma on each arm; that’s enough for quite a few types of braid.

For simplicity, the tabletop Chibidai will be held together by wood screws, but for the full-sized unit I’ve got a bag of cross dowels from McMaster-Carr. I’ll use the Nomad to CNC-carve my comb-style koma and the ratchet.

[Update: I made the OpenSCAD script dump the cut list; obviously I’ll be rounding off a bit…]

8x hardwood balusters, 1.25x1.25:

4x legs, 26 inches
2x gedan, 27.8523 inches, mizo starts at 7.70228 inches
2x jodan, 32.0706 inches, mizo starts at 9.67062 inches

7x hardwood boards, 0.75x5.5:

1x back board with wedge cuts, 34.75 inches
2x stretchers, 25.3523 inches (gedan - 2x baluster)
2x torii/makitori supports, 11.5 inches
2x front wedges, 7 inches

2x 1-inch dowels, 8 inches

1x 0.5-inch dowel, 22 inches

22x koma, 3.5 inches

1x gravity ratchet with pawl

I thought “amazon” would be a good keyword to try, but it’s 70% Wonder Woman, 20% One Piece, 4% Dragon’s Crown, and 80% porn. So it’s time for another trip through the leftovers folder.

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California drought map, one year ago:

This week:

(via)

W. T. F? And I do mean F.

I want to stress that this recommendation is not based on any previous purchases made by or for me. I didn’t even know Amazon US sold those.

(NSFW screenshot after the jump)

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When you start thinking that 60-grit sandpaper isn’t coarse enough, maybe that hand plane wasn’t such a bargain after all.

Seriously, I can understand not factory-polishing the sole until it’s mirror-bright, but when you don’t even machine it to be vaguely flat near the mouth, I think you’ve cut costs just a bit too much.

[Update: after more than half an hour (plus cooling time) on the belt sander with an 80-grit belt, it’s almost completely flat. Unfortunately, the last of the deep factory-supplied scratches are just in front of the mouth, so it needs a little more work. So, yeah, cheap planes are no bargain; the Chinese manufacturer put a brushed finish on the sole to hide their poor machining.

Also, while I’m on the subject, Spyderco’s ceramic bench stones aren’t even close to flat. I bought them a long time ago and was never really satisfied with the results, but I’d just assumed that they shipped in decent condition. Nope; I pulled them out while I was working on the plane, checked for daylight with my engineer’s square, and started lapping them on a DMT Extra-Coarse diamond stone. It takes a lot of work to clean them up.]