captain_aggravated

So here's the state of things right now:

I've got a Synology NAS with stuff like my movie collection stored on it. I think at some point I'll move my music collection up there, too. It's an ARM powered 2-bay thing, I'm not particularly interested in using any of Synology's software, and there's some stuff that won't run on that box because it's ARM instead of x86. I don't really have a "server" box running.

A few years ago I bought a "commercial TV" aka one that doesn't have Roku or whatever. For awhile, I ran OSMC (basically Debian Kodi) on a Raspberry Pi, which...I had enough problems with that it's unlivable. I'd rather just not have a television than continue to use OSMC.

In the meantime, I built a new gaming PC for my desk, the old machine (which happens to be in a Fractal Node 202 case so it already looks like a TiVo) has been moved into the living room. It's a Ryzen 3600/GeForce GTX-1080 machine with a bit over a terabyte of SSD and 16GB of RAM. It's still kicking bubblegum and chewing ass. Yes, it idles at a greater power draw than the Pi pulls at full steam, but it'll spend most of its time asleep, we'll be okay.

I'm currently still using Mint Cinnamon on it. Which is a hilariously unusable home theater OS. Plus I have my desktop (a Ryzen 7700/Radeon 7900GRE machine running Fedora KDE) and my phone (A Galaxy S10e) that I sometimes watch media on. Some questions:

• Why does VLC error out when trying to play mp4s stored on my NAS? Is it because SMB is Microsoft fucksewage that doesn't actually work? Because that's my working hypothesis.

• I have so little information on what Plex/Jellyfin even are, I gather Plex is at least semi-commercial while Jellyfin is the open source but worse option. These may or may not have a server component that has to run on a server-like box, which I don't and won't have.

• On the client side, I don't know if they take the place of a DE the way Kodi does, or if it's a separate app, or if you'd have to exit Plex or Jellyfin to use something like Steam, or if Steam Big Picture mode would work as a media center, but can it get to Youtube...

Is there anything out there that works better than throwing my TV away and forgetting about it?

I finally caught a lunar eclipse. like five of them I missed due to weather, it's clear tonight.

Did a lot of things like emptying the bathroom trash can, got rid of some packaging that was holding nearly nothing, put some stuff in some drawers, folded one load of laundry and loaded another. The place is technically better in a way that isn't apparent.

So I've got a goofy issue tuning my ~~block~~ bench plane. It's one of the Pony Jorgensen #4 smoothing planes they're selling at Lowe's in the States. Works pretty well with one exception: Moving the frog forward to bring the iron closer to the mouth also advances the iron.

I can't get it anywhere near as closed as you're supposed to with a smoothing plane before I can't retract the iron sufficiently. The mating surface in the sole that the frog rests on is slightly angled downward, so the frog is lowered as it is moved forward. I can't realistically bring the iron any farther on the chip breaker than I've got it.

As I had it apart, I noticed the finish on the bottom of the frog, the surface that mates with the sole, was as cast, it isn't machined or lapped. Should it be?

I posted these end tables here awhile ago.

The carcasses turned out pretty well but I was never happy with the drawers. I implemented them as the world's worst piston fit drawers, they had like a quarter inch of slop so they were less drawers and more boxes that fit in a hole.

I had some time on my docket so I remade the drawers, converted them to side hung, fitted them better to the space provided, and lengthened them. I had just enough poplar to make an additional drawer back, so I implemented @[email protected] 's suggestion and added a secret compartment. I haven't made the stops yet so it will just pull right on out but I've made a piece of furniture with a secret compartment in it. Now I need something cool to put in it. Maybe a smallish bottle of scotch and a pair of glencairns?

Sometimes gravity pulls her wrong.

Probably several months ago I watched some woodworking video on Youtube, and the video was sponsored by this strange saw contraption that I'm having no luck googling. Maybe I dreamed it up and I've got something worth patenting, I don't know.

The most concise way I can explain it is, imagine if the table saw had been invented, but power tools and circular saws hadn't. Or, think of the journey you go on when making a circ saw into a table saw, and then go on that journey with a frame saw.

This is a stationary tool that holds a straight blade in tension, the blade doesn't move, the stock is secured to a guide which slides on rails, and can be positioned to make various different cuts.

I thought "huh, I'll look that up later to see if it's worth a damn" and now can't find it again. Might have dreamed it.

Bit of a marathon session today in the wood shop finishing a computer stand I'm building for my father. Did most of the construction of a drawer box. Had to do some tuning on my dovetail jig, it's not as definite as I'd like it to be, but the drawer box turned out okay.

Worked up some fatigue, my cat Izzy helped me take a nap on the couch. If you don't have an air purrifier, I highly recommend one.

Woke up hungry, made a stir fry. Still missing a tooth so a stir fry is a great way to get an actual hot nutritious meal in me. Thoroughly enjoyed it, too.

Resorption in a front tooth. Had it extracted and now there's a fancy titanium drywall anchor grafted into my skull. A few weeks of healing and then I'll have a false tooth bolted in.

I'm still getting into the swing of sharpening chisels and plane irons. Woodworking is a science, sharpening is an art, a dark and arcane one.

Running Fedora KDE, I've got two monitors side by side. If I move the mouse slowly from one to the other, it seems to catch on the edge between. It makes interacting with things near the edges of the monitor a pain in the ass, if I overshoot with a large gesture to move the mouse to that region and then some unseen force prevents me from precisely moving the mouse back.

I can't find anything in the settings menu that sounds like it would turn this off. How do I turn this off? It needs to be turned off. I intensely hate it.

Thinking of starting media creation, want to have an email address dedicated to that purpose. Don't want to go with Gmail as I'd like to phase Google out of my life, amd Protonmail seems incorrect for this because it largely wouldn't be encrypted mail.

Recommendations?