Category: nerd stuff

o2 DSL Router Premium disassembly/yellowing surprise (WHL #80)

I don’t often visit family, but when I do, my car is usually filled to the roof with old tech crap when I come back…and so is the apartment over the next couple of weeks, until everything is checked, repaired (if needed/viable) and subsequently stored, gifted, sold or binned.

Well, there’s this old o2 router (different labelling, I know…) back from the era where

a) internet providers were able to force you using their crappy loaner hardware (I did hack a similar unit back in the days, te-he-he),
b) those devices sometimes contained a WiFi module that was disabled by default but could be unlocked for a couple bucks per month (I never got why people do this over 24+ months instead of just buying a standalone AP), and
c) not sending back those miracles of NATted IPv4 tech at the end of your contract could easily cost you north of 100€, a ridiculous money-making scheme that was only stopped years later by court decisions that got delayed and appealed forever. […]


L40 Mixed Color Cube Various size For Home Or Office Toy Science Learning Cube Easter Prism Desktop Toy Home Ornament (WHL #76)

Electronics-free interlude for today.

That shameless advertising video from Vsauce

kickstarted my interest in those color-mixing (well, subtracting) “CMY” cubes.

A quick check of their website reveals their equally shameless pricing of 20/30/70 USD for 30/50/95mm cubes, ten bucks on top for international shipping, and, outside of their control, the local government slaps on another shameless 19% of VAT. Well, that’s 36, 48 or 95 USD=EUR for a novelty gadget. 1.32/0.38/0.11 € per cubic centimeter, to be precise. OK, cool but a bit steep. […]


3.5″ Floppy disk drive benchmarking (WHL #57)

Yeah, you read that right. Time for some serious benchmarking of good old floppy drives. The type of benchmark that the interwebs have been waiting for.

In case you’re questioning my mental health right now: Nope, not affected by COVID-19 or the “quarantine” (that only keeps me from delivering a 2U server and causes people to act strange in the supermarkets). I’ve gone mad quite a long time ago. Probably a glitch during assembly.

Now, I got four bad boys here, revving their, umm, stepper drives?
Alps Electric DF354H(121G), 33wk 2007 – full size 3.5″ drive (5V 1000mA)
IBM FRU 06P5223 ASM 08K9835, Feb 2004, USB drive (5V 500mA)
Sony MPF820, Dec 2005, Slim drive (5V 750mA)
Teac FD-05HF, May (?) […]


Chart of Electromagnetic Radiations – vectorized (#P5F1)

News from the insane vectorizing bloke – the next part of the HUGE poster (see #P5 if you have no clue what I’m talking about) is sort-of ready. It’s the block on the lower left corner, describing reflection, refraction, diffraction, interference, polarization and Doppler’s principle.

Demo PNG is below (click for 8.2 MP rendering), SVG download link at the end of the page.

Lessons learned:

  • I’m at 21% of the image area now (wohoo!), but that was probably the easiest 21%. Yet, with the steep learning curve, it’ll stay at roughly 1-2 hours of clickedidoo per percent of area.
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Chart of Electromagnetic Radiations – vectorized (#P5)

Hey – I never met you and this is crazy…but here’s my first piece, so help me maybe? (umm, I had to look this up, for sure)

When watching good ol’ Dave’s mailbags, number 940 to be precise (starting at the 9 minute mark), I was instantly hooked when he showed the gorgeous physics poster. Being a qualified physics nerd myself and obviously having too much free time, I had the idea of…vectorizing it. For the greater good, in that case, nerdgasms in posters beyond A0 size. (is there a format beyond ANSI F for you weird yankee letter format guys?) […]