What did you do today?

[Baz]

And can't forget that 10% sales tax. Yuck..

Oh for a mere 10%. Called Value Added Tax in the UK at 20%. When you've already paid 40% income tax on the money you don't get much for each £100 you earn.

[Cenedd]

Oh for a mere 10%. Called Value Added Tax in the UK at 20%. When you've already paid 40% income tax on the money you don't get much for each £100 you earn.

It's ok Baz. Just console yourself with the thought of that marvelous state pension you'll get for all the NI you've paid in

[PStechPaul]

Sales tax here is just 6%. And in nearby Delaware it is 0% (partially due to Dupont). And income tax for most people is 15-30%. But many people pay (directly or indirectly) 20% of their income for health insurance, medicines, and co-pays. If you don't have a good job with excellent benefits, you may be wiped out to bankruptcy due to a health emergency. I am fortunate to have had (state subsidized) health insurance (I was self-employed) that covered my medical bills for cancer surgery in 2001, and hip replacement in 2013. By 2015 I was able to get Medicare, which covered subsequent surgeries. People in UK, Europe, and Canada may complain about their high tax rates (including fuel taxes), but they don't have to be concerned about medical and educational expenses, and they often enjoy better infrastructure such as good public transportation.

Today I started excavation for my shed, and I removed the broken handle from an old (but not antique) shovel:

[Arcane]

I made stew! 1.2 Imperial gallons of it.

[Stepside]

I built a section of retaining wall with 6"x6"x96" timbers. The wife made a big batch of Red Beans and Rice served with home made Corn Bread. The neighbors will stay "up-wind" if they come over to watch me work today. Today I will bore out some arbor holes in large circle saw blades.

[Glug]

I built a section of retaining wall with 6"x6"x96" timbers. The wife made a big batch of Red Beans and Rice served with home made Corn Bread. The neighbors will stay "up-wind" if they come over to watch me work today.

"Shiver me timbers!"

[Galaxie]

I sat down yesterday to figure out how I'm going to make the spindle and motor mount for the Brooks grinder. Next thing I know, 3 hours had gone by and I still didn't have it finished. Sheesh!

[danlb]

I installed an Ecobee smart thermostat. It was not too hard to install. Wires are wires. The main reason I bought it was the voice response. We live in a valley where it's cold in the mornings and hot in the afternoons. My wife often asks me to turn the thermostat up or down a degree. The thermostat has voice recognition built in so now she can tell the thermostat to do it.

I also installed a new HP inkjet printer. The old one (HP 6500 MFP from 2009) developed a bad printhead, and they are hard to get new ones. Two refurbished ones failed to work so we gave up and bought a new Officejet 2028 MFP (fax, copy, scan, print). It's not listed on the page for Windows 10 compatibility, and the wife's new laptop is W10 so it will be interesting to see how that works. It works great with my Linux systems.

The biggest challenge was to find the right SNMP OID to monitor it's health. I have a home brewed system monitor program that tells me when a printer, router, server or ISP is down and then display it on my web site. That quick status page is very handy for those times that I'm out of town and the wife asks me to tell her why something is not working. A small linux box checks all my systems every 5 minutes and logs problems, then creates a web page that I can glance at to see what's working. Hourly, another script scrapes the logs and sends an email to an offline site so that I can check for trends.

The printer colors are UGLY but it's in our computer room so no one will ever know I bought it.


The thermostat looks pretty nice and is intuitive to use.

And, of course the monitoring page of my web site. I blocked out some of the more informative names and addresses.

[RichR]

The printer colors are UGLY but it's in our computer room so no one will ever know I bought it.

No one except for all the wingnuts on this forum.

[Arcane]

I voted! First time ever I used the advance poll option. It was nice; no crowd.

[Jim Stewart]

Wasn't today, but last night. We had a fairly strong earthquake - I was sorta dozing and awakened fully when I felt two separate rolling waves.

It was just a 4.5, last I heard, but it was almost directly underneath us - the epicenter was about five miles south.

Didn't impress many in the Bay Area, it was weak in SF.

No damage reported as far as I heard, but it sure woke me up!

-js

[danlb]

Spent most of the day watching the news. We felt the Pleasant HIll quake last night, but it was fairly mild. We are near the Calaveras fault, and the quake was nearer to the Concord fault. To put it in plain words, It wasn't our fault.

And then there was a fuel tank at a tank farm not far from the quake last night caught fire and exploded. It's still burning and is threatening a third tank at the moment. Quakes all over the place.

Machining??? Sort of. I made a plastic shoulder to let me accurately place the cell phone on the featureless charging pad. The stupid phone will charge in 90% of the possible positions, and I seem to find the other 10% most of the time. Now I just set the phone against the 1/2 inch high piece of plastic and it's optimally aligned for a fast charge.

Dan

[mattthemuppet]

replaced the engine and diff (x2) oils in our car, fixed a small torch/ flashlight and swapped a li-ion battery in a battery powered fan we just bought. Went from 2Ah to 2.9Ah so it should run a fair bit longer.

[Cenedd]

Gave the (porta-)bandsaw some exercise. Beats hacksawing hands down! Not so good for the waistline though *shrug*
Chunks rough-cut for the carriage stop. Squaring etc when I have time next.
Also got the stock in for a mini-pallet to sit on the rotab. Gotta have multiple projects on the go or you might actually get something done! :O This one is an attempt to get a part to stay clamped down so I can finish off what I promised my wife quite some months back!

[MattiJ]

Sourdough bread has been in lot more demand than any shop activities so..


Bonus is that the projects dont take any space after couple of days..