Posted on by mwhybark

Tweet Digest for Monday, June 30, 2014 (GMT)

@LeavittAlone also pic.twitter.com/5Zc2tvtkxq – 12:00 AM GMT
@LeavittAlone and pic.twitter.com/pWQasMsMxh – 12:00 AM GMT
@LeavittAlone but also pic.twitter.com/mkv5d3IK9m – 12:01 AM GMT
@LeavittAlone there is a giant air filter in the fuselage so Howie could breath HEPA pure air while in the left seat – 12:02 AM GMT
Today we adopted a 7-year-old 75-pound Lab/German Sheperd mix. He’s very calm. Our itty bitty kitty is doubtful. Name TBD. – 12:05 AM GMT
@LeavittAlone yes yes. they have the construction hangar miniature set from the movie on display next to the plane, too. – 12:09 AM GMT
@deathmtn @esinclai on the way home pic.twitter.com/gSvj2chDHh – 02:52 AM GMT

Posted on by mwhybark

Tweet Digest for Saturday, June 28, 2014 (GMT)

A haf hour in Rise of Flight for the first time in ages. Did alright. Have to fiddle with the accessories, of course. – 07:03 AM GMT
@arthurwyatt we watched it a couplago and chased it with Vincent Price in “The Witchfinder General,” which, honestly, was pretty 70s harsh – 07:11 AM GMT
@arthurwyatt I pretty much straight up loved “A Field in England” – 07:14 AM GMT
Far out! A prank call by some shy children who were making funny pretend voices! Thanks kids! – 07:15 AM GMT
in hindsight those two fullsize mugs of turkish coffee at 1pm might have been a bad idea – 08:12 AM GMT
@theBees so clearly it was the sugar – 10:36 AM GMT

Posted on by mwhybark

Hobo Aeron

Last week, I scored a base-model Herman Miller Aeron chair on Craigslist for $20.

The base-model version lacks the side paddles and seat-base cabling that permit one to adjust aspects of the chair’s forward and backward tilt. It does have the side knob that is intended to adjust the resistance of the chair’s recline spring.

It is the largest size chair (“C”) and was sold cheaply by the seller because he was leaving the country, had been given the chair, and he thought that the chair was broken due to its apparent inability to recline.

On getting it home, the first thing I did, of course, was find information on disassembly and repair of Aerons. I also noted that the chair now did in fact recline. It reclined so eagerly, in fact, that I feared I had broken a spring. The tensioning knob also appeared to be stripped and therefore did not add any appreciable stiffness to the declinability of the chair.

Once I had disassembled the chair, I was able to glean some useful information.

First, while the tensioning knob’s gear is indeed partially stripped, the reason that the gear was skipping is that the knob drives a right angle gear up and down a center post and the knob had driven the gear to its’ full extent against a heavy-duty metal strap stop.

The inevitable conclusion is that over the chair’s life the recline-tension spring has simply relaxed to the point that the gear mechanism cannot increase the tension available. The chair itself has an original manufacture date of 1998. So I guess it is understandable that the spring has relaxed in its dotage.

After several days of searching it’s clear that while Herman Miller makes a subset of Aeron parts available for direct consumer sale and replacement, the main tensioning spring is not among them. Rather, the base itself is replaced and the base and replacement labor is only available via authorized Herman Miller dealers with a sticker price north of $300.

I did find a couple examples of the base unit on eBay with ship-inclusive prices at about $200.

The forward-and-reverse tile paddles and cables are also in the no-direct-sale category and have individual list prices of about $175.

eBay also has paddles and cables available and they vary widely in price, so while I am unlikely to spring for a $200 base-and-parts assembly I might well lay out up to ten or eleven American dollars for these cables and parts. Until then, however, I wanted to see how far I could get with chewing gum and baling wire.

I am happy to report that a single conventional wire hanger has now been repurposed to provide a strut-based replacement system for the cable-and-paddle mechanisms the chair was designed for. The control cables enter the base via twin access passthroughs to the rear of the base assembly and each cable-and-paddle drives a plastic rocker gear through a short arc of about an inch travel. Pinching the coat hanger wire over the attachment ears of the rocker gears gave complete freedom of movement to the gears actuated by simply sliding the wires forward and back. A bit of fiddling and experimenting with wire-bend detents and right-angle bends to make the wire struts accessible from a seated position and I am good to go.

It is a darn shame that Scott Chaffin did not make it to see the day.

Posted on by mwhybark

Tweet Digest for Wednesday, June 25, 2014 (GMT)

@DanEngler @KarinaLongworth same period, similar market. I don’t think there’s any full-on Storybook up here. It is way cool, though. – 02:20 AM GMT
@hell0jed your next step here is indubitably clear – 02:21 AM GMT
@LeavittAlone peeps be feared Tarantino pop a cap in they nethers – 02:42 AM GMT
@arthurwyatt wwjdd – 02:43 AM GMT
@manwhoyells @iasshole we ran ep 1 last week, approve – 02:43 AM GMT
un rongtudju moustique! – 02:59 AM GMT
@iasshole @manwhoyells we were amused by the apparent vancouveriness, although i did not verify shooting locale – 05:17 AM GMT
@LeavittAlone @arthurwyatt News Radio in Space – 05:27 AM GMT
newish thing: reading ebook + physical book simultaneously and interchangeably to degree possible. my impression is that physical is faster. – 06:25 AM GMT
switched to ebooks around 2000 with palm V & ereader. nite glo LCD & autoscroll, now THAT’s good rig. Pageflick is an irrittant. – 06:27 AM GMT
I guess reading on that rig is likely faster than either physical or contemporary device – no easy internet connection, so no distraction. – 06:29 AM GMT
hm, I wonder if there’s an autoscroll / LCD glow device available today – 06:30 AM GMT

Posted on by mwhybark

Tweet Digest for Tuesday, June 24, 2014 (GMT)

Ah, geez, Llewyn Davis is WAY better than any of the other 2013 noms I’ve seen so far. – 03:20 AM GMT
@telemetrist nope! Saturday, though. – 04:01 AM GMT
@arthurwyatt oh yeah? that’s nuts. – 04:02 AM GMT
@mathowie what’s the exchange rate to prius dollars? – 04:04 AM GMT
@arthurwyatt we’re pretty much moseying thru but it was transparently superior to American Hustle, have to see what else we’ve hit. Frozen. – 04:05 AM GMT
@arthurwyatt Gravity, and Her. Hm. Her was pretty good too. I mean so was Gravity but not for script etc. – 04:09 AM GMT
@arthurwyatt think we are working up to 12 Years, after most of the others, primarily due to its seriousness of purpose – 06:38 AM GMT
@LeavittAlone aw yiss, great way to start the day – 03:52 PM GMT
@HeadHeritage @theQuietus @JoeTheDough sweet – 05:46 PM GMT
“breathless blitzkrieg amphetamine deadline splurges of anonymous booze hacks knocking out … trash on their infinite monkey typewriters” – 05:48 PM GMT

Posted on by mwhybark

Tweet Digest for Sunday, June 22, 2014 (GMT)

@paulconstant yeesh! – 04:56 AM GMT
@paulconstant friended! for some reason iOS FB wouldn’t let me tag you in the comments. Should be findable nonetheless. – 05:01 AM GMT
Wow, I just now noticed it’s Kavalier & Clay, not Klay. Of course. Distracted by old video game character Klayman, I guess. – 05:07 AM GMT
RT: @brownpau: Had an awful dream that a new Trek movie was made called “Star Trek: Love 2.0” about how Captain Sulu fell in love and became Demora’s dad. – 04:17 PM GMT
Overnight dream: charged $500 for a single espresso at a restaurant. arguing with the business and staff about it for hours. Woke up angry. – 09:10 PM GMT
@DanEngler yum! – 09:16 PM GMT