Tuesday so I'm at the Hackspace to be a present Trustee at Social Night. Not sure what I'm going to be doing today apart from that but faffing with the Hacky Racer may happen.
10.03.2026 13:34
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Tuesday so I'm at the Hackspace to be a present Trustee at Social Night. Not sure what I'm going to be doing today apart from that but faffing with the Hacky Racer may happen.
Tonight at 20:00 the first round of bookings for @emfcamp.bsky.social opens. I can't make it this year due to a clash but I think it's the sort of thing lots of people I know would like...
www.emfcamp.org/tickets
...there will be three rounds of tickets as it's very popular.
#MovieReview The Running Man (2025)
www.workshy.co.uk/2026/03/the-...
I soldered up the little latching switch circuit on a PCB then added a flying lead soldered to the 'power' switch on the BC-250 which can be used to request shutdown.
This makes for an ATX-like on/off button, all it lacks is hold to shutdown if it crashes.
youtube.com/shorts/Rq0Cp...
I'm launching "Terminal Tuesdays" 🖥️
🐁 A biweekly meetup where someone from the community showcases their terminal setup.
💯 Configs, TUIs, scripts, weird hacks
📡 Join our Discord: discord.com/invite/6EUER...
▶️ Going to be recorded & published: youtube.com/@terminalcol...
#terminal #collective
There are usually some seminars/talks but they're a minor aspect. If there were more of that I'd probably do it.
Could it become as much of a LARP "conference" as a kit fair, probably not given how venue costs work in the UK nowadays but it's a shame there isn't something like that.
Neither of which are of interest to me and if I want LARP kit I'll usually be looking at military surplus, workwear or just "odd clothing".
In previous years it's been nice to see a few people I've met at various LARPs there but that's not the enough to make me want to do the long-ass journey.
A bit sad not to be at LARPCon this weekend but once @uklta.bsky.social didn't get a promoter table I kind of lost my reason to go.
It's pleasant enough but the traders all naturally skew towards servicing the enormous fantasy LARP kit market and the adjacent "fantasy TTRPG/goth tchotchke" market.
I’m looking for speakers for a London event on the science of Star Trek. I’d really appreciate suggestions from underrepresented minorities in STEM, especially PoC/global majority.
(10 min, central London, Sept, currently unpaid but I’m trying to fix that)
Feel free to message
3... 2... 1... Go time!
We are now LIVE on Indiegogo! The campaign will be open until April 16th.
Go crew, go!
This launches today. The best LARP I've ever attended and they're crowdfunding to turn it into a permanent installation.
So it's marginally hotter with the thing boxed in. After at least an hour of Furmark to soak...
No box
Fan 80%
CPU 70C
GPU 70C
VRM 45C
Boxed in
Fan 85%
CPU 72C
GPU 72C
VRM 46C
...so I'm not worried about cooking it if I build the proper cover.
I think this is something loads of people suddenly hit unexpectedly when they want to make something practical that's spherical but also aesthetic. Just wandering along thinking about other bits of the project, assuming "I'll just space these things evenly over the sphere" and going oh no this sucks
The BC250 and PSU taped down to a piece of wood and with a case roughly added using a cut down cardboard box. The resulting thing is about the size of a small form factor PC. There's a gaping hole in the top for the fan to draw air in.
Cardboard engineering :-)
Now to heat soak this for an hour or so running Furmark and see if enclosing this causes the temperatures to increase a lot, but signs from the first few minutes suggest this will be just fine.
I can see ways to improve this idea, but have to commit and start building.
A bare BC250 and server PSU side by side held by 3D printed brackets.
I did some CAD and made 3D printed brackets to hold the BC250 and PSU tidily and have a 'backplate' for the eventual case. This is designed to be screwed down to a wooden base as I want to do this rather than the usual 'gamer style' 3D printed cases. I need to test cooling with a cardboard mockup.
It's a Tuesday so that means it's a Hackspace day for me. Tonight's the AGM so I'm expecting it to be very busy.
The spinny ring of the Android update process.
Perhaps even sadder is an Android TV so anemic the UI is like swimming through treacle. I've wiped it and am updating it. Old school stuff might get dated but will never get worse. An Android TV most likely will. It's otherwise a nice TV.
The featured page of the marketplace which just shows SHOUTcast and TuneIn which I expect not to work if I did bother.
There's something quite sad about an old "smart" home entertainment product when you go into the app installer and it's a ghost town.
This afternoon I soldered up a 6-pin PCIe connector to the server PSU I bought for a pittance. The leads are short as I would like it held snug to the BC-250 like in the video. The BC-250 doesn't have a standard ATX power switch setup so I've made a latching one connected to a header on the BC-250.
The BC-250 with the centre of the heatsink "peeled". This took a few hours to do.
A 3D printed fan mount sat on top of the BC-250 with a 140mm Noctua fan attached.
The same fan setup taped up with aluminium foil duct tape and the fan spinning.
A shot of the BC-250 running Bazzite with the Cooler Control window visible. You can see the CPU/GPU temperature floating along in the low 40s.
I spent most of yesterday afternoon "peeling" the BC-250 heatsink and 3D printing a fan mount. It's a minimum viable setup with the duct taped to the CPU but it's working nicely. Now I feel OK to play some games and tweak the software. Next job is PSU wiring and a case. I still fancy a wooden case.
The heatsink with some of the fins in the middle section 'peeled' so a fan can blow down into it.
I can't avoid it any longer it's time to "peel" the heatsink which is a job everyone who does this to a BC-250 hates. This is necessary for conventional downwards airflow instead of the high pressure front to back airflow you get in the server rack.
A circular piece of glass art showing tall blades of grass with a stylised dragonfly and butterflies above. Nestled in the grass is a ladybird.
A circular piece of glass art showing a tall daisy-like flower with tiny bees buzzing around it.
Member Sunel has been busy creating this beautiful fused glass art at the Hackspace.
The glass pieces were cut on our Wazer waterjet into intricate shapes that would be incredibly difficult by hand. They were then arranged and kiln fused to create these vibrant designs full of colour and light.
The bare BC-250 sat on its shipping box and spaghetti wired to a flex ATX PSU, keyboard, mouse and monitor.
I thought my BC-250 was dead but I'd messed up the wiring to the server PSU. How exactly I managed that without killing it I'm not sure but after flashing the BIOS to the modded version I've installed Bazzite.
It's Tuesday so I'm at the Hackspace. I've got my perhaps-DOA BC-250 with me to look at but having arrived late due to horrendous traffic I'm not sure what else I'll get done.
Oh yeah, much as I've loved the thing I immediately went out of the moment because it wasn't expected at all. Not in a good way.
I watched "Edge of Tomorrow" again with friends on Saturday night while eating pizza and talking nonsense.
It's simply top tier action entertainment with attention to the little details that make it stand out in a very crowded field.
It's got all the time loop staples but never feels tired.
Last chance to play UKLTA #LARP for just £50 this year, early bird pricing finishes tomorrow.
This weekend, as part of the UKLTA committee I'll be doing a bunch of presenting at TagCon 2026. At 35 years old it's one of the older #LARP conferences in existence although in its early years the hobby was closer to team Airsoft in play style and has drifted over time to become what it is now.
I printed it and stuck self-adhesive copper tape to it. There's copper tape with conductive adhesive so you can add multiple overlapping pieces and it counts as one conductive surface. Then I used the second part of the mold to shape the copper, so that it sticks inside the recessed traces. Then I used sandpaper to file away at the raised ridges. The copper traces are now electrically independent of each other. Done! But if I want, I can remove the extra copper tape.
The companion mold at the bottom. This second 3D-printed part pushes the copper tape down into the recessed trace channels so it conforms to the shape. The two parts sandwich together with alignment spikes to keep everything registered.
screenshot of QZW Labs' raised pcb idea! here is their youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLliKgzKKUI&t=592s
Adobe Illustrator on top (you can use any free tool that makes SVG vector files. I just own an old illustrator version. Bottom: the PCB Forge tool I made
I made a tool that turns PCB designs into 3D-printable molds. you sandwich copper tape between the parts, sand the ridges, and you have a real working PCB. no etching, no chemicals. I am losing my mind
castpixel.itch.io/pcb-forge
