Alan Dove’s Personal Blog
Recent Posts
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On last week’s TWiV, my pick at the end of the episode was the nifty fish elevator one can tour at the Holyoke Dam, just a short distance from my house. If you find yourself anywhere near western Massachusetts next Spring, it’s worth stopping by there for a visit. In the meantime, here are some…
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A couple of months ago, I saw the news about a group called the People’s Union organizing a one-week boycott of Amazon, and while I supported the intent, I was pessimistic about the approach. These kinds of easy, short-term actions against immense, entrenched interests never accomplish much. To make a difference, a whole lot of…
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Being both an environmentalist and a cheapskate, I like to keep the thermostat set a bit cool in the winter and warm in the summer. That’s great for reducing our household energy use, but it’s not so great when I want to bake bread in the winter; yeast prefers a temperature about ten degrees Fahrenheit…
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I finally implemented one of those email newsletters every other site seems to have these days. This is for the benefit of those who just can’t get into RSS readers, but still want to keep up with all the stuff I put online. You can go and subscribe to it here. Or not. The newsletter…
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As I said in the previous post, I’ve finally jumped down the 3D printing rabbit hole, and it’s turning out to be both useful and fun. It’s also a gateway drug to other nerdy projects. While tuning the settings, I got interested in figuring out how high I could crank the printer’s resolution. After some…
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It won’t surprise readers of this blog to learn that, to the extent that I have friends at all, they’re a nerdy bunch. As a result, I’ve become accustomed to hearing them talk about 3D printing. After years of waiting for the technology to mature, I’ve now bought myself one of these magical object-summoning boxes…
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For years, I’ve been hearing about Winlink, an amateur radio system for sending email over shortwave frequencies. It’s become a standard tool for ham radio emergency communications, as it enables a properly equipped station to connect an emergency shelter, command post, or staging area to email even if the internet is completely wiped out in…
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A couple of years ago, my daughter was looking for local volunteer opportunities when she hit on the idea of helping at our local animal shelter. We have a history with the place, having adopted a few cats there, and it sounded like a great idea. So great, in fact, that I suggested she and…
