Toots for PKL@mastodon.social account

Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-18 at 18:40

I just discovered that #IKEA has an archive of catalogs going back to 1951, which you can find at https://ikeamuseum.com/en/explore/ikea-catalogue/

It turns out I'm most comfortable in a living room from the mid 2000s, but it's also interesting to see how a lot of items in the 60s catalogs could be sold essentially unmodified today.

Finally, there's a page of kids in one of the 2000s catalogs playing Mario Kart on what is obviously (but not visibly) and N64, and that made my day.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-16 at 07:24

We're hard at work on #ploopy trackpad preorders. There's something about seeing a thousand logos all in one place that just speaks to me.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-15 at 06:01

I have here a caulk gun, and I want to meet the marketers who put "E-Z Thrust technology" and "HEX ROD" on the product label. They're either very awful or very cool, and I desperately want to know which it is.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-15 at 05:59

I use LightBurn just enough that I remember it exists, but not enough that I remember the name.

So every once in a while, I'm sitting at my computer, typing things like 'laser', 'cut' and 'f*ck me' into the start menu (booo hisss windoze) like a crazy person.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-13 at 23:44

TIL that Seoul is a city that is administered as a province. That is a cool thing that sounds very useful, and can we please have that in Toronto?

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-12 at 20:56

Just found out you can buy smoke detectors at surplus stores. Oh lawdy.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-07 at 04:34

Someone announced a smart smoke detector for CES and I'm immediately wondering what happens if there's a fire and you didn't pay your subscription fee that month.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-06 at 20:29

Reading a paper is kind of like going through all of the pain and suffering of doing the science yourself, except without actually doing any work.

Given the above, I feel like papers really should have more swear words in them.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-03 at 23:54

Sometimes, I like to look through the #ploopy order book and use Google Maps to "go" to some of the towns our customers are from. It's a surprisingly fun way to see and learn about new places, particularly internationally.

Also, I never thought about this until I ran a webstore, but it's weirdly normal to hand out one's home address when ordering things online.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2025-01-03 at 07:28

Does anyone know how Wikipedia's article of the day works?

Specifically, I'd like to know why I am particularly well acquainted with the ships of the Yugoslav Royal Navy. Why does that seem to come up so much?

Yes, I'm a dork. Yes, I read whatever they put in my inbox. No, I don't feel a need to stop.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-26 at 19:31

A shoutout to #gitlab! I've been running Gitlab CE at home since version 11. Every month, I update it, and over those 70ish updates, the only time sh*t went side ways was the time I tried to skip over an update.

Much impress.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-26 at 06:47

This Verge article has an interesting, if unexpected take: just ban TP-Link routers altogether.

There's a lot of angles to this, but in this case, I think there's actually a better solution: just make a rule that says routers must ship with open source firmware.

Do all the other companies while they're at it, too. I'm so tired of hearing about routers with security vulnerabilities.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/18/24324140/tp-link-us-investigation-ban-chinese-routers

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-24 at 02:59

I wrote a little about the recent #CanadaPost strike, and then it became a lot, and then it was a thread and now it's a blog post.

https://blog.ploopy.co/thoughts-on-the-canada-post-strike-155

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-21 at 21:49

You know sometimes you look at an old piece of tech and it has a bunch of easily understandable stuff on the interface and then there's one button where it's like, wth is this?

I feel like there's gonna be a generation of tech with copilot buttons on it and 20 years from now kids are gonna be all 'hey millenial what does this weird thing do?'

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-14 at 19:58

Hardware startup milestone #476: storing raw materials under your bed because there's nowhere else to put them.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-13 at 00:21

Okay, so. Sometimes, when I need a new piece of software, I am blessed with the choice between multiple #OSS options.

...I try them in descending order of the number of commits in the repo. That's like, not a crime, is it? Right?

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-13 at 00:09

Here's a good read about something that I spend a lot of time around: the humble cardboard box.

https://placesjournal.org/article/social-history-of-the-cardboard-box/

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-11 at 07:00

Our friend EIGA recently made a cool video about the #ploopy #headphones ! The videography is gorgeous as always, and there's some pretty neat mod work as well. Worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WktcmVk9WAQ

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-01 at 01:15

Oh hey cool yeah I see you don't like how I protect myself online, but it wouldn't happen to be because you're trying to track my every fart and burp, right? Right?

Also, this seems more like a you problem than a me problem.

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Written by Phil Lam on 2024-12-01 at 01:07

Okay, I recently learned how bricks work, and WHAT THE HELL MAN.

So, the brick acts like a sponge, soaking up water when it rains. The reason the water doesn't just end up inside is that the brick...just kinds of holds onto it.

In other words, old brick buildings are like giant sponges, and you basically hope they sponge longer than it rains, or else you get wet. If you live somewhere rainy, you just add (you guessed it) MORE BRICK.

🤯 🤯 🤯 #buildingscience #physics #water #house #history

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