Satisfaction guaranteed. Or your money back!

Posted on October 13, 2023 by David Crampton

While Wreck-Gar is the most well-known of the Junkions, he is most certainly not the only one. Meet Junkheap, also known as Junkyard. You can see him (actually several of him) following Wreck-Gar into battle in the 1986 film. In some of the later episodes of the G1 show, he is a merchant and trader. But, Skippy, you might ask, why did you purchase a Studio Series figure for a character that barely gets any screen time in the movie?

Is it because the Planet of Junk and its inhabitants are the pinnacle of re-use? Nope. It’s because I needed a motorcycle for Wreck-Gar to ride. One of the coolest parts of the Junkions’ transformations is that they are designed to ride each other, rather than being designed for much smaller creatures, like humans. And so, Wreck-Gar wouldn’t REALLY be complete without something… er… someone to ride. It is worth noting that Junkheap is not just a repaint. The toy keeps to the idea that the Junkions are made of random, but similar, junk. Every piece of him is different than Wreck-Gar, despite their very similar general construction and vehicle modes. Getting the motorcycle mode to clip together just right is a bit finicky, though. Definitely a bit more difficult to transform than his compatriot.

I mentioned all of this to MonkeyLinkMega, and he suggested – no, he demanded – that I pose him like the motorcycle pose in Akira. Well, I couldn’t very well deny such a brilliant request, could I? So here you have it. Wreck-Gar, riding Junkheap, in the same pose as Kaneda and his bike. They’re surrounded by Studio Series ’86 Kup and Perceptor.

Rhinox, Maximize!

Posted on September 29, 2023 by David Crampton

Studio Series Beast Wars? That’s a joke, right? There’s no way they’d actually attempt show-accurate toys after the travesty that was…

Well hot damn, they did. Aside from Optimus Primal, Rhinox was my favorite Beast Wars character. He’s stocky. He moves with purpose and consideration of what’s around him, because of his size and weight. He’s a tinkerer, an engineer, and prefers to consider his options, in contrast to some of his hot-headed compatriots. But once he’s pushed to action? Watch out! Those twin chain guns come out and before you know it, pieces of Predacon are everywhere.

The first thing that I noticed was that in order to have both a show-accurate robot mode AND a show-accurate rhino mode, they had to sacrifice a show-accurate transformation. The rhino’s jaw does not open wide and fold down over his chest and back. The proportions just don’t work without extra CGI magic. The transformation is pretty complex, but the instructions are just clear enough to get me through.

The rhino mode is accurate, but limited in poseability. I mean, it’s a rhino. I wasn’t expecting anything else. On the other hand, the robot mode really impressed me. I expected all sorts of bits of shell to restrict movement, but there isn’t any.

Take that, Big Convoy!

I do wish the chain guns were a more show-accurate size, but I’m thankful that they got the look spot-on from the front. I would probably have bought this at full price, but I picked it up on sale with Kup and Perceptor. Overall, this figure is a win!

Animated Wallpaper on Linux Mint 21.1

Posted on May 19, 2023 by David Crampton

The one thing Monkey, my youngest son, wanted from his move from Windows to Linux was animated wallpaper. I’m not quite sure how that idea came about, but I told him that I’d try.

The thing is, he knows what kind of time scale I work on. So, armed with a fresh Linux install, he decided to try and add this functionality himself. He successfully installed Komorebi from the command line (hell yes!), but it ended up being buggy and not playing well with Cinnamon. I was able to manually uninstall it, and went back to searching.

After a while of coming up with nothing, I tried Komorebi again, this time from a .deb package. Unfortunately, though I was able to get a little bit farther in configuring it this time around, it still had the same problems as before. Back to the drawing board.

I stumbled across a notice that the newest version of KDE supported animated backgrounds. I did a little research and discovered that this would work on the newest version of Ubuntu, which Linux Mint is based on. Great, let’s do this! There were a few hoops to jump through, but I got KDE installed and running. I’d have to re-work a bunch of the WINE stuff that let him play games, but that was doable. Right-click in the desktop, select change desktop background and… no support for gifs or movs or anything else?

I checked the KDE version, and it was one behind. That didn’t make sense, unless… yup, Linux Mint 21.1 is based on one Ubuntu version back, which does not support the newest version of KDE.

There was some head-desking here. Just some. And then back, once again, to the drawing board.

Eventually, EVENTUALLY, I came upon wallset. It’s command-line only, and it’s all manually configured. Not a problem. Monkey can handle the CLI, especially once I show him how. (Wallset’s github page has very straightforward instructions on usage.) The only drawback is that it doesn’t start on boot. I was using a guide at thefilibusterblog.com, which said to do this:

Remember that when you boot into your desktop next time, the live wallpaper will get replaced with your old one. To fix this, you need to configure wallset to run automatically at boot. You can use crontab to do so.

Open the crontab file by typing:

crontab -e

Add the following line at the end of the file, then save and exit:

@reboot env DISPLAY=:0 DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus /usr/local/bin/wallset -V /complete/path/to/video.mp4
https://thefilibusterblog.com/how-to-set-live-wallpapers-and-animated-backgrounds-on-linux/

While this does work, unfortunately it also re-adds the specific video to Wallset’s queue list. So, rather than just starting it on boot, you’re starting it on boot AND adding to a movie playlist every single time you boot. Instead, I changed the crontab line to this:

@reboot env DISPLAY=:0 DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus /usr/local/bin/wallset -I 1

This will load the first video already in the list. Of course, you can change the 1 to whichever video in the list that you’d like to load. This worked flawlessly. My only caution is that this will tax your video card, so make sure that you have a decent one, and have the proper drivers loaded for it.

I hope this post has been useful!

Myst Online on Linux Mint 21.1

Posted on May 12, 2023 by David Crampton

I’ve now installed Myst Online: URU Live on a couple of machines running Linux Mint 21.1. It wasn’t as straightforward as I would have hoped. The below steps worked for me, and I hope they’ll work for you!

Open Software Manager, and install Lutris
- Install the Flatpack version, rather than the Linux Mint package. The latter halts when it tries to run Wine.
Confirm via the Software Manager that Wine is installed.
Open Lutris
- Here you will be tempted to use Lutris’ config/installer for the game. Don’t do that. It’ll install, and even launch the game, but the installer hangs before completing, so it never adds the game to the list.
Download the game installer from Myst Online’s site.
Click on the + button in Lutris to add a game.
- Select “Install a Windows game from media”
- Enter the game’s name and click Continue
- Click Install
- Make with the clicky on the options you want, then click Install
- Click the Browse button and navigate to the installation file that you downloaded.
- Click Continue
You will now be kicked into the Windows installer for Myst Online: URU Live. Do the same things you’d do in Windows.
When the installation finishes, it will ask you if you want to launch the game. Tell it the same thing you tell those phone calls asking about your car’s extended warranty. Just say no.
The installation should complete, and you should now have the game listed in Lutris.
Launch the game from Lutris. It will go through all of the updating that is normal during a first launch.
Enjoy the 20-year-old MMO!

Google Nest Battery Doorbell screws

Posted on January 27, 2023 by David Crampton

I had a really hard time finding a replacement doorbell wire screw for my new Nest Battery doorbell (Pro edition?) that was installed by ADT. In attempting to get my ancient mechanical doorbell to function with it, I ended up dropping the screw into the landscaping. And since the screw wasn’t magnetic, I knew it was gone forever.

Internet searches led me in a bunch of different directions, because the screws have changed since Google/Alphabet purchased Nest. None of what I found worked. In the end, my leftover computer screws saved the day.

M.2/NVME stand-offs have a very small screw that goes inside, to lock the M.2 card into place. That screw (NOT the stand-off screw) fit perfectly, and held the wire adapters in place snugly, as shown in the photo.

I hope that someone can use this information, and doesn’t have to go searching and scrounging like I did! Good luck!

Perceptor

Posted on October 21, 2022 by David Crampton

I’m not sure if you all know this, but I’ve always been a big nerd. Always. School was pretty easy for me, I was always in advanced or accelerated classes, and teachers constantly chose me for leadership positions amongst my peers. Surprisingly, I didn’t really want for friends growing up, either.

In any case, when my favorite cartoon introduced a character who was smart, analytical, and mostly pacifist, I felt seen, as they say. I felt like Perceptor GOT me… despite being a fictional transforming and mass-shifting robot from outer space. You know, the usual.

When the Studio Series ’86 toy line came out with a Perceptor toy, and it went on sale, I jumped on it. After transforming it a few times, and playing with it a little, I have NOT been disappointed. The only joints that are a little loose are the mid-thigh joints for the microscope mode, and it’s nothing that a little pose adjustment can’t fix.

The toy comes with a pretty generic blaster, but one that can peg into his microscope mode for storage. There’s nearly no kibble, just like the original toy. The microscope’s light/mirror doesn’t move separately from the tray any more, but I remember that being – at least on my toy – a serious loose joint.

So, let’s sum up. Scientist character that I can relate to? Check. Nostalgia button? Pressed. Increased overall pose-ability and detail from the original toy? Definitely. Still true to the original? Without a doubt.

Old enough for a phone!

Posted on October 14, 2022 by David Crampton

MonkeyLinkMega has entered his teenage years, my friends. Skippy, you may protest, didn’t he do that back in March? Yes, that is correct. Also get off my back.

Ahem.

His mother and I had agreed a while back that he had proven himself responsible enough to have his own cell phone. On top of that, he’s in enough after-school activities that a phone would be useful for him to call for rides, and for us to call him in the case of “Where in the crap are you?!”

My intent was to fix my Dad’s old Samsung Galaxy S6. Its battery would swell every time it was charged, and so I ordered the iFixit kit to replace the battery. As most are, this cell phone was NOT designed to be serviced easily.

I was able to replace the battery, but when I put everything back together, the screen just flashed at me. So, either the battery swell had caused damage to other parts of the phone, or I had damaged the screen somehow as I’d taken the phone apart. In all honesty, I think the latter is more likely. Into the electronics recycling it went!

That still left me with the need to get Monkey a phone. My recent trip out to North Carolina solved that problem for me (thanks Zeb!). Among the electronics Zeb was giving me to find a new home for was a bunch of old iPhones, ranging from a 5 to an 8. The 8 needed a screen replacement, so I set the 7 up for him. Little bit of Mint, little bit of OS updating, some Apple ID password shenanigans, and it was good to go.

So, my youngest son has his very first phone, and it’s giving old hardware new life!

A Fresh Change

Posted on November 5, 2021 by David Crampton

Let’s be honest here, my primary motivation to change cell carriers was to save money. I’ve been paying T-Mobile a LOT of money for many, many years. I’ve gotten advertisements for CREDO mobile in the past, and I’ve looked into GoogleFi and Ting. At the time, I was still part of a big family plan, and the other members of the family were not interested in trying out new carriers.

Now, with the divorce coming down the pipe, switching carriers provides both for an easy billing split and an opportunity for me to try something new. Enter Mint Mobile, and their $15 per month plan. It seemed entirely too good to be true, so I did some research.

They’re on T-Mobile’s network. They use pre-paid plans, and after the introductory period (3 months), you need to sign up for a year at a time to get the $15 per month rate. There’s no contract. There’s no brick-and-mortar store. Ryan Reynolds is one of the owners. (I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t cool.) If you want to bring your current phone to their network, they have a compatibility checker so you can know ahead of time if it’ll work. In fact, they encourage it. Mine was fully compatible, despite its age.

So, how is the service, really? I can’t comment on their 5G service or coverage, because my phone doesn’t support it. Their 4G LTE service, on the other hand, is just as stable as T-Mobile was. That’s unsurprising, I guess, because Mint uses T-Mobile’s network. The app they use to make the switch, to track data usage, and to make changes to your plan, is simple, straightforward, and a pleasure to use. Did you hear that? An app! That’s a pleasure for this old guy to use! I might be overstating, but IT IS A MIRACLE! EXCLAMATION POINT!

I’ve nearly completed my first month of service, and I can say that the biggest drain on my data usage is using my phone as a hotspot. When the kids want to DJ from a tablet on a car ride, or when I’m outside the laundromat, the data gets drained pretty quickly. I’m not sure what exceptions were going on with my T-Mobile plan that allowed me to get away with less usage before, but I know they had a few labyrinthine “what actually counts as data usage” rules in place.

Would I recommend this service? Yes, if you’re trying to save money, I definitely recommend it. BUT, be knowledgeable about how much data you’re using beforehand, so you don’t get any surprises. Would I mind upgrading to the next plan up for more data? Not at all, as I’d still be saving a ridiculous amount of money every month in comparison with T-Mobile.

David M. Crampton

Writery Goodness

Tag Archives: Gadgets and Nerdery