Jodjuya's Project Log

Pink is a nice colour.

[kalikai]

Replaced the battery in my gen 1 Switch Pro Controller.

Holy shit those iFixit comments about how easily it is to strip those outer screws are NOT kidding!

Got it done in the end but it was touch and go for a while there.

Aside from those two tricky outer screws, this was just about the easiest tech repair job I've tackled. After nine years of loyal service, that battery can now move on into dignified retirement at a battery recycling place.

Hopefully the replacement battery isn't a dud, but just in case it is, I only drove the screws about 80% in to minimise the risk of stripping them next time.

The replacement battery was delivered in two days too, which was shockingly fast. Gg to Bunnings Marketplace for being a less shit eBay.

Still waiting on the new fan, thermal compound, and y-wing screwdriver to arrive so that I can tackle replacing my Switch's fan. It has been really exerting itself lately, and rattling as it does so. Clear signs it's at the end of its life...

[kalikai]

Pruned back the plants and then fed the tank with a few dried mulberry leaves. One of them had its stalk dry out into a 'u' shape like the handle of an umbrella, so I was able to hook the stalk underneath the driftwood and let the body of the leaf float freely in the water column.

Tip of the leaf ended up floating in the path of a sunbeam right at the ideal distance for my phone camera to be happy about focusing on it, so I was able to take some halfway decent photos for once. :)

It's been really enjoyable watching snails try to find the leaf.

They can clearly smell that it's right there, but it takes them a few minutes of circling around and around on the glass directly adjacent to the leaf to figure out that the leaf isn't in direct contact with it and that they need to go down to the substrate first to be able to cross over to it. Silly little goobers.

(they do get there in the end)

[jodjuya]

I love how buying a bottle of kefir grants you a practically infinite bottle of kefir.

Pour out a glass of kefir and drink it. Top up the bottle with milk. Wait a day or so. Hey presto: you have a full bottle of kefir again! Magic!

[jodjuya]

Downside to this infinite-kefir hack is that you quickly dilute the store-bought flavour and end up with plain kefir-flavoured kefir.

Store-bought flavour in my case was turmeric and honey, which are easy enough to add back in again, but maybe I'll drop a punnet of strawberries into a blender and add that to the kefir 🤔

[jodjuya]

Don't do this.

Kefir is such a mild-mannered easygoing and very slow fermentation that it lulled me into a false sense of security. Forgot that it was fermentation and forgot what happens when you feed massive amounts of sugar into your fermentation...

In addition to the double handful of strawberries I also added a tablespoon or so of honey to make it taste sweeter. Blended it up in the blender then put it back into its milk bottle and topped it up to the brim with fresh milk.

Should have drank it right away but I let it ferment all afternoon and overnight.

Woke up this morning to a bottle so super pressurised that its base had ballooned outwards and it couldn't stand upright.

Took it to the bathroom to open it over the sink. Soon as the cap was turned by one quarter the whole thing went off like a bomb. Covered me in fizzy strawberry kefir foam, and splattered all four walls of the bathroom. Vast majority of the stuff ended up on the ceiling.

Worst part is that it doesn't even taste good. It's so fizzy and weird. Might be okay if I can de-carbonate it, but all the gas is trapped in a thick yoghurt foam that doesn't want to relinquish it.

I've put it in the freezer. It might be nice as aerated strawberry froyo...

[kalikai]

Huh, what's that weird white thread in my shrimp tank? It's too long to be a bit of cat fur...

It's photosynthesis! Constant stream of micro bubbles pouring out of a tear in the leaf! 🤩

[kalikai]

Seem to have a new rare colour mutation in my shrimp tank: shrimp with almost zero pigmentation in their exoskeleton.

So they're completely translucent aside from their organs and digestive tract. One of them has the lightest tint of blue in the front part of its body where all its legs attach to its shell, and another has a tiny tint of reddish pink in the same area plus atop its head. Otherwise completely clear.

Have spotted four so far. Two are the same size (Blue Legs and Pink Head), one is smaller, and the fourth is a freshly-hatched itty bitty, so this is a multigenerational thing. I guess there's one particular female who has one or two clear babies per clutch of eggs?

Best photo I could get, starring Pink Head:

[kalikai]

Time-lapse of my hanging tradescantia pots :)

Time frame covers January to June, 2026

They're hanging on the South-facing wall of the house (in Australia), and are under an eave to boot, so they get no direct sunlight whatsoever. Aside from the house and its eaves, though, there are no other obstructions around so it's still bright enough for the plants to be happy.

The pots are identical, and I found them in separate op shops many kilometres and years apart from one another

I think there's at least three different types of tradescantia in there. I just took cuttings from all of my different tradescantias and propagated them together and planted them together.

Flowering lasted Feb-May

The last photo is only an updo, not a haircut.

[kalikai]

2 years + 2 months old and my pet ecosphere is still chugging along.

Assorted algae still growing, bladder snail(s?), ostracods, and copepods still present. Such a delightful little project. 💚

I'm wondering if the filamentous growth might be a type of fungus.

[kalikai]

Ten weeks as my daily driver begleri and this braid's tassel is snapping itself off one thread at a time.

You wouldn't think a begleri's tassel experiences that much wear!

Every other time I've had tasseled begleri has been using the synthetic fibres of a nylon paracord. Much more durable stuff than the soft embroidery cotton used to braid this cord, so this has literally never happened to me before.

Especially fascinating that they're all snapping off at the same length, too! It looks like that point of highest stress is right where the tassel crosses beyond the outer diameter of the begleri bead. Very cool!

I wonder what the cause is.

A pinch-point when the two beads collide as I'm flipping?

A pinch-point between the bead and the material of my pockets when I stow/draw the begleri?

Abrasive wear from the tassel being rubbed against its bead by air resistance/centripetal force as I'm flipping?

[kalikai]

Caught two of my shrimp having a silly little slapfight over a food pellet

[kalikai]

Nice progress from this year's growing time. Now to figure out a greenhouse solution to keep them happy over winter...

[kalikai]

My cats claw cactus is growing a new paw, so that's exciting :D

Devils Tongue Barrel Cactus seems to be its 'real' common name, but its spines look and feel exactly like a cat's claws so that's what I call it

[kalikai]

Having a feed at 25,000 noms per hour 🦐

[kalikai]

After a week of just sitting, the test strip has swung more greenish than it was. Kinda statue of Liberty colour now.

Scraped at the patina with my thumbnail. Some flaked off but the rest has adhered kinda well. Haven't tried washing it or scraping more vigorously though. So idk

Going to strip the other three test strips back to clean metal as best I can with a vinegar soak, and then try to replicate this one.

[kalikai]

Beautiful crust. Zero durability.

Looks beautiful though. Little splashes of red in the topmost layer.

Trying again. Beads in fume chamber with vinegar, but this time I'm leaving the lid off so it's less concentrated, because that worked so well with the rest strip.

No protective layer of VapoRub. Bottom two thirds already have a dark patina so I don't think it'll make much difference.

Also now I'm using regular-strength vinegar because I ran out of the double-strength stuff.

Also also one bead is upright and the other one is laying down. Curious if that'll make any difference.

[kalikai]

The mature female has turned brown, and half of the first gen of babies are brown (and the other half are blue)

Weird and interesting

[kalikai]

Masked off top two thirds of beads with tape, then coated bottom third with VapoRub. Removed tape to create a clean line, then plonked beads into vinegar attempting to strip patina from top two thirds while keeping it on bottom third.

Left for an hour then changed for fresh vinegar and left for another hour and a half.

Rinsed them off, taped off top third, coated bottom two thirds in VapoRub, removed tape and dipped into salty vinegar, then left out to dry. Hopefully will get a triple-stripe bead. Dark, light, blue.

After a couple of days I did get the triple stripe pattern, but the verdigris wasn't durable and it washed right off. Forgot to photograph.

The test strip that I stripped back to bare copper to test VapoRub on didn't have any visible change from the VapoRub on its own. Cleaned that off and balanced the strip atop those two measuring cups I was soaking the beads in at the beginning of this post then let it sit around for a while. Formed a nice patina of speckled verdigris. Some of it was fragile and came off right away but some was much more durable! Nice variations of colour too! Some bits more green and some more blue!

Anyway, back to the beads again:

Reapplied VapoRub barrier to bottom two-thirds of beads and put into fume chamber with vinegar. Sprinkled some salt over one of the beads for good measure. After a few days I have triple-striped beads again, but again it doesn't look very durable. I'm going to let them just sit and age for a long time and hope for the best. Hopefully will have something more durable like what the test strip got!

The test strip was exposed to fumes in the open air, not enclosed in a fume chamber, so maybe that's what made the difference, that the fumes were much less concentrated?? Only time will tell... 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[kalikai]

Hot-glue broadly ineffective at shielding patina from brief soaks in double-strength vinegar. Additionally, a layer of patina was pulled away by the hot-glue itself when the glue was peeled off, remaining adhered to the lump of glue.

Next test: petroleum jelly (in the form of expired Vicks VapoRub)

Clockwise from top:

Thin stripe down the middle; completely submerged in vinegar

No VapoRub at all; soaking in 20ml of vinegar.

Thick blob of VapoRub coating both sides of one-third of the copper strip; soaking in 35ml of vinegar. The middle-third of the strip is thereby soaking in the vinegar, with the final third sticking up out the container.

Layer of VapoRub coating one side of the copper strip with no vinegar at all, to see if the VapoRub itself will have any effect on the copper.

[kalikai]

Petroleum jelly does the job!

Left to right:

Middle-striped

Unprotected

Bottom-third protected

Completely covered in VapoRub but not exposed to vinegar, to see if it does anything to the copper on its own

Feeling pleased :)

This also served to demonstrate that a thick layer of the jelly isn't required. I formed the centre-stripe of jelly on the first strip by smearing it down the centre as best as I could and then wiping the jelly off along the edges. But as can be seen, that strip was still somewhat protected out to the edges, as my wiping-off wasn't thorough enough.

Leaving the unprotected strip in vinegar overnight to strip it completely back to bare metal, to serve as a better testbed for checking what VapoRub will do to copper (if anything).

[kalikai]

VapoRub on its own doesn't do anything immediately obvious to copper.