{"id":33952,"date":"2022-10-12T16:57:23","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T21:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33952"},"modified":"2022-10-12T16:57:23","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T21:57:23","slug":"the-new-lego-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33952","title":{"rendered":"The New LEGO Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an empty USB port in good working order, must be in want of a device.”
— Jane Austen, Specifications and Serial Busses<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I needed a USB hub. The Doctor Who<\/i> TARDIS USB hub that I was given at work during the David Tennant era — so, circa 2008 — had given up the ghost. And while my computer at home has 10<\/i> USB ports — 6 USB 2.0, 4 USB 3.0 — between cables and keyboards, mice and cameras, wi-fi dongles and hard drives — I was doing too much swapping around. I didn’t like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I bought a cheap Bluetooth dongle to connect my computer to the Bluetooth speaker in my living room. How did it not occur to me until two weeks ago<\/i> that I could blast my computer’s library of mp3 files on the Bluetooth speaker and hear it throughout the apartment? That I didn’t have to mess around with cables and moving mp3 files over to my phone if I wanted to listen to, say, the All Things Must Pass<\/i> 50th-anniversary edition, in my living room and dining room?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am just so, so<\/em> dumb sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bluetooth dongle is perfectly fine for driving the speakers. If I want something that I can connect to my phone for file transfers so I don’t have to fish out the USB-C cable, though, it doesn’t work at all. So that needs another Bluetooth dongle… and another USB port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, the need for a USB hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Five Below I went on Sunday, and with a USB hub I returned home. I set it up, sitting it on top of my tower. (It has a DC input, but I can’t figure out what sort of DC adapter I need to power it, and there was nothing with the packaging that indicated a voltage.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I was dissatisfied. I had an external hard drive sitting there. And now a USB hub. And sometimes my phone. It seemed like too much. It’s a computer, not a table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I thought about LEGO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if I built an enclosure that would hold my 4-terabyte external drive and, above that, held the USB hub?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This held possibilities!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went to the office on Monday, and when I left I brought home my LEGO tub. (It’s all off-brand stuff I bought at Dollar Tree during the pandemic, just so I’d have something to goof around with.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I set to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First I worked out how the base would attach to the tower and be stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I started building a structure around the hard drive. I didn’t really know what I wanted, and it kept breaking apart, and I kept adding bricks to it…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At last I thought it was done, and I affixed the structure, hard drive included, onto the base. Then I realized I needed a front, so I hastily assembled one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somehow, this ended up being almost exactly the right size for the USB hub! I only had to build walls around to hold it like a cradle, and I was done!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"My<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I should note that my basic rule was to use the first brick that fit my needs, not necessarily the brick that made the most aesthetic sense. Hence, it’s a multicolored mess. I think it gives it personality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like the little light indicators on the USB hub, and the on-off switches let me disable each port as I wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I noticed…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Close-up<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The hard drive was in upside down!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, last night, I carefully peeled the structure off the baseplate. My first intention was to make a few tweaks, and I ended up rebuilding the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The hard drive is a little higher up, and the front is actually integrated into the structure rather than a hasty add on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I like looking at my devices plugged into the hub. They’re like little spaceships docked to a space station, boldly going where no USB device has gone before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I’ll decorate it with minifigs later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sunday afternoon I visited Mt. Rose Cemetery in York. I wasn’t looking for anyone, I just wanted to take some photos of the early autumn foliage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Downtown<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From the top, you get a clear view into downtown York. The domed county building is center left. The York Revolution stadium would be behind the buildings at center. I should have taken my binoculars to be sure, as I think Prospect Hill Cemetery would be one of the green hillsides about center. And the large building atop the hill center-right? That’s not downtown. That’s a couple of miles out route 30. It’s the UPMC hospital, where I had my COVID vaccination in the spring of 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I saw this billboard when I was at the grocery store this morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Billboard<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

No, “common sense” is not<\/i> voting for any of these clowns. And, in the case of Doug Mastriano, an insurrectionst, a proud neo-Confederate, and an open anti-Semite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My question for @dougmastriano<\/a>: "Your rhetoric has been openly pro-Christian and dismissive of other religions. As a non-Christian, why should I support you? As a non-Christian, why should I believe you support my freedom to not practice your religion?" https:\/\/t.co\/0Y2r9Wjq43<\/a><\/p>— Allyn Gibson (@allyngibson) August 24, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>