In this TronicsFix video, Steve buys 7 broken NES game cartridges, priced from $5 – $30, to see how hard it is to fix them. Most of the repairs come down to cleaning the “golden finger” contacts on the edge of the circuit boards and Steve finds that a combo of pink eraser, IPA on a Q-tip, and a metal polishing cloth does the trick. One game had badly corroded pins on a chip and was therefore DOA, another had a short in one of the chips (same), a few required jumping wires to repair broken copper traces. But, in the end, only a couple of the games were beyond basic repairs.
Awesome Woodworking Tips from Lloyd Khan
When I was a teen, I was obsessed with the Whole Earth Catalogs and completely enamored with the work of often-featured designer-builders like Jay Baldwin, Greg Baer, Malcolm Wells, and Lloyd Khan. Khan was responsible for the very WEC-like outsized Shelter publications, featuring crazy, cool, and arty owner-built dwellings. Lloyd is still around, still doing his thing. His Instagram is worth a follow. This particular post is loaded with a number of high-quality construction tips.
Getting to Know the 555 Timer Chip
In this DroneBot Workshop they provide a clear and concise 42-minute introduction to the ubiquitous and versatile 555 timer chip. They discuss how the 555 works, its various modes, and some of the basic projects you can use it in.
A Chemist Explains How Super Glue Works
Brent, of the excellent game crafting and miniature painting channel, Goobertown Hobbies, also has a Ph.D. in chemistry. In this video on his channel, he explains the chemistry behind cyanoacrylate (aka Super Glue) and how the glue actually works.
Electroplating 3D Prints
Via Donald Bell’sMaker Update comes a recommendation for this article on Makezine about how to create faux chrome finishes on 3D prints. The process involves lots of sanding and smoothing of the print, a spray with a copper conductive paint, then an electroplating bath. The results are pretty spectacular.
Testing and Ranking Heavy-Duty Staplers
In this Project Farm video, Todd tests out 14 different brands of heavy-duty staplers. He looks at units from Makita, Milwaukee, Ryobi, Arrow, DeWalt, WorkPro, Bauer, Neu Master, Ework, Bielmeier, Stanley, and Citadel. The staplers were compared for resistance to jams, stapling speed, capability to drive staples into spruce, oak, and composite decking. Bottom line? The Ryobi performed very well and offers the best value, at $84 (at time of testing). The stapler that tested best overall was the Makita, at a whopping $210 at time of testing.
Shop Talk
Newsletter reader Paul Cryan asks:“How do you know if a tip you’ve come across is original enough to report?”Good question, Paul. A lot of it comes down to experience and intuition. I’ve been writing in the DIY space for over 30 years, so I have some sense of the saturation of tips and techniques that are shared. But ultimately, I don’t sweat “originality” as much as I do practicality. If it’s a great tip, even if it’s been around for a while, even a very long while, it’s worth sharing with those for whom it’s new and as a reminder to those who may already know it. I see tips all the time that serve as a reminder for me to finally break down and try it out (or bring it back into my work flow).
***
I got a lot of responses to my “Shop Talk” post about areas of DIY where you say “Hell, no, get me a pro.” Everyone seemed to be on the same page. Reader Craig best summarized the responses I received:“My dad did almost no home or auto repairs. Not because he didn’t know how, but because he freakin’ hated doing them. Mom, however, might have been able to build a house with a pocketknife and a pair of vise grips. She just had skills…lots of them.”I have done a wide spectrum of things but as I’ve gotten older, I triage everything:If I want to try something, I do.If I don’t want to, I don’t.If it absolutely must be done and I don’t want to do it, I hire it out.No guilt, just a depleted treasury.”
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Since all the antipodes have been discovered and exploited, there is very little natural mystery left in the word. As Jeff VanderMeer points out in the introduction to the delightful new book The Bestiary, we are left with Bigfoot and Nessie. A little further out into the fringe of the cultural imagination is the dogman and reptilian illuminati operatives, but these also inspire less a sense of wonder than pushing conspiracy theory buttons. But natural history as a genre to conceive of things like the stomach-faced blemmyes and the fiery salamander is all but lost. I find table-top RPG bestiaries often satisfy that itch, but they are still too confined to their own internal world-building.
What is needed is a bestiary that comes from the literary imagination, and to this end, the weird-fiction editor extraordinaire Ann VanderMeer has compiled a catalogue of the fantastic, 26 entries (from A to Z) by writers across the speculative fiction spectrum, and lovingly illustrated by Ivica Stevanovic. Centipede Press has a reputation for finely crafted editions, and while small in size, The Bestiary reflects their attention to detail with rich paper stock and ribbon marker.
I don’t want to give away too many of the surprises, but it’s worth noting a few of the standout entries. There is the “Daydreamer by Proxy” by the novelist Dexter Palmer, a spine-grafting parasite offered by a corporation to its employees to help them deal with the too much daydreaming in the middle of the afternoon. The Iranian writer Reza Negarestani offers what appears to be an excerpt from a bestiary from another dimension, with the “Nolus Barathruma (Homo sapiens sapiens)” an otherworldly entity that induces visions in its host. “Bartleby’s Typewriter” by Corey Redekop describes a turtle-like creature that can mimic inanimate objects, whose classification causes etymologists to declare “the whole profession a mockery.” – Peter Bebergal
MEAN GIRLS CLUB – SATIRICAL SOCIAL COMMENTARY OR JUST FLAT OUT BONKERS?
Mean Girls Club by Ryan Heshka Nobrow Press 2016, 24 pages, 6.8 x 9.1 x 0.1 inches
If your understanding of what a Mean Girls Club consists of is defined by the 2004 Lindsay Lohan film, then Ryan Heshka’s new release from Nobrow Press (as part of their wonderful 17 x 23 series) is going to blow your mind. In Mean Girls Club, Pinky, Sweets, Blackie, McQualude, Wendy, and Wanda aren’t the popular girls in an Illinois high school, rather they are a gang of sociopaths who revel in murder, mayhem, pill popping, and depraved dereliction. Heshka’s 1950s bombshells start their day with ceremonial insect venom transfusions, snake worship, a pill buffet, and a fish slap fight, then go on to wreck havoc in a hospital, movie theater, boutiques, and the streets, only to finish off by jacking a lingerie truck, kidnapping patients and nurses along the way.
In a nod to the pulps and pin-ups of the past and rendered in fluorescent pinks and inky blacks, Heskha upends the conventional idea of the B-movie Vixen by adding a layer of such over-the-top brutality and vehemence that it transcends the possible, bringing the trope into the post-ironic age where we have lost the ability to discern what we are meant to take seriously.
Is Mean Girls Club to be read as satirical social commentary? Is it just flat out bonkers? Or is it a combination of both? When viewed through various critical lenses, Mean Girls Club demands that the reader ask certain questions: issues of gender and power, fringe vs center, entertainment vs social order. But this sort of critical response probably misses the point of Heskha’s intent.
Heskha doesn’t seem to care how we approach his work; this book swings to its own pop-culture rhythm, flat and full of energy and horror – perhaps the perfect narrative for precarious times. The viciousness in this book stands starkly in contrast to the stylized elegance of Heskha’s lines and layouts. Its publisher, Nobrow Press, says it has “A vintage throwback appeal with modern sensibilities … with appeal to an alternative subculture eager for art that continues to subvert the conventions of the old guard of comics.” It’s all this and more. But one thing for sure, in Mean Girls Club we have an artist making the art he wants to make. And although it may be a bit uncomfortable for some of us to read, it may just be the art we deserve. – Daniel Elkin
Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair.Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.
