Kivy

@kivy

Gamer, geek, tinkerer, spoonie. Learning to live with Chronic Fatigue. No energy for drama. ✅🇨🇦 ✅😷 🚫AI 🚫Politics

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Kivy@kivy· Jul 15

The storm flew over and did all kind of scary things but it didnt break, it completely missed us. Whew. Bunnies and Birbs came back out the moment the worst was gone. 🐰🐦

Square phone photo of a front lawn and a light grey sky. A brown rabbit is sitting on the lawn and looking out with its ears perked up.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 14

The sky over the West Island of Montreal is now covered in stormy clouds so dark the street lamps lit up. There's lightning and thunder but still no rain or wind. Pls be a kind #QCstorm. 🥺

Phone photo of a dark grey sky with a street lamp on a utility pole lit up cause it's so dark outside.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 14

It's been 30C every day for a month but I am SO thankful for being able to make Iced Coffees at home. All that because the upstairs gal handed me down her broken automatic espresso machine and I repaired it, i never would be able to afford one on my own.

phone photo of a pair of tall glasses in front of a gaming monitor with a purple rgb keyboard in front of them: one glass has water in it, the other is filled with iced coffee, which is mostly milk with a shot of espresso in it, ice, and caramel syrup.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 14

The OG screenshot was taken in the shade so she looks grey, here's a snap under sunlight:

Same GW2 character as the OG post but taken under sunlight, so the pastel pink of her outfit shows better

Kivy@kivy· Jul 14

Send help, I made my GW2 Guardian too pretty and she's breaking hearts daily. Everywhere I go I get thirsty goons sliding into my DMs hitting on her. LET ME PLAY THE GAME AAAAAAAA

Cropped screenshot of a Guild Wars 2 fem human character wearing kitty ears and a pastel pink outfit. She's very glowy and shiny with lots of legendary effects.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 13

All that crying released a bunch of calming hormones and put me at peace. Then a friend sent me a Subway. I might get my ME/CFS meds tomorrow, or maybe Wed. All I can do now is take things slow and not use more spoons than I have. 🥺

Photo of a 6" Steak & Cheese subway on a white plate in front of a gaming keyboard.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 11

"There's no underwater content in GW2" Also in GW2:

In-game screenshot of Guild Wars 2 showing two teams of 30+ players fighting each others underwater in a World vs World map.

Different angle of the same underwater fight taken a few seconds later. My team won :D

Kivy@kivy· Jul 10

One woofer in! It's starting to look like speakers! 🤩 Half the holes are drilled. Next is the other woofer hole, then the two connector holes at the back... tho i'm tempted to just hardwire them through a small hole, cause using a hole-saw with a hand drill hurts my body. #DIY #Audio #Woodworking

A pair of stereo speakers in the process of being built. Made from 3/4" plywood. One box has both the woofer and tweeter holes drilled, and the two speakers dropped in as a test fit. The other box is missing its woofer hole. A hand drill equipped with a 3" hole saw sits besides them on the workbench. Many hand tools are laid out at the back against the wall.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 10

Geoff the Hamster is still kicking, tho barely. He's got a mass on his thigh and it's not pretty. He stopped using his wheel, but he still eats. The vet wants 250CAD for a hamster EOL, which feels like a scam, as I paid the same amount for my cats... idk what to do, i feel bad. 😭

Photo of a grey winter dwarf hamster in a clean cage covered in brown paper bedding. He's half climbed on top of a big chew stick and smelling it.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 9

Oh no, the two speaker boxes I made turned into #Birds houses. 😭 🐦 🤣

A pair of DIY speaker boxes made of plywood, with two 2" holes drilled to hold the tweeters. They look like bird houses with those holes!

Kivy@kivy· Jul 8

First hole for the speakers is drilled! That used all of my 1.5Ah battery so I guess this is a great time to take a break and sit down while it charges. Maybe I should use 1/2" inch plywood next time, 3/4" is way overkill lol. #DIY #Audio #Woodworking #Workshop

Photo of two wooden speaker boxes sitting on a dirty workbench with a single 1.5" hole drilled into them using a Ryobi drill and a hole saw, which is sitting in front of the boxes.

Downward picture of one speaker box showing the front of the box with the tweeter hole drilled and the tweeter sitting inside it as a test fit. Perfect! The DIY audio amplifier that will power these speakers is sitting on the workbench behind.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 6

The speaker boxes now have 6 sides. The top and bottom are 1/4" plywood, glued in... deff not as robust as the rest of the construction, but it's what I had laying around and it was easy to do. But it's ugly so now i gotta find something to cover these, something black. #DIY #Audio #Woodworking

Two wooden boxes made of bare plywood, resting on a workbench. These will become speakers once I drill the holes for them.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 5

Built the 2nd speaker box today. Progress is being made! I still have to decide if I want the top and bottom pieces to sit on top of these, or be inserts... i kinda want the front to be one solid piece, but an insert sounds hard to do. #DIY #Audio #Woodworking

A pair of wooden boxes made out of 4 pieces of 3/4" plywood. The bottom and top panels are missing.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 3

I installed my AC yesterday, so today I was able to work on the DIY speakers for a solid 2h. Got most of the cuts done, and assembled one box. Ish. I still need to cut the top and bottom panels. Using felt as sealant between the panels, as I rather not glue them. #DIY #Audio #Woodworking

A pile of height 3/4" inch thick plywood pieces, 15cm x 20cm each. The pile is still missing 4 planks, and yet it's already the size of the final speaker boxes - but solid wood. Is 3/4" overkill for this project? Definetly. Am I doing it anyways? Hell yeah.

Strips of cheapo green felt cut to the width of the plywood and to be used between the wooden pieced as air seals.

Two pieces of wood for the front and one side of the speaker boxes, with screw holes drilled, and a piece of felt laid out between the two screws.

Wide-angle photo of my working area, with a very messy workbench full of tools and materials. The semi-complete wooden speaker box sits in the middle, with the top and bottom panels missing. I think I need a bigger workbench! Or maybe more shelves...

Kivy@kivy· Jul 3

Also you get to play Fashion Wars :D

Cropped in-game screenshot of GW2 showing the Fashion Tab of my human character dressed in pastel pink. She's got the apple bottom jeans and the boots with the fur, she hit the floor and shorty got low low low...

Kivy@kivy· Jul 2

For those still on the fence about playing GW2: Know that you can pet the dog in GW2.

Cropped in-game screenshot of Guild Wars 2 showing my character standing in front of a random dog with the prompt "Pet" with the keybind F.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 1

Did 3 cuts using a hand saw, but it's 25C inside my home and I rather avoid the heat stroke so i'll do the rest tomorrow. 🙏🥵🪚 I can't wait for these DIY speakers to be done, I wanna listen to them!!! Then I build a DIY subwoofer to go with them :D #Woodworking #DIY #Audio

Photo of a pile of four pieces of 3/4" plywood, cut into 15x40cm planks. They'll be cut into height 20cm pieces and make 4 sides of a pair of stereo speaker boxes. I'll cut the other two sides out of a different piece of plywood later.

Kivy@kivy· Jul 1

Maybe not the best weather to go out and celebrate. 🥵 (i couldnt figure out how to take this screenshot, because Samsung enshitified the side buttons into useless AI buttons, ew)

Cropped phone screenshot of a weather app, showing current temperature of 32C with a Feels Like of 38C, and multiple weather alerts for Heat and Severe thunderstorms.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 29

Designing DIY speaker boxes is breaking my brain. So many different ways to cut the plywood, and the only difference is which side you want to see plywood edges on. I might get some vinyl and cover the whole thing up just to get rid of THAT problem. Do they sell sheets of sticky vinyl in rolls?

A sheet of 2x2ft plywood with many pencil lines on it, with a calculator and ruler on top. A DIY audio amplifier sits just behind it.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 28

Hum Gone!!! Turns out the RCA cables I got from Amazon were unshielded and untwisted so they picked up all sort of nasty noise. I replaced them with vintage cables i had laying around, which were JUST long enough, and the amp is perfectly quiet! 🤩 Maybe this CAN be a daily driver!

Close up photo of a DIY amplifier mounted on a slat of wood covered in grounded aluminium tape. To the right is the vacuum-tube pre-amp, then in the middle is the power amp, and left is the shielded transformer powering it. A phone is sitting in front of it, used as a source of music to test the amp.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 28

I mounted the DIY Audio Amplifier on a slat of wood covered in aluminium tape, and grounded it. It helped lower the hissing noise floor, but now i'm deff getting AC hum. I'll just dismiss it as "there's just so much you can get out of a 10$ electronics kit" Maybe not a daily driver...

Photo of a workbench with a DIY audio amplifier on it, connected to two very cheap throwaway speakers as test units. The amplifier consists of a vacuum tube pre-amp, a power amp, and a shielded transformer, all mounted on a slat of hardwood flooring covered in grounded aluminium tape.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 28

Almost a year later and still going strong. I gotta admit a part of it is "well my friend doubted i'd be able to do it so imma try my hardest to prove him wrong" But there's still a good part of "using extra spoons today to make tomorrow-me's life easier"

A set of weekly medicine organizer on a kitchen counter. 6 small boxes with 3 compartments each, in different colors, with the name of a different weekday on each. They are filled with my many meds and also some multi-vitamins.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 27

Finished building the DIY Audio Amplifier today. It worked first try. 😎 It's got lots of juice and seems to keep cool, but it has a very loud noise floor. Tried grounding the 0v and it helped, but not enough. Touching the heat sinks helps, which hints at a grounding issue.... any ideas?

Photo of my messy workbench showing the newly completed DIY audio system: A vacuum tube pre-amp, a cheapo DIY power amp kit, and a pair of throwaway speakers to test it with - so i dont risk burning my good speakers.

Close-up photo of the amplifiers: a tiny vacuum tube pre-amp, and a discreet power amp. A shielded transformer sits at the back and powers the power amp.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 26

The DIY audio amp is starting to look like something. And today I went to a thrift store and got cheapo 5$ throwaway speakers to test the amp with, so i dont risk blowing up my good speakers. I'm making and building stuff, being productive, and not doomscrolling! Have you had a screen break today?

Phone photo of a messy workbench mid-project, with a small circuit board in the middle being assembled, a soldering iron, multimeter, a set of tiny plastic speaker boxes, and a wall full of hand tools on pegboards.

Close-up photo of the DIY audio power amplifer I got off aliexpress for 10$. It's a very basic circuit with only discreet components, and needs a pre-amp to function. In this photo, the resistors and input transistors are soldered in. Only missing are the capacitors and output transistors.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 25

You know, for a 25 millions years old game engine, GW2 really can be beautiful. Like this corner of EoD, where a path leads up to a shrine, surrounded by lush vegetation. Still one of my fav cozy spot in the whole game.

In-game screenshot of Guild Wars 2 showing a rocky path leading up to a bell shrine, with bamboo and lush grass growing on each sides.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 25

Started assembling this 10$ DIY audio power amplifer I got from aliexpress. And already did my first mod: I swapped the input RC filter caps for low-noise audio ones, and increased their buddy resistors to a higher ones to pass more bass. Hopefully that doesnt lower the volume too much.

Photo of a workbench in the middle of an electronic project, where I assemble a simple and cheap audio power amplifier. The pcb is in the foreground, and hand tools, a soldering iron and a multimeter sits around it.

close-up photo of the diy audio amplifer circuit board showing all the resistors installed and the input capacitors also installed. These are vintage caps I got from an old stereo. They still test good!

Kivy@kivy· Jun 19

The neon lights in my laundry room were completely fried, so it was time to refurb it into an LED light. Got the cutest little AC-DC power supply, hooked it straight to the incoming wires from the wall switch, then stuck a strip of high-CRI LEDs directly to the frame. Works perfectly! #DIY #Repair

An open Neon tube receptacle socket emptied of its broken tubes and fried ballast, and replaced with an LED strip and a small AC-DC power supply. The LED strip is stuck directly to the metal frame to use as heat sink.

Wide angle photo of my messy laundry room after the repair, showing a soft white light just bright enough to light up the whole room without being blinding.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 18

A fancy new grocery store just opened in my neighbourhood, and I wanted to try their pork chops, but my cast iron pan was rusty! So I cleaned it, seasoned it, then roasted the chops on it. Served with creamed corn. A simple and cheap dish, that my poor parents served us often. Now comfort food. 🍳

A freshly seasoned cast iron pan on a stove, showing a shine from the freshly baked oil. This cast iron pan is older than I am, and shows many years of use.

Two small pork chops and creamed corn on a dinner plate next to a RGB gaming keyboard. The chops are browned to perfection, and the corn is a mix of creamed corn and spare kernels mixed together to form a thicker end result.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 16

Rate my home-made poutine. 🍟 I even used real curds! 🧀 Am I canadian enough yet?!? 🇨🇦

A large pasta bowl filled with fries, thick gravy, and cheese curds. The empty bag of curds sits on the counter next to the bowl.

Kivy@kivy· Jun 12

Note to future self: Going out shopping when it's 32C is a bad idea, dont do that again. Had to stop at a cafe halfway to cool down and recharge with an iced coffee, and they had AC! I really should have brought a water bottle at least, not bringing one was not smart :c