Thaddeus Nowak's Blog: Thoughts and Observations, page 2

A Tower of my own

Stephenie’s Tower

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to create a model castle and to build it as authentically as I could. Heck, if I am honest, I really want a life size castle. Guédelon Castle in France has always been an inspiration to me. The BBC documentary, Secrets of the Castle with Ruth, Peter, and Tom (link goes to YouTube, S1 E1) goes into great detail of the work and skill needed to build a castle.

Of course, I don’t have the means to build a real castle, so that dream will have to wait a while longer. However, last year, I felt the drive to create a model of Antar castle as it existed when Stephenie lived there. I started work on building the base for the diorama in Sep of 2021.

I got out my clamps and put together a support structure based on the premise of a 1:360 scale model. Meaning, one inch on the model represents 360 inches in real life (or book life). The trouble is, that a 1:360 scale diorama involves some very fine detail and I found I don’t have the skill, nor the material to get that kind of resolution. I tried clay, I tried foam, but when a millimeter represents multiple feet, the precision has to be perfect.

So, I changed my scope and scale for the model. I decided on 1:60 scale, or one inch equals 60 inches (or five feet). This made the detail work much easier for my first massive diorama. (Did someone say that’s the same scale used in D&D?)

When I looked at how big of a base that would require for all of Antar Castle, I had to make a second shift. Even doing a model based on the old castle, or just the old tower and great hall, would require a large table.

So the scope became Stephenie’s Tower, or at least the tower before the construction of the rest of the castle. In the Heirs of Cothel Series, the castle has evolved and gone through many changes in its life. While I did not describe the earliest site in the novels, the first stone structure was the tower.

Goals for the model

My goal for the tower is to construct it with the equivalent of ten foot thick walls, a staircase along the outer wall that climbs five floors, then the narrow spiral staircases that go to the sixth and seventh floors, and finally the roof. I want a fireplace on each floor, interior wooden diving walls and doors. Most importantly, I want the ability to separate each level so a person can examine it (and even use it for D&D).

So far I have the front stairs (which were removed with the addition of the great hall) and the frame of the entry way. The 3D printed posts you can see in the photo at the top of the pose add support and structure to carry to load of the future floors. That internal support will occur on each floor to provide a base to allow removal of each floor.

My goal is to have at least the first floor, and perhaps the second one done for Planet Comicon. With each block being cut and glued, that goal represents a bit of ambition, especially when I am learning as I go. However, a hard deadline clarifies the work.

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3D Printing

Why did I get into 3D Printing?

I got into 3D printing a couple of years ago because my dagger and sword collection hit a critical mass and the only enjoyment I got from them involved periodically taking them out of the closet to clean them. Needless to say, that was not the best use of the blades. I needed to display them, but as all of my blades are sharp, I needed to do so carefully.

I considered wall mounting the weapons. It is a common way to display daggers and swords. However, I have a couple of cats and I would never forgive myself if they ever knocked one off the wall and hurt themselves. This lead to needing an enclosed display case, but then, do I simply lay them down on a shelf (perhaps a glass shelf) or do I find a way to give them prominence?

Google … not quite to the rescue. I figured it can’t be hard to find acrylic displays that would work. Uh, nope. What I found required compromises, imperfect fits, and lots of money.

About the same time, a couple of people at my day job talked their 3D printers and showing off what they made. I quickly ran the numbers and found the Anycubic i3 Mega S printer would cost me less than the acrylic displays I wanted and I could get exactly what I wanted. A bit more searching, and soon I had FreeCAD downloaded. A fair amount of cursing later (it always helps) and I had a working model for my dagger display stands. The version 1.0 of the stand looked similar to the picture above (no rear support and a slightly different notch at the top of the riser).

I printed all the stands I needed, and as you might have seen from some of my prior posts, a few other things. However, what I’ve blogged about is only a fraction of what I’ve created and printed. I spent enough time with the printer, that I sold the Anycubic to someone my wife works with and upgrade to a Prusa i3 MK3S+ and have never looked back.

Don’t get me wrong, you won’t go wrong with either printer, I just started printing so many things, the upgrade made sense.

What has prompted version 3 of the stand?

The simple answer, a set of blacksmithing classes.

I usually get a new dagger or sword each year I go to the KC Renfest and outside of 2020, I have not missed a faire season since the 1980s. My favorite blade smith, John, from Dwarf Mountain Knives has a shop there, and I almost always find something I like (unless he’s sold out of everything by the time I get there). All my blades, except two, are from John.

Well, this year, my wife finally convinced me to drive to Omaha and take part in blacksmithing classes (I took a couple classes many years ago from the Institute for Historic & Educational Arts (IHEA) at the KC Renfest grounds. But in Omaha, I can take a class with Elmo at The Blacksmith Shop and potentially work with John as well.

In talking with John and Elmo, I showed them pictures of my dagger stands and they were interested in seeing them. Well, version 1.0 had some issues, the biggest of which was I had two sizes: a bit too large and a bit too small. The bit too large model suffered from bending near the top as the part aged.

Now that I had a mission, time to get back into FreeCAD and learn some new words to describe the software’s lineage. It really does help.

The next version of the dagger stand needed automatic resizing. I needed to easily change the riser height, move the position of the riser forward and backwards, change the length of the whole base, and adjust the gap at the top of the riser based on the blade width.

That was a long sentence and also a long list of items to get working in FreeCAD as there are multiple primitives that need to move and change with each modification. Google is good for learning curse words.

The good news is, I was able to take the time I needed and learned how to use the Spreadsheet in FreeCAD to set variables and functions to create all the calculations I needed. I used the sin and cos functions to take input for blade length, handle length, and blade width in order to determine the riser height and position, as well as set the overall base length to make it stable. Now with just three entries into a spreadsheet, I can dynamically resize everything. And because I am just that way, I also parametrised everything else, including wall thickness, base width, base height, … I can adjust everything from the Spreadsheet.

Hooray, I’m done!

@#$%. I have blades that yield stands that are too big for my Prusa printer as well.

Okay, time to take the model and pull up a tool to split it in two pieces and quickly print it…

I need to learn some additional languages so I can curse in them. A couple of flat planes don’t have a lot of great bonding strength and can easily snap apart.

Well, back to FreeCAD and learning a new function of splitting a model and keeping everything dynamic. So, now that I can split the model in the same tool and still dynamically resize everything, I just need to join the pieces in a more secure manner, while remaining within the boundaries of what a 3D printer can do (for instance, wide overhangs do not work as molten plastic will droop).

I first modeled some peg holes in the top and bottom of the split and included a set of pegs in the print. Start printing, wait 7 hours… Well, I sized the pegs a little too small (I needed a small gap as the plastic shrinks slightly as it cools, so the holes need to be slightly larger than the pegs when printed). Tried to print just a series of new of slightly larger pegs, but I am still dealing with something only slightly larger than 2 mm in diameter and the print failed as the pegs fell over. Not to mention, I am worried that the small plastic pegs won’t offer enough strength.

So version 3.0 of the dagger stand. This one has a bar and channel to give more space for the glue to bond and should be stronger. Start printing, wait 7 hours, … Success!!!!

So, now I have two new models. A single piece version for smaller blades and the version for larger blades that need to be printed in two parts. I will have to avoid blades that would need this broken into three parts.

I’ve got about 30 hours of printing to finish the remaining prints for the daggers I have (the bigger prints run right around 10 hours each to complete). Then I need to print a few samples to take to Omaha for the classes I have next year. I’ve got plenty of time before the classes, so no rush, but it is great to fix the stands that had warped or snapped in my display case.

Have a happy holiday and next year I’ll share what I learn at the fordge.

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Moon set

Moon Set

This morning I actually slept in a bit. Normally, I am up by 0430 or 0500 for work, but today it was 0630 when I ventured out and I am glad I did. Taking a peak outside revealed a gorgeous full moon setting through a bit of cloud cover and flying birds. I ran upstairs, grabbed my camera, long lens, and tripod to catch a few shots before the moon disappeared behind the clouds.

For those who know, things in the sky move and change very quickly. A couple minutes can change the scene dramatically. Most times I don’t even bother trying to get a shot because I know that in five minutes the shot will no longer exist. Today I had just enough time.

In making the effort, it reminded me something I know, but seem to keep forgetting: I need to make sure I take time for distractions. Too often, life envelops us with chaos and the constant need to rush to get things done. When in that mode, we only glance at the sky, or the inspiring scene, and continue on our way. Just like the moon, our brief chance to enjoy the moment sets and disappears beyond the horizon. It took me only a few minutes to set up and capture the shots. The other things I need to do just had to wait for me to enjoy something else for a change.

Extra credit for those interested in how fast the moon crosses the sky. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) site has a short post that explains why the moon will travel across the sky at different speeds.

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1980 was 20 years ago, prove me wrong – perception of time

We’ve all likely seen this meme in one form or another: 1980 was 20 years ago. When I first saw it, I could not stop myself from laughing because it spoke the truth. This statement felt universal and just about everyone I knew could relate to it. However, I wondered why. What made this something fixed in reality? Did it have to do with the fact that too many people forgot Y2K and still for no good reason use 2-digit years, allowing the roll-over of the century to confuse them, or are other forces at play?

As a person who lived through Y2K in the IT sector (the end of days for those who don’t remember them) I use a 4-digit years almost exclusively (and in ISO format to boot). So that didn’t seem like the most likely reason my perception had distortion. It must be aliens. What other explanation could exist for such a universal shared delusion?

Okay, aliens is a big stretch (though the movie is only 20 years old).

If not aliens, what?

So what has messed with everyone’s perception of time? I am fond of saying “Reality and its perception seldom converge, and perception always beats reality.” Objectively, 1980 (excluding the 20,000 years that was 2020) is just over 40 years ago—apologies to the old people, my own sense of self struggled to read what I have just typed—but factually the earth has flown 41 orbits around the sun in that time. Strangely, it feels better saying it in that fashion. Perhaps I should only describe my age as rotations around the big nuclear fusion reactor in the sky. I can see your eye rolls, but that won’t stop me.

It’s math, you need calculus

Anyway, the reality of our perception of the world is governed by math and a slight change in a small quantity of something generates a greater change in our perception than that same change in a larger quantity of the same thing. This observation is called Weber’s Law, or Weber-Fechner’s Law, started with the observation of differentiating between weights and then expanded to other perceptions.

This ratio means that as time passes and more and more years —revolutions around the sun—build up between our birth and the current day, the perception of a single day, or year, becomes smaller and less noticeable. The relative speed the earth moves has not changed appreciably, but our ability to perceive the change has. This impact to our perception applies to many things in the physical world as well as concepts such as finance and time. The law has gaps and fails to accurately model extreme conditions, but it generally reflects the logarithmic function of our  human perception. Any time you try to apply math to human psychology, the best you get is an approximation. However, the human behaviors described by the law show up in many places one might not expect.

More information

Ernst Heinrich Weber lived from 1795 to 1878, and his student Gustav Theodor Fechner lived from 1801 to 1887. 

Watch the 2018 video below to learn more (because Numberphile).

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Freezing Fog

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Hindsight is 2020 – Year in Review

The good, the bad, and the ugly: 2020

I was thinking about how I wanted to approach this post. I thought perhaps to talk about the bad and the ugly and then end on the good—you know, leave it on a positive note. But, like the rest of the year, things are not so cut and dry. Stuff doesn’t fall nicely into the categories. So, this will be a bit of a jumble of thoughts, and hopefully, I can end it with a happy message.

Human malware

Let’s start with the obvious: the pandemic has been brutal. I have been fortunate to avoid catching it, but I know multiple people who have not been as lucky. Some of the impacts have been devastating, and I feel deeply for those who have lost loved ones or are still suffering from the aftereffects of the disease. Mask wearing should not be political; please wear one.

With all the ugly that comes with covid, I will say that there have been some positive impacts on my life. The switch to working from home full time allowed me to lose over 30 pounds. In April, I decided to go back to paying attention to what I ate and put some effort back into exercising. I’ve been under 165 pounds since mid-August and plan to stay there. This was all because I was home and did not eat lunch out and could not go out to restaurants for dinner. (Though I’ve done a fair amount of take-away.)

Writing, or lack thereof

A year in review must include updates on my writing. I have not been entirely devoid of activity on this front. My 6th novel, Bound, released February of 2020. I enjoyed the switch over to Urban Fantasy and really like the character of Kyrie. My plan had been to get book 2 in the series written this year as well as finish the first book of a new traditional fantasy series. Unfortunately, neither of those things happened.

I do not talk about my day job on this platform. That is an intentional division I have made to keep those parts of my life separate. However, starting near the end of 2019, my typical 45-50 hour workweek shifted to more of a 50-60 hour workweek. Initially, I dealt with it and managed to juggle (generally by not getting enough sleep), but in 2020, the 50-60 hours soon moved to 60-80+ hours a week. Mentally, I had little of anything left. And as those who write know, consistency in finding the time to write is key. It is hard to spend an hour here, then come back four days later and smoothly pick things up again if you have to stop 30 minutes later.

Do not get me wrong, I was happy to not have lost my job as a result of the pandemic, but as a salaried person, the extra hours did not add extra compensation, only took away from other parts of my life. And even if I had been paid extra for the time, time is one of those things you can never get back.

So, during one of those particularly difficult weeks, I finally responded to a recruiter that had reached out a few times before, and this time I listened. As a result, I found the opportunity quite intriguing. So in November of this year, I made a career change that excites me.

What does that mean for my writing? I should once again have time for it!

Quick Status on writing efforts

A quick update on my writing. The first book of the new traditional fantasy series is about 80k words done, with another 20k words or so moved to a folder for book 2 in the series. I found I had been a bit too optimistic on how many words I needed to get in all the plot points I wanted for book one, so I’ve added another book into my plans.

For the second book in the Bound series, well, human malware has changed some of the original direction. While I am not explicit with the date of the setting, it is set in a modern world and for something as impactful as covid has been, I feel I really need to include some aspects of it into the story line.

Other things

Other things in 2020. In some regards, there was nothing worth mentioning. However, at the same time, it is the small things in life that create the day to day meaning.

One big item is my 3D printer and everything I have been printing. Mostly, it has been stuff of my own design. I have started to get much better with FreeCAD and have designed a number of things around my office from a softlight plate for a LED panel, to trays for my pens and paint bottles, to complex hooks to hang a curtain around wire shelving so it is less distracting on video calls. I have built boxes with friction locking tops, couplers to mate camera stands to desk clamps, holders for humidity sensors, and anything else my wife asks me to make for her. It has been one area of creativity that I have been able to express in 2020.

Plans for 2021?

Oh, the new year. What plans do I have? The same ones I have even night: try to take over the world.

Perhaps not. Here is a list, in no particular order, for things I want to accomplish in 2021:

Finish the first book in the new traditional fantasy seriesFinish the second book in the Bound seriesActively start posting on my site againLearn ZBrush so I can do some digital sculptingCreate more mapsRecord some videos and perhaps do some live streamsPractice figure drawingDo some night photography of the starsRun a 10k (or at least the distance)

That is probably a good list of things. I don’t want to plan too many.

Final thoughts for the year in review

2020 has been a struggle for many. There have been good things and absolutely horrendous things that have occurred. Will 2021 magically be better? No. But there is light out there and if we all work at it, things will continue to improve.

Stay safe, love one another, and I will see you tomorrow in the new year.

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Finding Historical Facts

Browser History

I’ve written before about my browser history and getting put on lists (That Google Search Just Put Me on a List). However, my gripe now is a mixed one. I am sure I renewed my list memberships, but instead of coming away satisfied with my efforts, I found myself frustrated.

Yesterday I needed some historical facts on medieval lore and knowledge, but ended up with links that provided nothing of use to me. The vast majority redirected me to drug treatment centers and places to go for help. Others tried to sell me products.

I understand the reasons Google would curate their results in such a manner. Someone else doing similar searches may definitely need assistance and should read those articles. The trouble is, I could not easily find a way through the “helpful” articles to get to the historical facts I wanted for reference purposes.

True Historical Facts Research

When Google fails us, there are alternatives (ironically found using Google) in a multitude of academic search engines with different specializations.  Google even has one call Google Scholar. Unfortunately, for my needs, this leads me down the rabbit hole and I can consume hours (days) digging through detail papers trying to pull out the specific facts I want (like population density as I mentioned in Fjelldal City Map). Often I want a factoid or confirmation something I “know” is true. The deep “academic” dive into the topic is usually overkill, a distraction, and a consumer of time. 

The other problem is some academic options require enrollemnt in specific schools or the need to fund the service through a paywall. Again, I get the reasons behind doing that. Maintaining search engines are not cheap and we don’t want to contaminate academic research with profit motives and/or you won’t find many advertisers who would fund it like they fund Google. I just wish these engines also had a mode that would boil down the facts to a quick sound bite when needed and let me dig deeper only when I wanted.

Fortunately, I write in the fantasy genre and when I can’t find a specific fact, I can make it up and can get away with it. However, that is not always satisfying to me. I love history and understanding the human condition. I have an entire shelf of reference books dedicated to the viking era and medieval history (no, I’ve not read them all, but they are on my list of things to read…yeah, yeah, I know).

Now back to making stuff up, but before I do, I’ll leave you with one link I have stumbled across a few times because of my love for maps: David Rumsey Map Collection

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Weight Loss, where I am today

Weight loss

Weight loss is one of the hardest things to deal with and just about everyone considers trying to lose weight at some point in their life. For many, it is a struggle they live with every day of their life. I am not claiming I have any answers, only that for the second time in my life, I have managed to drop back down from a point of excess weight to one more reasonable for my height and build.

I started with Lose-It back in 2010 (roughly at the end of February) at 185 pounds and lost weight to get back to what I called highschool skinny (around 155 pounds). I remained at that weight for a few months (roughly Aug – Nov) and then started a gradual climb to around 165. I stayed around 165 for a year, and then started a slow climb up into the 180s. I bounced back to the mid 170s and stayed there until 2018. At that point, I launched myself into the 190s (the highest I recorded was 193.4).

Stress

I know what pushed me to gain weight each time: stress. I am a stress eater. I can deal with a lot of stress and compartmentalize it (I worked as the escalation point for down systems for a database platform used by many large corporations for six years and the buck stopped with the team I worked on). However, for me, another bad habit that comes from stress is a tendency to veg and do very little. So, combine snacking (and drinking sugary beverages) with minimal activity and you end up with the graph below.

The chart above doesn’t use a starting point of my heaviest, so it only says I lost 19.6 pounds. Going from my peak of 193.4 last August to today’s 165.4, I am down 28 pounds over the least year.

I will admit to being very proud of the weight loss. I want to say it took no effort and I breezed through it, but that is not true. The least ten pounds fought me considerably, and I found myself discouraged more than I should have been. Combine in a fluctuating commitment to exercise, and I saw a very spiky month before I hit my target.

What is different

I am more hopeful this time with my weight loss. Ten years ago I was younger and dumber. I had confidence I had not yet earned (I may still have some of that hubris today—I hope not) and let myself get complacent. I had also set what I now believe was an unrealistic goal. While 155 left me skinny enough I could play as The Doctor, it is not something I think I can maintain over the course of my life. Fortunately, the graph data showed I naturally tended toward 165 pounds, which is the goal I set this time around.

And while I am at my target weight, I am not at my target percent body fat. So, as I continue to strive to turn fat into muscle, I hope that a few more inches will fall off my midsection, even though I won’t drop to my highschool I had back in … let’s say a few years ago.

Part of what I have changed is walking four to six miles a day. That has given me more stamina, and I’ve even been able to do a solid two mile jog without dying from the effort. I want to work that up to 4 miles so I can easily do a 5k (and then some) and then get myself over 6 miles running to take part in 10k races. (The two mile units also relates to a two mile loop I have near my home.)

I don’t think I will ever aim for a full marathon. Not that I think I couldn’t do it, but because the time needed to train for that would prohibit too many other things I like to do more (such as writing, drawing, photography, and hiking).

My message

I will take the cop-out answer of saying each person’s journey in the effort to lose weight is different and I can’t say what will work for you, but I can say that what worked for me involved:

Tracking my calories, even when I had to guess at the actual amounts, and especially when I went over the daily budget (forced me to remain accountable to myself)Adding exercise, starting with walking, then adding light weights, and increasing the effort until I could sustain jogging and heavier weights (burns calories, makes me feel better, and improves my overall health)Giving up sugary drinks (they have so many calories and I could drink over 1000 calories in one meal)Staying with it even when I made no progress and things got difficult (again, remaining accountable to yourself)Setting realistic goals (1-2 pounds of loss per week and a target my body can sustain long term)Cutting portion sizes down so I can still have dessert, just not as much of it as I used to eat (I love pizza, ice cream, Jello, … I really love these things)And to repeat, not giving up; learn from prior attempts and adapt; I’ve done this twice in the last decade (continual improvement)

Good luck, stay safe, and remain positive!

Earlier updates on this journey include: Diet, I Should Have Started Sooner, Losing Weight, Bumpy, but Expected, Keeping Focused on the Diet, and Diet at Home.

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Procedural Drama

Procedural Drama

I grew up with Law & Order, CSI, NCIS, and dozens of other shows filling my evenings. I tended toward the more investigative programs, but I watched plenty of the shows that just showed the “good guy” beating up the “bad guy” any way they could. I will admit I enjoyed them as a kid and even as an adult.

I will also admit that I didn’t really pay attention to the underlying messages and unintentional objectives of the shows (or perhaps someone really knew what they were doing, I can’t say). However, the idea that an official of the government should bend the rules to get a “bad guy” to talk shows up in so many of these programs I watched and enjoyed. Sometimes there were consequences raises, but I can’t actually recall any real ones in these programs. The rest of the “official organization” simply looked away. Perhaps some offered quiet disagreement and warnings, but ultimately the violations remained ignored because the means found justification in the ends.

When you cut away the rest for the humor, action, and drama, this seems to be the core basis for a procedural drama: get the “bad guy” anyway you can.

Awakening

These last few months at home have exposed a blindness I had to these messages in these programs. I even talked about Psychology and writing a couple weeks ago and mentioned that being observant is a key aspect of a writer’s life. But I did not recognize just how tone deaf some of these programs are until I started listening to an audio book for a book published in 2006 (which is not that long ago). I listened to the reader talking about the systematic torture of a multiple people the author demonstrated through actions as actual bad guys. I listened to the protagonist’s superiors complain and threaten the main character, but then dismiss the issue because results occurred; information obtained.

I won’t name the book or author. This is not a rebuke on them personally. More a critique of myself and my own thought processes and what I would say was a willful ignorance, even if not a conscious one.

Learning and growing can be hard. It can be unpleasant to admit. But it is necessary so that one can do better in the future.

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Cats, dragons they be

Cats and Dragons

Just what the internet needs more of: cat pictures. Well, the featured image for this post is a watercolorized shot of Pip, one of my two personal mini dragons. I also call them destroctomatic 2000s. They love to find ways to tear up anything they can get their paws and teeth into. They live to cause mischief. They hoard their toys. And they know themselves to be the center of the universe.  For this reason, I am certain cats descend from their flying cousins.

Why do I put up with them? Simple, they are so damn cute.

I don't trust your rollThe water isn't deep enoughWhat?My StringDid I say you could bother me?



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