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The Lockdown, Up-skill, Tear-down, Catch-up and Refurb Thread

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    The Lockdown, Up-skill, Tear-down, Catch-up and Refurb Thread

    So, to try and take a positive spin on the lockdown period, I thought I'd create this thread for us to share anything we have had more time to do.

    Perhaps it's learning a new skill, trying something new, tackling a long-shelved project, recapping your Egret or just grinding through your backlog.

    For me, there hasn't been as much time as you'd hope, but Easter gave me five days of time which allowed me to:
    1. Exercise my rudimentary electronics, to solder up a dual led with some resistors and some spare Noctua fan cable for my Ultimate 64 Elite. Works a treat.


    2. Backup the HDD of my (probably dead) Amiga A4000. Data that has been on a disc that's not been spun up in 14 years. I used my OpenPandora handheld (as it's a Linux machine) using dd. Amazingly, the only data corruption was on a few non-essential files on the system partition.
    3. Played two episodes of Life is Strange:Before the Storm. Which is really good.
    4. Played about five hours of Zelda:BOTW, which was therapeutic and beautiful, even more so when I caught a jet-black, wild horse - which, after quite a chase and several kicks to the head, I called her 'Beauty' like any 70s-child would!

    5. Configured my Odroid XU4 (bought from someone here back in 2015 or something) to build soft-arm code as a cross-compiler for my Pandora. Then I built the same gcc that built the kernel on my Pandora, which I will be needing for some other projects (gcc 4.94 and I needed to modify the code a bit).
    6. Make a sourdough starter and get good at baking bread. My first starter didn't work out (bleached white flour doesn't have much natural yeast left, it seems) but my organic, rough-ground rye starter is now three weeks old and very active. The bread is getting better, but I still have much more practice at kneading and forming to do, to get the perfect loaf.



    Anyway, so have you guys and girls been able to get something out of the extra time at home?

    Tell us what you've been up to!
    Last edited by gunrock; 18-04-2020, 16:42. Reason: Added pics

    #2
    Wife is working from home while I have found myself furloughed so I am the sole childcare between 6am - 3pm.

    Where we moved into our new house last July there's loads to do but it's tricky starting a project too large when trying to keep two under fives entertained.

    So far I've:

    1. built a trampoline (tricky)
    2. cleared the garden of leaves and stuff (two massive trees behind our garden and it's only recently been dry enough to clear)
    3. started painting the right hand fence
    4. finished Gears 5
    5. finished Resi Remake 3

    I've got a list as long as anything that I want to get done and the extension of lockdown is certainly going to help me achieve a lot of it. Biggest issue is not being able to get supplies like paint as they are not deemed as essential purchases.

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      #3
      Welcome, [MENTION=2540]teddymeow[/MENTION]. Oh I have tons of chores to do in the garden and painting the woodwork, etc. but I have a tonne of game or technology related stuff to do. Off the top of my head:
      1. Remove the clock capacitor on my OG Xbox and softmod it.
      2. Rebuild my desktop PC and transfer 35 ageing MiniDV tapes to a backup store.
      3. Build an ARM based server for backups based around a Rock64 SBC.
      4. Setup Raspberry Pi 3b+ with motioneyeos in the garden to capture the dirty bastard who keeps putting bags full of dog****e in my bin. :grrr:
      5. Build the replacement Pico PSU for my Dreamcast and fit my GDEmu to it.
      6. RGB mod my N64 and break the tabs on my NTSC-J N64.
      7. Setup Swiss and sd2sp2 card on my Gamecube.
      8. Replace drivebelts on old tapedeck so I can transfer some old Vic-20 and C64 cassettes.

      The list goes on and on, man!

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        #4
        Our garden has decking on three sides but the right side is very soft and starting to fall apart.

        I look forward to taking a crowbar to that and ripping it all up to put in a veggie garden!!

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          #5
          Painting a load of warhammer
          Tidying up the loft and building cupboards up there
          Refurbishing my two old broken air rifles I found up the loft.
          Rebuilding my classic mini which has been in bits for years.
          Give Land Rover a mega clean then start on MGB after mini.

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            #6
            Lots of man-plan things going on here, I approve!

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              #7
              I'm doing Ring Fit every weekday.

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                #8
                Went round every room in the house and pulled out all the old Rawl plugs left behind by the previous owner.

                Will fill them after lunch.

                I've also gathered and hung three pairs of curtains this morning.

                If I can find my adjustable spanner I'm also going to replace the kitchen tap later.

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                  #9
                  I want to start on our hallway and landing but I'm pretty sure getting hold of paint and materials will be a pain. I bet everyone is doing the same thing.
                  Kitchen could do with some work too.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by vanpeebles View Post
                    Painting a load of warhammer
                    Tidying up the loft and building cupboards up there
                    Refurbishing my two old broken air rifles I found up the loft.
                    Rebuilding my classic mini which has been in bits for years.
                    Give Land Rover a mega clean then start on MGB after mini.
                    Bizarrely I have desire to get an air rifle. The thought seed was planted last week, not sure where it came from. Your post only reinforces the need to get one.

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                      #11
                      What are you guys shooting?

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Zaki View Post
                        What are you guys shooting?
                        People not observing social distancing

                        Neil

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                          #13
                          "Gunishment"

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Zaki View Post
                            "Gunishment"
                            lol very good

                            In all seriousness though it is great seeing everything picking up new skills or doing new stuff.

                            Me on the other hand...I am achieving the great "F-ALL" lol

                            Neil

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                              #15
                              Let's not forget [MENTION=9465]Brad[/MENTION] completed journalism school during lockdown

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