Daniel’s World 2.0: Recalibrated

Everything’s been running smoothly this week—almost suspiciously so. No major disasters, no tests to panic over (for once). I even fixed a laptop without it turning into a multi-day project, which feels like a rare win. Efficiency mode has been fully activated. Well… except for the printer. That’s completely broken. But I’m not upset—that’s why we buy Ender 3s, right? If it worked flawlessly, I’d probably get bored. And, of course, she’s been as brilliant as ever. Nothing in particular. Just in the way that she always is. I don’t even think she realizes how much I appreciate that sometimes. But that’s just how she is—effortlessly great without even trying. Meanwhile, on a completely unrelated note, I’ve been thinking about the eternal Excel debate. VLOOKUP is fine, I guess, but why people still use it when XLOOKUP and INDEX MATCH exist is beyond me. Some people just refuse to let go of the past. No other complaints. Yeah. It's been pretty chill.  73 for now, Daniel.

Sunday update time, and this week has been full speed ahead. The printer’s recalibrated, physics on Friday was actually fun, and I’ve fixed five computers in the past few days. Not bad at all—though one of them couldn’t be completely revived. At least all the data was recovered, which is a win in itself. Still, I always seem to focus more on the one thing that didn’t go right instead of the four that did. But maybe that’s just part of getting better. If I never let mistakes go unnoticed, I’ll never make them twice. Meanwhile, over in the world of questionable decision-making, the Model UN couple from last post are still going strong—for now. They move fast, and things that move fast tend to run out of fuel just as quickly. Their comment sections look like a full-scale love-bombing operation, complete with the usual “my love <3” posts and excessive emojis (only from one side of the couple though…) . Meanwhile, the public-facing extent of my “relationship” is just dumb jokes about Mi...

Everything’s going fine—well, mostly. The printer’s down, but nothing a quick re-calibration won’t fix. School’s been school , meaning there were a couple of tests this week to keep things interesting. Algebra and physics. My best subjects outside of school, but somehow the second I sit down in a formal exam setting, my brain decides to clock out early. It’s almost impressive how quickly I can forget things I use daily. I walked out of that test completely annoyed with myself. Not because I didn’t know the material, but because my brain chose the absolute worst time to play a game of "let’s see how many silly mistakes we can make in one sitting." At this point, I’m just hoping for a Merit. Excellence? Yeah, nah. But then, right after, I turned around and fixed someone’s laptop in under an hour. Because apparently, when it comes to solving actual problems, I can do just fine—just not when the answers are supposed to go in little boxes on a test paper. And speaking of being...

It’s been a while since I could say this, but everything’s actually… good. Friday’s physics class? Good. The printer? Still running smoothly. School? Well, as good as school can be. It’s strange to have a week where nothing is going horribly wrong, but I’m not about to complain. On the project front, I’ve been refining my PCB designs, making sure everything is perfectly routed and ready for manufacturing. There’s something oddly satisfying about watching a board come together, piece by piece, until it’s exactly how I imagined it. I’ve always enjoyed the process—solving problems, tweaking layouts, optimizing things to be just that little bit better. Maybe it’s just another form of what I’ve always done: making things work, whether it’s circuits, code, or anything else I get my hands on. And speaking of things that don’t work—timing, again. Funny how it always comes back to that. Some people rush into things, forcing them to happen, and then wonder why they fall apart. Take some of t...

If there’s one thing that never fails to impress me, it’s Microsoft Excel. You can say what you want, but spreadsheets are objectively one of the best things ever created. Organizing data, automating calculations, bending numbers to my will—it’s beautiful. Some people see a blank sheet and freeze. I see endless potential. With Excel, I can have it all—formulas, macros, perfectly aligned cells. But moving on from my love of spreadsheets, nothing much has changed since yesterday. School is still school, and my radio has still been sitting in silence. But on the technical side of things, I’ve been back at it, working on designing PCBs for a radio project that I’m actually planning to get made properly. I’ve done a lot of DIY boards in the past, but there’s something satisfying about sending off a design and getting back a set of professionally manufactured boards that you can assemble properly without worrying about dodgy traces or etching mistakes. I’ve written before about timing—how...

She’s really got me pushing out posts like I’m some kind of content creator. Not that I mind, honestly—I do love to write. And for once, I don’t even have anything to complain about. School hasn’t been too bad since I’ve finally been able to challenge myself a bit more. Year 11 physics is still laughable, but thankfully, it wraps up next week. I’ll definitely be staying in scholarship physics, where at least the work isn’t mind-numbingly easy. Unfortunately, the printers are officially gone. The bin they were in got taken away yesterday, so that’s the end of my Ultimaker and Da Vinci 1.0 reminiscing (probably). In other repair-related news, I had to fix my surface mount PCB oven—because if I’m going to solder tiny components, I’m going to do it the lazy way. The 3D printer itself is still running business as usual. I’ve also gone back to not talking on the radio, as per usual. Oh, and I’m now thoroughly convinced I saw a man swallow an entire cigarette the other day. Weird glitch in th...

This week finally brought something I’ve been craving for a while—an actual challenge at school. I sat in on a scholarship-level physics class, and for once, the work was tough enough to be satisfying. It’s not often I get to say that about school, but in that moment, it felt right . I wasn’t just sitting there, going through the motions. I had to think, to push myself, and that’s exactly what I’ve been missing. It was probably the highlight of my week. But my mind hasn’t just been on physics. That Da Vinci 1.0 printer is still taking up space in my thoughts, and not just because I might get to salvage it. It’s had me thinking back to where I started, to the younger version of me who first got into all of this. And, maybe even more so, I’ve been thinking about something she said a couple of days ago: Would young me be proud of me now? It’s one of those deceptively simple questions that you can’t help but spiral into. She’s had her thoughts on it, and honestly, so have I. My life goal...

Just been getting by this week. Nothing too bad, just the usual—school, fixing things, and generally existing. Physics is still frustrating, but at this point, that’s about as surprising as my 3D printer working flawlessly (which it still is). Speaking of fixing things, I’ve done a couple of iPhone battery replacements—an iPhone 8, an iPhone 12, and my own iPhone SE 2020. There’s something oddly satisfying about swapping out a battery and knowing you’ve just extended a device’s life by a couple more years. You spend a few minutes peeling off those annoying adhesive strips (which never come off cleanly, no matter how careful you are), do a quick swap, and suddenly, an aging phone is back in business. It’s a nice little reminder that just because something isn’t brand new doesn’t mean it’s not worth keeping around. "I guess that's why they call it the blues" —because seeing two Ultimaker 2X Experimental 3D printers in the school skip and knowing I would have had them i...

 Time for the Sunday update, and honestly, the only reason I’m even up right now is because of her. We were on the phone for a couple of hours already, and at some point, she decided that since it’s Sunday, my update had to be posted. So here we are. If you’re reading this, I assume you’re probably a normal person doing so at a much more reasonable, normal-person time. Anyway, this week. Not much has changed since Wednesday (or, well, Thursday). I taught my sections at the Ham Cram course—ironically covering concepts way more complex than what I’m being made to sit through in class—and it was actually pretty exciting this time around. A few of the people there were really interested in building things and making their own radios, which is great because I actually have something useful to contribute beyond just getting them through the exam. It’s one thing to help someone pass a test, but helping someone actually get into the hobby properly, with soldering irons and circuit diag...