The drives I ordered for the new NAS were a bit of a surprise choice.

Hunger Is No Joke#

As we know, you can never have too much space. To the green Barracuda — once the biggest at 8TB — three red IronWolfs at 12TB each were added, replacing the 4TB WD drives. But all good things come to an end, and inevitably so did the free space on all those disks. For quite a while I had an expansion unit on my wishlist — a box that lets you connect a few extra drives to an existing Synology. And then Black Friday 2024 arrived.

A ride-on toy car for kids.

Wheels/tires#

The minimal upgrade is to replace the plastic wheels with rubber ones. What’s needed: measure the wheel and axle diameters, purchase wheels, and attach the motor drive to the new wheels.

Power 12V#

Instead of the built-in battery, you can connect a 12 or 20-volt battery from power tools. Reports say the motors work fine, but to avoid burning out the electronics (radio/Bluetooth and lights) a step-down converter is required.

The “Canada Days” trend was born in my booze blog, and I kept trying to remember what else Canadian from the past month (besides the beer and whisky) I had forgotten — and here it is.

When you’re riding through beautiful scenery, you want to capture it and share it — but you can’t pull out your phone while driving. So the photo arsenal has finally gained a tool for shooting on the go. Stay tuned for new videos on the YouTube channel!

The absence of snow in these parts had made me a bit complacent — but that won’t do, so a shovel was finally bought and put in the trunk.

The older axe (who, by the way, is named Ira) has been joined by a smaller one. Still unnamed and without any mods for now, but I think we’ll sort that out come summer.

And who just received this adorable little Chinese screwdriver set? That would be me

The case is magnetic and holds every bit in place. It’s also a metal-and-plastic combo — a metal sleeve slides over the plastic tray. Finally I have a Torx with a hole! No more having to snap out those miserable pins in screws!

The set is mostly small-to-micro sizes With a few non-standard bits…

This is what the insides of a six-year-old laptop look like

The joke about forced ventilation has come true — it’s not even peak summer yet, and the equipment shelf is already showing +38ºC.

So a quick Amazon search turned up the smallest (80mm) decent consumer fan I could find — USB-powered, a 3-speed gearbox, and advertised as quiet.

The result: 30ºC on the first gear. Ready for summer!