Category: DIY

Do-it-yourself

A Vision of Standardized DIY Kitchen-Mounted Household Tablet Displays

Post author By Sam
Post date 2026-03-31
No Comments on A Vision of Standardized DIY Kitchen-Mounted Household Tablet Displays

It’s 2026. People can use AI to generate copious amount of decent code, especially if they already program and especially if it’s for a low-stakes use case and imperfections are tolerable. And the world is awash in used tablets.

Thus it’s no surprise that at least 3 of my coder dad friends have mounted old tablets to the walls of their kitchens and living rooms and hacked together displays of information for their households. It replaces the paper calendars of yore with digital calendars, yes, but also displays family photos, weather forecasts, meal plans, shopping lists, chore lists, and various bespoke widgets.

A commercial version of such a product is the Skylight. But who wants to buy a new device and then pay a monthly fee? Everyone DIYs it instead. There must be thousands of takes on this project. But are they all one-off implementations of crufty code? And I can’t just deploy someone else’s solution? When I investigated the space six months ago for my own purposes, there wasn’t a single go-to candidate that looked usable. DAKboard is SaaS, Magic Mirror² runs on Raspberry Pi and a display?

EDIT —————-

After posting this, two other options were suggested to me:

Home Assistant: good fit if you’re in that world already! But too technically difficult for most people and not meant to run on an old tablet.

TRMNL: these devices are pretty cool and I like the mix of paid and self-hosted options. There’s not exactly a grid where you can plug anything in, like the Vercel-hosted dog coordinator app. Also not meant to run on an old tablet. But this was the closest thing to what I had envisioned so kudos to that project.

END EDIT —————-

It makes me think there’s a need for a standardized framework. I’m inexperienced when it comes to frontend development and have no mobile experience, so I’m not the ideal person to make it happen. But here’s my vision:

A well-made, simple Android and iOS app that can run on the tablet 24/7
It supports things like on/off/dim hours or waking-on-motion-detection
It has a framework for building plug-ins. These are widgets that can display on a grid. Like dropping widgets on a smartphone home screen, they can be various sizes, moved around, and be assigned to new screens you can scroll to.

The plug-ins I would build would be for Google Calendar, Google Photos, a chore list for my kids, and a generic web view widget. My neighbor created an app deployed on Vercel where we coordinate which dog is outside so they don’t bark at each other through the fence.

(I think this latter part is where this product shines: you can plug in janky vibe-coded web apps via a single widget).

Other devs would contribute plug-ins for Home Assistant, Notion, shopping lists, weather, etc.

Apache Superset, the data visualization software I run at work and contribute to, has invested massive effort in refactoring the codebase to support extensions. VSCode is an inspiration in this regard. The idea is that extensions will make it way easier for developers to contribute new modular pieces to Superset. I’m thinking something similar here.

Then an end user doesn’t have to know coding to use it. They install from their app store, then select and configure the widgets they want. They just populate the necessary config and credentials for each widget.

Initially I wouldn’t worry about the “accessible to layperson end users” or “on the app store”, those have a higher bar for code quality and then someone is on the hook for maintenance (though maybe that can be monetized, especially if it provides API services like weather?). I would just make an app you can sideload (I have sideloaded onto Android before, apparently it’s possible on iOS too).

What I really want here is that instead of thousands of us doing a crappy job on this, we get one rock-solid framework app and then individual devs build high-quality plugins.

Does this already exist and I can use it & contribute instead of building from scratch? Please?

If not, who’s coming with me? What stack are we building this in? Where do we start?

Tags foss, hacking, reuse

DIY Gardening How-to Nature

My Tote-ally Awesome Rain Barrel

Post author By Sam
Post date 2025-04-03
No Comments on My Tote-ally Awesome Rain Barrel

I’ve now had a full season with my mega-sized rain barrel. It’s great. Here’s how it works and what I learned along the way.

The “barrel”: I also have a proper 55 gallon barrel collecting rain from my garage, but the barrel that’s the focus of this post isn’t actually a barrel – it’s a caged IBC tote (“Intermediate bulk container“) that holds a whopping 1,040 liters of rainwater!

I bought it from a local government unit, the Washtenaw County Conservation District (store link). It didn’t fit in my minivan so I carried it home on my cargo bike – that’s a whole ‘nother story that I wrote up as The biggest thing I’ll ever tote on a bike.

I won’t lie, these IBC totes sure are ugly! And mine is visible from the street. Here’s how it looked at first:

I had planned to build a wood screen in front of it and paint a mural or something, but it was simpler to buy online a black cover that zips right on. Also, apparently these totes will grow algae inside if you don’t cover them or paint them black to block out the sunlight, so this was a 2-for-1 solution.

Tags 1, 2, rain barrel, weather

Biking DIY How-to Making Repair

DIY Upholstered Seat Cushion for Yuba Spicy Curry Cargo Bike

Post author By Sam
Post date 2024-09-06
No Comments on DIY Upholstered Seat Cushion for Yuba Spicy Curry Cargo Bike

a blue and white striped cushion on the back of a longtail cargo bike

I got my first Yuba Spicy Curry bike in 2017 and have been riding one ever since. It is the long-tail bike seen in many of the photos of Things I’ve carried on a cargo bike and The biggest thing I’ll ever tote on a bike.

This year both of my weathered passenger seat cushions split open (Yuba has entirely changed the seat cushions they sell since I bought mine, and I hear the new ones are more durable). So I undertook my first foray into upholstery, refashioning my old and busted Soft Spots into one double-length cushion, a couch of sorts.

My coworking friends at Workantile have many interesting skills. One of them is a hobbyist upholsterer! With her tools and know-how it only took an hour or two, using materials we already had lying around.

First I measured and cut a piece of plywood to cover the full tail of the bike. It turned out that the foam from the old seats was still in good shape, so we reused it. We stuffed some foam scraps between the two old blocks of foam:

the foam cores of the two seat cushions, laid next to each other — All the foam, resting on the plywood base

Packed tight and held in place by special spray adhesive

Tags anti-consumerism, cargo bikes, upholstery, yuba spicy curry

DIY How-to Making

Replacing the Logo on a New Era Baseball Cap

Post author By Sam
Post date 2023-11-09
1 Comment on Replacing the Logo on a New Era Baseball Cap

My brother recently suggested I could upgrade my hat game. He was right: the crusty, adjustable-strap White Sox hat I’d worn for years was due for replacement. I liked the fit and look of the New Era 59Fifty wool ballcap he lent me. But I didn’t care to advertise for a team (a.k.a. company) I don’t care about, nor did I wish to invite small talk about sports.

My mission: replace the logo on an official New Era baseball cap with one of my own design. It was a fun mixed-media project, part art, part craft, and part hack.

I ordered a gently-used cap from eBay. If you don’t care about team logo, the choices are vast! I purchased a 1990s vintage black hat with a black Yankees logo for $13.

A black vintage Yankees hat, untouched — The original hat, ready for surgery

First I removed the existing logo. I used a seam ripper to slice threads and pliers to yank on loose ones. When removing logos from other garments, I rip stitches from the back, but that wasn’t possible here due to the white backing liner on the inside.

Many of the threads have been picked off — Going…

This part was slow going. All of the yanking with my dominant hand bent the cap slightly. I probably should have done more slicing and snipping and less brute force with the pliers.

The result wasn’t perfect. A few threads from the logo remained and I pulled out a little material from the hat itself. But it sufficed once I covered it up. I wonder if contrast would have helped. Would a white logo on black hat work better (because the white logo stitches would be easier to selectively remove) or worse (anything left over would stick out)?

Gone! The outline visible here can’t be seen under the new logo.

Next I made the new logo, using the community laser cutter at All Hands Active. I downloaded the Extinction Symbol and loaded it into Lightburn, which auto-traced the outlines. I was ready for the laser.

I cut the logo out of corrugated plastic sheeting, often called Coroplast. Most plastic is unsafe to cut on a CO2 laser, but Coroplast is okay. In Ann Arbor, unscrupulous companies print advertisements on this plastic and illegally place them in the public right-of-way near highway off-ramps and busy intersections.

I considered 3D-printing the symbol. That way I could have controlled its depth – the Coroplast stock is a tiny bit thicker than a New Era-style logo – and added touches like tiny holes through which to sew the logo to the hat. But that would have taken a while to design and print. And I liked the spirit of reusing roadside litter.

The laser burned nearly through and I finished it with an X-ACTO knife.

Next, I wrapped the logo. I used a small bundle of embroidery floss, I believe a 8.7 yard bundle of 6-stranded DMC 25. That was exactly enough for this project.

beginning to wrap the plastic with embroidery floss — Wrapping underway, trying to keep the knots on the back

A crafty friend at Workantile suggested I wrap the logo before attaching it to the hat. Brilliant!

Mostly wrapped

Fully wrapped and ready to mount

I got it almost entirely wrapped, then tacked it onto the hat in a few places with the same thread. Finally, I completed a few tricky wrapping stitches that were easier once the logo was anchored to the hat.

The wrapping is imperfect and in one spot I pulled too hard and compressed the plastic. But from across the room it passes for a commercially-made hat!

The finished product

I’m pleased with how it turned out. I have a comfortable, well-made hat and instead of promoting a sports franchise, I’m starting conversations about living during the Sixth Mass Extinction. Seeing the logo reminds me to think timefully.

If I hack another hat, I’ll consider 3D-printing the symbol to try to precisely match the depth of the hat’s original logo. And I’d start with a hat that isn’t black-on-black so the New Era logo on the side pops: I enjoy the tension and confusion that comes from this being a mass-produced object with a hand-made logo.

Tags All Hands Active, anti-consumerism, extinction, fashion, laser cutter, sewing, workantile

DIY Repair

Tips for Fixing a Dripping Widespread Sink Faucet

Post author By Sam
Post date 2023-01-15
No Comments on Tips for Fixing a Dripping Widespread Sink Faucet

These are notes from Jan 2023 me to future me – here’s what you need to know:

To fix the 2007 Pegasus [is that a Home Depot brand?] widespread two-handled faucet on the upstairs bathroom sink
About fixing leaking sink faucets more generally

Diagnosis. Figure out if the hot or cold is leaking by turning off the water supply lines one at a time.

The part to change to stop the dripping is the cartridge (in a one-handled faucet) or, in this widespread two-handle bathroom sink, the faucet stem. It comes with a new retaining clip. Cartridge vs. faucet stem is mostly a matter of terminology.

Tags Plumbing

Biking DIY Gardening

The biggest thing I’ll ever tote on a bike

Post author By Sam
Post date 2022-03-27
2 Comments on The biggest thing I’ll ever tote on a bike

a longtail cargo bicycle carrying a 275 plastic tote in a metal cage

I have carried a lot of things on my cargo bike. It’s become a game: what unlikely object can I next transport via bicycle? I clearly remember the rush of hauling my first big item, a suitcase, five years ago. That load was liberating then, pushing the boundaries of what I could do, but now I wouldn’t think twice about it.

I returned this suitcase to Macy’s and went shopping at Briarwood Mall. October 2016.

Yesterday I reached my high score in this game, if you will. Like in a heist movie, I sought to pull off the world’s greatest job before taking it easy evermore. And I did it.

I’m not done hauling – I’ll still carry things on this bike every day – but during the record-breaking ride I swore that if I made it home without incident, I’d not try anything this big again. This is the tale of hauling a 275 gallon plastic tote, in a metal pallet, six miles across Ann Arbor.

Tags cargo bikes, e-bikes, self-congratulatory, stormwater, things I won't do again

DIY How-to Making Nature

Making a coat rack from a buckthorn log

Post author By Sam
Post date 2022-03-03
1 Comment on Making a coat rack from a buckthorn log

a completely split tree trunk — Too bad I didn't need matching coat racks

This project hit many of my interests:

Eliminating buckthorn, a nasty invasive species
Reuse / making things from leftovers
Amateur woodworking
Contributing to Workantile, the co-working community I’m a part of

It turned out nicely. Here’s a writeup and some photos.

The rack

It started when I was biking home with groceries from Meijer and encountered a big pile of buckthorn by the side of the road, culled from Greenview Nature Area and awaiting pickup for composting. The biggest trunk was a decent sized log. The bike was already heavily laden but fortunately, a log is a different shape than grocery bags so I found a spot for it:

a log on a bike — This was surprisingly easy to haul

For a while I’d been interested in woodworking with found wood, especially buckthorn. I take pleasure in removing it and would enjoy that even more if I could turn it into things. I asked my friend and de facto woodworking coach Chris how I should go about processing logs. Buy a bandsaw? Build one of those circular-saw-converted-to-chainsaw DIY mills I saw on YouTube? Both seemed excessive.

Tags anti-consumerism, buckthorn, froe, kiwanis, workantile

DIY How-to Making

Making a wallet out of a bag of chips

Post author By Sam
Post date 2021-02-14
No Comments on Making a wallet out of a bag of chips

I’d liked the idea of making a wallet out of a empty bag of potato chips, but didn’t know how to use a sewing machine. I finally bought one off of Craigslist this winter and am figuring it out. A sewing machine unlocks some projects I’d long been curious about – this is one of them.

I followed the steps from this Instructables guide and it turned out pretty well! I would make this project again. It felt like it dragged on, my 10 year-old helper and I took our time, but if doing this again I could move much faster and complete it in an hour or two. I wonder what the durability of the wallet will be. I plan to use it, so will find out.

It’s fun to think about what part of the design you want on the outside

Tags sewing, upcycling

DIY How-to Making

Homemade wood toaster tongs

Post author By Sam
Post date 2021-01-06
No Comments on Homemade wood toaster tongs

I recently broke a pair of toaster tongs I’d been given. They looked very much like this set ($10):

Magnetic Wooden Toast Tongs — Image belongs to the Vermont Country Store

Complete with the laser-etched phrase and magnet to grip a metal surface. Made from a single piece of wood, with thin tongs, one of the tongs eventually snapped. I generally stick to rough, practical carpentry, but saw these plans from Rockler for DIY kitchen tongs that made this finish carpentry project seem within my reach. And it was! Now I’ll have more confidence tackling polished projects going forward.

I’m very pleased with how mine ended up:

Not perfect, but the imperfections are tolerable!

Tags woodworking