Must See Movies

There are only a handful of passions in my life: video games, technology, food, and movies. When it comes to choosing the best of anything, I’m naturally biased toward what’s been available during my lifetime. I also tend to favor the movies I grew up with. In my opinion, action, adventure, and comedy films from the 1980s to around 2012 are the best. However, this narrow-minded thinking does overlook some potential all-time classics from other eras and genres.

This might lead to a nature vs. nurture discussion, but I’m curious what people from different ages and backgrounds consider their top 5 movies of all time. I’ll share mine first, but I plan to ask others once the inevitable small talk about the weather runs its course.

My Top 5

• Terminator 2 (more on this later)
• True Lies
• Dumb & Dumber
• Airheads
• Rocky

It’s tough to narrow down a “top” anything. There’s so much to consider. Do we focus on rewatchability, score, acting, story, setting, or maybe the memories tied to watching the film? Everyone has different criteria. For some, it could be historical accuracy, stellar performances, or whether it aligns with personal beliefs. I tend to gravitate toward excitement and humor, and there are so many great options! For example, here are some that didn’t quite make my top 5:

Mentions

• Speed
• The Rock
• Lethal Weapon
• Bad Boys
• Ace Ventura 2
• Hot Shots!
• The Fifth Element
• Demolition Man
• RoboCop
• Point Break
• Beavis & Butthead Do America
• Die Hard with a Vengeance
• Total Recall
• Big Trouble in Little China
• The Running Man
• Beverly Hills Cop
• Men in Black
• The Last Boy Scout
• Tango & Cash
• Cliffhanger
• The Fugitive
• Rambo
• Commando

These are all fantastic films, but do they deserve a spot at the very top? That’s the challenge for any movie lover.

What are your top picks?

Discussion Here: https://x.com/cmcwain/status/1841953890427863374

Flask

The internet talks about Flask a lot. Apparently, it’s an easy way to interact with Python scripts via HTML. It was always something I wanted to check out, but never had a use case to learn. Now that we track calories, exercise, and health metrics for our Grafana visualization, entering all this data would be much nicer if done through a UI.

A formal post with code will be written up later. AI is still guiding me through learning Flask. Although, progress has been slow since it’s been a week filled with mandatory meetings.

This is a small project with only one user. For now, it may just be run in Screen to keep the scripts going.

Discussion here: https://x.com/cmcwain/status/1841557522542690357

Repairability

If there’s anything I hope you gain from reading this site, it’s that you make smart decisions when purchasing or using a product. Being able to fix your widget so you can keep using it has many amazing benefits.

Take this Eufy robot vacuum as an example. The front guide wheel ($9 with shipping) fell off because it’s cheap plastic that wasn’t meant to last. No company is going to spend an extra 10 cents to make it better if they don’t need to. Saving every penny for profit is the name of the game. However, that doesn’t mean we need to buy a whole new device just because some random piece fell off. Companies like Eufy provide replacement parts for their vacuums and even go above and beyond by including some basic ones in the original packaging.

I specifically chose this vacuum for that reason, and I’ll continue buying products that lets me do the fixing. The market has been very anti-consumer for a while, so it’s refreshing to see this trend gain momentum.

Maybe one day we’ll be able to print all our replacements.

This print made me incredibly happy today. I love this thing! It’s a highly detailed, miniature recreation of the Legend of Zelda map for the NES! It’s so cool!

Ziploc

Why even have the perforations on the box?!?

I have taken this test twice so far: once today and another back in 2021. The results have moved slightly right since then.

Where do you fall? Clicky Me for Testy Westy

Filament Refills

Bambu Labs sells 3D printer filament refill rolls for anywhere between $14 and $18 each. This is a great deal, considering most filaments typically run in the $20-$25 range. It’s an expensive hobby, and costs can escalate quickly if you’re not careful.

When amazing pieces, like a framed Legend of Zelda map, exist, it’s clear that basic colors just won’t cut it. This print alone requires a wide range of filaments: gray, three shades of brown, two greens, blue, white, black, and yellow. If it were a single piece, you’d need at least two AMS units, each storing four filaments. While a machine capable of printing 16 different colors simultaneously is convenient, it comes at a heavy price.

Another downside is that it takes two full rolls of filament and two days of printing to produce the reusable spools they run on. Hopefully, this transition will pay off over time since printing these is a one-time exercise.

Dark Mode

The Firefox extension Dark Reader changes the visuals of all websites to dark mode. I have this extension installed on every computer because black is much easier on the eyes than retina-scorching white. So instead of dealing with the internet looking like me at the beach, I prefer to have webpages go dark.

That said, I’ve always viewed my site in this pseudo-dark mode. But today, I’ve officially made everything dark!

There’s probably one or two elements I’m missing, but it’s 99% complete. I’m honestly concerned for your eye health, and you should be too. 💕 👀

Note: If you don’t see the changes yet, your CSS cache will clear itself in a bit.

Soldering Fume Extractor

Finally got off my butt and designed a soldering fume extractor. No more breathing in carcinogenic smoke from random chemicals while soldering. Now I exclusively breath carcinogenic vapor from strange oils and fuels.

The original idea was to rip apart the dumbass, broken food dehydrator and use the large fan to pull smoke, but that thing was non-standard in every way possible. Thankfully, there are plenty more fans available to use.

I won’t go in-depth here, but it’s simply two fans, a cage, and a first-stage filter left over from air purifier replacements. It pulls and cleans the burning flux so it won’t tickle your nose anymore. This’ll make future soldering jobs more pleasant.

Husband Fix

This is the second time my wife’s KitchenAid Veggie Slicer broke down and needed fixing.

The first time was when the glue didn’t hold, and now the lock-washer that holds the spinning piece came loose. That issue is now making the grindy part go BRRRR with a high pitched REEEEE rather than a GRRRRRR. Thankfully it was an easy-ish fix after removing all the pieces, learning how it’s supposed to be work properly, and then breaking it in reverse.

If it falls apart again, I’m buying a metal lathe and building her one from scratch. With MORE POWER ARR ARR ARR! Hmmmrrr?

Good news everyone! While looking up Tim Allen ‘More Power’ jifs, I learned that one of my favorite YouTubers forever ago (April Wilkerson - mentioned here) has a show with Tim and Al called “More Power!” How cool!