opaque.net/~dave

The app I’ve been building for the last two years has finally launched. (Actually, it launched two weeks ago, but I’ve spent nearly every waking hour since then fixing bugs.)

Click the big magnet to go check it out!

Over on the Panic Blog, my article on the history of the calendar:

Q: “Once in a blue moon” is a rare event. But what does “blue moon” really mean? « Panic Blog.

@implementation NSMutableDictionary (AddListObject)

- (void)addListObject:(id)obj forKey:(id)key
{
  NSMutableArray* list = [self objectForKey:key];

  if ( list == nil )
  {
    list = [NSMutableArray array];
    [self setObject:list forKey:key];
  }

  [list addObject:obj];
}

@end

On the local boatbuilding list, Frank asked for suggestions on gluing the plastic pieces of his broken headphones together. Chuck Gottfried shows how it’s done:

Frank, the entire issue hinges on if you want traditional, or more hoity-toity modern.  Strictly speaking, the ‘classic’ fix would use walrus hide, applied wet and allowed to dry.  If it needed a ‘filler’, I would suggest peat moss.  A more modern fix would include seal oil tar under the walrus hide, but you could substitute pitch, or (gasp!) roofing tar if you wanted to go hi-tech. 

If you go with pitch/roofing tar, the correct process would be to first tar the headphones, worm the repair, parcel with tarred canvas strips, then serve with marline following standard techniques.  If the headphones have any discernable lay (twist), remember to always worm and parcel with the lay, and serve against it.  You COULD substitute tarred nylon, for marline, but it wouldn’t be quite as realistic.  In a pinch, you could even substitute fresh cat gut for the marline, but I’m not gonna guarantee how that will hold up in the weather.  It should set up nicely, tho, once it shrinks a bit. 

There are numerous texts on the precise lashing you could use; I suggest Brian Toss’ Rigger’s Apprentice as a place to start.  There are other texts for info on the proper use of walrus hide, if you go that route.  If you need a serving mallet, let me know and you can borrow mine.  For this, its probably not worth making your own, and you can’t buy ‘em. 

I recommend against just parceling the headset in this instance, no matter how tempting that may sound, tho there are some who might argue.  You need the additional strength here, and parceling, while helping with the critical headphone-to-head chafe, won’t add strength you get from the hide, even if well dosed with seal tar.  Keep that stuff out of your hair, whatever you do.

If you didn’t catch the joke (and don’t feel bad if you didn’t) he was describing how standing rigging was historically treated—see this wikipedia entry for a brief description.

Another, possibly more practical, suggestion was to check the [terribly useful] site http://thistothat.com/.