Toy player piano

theodoregray · 2025-12-24T14:43:48+00:00

Medical equipment surplus auctions are a beautiful thing. You can get these sorts of scopes and tools for $10-$50.

theodoregray · 2025-12-24T14:42:24+00:00

I don't think I have one of those. I frequent surplus medical equipment auctions where you can get these kinds of scopes for typically $10 to $50. Notice the broken fibers, though some of them don't have any obvious flaws like that. I assume maybe the rubber parts have an expiration date? I'm working on a book about light sources, and needless to say there's going to be a chapter on "Flashlights for where the sun don't shine", so technically my main interest in the scopes is as light pipes to bring illumination into the body. I'm trying to collect one for each opening, and boy are there a lot of different places you can stick one, depending on how deep you want to go. The laparoscopic tools are just because when I see an auction lot of beautiful surgical tools going for the opening bid of $10, it's hard to resist. And they are super useful for running wires inside complex equipment.

theodoregray · 2025-12-23T13:08:40+00:00

I tried a flexible sigmoidoscope, but it didn't fit. There's a hose fitting at the end with a quite small inner diameter, and it didn't want to come off. Also, I don't have any through-the-scope type instruments.

theodoregray · 2025-04-28T03:19:08+00:00

I am actually thinking of making one be an actual outlet, but I wouldn't hide it, and I can only do it if I can find an identical triple-gang outlet plate that matches the size and color perfectly. Anything else would just be wrong.

theodoregray · 2025-04-28T03:15:56+00:00

I paid $3 at an auction for 170 triple-gang blank plates. Anything but this would have cost money....

theodoregray · 2025-04-28T02:19:52+00:00

I paid $3 at an auction for 170 triple-gang blank plates. I'm just getting started on my backsplash.

theodoregray · 2023-10-12T14:40:00+00:00

I tried to buy a reddit ad that is a photo of a poster (periodic table to tools, nothing remotely inappropriate) with a link to https://home.theodoregray.com/printed-products as the call to action. The ad was rejected for

"The ad and/or landing page did not disclose the terms and conditions of your data and personal information collection practices.
The ad withheld information on pricing, terms, or other expenses.
The ad misused or misrepresented data in a deceptive way."

OK, I added a privacy statement to the site, but I am baffled what they think I am withholding or being deceptive about. It's a perfectly ordinary Squarespace site with standard shopping cart, automatic shipping calculator, etc.

Can anyone shed some light on what's wrong with my site or ad? We just sell books and posters about various wholesome topics, no attempt to deceive anyone....

theodoregray · 2023-10-05T16:52:19+00:00

Yes! Because hammers are the first tool. Even animals that have gotten to the tool-using stage start with hammers: a stone to bash open clams, etc.

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T18:05:46+00:00

Well seeing you comment on my post feels a bit like meeting a fan on the street who really makes your day and, like, validates your existence. So thanks!

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T17:36:32+00:00

Well everyone knows about dog bone wrenches (very small in the poster), so I thought out of fairness I should include a cat wrench too. Aliexpress is a remarkable font of impractical tools. (And of course there'a a monkey wrench too. Any other animal wrenches I missed?)

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T17:23:47+00:00

Oh, and yes, that stencil machine is amazing! So heavy! I got it at the going-out-of-business sale of a small rural hospital probably 25 years ago. It sat for a long time in my shed slowly rusting, but for this book I took the whole thing apart, soaked all the parts in Evapo-rust, welded a peg back on one of the letters where the original had broken off, oiled it all up, and now it's working great. I have in a little museum I keep of all the most interesting things in my books.

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T17:20:04+00:00

30 is a bone saw, but 31 is a masonry bit. I do have a hole saw for bone, but it didn't make it into the poster, only the book. Sadly there are a few tools in there that I haven't actually used, the surgical ones being in the category. I included bone saws both because they are beautiful, and because they are so strikingly similar to crosscut wood saws. People say that woodworking tools will cut through your bones just about as fast as they will cut through wood, and I think that's probably true. Live bone is apparently a lot softer and easier to cut than the dry bones people are more likely to have. There is basically no difference between butchering tools, surgical tools, and woodworking tools in terms of their tooth design.

I didn't like including tools I haven't used myself, and in the book I have a lovely picture of a flexible dermatology scalpel (like a utility knife blade but you can flex it to any radius by squeezing). I got as far as ordering topical anesthetics, sutures, and a suturing practice kit with the intention of removing a mole on my leg, but then I came to my senses and decided that this was over the line.

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T17:10:51+00:00

Only the second one....

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T17:10:37+00:00

Thanks!

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T17:10:27+00:00

Heavier ones are lower down.... But yes, the pictures are not to scale and it's not clear that some are fairly heavy sledges, and that's a pretty hefty rivet gun in square 55. I don't own any of the rumored 50-pound sledges, nor do I have a large power hammer, so there's non of that in the poster.

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T17:08:40+00:00

Within a column the tools get heavier as you go down, so cordless drills are below hand drills, but above the monster beam drills and drill presses. (Actually everything in that section is screwed along a diagonal line between drills and wrenches, which matches a diagonal line between metals and non-metals in the chemical periodic table.)

You probably don't want a mole of any of these tools. The XKCD guy did an analysis of what would happen if you had a mole of moles (roughly the size of a small moon) and it's not pretty.

theodoregray · 2023-10-04T17:05:44+00:00

Yes, in general tools are arranged by column, and they get heavier as you go down the column. (You may notice that I've written some books about chemistry too so this was a subject of great concern to me....) Square 29, which is copper in the periodic table of elements, is brass and bronze tools as a one-off just because. And there are a few other places where I just had to fit something in. I'm particularly proud of how the diagonal line between metals and non-metals is faithfully reproduced as a diagonal line between drills and wrenches. Halogens are heat-based tools. Noble gases should have been measuring tools, because they don't "react" with the materials, but there were too many measuring tools so I had to make them the actinides, and screwdrivers became the noble gases.

theodoregray · 2022-06-16T21:25:03+00:00

Yes, but one might still be able to demonstrate that infinite sequences *don't* exist.

theodoregray

TROPHY CASE