After a recent run of successful 3D prints, failure paid me a visit. I started the print and began cooking. When I came back to check, the printer had melted a huge block of plastic all around the nozzle instead of building up the desired object. The culprit was a loose bearing on the Y axis. I sorted that out and then went through the long and tedious process of tuning the bed height. Apart from a little time and filament wasted, however, no other harm was done.

Remember battery shrapnel? I ordered a bag of fifty pairs. Now that they’ve arrived on the slow boat from China, I’ve put them to use by designing and 3D printing some battery holders. Commercial ones aren’t very expensive, but at about 50p–£1 each it’s noticeable if you need a lot. My intention is to make a huge trickle charger based on Big Clive’s design so that we can have AA and AAA NiMH batteries ready to go when we need them.

I turned half a bag of limp salad leaves into pesto. L— was out for dinner one evening, so it was a good chance to experiment on myself. It worked very well, even better than I could have hoped. It came out bright green, tasted delicious, and avoided waste. Try it!

L— was off work and not on a course on Friday, so we went to Hallyu! The Korean Wave at the V&A. It covers a wide range of material from the colonial period onwards, and even if most of the history wasn’t new to me, the presentation emphasises just how rapid the transition of South Korea’s economy has been.

The cultural part wasn’t all boy bands and girl bands, although they did feature heavily. There’s a reconstruction of the bathroom from Parasite (2019) and, being the V&A, a lot of interesting clothing.

The first room features a screen playing Gangnam Style on an endless loop. Yeah, it’s still catchy, but it does begin to outstay its welcome after you hear it for the tenth repetition while reading about a student independence activist being tortured to death.

L— is a member, so it’s all free, and we popped into Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear on the way out. That’s a very interesting exhibition, and probably my favourite of the two.

We went to another Solve-Along-a-Murder-She-Wrote at the Prince [sic] Charles Cinema. It’s becoming a habit. It’s good fun.

I’m going to be talking at LRUG next Monday. See some of you there, I hope! I’ve ordered a presentation remote control for the occasion.