Well, apparently I have a million subscribers now.
Thank you.
I truly never thought that that would happen, but, well since it has
I suppose it’s time for a celebration!
Roughly an entire month later…
So what are we gonna do?
We’re gonna talk about this set
which is real and exists.
I oughta know, I built the thing and moved it!
Now, a lot of you have wondered what exactly all the things are amongst the shelves,
and now you won’t have to wonder anymore because I’m going to tell you!
With words and visuals!
First, what is the set? How is it built?
Well, it hails from everyone’s favorite source of meatballs, IKEA.
A 5 X 5 Kallax,
kalLAX?
Kaylax?
unit makes up the main bit,
and there are two 1 X 4 units on either side.
These drawers and doors: they actually hold things!
Look!
I keep some of my camera gear behind my head,
and up here...
is some junk.
I got some white board markers in here,
some probes in there for my oscilloscope
which sits on top of the set where you can’t see it…
and, uh, oooh!
a TV remote!
Curious.
I also got some lighting from the meatball store,
just the basic warm white puck things but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by them -
I did, though, spend quite a few hours with an industrial Sharpie making them black
and not cream colored.
I used electrical tape to make the wiring less noticeable
against the black shelves,
and the wires are run vertically along the edges behind it.
Up at the very top there’s some cheap LED tape light attached to a piece of quarter round trim,
also blacked out with sharpie.
And all the power cords and other junk ends up down here
in this terrible rat’s nest of wires!
But it’s on a switched outlet so all I need to do is flip a switch and it all comes on.
Then of course there are the lava lamps in a couple of the shelves
(and I really should consider moving them, or perhaps add more…)
and we’ll get to the colored light elements in a bit.
Oh, and the rest of these cubbies down here are empty because
I haven’t been bothered to figure out what to put in them yet.
I am terrible at organization!
But let’s get to the more interesting bits: the contents of the shelves.
Things have been rotated in and out a fair bit over time,
and in fact I’d like to do more of that as time goes on,
but it’s been fairly consistent.
A not insignificant portion of the stuff in this set
was given to me by friends and family over the years,
and my fascination with these various objects
is pretty much the reason I’m the particular weirdo I am.
So let’s discuss!
We’ll start with these things.
These are LED traffic light modules.
I bought them for the first video that was made in front of the fully completed set,
"The LED traffic light and the danger of But Sometimes!"
I still kinda want to get one that has a green lens so it’s a little more obvious what these are,
but it turns out the clear lens on green is a rather common safety feature!
If the sun hits traffic lights in the right way, they can appear to be lit -
a clear lens on the green light prevents it from appearing green unless it is actually lit.
Neat!
But let’s move on to where there’s more stuff.
Up here is my now dead Sony PRS-505
which died with this excellent ghost image on the screen.
It sits atop a fully-functional NES which is now a prop because I don’t use it enough.
A gamer I am not, really.
If nobody’s noticed this cartridge, this is for a Commodore 64,
a copy of HesWare Turtle Graphics II -
a sort of educational programming game slash software thing, if I remember right.
I used to have a C64 and a bunch of random stuff for it,
but I lost interest in it and, uh, well no longer have much of anything related to it.
Yeah… I regret that.
Anyway, finishing it up we have a Mold-A-Rama bust of Abraham Lincoln,
made at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago,
the transparent paints from my latest Christmas light coloring nonsense
(which was now over a year ago)
and this old 12V battery from Radioshack.
Next we have the Camera Corner!
This is where the Canon F-1 and Canon T90 live.
These were both permanently loaned to me by a family friend,
and I learned photography on these.
Truly I wouldn’t have the proficiency to operate a camera that I do without these,
especially since I use a mirrorless camera which behaves more like a stills camera than a true cinema camera.
Oh, and to those in the know, don’t worry -
I do take the T90 out and exercise its shutter periodically.
The T90 sits atop a stack of VHS tapes and a couple of CDs to elevate it above this 120 box camera,
which I have yet to actually use.
That was an antique store find.
And back here is a rather phallic sandcastle I found at a thrift store,
and behind it is a fake Swedish plant.
Next we have a crystal radio!
Yep, that’s what this box is.
I don’t know if it actually works - it was a gift and I’ve no idea how to use it properly.
But up here is the actual crystal and cat whisker,
as well as the tuning knobs.
I’m pretty sure this was a hand-made kit given the writing on here.
It’s filled with some colorful audio cassettes up top,
and some plain ones to its side.
Sally the Snail sits slimily in front of it.
And here’s a rather hodge podgey shelf!
Center and most important is a somewhat rare telephone model called the Galion,
hailing from the 1940’s and made by North Electric as a competitor to the Western Electric 302.
It’s notable for being oriented sideways compared to most other desk phones,
being wider than it is deep.
It works, but unfortunately its ringer does not.
I do however like that its original phone number label is intact.
In front of it is a can of Silvertone recording wire and a double light switch,
and behind it is what I thought was a skein of red yarn, but is probably large enough that it’s really a hank.
Yes, a hank of yarn.
Learn something new everyday.
You can’t really see it head-on but it’s there,
and that’s what counts!
Back when I made the videos on analog television,
I used this yarn to make the scanning animation.
We also have a functional light socket holding a squirrel-cage Edison-style light bulb,
and a modern LED version of this sits unused for…
reasons. Oh, and there’s another fake Swedish plant.
Next is the soldering station.
This is actually where I keep my soldering iron and its associated junk,
as well as my DC power supply.
If you’ve been paying really close attention, you’ll see that this shelf has changed the most
because I actually need the things in it from time to time.
And right now the soldering iron's missing!
There's also a pin from Epcot’s Millenium celebration I found in one of my junk box goings through.
Oh, and a fake Swedish plant, of course.
Here’s a trick I actually learned in school -
the DC power supply is sitting on a plastic storage container
that’s been covered in black fabric to make a tasteful but cheap makeshift display stand.
And now here’s another hodge podgey cube.
On another tupperware stand is my late grandfather’s 8mm movie camera.
It is… sort of functional - you can get it to run
if you force the winding key forward,
I suspect it just needs a good lubrication.
Opposite to it is a movie reel that it shot.
There’s also the basic thermostat from the thermostat video,
one of the many additions over the years,
and a 5 inch CRT from a cheap portable black and white television,
the same one I used in the analog television videos years ago.
And then we have yet another fake Swedish plant, and a lava lamp.
Down here is the Betamovie and some Beta cassettes.
[extended pause]
That’s it.
Next we have a Sony television set that many of you have asked about.
This is a portable model, the TV-750,
and It appears to have been introduced in 1972.
It still works, but barely.
The picture tube is quite dim and I’m sure this could do with a complete electronics restoration.
I would show you but I don’t know where its power cord is at present so…
sorry.
A monochrome Rubik’s cube sits atop it because it’s insufferably clever.
This next cube is an assortment of objects.
This mug is covered in the original Future World pavilion logos from EPCOT Center,
released in mug-form as part of EPCOT’s 35th anniversary.
Then there’s a lava lamp behind it.
This snake was just a thrift store find -
I sort of suspect somebody’s child painted this thing?
I dunno, sorry Jimmy if your parents didn’t keep it.
And behind it is a very strange and slightly suggestive clown figure.
I’ve named it Disposo, naturally.
Directly behind me which you can’t ever see during talking heads is a very important-to-me radio.
This is a Philco 42-PT7, a basic tabletop radio from 1942.
It’s a simple design, but very nice,
and while it’s missing a knob it’s still quite beautiful to me.
It’s important to me because it was really the first electronics project I ever embarked on -
I recapped this radio many years ago, and it introduced me to the world of antique radio collecting.
I found it at an antique store in Michigan.
Behind it is a framed Laserdisc of 1776 that sits there simply to hide what’s behind the set.
Next is another rather simple assortment of things.
It’s mostly reel-to-reel tape stuff, with a reel at the back,
Scotch boxes, and of course a Spaceship Earth mug
which stays as part of the set because it's a ridiculous mug to drink from.
There’s another functional light socket with a squirrel-cage filament bulb,
though this one is a globe shape,
and that pear is another random thrift store knick knack.
Over here is a pair of lanterns,
one an old railroad lantern which leaks and the other…
well I don’t know the origin of this exactly
but it’s not an antique,
just a bit of decor.
And there’s a white Mold-A-Rama figure of the Space Shuttle.
Lanterns will be coming as a subject in the not-too-distant future, by the way.
Let’s talk about this cubby.
Nothing has ever really gone here.
I’ve been meaning to fix that for ages but… haven’t.
Almost the entire time this set has been in use,
there has been a DVD copy of The Terminal starring Tom Hanks sitting there.
Don’t ask me why as I truly do not know,
and in the last couple of months this loudspeaker driver and crossover
have been sitting here because I’m lazy.
On the bottom-right is the closed captioning decoder,
and a dolphin figurine that I claimed when my parents moved
sits on top because I like it.
And yes, the Teletext video hasn’t happened yet.
I'm very aware of that. I’m just…
well we’ll get there eventually. I promise.
Alright, and top row!
This is the vast majority of my Laserdisc collection.
I’ve got a few things that aren’t here but this is mostly it.
Yep, I’m not a huge collector of them -
they’re just delightfully giant optical discs and fun to use.
Definitely not, like, my favorite way to watch a movie, though.
Then we see the wee little GE TV that me got for free
(tee hee)
at a garage sale years ago.
A couple of VHS sleeves for Cosmos sit atop it,
and the RGB electron gun of flashlights from the shadow mask video sit atop it as well.
Unfortunately something went wrong with the deflection yoke on this thing
and now the screen is all trapezoidal and messed up.
Not too much of a shame, though, as this thing is more useful as a prop than a TV, anyway.
Next to it are my CEDs,
they’ve been up here since before the CED series ever got made.
Sitting in front of them is a Walkman which is aesthetically excellent but functionally a little off -
it’s got a new belt but there’s a lot of flutter so I never really used this thing,
even though it’s an auto-reverse Walkman with Dolby B and again is…
just excellent looking.
Marty the Squirrel, another thrift store knick knack, sits in front of a pair of Sony Dynamicron
VHS slipcovers, and an L-750 Beta sleeve is above it at a wonky angle.
There are also two books given to me by a friend -
including a penny collector’s collection collector.
And lastly there’s the top right cubby.
This has another antique radio,
an AM-FM tabletop unit from Silvertone,
and I also restored this one.
Last time I fired it up it worked great,
and I really do love the design of this.
In front of it are spare knobs that I harvested from a different Silvertone radio long ago that happen to match it.
On top of it is the Olympus Pen EES-2 which actually got a mention not too long ago
(and a Sears brand flash unit is attached to it),
and another Rubik’s cube, though this one with normal colors sits on top the radio.
Oh, and behind it is some fake Swedish grass.
Finally, there’s an assortment of miscellanea up top.
A pair of Inifinity RS-2000 speakers sit atop the smaller cases
because they’re aesthetically pleasing
(and actually quite nice, though they have fairly weak bass response).
Then there’s this 3D printed model I made basically at the very start of this channel
to help visualize the difference between Edison’s vertically-cut cylinder records
and Berliner’s laterally cut discs.
That’s right, I used to have a 3D printer,
or rather I still do but it’s crap and broken.
Then there's the deflection yoke for the little 5 inch CRT.
It sits here because…
because it was a good place to put it I guess?
And there’s also a lonely drill bit up here because…
of course there is.
And that’s all the stuff you can see.
But before I go, there’s one other important thing goin’ on.
The colors.
Lately the set has looked like this more often than not,
but if you’ve been paying attention you’ll have seen those colors change,
and sometimes they’ve not been colors at all, but instead imagery.
And that’s what this remote is for.
See … those colors?
Those come from a TV.
Two to be more precise.
There are two very cheap 55 inch TVs
literally hanging off the back of this set facing me.
This set isn’t against the wall for this reason, and that’s why the items at the top
completely fill the cubbies.
I didn’t want the chains that the TVs are hanging from to be visible,
or for you to have much of a clue what exactly was going on.
This wasted cubby here with the drawers?
That wasn’t planned, I genuinely I had this idea
after I had already built this and started making inserts.
But truthfully I think it makes the illusion all the better.
Because I’m unforgivably lazy, the TVs are powered by Chromecasts
which mirror the desktops of my PC and Chromebook.
I just set them up before I go to film the talking head or B-roll, and that’s that.
I made templates forever ago which I can use to make more stuff,
but I’ve been using this standard color grid for a while because I like it.
Though, I may finally do what I set out to do long ago and set up a video
where these slowly change over time.
I’m just, as I said, unforgivably lazy.
And that’s also why this set looks so incredibly drab in some of my Connextras videos.
If I don’t power it up and set up the screens,
it just looks kind of… sad.
Look, I’ll go cycle it off and on which will kill the TVs.
Sure, that’s much better than completely off,
but the stark black background is nowhere near as interesting.
I’m actually quite proud of this idea if you can’t tell.
But I still can’t believe that I’m here right now.
Never in a million years did I think a million subscribers would happen.
I thought I was just too weird,
that this channel idea wouldn’t have wide enough appeal.
I’m delighted to have been wrong
(though I am still just… absurdly weird).
Thank you for subscribing,
for watching my videos all these years,
and leaving me with this bright spot at the end of an otherwise incredibly awful year.
Yep, this actually happened in 2020.
I was actually kind of hoping that wouldn’t happen,
that the flip would occur in 2021,
but something about dishwashers just really piqued your interest.
I’ve been very fortunate in an otherwise tumultuous year,
and I try to remember that as often as I can.
Of course, that wouldn’t be possible without my amazing supporters on Patreon,
and today I’d like to thank each and every one of you.
Thank you for making Technology Connections possible,
and for keeping me focused through this wild ride of a year.
Here’s to a brighter and better 2021!
♫ celebrationally smooth jazz ♫