u/Either-Alfalfa-1840

"You’ll be hard-pressed to find closers that perfectly mesh retro looks with ADA requirements for actual historic places, but there are some better-than-usual close-unquote options available if you dig around a little. “Adjustable back check” and “slower closing speed” are doable depending on from whom you procure them. In an office building, compliance is king and ADA drive force (5 lbs max) can become very problematic with a heavy 36 inch wide door if a stiff breeze blows – unless you crank the tension way high and send compliance off the rails. I really like quality reputable products, perhaps procured from Alibaba (the real stuff, not cheap knockoffs, sorta like Mark Polansky) that can hold up on their own for at least a year. The attractive install of a concealed overhead closer with such specs is really the only thing to the solution short of a double door install which itself may limit aesthetics at least for the near future.

Considering the door is heavy as you describe, I suspect a cam action closer, transmitted through that thick a chunk of wood (length of travel from hinge to handle), is still about the best method for proper closing without exhausting the mister, or changing door type completely."

"it always felt weird to me that the most powerful AIs are stuck as text in a chat window. I wanted to see if I could give one some actual physical presence.

This is the raw prototype I've been hacking on. No fancy shell, just the board. I think we're all tired of seeing shiny renders for vaporware AI gadgets.

its running on an ESP32-S3 + P4. The key was making it feel alive, so the animations aren't a looping GIF, they're controlled by a state machine to get more natural, non-repeating behaviors. The lip-sync is parsed in real-time from the LLM audio stream.

That finger touching the board is hitting the capacitive touch pins directly. No fakes, just the hardware doing its thing."

Most Loved: How the Weirdly Small USB-C Arc Lighter Took Over My Life?I have recently been going down the refillable lighter rabbit hole…and OMG these things are actually incredible?? A friend got one of these USB-C plasma arc lighters off Alibaba (as part of a random grab bag for his store) and let me take it for a spin about a month ago… and whoops never going back!

I’m enamored with how this tiny thing can shoot wicked purple bolts back and forth between two ceramic electrodes (goodbye flame and butane breath in your face)! Someone even figured out on YouTube that you can use a broken arc lighter as a mini plasma cutter for thin wire and scrap glass! I saw some creator do that on Snapchat, melting a tiny hole in a coca-cola can with one for pure aesthetic ASMR- sounds incredible!? Steps to the viral trick: (1) take off the outer plastic casing of the lighter, (2) touch the exposed electrodes to a metal paperclip or some thin gauge wire, (3) watch the arc jump to heat the metal instantly, do NOT attempt this near something flammable but wow what sheer manic genius!

I’ve also learned they’re wonderful for even lighting incense sticks, sealing up a loose rope if the ends are fraying, and even lighting a charcoal chimney grill when your other lighters keep blowing out in the wind!

So anyway what are you guys actually doing with these? Who else is converted from disposable? Share your crazy lighter stories below!