One of the more useful skills I picked up when learning to sew patches onto my patch/pin jackets is hand sewing, and specifically a few useful basic hand sewing techniques which can also be used to repair wear and tear on clothes which tends to happen as you use them over time thus extending their lifespan.

So hand sewing in a nutshell is feeding thread through the eye of a needle and tying it off, I personally like to fold mine in half and tie off the end with a quad knot which acts as a stopper since it's bigger than the needle.

once you do that it's the process of feeding the needle through cloth or other materials with the thread following through after it.

once you get some practice at sewing patches onto clothes or bits of cloth together you can move onto different sewing techniques.

at the start you'll pick up the straight stitch, it's your basic over under over under sewing and is good for holding something in place but not for permanence.



for patch sewing or closing rips and tears a simple spiral stitch is effective.

basically for clothes just turn your shirt or pants inside out, put the two pieces either together or side by side and move through them in a spiral pattern pulling everything closed, this technique btw can also be used for closing wounds and it's often employed by doctors and nurses.



basically you're spiraling the thread in and out of the surface over one direction then under the opposite way while moving forward along the line.

Another useful stitch to know is the zigzag stitch.



basically you go across diagonally, go backwards underneath then up and diagonally across again, then backwards under, then repeat along the line.

it's called a zigzag stitch because it makes a zigzag line but looks like sets of X's on the one side and back and forth dashes on the other, like a zig zag cross.

as you go along make sure to pull everything taut as well to have a firm hold.  the spiral stitch is good for stiff sections while the zigzag can stretch a bit while maintaining integrity.

and of course tie a knot at the end to secure everything once you have it all done.

this can all be done with a sewing machine of course but hand sewing is useful because you can carry a small sewing kit with you anywhere, I keep one in the satchel I carry with me everywhere just in case I either need to repair my clothes... or in the very rare chance, myself.

(warning on using this info for medical reasons, make sure you treat the thread with alcohol first and heat up the needle to kill any germs, if you can superglue is an alternative and was literally invented for sealing wounds.)

Good morning, Sorry that I’m only getting back to you now, unfortunately I ran out of talent when riding a motorcycle and I got to know the road surface. Cause: Someone else had lost petrol / oil, and that in your confusing corner .... Result: Bike broken and my left shoulder broken ... well, it will be again. Bike is insured and is already in the workshop for repairs and hospital is already done

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Congratulations to @tc4me for being named April 2021 Member of the Month!

Is the COVID-19 Vaccine Safe?

Start here: Are these vaccines safe and effective?
It’s natural to wonder if brand new vaccines against a novel coronavirus, developed at unprecedented speed, are effective and safe to take. Let’s review some of what we know.
Overall effectiveness has been reported in the range of 70% to 95%. That’s well above the average effectiveness of the flu vaccine, for example.
A Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial involving nearly 44,000 volunteers found vaccination to be 95% effective. This vaccine is authorized for use in the US.
A Moderna vaccine trial enrolling more than 30,000 volunteers reported an effectiveness of 94%. This vaccine is authorized for use in the US.
An AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine trial reported average effectiveness of 70% with full doses, but even better results (as high as 90%) with a lower dose. This vaccine is authorized for use in Great Britain, but not in the US.
A Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) trial reported overall effectiveness of 66% (72% in the US) in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19. This vaccine is authorized for use in the US.
Not only do these vaccines appear to lessen risk of developing COVID-19, but they also appear to lessen the risk of severe disease. (Click here for additional information on available vaccines.)
What are the most common COVID vaccine side effects?
In large clinical trials, most side effects have been minor. When side effects occur, they typically last just a few days. A side effect or reaction isn’t necessarily all bad, by the way; it may indicate that the body is building protection against the virus.
For the four vaccines listed above, common side effects include
pain at the site of the injection
painful, swollen lymph nodes in the arm where the vaccine was injected
tiredness
headache
muscle or joint aches
nausea and vomiting
fever or chills.
What else should I know about possible side effects?
Severe allergic reactions. Rarely, a potentially life-threatening reaction called anaphylaxis may occur, most often in people known to have had severe vaccine reactions in the past. CDC estimates suggest anaphylaxis occurs in 11 cases per million doses among people receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The signs are trouble breathing, swelling of the face and throat, rash, and low blood pressure. It usually occurs soon after vaccination, and can be treated with epinephrine (as in an EpiPen). That’s why people are observed for at least 15 minutes after receiving the vaccine with epinephrine at the ready.
Unexplained deaths. A recent report of 23 deaths among elderly vaccine recipients in Norway raised understandable safety concerns about the new COVID-19 vaccines. However, further investigation is needed to determine whether these deaths were related to the vaccines, or represent an expected number of deaths among frail individuals who already may have had a limited life expectancy.
Pushing back on two vaccine misconceptions
It’s normal to feel cautious about any new treatment. But two common misconceptions may encourage people to avoid getting a COVID vaccine.
Health problems incorrectly blamed on the vaccine. When health problems develop soon after vaccination, people tend to blame the vaccine. Yet cancer, strokes, heart attacks, blood disorders, and rare illnesses occurred before the pandemic, and will of course continue to happen. Many people would be expected to develop such health issues whether or not they get vaccinated. If thorough investigation shows certain health problems are occurring at a higher than normal rate, the vaccine could be to blame. If not, it’s more likely to be an unfortunate coincidence that’s not related to the vaccine.For example, rare cases of Bell’s palsy and other neurologic disease have been reported after COVID vaccination. But so far, there is no clear suggestion that the vaccine played any role. Similarly, a fatal blood disorder suffered by a Florida physician two weeks after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine raised concerns that it was triggered by the vaccine. Authorities are investigating this and similar cases. This condition did not occur among the tens of thousands of clinical trial subjects, so it might be a complete coincidence.
Concerns that the vaccine can cause COVID-19. That can’t happen, because no live SARS-CoV-2 virus is used in currently available vaccines or those in development. If a person develops COVID-19 soon after vaccination, it’s not due to the vaccine. It’s either because the vaccine failed (which is rather rare), or infection developed before the vaccine had a chance to work. In fact, some people may already be infected with the virus at the time of vaccination.
The bottom line
So far, we know COVID-19 is an unpredictable and potentially deadly disease. And the information we have about the effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 vaccinations is encouraging. Minor side effects should be expected; severe allergic reactions may rarely occur. Side effects from the vaccine are not reasons for most people to avoid vaccination.
As the number of vaccine recipients and the number of different vaccines grow, vigilance is warranted. What we know today about side effects and safety won’t be the last word. Volunteers in clinical trials and members of the public who have received vaccinations continue to be monitored, and are encouraged to report problems.

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iPad Pro with M1 chip! Watch the WORLD-FIRST trailer reveal here

Covid 19 vaccination? Hey guys, how does it look, are you vaccinated? Do you get vaccinated? Are you waiting for something else? 

Tc4me

so having learned to do so effectively I figured I'd give some good explanations and tips on learning to budget well.

Budgeting an automobile.

so this one is fairly straight forward.

take your distance to and from work every day, multiply it by the number of days you work, let's say you drive 10 mi, a day, x2 for each direction times 5 if you work 5 days a week for 20x5 or 100 mi a week.

now let's say your average mpg is 24 miles per gallon, substitute local measurements if you're outside the states.

at 24 miles per gallon you use about 4 gallons per week in fuel.

with an average price of $2.80 per gallon, rounded up to 3 to cover fluctuations that's $12 a week in gas alone, double that for $24 a week, times 4 for $96 a month.

that should cover fuel costs both with work travel and anything else you need with some leeway.

tack on an extra $50 a month to cover stuff like coolent, air for tires, oil, etc, and anything you don't spend put into a savings account for car repairs and the like.

now we move onto budgeting your cost of living.

start with how much you pay to live somewhere, if it's an apartment figure out your rent plus utilities, ideally this should be about 1/3rd what you make if you want to live comfortably but 50% is the absolute maximum amount and it's not living easy.

now take that and your vehicle cost and combine them, then subtract them from your monthly pay and subtract anything like insurance, and any utilities not covered by the apt like internet, TV, etc.

now factor in how much you spend on food, how much do you eat, how much do you save when buying things on sale, etc.

start noting down how much stuff costs when you buy it and how much you need for each meal.

one big way to save here is to make meals that cover multiple days like a lasagna or a casserole for example.

always buy your groceries in bulk as that often saves both in fuel cost and because often there's bulk discounts on consumables.

after all this what you are left with is money you can put into savings, and trust me you want at least $50 to $100 a month for savings if you can help it.

this is how I was taught to budget, there's some leeway for adjustments but it does let you live comfortably at least with room for error or sudden problems as well as the occasional hobby.

Congratulations to Thomas for winning Makestation's December 2020 MOTM award! ???? OLD ! VERY OLD ^^

Prince Philip, 99, has died just a few weeks after he spent a month in hospital. The Duke's deathw as confirmed by Buckingham Palace this afternoon, with a short message which read: "It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle."

R.I.P

So I realized while working on the graphic equalizer just how useful this bit of knowledge could be.

everything else is labeled, be it capacitors, diodes, Integrated circuits, Transistors, etc.
but not resistors, not exactly.

instead they have this nicely implemented color code, one which is handy to have available to reference and once you pick it up makes decoding them at a glance easy... to the point I kinda wish they used something similar for other components.

So capacitors typically have colored bands on them with 10 colors to indicate various things.

the first two or three bands indicate numbers 0 through 9 the 3rd or 4th band depending on if it's a 4, or 5 band capacitor is usually a multiplier, the next color band is the tolerance or how much of a tolerance +/- a resistor can tolerate.
and the last color band is only on 6 band capacitors which is a temperature coefficient though that doesn't come up often

most often you'll encounter 4 or 5 band capacitors in the wild so we'll focus on these.

for the first two or three bands it's.

0 Black
1 Brown
2 Red
3 Orange
4 Yellow
5 Green
6 Blue
7 Purple
8 Grey
9 White

then for the next one it's the multiplier so it's
0.01  Silver
0.10  Gold
1       Black
10     Brown
100   Red
1K     Orange
10K   Yellow
100K Green
1M     Blue
10M   Purple

you won't find one above it but ...
100M grey
1B White

not likely to encounter that though except for some really specialized stuff.

then there's a space followed by the next band making it easy to identify which one is the multiplier band.

finally there's the tolerances, usually that's +/- a percentage of the total ohms the resistor is rated for.

10% Silver
5% Gold
1% Brown
2% Red
.5% Green
.25% Blue
0.1% Purple.

temp coefficients on a 6 band capacitor are
100ppm Brown
50 ppm  Red
15 ppm  Orange
25 ppm  Yellow

Similarly you might come across one with only 3 bands, usually really old ones.

this one follows the same rules as a 4 band but doesn't have the tolerances marked on it.

first two color bands are numbers, third one is a multiplier.

with all that in mind let's practice decoding a couple



These are real examples of 4 band resistors

R118
Red Blue Red Gold
26 X 100 +/- 5%
or 2.6k Ohms 5%
that's 26 times 100 = 2.6 thousand ohms or 2.6 Kiliohms

R114
Yellow Blue Yellow Gold
46 X 10K ohms +/- 5%
460k Ohms 5%

R126
Green Blue orange Gold
56 x 1K +/- 5%
56k Ohms 5%

here's a nice graphical chart if you get hung up and to save time you can also use this code translator if you don't want to sit there figuring it all out.