New horizons in masking

I had finally gotten bored with making masks, and then I found this intriguing new design, which seems to be all the rage online. See the difference? The pleats are VERTICAL instead of HORIZONTAL! How radical! The box pleat in the middle expands over the nose to provide more breathing space, and the pleats on either side allow the mask to expand sideways and puff out into a satisfyingly 3D profile. Very cool. 






It's the latest thing in DIY mask making, and there are a bunch of how-to videos. But sadly, I have yet to find one that I don't hate everything about except the pleats. Every single one that I have found utilizes those loathsome sewn in ear loop fasteners. And a couple of them just ignore the whole idea of a filter pocket, even though it's so easy to leave the sides open on this style of mask. It was easy to modify the pattern to leave the filter pocket accessible, but a lot harder to find an easy way to add the side channels that I prefer. Briefly, getting the measurements right for those diagonally cut corners was non-trivial, at least for someone like me with poor visualization skills. But I think I finally got it. I will gladly provide details for anybody who wants to actually try making one of these; otherwise tldr.

But the biggest problem is that every one of these How-to videos insists "there is no need for a nose bridge!"  Sorry, folks, that just isn't true. What they really mean is, "No easy way to install a nose wire with those pleats across the top, so let's just declare that we don't need one." The nose does fit better with the box pleat than with a horizontally pleated mask, but not close enough to keep my glasses from steaming up. And if glasses are steaming up, that means air is leaking out the top and the mask isn't really doing its job.

So.... I ordered a little pack of self-adhesive aluminum strips meant to be used as nose bridges on masks. I tried it out on a couple of masks and it seems to do the job (my test case is just to put on the mask and vigorously hike up the hill in front of my house from 40th to 41st Street). Now I just need to find a better way to keep the nose bridge in place. The adhesive is good enough for a test run, but obviously isn't going to work long term. I have a few ideas.

But wait, there's more! It's ROKU TIME

Today's Amazon delivery brought more than just little aluminum nose bridges. I bought a Roku! For the past 10 years I have been using a now very obsolete Sony Playstation 3 as the center of my cobbled together home entertainment center. This gallant and sturdy little device shows no sign of wearing out, but it can no longer do everything that needs to be done.

For one thing, it doesn't support the new 5GHz wireless network that my new router is pumping out, so I really am getting absolutely no use out of the extra 250 Mbps bandwidth that I am now forced to purchase from my Internet provider. I'm not sure if the fast wireless network has enough oomph to make it all the way to the far side of the attic, but if it does that should increase my streaming speed. If not, it's fast enough for an old HD TV anyway, so no big deal. 

But mostly, Sony has (understandably) stopped releasing new PS3 apps for new streaming services. I would like the ability to get HBO Max, Disney Plus, and probably more services that I don't even know about because my device can't connect to them. 

However... it was non-trivial to get all these pieces of mismatched equipment to talk to each other (at least back in 2010). I finally got everything to come on at all once when I power up the TV and mostly do the things I want it to do, but the wiring was complex and I'm pretty sure that the PS3 is the center of everything. The idea of taking that out and replacing it with a newer, better box was daunting. And then I wouldn't have my PS3 anymore, just in case I actually wanted to play a game on it.

Then, during the Thanksgiving Kahn Family Zoom I heard about the Roku Streaming Stick. It's not a hub, it's just a device that plugs into the TV's HDMI port and supposedly gives you instant access to the whole world of streaming, all without having to recable your soundbar. I am a little dubious about this, given how old my TV is, but the Roku Stick cost only $30 so it seemed worth trying. I am now about to attempt to deploy it. I am a little afraid that it won't work without some newfangled HDMI protocol that my TV is far too old to support, but I figure there's at least a 50/50 chance. Wish me luck!

ETA. Well. That mostly worked! Easily connected to the 2.4GHz network. With a little more effort I managed to connect to the 5GHz network. But because the connection was only Fair instead of Good, the download speed turned out to be faster over the slow network. Oh well. It's still almost 50 Mbps on the slow network, which is considerably faster than the poor little PS3 ever managed. So it's possible that streaming will run a little smoother than it did before. If not, no loss. It was acceptable as is. What is a massive improvement is the slick little Roku remote, which is hands down the best designed remote I have ever seen. Most of the remotes in this house have dozens of buttons which do nothing useful at all and make it impossible to find the button that you actually need - the mute button. This one has a mute button all by itself on the side of the remote, which I heartily approve of. Setup was easy and fun, except that it involved running up and down the stairs a couple of times to do things on the computer and then back up to the attic. 

I managed to get signed in to my two paid streaming services (Netflix and Amazon Prime) and discovered to my delight that it is far easier to access them through the simple little Roku remote than through the collection of remotes I have to bring into action to get to them the old way. Now I'm waiting for Amber to send me her login to Disney Plus (which is perfectly legal, at least so far).