Randy Au
@randyau.com
Hobby consultant, 💎🪚🎮🖥️🎙️🎹🎧👨🍳📷🪛➕
Quant UX Researcher @ GCP (posts are my own)
Writes a data newsletter: https://www.counting-stuff.com/
https://linktr.ee/randy_au
Languages: EN/JP/CN
Quant UX Researcher @ GCP (posts are my own)
Writes a data newsletter: https://www.counting-stuff.com/
https://linktr.ee/randy_au
Languages: EN/JP/CN
human eye acuity is amazing and frustrating all at once. take this. I did my best to take a photo dead on (there's a slight tilt) and AT A GLANCE you'd probably notice something odd about the outline of the gem. near as I can tell, a couple of facets are a few fractional mm stick out too much
November 14, 2025 at 5:06 AM
human eye acuity is amazing and frustrating all at once. take this. I did my best to take a photo dead on (there's a slight tilt) and AT A GLANCE you'd probably notice something odd about the outline of the gem. near as I can tell, a couple of facets are a few fractional mm stick out too much
ok. so a 7" lathe is "merely" 143lbs crated and shipped... like... with help of jacks, lifts and dollies, I can manage to move maneuver one around... maybe even into the basement if I were brave and had a buddy
November 14, 2025 at 4:59 AM
ok. so a 7" lathe is "merely" 143lbs crated and shipped... like... with help of jacks, lifts and dollies, I can manage to move maneuver one around... maybe even into the basement if I were brave and had a buddy
Gyah... a 9"x20 bench lathe, kitted out and in a crate.. is over 300 POUNDS in weight...
November 14, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Gyah... a 9"x20 bench lathe, kitted out and in a crate.. is over 300 POUNDS in weight...
I found my supah-cheap digital microscope thing and.. lol when you put a polished gem under it.... despite it appearing super shiny and smooth... under high magnification it's a mess
November 13, 2025 at 4:56 AM
I found my supah-cheap digital microscope thing and.. lol when you put a polished gem under it.... despite it appearing super shiny and smooth... under high magnification it's a mess
apparently if I want a cheap vernier plastic caliper so that I don't scratch what i'm measuring.... it's cheaper to get ones "for measuring eyebrows"
November 13, 2025 at 1:06 AM
apparently if I want a cheap vernier plastic caliper so that I don't scratch what i'm measuring.... it's cheaper to get ones "for measuring eyebrows"
Yay, all the pavilion facets are polished up! It's sorta fun how at full polish it becomes ridiculously hard to see the facets without using angles and reflected light
now to cut the girdle so that it goes all the way around.
now to cut the girdle so that it goes all the way around.
November 12, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Yay, all the pavilion facets are polished up! It's sorta fun how at full polish it becomes ridiculously hard to see the facets without using angles and reflected light
now to cut the girdle so that it goes all the way around.
now to cut the girdle so that it goes all the way around.
Finally polished the first (largest here) tier of pavilion facets. Hit a few spots that had pitting in the material. Grinding those out meant nudging down neighboring facets and those neighboring facets to correct the minor depth changes 🫠 also I stubbornly didn't switch back to 8k for a while
November 12, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Finally polished the first (largest here) tier of pavilion facets. Hit a few spots that had pitting in the material. Grinding those out meant nudging down neighboring facets and those neighboring facets to correct the minor depth changes 🫠 also I stubbornly didn't switch back to 8k for a while
hrmmmm a rando impersonation account is contacting me... on my active bsky account.. regretfully saying my account has been "suspended"... riiiiiiight
reported this nonsense
reported this nonsense
November 12, 2025 at 12:33 AM
hrmmmm a rando impersonation account is contacting me... on my active bsky account.. regretfully saying my account has been "suspended"... riiiiiiight
reported this nonsense
reported this nonsense
O.o I didn't even realize we passed post 400....
November 11, 2025 at 6:04 PM
O.o I didn't even realize we passed post 400....
🤪 thanks to the cutting oil still on the stone, I can't tell much difference between the 50k grit polished facets (the lower big ones) versus the 8k prepolished smaller facets above
November 10, 2025 at 7:44 PM
🤪 thanks to the cutting oil still on the stone, I can't tell much difference between the 50k grit polished facets (the lower big ones) versus the 8k prepolished smaller facets above
Got up to 8k prepolish over the weekend. First time trying to do an oval stone and am happy I got the facets to line up without too much fuss. Next is to polish on 50k grit and then somehow cut the girdle... Not sure how to do that well yet
November 10, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Got up to 8k prepolish over the weekend. First time trying to do an oval stone and am happy I got the facets to line up without too much fuss. Next is to polish on 50k grit and then somehow cut the girdle... Not sure how to do that well yet
Doing glue surgery to fix the Swarovski bear that the kid got as a gift a few years ago and inevitably managed to break
November 10, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Doing glue surgery to fix the Swarovski bear that the kid got as a gift a few years ago and inevitably managed to break
A friend asked me some questions about gems and that got me off my butt to unpack all my cutting gear. This time learning to cut an oval stone which is tricky because I have to place the side facets by eye, not absolute reference like a round. This is the first prepolish facet I had (8k grit)
November 8, 2025 at 4:43 PM
A friend asked me some questions about gems and that got me off my butt to unpack all my cutting gear. This time learning to cut an oval stone which is tricky because I have to place the side facets by eye, not absolute reference like a round. This is the first prepolish facet I had (8k grit)
my barbaric american 15oz mug cup that I use all the time is apparently juuuuuuust barely able to put a stroopwafel on top without it falling into my tea. seriously, there's maybe 1-2mm of clearance on both sides
November 6, 2025 at 2:41 PM
my barbaric american 15oz mug cup that I use all the time is apparently juuuuuuust barely able to put a stroopwafel on top without it falling into my tea. seriously, there's maybe 1-2mm of clearance on both sides
Oh yeah, a few nights ago I got it in my head to make bootleg tonkatsu. Using pork shoulder because I dislike pork loin. And a cornstarch base batter instead of egg. Then later I went and made a five spice powder, soy sauce, garlic powder batter
November 2, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Oh yeah, a few nights ago I got it in my head to make bootleg tonkatsu. Using pork shoulder because I dislike pork loin. And a cornstarch base batter instead of egg. Then later I went and made a five spice powder, soy sauce, garlic powder batter
dear gods, I left my RTL-SDR on my computer listening to ADS-B for a few days and forgot about it.. then the computer crashed hard for BIOS issues and I forgot where the file was... turns out I collected 1GB!! of data in about 2-3 days
November 2, 2025 at 4:51 AM
dear gods, I left my RTL-SDR on my computer listening to ADS-B for a few days and forgot about it.. then the computer crashed hard for BIOS issues and I forgot where the file was... turns out I collected 1GB!! of data in about 2-3 days
Hrm my 20+yo timberland boots (that I only rarely wore when I was younger and now use only for dirty work duty) has decided to lose its sole
October 31, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Hrm my 20+yo timberland boots (that I only rarely wore when I was younger and now use only for dirty work duty) has decided to lose its sole
oh noes! The cost of running my newsletter is going UP! (we're fine, we're going from spending ~$3 per newsletter send to $6)
October 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
oh noes! The cost of running my newsletter is going UP! (we're fine, we're going from spending ~$3 per newsletter send to $6)
...
just messing with the SDR tuner and I'm not even kidding this station happened to be playing Never Gonna Give You Up as I went by...
just messing with the SDR tuner and I'm not even kidding this station happened to be playing Never Gonna Give You Up as I went by...
October 27, 2025 at 2:55 PM
...
just messing with the SDR tuner and I'm not even kidding this station happened to be playing Never Gonna Give You Up as I went by...
just messing with the SDR tuner and I'm not even kidding this station happened to be playing Never Gonna Give You Up as I went by...
Funny what I packed to keep from the old house... A giant 100 spindle of old writeable cd? Or DVD? Either way the ink is bad and useless but the reason I keep them is because they make very convenient shims in certain situations
October 27, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Funny what I packed to keep from the old house... A giant 100 spindle of old writeable cd? Or DVD? Either way the ink is bad and useless but the reason I keep them is because they make very convenient shims in certain situations
So the trick of this packaging is that while the plastic acts like a pouch to keep the seaweed dry, it is open on the rice side! Moisture is kept out thanks to a generous overlap. That way once you tear the outside pouch in half, you can pull the plastic out and it autowraps the rice (4/4
October 23, 2025 at 4:49 PM
So the trick of this packaging is that while the plastic acts like a pouch to keep the seaweed dry, it is open on the rice side! Moisture is kept out thanks to a generous overlap. That way once you tear the outside pouch in half, you can pull the plastic out and it autowraps the rice (4/4
If you undo the tape it unfolds pretty easily, 2 corners then a simple wrap around the rice (3/
October 23, 2025 at 4:49 PM
If you undo the tape it unfolds pretty easily, 2 corners then a simple wrap around the rice (3/
Ok, had my important meetings for the day, time for some silly fun employment shenanigans for lunch. Ever wonder how those Japanese rice balls with the special wrapper to keep the seaweed dry until serving work? (1/
October 23, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Ok, had my important meetings for the day, time for some silly fun employment shenanigans for lunch. Ever wonder how those Japanese rice balls with the special wrapper to keep the seaweed dry until serving work? (1/
in trying times like these, the world definitely needed an anime heroine that's willing to just clock all the annoying characters that show up.
October 16, 2025 at 3:36 AM
in trying times like these, the world definitely needed an anime heroine that's willing to just clock all the annoying characters that show up.
Our cat is a complete slob while eating.. to the point I 3d printed a tray to catch the food it drops
October 15, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Our cat is a complete slob while eating.. to the point I 3d printed a tray to catch the food it drops