In an earlier post, I mentioned Rhode Island Wiring Service, purveyors of reproduction wire, including what looks to be every wire style used in Land Cruisers (40s and 60s, anyway).

Other good sources of auto/boat electrical parts I always forget about:

Genuinedealz does free shipping, and their prices are great. They will make custom cables, too, for a $1-per-connector labor charge. I remembered about them tonight, right after I spent more than I should have for some Blue Sea stuff on eBay.

Summit Racing does have good pricing and selection on Weatherpack connectors, among many other things.

Del City Wire has reasonable prices, and they (very) occasionally do free shipping on small orders. Memorial Day weekend is apparently one of those free-shipping occasions.

Susquehanna Motorsports makes very good headlight harnesses, and is a good source for all things Hella (including E-code headlight housings). And all things rally-related, of course, from WRC-spec mud-flap material to Hans Devices.

To be edited as I remember or discover more…

Using the information in a thread on IH8Mud (1985 FJ60 Wagon Horn Problem), I just got the horn working in Dawn’s 60. I used some teeny little rubber grommets, sliced in half, as spacers. Glad that did the trick, since the screws on the cover are stripped.

I’m sure this trick works on FJ40s (at least the late models with the smaller steering wheel, since I’ve got one of those wheels on hand) and FJ62s, too.

(To get the wheel off without a puller, I pulled out the emblem, removed the 19mm nut, and wiggled and pulled until it came off. Didn’t take long, and I didn’t lose any teeth. It’s probably no more crooked now than it was before, either…)

I’ve had a few manifestos open in tabs for a while now. There’s some good stuff in these, and I keep meaning to find a home for them…

Right Brain Terrain‘s manifesto, written in the pages of a Moleskine notebook. I think I like their logo most of all, though much of their work is also pretty great.

The Holstee manifesto. “If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. … Stop over analyzing, life is simple.”

The Workisnotajob manifesto. Lovely prints, too, though shipping to the US is pretty spendy.

(Someday, my own manifesto might find its way here. I’ll have to write it first, though.)

I just discovered Covet Garden today. OMG design pr0n! I am currently loving the house featured in the current issue (#9). Go look. You won’t be disappointed*.

Continue reading

The Atavist (iTunes link, also available on Kindle, nook, and others) publishes long-form nonfiction: shorter than a book, longer than a magazine article, that they sell individually for $2.99 per article.

Their publishing platform, Periodic Technology, also looks really interesting: write once, export to a bunch of formats and devices. In other words, give away the app, then sell the content within it.

I love that they point out that it’s easy enough for an editor to use, too.

Mac users listen up! Enable certificate checking.

Do it now. It will take you a minute if you’re slow, and there’s no downside to speak of:

The only downside to this extra checking is possibly a slight delay to perform the request the first time you go to a web site and when the cache expires. This should be less overhead than downloading a small image, so I’m not worrying about it.

I am very surprised that OCSP (online certificate status protocol) hasn’t been enabled by default in every version of OS X and Safari ever. I’m also surprised at how weak and uninformative the warning from Safari is.

(Via O’Reilly Radar’s Four Short Links today.)