asian parents: don't study history because you can't get a job me: don't study history because you'll just feel like Cassandra regardless of your job

=__= a $9 dollar toilet flap that needed repairing was um.. dumping maybe $25 of water down the drain a day *sigh

One underrated cooking skill is an internal clock that ticks accurately enough to remind you to go check on something for doneness before it burns to a crisp

ok, took a moment to take out the dial indicator to check on the runout of the spindle and it's fine and well less than the ~0.1mm resolution I bothered setting up for

YAY so in the past month or so, I've been working off and on on this project! It's a machine that takes a CNC spindle + power supply, mounts it to 3d printed casing, and lets you run the motor. From there you can attach various things to the collect to use! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

apparently my A1's Y-axis belt might need retensioning since there's huge ringing artifacts along the Y axis while everything is dead nuts on point along X

slowly plotting what my 3d printer upgrade at black friday will be... I primarily want a full enclosure because my room is drafty and even PETG has warping issues let alone more complex stuff... main question is whether I want dual extruders so I can use different materials for support or not...

More last minute tool purchases. The cheapest gear puller I could find to pull a fan off the spindle shaft.... And a circlip plier because I'm sick of having to use needle nose pliers to get those damn things off

This week on Counting Stuff, LLMs made code "cheap and disposable" which has all sorts of implications, but for me, someone that mostly writes throwaway code, it means new and exciting ways to get more data that used to be too hard to get #dataBS www.counting-stuff.com/data-work-in...

This week on Counting Stuff, LLMs made code "cheap and disposable" which has all sorts of implications, but for me, someone that mostly writes throwaway code, it means new and exciting ways to get more data that used to be too hard to get #dataBS www.counting-stuff.com/data-work-in...

Whelp, spindle mount is done in two-tone end of filament spool of shame 🤪 Still getting some warping on the PETG when the fan engages to seal the inner wall, even after I raised it from 5mm to 10mm thickness and tweaked temps, used brims. But it's sorta minimal

Ran out of the grey PETG mid print for the spindle mount and so going to have to make due with the two-color print of shame

Watching the squirrels I. The frozen snowy back yard and I'm positive they're created a network of tunnels in the snow

fuckit, back to IRC it is

I'm an adult and I can make a big pan of sweetened steamed rice cake just eat a bunch of it after a bit of pan searing

Pro tip, I keep my soy sauces in glass bottles with pourers, but initially used normal metal ones.. except guess what, metal does not like super salt liquids. Corroded one to pieces before realizing and switching to rubber plastic

Soooo I sorta want to play with a 3d printed violin because the 6yo is learning violin and while I learned for a year in my teens I haven't tried in 30 years and don't feel like getting a full sized violin until the kid grows up and actually needs a nice one but...

hrm... from surprising amount of work i'm getting out of the A1... I should probably replace the 3d printer w/ an enclosed printer next black friday to expand the filaments I can work with, and also deal with the drafty room once and for all

at this point I think the absolute laziest food I make for myself is just... take white rice from the cooker or leftover and microwaved to temp... then crack a raw egg into it + some salt or soy sauce...

so today in the city it was like.. 10F give or take.. but omfg the wind gusts were brutal...

My 3d modeling skills for making parts is definitely improving. Prototype spindle mount came out decently

Ok this tent thing is surprisingly decent at retaining heat by the printer just by covering like 2 sides there about a 10C temperature difference from ambient

LOL the draft skirt/tent setup seems to be working? the airspace within the shrouded zone is noticeably warmer just by sticking my hand in. most importantly it doesn't seem like the cold drafts are getting in nearly as much. for like $15 of materials (dowels+cloth) not bad

phew ok, the 3d printer was having major adhesion issues just now but a quick wash with soap on the PEI plate seems to have cleared it up

it's freezing and drafty in my office, so I made THE jankiest draft shroud... made some shitty brackets for the A1's top rail that literally attach w/ a zip tie, there's a cylinder (of wrong diameter!) holds dowels w/ m3 screws, then draped ripstop nylon on the 'frame' and held w/ 2 binder clips

Hrmmm I need to restock on some canned vegetables (usually corn) next Costco trip because the stock of frozen veggies is low and that means I dip into the canned stuff to keep things going until we find time to hit the grocery

derp, forgot to change the air filter for the HVAC and so the heat wasn't working because it wasn't getting enough air flow and triggering the overheat limiter. let that be a lesson to y'all

omfg YESSS, Ghost released a comments moderation/management section in the admin so I can finally manage things in one place now... that was probably the last important feature I wanted for the past 2-3 years

OK! I test wired up the cnc spindle to make sure it functions and it does! just waiting on some stray parts to make a draft shield for the 3d printer and then I can start printing the prototype spindle mounting block

TIL that the simplest way to make an axial fan for as shaft that will spin in both forward and reverse is to just have... boring straight fins which I guess makes modeling the thing much easier

<_< the only conclusion I can come up w/ is that the Endministrator is made of solid originium because she'll sink like a rock in the shallowest of waters #arknights #enfield

.... I was looking for some birthday cards and what in the absolute fuck did I stumble on

I think the cat has settled into a routine where it knows it can nap in my lap when i'm at my desk, and if I need to stand up it'll move to the cat bed, and then the instant my wife comes home the cat'll immediately go find her because she's better =x

This week on Counting Stuff, a bit of reflection on a mistake I still catch myself making, where I take a shortcut and jump directly to metrics and measurement without pausing to ask what construct we're interested in, esp for more novel problems #dataBS www.counting-stuff.com/avoid-the-lu...

thanks to this stupid freeze we've had I've had to fix 3 separate heating system issues, one hot water heater issue, one dishwasher issue, and made probably 5 trips to HD for parts and materials and stuff and I am tireddddd

whelp, I had to do this thing in excel for the first time in a decade and it's a sorta straightforward UI-y thing that I knew needed some VBA to make happen and instead of de-rusting VBA I tried the copilot thing to see if it could... and tl;dr, no, it couldn't. and the devX was a shitshow

This week on Counting Stuff, a bit of reflection on a mistake I still catch myself making, where I take a shortcut and jump directly to metrics and measurement without pausing to ask what construct we're interested in, esp for more novel problems #dataBS www.counting-stuff.com/avoid-the-lu...

laziness is printing 2 sheets of blank paper out because it's hard to reach into the printer tray or get to the new paper reams to get a sheet of paper for notes =-x

=\ I apparently hit some kind of break point where occasional random posts go viral now.... it's weird

B-b-but Algorithms!!!!!???!!??!?!!

I wish I could be paid billions of literal dollars to ruin a business model so hard I need to pivot to "robots"

yay apparently I hit the midgame part of Endfield where they're like "fuckit, just do stuff"

Omg, a bag of frozen scallops at Costco, which ages ago was like 30 and then 37 past 1-2 years... Is now $47

for the amount of plumbing I have to do to fix breaking shit, it's almost bad enough that I should just switch jobs

Hrmmmm I need a general purpose temperature probe thing because I want to keep an eye on the temps by the dishwasher inlet to make sure my countermeasures are working as intended (they appear to)

なんか来た

so we've been below freezing allll week since the big snow storm hit... looks like since then the HVAC's been running roughly 50% duty cycle to keep us warm (ish)... and that's after I had preemptively sealed up all the air leaks I could find

.. i'm insulted that the cat left my lap, and even the heat pad on its pet bed next to me.. to go sleep on the human bed instead =x

Ok, more anti-freezing hacks for the dishwasher. After adding passive insulation and air sealing, added a small blower fan that pulls from the neighboring cabinet and forces air into that space. The air is still chilly because cabinet air. But it's above freezing

This week on Counting Stuff, if I have to shovel a ton of snow, y'all get to read about how weather observations of snow are surprisingly Really Tricky because snow is just a really funky material #dataBS www.counting-stuff.com/measuring-sn...