ChatGPT tries, and utterly fails, to have a conversation with itself. www.instagram.com/p/DPKXMVEjz9...

Thanks to @heatsynclabs.bsky.social , I've got access to a vinyl cutter. Thanks to Costco, I've got 6 blank t-shirts. Time to start some trouble. 😁

Need a lot of plywood for your #LaserCutter on short notice? This brand is my new go-to! Just over $1 per square foot, free shipping. Cuts cleanly. Arrived a bit warped but so do other commonly-recommended brands. www.amazon.com/dp/B09W22LS2X (Not an affiliate link, I just like the product!)

Andre is working on his RC Tug Boat!

Lin updated his 4X4 LED cube! His next project might be an 8X8 cube!

D20 nets: A lot of copy/pasting of tabs and slots. Inkscape was a HUGE help getting everything aligned right. And it looks like it's all working! Can surely be made even easier to assemble, but even now they hold together nicely with zero glue!

(Very small) parasitic worm that uses electrostatic charge to attract itself to prey in midair. Fascinating. news.emory.edu/features/202...

When the #VinylCutter gives me a flawless print, it still feels like winning a prize from a claw machine.

On the second prototype of my tab-and-slot design for assembling cardstock icosahedrons. This is showing real promise! The join is incredibly smooth. No glue needed! Unfortunately it's also a pain to assemble. I couldn't get the hooks on the tab to catch. I know a fix, just need to implement...

all of this could have been avoided www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC2p...

This controller won't fit in a pocket, but it's otherwise awesome! And I can leave my phone's case on while playing. This may wind up with a permanent home in my backpack. www.8bitdo.com/ultimate-mob... Keep an eye out for sales; I scored mine for $25!

People are NOT rescuing their own content from old floppy disks. I know I haven't been. And they are fast becoming unreadable! www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Jay cut some Spiral Pentagons!

Slack really, really needs a way for considerate senders to mark a message with "this is not urgent". The system could avoid pinging the recipient even if their Do Not Disturb is off, and the recipient would know "I can save looking at this for later".

Local schools are on fall break. Time for an impromptu #lasercutter and crayon session! #hackerspace #art

My new laptop case. Sticker was cut on my second-hand Silhouette Portrait 3. I didn't feel like waiting for my transfer tape order to come in, so I used a medium-grip cutting mat to do the transfer instead. Worked fine!

You've heard "Measure twice, cut once". More broadly: consider whether an action is DESTRUCTIVE. Does it permanently and irretrievably alter things? Are there NON-destructive actions you can try first? If they fail, just undo them! Destructive actions better succeed, or you're screwed!

Wow. SendCutSend just quoted me $230 for a 500mm plywood version of one of my spiral artworks. Maybe they're affordable for other use cases, but they're not for mine.

Metal lathe policy: "If the key is in the chuck then your hand is on it." Because the key can become a lethal projectile if the lathe is started with the chuck key in. You won't forget the key if you are literally touching it. Anything else is leaving it to chance. www.reddit.com/r/Machinists...

Pre-cut (and pre-scored the folds of) an icosahedron net on plain copy paper on a Silhouette Cameo 3. Took 4 minutes to fold and glue it together. Would like to get that time down further if kids are to do this. Cardstock version was definitely nicer, but can teachers afford cardstock?

I made this hasty #LaserCutter tutorial for the spiral shapes I've been doing. If you want your finished laser cut to consist of thin lines, the trick is not to draw thick strokes; you actually need paths on *both* sides of your lines!

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/b... For your convenience, should you wish to reward their good behavior: www.disneyplus.com/commerce/sub... secure.hulu.com/commerce/acc...

"This can lead to a “purity spiral”, with the more extreme opinion the more rewarded in a pattern of increasing escalation. Nuance and debate are the casualties, and a kind of moral feeding frenzy results." theconversation.com/history-tell...

The vibe in YouTube laser cutter tutorials is no longer "here's how to make something cool", it's "here's how to make something that sells", and it makes me sad. #Capitalism

You can't make a tool as mind-bogglingly powerful as Inkscape without it becoming intimidating. But wow, the rewards for learning it are rich. Here's one of the many great tutorials by "Logos by Nick", demonstrating "Pattern Along Path". www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jve...

sanction (n): A penalty, specified or in the form of moral pressure, that acts to ensure compliance with a social standard or norm Reddit downvotes are a mild kind of sanction. Both an expression of disapproval and a penalty. Crowdsourced reputation systems will likely need a concept of sanctions.

current status

On 2.4 mm-thick plywood, I'm finding the minimum viable thickness for a laser-cut rod to be 0.75 mm (as measured in Inkscape, it's probably much thinner after laser kerf). Even then the rods look pretty burnt, and I've only tried lengths of 20mm or so. But they don't snap the moment you touch them.

Why would you return that shot? It's clearly going out! #Nintendo #MarioTennisFever

3 of the 4 HDMI adapters I have to carry around in my backpack. Electronics manufacturers, standardize your damn connectors already.

We needed identity and reputation-based systems for promoting (and demoting) Internet content 10 years ago. With the advent of AI slop, it's more urgent than ever. Filter all your content through a reputation broker that bans anyone who generates AI slop, and you will never see slop again.

I get no joy from laser cutting or 3D printing a model designed by someone else. And there's a significant time cost to me even if the print is successful (made worse by occasional failures). So I'd much rather outsource the printing/cutting of others' models to e.g. Etsy.

To #ChatGPT: "I want to cut stencils of bats and pumpkins out of plywood on a laser cutter. They should be nested to save material. How can I do this?" ChatGPT offers to make an SVG file FOR me. It asks for a whole series of details, then gives me a download of my "pumpkin" and "bat" stencils... 🤣

I'm a Steve Wozniak in a world built by and for Steve Jobses.

"The 6502 port was completed in 1976 by Bill Gates and Ric Weiland. In 1977, Commodore licensed it for a flat fee of $25,000, a deal that placed Microsoft BASIC at the heart of Commodore’s PET computers and, later, the VIC-20 and Commodore 64." opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/09...

It's gonna happen, with the USA or without it. "39.4% of gamers in China are interested in generative AI’s application in games... ...Chinese studios are "ahead of the game" with 60% already using generative AI in their development pipelines." www.gamesindustry.biz/39-of-gamers...

Inkscape and LightBurn are a pretty powerful combination for making laser cutter designs. Here we have a simple shape (subtracted with "difference" so it's a frame, I doubt a heavy stroke would have worked on the cutter) and then scaled and rotated repeatedly. "Union" the result, and voila!

Me: "Set alarm at 4:30pm." Google Assistant: "Something went wrong, please try again." Me: "Set alarm at 4:30pm." Google Assistant: "Something went wrong, please try again." Me: "Set a fucking alarm at 4:30pm!" Google Assistant: "Alarm set for 4:30pm."

Your own #Chrome extension to show a blank "new tab" page, in 17 lines of code! $ cd blank-new-tab $ cat manifest.json { "name": "Blank New Tab", "description": "Blank new tabs.", "version": "1.0", "manifest_version": 3, "chrome_url_overrides": { "newtab": "newtab.html" } } [cont.]

Ran into a guy who was wearing his "pyrotechnician" shirt today, and needless to say I had questions. So TIL: - Running a fireworks show is basically a hobbyist gig these days. Except for a few big companies that can do it profitably, almost everyone else loses money. (continued)

I'm calling it now: technological advancement in gaming consoles is basically done. We'll see maybe one more generation with the same kind of power increases we've had historically, and after that it's just going to be repackaging of the same basic tech. Why?

Youth sports are so important for kids. Where else are they going to learn important concepts like zero-sum thinking, or hatred for arbitrarily-defined outgroups?

#InteractiveFiction forum post: "I liked e.g. Violet, Gun Mute... because they were possible to finish without drawing maps and taking notes – even for someone with awful memory such as I. I play mainly on my phone where those activities are somewhat annoying." intfiction.org/t/parser-gam...

List of Chrome/Chromium command line switches, built and automatically updated by an EM on Google's Chrome team. peter.sh/experiments/...

These days I only have time for games with really polished onboarding. I want to learn quickly, have a dozen hours of intense fun, and beat the game. I DON'T have time to grind. (Looking at you, PalWorld...) Nor for "just watch a few hours of YouTube tutorials." (Dwarf Fortress...) #IndieGame

A toy that only signals my fandom for 1 IP is inefficient. Each of my purchases must show my affinity for at least 2 but ideally 5 different brands.

Select one of the last 10 #Git commit messages to copy to the clipboard: $ git log -n 10 --pretty=%B | sed '/^\s*$/d' | fzf | pbcopy

"...for domestic research and experimental (R&E) expenditures, new Section 174A permanently reinstates pre-TCJA deductibility. This is likely to be regarded as advantageous by taxpayers who have been required, since 2022, to identify and capitalize these expenses. " cfoserv.com/section-174-...

Wordle was an instant hit because it's a tiny game, polished to perfection. It's Tetris, not Grand Theft Auto.

In a market dominated by exploitative free-to-play games, Netflix Games continues to have some of the only new games worth playing on mobile. Skies of Chaos is one great example. Great non-bullet-hell #shmup. help.netflix.com/en/node/127233 Also coming to Steam, though I'm unclear on profit model.