Telescope News, Star Trek, 🫂🇺🇦

He seemed not to know the uses of silence.

My life right now… cat and telescope parts. Reprints for problem telescope bits should finish tomorrow. New consignment of cat treats arrives tomorrow. Ice cream supply has been replenished. Best we can hope for really. 😊😺

Reprinting these blue telescope parts because of tolerance issues… 😱😭😭😭 Measure twice, print once. 🤦‍♀️

Telescope mount. It’s not rigid enough for fancypants science stuff, but it will be enough to get started.

Telescope bits accumulating. Just need to print a couple more replacement leg adapters (the yellow things on the ends of the poles). Had to reprint the top because the tolerance was too tight and a couple of them are stuck… and not at equal heights. ☹️

Happy New Year! We’re going to sleep now. 9:45pm. 🥳

We’re reprinting this piece of the telescope mount at 101% size due to some minor tolerance issues. Also this is a much nicer shade of yellow! 🥰 Unfortunately one of the wheels on the print head is failing and I can’t get a replacement before Saturday. I hope that it will last until then!

☹️ This is apparently about typical for me on Kindle. On the other hand, not all my books are on Kindle. Some are pdfs. Some are former trees. So… 🤷‍♀️

What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?

daily routine

Penguinhenge!

Printing and printing and printing…

Happy Birthday to Me! 🥳🎂 I am old now. My bladder celebrated by waking me up at 3:15. My cat celebrated by letting me sleep until 3:45. 🥱 Later I will celebrate with a nap. I am old now.

Український розробник під ніком meerkat створив моніторингову систему з інтерфейсом у стилі серії ігор Fallout. Пристрій відстежує повітряні тривоги, запуски ракет та БпЛА росії, а також графіки відключення світла. channeltech.space/ukraine/ukra...

The Onion, non-stop winning

Today’s print failures. ☹️ This matte black PLA filament is a bit tricky. Might have to switch to something else.

Now entering hour THIRTEEN of Christmas telescope part printing. The top piece for the Hill mount looks like it will finish in three more hours. And I think I've finally cracked the problem of how to print the inner focus assembly with this matte black PLA filament: it needed a support raft. 🥱

“These little ones are mice. … These over here are hamsters. … Ooh! This must be a gerbil!”

Printing Yet More Telescope Parts!

Hmm, yeah, they did add more AI image editing to Twitter, and yeah, it’s incrementally more troubling than before. Making it even easier to create fake reality isn’t really a great spot for team humanity to be in right now. ☹️

🖖

🎄❄️✨

Today we’re printing the tricky parts. First, the spider, which holds up the secondary mirror assembly, and has nuts that have to be inserted into the center of the plastic during the print. Later we’ll print the focuser assembly, which is a pair of threaded parts that need extra precision.

Telescope parts this morning vs yesterday. Making progress on the necessary 3D printing. Cat approved!

Telescope project has now reached the point where it requires a box to hold all the bits. 3D printing continues, and more bits should arrive tomorrow.

Tube sections for the Hadley telescope I’m building. It will take another day or two to print the rest of the pieces. Hardware and optics should arrive today and tomorrow. So… guess I’m building a telescope, then.

Watching the fish. Watching me. Whining for a treat. Watching the fish again…

Managed to get most of the trash taken out this evening! 🥳🥳🥳 Of course, this was a goal for the Thanksgiving break, but, oh well, better late than never.

Telescope Types xkcd.com/3182/

Half a Millennium Falcon. Resolution and nozzle size can’t do the model justice; it’s very detailed. This is a test to see if it will fall over before it finishes. It’s a tricky print. Model from Thingiverse.

Both printers running multi hour prints. Lesya, left, is printing a hammer from Thingiverse, using an ancient roll of PETG plastic, to test our new filament dryer’s effectiveness. Dried for 16+ hours! The filament is behaving well. Taras, right, is printing a stand for a cubesat.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but here goes: In high school my art teacher told me I didn’t know how to draw because cartooning wasn’t real art. I have wanted to be in The New Yorker Magazine since I was 19. I’m 53 and this happened yesterday:

sorry I'm busy

More light reading for the holidays.🔭

New nozzles for our 3D printers: ruby tipped for Lesya, and tungsten carbide tipped for Taras. We’re going to be printing some abrasive filaments over the holidays. Plain brass is very soft and wears out quickly. These should last a very long time.

Arriving today! 🥳 64K of FRAM! 🤯

Novac is a small settlement in the Mojave Wasteland, built around the remains of the Dino Dee-Lite Motel and serves as a key rest stop along Highway 95 into Vegas. The giant tyrannosaurus statue known as Dinky overlooks miles of the surrounding desert.

A tiny human (2?) in a fairy costume is stomping along a busy footpath. Tiny Human Fairy is wielding a Christmas lily like a magic wand and is waving it around with much abandon. A Christmas spell here... A Christmas spell there... Fairying is a tough job but she's got it covered. (4)

Lunchtime reading: Zen and the Forth Language

I've gotten the day of the week wrong TWICE this week, and it's only Tuesday. 🤦‍♀️

Earlier this year, I reported for @propublica.org and @wisconsinwatch.org how Wisconsin's name change law creates a de facto database of trans people, which is dangerous in times like this. Now @lmcgaughy.bsky.social breaks the news that Texas has done just that: www.kut.org/politics/202...

Taras lives again! Taras and Lesya are my two 3D printers. They're identical except that Taras has a larger 0.6mm copper alloy nozzle, and has been down since our router upgrade. Getting all that fixed now! 🥳💙💛

😡

Happy Monday. 🥱 We had to get up at 4am because… there was a tiny little noise! Possibly related to a cat counter surfing at 3:59am. 😆

Some assembly required.

One of the best exchanges I’ve ever seen on social media was when Lt. Cmndr Data and Bert the Chimney Sweep got into a rumble over Angela Lansbury.

Small camera (1.5 megapixel, monochrome, global shutter), plus some extra lenses (25mm and 50mm), plus an even smaller camera (320x320, so about 0.1 megapixel, but extremely low power consumption)