Because people are thinking through specific niche use cases coupled with “Well it works for me and I never do anything ‘wrong’”.

I’ll definitely admit that I made the mistake of trying to have a bit of fun when talking about something that triggers the dunning kruger effect. But people SHOULD be aware of how different use patterns impacts performance, how that performance impacts users, and generally how different use patterns impact wear and tear of the drive.

Just a reminder: These massive drives are really more a “budget” version of a proper tape backup system. The fundamental physics of a spinning disc mean that these aren’t a good solution for rapid seeking of specific sectors to read and write and so forth.

So a decent choice for the big machine you backup all your VMs to in a corporate environment. Not a great solution for all the anime you totally legally obtained on Yahoo.

Not sure if the general advice has changed, but you are still looking for a sweet spot in the 8-12 TB range for a home NAS where you expect to regularly access and update a large number of small files rather than a few massive ones.

It comes from a lot of things

A giant one layer sheet is obviously a torture test. But it is also an exercise to properly understand what your print bed ACTUALLY is. Printing across your entire bed can be a bit of a mess due to printers/firmware that reserve space for printing a test line or wiping the nozzle and so forth.

Whether it is worth a full 256^2 mm of filament is a different question

Also… there is the question of how big of a part people actually need and if you aren’t better off printing that in multiple segments regardless.

And… it also isn’t necessarily a good test of this in the first place. Because the “auto leveling” process already compensates for stuff like this and actually getting a fully intact sheet to come off the plate and be comparable isn’t easy on even a perfectly flat bed, let alone one where the contours were compensated for (to whatever degree). Which makes it VERY hard to tell if you truly had a perfectly flat sheet or if there was distortion because your lower left screw is too tight.

But the first layer obsession kind of goes back to the early days of printing when there WAS no “auto leveling”. Already alluded to it, but at a VERY high level, “auto leveling” creates a virtual mesh of the printbed and adjusts the nozzle height (z-axis) in real time. For any “kind of level” printbed, that is more than good enough since the variance for a single “part” is going to be negligible unless you are doing almost the entire printbed anyway.

But, in general, it is good practice to ACTUALLY level your bed and compute a proper z-offset. Which, again, goes back to the early days and The Paper Trick. Which, like most things FDM, was a closely kept secret because it was a great way to identify the newbies and be gatekeeping pricks to them. The importance of getting super precise (while understanding little to nothing about precision…) is a lot less important, but it is still a good way to show off that you are “a real printer” by doing it yourself to the most exacting level possible and then posting to the 'gram about it.

And speaking of the 'gram, the last part is just that everyone wants to be an influencer. Someone like Angus or Michael will do it as part of a printer review because they are showing off how good an advertised feature is or demonstrating fundamental build quality issues. But people don’t pay attention and just decide they are also a cool ass youtuber 3d printing expert and want to do it themselves.

I think there is definitely value in doing a full bed print IF you need to. But as a “normal” calibration test?

These days you can’t really go wrong with any bedslinger for a “first printer” since they are all Ender 3s anyway. That said, I think Teaching Tech just did a video where he talks about his suggested “first printer”. Get a bedslinger, use it for a few years, and then learn what you actually want out of a printer and go from there.

In terms of proprietary software: Many printers use some form of Klipper or Marlin (or can be reflashed to them) as firmware. In terms of a Slicer (what you use to go from model to instructions for your printer), Orcaslicer. Decide if those are FOSS enough for you.

The real issue is creating those models themselves. People will suggest FreeCAD. FreeCAD is great as a second or third modeling tool once you know the basics. But it is HORRIBLE for learning because so many terms and defaults are “different” than every other CAD program out there and the online resources are much more limited and are often referring to five or six major releases ago. The best of the best for a hobbyist is Fusion 360 but that explicitly does not work in Linux. I use OnShape which is web browser based (and all the pitfalls of that) and apparently has a legacy UX-wise going back to a tool I learned in high school.

I mean, it is pretty obvious they care less about using the shoes and more about building a Brand for whatever reason.

I’ll also add that this is going to chafe like hell. And even if OP has perfect orthopedic health… they won’t after wearing these for an extended period of time. All but the cheapest of crocs put a bit of effort into the footbed to cushion things and a layer of rigid TPU ain’t it.

Never underestimate how actively worthless “eyewitness” testimony is.

I was not aware of this detail. But if it were just bystanders telling stuff to cops before they got a hold of the footage, they are going to go with it. Especially since it is already pretty worthless to begin with (so many jackets are easily reversed).

The nose I can go either way on. It looks “different” to me but wearing a mask and not grinning makes a huge difference there (it is why you are told to not smile for ID photos). The eyebrows are more a function of angle and resolution as you can see some darkness on the left (and he is obviously scowling and not flirting with a cute desk girl).

As for the jacket and backpack? Too lazy to look up the backpack models (people figured it out) but the one on the left looks small enough to fit in the one on the right. So he has his backpack for travel and then a smaller one full of gun and snacks and whatever else for the stakeout.

I guess the happy hostel guy would have come forward and been like “WTF?” and “I have an alibi” if it wasn’t him?

Never talk to the cops without a lawyer and NEVER voluntarily talk to them.

Also? The cops are going to find SOMEONE in the next week or so. And you can be damned sure they are going to take advantage of all of the news and social media about how this is a skilled hitman fighting for the loss of a loved one who WILL NOT BE TAKEN ALIVE. They’ll corner whoever they can pin it on, shoot them a few times, and then plant a gun and call it a day.

Removed by mod

Not at all surprised.

I follow Alec on Mastodon and the vast majority of interactions over the past few months have been people aggressively "well ackshually"ing him or outright getting angry.

That isn’t to say it is all shit (I would like to think a few conversations I had with him were mutually pleasant). But his entire ethos is that he approaches problems from a practical “midwesterner” perspective. And that REALLY angers all the ideological nutjobs who are angry if anyone even suggests something that won’t advance their own pseudo-political goals.

And I’ve noticed it with a lot of other “celebrities” on Mastodon. The rest of us can have fun conversations while the shitheads stay to themselves. They are too high profile and the shitheads flock to them to make sure they understand why they are actually wrong and are a bad person for thinking something.

Its less a misunderstanding I had as I grew up with Chinese speakers, but it is always fun to take a new grad student/postdoc out to lunch or something similar.

Because every language has “filler words”. In English that is usually “uhm” or “like”.

In Mandarin? It is “that one”. 那个, Nèi ge.

And “nèi ge” sounds a LOT like the n-word. Fortunately I have found that most college towns and places that are used to an international community pick up on it pretty quick, but it is still REAL awkward when you get a side eye from a black person because this visiting scholar is trying to remember an English word.

Got it. Being amused at the death of someone who has immensely profited off the death and suffering of others is genocide.

Thanks for the demonstration of what I was talking about, I guess?

Its the idea that “Oh, they are a human being with loved ones just like you”. When the reality is that he was a leech upon humanity who caused internally measured suffering and death. And his family benefited from that.

But, because the power of friendship and candy cane sandwiches, he is still a human being and we need to feel bad. It doesn’t matter how many people they murder for a buck, they are still a person and you are the bad person for not feeling bad for their death.

No

Killing the evil fuck doesn’t save any lives. The board (?) still had the meeting he was on his way to and they are still going to continue to deny basic human rights to the people who pay them for it.

The reality is that this is just yet another sign of immaturity and arrested development. I forget where I first heard it but… folk been watching WAY too much Steven Universe and similar warm and cozy shit. They think that by always taking the high road they are better people and the world will be a better place because if you do the right thing everyone else will.

When the reality is that people like the dead fuck prey on naivety like that.

If we ever find out who did it we are sure to find out they are also a pretty monstrous person. But, as satisfying as this has been, it changes nothing.

Honestly? This seems like a really bad use case for FDM (less familiar with resin). Clear filament is very deceptive and actually getting reasonably translucent prints out of them can be a hassle. CNC Kitchen did a video on this a few years back. Far from perfect but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qb25Gi4Jv0. Of particular note is the cooling and support related hassle which is of particular interest if you are printing light bulbs.

I get you don’t care if it is clear. But clear filament gets REAL cloudy REAL fast and that is a factor with lighting.

Also? You already keyed in that UV and exposure are hell. Also understand that even LED bulbs can get pretty hot. Not hot enough to melt the plastic (probably) but likely enough to cause further clouding and so forth.

People very much underestimate just what a torture test xmas lighting is and why so many are designed to be more or less consumable objects. You can stretch that out if you properly maintain them in the off months but you are still expecting them to run for 8-12 hours a night for a month (or more) straight during some REALLY harsh weather.

I would also make sure the prints are actually water tight. Because properly wired lights are fine if a diode shorts out. How much do you trust your wiring for something that lives on the exterior of your home in the rain and snow? Hell, I barely even trust commercial xmas lights for that purpose.

I mean, you can just as easily just keep a project cloned if the purpose is an offline copy.

That doesn’t change all the liability problems with running a public repo as well as why most coders aren’t interested in a fly by night one that is designed to escape legal consequences.

It really is too bad we dont have a federated github alternative.

There is no “open” alternative for… the exact reasons some code is removed from Github/Lab/Bucket/whatever.

Someone submits a DMCA request or something similar? Microsoft and so forth will process that and decide if it is valid and so forth.

If you are running your own instance? That request goes to you and you probably don’t have lawyers or just the willpower to determine if it is valid or not.

And the federation approach further complicates that. Because good luck explaining the concept of federation to a judge who thinks everyone who uses a computer is a hacker and doesn’t understand why a DMCA to one instance didn’t propagate to your instance and why it is an honest mistake. All while the Nintendos of the world are arguing for your wages to be garnished for the rest of your life.

And the other aspect is what anyone who runs even a semi-public instance of… anything learns. People are monsters. If you have image uploads you will have CSAM.

And the last aspect is just practicality. My github is a large part of my CV. I work on projects that I think are fun AND that I think will look good to people I am trying to convince to give me a job. Emulation is already a grey area (it isn’t quite porn, but it can make you look like a liability to many companies). But if you have to link someone to a complete no name site because you are trying to avoid legal action? You aren’t getting hired.

Just to comment a bit:

I think this is one of the casualties of “the paper method” being so poorly defined (because oldhats gotta gatekeep the hobby). People eventually learn WHAT the paper trick is (lower the nozzle until you can JUST slip a piece of paper between it and the bed) but not the next step which is to then step back “one step”. Which… also can end horribly because different printers have different dZ and people forget that their layer height is generally O(0.1 mm). So if you are doing 0.2 mm layers and your nozzle is 0.05 mm from the bed…

When I was learning I definitely made that mistake. Had poor bed adhesion and eventually learned about The Paper Method. Did that and thought I was smug and then… no prints worked and I had to clean my nozzle every time. Eventually found the last step and then looked at the number of what dZ was. Was useful because it means I actually understand how first layers work. Was obnoxious for all the obvious reasons.

Its why I really like that the more newbie friendly outlets and channels are increasingly suggesting using feeler gauges instead. That has other problems (people not realize there are error bars around that 0.3025 mm gauge…) but it provides a much more reproducible method (and can be semi-automated if you have a multimeter and some tape).

I half pay attention to freecad every few months because I do think it is genuinely a good project to exist. And while I think it is a borderline anti-pattern, having “hey, let me control this like it is that program” is a good shortcut for low budget projects.

And… I still think Angus’s (Maker’s Muse) FreeCAD video really hits the nail on the head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Pk1ayx6LQ

A lot of it, on the surface, is “open source weirdness”. And… some of that gets fixed. But it is his comparison to Onshape and Onzel (?) that really are why I actively discourage newbies from even trying FreeCAD.

Because if you know what you are doing? You can figure it out. Stuff like “oh, the default extrude is probably going in the wrong direction” or “one of the steps of my parametric build errored out. Let me step through and find it”. But that depends on knowing what you are doing in the first place. So newbies aren’t learning “CAD”. They are learning FreeCAD.

Whereas giving someone TinkerCAD or Onshape or Fusion 360? They are learning fundamental concepts. The UI/UX is such that most operations are “intuitive” once you understand a few basic concepts (mostly extrusion) and the error messages are generally good to let you realize where things went wrong.

And… while I very much do agree that a product that can’t be licensed our clouded away (even if it could still just as easily die tomorrow) is important AND disagree that piracy is a solution (in large part because of the heavy online component of stuff like fusion 360 to specifically stop piracy…)?

if Onshape dies tomorrow? I’ll be pissed. And then I’ll look for an alternative and more or less hit the ground running. And that alternative might actually BE FreeCAD. Because I know enough about modeling and design that I know what pitfalls to check for.

Whereas someone who learned FreeCAD and nothing else? They are now figuring out that padding is extrusion and unlearning countless other quirks.

And the other aspect? There is no reason for a hobbyist to actually put the effort in to learn something like FreeCAD. Tinkercad gets mocked relentlessly but… it is insanely user friendly and is more than good enough for what most people are going to be modeling on their own. And it is specifically designed as a path to fusion 360 once people realize they need to know what an assembly is. And Onshape exists too.

This isn’t a case where your options are Photoshop or MS Paint and something like GIMP is MORE than worth learning (… even if paint.net might be the better hobbyist choice as of the last time I looked). The free entry level market is, arguably, saturated for CAD programs. And early on as a hobbyist? You just want to Make. You don’t want to get hung up because of software quirks.

And if someone wants to turn this into a career or a side hustle? That is even more reason to learn a more industry standard workflow.

Oooh, manyfold looks like exactly what I want. Thanks

Unless you are changing filament VERY frequently, the energy costs will almost guaranteed erase any environmental benefits from filament waste.

Because you basically have the exact same problem that most of the filament reuse methods have: If you want a good connection, you want to have both the filament coming out of the nozzle AND the end of the filament you are printing onto to be hot. That is a LOT of engineering effort as you would likely need to keep the current tail of the output filament hot for the majority of the print so as to not add significant stalls when you change filament. This is why most of the tools to fuse to strands have that sleeve that you heat up

Because the moment you start adding supports for your output filament? Holy crap.

I dunno. I still think the answer is more cost effective recycling facilities. I’ve enjoyed Stefan’s various attempts to reuse filament but outside of the splicing methods for near empty spools, they are all a giant mess requiring multiple tools for an often subpar result. Just standardize a cheap and effective way to throw our poop, failed builds, and near empty spools into a box and send it to a filament company. Then give us a discount for doing so. And let said company use their industrial machines to reuse that plastic.

One other complexity: Again, unless you are changing materials constantly AND doing a super long print, the amount of filament you print during any given print is going to be minimal. So you need to maintain state on the build plate/apparatus in between potentially months of prints.