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Doctor: "Can we use AI for this appointment?"
Me: "Certainly, as long as you give me a copy of the transcript so that I can verify it."
Doctor: "OK, let's not use AI."
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Incident Creator ❎
@vik@mastodon.nzoss.nz
mastodon 4.6.8Aged RepRap core developer, ex- firefighter, emergency medic, longhair coder, Incident Creator at the Masterton Fab Lab, and a Twitter refugee.
"Deestne mihi supercilium"
477 Followers
80 Following
50 Posts
Joined February 19, 2019
Time for a quick game of "Why the f**k did I come into this room?"
The lads and me at our NZFS "Chop Shop" brushing up our skillz 16 years ago. It'll buff out.
Two days ago a spaceship full of drugs landed in Australia. News coverage wasn't exactly widespread.
Varda are working with an indigenous community (not against them) to manufacture drugs in zero g on orbit that cannot be made on Earth. These are typically small volume for rare conditions, or experimental pathfinders. They've been doing one every 3 or 4 months. Just thought somebody should know.
Interesting $10 spectrometer chip that'd make a real nice tricorder addition to give chemical analysis. Probably be a while before its on #Hackaday but.
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-spectrometer-chip-real-chemical-wearables.html
An excellent FreeCAD 1.1 For Noobs video has dropped from deltahedra https://youtu.be/KmtqNaGPiiQ
The #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter just produced this "Hello World" with a dot spacing of 8μm. That's the size of a human red blood cell, and the accuracy of the Intel 4004 CPU feature size. Positioning is good down to sub-4μm but the point and the Sharpie ink film start smudging up badly. The advance is due to a new mechanical touch-sensing probe tip assembly.
Took me a while to figure out I could use the #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter to etch its own probes. This is a test of my wee electrolysis cell. You can just see the turbulence caused by electrolysis when the probe dips in.
I managed to get a repeatable, automated probe etch done for the #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter, using the Z axis to control the etch. These are 0.3mm diameter 316 stainless wires, etched on different occasions. Yes the probe walls are meant to be rough to hold the resin "ink":
Um, geek history.
Replying to
@Jacob_Wren@mastodon.social
The elephant's sex organs are in their feet. If they tread on you, you're f**ked.
Replying to
@pmcneil@aus.social
Background:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-startup-wants-to-make-drugs-in-orbit-if-it-succeeds-it-could-transform-the-space-economy/
Landing:
https://glamadelaide.com.au/space-capsule-carrying-nasa-equipment-makes-safe-landing-back-in-sa/
Varda:
https://www.varda.com/
Replying to
@daedalus
Us Kiwis have our own "fuckity-fuckity bush" that can kill a horse. It grows near my place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtica_ferox
@Unixbigot @abstractcode @futzle
Today Young Grasshopper set about repairing earlier soldering efforts on their prototyping board, using the soldering iron they recovered using citric acid and a scrubber. They learned how to control 2 LEDs off one pin, and reviewed resistor codes. They learned to friction cut plastic with paracord, and then made a bolas/poi to demonstrate centripetal force and conservation of momentum. Nobody got whacked, but we wrecked a bush.
Experiment with pot continues. Wee wild clay pot now leathery and smoothed out. Dried a bit in the shed, but I've brought it inside to dry properly upside down. Probably take a couple of days for the next step.
Recent storms exposed a seam of decent clay in the bank by our driveway. I've fired a pellet of it and it doesn't dissolve in water or crack up. Might do a wee pot or two and see if it's any good.
Replying to
@RonSupportsYou@mastodon.social
Bear in mind this number doesn't take into account the US Government investing $90 billion in disrupting the world's energy and fertilizer supplies.
The bowl is too damp to smooth, let alone burnish, but here's the wild clay test pot. It's about 100mm across.
Well, The Empress of My Immediate Vicinity wanted to know if her tiny (0.6mm dia.) watercress seeds were sprouting. I have a rather nice trinocular microscope, so I used that. Sadly, no sprouts, but they look damn cool. (Looks even nicer in 3D)
The guide to automated etching of RepRapMicron Probe Tips and their integration/assembly is now on the Github wiki:
https://github.com/VikOlliver/RepRapMicron/wiki/Probe-Tip-Fabrication-And-Assembly
Yes, the RepRapMicron etches its own tips. Comments and suggestions welcome.
Harvested a couple of kilos of wild clay from the slip exposed by the bottom of the driveway (the drain is now, erm, cleared). Currently soaking it so I can float the roots, dead bugs, fossilized dinosaur droppings etc. out of it, and let the big sharp rocks fall to the bottom. I haven't done clay for decades, simply because I haven't seen any around here.
Replying to
@xssfox@cloudisland.nz
"Click click click out of two."
@steadilyebbing@girlcock.club @pjf@cloudisland.nz @deviantollam@defcon.social
Replying to
@pjf@cloudisland.nz
Standard Soviet solution for most problems was "use more steel." Steel was a big patriotic thing. Probably why my ex-Soviet welder could join tanks together and needed a cart with a pull handle and brakes. Sorry, Simon's welder. He got it back. Eventually.
Replying to
@scruss@xoxo.zone Hell yes. I wore the keycaps off, and at one point exams banned programmable calculators so I scraped off the word "Programmable" and things like 'GOTO". I used it, and programmed it, a *lot*.
Just a Reminder. Microsoft say in their Terms of Service that Copilot is "for entertainment purposes only". Their own T&Cs prohibit business use.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/05/copilot-is-for-entertainment-purposes-only-according-to-microsofts-terms-of-service/
Replying to
@jonathanharker@cloudisland.nz
Kiln? This is going in the barbie, few slight modifications. I haven't got any proper pottery kit at all. There's just lots of handy stuff in the shed. Barbie stands up pretty well to explosions if'n you can recover the lid...
I have enough wild clay processed to make a something. It's a bit gritty and I think I'll end up processing it a bit more, but I'll make a small, crude bowl and see if I have a snowball's chance of doing anything with it. It does wrap around my finger without cracking, so there's hope.
I have an #Astronomy theory: "Dark Matter" is composed of the intelligent races of the universe's missing laundered limb-end coverings.
Replying to
@Br3nda@cloudisland.nz
I remember when we hewed our own CPUs out of silicon slabs with a pickaxe and chis... [falls off Zimmer frame and fractures hip].
Replying to
@christianselig@mastodon.social The number of icons on my home screen that are like "Simple ..." or "Digital ..." or "Bozos ..." is ridiculous. Never tested, don't care, you're locked in anyway.
Replying to
Replying to
@moritz_negwer@mstdn.science
Thanks. It has about 8mm range of motion, notionally down to a micron. Repeatability is excellent, though arbitrary precision isn't as good. It's just a matter of software, right?
Replying to
@jackyan@mastodon.social
We're on a big hill with solar (um, some anyway but batteries at 90%), water tank, EV 4WD, backup generator, and adequate supplies. So other than the bottom of our driveway being slightly soggy we're doing well. Can still get to town through back roads if I have to.
Replying to
@croissant@zeroes.ca
Anything can become airbourne given enough common household chemicals mixed in the proper proportions.
Can you guess what this is? Right or wrong answers, I know you lot, you'll do it anyway :)
Replying to
@samworm@toot.community
Looks like the clay has just the right amount of sand in it. Still waiting for mine to dry, it's not exactly warm at the moment!
My clay is grey because I put 5% charcoal powder in so I can be gungho about setting fire to it.
Replying to
@samworm@toot.community
Anything over 700C should fire it good enough so 850C is definitely ample. Aluminum melts at 660C so if it's not hot enough to melt a bit of aluminum scrap it's not going to fire a pot.
Replying to
@hackaday@hackaday.social No reason why it has to be a mercury backing now we have gallium/indium alloys that melt below the destruction point of gelatin.
Not that Ihave anythign against expererimenting with merCury in m-m-moderation.
My #HomeAssistant Pi 5 dropped off the network. Can't see why because a) it's not on the network, and b) I don't have a microscopic HDMI cable.
Boots and connects if I shove a headless Raspbian SD into it, so presumably the HA SD is shagged somehow?
Replying to
@mina And appropriately for May The Fourth it has a Dark Side and binds the universe together.
Replying to
@orangutanlibrarian@mastodon.au
Yeah, but then you have to get it off. This is easier when the mirror is liquid.
@hackaday@hackaday.social
Replying to
@ArrestJK@mastodon.nz
If only the replacement pricks weren't just trying to shuffle everything up to the dry end of the Titanic through a different gangway this might be done with more enthusiasm.
Replying to
@TheBreadmonkey@beige.party
Because the value in the company is locked up in its just-in-time infrastructure, not available as ready cash. So to get cash it has to borrow against its infrastructure or sell shares (which is much the same thing but more regulated).
Replying to on infosec.exchange
@Em0nM4stodon@infosec.exchange Er, no. Inland Revenue make it compulsory.
I have baked two successive small, windowless buildings in lieu of rye loaves. I am beginning to suspect my yeast is dead.
Replying to
@feoh@oldbytes.space White text on black by preference. For some reason corporate palettes tend to be nigh on illegible!