wjrii

@wjrii@kbin.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Got a new windows 98 gaming PC, and boi she's huge!!⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ha! I used it TWICE!

  Also, to OP, that definitely wouldn't have come OEM on a PC that shipped with Win 98.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨These violent delights have violent ends⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Unexpected Shakespeare. Nice.

  And yummy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Two of world's first desktop computers found during house clearance⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  hose arrow keys are confusing, but I can see why the first thought was to place them like that

  I've seen worse. The Commodore 64 used two arrow keys and Shift. Many 8-bit computers split them onto completely different sides of the keyboard, and nobody agreed on what the layout should be, even if the group was similar. Finally, DEC and then IBM standardized the inverted T, and all was right with the world.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you ever copy somebody else's post from one forum and post it on a different forum as your own?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Before Center could reply, I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol’ Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He’s the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground. And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done – in mere seconds we’ll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn. Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check? There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground. I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: Ah, Center, much thanks, We’re showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money. For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the HoustonCentervoice, when L.A.came back with: Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one. It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day’s work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you ever copy somebody else's post from one forum and post it on a different forum as your own?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Before Center could reply, I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol’ Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He’s the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground. And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done – in mere seconds we’ll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn. Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check? There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground. I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: Ah, Center, much thanks, We’re showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money. For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the HoustonCentervoice, when L.A.came back with: Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one. It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day’s work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you ever copy somebody else's post from one forum and post it on a different forum as your own?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There were a lot of things we couldn’t do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment. It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn’t match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury. Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace. We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied: November Charlie 175, I’m showing you at ninety knots on the ground. Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the “ HoustonCentervoice.” I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country’s space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houstoncontrollers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that… and that they basically did. And it didn’t matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios. Just moments after the Cessna’s inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his groundspeed. Twin Beach, I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed. Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren. Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check...

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is living with your parents considered a bad thing?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is also age and culturally contextual. If kid and dad are on the same page about why junior is still living there, and if Dad is financially secure, he may want kid to pay down debt and be ready to jump straight to a nice place of their own. Now, if the family unit overall could use the help, and there is no specific plan for junior to move out, and and they're just sandbagging to have more money in their pocket after paying down student loans, it could be kinda shitty. Paying down the debt is not bad; minimizing overall cost of living for the family is not bad; what Boop2133 does with their money beyond loan payments might be bad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Finished my DIY keyboard with printed case, feet, and RPi Pico "caddy". Keycaps are not 3d printed, but the labels were DIY from my laser.⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  All those firmwares work fine, or even better, over USB. Of course, there's also the option to simply buy a kit. No idea if these people are legit, but the tech itself looks simple enough, a circuit board with contacts that let the linkage make a connection.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Finished my DIY keyboard with printed case, feet, and RPi Pico "caddy". Keycaps are not 3d printed, but the labels were DIY from my laser.⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I am not quite sure I'd be ready to recommend it, but your more adventurous patrons may want to experiment. These keycaps are PBT, a cousin of polyester. They are not particularly pleasant smelling when heated or especially when burned, but they're not as unhealthy as ABS (the other common plastic for keycaps) and certainly not as bad as the straight up poison gas that comes from PVC. I use a basic 5W blue diode laser, coat the keycap with an "infusible ink" pen from Cricut (most of their infusible products are polyester-based), put it in an alignment jig, then laser a raster image "low and slow." My particular laser seems to do best when I do two or three passes at 2% power and 45mm/minute. The idea is to heat it roughly in line with the crafting heat presses without letting the heat spread and color in areas beyond the beam. I experimented with actually burning or engraving, and that sort of works, but (1) it's stinky, and (2) the ash wipes away and you're left with a mostly colorless letter-shaped indentation. The "dye sub" technique produces barely any fumes at all. There are a few people on youtube who've tried similar techniques, and quite a few who have used different heat or dye sources.

  Aesthetically, the process was only marginally successful, though I'm optimistic about the longevity, at least compared to other low-end manufacturing techniques. I've been using a similar set of home-lasered keycaps for about a month with little to no wear. My jig was not as good on that set, AND I tried to center the keycap legends, meaning every fraction of a millimeter was painfully obvious. These legends didn't end up exactly where I might have liked either, but they're all off by the exact amount (about 1mm), so being consistent, the alignment isn't too bad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Finished my DIY keyboard with printed case, feet, and RPi Pico "caddy". Keycaps are not 3d printed, but the labels were DIY from my laser.⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It should be doable. The way these things are wired, you wouldn't use a common. You'd instead wire a matrix with diodes to avoid ghost presses. The firmware on the arduino or RPi microcontrollers will constantly scan for keypresses. So much would depend on the exact mechanizm of your typewiter, but you could find a place where a keycap moves parts in close enough proximity to make your own switches, or if some part of the mechanism presses straight down, you could just have that actuate mechanical keyboard switches.

  For wireless, you'd probably want ZMK. QMK is the most famous, but ZMK supports more wireless MCUs. I use KMK, a firmware where everything is human-readable python. I understand it has some wireless support, but I've never looked into it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Finished my DIY keyboard with printed case, feet, and RPi Pico "caddy". Keycaps are not 3d printed, but the labels were DIY from my laser.⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Doing it on the keyboard could very easily work, but I have a laser-cut jig that holds twenty-six 1u keycaps, and has one open-ended spot for anything up to maybe 3u. I considered 3D-printing the jig, but 30 minutes on the laser made more sense than 5 hours on the printer.

  This plastic didn't love my "Infusible ink" pens, so the legends are duller than the last time I did this, but the jig helped a lot alignment, as did adjusting my ambitions and expectations. Much less disappointing to land 1 off when you can pretend you wanted it there all along, and that is much easier to do with corner legends versus centered. :-)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Finished my DIY keyboard with printed case, feet, and RPi Pico "caddy". Keycaps are not 3d printed, but the labels were DIY from my laser.⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks. Kind of a 2004 Apple and Logitech thing going. Probably need another couple of years before it's in vogue. white filament on the ptrinter though, so white keyboard it is.

  putting another tab button on the numpad

  Horizontal spreadsheet data entry, my friend. it's probably one of the less crazy parts of this layout! Of course, ten minutes on the laser and/or 5 in the software, and I can make it any key you need. Programmable keyboards are a godsend when you're winging it on the layout.

• Finished my DIY keyboard with printed case, feet, and RPi Pico "caddy". Keycaps are not 3d printed, but the labels were DIY from my laser.media.kbin.social ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨3dprinting@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨10⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FreeCAD, Ondsel and Prusa Save FOSDEM!⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  At my rather beginner level, designing single parts for a 3D printer or laser engraver, it behaves almost exactly like most other parametric-history CAD apps in the broad concepts. The devil is just in the details, really. Shortcuts are different, terminology is different, Certain QoL and UI elements are either missing or somewhere else. The workbench model is not unique, but some of the kruft that has built up around FreeCAD's benches and the defaults (better in recent versions if you look at the start screen) can make a new user "nope out" if they have other options. I guess assemblies in particular remain a fragmented area and lag behind the commercial packages, and I can say for certain that it still requires "good design practices" in a way that some of the commercial apps manage around, toponaming the biggest among them.

  If all the negatives kill your workflow to the point that you want to pay for commercial software or live with the limitations (current and potential) of their free tiers, then that's absolutely understandable. Commercially, it's doubly so, and with addition of the "business reality" that there's also no one to blame or sue if FreeCAD is not working for you. Hell, I don't use it for all my stuff either, as I find no-history modeling still mostly works for what I'm doing and I have some free or cheap options in that space that are decent, but I can see the appeal as I'm starting to make things that could benefit from tweaks after the fact. What I get frustrated by is claims that it "is no good" or "will never be useful". I call BS. It's already good and useful for many use cases, and anyway the number of free parametric CAD suites that do not restrict your use of your designs is exactly ONE. Otherwise, you're looking at an absolute minimum of $300 a year to subscribe and hope that Shapr3D's now history functionality doesn't break, and that neither they nor Alibre gets gobbled up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FreeCAD, Ondsel and Prusa Save FOSDEM!⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It's getting better, and it's critical that it do so, if for no other reason than to raise the floor that commercial offerings have to surpass to retain small-to-medium customers. I haven't committed to it, but I'm rooting for it and following it closely.

• FreeCAD, Ondsel and Prusa Save FOSDEM!blog.freecad.org ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨3dprinting@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨18⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Finished the 3D printed case for the keyboard layout I cut on my laser (project still in progress).⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  White filament and a sharp pocket knife hide many sins, but thanks. It came out quite okay, and the cheap hardboard from Home Depot cuts very nicely with even a cheap laser.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Finished the 3D printed case for the keyboard layout I cut on my laser (project still in progress).⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It's actually not secured yet. I included a couple of hexagonal openings in the long legs of the print that should accommodate a heated brass standoff just about right; it'll be very similar to your alignment pins. I used the idea on my last keyboard and it worked well. The gap will be closed a bit more after securing the screws from the bottom plate. It will be nowhere near "perfect," and but the end result should be a bit cleaner than this in-progress state. I am fairly pleased how decorative grooves draw the eye away from the seam a bit, but I'm not really trying to hide that it is 3D printed, and that in two pieces.

• Finished the 3D printed case for the keyboard layout I cut on my laser (project still in progress).media.kbin.social ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨3dprinting@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨4⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My old MacBook charger kept falling whenever I moved, so I designed this⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Tree supports and careful use of an exacto knife could also make it work. Post processing can be a bit much sometimes, but it doesn't have to be the enemy either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Brought to you by the vertical mouse gang⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If it just had three buttons, it'd be perfect. As it is, I'm using the Orbit Fusion as my couch mouse, with the "Forward" button remapped to left-click, which lets me rest my hand similar to how I would on the "classic" Orbit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Brought to you by the vertical mouse gang⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have an Orbit Fusion for the couch. I looked at the Elecoms, but I just really like the scrollring. In my perfect world there'd be a god-damned three-button orbit with scrollring, but in the meantime remapping the Fusion's "Forward" button lets me use it with similar ergonomics. I notice the stiction, but it's a very minor little aspect of using the trackball, and it's not distracting enough for me to feel like I need to replace the bearings. I did do the "rub some nose oil on it" thing and that helped some.

  There are a few DIY designs floating around that use BTUs, and some have certainly made their way into ergo keyboards, but I don't know of a commercial product that uses them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Math question: how do we get an irrational number pi from the ratio of circumference and the diameter of a circle?⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yup. This is corollary to the other post talking about diameter. If you make a perfect circle with your perfect meter of perfect string, suddenly you can no longer perfectly express the diameter in SI units, but rather it's estimated at 31.8309886... cm. Nothing is wrong with the string in either scenario.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Self-Checkout Nightmare May Finally Be Ending⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A few stores, in my area it’s particularly clothing discounters, seem to have moved to that model, and as long as you plan your checkout areas even sort of halfway well, it’s a million times better.

  And god what a sad death Fry’s had. It went from the books stuff nerd store to a disaster. Eventually the ones in Dallas-Fort Worth were just zombie husks riding out the leases and selling leftovers on consignment from the few manufacturers who couldn’t be bothered to come repossess the inventory after the store failed to pay their invoices.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When will "Star Wars: A New Hope" enter public domain?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That was added in 1981 when it popped back into theatres after Empire. It was not original, but it was a very early addition, and since ESB came out in the interim as Episode 5 from the get-go, very much a retcon in the George style.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lines in prints⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I actually had a slightly different issue. Having an Ender clone of dubious provenance, I needed to let just the tiniest amount of slack into the Z-coupler so the screw wouldn't bind and cause banding. It's the carriage arms that should provide lateral stability for the Z axis.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I saw this ornament at the Henry Ford museum and kept an eye on it until I had got away⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Q is a little bit nervous about Floridaman Santa being his upstairs neighbor. Go Gators.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨3D printed keyboard case, feet, and cable grommet.⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks! LOL.

  Those specific issues could be changed with software and a keycap puller in about 5 minutes. Obviously I can't get ESC back exactly where it "should" be, but the idea with this layout was to look and feel a bit like old 8-bit computer keyboards without forcing a drastic departure from modern "ten-key-less" layouts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨3D printed keyboard case, feet, and cable grommet.⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I didn't fully realize the depth of my addiction when I ordered the aluminum plates with the switch holes cut into them. :-)

  On one of the three keyboards I made, I cut out the aluminum between those two holes which allowed me to set the switches in so the bigger and smaller one are flipped, which is exactly what many European keyboards do in that corner, but actually cutting out the room to include the full size shift would mean a more extensive rework to accommodate stabilizers. I'd originally thought I was being cute and copying what the Commodore 64 did.

  You live. You learn. You have three shift keys.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨3D printed keyboard case, feet, and cable grommet.⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Super key is the Win next to Right Shift. I may flip it with the Fn key on the bottom... not sure, but it's a few keystrokes in the firmware, so I'll see how it goes.

  The double shift is because I got a little too cute when designing the layout. Every single button is completely reprogrammable, but ultimately I found that 30+ years of typing (poorly) on big American style left shifts has left me preferring a large landing spot.