@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

fastness

@fastness@mastodon.social

Aerospace engineer, maker and terrible amateur programmer. I will probably toot when I've made something, mainly 3d printing and plotting; if you want to make what I've made you'll probably find it on Printables: https://www.printables.com/social/152251-pittance/models

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fastness, to genart
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

Updated my image-to-spiral code to a faster variant than the AM/FM waves I often use. This one has multiple spirals, with each having a varying degree of radial displacement based on brightness within the set so at white they all overlay and at black they spread to fill the space between loops of the spiral

In progress grayscale plot of an eye on the bed of a home made pen plotter, the outer parts of the eye are faint but a circle near the centre is much darker where more of the spiral lines have been completed. The eye is made up of a set of spiral lines that merge or spread to encode brightness. The pen plotter parts visible are shiny aluminium and bright orange printed plastic. The lines are being drawn with a Pilot rollerball pen.

john, to random
@john@sauropods.win avatar

Does anybody know if there’s a traditional composite material that behaves something like fibreglass? As in fibre/fabric laid up in a binder of some sort to make a stiff material in arbitrary forms.

Paper mache is one but it’s too weak (I think, maybe there's a super version?). I'm considering things like cotton or flax in casein glue or pine resin... but I doubt it will work.

(And my last casein glue experiment stunk like rotten milk for weeks!)

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@john I remember hearing about ancient Greek armour that might have been a composite of linen and twine (maybe glue?) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linothorax

I don't know if that's the type of thing you're looking for

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@john probably, although I think there's some doubt if they did use glue or not. I thought of another example after I sent the last message: I think there's some evidence of leather and wood shields, there was a series of videos I watched that seemed well sourced https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=tod%27s+workshop+shield (hope the link works, on mobile)

Edent, to internet
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “Virgin Media preparing to offer symmetrical upload speeds?”

Virgin Media - a UK-based fibre-optic ISP - recently sent me a survey about their potential product offerings. It was desperate to know if I wanted bundled streaming video (no), or Sky Sports (LOL no), or any other digital subscriptions (no, go away), or a landline (what, is this the 19…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/03/virgin-media-preparing-to-offer-symmetrical-upload-speeds/
⸻
#internet #isp #virgin

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@Edent personally (having left Virgin a couple of years ago): wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. Their network status page was rarely updated fast enough to be useful, their tech support would deny general problems in an area despite me knowing multiple people locally who had all had their Virgin internet die simultaneously with mine. When my mother got sick of their bullshit their retention people simply ignored her clearly stated desire to leave and signed her back up to a new package. Twice.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

How do you feel about physical touch? I mean this is the broad sense, not necessarily in a sexual way, but you can answer however you wish.

Personally, I enjoy it a lot, and find it comforting, but only from really specific people. If strangers or people I don't know well want to hug me, it's okay, but I won't seek it out. I think handshakes are weird. Hey, you want to hold hands with a stranger for a short amount of time for some reason?

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr a guy at work (French non native English speaker) once described a face-to-face meeting as a "flesh-on-flesh" meeting and I cringe/recoiled so hard I turned inside out

I don't mind touch (although the Brits generally 100% refuse the French cheek kiss thing unless they actually know people socially) but that... I don't want that

TechConnectify, to random
@TechConnectify@mas.to avatar

Ok, with the gas stove thread, people won't stop asking why I'm not considering an induction cooktop. So here's another thread where I try to answer this.

Perhaps the bottom line is this: I'm a Midwesterner. It carries a lotta baggage.

To elucidate, first you should understand that I have tried induction! Not the best experiences of it, to be sure, but I've used two portable burners and found them both to be impressive (with a few caveats). But on the whole, not a game changer to me.

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@TechConnectify I've used gas (I agree with your conclusions), conventional electric rings, ceramic electric (standard and halogen) and induction (our current cooker top). The last two are both good, the biggest difference I've noticed is in how easy the induction is to keep clean vs the radiant ceramic - the temperatures being lower seem to make a big difference

vik, to linux
@vik@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

3D Design tool for needy kids, the search continues.

We have old laptops to loan out to kids from poor backgrounds. They don't have internet. 2D design we have covered with , and the laptops run well (but not Windows). What I need is a 3D design program. Suggestions welcome.

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@linux_mclinuxface @mral @vik I did a very quick trial of this with some UK year 9 kids (14ish?) and they did get some basics of OpenSCAD. The boolean geometry they were ok with but grouping things for successive operations was harder. The big challenge was transformations and order of operations (I ended up writing "translate, rotate, then scale!" on a whiteboard :)
Their teacher was happy, said it supported some of their maths curriculum. It was only one session in a wider programme though

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@linux_mclinuxface @mral @vik Their teacher had been interested in getting them some 3D CAD for printing but had only found Tinkercad because everything else was expensive or unfamiliar. I offered to try out OpenSCAD with some of them; we ended up getting them to do an LED tea light holder. They had to make a base (using difference) and then add something interesting as a shade, either to cast shadows or let light through. We showed them example transformations/loops; interesting results!

fastness, to 3DPrinting
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

New plotter design is nearly done. This will be an H belt design with the parts running on 2020 & 2040 V slot extrusion

I've completed all of the design (in ), but I still have more parts to print and testing to do before I'll share the design; it will be on at some point. It should do A3 and it might scale up to A2, but I'm a little concerned about stiffness and racking in the cross arm

A full overview of a plotter made with silver & black anodised aluminium extrusions. The fittings that join the aluminium parts are bright orange, all is held together with steel socket cap screws. The moving parts are supported with small black plastic V wheels. The plotter is incomplete, with no belts (these will be fitted later). The whole thing sits on a bright red Christmas tablecloth, some tools are visible on the table.

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

The new designed is working, the first plot is done!

Once I worked out the orientation (and I only crashed into the edges of travel once) it was easy to configure. It's not complete because I haven't sorted cable management, most seriously I don't have a servo cable guide yet but that will come

Going to try an A3 drawing next :)

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@andypiper :) it's been surprisingly pain free so far. It's an H bot belt so it works like an inside out AxiDraw and I can use the AxiDraw Inkscape extension since I have an EiBotBoard; I just had to edit the config file to make the dimensions portrait

fribbledom, to random
@fribbledom@mastodon.social avatar

The multi-part support in is shockingly non-existent.

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@fribbledom the only way I've ever found to deal with it is to separate parts into modules (with origins in a convenient place) and then to build those into assemblies using other modules

It's not pretty and I end up with assemblies to check fit that get commented out when I want to print the parts if that's a different orientation

rasterweb, to random
@rasterweb@mastodon.social avatar

I believe a city can only support a limited number of houses. Am I correct or incorrect in this belief?

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@rasterweb @deshipu I believe it's a reference to this: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/446032-emperor-joseph-ii-my-dear-young-man-don-t-take-it

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@rasterweb I would say you're correct. There clearly are limits although people might argue what they are

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

HAPPY ART SHOW SUNDAY!

Drop a picture, video, link, or toot of something you created into the comments. Anything goes, show me your passion!

“Art is a line around your thoughts.” – Gustav Klimt

image/jpeg
A pencil drawing of a cute possum

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr today I made a gift for a colleague's retirement using some code I wrote to convert the photo into lines and a pen plotter I made years ago to draw it. It's a spiral with tiny waves to change the amount of ink on the "paper" (it's actually new old stock drafting film people used to use for engineering drawings) to show the changes in brightness. Next week we're going to present it to him next to the last Concorde to fly in the museum where it lives now

fastness, to random
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

New Bobby Fingers video

I re-watched the Michael Jackson diorama video so I thought I was ready

I wasn't ready

https://youtu.be/VGhcSupkNs8?si=UtuHR7n_iegXQcqa

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@sarajw It's the combination of sheer artistry on the sculpting and all the... everything else, I don't even know

I do give the guy some money so I suppose I'm at least partly to blame

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

I want to talk about The Matrix, I'm gonna ask one question, but feel free to add your own discussion points, if you'd like to!

Would you want to stay in the Matrix, like Cypher (you want the steak) or would you be out fighting bots or at least hanging out in Zion, or some third option?

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@jwcph @mike @RickiTarr I remember hearing that was an allusion to Ronald Reagan: his character is "Mr Reagan", he wants to be someone "important, like an actor". The remembering nothing was said to be a reference to Reagan's Alzheimer's disease.

It might not be true but it's in my headcannon now and I'm afraid to Google it

Waitnwallflower, to random
@Waitnwallflower@beige.party avatar

I continue to keep this Scrabble image to remind myself what it's like to play with my son.

Me: Use it in a sentence.

Him:
"T'wed or not t'wed? That's the question."
...
"Thas right!"

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr @Waitnwallflower there's some nice legit words on that board. It's more fun when the words are spread out too

A friend of ours invented what we now call the "goatgivery rules" which are basically that if you can make a plausible definition for it or use it in a sentence then you're allowed the word. The name for the rule comes from the example that produced it: a goatgivery is a place you go to be given a goat

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

Funny thing - when you read more scholarly histories of science it's amazing the extent to which nobody is ever that far ahead of the field. Even people we think of as rebels - Einstein, Cantor, Darwin, were firmly inside existing discussions and movements. I remember one author saying good scientists are a year ahead of the field, great ones are 5, the greatest are 10, and more and more that seems right, even generous.

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith One thing I really enjoyed recently was David Kaiser's series of lectures from the MIT Open Courseware YouTube channel: "MIT STS.042J Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics In The 20th Century"

It's a really excellent narrative running through the discussions, ideas and evolution of how physics was built up (and in places torn down) by a whole group of people, all of whom were smart, skilled and knowledgeable and often confirmed experts in the fields they ended up overturning

fastness, to random
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

Today's WFH downside: it's really flipping hot
Today's WFH upside: found mystery biscuits in my work bag

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@sarajw :)

Also the link to the "citation needed" quiz with Tom Scott and @mattgrayyes https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96C35uN7xGLtTqCh2iJ-aUIr10gy556Y - this was strongly on my mind when I found these literal mystery biscuits. I do not know where they came from, going to eat them anyway

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

HAPPY ART SHOW SUNDAY!

Drop a picture, video, link or toot into the comments of something you created, anything goes, have fun with it it!

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
Thomas Merton

From Me: A salad I made with some vegetables from the garden and a helpful sloth

A sketch of a cute sloth hanging from a branch, he is thinking, Today would be a good day to destroy all humans

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr These are my 3d printed working-from-home desk fans. I like smooth, quiet airflow towards my face when it's hot and these work really well.

(It would have been nice to share a photo made with threads laced over a 3d printed circular comb but I didn't have enough luck to get that working this weekend)

stavvers, to random
@stavvers@masto.ai avatar

what's your most petty obscure literary claim to fame? mine is that mark fisher wrote vampire castle about me (and some other women) for saying russell brand was a cunt and in no way some sort of leftist icon.

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

@stavvers Mine is that I won a competition in a fanzine and named two ships in an Iain M Banks novel, neither are main characters ("Poke it with a Stick" and "Sanctioned Parts List", both GCUs I think)

fastness, to random
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

Desk fan, posh Noctua fan version - made some progress today: printed the flow vane assembly that takes the swirly flow from the fan, removes the swirl and tries to fill in the hole left by the fan hub with a nice, pointy boat tail body.

I added a lot of curvature to the stators to try to avoid noise; I don't know if that will work but it looks nice. Stators made with my blade code (https://www.printables.com/model/511607-openscad-generic-blades-and-rotors)

fastness,
@fastness@mastodon.social avatar

More parts printed, now I have the first of the 45deg ducts and the cascade assembly ready. I like the pearlescent PLA filament but it can be annoying to print with, had some first layer failures unless I really push the z offset down into the bed.

Even though it's designed to work this way it's odd when the flow comes out horizontal, it always seems like it shouldn't for some reason

An oval duct formed by cutting across a pipe at 45 degree spanned by curved slats is visible atop a series of squared off assemblies bolted together at the corners. A grey fan is just visible in the stack. It all sits on a yellow tablecloth. Behind the slats details of curved blades can just be seen.

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