Big #FreeCAD news! Feature freeze for FreeCAD 1.0 is now on. If you have held back from trying development builds, please consider running weekly development builds starting this week and filing clear bug reports. The may give you ideas what to expect and look for, but also lots of testing has been focused on explicitly new behavior, so just using the new version for general use (of course saving early and often!) is likely to uncover a few stray problems here and there that would be great to fix before the big 1.0. 😁
I'm not one of the FreeCAD developers (my sole code contribution so far has been fixing a tooltip typo, and I've contributed to a couple Workbench extensions), but if you, like me, were previously scared off by the "no bug reports not first discussed in the forum" rule, that rule is gone. FreeCAD now take normal GitHub bug reports and even have someone dedicated to triage. Bug reporting for FreeCAD is now a good experience!
Today's read, "Guilloché, a History and Practical Manual" by Calina C. Shelvin. If you're interested machine design aor precision machining then just from flipping through I can tell that this will be a good time. #machining#shoplife#horology
Apparently, the main period when people manufactured guilloché machines was 1760 to 1920 and globally they made less than 8000 machines, each one custom fitted with ~no interchangeable parts. 🙀
As I caught myself considering whether to manufacture 1:3 scale tubular cam locks for smol computer panels I decided that my 12yo self would be confused but happy about how this phase of my life unfolded.
I told my friend the other day that I feel a bit post-singularity in the sense that ~three years ago I left a straight-forward career and at the same time the world went sideways so I have ~no ability to predict what will happen even next year.
@mcdanlj Yes, though for the 1:3 scale PDP-11/70 panel it just needs to look like a lock and key and act like a switch. Preventing access isn't a requirement since attackers can simply unscrew the top or bottom panel of the rack. :-)
Here's the rough print of a 1:3 scale PDP-11/70 front panel taped in place on the DCL rack. I'm now convinced that this is a good scale and that using off-the-shelf Eurorack rails rotated 90° is a good hack.
The next step is to build a cabinet around the rails and then build the rest of the PDP-11 to hold a SBC so I can play with shared resources like power and network.
If you're reading this and you have photos of 70s era computer racks that are empty or mostly empty then I'd love to see them so I can correctly make 1:3 scale Desktop Computer Lab racks.
If you know of someone who has some of those racks then please share this post with them.
Do you know of any artists making and selling fantasy terminals like this? I think I could be pretty happy making full size terminals but the only people I know doing similar things are working in ads and/or film which is too stressful for me.
@luis_in_brief Yes, I personally lean more toward alternative timeline solarpunk futuristic than toward grungy or cyberpunk-ish distopian. So, worn but not dirty or pessimistic. That said, if it's a commission it can be whatever.
Flip-boards are the best partly because of the lovely noises they make when changing the glyphs.
I've finally built #FreeCAD for myself, with the TNP mitigation enabled. Now every time I see something cool in the @FreeCAD WIP Wednesday posts I can play with it without waiting for a new weekly build. ☺
The Konmari tidying method breaks the initial discard into phases by categories: clothes, books, papers, misc, and sentimental items. I wonder what the categories are for a home workshop because it can't all be misc. #konmari#shopLife
New M4 iPads have more cores and are likely higher performing than my Ryzen 7 5800U based laptop and yet still can be used for development. Even a simple task like editing, building, and deploying my SSG (Zola) based website can't be done without the help of a remote machine running a real operating system. When will Apple focus on the iPad operating system instead of the hardware? #Apple#iPad
@decryption@wezm I have mixed feelings about that idea. I agree that they're targeting the no-skill user but I also suspect that they've shipped the OS and first party apps they feel are sufficient so they're not messing with what they consider a success, instead relying on thinner/faster/prettier hw to drive sales.
I've fallen down the rabbit hole of clock movements and it's good fun! My favorite advancement so far is the modern spring drive that merges satisfying mechanical features with a clever bit of silicon and quartz to keep more accurate time without a chemical battery. https://youtu.be/jVoRoK1u3Dg
I don't wear a wristwatch for reasons of sensory processing and demand anxiety but I'm tinkering with a wristwrap design that might work. It's fabric and solid state electronics, though, so sadly no neat springs and wheels. #horology
I could happily spend a bit of time making art web sites that appear to sell these impossible machines but the sales process is behind-the-scenes a choose your own adventure story or a sort of "play by mail" game.