jjkaczor

Heh - that's where I was going with the "tribulations" aspect of my comment - which is why I like to read honest blogs - those dreams of "someday I might do 'X'", only to find someone who has - and then read all the challenges that had/have to be overcome. (which is not to say that hard-work and following a dream/passion-project are not worth doing - it's just nice to have more understanding of the risks/rewards and issues)

Heh - do you have a "blog" (ala jwz's DNA Lounge)?

(This is the kind of retiring from IT tale that I love to read and follow the trials and tribulations of over the years - good luck, thanks for open-sourcing your work!)

True - but it did have the benefit of giving the majority of people who passed through it the same benefit of a baseline understanding of "things" - those with aptitude and talent (and time and privilege) could take that further and build upon those fundamentals.

Now however, if people are not even internalizing those fundamentals in order to even re-write things in their own words, using their own "mental model" (perhaps correct, sometimes not) - I fear they won't even develop "mental models" and abstractions...

The invasion issue is also further remediated by using a "workstation style" laptop which only gets 60-75m of battery life (plus also weighs far too much to be used on your actual "lap")...

You know you are getting old (insert AI generated meme) when your default of "20 years ago" was the 80's... Nope...

Yeah, normal people look at me funny when I am "out and about" and they want me to do something on a random website and my reply is: "naw, I will look at that when I am back at a real computer"....

I have had every type of computing device, including pre-smart phone PDA's, and ultimately when I need to do something that isn't mediated by an "app", I will always gravitate towards doing it on an actual computer.

Now - while I do prefer a laptop as my primary machine - it is essentially a desktop, as I typically use it 90% of the time attached to either a dock at home or the office, with external screens, keyboard and mouse.

(Heck - my latest machine only gets about 75m of battery life... it is more a luggable than a "work-at-the-beach" kind of machine (i9, lots of ram, etc.) - and I am perfectly happy with that arrangement)

In a country far from home, on my own I was out late on a Saturday night in the bar district. Decided on a whim to buy a pack of cigarettes and have a smoke - a few minutes later a group of guys approached me and asked for a couple. Of course I obliged, when they found out I was there alone and Canadian, they invited me to join in their raucous bar-hopping bachelor party for the rest of night, we went until the sun rose.

In another place, far to the north, above the arctic tree line I heard so many stories and met so many indigenous people when braving the frigid temperatures to participate in smoke breaks.

So - while horrible for health, my "anecdata" does seem to indicate that it does help break down social barriers, remove my self-imposed "shyness" regarding talking to "strangers" and strengthens community and social bonds.

(Thankfully, outside of a 6-week period where a relative was in hospice care and I was up to a "pack a day", I was able to quit easily)

That's actually what I did - upgraded from a 5-bay Synology to an 8-bay in December (before HD prices skyrocketed even further than they had since my last NAS build), still have a couple free slots, but doubled my overall available storage space. eBooks are not the bulk of what is one there though...

As a book want-to-be-hoarder without enough room to actually do so, these stories always make me sad - I spent alot of time in quiet, cool empty libraries picking up random books as a child.

OTOH - I personally don't have enough room for real books, so everything I have is digital on a NAS. It's there, but "not the same".

Digitization reminds me of part of the plot of "Rainbow's End" (Vinge), where physical books get digitized, through a destructive process...

Oh that's easy... "money".

When it was just about the "love of technology" and the building of the skills involved, things were different...

... try being a Canadian with a bit of a hearing deficiency that is always saying our "verbal tic" of: "sorry" just prior to asking people to repeat themselves...

Came for this - happy to see it here...

I would be 3d-printing some janky feet in TPU before submitting myself to that process. Even if they "wear-out/fall-off", I can print some more.

... well, that would guarantee I never take a gig in one of those data centers...

Well - the fact that they don't pay attention (or lack critical thinking skills and a baseline reasonable education) is a large part of the problem.

But - with a person like POTUS - and those he surrounds himself with, they will throw every possible promise to get the votes - but, each of those issues are only part of their overall agenda and platform. When they got called-out on controversial issues, they outright lied about knowing about things like "Project 2025" during the last election cycle.

Choosing to live in ignorance - or abstaining from voting is accepting that agenda and platform, regardless.

If you vote/support someone who runs on a racist platform - you are getting that as part of the "package deal":

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/11/10/the-cinemax-theory-of...

AI is already coming for "art" and "research" - by "slop metrics" it's already there for "art".

Curtis Yarvin, who pals around with Peter Thiele posted in 2008 on how to deal with "non-productive" people:

"convert them into biodiesel, which can help power the Muni buses."

Of course, he was "just joking" and it is a "humane alternative" to genocide...

These are the people shaping politics, tech and the economy...

Am so "teh old", that honestly - I can't say whether or not that product was worse than the "CueCat":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat

(Naw - the CueCat was better, at least it was a generic barcode scanner)

I was lucky enough to have seen the initial controversy and install the X1Plus firmware on my X1C about 2-weeks before lockdown. It has worked flawlessly with OrcaSlicer ever since. For monitoring when I am away from my office, I setup VPN, HomeAssistant and could do it from my computer - but there was also a "Bambu Companion" app released pretty quickly in that timeframe (there are probably others now) which allowed my to replace the "Bambu Handy" functionality on my phone.

So - of course, I swore I would not buy another Bambu. But, when looking at the various pricing and other aspects of competitors - about a month ago I did end-up buying an H2C with double-AMS and an HT - mainly to reduce filament waste, have a larger build volume, be able to use multi-materials for support "quickly" and have active chamber heating for more "engineering" type filaments. Don't believe the hype about the chamber filter though - I have found with ABS, you still need external exhaust or air filtering as even though the chamber "closes" and recycles via the filter, you still have the "poop chute" venting fumes...

... and of course... even if I wanted to switch to LAN-mode, unfortunately OrcaSlicer does not yet support the H2C... perhaps it never will unfortunately...

Outside of Prusa - how would you compare Bambu's documentation against it's competitors?

In my experience, having owned 2-other printers prior to an X1C - there is absolutely NO comparison - EVERYTHING was community, Reddit, forum or random YouTube guidance from non-manufacturers.

I have seen one YouTube video that seemed to indicate a problem with pulling filament was because of a little flap within the new 4-1 PTFE filament adapter. There is a little rubber valve/flap (apparently it is a consumable, because the printer came with extra) - which he found if left in-place would cause filament jams, so he removed it, and no more feed problems. (Unfortunately, I cannot find the exact video - I have seen/bookmarked too many)

Odd - I bought an H2C about a month ago - and the nozzle-swapping Vortek rack just wouldn't calibrate or operate - blocking even calibrating the left-nozzle from proceeeding.

However - yes, they did have me perform multiple disassembly/re-connect steps and document, and then of course every question/answer was at least a 24-hr turnaround (some delays were because I keep my printer at my office and chose to work from home a few times), eventually they sent me an entire new Vortek rack - which, once installed worked perfectly.

I was not looking forward to packing the entire thing up and shipping it back.

hmmm - they never asked for the old one back... (hmmm, harvest the servo motor? drag-chains and rods for other projects? Mount it on the wall and use it to store extra induction nozzles? Ideas?)

... Well - with a blog title of "Delphi Nightmares", I would expect uh critical or negative commentary... It's right there in the name.

Naw I did the same after I got "piled" on at Metafilter a few years back, and after 18-years buttoned my account because I was sick of the toxicity (I am an ancient BBS/usenet guy from decades ago - I can handle "flamewars"). I am pretty "left-leaning" liberal, but the "purity tests", insular nature and extreme "wokeness" that place has turned into has basically ruined it. They have monthly meta discussions/threads on why they are losing attention/participation, yet they don't seem to recognize that they drive people away.

Back to Github... I wonder how much of the "enshitification" can be tied to the acquisition and corporatization by Microsoft... (I am going to guess "alot")

General agree... I still do the things (mid-50's) I used to do when I was a teenager with no computer, no phone.

But - now they are easier - I can read books on an e-ink screen and pretty much instantly find what I want to read next. I get my news on a phone. I used to watch TV/movies broadcast or on tape rentals. Now, I have just about everything I could ever want available - without ADs... those were such a time-waster.

What has changed is that I have access to MORE information than my local (or school) libraries could ever provide - in a variety of more accessible formats. Whatever tools I need to get "work done", I can find a myriad of free and open-source options.

But - the overall days and household family routines are the same - now, instead of reading a paper book while waiting to pickup my kids (or other family members) "back-in-the-day", I can read my device, or connect with my DIY communities online on my phone - or learn something new. I don't have to schedule life around major broadcast events, I can easily do many tasks while I am "out-and-about".

Friction has been reduced.

While Microsoft is hierarchical - but it did encourage reaching out in a "flat" manner internally.

In my experience - a loooong time ago ago now - executive leadership would participate in high-level escalations/critsits for large/key customers on calls. I was just a lowly field-engineer - but over the course of nearly 4-years, was on calls about 5 times with some of the big-names from that era that everyone knows about... And they seemed to emit enough empathy with the specific customer situation to move things forward.

However - being on the "other-side-of-the-fence" (i.e. external, consulting with Microsoft customers - some of them who even spend $1.5billion/year in M365/Azure licensing) and assisting clients with issues and remediations for the last 10-years, things are no longer the same. No amount of escalation gets further than occasionally reaching some level of the product team - and it can take 8-12 months before that even occurs. Troubleshooting and deep-engineering support skills for cloud customers are typically non-existent, and the assigned resources seem to just wait until the issue resolves itself...

Thank-you! thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.

[This is the single most helpful tip/link from HN I have ever found, much appreciated]

Well... one wonders and speculates what exactly is meant by his statement of: "unleash hell"

That was a great movie - I lived there, worked downtown and was an avid user of the +15 system when that movie came out...