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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I think I’m at my wit’s end with “smart” things.

    Roomba? It takes less time to just vacuum the place than it does for the fucking vacuum to realize it’s been humping the same chair leg for most of its battery charge.

    Assistants?

    “Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

    “Sorry, that device hasn’t been configured yet”

    “Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

    “Sure, turning 2 lights on”

    “Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

    “Sure, opening the blinds”








  • I hung around on Reddit for like 15 years before I left, and I saw a progression from earnest debate to sarcasm becoming dominant in a lot of subs, particularly the busy ones. I imagine this holds true for any popular, long-term forums.

    This is what I see:

    Person A comes in and gives an opinion that is opposed to the general consensus in the community (“hive mind”).

    Person B responds with a detailed explanation of why that opinion has been soundly rejected and how it maps to “the consensus”. This is the kind of quality post that made Reddit shine. It gets upvotes like crazy not because it’s “right”, but because it clearly explains how you get from opinion A to opinion B in a way anybody can follow.

    Five years passes.

    Person ZZZZ comes in and gives the SAME opinion as Person A.

    Person B, inexplicably still a member of the community, responds with a short blast of sarcasm that makes it clear they disagree with that opinion, but long gone are the days where they bother to thoughtfully contrast the opposing views. It’s basically a snappy “you’re dumb and wrong; get fucked” comment. It gets upvoted like crazy this time not because it explains anything, but because it echoes the tired sentiment of the community.

    I don’t even know if that’s a Reddit thing or just a general human experience thing. If someone were to approach you alone IRL and say they have concerns about trans athletes, you might have enough energy (and recent context) to be willing to explore the issues and explain your take on several facets of the arguments people commonly make.

    If someone came up to you and said they aren’t sure about “this women voting thing”, I can’t imagine you’re going to be nearly as patient or willing to engage. Women’s suffrage has SAILED. The time for debate ended when your great grandmother died.

    I saw a similar thing with the current wars. Early on there were interesting points raised. Now if someone comes in with a “unique” opinion on Ukraine or Gaza, they get buried in downvotes or told to fuck off. The time for debate has passed.

    Maybe it’s an issue of people joining a debate late and wanting to understand the issues become indistinguishable from bots and trolls with a paid agenda. Volunteers can’t be arsed to waste time educating them.











  • I looked into this a while back and gave up.

    I didn’t find any (good) models I wouldn’t have to pay for, but some of the paid STL sites had sets available for really reasonable prices, so that wasn’t really a blocker.

    But FDM is basically incapable of printing any interesting models. Even if you’re printing good layers, most interesting models aren’t geometrically compatible with how an FDM model prints. You can print with supports, but removing supports from such thin, fragile bits of a model is nigh impossible without doing damage.

    I went as far as shopping around for a resin printer, but I didn’t like all the ventilation cautions I read. Adding a printer is one thing, but having a well ventilated area that overlaps with where I’d want a printer was an unsolveable problem in my home.

    If you just want to give it a try, grab a model off Thingiverse and see how your printer does. If you can get a piece you’d be happy to proceed with painting, that might be worth a few more iterations to see if it’s workable for your setup.