I played Mysterium with my two kids today. The rules are pretty simple and the game play moves along well since there is a hourglass timer. It definitely provided some glimpses into each other’s thinking. Looking forward to playing it some more rotating the ghost character.

Mysterium - Libellud libellud.com/en/our-games/myst

Matt does some great hardware hacking videos but this one seems to have really caught the public eye. “Hacking a Motorola Automatic License Plate Reader”:

youtu.be/yvINGzIa2fg?si=ZFXOz6

It is a chilly day with a dense fog advisory and rain. Trying to motivate myself to do something other than curl up under a blanket. Current status: binging NHK 72 hour videos.

As per tradition I’m up early and first up on Christmas Day. We had a nice family dinner last night and as always used our china and inherited silver ware (which is not silver but looks kinda fancy). Usually we have a ham dinner on Christmas Day but this year we decided to go the open kitchen route.

As our kids have gotten older our best gift is they’re both still at home on the holidays. Best wishes on this Day to you and yours! 🎄🤶🏼🧑🏼‍🎄

Shawn Hymel in collab with Digikey has started a “Introduction to FreeCAD” video series. I found the first video focused on background info informative. I liked the comparison to other CAD packages, the FreeCAD basics and now I know what the topological naming problem is 😄

youtu.be/8VPYTTnqmfs?si=-pW0hT

Interesting filament experience.

Nothing groundbreaking but two days ago I printed hundreds of grams of yellow Prusament and it went great. Put it in one of my vacuum bags. Today I took it out to use up the last ~50g and got this.

Popped it in my dryer for 6 hours, tried again, and it printed perfectly again. I was surprised by the how quickly it went from “just fine” to “horror show”.

My day of printing dangerously: I have an 8 hour print to do but by my measurement I lacked about 40g of filament for it to complete. Played with several slicer settings to no avail. Then I resorted to lightning infill which saved enough filament for it to work, in theory.

I’m skeptical lightning infill will provide enough support but desperate times… At least I’ll learning something.

This is my chosen VPN provider FWIW mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/11

Just a reminder of what a 💩pile Adobe is. mastodon.social/@BasicAppleGuy

It’s the small things. Like that satisfying “pop” a model printed with PETG makes as it releases from the Prusa textured sheet even when the temp is still over 40C. Like magic.

Also, why have I never found a white filament I like. I think I've had 5 different brands and they're all 'meh'.

Filaments you ask? I notice that for some reason I have 7 different black filaments: 1 Flex, 2 PETG and 4 PLA. Eight if I count the spare Prusa Galaxy Black spool. I may have a problem. No other color comes close.

I went all in on Jessie filament and received 6 colors of PLA the past few days. The samples all look great. I like that unlike other companies if you buy more than 1 at a time they come in 1 box. Prusa, Hatchbox etc always do the box-in-a-box thing.

TIL and this is great! mastodon.social/@rosenz/113603

I currently use Fusion as my modeling tool for 3D printing (free version). I looked at FreeCAD a couple years ago and it seemed lacking in features. But I’d like to take a look at 1.0. Do any of you have an intro blog post or video for moving from Fusion? I’ve done some searching but not found anything good.

I can already tell the FreeCAD UI is going to give me a serious headache so anything to ease the pain of trying it out will help.😉

A triangle in the sky

Model is on Thangs: thangs.com/designer/The%20Kit%

This is one of the best 3rd party models I've every printed. Everyone is in love with this guy.

The most productive thing I did today was spend several hours binge watching chill NHK Japan documentaries. Love NHK’s low key style. 🇯🇵

✅ First fireplace s’mores of the season

In the “It could be worse…” category

Our dishwasher died today. Kind of it to do so after Thanksgiving. 👏🏻

Based on the Black Friday pre-announcement emails I’ve received, the only thing I’ll likely order is PLA filament. I intentionally used up the ends of 6 different spools on my latest prototype so I plan to backfill with 2-3 new rolls. I may try Jessie filament for the first time. Maybe a spare CHT nozzle as well.

BTW I found using random bits of filament to finish prototyping was aesthetically triggering. Lots of clashing odds and ends.

While waiting to put our turkey in the oven I’m organizing photos from the past year to use in our annual family calendar. Also picking the photo to use on this year’s Christmas card. It usually pays to do this ahead because there is typically a worthwhile Black Friday sale on these items.

Also charging my Nikon DSLR’s battery for our annual pre-dinner Thanksgiving photo (which will be in the calendar).
🎄🍗

Please give Kagi a hand if you can. Costs you nothing. mastodon.social/@kagihq/113556

I had to design and print shelves to hold my expanding pen collection. 😬

High capacity Pen/Pencil/Stationery Holder or Stand printables.com/model/1088833-h

I rarely check video events from the camera over our driveway but randomly did so today. Was greeted by one of the rare local wildlife species (coyote). Cool.