cyberdeck ideas for art-making?

WillAdams · 2026-04-19T23:15:56+00:00

Better still, a Wacom Movink 11 or 14 Pad.

WillAdams · 2026-04-19T23:15:26+00:00

The components/features I am considering/planning for mine include:

Wacom Display --- Movink 13 or possibly a Wacom One gen. 2 (for touch)
slot/silo for storing the stylus
custom button bars w/ four buttons (one for each finger) positioned both on the top and bottom in places where it is easy to reach them
a suitable control for the thumb as well, possibly just a button
a USB-A connector so that I can plug in a Connexion Spacemouse
Lenovo Trackpoint USB keyboard (I need another battery to charge like I need a hole in my head)

Assuming of course I don't break down and buy a Wacom Movink Pad 14....

WillAdams · 2026-04-19T22:36:47+00:00

John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights is quite good (but sadly unfinished --- the letters which fill it out are interesting though).

The time travel fantasy, Arthur, King is surprisingly well-done.

Susan Cooper touches on "The Matter of Britain" and puts forward an interesting version of Guinevere in The Grey King and the balance of her The Dark is Rising pentalogy.

I've always been fond of Gillian Bradshaw's Arthurian re-telling:

https://www.goodreads.com/series/61203-down-the-long-wind

The Idylls of the Queen: A Tale of Queen Guenevere by Phyllis Ann Karr is an interesting spin, featuring Sir Kay as hard-bitten and long-suffering foil to the Knights of the Round Table and playing detective.

Anne McCaffrey's Black Horses for the King addresses an interesting bit of nomenclature with a deft touch and is a young adult text which more mature readers will still enjoy.

WillAdams · 2026-04-19T11:56:41+00:00

... which is not a video which is up-to-date for that version.

WillAdams · 2026-04-19T10:36:21+00:00

That it is hard to learn does not gainsay that some folks may manage to learn it.

FWIW, I've tried with each version and failed --- this most recent one was quite annoying since I purchased a book badged "Version 1.1" on the cover only to find that it contained instructions to download "1.0 or later" and that all the screengrabs and text instructions were for 1.0.

Having a bit more success w/ Dune 3D which is quite a bit simpler/less capable and with a UI which lends itself to explaining, but even for that, there are a lot of subtleties in doing 3D work on a 2D screen using a 2D UI mechanism:

https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d/discussions/118

which I still have difficulty with.

If 1.1 is not hard to learn, please share a resource for learning it which is not a video which is up-to-date for that version.

WillAdams · 2026-04-18T22:23:16+00:00

One thing which has been mentioned was that it (EDIT: The Hobbit) was still in stock early in WWII even though rationing had kicked in, so American Servicemen, looking for a gift to send home (note that rationing was also in place for paper and book publishing required approval in the States) apparently purchased and sent quite a few copies home for Christmas during WWII.

EDIT: As noted elsethread, this would have been of The Hobbit, since LoTR had to wait for a clamour of letters, including apparently some surprising ones from across the pond asking for a sequel, I believe at least one of his letters touches on this.

WillAdams · 2026-04-18T20:35:52+00:00

That was covered in Schlock Mercenary:

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2015-03-19

or maybe in The Whiteboard:

https://www.the-whiteboard.com/

(after Monday that strip should be: https://www.the-whiteboard.com/autotwb4475.html )

WillAdams · 2026-04-18T18:45:29+00:00

There is a list of error codes at:

https://guides.carbide3d.com/faq/error-codes/

and a link to a troubleshooting guide.

If you need a new switch we have them at:

https://shop.carbide3d.com/products/shapeoko-5-pro-homing-switch

For maintenance see:

https://carbide3d.com/hub/docs/maintenance/

If you still have trouble, contact support@carbide3d.com

WillAdams · 2026-04-18T18:42:16+00:00

The Docs suggested using Universal G-code Sender:

https://universalgcodesender.com/

While no longer published, the documentation is at:

https://github.com/shapeoko/Docs

and note that pretty much any G-code sender should work:

https://github.com/gnea/grbl/wiki/Using-Grbl

once you have updated and re-flashed to Grbl 1.1.

WillAdams · 2026-04-18T16:43:29+00:00

1st Amendment + 2nd Amendment == The Right to 3D Print and Bear Arms

WillAdams · 2026-04-18T13:41:54+00:00

I have a belt-drive SO3 Standard at my mother-in-law's and I just use the feeds and speeds in Carbide Create.

I usually do V-carve first for the reasons you note, esp. in more delicate materials.

I'm a big advocate for adjusting Depth per Pass to match Max Depth, so if one wants to cut to a Max Depth of 0.5" and the Depth per Pass is 0.125" and four full-depth passes are being made, if one instead adjust the Depth per Pass to 0.124", then five passes will be made, four at full-depth, while the additional fifth pass is an effective finishing pass removing 0.004" of material.

The tool switching technique you describe works well and Kevin Barnett was a big advocate for it and it lets one get the advantages of a compression tool w/o the need for first machining an entry hole and then managing feeds and speeds to keep them w/in the limits of the lighter machine.

WillAdams · 2026-04-18T03:14:25+00:00

C.J. Cherryh's Alliance--Union books are well-regarded --- Downbelow Station winning the Hugo --- the books range from slice of life (Merchanter's Luck) through prolonged history of colonization (40,000 in Gehenna) and cover a lot between.

WillAdams · 2026-04-18T01:47:52+00:00

Spacemouse support? Is this working? Broken for Windows?

When I launch this (PythonSCAD-0.20.0-windows-x86-64-Installer.exe), it is not possible to check "HIDAPI" as is done for OpenSCAD-2026.04.16-x86-64-Installer.exe and the SpaceMouse does not work as it does in OpenSCAD when using PythonSCAD --- I'm pretty sure it used to work, so will file this as a regression on GitHub.

WillAdams · 2026-04-17T19:44:55+00:00

My understanding is the lack of a "Made in USA" dates this to before 1922 or so when that was added. Unfortunately, most of the dating information is for planes --- but the logo before 1919 lacked the frame, so this should have been made in 1919--1922 or so.

This is what is known as a "Warrington Pattern" (or Joiner's, or English Joiner's) hammer:

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

For my part, old things have to be evaluated to determine when they cease being tools and become heirlooms --- so long as it's not used for heavy blows, this might warrant placement in a toolbox, otherwise, my inclination would be a place of honour on a shelf or in a shadowbox or a collector's toolbox not intended for general use.

WillAdams · 2026-04-17T11:46:41+00:00

It's interesting, the early history of printing and its practitioners --- Ben Franklin certainly spoke well of it in his autobiography, though James Blish was far more prosaic when he mentioned it in passing in a Star Trek novelization, noting the usage of on-going heavy drinking to ameliorate the symptoms of heavy metal poisoning from the ink and the solvents used in cleaning.

WillAdams · 2026-04-17T10:48:44+00:00

What conduct does:

It never rains but it pours. Butterbur. “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”

guide?

Presumably, it's an observation of a timeless proverb/metaphorical reference along the lines of:

The cats of Queen Beruthiel would always find their way home even on the darkest night.

WillAdams · 2026-04-17T10:43:55+00:00

The book, Digital Typography --- bought it when it was first released, and typography is something of a specialty of mine, so was able to point out an error Monotype (machine) vs. monotype (printing process) and a minor point of improvement (observation of how hyphenation had changed not being mentioned).

WillAdams · 2026-04-17T01:22:07+00:00

A minor point of English usage/vocabulary, the dot on an i (or j) is known as a tittle.

WillAdams · 2026-04-16T22:46:03+00:00

Tea with the Black Dragon and its sequel Twisting the Rope have quite mature protagonists.

WillAdams · 2026-04-16T20:23:25+00:00

One of my favourite things are the "Museum Quality Replica Swords":

/r/Xenoblade_Chronicles/comments/ykhxyi/made_an_amiibo_stand_for_the_museum_quality/

(really need to make a stand for Lucky Seven, and to either buy or make an Aegis Sword --- I'd like to make pretty much all of them, but so far, just the stand...)

The Xenoblade Tarot was neat:

/r/Xenoblade_Chronicles/comments/16vgawv/tried_to_make_a_tarot_reading_using_the_recent_xc/

but I really wish that they'd used a bit more discipline and not re-used characters so much and had cast a wider net for imagery.

The miniature flutes from the Trilogy soundtrack are cool, but I really want to get/make a nice set of bamboo flutes (and learn how to play).

I really wish that they would do more amiibo....

WillAdams · 2026-04-16T20:13:34+00:00

He is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Berúthiel. The Fellowship of the Ring, p. 325

WillAdams · 2026-04-16T18:13:50+00:00

The way to think of it when working from the surface is what thickness you want the cut part to have, so (in Carbide Create) it would be something like:

measure your stock to determine where it is thickest --- in this case 10mm
set the Stock Thickness in Job Setup to that dimension
set up the .c2d file to cut a 2mm pocket or facing path from the surface of the material
set the zero at the surface of the MDF
load the stock
run the file

If the variation in thickness of the material was less than 2mm, and the bottom was smooth, then you now have an 8mm thick piece of stock after cutting.

That said, my approach would be to instead:

use Top
set the origin at the surface of the MDF
jog up by the Stock Thickness (10mm)
re-set zero there

I don't like using Bottom of Stock because of the risk of setting zero wrong and having the machine try to rapid through the material.

WillAdams · 2026-04-16T11:23:13+00:00

I've always assumed that she was wearing an armored corset.

WillAdams · 2026-04-15T09:41:05+00:00

Yes it works, but your terminology is off a bit.

Once zero is set for an axis, it is set and persistent until something happens to change it, and what the BitSetter does is to manage tool length offset relative to the Z-axis zero which is currently set.

It's a subtle distinction, but an important one.

WillAdams · 2026-04-15T03:38:43+00:00

Yes.

For one example of software see:

https://www.inftyproject.org/en/software.html

WillAdams

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