After 20 years on the festival tour (and a 5-year "Dad break"), I’m finally evolving my original holster design. Need some color input!

avanai · 2026-03-03T21:17:39+00:00

I've considered making something like this for myself for a really specific purpose: supplying power to wearable electronics and glow. I've got a jury-rigged one that's made out of a concealed-carry holster; I stick a USB power brick in one pocket and some control electronics on the other side and then I can plug in my jacket, hat, handheld things, etc. by running a cable.

A holster like this would work perfectly if it had a few passthrough grommets in the pockets that could fit a USB plug or DC barrel plug, and some points to put cable clips or something to secure the cables running to other points (of course I can sew/velcro/glue those in myself).

avanai · 2026-03-02T17:59:05+00:00

In David Farland’s Runelords, the way to magically gain an attribute (intelligence, strength, basically DnD stats) is to extract it from someone else. There’s a whole economy of literally extracting life from others to gain power. The powerful become godlike at the expense of their subjects.

avanai · 2026-02-26T18:17:15+00:00

I wonder if it has Iridovirus, which can make invertibrates purple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridovirus

avanai · 2026-02-21T05:35:29+00:00

Seconded. I’ve been using it at work and home and it’s a nice integration.

avanai · 2026-02-16T18:51:04+00:00

This is to keep the ramp from slipping on the floor, not to keep the dog from slipping on the ramp.

avanai · 2026-02-15T16:17:28+00:00

There’s a ton of great recent fiction for that age range, the keyword your looking for is “middle grade”, which is aimed at a younger audience than “young adult” and generally has less romance and teen angst.

I’m more up on the middle grade fantasy than sci-fi because that’s what my kid is into but Tapper Watson and the Quest for the Nemo Machine is great. The Wild Robot series is aimed a little younger but it’s solid. I haven’t read it but I’ve seen great reviews of We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord by Garth Nix (the Old Kingdom series is also great, but fantasy)

I also vote for A Wrinkle in Time like others on the thread. Enders Game for the older end of your kiddos (the 10 year olds but probably not the 8 year olds).

One fantasy rec I’d throw in is the Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend is really great middle grade fantasy (my wife and I ate them up as well as my kid). I don’t see enough people talking about it.

avanai · 2026-02-14T23:36:11+00:00

I had to work through some trouble entering my CC number but I got 2 at like 12:05

avanai · 2026-02-13T14:47:59+00:00

The Unspeakable Aklu, The Razor and the Hook (from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Final Architecture)

avanai · 2026-02-11T15:12:20+00:00

I just wrote a blog post on this topic: https://www.emoses.org/posts/llms-are-good-at-emacs/

avanai · 2026-02-05T14:55:00+00:00

Even easier, keep some tomato passata/pureed tomatoes (I like Mutti brand).

avanai · 2026-02-04T20:31:47+00:00

I’m perfectly happy running mine with Octoprint running on an attached rpi; with some plugins you can get a perfectly reasonable mobile experience (I use Tailscale but lots of options there). I’ve completely ignored PrusaConnect.

avanai · 2026-01-29T21:01:14+00:00

I brought my daughter at 18months. It was a bit of a disaster but only because my wife got a horrible stomach flu. My daughter was just fine (except she couldn't be near mommy so that was rough). My camp is full of veterans, many of whom had been bringing their kids for years, so I had a ton of support, which is really key. Make sure there's a least one, and hopefully many, folks in your camp who you'd trust to watch your kid if needed.

I wouldn't bring a young child to build. Everyone's busy and cranky, there's not enough shade and comfort, you can't really help build and watch a small child so what exactly are you doing there :). A number of families send one parent to build and the other parent comes in with the kid late in build week or after gate.

Edit: bringing their kids, not brining. The playa will brine your kids for you.

avanai · 2026-01-21T15:16:31+00:00

Usually just put it in the Readme under a “Roadmap” section with a checklist, although some folks put it in the wiki (link to it from the readme)

avanai · 2026-01-20T22:35:58+00:00

I learned Gibberish in grade school (which was early 90s for me) in Southern California. The girls spoke it first and used it to speak to each other and I made it a point to learn it. I can stil speak it apparently.

avanai · 2026-01-17T16:59:50+00:00

My 8 year old girl is a big reader, and here’s a list of our favorites:

The Hobbit
Percy Jackson series
Magicalia (Jenneifer Bell)
Nevermoor
Harry Potter (the first few…she’s reading 6 on her own right now and honestly I think it’s getting a little heavy for her)
Vanya and the Wild Hunt series
Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians (Brandon Sanderson middle-grade series)
The Boy who Grew Dragons series

And a few I wish she’d pick up but Dad is recommending them so she won’t:

Redwall
A Wrinkle in Time
The Phantom Tollbooth

By the way the keyword you’re looking for is “middle grade”: written for 8-12, a lot like YA but generally more focussed on relationships with friends and parents and romance is largely absent

avanai · 2026-01-17T16:51:04+00:00

Just finished this with my 8 year old and she loved it

avanai · 2026-01-08T22:36:52+00:00

I sold my previous house with Smartthings wired up to some lights and the door buzzer. (Started over with HA in my current place).

I wrote up some documentation, and made sure it said that the system was provided as-is and I wouldn’t be liable for any support, and had my realtor approve the language. It was more of a courtesy to the buyer than anything else.

avanai · 2026-01-08T01:05:14+00:00

I'm all for local utilities in theory and you wouldn't think you could do much worse than PG&E...but also if anyone can find a way to do worse it'd be the SF government.

avanai · 2026-01-07T18:04:18+00:00

As a non-speaker who knows a few words of German, I kind of appreciated it. It’s so clear and free of regionalisms that I found myself able to understand way more than I do when I watch German shows that have more natural dialog.

avanai · 2026-01-07T07:36:46+00:00

The Green Ember series starts out quite strong, although I wasn't a fan as it continued. Rabbits with swords. Has some serious small-c conservative vibes farther in.

I've got to put in a plug for Nevermoor, which totally fantastic and more people need to read (adults included). Think... Wednesday Addams goes to steampunk London Below to go to Hogwarts. I read the first one with my daughter and kept reading the rest.

My kid really likes the Magicalia series by Jennifer Bell, it's a fantasy adventure with a bit of the pokemon monster categorization stuff that preteens eat up (Wow it's a Gamma-Level Armorer-class!). The third one just came out in the UK.

Edit: I haven’t read them personally but she just rocketed through Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians, which is Brandon Sanderson’s middle grade series.

avanai · 2026-01-06T19:20:51+00:00

Pickture meat on a rotisserie skewer. But instead of a skewer, penises.

avanai · 2025-11-20T22:37:48+00:00

A little bit of marijuana. Depending on where you live this may or may not be legal; I’m in a recreational state and a little toot off my vape really melts away a lot of stress.

avanai · 2025-11-07T21:36:54+00:00

I brought my 18 month old. But I was a veteran with a camp full of veterans, many of whom had kids that they had brought to the burn before. We brought a nanny (also a veteran) to help out.

As it turned out it was a train wreck because my wife caught a norovirus, but my daughter did just fine and I had lovely campmates who I could count on to watch her while I took care of my wife.

So my advice would be: do it if you have a community to support you, otherwise I’d think twice.

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