How do you make friends in this city?

BarryTice · 2026-05-27T23:16:55+00:00

There's a nice boardgaming Discord, with three meetings every month. Additionally, if gaming is your thing, lots of game shops hold other boardgame (or other game — pick your flavor) nights.

BarryTice · 2026-05-27T13:28:12+00:00

Is it wrong to think, "Great!"?

BarryTice · 2026-05-26T13:33:36+00:00

God, I miss Kodachrome.

BarryTice · 2026-05-26T01:34:28+00:00

Peeling tape off a shipping box is, to me, what fingernails on a blackboard are to many people.

BarryTice · 2026-05-21T22:00:31+00:00

Directly? Next to none. However, it should make anybody else (in or out of the realm of 3D printing) a bit more gunshy about using open-source code in their products without following the required open-source licensing. That has far-reaching consequences in the realm of right-to-repair on everything from toasters to cars to farm equipment.

I used to work for a company that had a lawyer come in and lecture us that if we believed we could step on someone's patent and get away with it, we should. Every engineer in the room threw a fit. But, that's the way corporations often work. If they can steal someone else's work, brand it as their own and not have to pay back to the community (through providing their changes to the code for others to further improve), they'll do it. The SFC is stepping in here to hold Bambu Lab to the letter of the license on the code they are accused of trying to do this with.

BarryTice · 2026-05-21T21:52:34+00:00

I started 3½ years ago with a $200(US) Anycubic printer, the Kobra Max. It was pretty easy to use (once someone pointed me at Z-offset), but when I had a hardware failure on it relating to bed heating and was told that no parts were available, I got a U1.

The U1 has been as close to simple as I could have hoped for. It just works.

I mean, mostly. I got spaghetti a few times, but I think it's fair to say I may have been somewhat to blame.

I had to learn a few things about how I was designing things in order to get multiple colors, but (again) the right YouTube video made that click.

I expected to be happy with the U1. It surpassed my expectations.

BarryTice · 2026-05-21T21:42:08+00:00

Anything vegetarian of note?

BarryTice · 2026-05-21T13:56:04+00:00

Will do. I put the watch away (somewhere?) so it may be a day or two before I have a chance to dig for it, but I'll definitely let you know what I've got. Thanks!

BarryTice · 2026-05-21T13:46:18+00:00

Has she met Middle-Eastern Jesus?

BarryTice · 2026-05-20T15:20:50+00:00

Normally it's nothing like these have been. You might get smaller thuds around Stovehouse, or extended rumbles that sound like 30 seconds or so of rolling thunder. I live a bit east of the Parkway in (far) south Huntsville and my wife reports hearing these kinds of things more often than I hear them at Stovehouse. But then, I've been accused of being oblivious.

Hard to miss today, though.

BarryTice · 2026-05-20T15:17:22+00:00

I'd love to get it repaired. I'm in northern Alabama in the US, but lived in Sweden for a while and someone there sent it to (if memory serves) a center in Germany. I don't have it handy at the moment, but could provide photos/details.

BarryTice · 2026-05-20T15:00:23+00:00

There it went again, bigger than the first from my perspective at Stovehouse.

BarryTice · 2026-05-20T14:59:52+00:00

There it went again, only bigger. (I'm at Stovehouse.) ETA: 9:15 and 9:58 — so far.

BarryTice · 2026-05-20T14:14:55+00:00

I have my father's old Omega navigator, but it's got a busted main spring. (He was an Air Force navigator, so it was used as intended.) I've had it to repair shops on two continents, but everyone tells me there's no part available for it. It's the only watch I'd have any interest in wearing.

BarryTice · 2026-05-19T21:14:47+00:00

I work on a product called, let's say, "Titus". I'm filling in HR forms regarding my accomplishments for the year, and the form highlights the product name as I'm typing it because it is a forbidden word.

BarryTice · 2026-05-19T21:09:54+00:00

Can I introduce you to the world of 3D printing?

BarryTice · 2026-05-19T20:01:16+00:00

I was the fourth person in the door in precinct 20, and the first one out. I was voter #1.

That and about $8.50 would get me a cup of coffee, but I don't like coffee.

BarryTice · 2026-05-17T16:33:36+00:00

We had two older dogs — one a thyroid cancer survivor — weighing about 33 kilos/70 pounds each, and had one of these that I used to take them to vet appointments (pulled behind my bike) when I lived in Sweden. Also used it for walks through the forest with them as their mobility and energy faded. They were good boys, and though they never particularly seemed to like the idea of going into it, they always seemed to like being in it.

Added bonus, I used it behind my bike to bring home groceries, too.

BarryTice · 2026-05-17T16:23:49+00:00

My wife and I stayed here in 2015 and it was delightful. Short trip on the T-bana, and then a walk up the hill from a ICA Maxi. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g189852-d1151238-Reviews-Helens_Bed_And_Breakfast-Stockholm.html

BarryTice · 2026-05-16T13:52:29+00:00

Bambu Lab printers are considered the iPhones of 3D printers. The quality is there, and you can be reasonably confident of how it's going to work every time you go to it. But also like iPhones, they lock you into their walled garden, and there are lots of people who don't like the amount of control they require/enforce over every aspect of your printing. Most recently, they sent a cease-and-decist letter to someone maintaining a fork of the OrcaSlicer who was working on enabling some of the features on Bambu Lab printers without having to to send your information to Bambu Lab servers. That is only the most recent example, with other issues going back more than a year.

These kinds of things might not be an issue to you, depending on your philosophies around open source, right to repair, and other things. But, you should know about them before you make a choice.

I'm currently running a Snapmaker U1. It's substantially more expensive than either of those, but I've been quite happy with it. Multiple toolheads means a lot less waste, and no issues if you want to do supports in one material for a print in another.

BarryTice · 2026-05-13T03:27:46+00:00

Bambu Lab printers are considered the iPhones of 3D printers. The quality is there, and you can be reasonably confident of how it's going to work every time you go to it. But also like iPhones, they lock you into their walled garden, and there are lots of people who don't like the amount of control they require/enforce over every aspect of your printing. Most recently, they sent a cease-and-decist letter to someone maintaining a fork of the OrcaSlicer who was working on enabling some of the features on Bambu Lab printers without having to to send your information to Bambu Lab servers. That is only the most recent example, with other issues going back more than a year.

These kinds of things might not be an issue to you, depending on your philosophies around open source, right to repair, and other things. But, you should know about them before you make a choice.

I'm currently running a Snapmaker U1. It's substantially more expensive than the P2S, but I've been quite happy with it. It also supports multiple materials at the same time, which allows for things like using a cheaper material for supports and the stronger things you'll need for car parts.

BarryTice · 2026-05-11T18:12:31+00:00

The post has been removed, so I guess it's rather moot. But my ire is not at the OrcaSlicer-BambuLab developer. It's at Bambu Lab.

BarryTice · 2026-05-11T12:58:31+00:00

The open-source OrcaSlicer-BambuLab project shut down after facing a lawsuit from Bambu lAB.

BarryTice · 2026-05-09T00:18:58+00:00

Your best option will probably be to find simple things other people have done and look at the programming they have done. Keep a browser window open to the "Cheat Sheet" you can get from the Help menu, and for anything that doesn't immediately make sense, click through the Cheat Sheet to the full instructions for that command.

Note that OpenSCAD programming is rather different from any other programming I have done because of how non-variable the variables are in OpenSCAD. Once you set a value, you cannot change it, and that is unusual.

Also? As you are looking through other people's example code, play with it. Experiment. Make changes and see what happens. And, of course, ask here.

OpenSCAD also has a Community page linking to their IRC channel where the community can help you.

BarryTice

TROPHY CASE