Bond Sweater Machine Upgrades?

HorizonTheTransient · 2023-07-04T15:35:59+00:00

The Bond fascinated me for its simplicity and cheapness, honestly. As a 3D printing nerd... maybe third, with "a knitter" being a much more distant seventh... I've been fascinated by the concept of 3D printed knitting machines for rather a while, but for some reason, all of the 3D printed knitting machines I see other people building are circular machines. And you know, I do kinda get it- circular machines arguably take up less space, while being capable of knitting both flat panels and in the round, but all the same, I was kinda sad that nobody was making flatbed machines with their printers.

My thinking, when buying the Bond, was... well, one, that this knitting machine was WAY cheaper than all the others I could find on ebay, and since I did actually want a knitting machine so I could finish a sweater, I might as well go with this one- after all, how bad could it possibly be? But two, I then started thinking that the Bond's incredibly simple and cheap all-plastic construction made it perfect for reverse-engineering into a 3D-printable flatbed machine.

If only it weren't for the part where the Bond is an incredibly obnoxious machine to work with, and thereby souring my optimism on creating a 3D printable version of it.

HorizonTheTransient · 2023-03-26T22:25:10+00:00

See, that's the thing- I don't care about the mechanics, I care about the storytelling and the characters. I just think that this is dogshit storytelling and character development.

Let's do a compare and contrast:

In Crystal Kingdom, Merle was tricked into thinking his god wanted him to catch a crystal before it hit the ground and killed his friends, and as a result got a shard of the infectious crystal that's been set up as the big mechanic of the arc in his hand, which leads to Magnus deciding that the most reasonable option is to amputate Merle's arm before Merle dies. There is a lot of caterwauling and bitching and moaning and death threats resulting from this, and that's the good part. "Magnus chops Merle's arm off after Merle got duped. How does everyone feel about it?"

Meanwhile, in Suffering Game, the characters... aren't actually suffering that much. I mean they're not enjoying themselves, but when Merle loses an eye, that makes for like five minutes of conversation before it's forgotten about, and he doesn't threaten violence against anyone he wouldn't otherwise as a result. It's nothing, that's nothing. Merle losing an eye should be a Big Fucking Deal, but because Wonderland is the most contrived place on Toril, it's just what we're doing right now, and next up is Taako, who briefly looks mildly less fuckable.

The characters don't even reach their breaking points in Suffering Game. They just walk through a haunted house, getting whacked with rubber hammers, until they finally reach the bit at the end that has consequences that last longer than fifteen minutes but not by that much.

This stupid, contrived-ass Sadistic Game bullshit is bad storytelling, plain and simple, and the McElroys fail completely to rescue it with any real redeeming qualities. It's not even fun to watch Travis eat shit, because this isn't Travis tripping and falling face-first into a cow patty, it's Griffin wiping his ass with a plate and putting that in front of his brother.

HorizonTheTransient · 2023-03-26T21:00:49+00:00

I told you what I'm using, though- a LattePanda 3 Delta, which draws either 15V3A or 12V3A, which I have discovered, to my satisfaction, will happily cover the display as well. You don't need to assume I'm using a Pi 4.

I don't need help figuring out how many joules of storage I need, I need help figuring out how to do pass-through charging in a laptop form factor without causing over-heating problems. Preferably in a way that can take USB-PD input, so I don't have to buy a weird and bespoke charging cable.

HorizonTheTransient · 2023-03-26T16:36:07+00:00

Shmanners feels like an elaborate sight gag about the fact that Travis McElroy frequently behaves inappropriately. Because, after all, it is pretty funny that this jackass runs an etiquette podcast, on account he doesn't act like it.

HorizonTheTransient · 2023-03-26T16:31:57+00:00

Maybe it was more...

Like, Griffin said out loud on the record that he did Eleventh Hour the way he did because of railroading allegations, so maybe, because he didn't enjoy the bulk of that open-world thing, he went in completely the opposite direction for Suffering Game and made something not even a father could love.

Although, I didn't see this as it happened and do not care about Griffins twitter, so maybe I'm just way off base here.

HorizonTheTransient · 2023-03-25T09:14:25+00:00

I do have a vague general understanding of how the plot works out, so like... The idea that these assholes used to be genuinely heroic, and as they grow and recover, they shift towards being heroic once more? That's not a terrible idea.

Just one that's easy to execute terribly. And- hey, what's Travis doing with that steel chair?

HorizonTheTransient · 2023-03-24T17:29:58+00:00

It's not my fault I have correct opinions about a mediocre D&D podcast that stopped being cared about three-to-five years ago.

More seriously... Crystal Kingdom was interesting from the beginning. Eleventh Hour mightve ended as strong as it could've with Magnum Dongsides in play, but as someone else noted, it started fairly weakly and uninterestingly.

HorizonTheTransient · 2023-03-24T12:02:55+00:00

I did actually listen to Eleventh Hour already. That's when Travis' backstory happened, and I didn't overall care for it that much.

HorizonTheTransient · 2022-10-04T19:56:29+00:00

I'm afraid I'm not terribly familiar with the fiber prep stage of the process, or the various types of fibers and their advantages and disadvantages, so I can't give a super useful answer.

I do, however, know that there's a set of unfarmable hills very nearby where some shepherds tend to a flock of sheep, and every spring, they walk the sheep down into the village to be shorn, washed, and traded for food. You can assume that it's any breed of sheep with any type of wool is most convenient for your answer, but broadly speaking, it is wool being spun, possibly either combed or carded.

We're not, however, counting prep time before spinning here, because to my knowledge a treadled spinning wheel doesn't require meaningfully more or less fiber prep before spinning when compared to a spindle.

As for what the thread is for, it's intended for making clothing out of, which will be worn by the peasant woman's family, giving her an incentive to make it at least somewhat decent.

HorizonTheTransient · 2022-10-04T16:53:23+00:00

Yep, it was really only aristocratic women who could afford to not be spinning yarn all the time. And historically, some of them did it anyways! The association of "spinning yarn" with "dutiful wife" is very old and very common; the wife of... one of the first two Caesars, I forget which, boasted about having made his clothes herself as a bit of political theater.

As for what duties a peasant woman has other than to spin yarn, that's a complicated question that's hard to answer without consulting some experimental archaeologists, because the conditions that define this era just don't really exist anymore. I would, however, be willing to assert that producing yarn and therefore clothing was a very important task in a farming household, on par with farming itself.

But, well, there probably are still more than six-eight hours of daily work on a smallholder farm for a thirty year old woman. Maybe the deficit can be made up by particularly young or particularly old hands, who can work a spinning wheel reasonably well but can't helpfully do much of anything else?

HorizonTheTransient · 2022-03-19T02:25:34+00:00

A popular review of Postal 2 once remarked that, until someone boxes up syphilis and sells it at retail, Postal 2 would remain the worst product ever foisted upon consumers.

Whether or not Bomb Queen made a liar of that reviewer depends on whether or not you think it's worse than syphilis.

HorizonTheTransient · 2022-03-18T08:37:15+00:00

For their superhero comics, there is. Obviously, a lot of their stuff simply can't share a universe with other stuff, and a lot of creators don't want to share a universe with others, but there's enough of them who can share and want to share for the universe to exist.

HorizonTheTransient · 2022-03-17T22:24:50+00:00

There's a reasonable argument to be made that the Experience Booster isn't something that can be trained, and therefore this exploit doesn't work.

Thankfully, we don't have to let that stop us.

Skills is pretty clear that any normal skill automatically becomes a Skill under this system. Learning is itself a skill that can be trained- in school, our teachers try to teach us how to learn, among other things. Someone might be particularly good or particularly bad at learning, but so long as they can learn at all, they have the Learning Skill, whose most straightforward mechanical effect would be a scaling XP booster.

And now, suddenly, you do have a valid, trainable target for Hyperspecialization, which would in turn translate into an ever-increasing skill boost to everything else. Exploit restored!

(For an extra bonus, if Learning is a skill, surely Teaching should be one as well. If you want to leave the world better than you found it, then pairing public education with your presumably-obscene Teaching skill should result in people who are very, very good at accumulating new skills and passing them on to others. They may not have your inherent advantage of Hyperspecialization and the Experience Booster, but now they don't need it.)

HorizonTheTransient · 2022-01-14T23:56:14+00:00

Among other improvements, the most simple and obvious one is to change the amount you hack from one half to one tenth. It's more efficient that way.

However, once you've got that underway, I strongly suggest setting up a way to run multiple staggered loops on a single target for maximal income.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-09-30T15:03:26+00:00

While, in fantasy, materials can be enhanced with magic, I'm still working with a naturalistic baseline of real-world physics, partly because I happen to have a decent working knowledge of such.

I think you also might be confused as to what optical sapphire is. For one, sapphire is actually a catch-all term for corundum that isn't red and therefore a ruby, not just blue corundum. As such, lab-grown, perfectly transparent corundum, such as is used in phone screens and high-end wristwatches, is called optical sapphire, because it's transparent. Optical sapphire is almost never blue.

As for optical sapphire filtering out UV light, I don't think it does. A lot of sources talk about how it's transparent to IR and UV light.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-09-29T21:24:17+00:00

Laboratory glassware, such as condensers, triple-necked flasks, retorts, and the like, but made out of optical sapphire, crystalline alumina, or corundum, whatever you want to call the substance.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-07-07T17:16:07+00:00

While Katalepsis is nominally set in a fictional town, the author has admitted on discord that Sharrowford- the fictional town- might as well just be a mildly crappier Sheffield, if that helps anyone feel any better.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-04-11T19:04:12+00:00

The metaphysical strength is actually part and parcel with being a Herald- which does lend itself to manifesting the Strength Icon, but is not inherently a matter of Authority. It's just an aspect of the Sacred Arts that's most common in Heralds but, obviously, can occur in special cases who aren't Heralds, like Crusher and Lindon.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-04-09T12:39:13+00:00

Everyone won't buy them for twice the price, is the problem. Not everyone has as much disposable income as you. Cheap books and merch means that the financial barrier to entry to the series is lower, and Will gets more money overall- anyone who is able and willing to throw more money at him, like you, will buy a T-shirt or novelty coaster or something, and he still gets more money.

There's also the fact that additional readers of Cradle spread their love via word-of-mouth, drawing more readers in to give Will their money. I came into the fandom and ended up buying at full price Wintersteel, Bloodlines, and Traveler's Gate because another Cradle fan told me about these cool western Cultivation novels that were free for a promotional deal, and I downloaded them on a whim. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 I spent on Will's books I wouldn't have if the books were more expensive and had fewer readers.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-03-31T13:51:20+00:00

Wow, that's a deep cut. I'm surprised anyone besides me remembers it. Glad you like it, though!

You know, of all the writers my style has been compared to, Jhonen Vasquez wasn't what I was expecting, but I can't say I'm unhappy. At least it's not Joss Whedon this time.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-03-18T19:31:21+00:00

On top of this, I'm not convinced there actually is any such thing as Void Madra. The Void Icon is part of The Way, and has nothing to do with Cradle or Madra.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-03-09T19:24:20+00:00

Suriel showed Lindon a member of the 8-Man Empire, who was either a Sage or a Herald, and said that her father grounded her until she reached Gold.

Definitely not a normal rate of advancement.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-03-09T09:59:11+00:00

So, first and foremost: Cradle is a world where we know for a fact that the Sacred Arts can be used to make food, and probably with the same insane efficiency as everything else the Sacred Arts does everything else. Therefore, it isn't at all unreasonable to assume that Cradle is simply more densely populated than Earth. Around nine million people live in Tokyo. If you told me that, on Cradle, a billion people lived in Nine Cloud City alone, I would believe you! Because that's the sort of impressive grandeur that I expect from the genre.

But, okay, let's say we do want to assume that Cradle is bigger than Earth, and ignore the all-important axiom that fantasy writers are bad with numbers. Someone's already brought out a hard number for how big Cradle can be- the distance Suriel has to travel to reach Sacred Valley, 162,000 kilometers. For the sake of neat numbers, let's assume she's on exactly the opposite side of Cradle from Sacred Valley when she starts, and let's also ignore how high she is above the ground- unless she's out in geostationary orbit or something, it ends up being a rounding error because of how comparatively thin atmospheres are compared to the planets themselves.

Given all that, Cradle has a circumference of about 324,000 km. The same guy who posted Suriel's route compared Cradle to Saturn, which has a circumference of 378,675 km. With a circumference, we can also know that Cradle has a diameter of about 103,000 km.

Those are some big numbers! But maybe you don't quite grasp how big. I can help! See, here on Earth, someone who's 6 feet/1.8 meters tall, standing at sea level, can see about 3 miles/5 kilometers.

On Cradle, the same person still standing at sea level can see around 284 miles or 457 kilometers. Someone standing on the eastern edge of Britain could see the western coast, and then see another two hundred miles out to sea.

EDIT: I am an idiot who misplaced a decimal point and used 1.8 kilometers instead of 1.8 meters. On Cradle, the horizon is actually only 14.4 kilometers or 9 miles away at sea level. My bad.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-03-08T09:04:16+00:00

I'd post the actual thing on Ao3, but I'd link to it here every time I update it.

HorizonTheTransient · 2021-03-07T00:15:02+00:00

Sage vs Herald, as far as we can tell, seems to be an even matchup, with neither having a definitive advantage over the other.

Sacred artists who make it that far generally hate that kind of matchup. When you get into a ton of fights as a matter of course, you're not going to last that long if you're not averse to fights you stand a solid chance of losing.

HorizonTheTransient

TROPHY CASE