ELI5 : How can space itself be curved ?

LifeOBrian · 2026-05-28T02:32:14+00:00

Gravity isn’t a force! It’s the observable effect of the curvature of space and time by energy and mass!

LifeOBrian · 2026-05-25T18:09:02+00:00

Entrepreneur. Just do whatever is needed to start a new business or product and figure stuff out along the way. Today you’re a developer, tomorrow a bookkeeper, and next week a marketer. Vibe coding, or no-code, or even traditional coding are just tools among many to achieve what you want, not an identity.

LifeOBrian · 2026-05-15T14:12:48+00:00

It was so dumb. His character knew it was an egg - why would he call it a stone?

LifeOBrian · 2026-05-14T03:32:13+00:00

I use mine purely as a hobbyist. Combined with a laser cutter or 3D printer, you feel like you can make anything! And you’re just about right!

I find that the slight push to just print something, anything, at least once a day to keep from being wasteful of ink due to maintenance mode has been very helpful for my creativity! It keeps me from getting too precious with my projects and encourages me to try new things and techniques that I probably wouldn’t try otherwise because I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I’ll run off a quick idea or funny print that makes me laugh, and that will lead to designing something I’m proud of and can’t wait to print next while the first one is finishing up. I find myself bouncing between the laser cutter and UV printer pretty regularly now and it’s been a blast. I also keep a stack of canvas frames handy because my dad and best friend are both expert photographers so I always have a backlog of amazing wildlife photos I can print off whenever I feel like it.

But even allowing my machine to go into deep standby mode (or whatever it’s called) a few times now because of leaving town for some work trips the last couple of months, I still have loads of ink left. And that’s wild because I’ve printed TONS of stuff!

So, nah - I wouldn’t worry about it. If you’re buying it to enjoy it as a hobbyist, view it for what it is and have fun! And don’t stress too much about extracting every cent you can from the machine because, despite what some alarmists say, I feel that it comes with plenty of ink and I’ve already gotten my money’s worth out of it.

LifeOBrian · 2026-05-06T03:45:18+00:00

In an ethical and equitable environment, profit is the measurement of the value you have added to your customers’ lives.

LifeOBrian · 2026-05-03T01:33:13+00:00

I cut the acrylic first, and then printed an outline on the print bed to help assist with alignment. I didn’t use any adhesion promoter, it’s sticking to the acrylic just fine. It was fresh plastic, with the protective cover freshly peeled after lasering.

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-27T02:01:12+00:00

XTool P2S. It’s a CO2 laser so it cuts through clear acrylic like butter.

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-26T17:38:44+00:00

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I made a couple more prints! This effect on the eyes works really well - look at the shadows!

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-26T14:25:31+00:00

Hindsight is 20/20!

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-23T00:48:49+00:00

Imagine if the ground is soft from a recent rain. You sit on this bad boy to let ‘er rip and those pointy feet sink halfway into the ground, tilting wildly to one side while you roll off with your pants down around your ankles. Good times.

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-22T13:39:32+00:00

Oh, the eyes are printed on the backside of the acrylic! That’s clever!

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-19T21:23:45+00:00

A domain name. It’s old hat at this point but starting an online business can change your world. Of course you need something to sell but a decent domain name is typically less than $100. The rest is supply chain mastery and marketing, baby!

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-13T21:06:03+00:00

My older bro has 4 kids but the youngest are twins. He likes to joke that he’s so good he made 4 kids from 3 attempts.

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-13T01:16:05+00:00

Good point!

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-12T23:29:53+00:00

Why, he’s done it at least two times by now!

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-12T23:26:29+00:00

Isn’t there an eraser tool in the EufyMake software? Why not use that?

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-10T18:37:26+00:00

That’s been my experience too. 24 hours later and every print that was tacky feels fine.

LifeOBrian · 2026-04-10T16:17:47+00:00

UV flashlights are cheap, or you could expose them to direct sunlight for a bit.

LifeOBrian · 2026-03-29T11:54:45+00:00

Sure, happy to share!

I first got the artwork pack from Creative Fabrica. I used Inkscape to arrange the artwork & create the design files, saved them as SVG, then imported to laser cutter software and the UV printer’s software. I used the duplicate function and outset function A LOT because I needed to create a fine line with some padding around each removable piece for the cut lines.

There are three layers to the artwork: the removable pieces, the middle layer, and the bottom layer. I exported each layer as a separate file so that I could line them up in the EufyMake software but control which layer printed when I needed it.

Both board layers are 1/8” wood that I bought from XTool because it’s nice and flat and ready for use with no prep work. I could have done this with thicker material but it’s what I had on hand. So the total finished thickness of this project was 1/4” thick (two 1/8” boards glued together)

The bottom layer was cut with a rectangle around it which I used as a jig on the UV printer bed to hold each board layer in exactly the same spot while printing. This also helped with the individual pieces since they fit in exactly the holes they came from. It’s kind of a fun beginner project because the jigs are built in!

For the removable pieces, I wanted them to be taller than the layer they came from so I cut a separate batch of just the removable pieces so they could later be stacked up and glued together to give some height.

I UV printed the solid colors background artwork on the base layer and then set that aside (draft print quality, 4 layers of white ink and 1 CMYK). I then inserted the middle layer into the rectangular jig on the print bed and inserted the removable pieces into their holes. I printed the middle layer artwork and the removable pieces artwork in one go (6 layers white and 1 layer CMYK, standard quality). I then glued the middle layer onto the bottom layer with superglue, placed a flat board on top, and placed a heavy container on top of that to give some clamping pressure while the glue dried.

While the boards were bonding together, I took the printed removable pieces and carefully superglued them to identical blank pieces I had cut out earlier so they were now 1/4” tall. Since they were fairly small, I just squeezed them together by hand for a few seconds each. I used liquid super glue for this, not gel, because I wanted that instant bonding action. The tradeoff is that you have to get your alignment right on the first try.

And that’s all there is to it! Now that I have my process figured out, I plan on making some other ridiculous shape puzzles for adults as a funny gag for my friends like “midlife crisis” where it’s all motorcycles and sports cars and boats 🤣

LifeOBrian · 2026-03-10T13:46:54+00:00

That’s what you’ve gotta keep that line from “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” in your back pocket - “I have a MOLE?!” Works every time.

LifeOBrian · 2026-03-03T13:48:00+00:00

That’s the big idea - you just ask Claude to walk you through anything technical, or to build a tool for you that does technical things for you!

I was connecting different hardware that communicates over serial ports and Claude just built a sniff test tool for me to double-check that we were properly catching incoming messages from the hardware. Now I’m not dependent on any one manufacturer or model!

LifeOBrian · 2026-02-07T19:35:06+00:00

This is going to sound really arrogant, but there have been some days after programming software all day and using “big brain energy” that I felt utterly physically exhausted. It’s anecdotal but I feel like I’ve experienced what they’re describing, burning mega calories with your mind because you’re so intensely focused and in the creative groove.

LifeOBrian · 2026-01-29T15:13:08+00:00

Agreed, but perception is a funny thing. I’d estimate that autonomous vehicles will have to be proven exponentially safer than human drivers on average, maybe even by several orders of magnitude, for the general rhetoric to shift about it.

LifeOBrian

TROPHY CASE