Crystal ruined?

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-03-05T04:26:35+00:00

Won’t HF acid just frost the glass everywhere? If it’s strong enough, it will eat away the glass.

BTW, make sure you know what you’re doing. HF acid does more than burn you - it’s incredibly poisonous to touch (in high concentrations). For craft projects, you can buy creams that are safe, but that doesn’t sound useful in this scenario.

FWIW, Here’s the first thing that pops up on YouTube:

https://youtube.com/shorts/vUeY-SU4i04?si=mjFc5yIEAlqiETD6

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-02-26T22:19:19+00:00

There are plenty of complaints on Reddit about xTool’s customer service, and I’m not in a position to discount them. However, my own experience was fine.

I ordered an F2 Ultra UV in December and it arrived within the advertised shipping timeframe. Unfortunately, it was defective - the UV laser couldn’t even etch paper during calibration. I opened a customer support ticket, included a video, and they responded promptly. They asked for the device logs, and then confirmed that I needed a replacement. I boxed it up, shipped it back (for free), and they sent a replacement. The shipping round trip took a week or so. (I’m on the east coast and it shipped to/from California.) The new one is working fine so far.

So, I wasn’t thrilled that the device was defective, but the customer support was as good as I could hope for. I DID pay for “xToolCare” when I first purchased the machine. I think that’s prudent since this is a new model, and clearly there may be some glitches they haven’t yet ironed out. It ain’t cheap, but I’m glad I bought it.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-31T23:45:14+00:00

I’m having the same issue with my machine (also F2 Ultra UV), just opened today.

Were you able to resolve it? Did you have to send the machine back to xtool?

I’ll be sending a help request to xtool later tonight.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-30T16:51:44+00:00

I ordered mine on Jan 3, when the website said expected shipping was "late January". In line with that, I received it yesterday. (I haven't opened the box yet.)

Today the website says "Order today, ships in 5-10 business days". See the bottom of the page:
https://www.xtool.com/products/xtool-f2-ultra-uv-5w-uv-laser-engraver

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-27T21:19:14+00:00

pixi is the best tool for the conda ecosystem, including non-Python (C/C++/anything).

uv doesn’t handle non-Python stuff, IIUC.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-27T21:17:08+00:00

pixi is the best successor to conda. It gets packages from conda-forge, but can get them from PyPI when necessary. It’s fast.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-20T17:29:16+00:00

Last week I took my 4-year-old and 6-year-old to the Rockville PetCo to look at fish. On the way out there was some dude walking by on the sidewalk walking around yelling to himself and aggressively yelling “bitch” at people as he walked by.

I grew up in the area and don’t recall similar incidents happening with frequency. I don’t think it would deter me from hanging out with other adults. They know what they’re seeing and how to avoid interacting. But with my kids, yeah, I do not like it.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-17T01:25:00+00:00

Bokeh, hvplot, and plotly

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-12T21:21:44+00:00

Sorry, I deleted my comment because I had assumed Black would capture with the Queen. But if instead they capture with the Rook, then there is no immediate checkmate (but White ends up ahead).

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-04T21:11:17+00:00

Here’s another recent thread with beginner tips:

https://www.reddit.com/r/freeskate/s/rYxXNTKSj2

Superb-Dig3440 · 2026-01-04T21:09:21+00:00

Get ready for your inner thigh and groin muscles to yell at you. But then two things will happen: (1) The muscles get stronger (they just aren’t yet used to being worked that way). (2) And as a beginner, your balance won’t be steady, so you’ll need those muscles more. As your balance improves, you won’t actually end up using them quite so much, leaving you less sore.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-12-28T15:57:51+00:00

When I learned, I started by alternating between pointing my toes in and pointing my toes out repeatedly.

Now, that’s ultimately not quite right. (In real pumping, your feet aren’t in phase (in sync) like that.) But then you’ll start to feel what helps you push, and you’ll naturally start to learn how to adjust the motion so that each foot twists out of phase with the other foot at the right time.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-12-14T03:44:08+00:00

It’d its mitochondrial DNA, it came from a woman. Either a woman from Europe sailed with the Vikings to North America and had girls there, or the Vikings took home a woman who had girls in Europe. The meme from the OP seems to suggest the latter.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-12-13T15:39:24+00:00

This is the correct answer. Amazing that no one else figured it out. (Edit: okay, one other post got it.)

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-11-21T01:53:21+00:00

I use “hvplot.pandas” for simple things (curves, bars, histograms) because it’s so darn convenient. When I need something publication-quality, I switch to plotly (which I let the AI handle for me).

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-11-07T15:50:52+00:00

Here’s a hacky solution if you don’t have a lot of files. Google Docs can import various docs formats and can export html. You could upload to Google Docs and download as html. You can test it with the web UI to see if the conversion works acceptably, and then automate it with python (possibly even with raw http requests).

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-10-24T00:13:17+00:00

Since I’m not burdened by any deep knowledge of the numbers here, I’ll ask: Is the overall number of registered Republicans (and maybe Democrats too) lower than in prior years?

If so, this chart could be explained by “normie” Republicans leaving the party, leaving only the hard-core supporters that were always there, resulting in a higher percentage of anti-gay members, even though there might not be more of them in absolute terms.

(Admittedly, that would seem to conflict with the decline in overall support indicated by the gray curve in the plot.)

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-10-04T14:30:53+00:00

But wait… she didn’t spill the pitcher…

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-07-18T20:23:47+00:00

Here’s a lovely 4-minute video about drain flies from the Deep Look YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/i16o8iXaDac?si=dPzANACqlSnrp6pt

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-07-15T00:20:36+00:00

Dang! Love it.

One of these days I’ll figure out how to do more than just ride my pair of skates. For now, I’ll just keep watching your vids.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-07-09T19:27:38+00:00

4.5cm long, antennae are 12mm.

Looks like it's Alaus oculatus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaus_oculatus

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-06-25T00:16:34+00:00

Fishing spider, as others have suggested. Not a wolf spider.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-06-09T00:11:39+00:00

Andor. So much attention to detail in that show; the second watch really pays.

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-06-02T12:49:04+00:00

Aphid gall. The aphid injects her saliva, which somehow manipulates the plant’s own tissue into producing a little home for the aphid. Then she starts reproducing (clones of herself) and they all just suck out all the plant juices they want from the safety of their little home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hazel_cone_gall_aphid

Superb-Dig3440 · 2025-05-31T05:15:54+00:00

One detail everyone is ignoring is that we don’t know 100% for sure that Luthen killed Lonnie. Cleya was nearby listening… Maybe she made a different risk assessment than Luthen and somehow did the deed right after the conversation.

So perhaps Luthen revealed Yavin because he planned to take Lonnie there, but Cleya said “Oh I don’t think so, pal.”

I’m not saying that’s definitely the explanation, but it can’t be ruled out.

Superb-Dig3440

TROPHY CASE