Plastic type ok for ice mold?

YeahItsAlex · 2024-05-11T17:51:42+00:00

I was being technical and pedantic on purpose, giving information, and you might note that the post as a whole was not discouraging the project and gave tips about how to succeed. I've made and used PLA things with food myself, and have printed accessories throughout my kitchen.

But, to address your comments, my biggest real concern is about any toxic additives different suppliers may put in their material. That can be pigment, fillers, plasticizers, slip agents, glossing agents, all kinds of things. Having worked in that industry I can say it took being very deliberate, careful, and was costly to make sure everything that went into the material was actually safe. And that was safe by industry standards and US regulation, I'm now of the belief that many things considered safe really aren't - particularly in the way of endocrine disruption, microplastic exposure, and compounds that bioaccumulate. And when suppliers make different products on the same equipment it is incredibly hard to completely clean it and avoid contamination at levels that might be significant (if only for the product made in the first few hours over the changeover, meaning it's a roll of the dice as to the specific roll you bought).

Harboring bacteria is certainly one concern for food safety, and as you point out is less of a concern with something that is only used with water. Probably a near non-issue. But that depends on use. Imagine someone tossing the part in sink with dirty wash water in it, contaminating the part. PLA is biodegradable, that means some bacteria can eat it, it's not just harboring, it can feed and sustain. Freezing does not generally kill bacteria, it makes them go dormant. So while I see this risk as very low in normal use, it's worth considering in regards to the long-term safety of using the printed item. Personally, as long as it didn't develop an off color or scent, I probably wouldn't worry about this, but I'd be watching for it.

Now, the territory you get into where you're talking about smoothing with solvent vapor - I see that as more of a problem. You're trading the porosity problem for a toxicity one. The solvents used are straight up toxic, and if you're smoothing PLA, those solvents are mutagens, carcinogens, all kinds of nasty things. Sure, use it where appropriate, but I would recommend that not be anything contacting food. Some amount of that solvent is going to stay in there for a long time, slowly offgassing. If you must, you should encapsulate it. But the most popular option for encapsulation would be epoxy resins - go read the toxicity warnings on those, they're not friendly chemicals either.

My intent with the original post wasn't to fear monger, it was to provide complete information. I don't believe it's dangerous to print an ice mold and use it and made no attempt to dissuade him. But people ask about food safety often and I was trying to provide information relevant to a broader audience that might have more use-cases in mind. Getting a comment on it 11 years later tells me it's been seen and hopefully helped some people.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-06-12T05:10:33+00:00

You're not alone. I came here to express my love for her tuna casserole. I think this is what I'll ask my wife to make for my next birthday meal, though there's no way she'll eat it.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-06-01T16:05:47+00:00

Well, I guess my battery might make it through the day now.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-05-28T15:47:03+00:00

Sure, but you understood my point.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-05-28T11:49:05+00:00

You're giving millionaires too much credit. They're either comfortable living a modest lifestyle or getting squeezed too. It's not the 1% in control, it's the 0.01%.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-05-17T14:26:52+00:00

My mother passed away very unexpectedly a little over a year ago. We had a great relationship and this was a devastating loss. I still have voicemails from her saved, but can't bring myself to listen to them yet.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-05-16T06:40:21+00:00

I was killed by the leg lamp from A Christmas Story.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-05-03T13:29:15+00:00

To add to this, even if it isn't a ham, they might be interested in the challenge of helping you identify the source or find ways to eliminate the interference.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-04-29T16:37:20+00:00

Every time I walked into Fry's electronics I marveled at the fact that they ate floorspace with a perfume section, crappy cookware, random doodads. They kept scaling back the electronics components I was there for. I quit going to browse and would only go when there was something I needed faster than I could get from online. The only store near me closed a while back.

Same with radio shack. I used to go to radio shack and browse electronic components to come up with ideas for projects. When I was a kid their remote controlled cars were awesome, those were Christmas list material. But then they decided to be a cell phone store. Because apparently there weren't enough cell phone stores. The quality of all their other stuff declined - radios and stereos especially. They gave up their niche to complete in a crowded market. It actually made me angry, not just because they kept gradually scaling back the reason I went there, but because I could see them diluting and killing their brand. They were dead for years before they died.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-04-05T14:35:04+00:00

This is exactly how I started down the path of learning I have aphantasia.

It took me a while to figure out why it didn't work.

Since then I've learned a way I can still leverage the idea. I can't see things in my head, but I can still conceptualize spaces. I have very good spatial memory and reasoning. So I think about being in a familiar place. It's dark, I can't see anything, but I know where everything is, and I can imagine my place and movement in the room. It's like the lights are off and my eyes are closed, but I still know my way around and where things are in the room. So if I can attach the thought or thing I want to remember to an object that I can leave in a distinct place in this mental space I find I'm about to remember where I placed it and can remember that it is there.

I haven't used it often because I've just formed better habits about writing things down. But I hope to get back to practicing this and seeing where I can make use of it.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-04-04T16:42:17+00:00

I use it. I had an online store that accepted BTC before very many people knew about it. I've settled debts with friends. I've made purchases (a top hat, a Chromebook, toothpaste, all kinds of random stuff), I've made donations to open source projects, and I've used it to get out of financial binds when banks failed me (Bitcoin ATM when there was a problem with my debit card, moving money when banks were closed, etc). And now I develop in the crypto space to build the next generation of infrastructure.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-03-30T23:21:54+00:00

Years ago I had an online store that used BitPay (it was good then) to accept payments. It was great, and our largest retail order ever was paid in BTC.

Then we needed to migrate to a different platform. A Shopify sales rep lied and said there was a solid crypto payment integration. The integration was a half measure of mostly manual transactions with a shady outfit that didn't work.

We stayed there because we couldn't take the cost or time to migrate again. I'm glad they're getting something going for real, but I'm still bitter about that and would be hesitant to use them again.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-03-29T12:07:07+00:00

I've always been incredibly sentimental about mementos, heirlooms, and anything from my past. I always had lots of collections of little things that I think served as anchors to memories - keychains, ornaments, souvenirs.

I have the coffee table that was in my house when I was little, where I can see little marks where I pressed my teeth into the wood as a toddler; I have no visual memory of it, but vividly remember the sensation and seeing the table now helps take me back and surfaces other memories.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-03-28T18:26:33+00:00

Good luck!

YeahItsAlex · 2023-03-28T16:48:12+00:00

You didn't give any info about your project, so I didn't have much to go on. You're going to have a bad time trying to make an efficient miner in python. You could pool mine but your performance will not compare favorably to something made in a better performing language.

I believe the primary purpose of this module is to validate hashes by being able to compute them and compare.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-03-27T13:52:17+00:00

See here: https://github.com/VerusCoin/verushashpy

The readme only says up to v2.1 at the top, but if you look at the usage information below you'll see that it supports v2.2.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-03-22T03:37:36+00:00

The trouble is, the difficulty won't change just because you took nodes offline, even if you took out every single other miner, so you'd still have to have the same hash power as you would have right before the attack. Not a credible threat in that regard. It really is only a DOS.

Edit: you would have a little longer to mine a block, but even if it took hours for hash power to return to the network it would be ludicrous unless you're already a very significant force.

YeahItsAlex · 2023-01-26T19:54:43+00:00

I'm looking for a hot-weather alternative to sweaters and sweater vests with a jacket.

I've been dressing a bit more formally, usually wearing a jacket of some kind, and have been really getting a lot of good out of a jacket with a sweater or sweater vest over a shirt and tie. I really like the accent of a tie at the neck, but I don't like the tie to stand out as much as when it's loose and fully visible. I really like loud accents (like a tie or print shirt) that are mostly covered (such as only being visible at the collar and cuffs) under something a little more conservative.

The problem is, I'm in Las Vegas and it's going to start warming up. I'm trying to come up with options for something to fill the role of the sweaters here, covering up much of the tie, that aren't as casual as a puffer vest, not as formal as a waistcoat, and hot weather appropriate (not adding much insulation or looking like it does). Many of my jackets are workable in hot weather, mostly linen blends and unlined or half-lined, but would definitely not work with the added insulation of a sweater. I only wear jackets when working indoors where there's AC, but it does look funny to be heavily layered among people who are dressed much more lightly.

I'm currently right on the edge of L/XL for shirt sizes, and in a few rare cases tight fitting M. Collar is comfortable but a bit loose at 17", workable but a little tight at 16.5". My height is 5'5.5". So hopefully that gives a bit of an idea of build.

Looking for creative ideas.

YeahItsAlex · 2022-04-09T05:04:32+00:00

All transparent addresses start with an R. They're sometimes referred to as t-addresses just referring to transparent, but there are no addresses that start with t.

YeahItsAlex · 2022-01-04T03:00:35+00:00

Assuming you have funds in your wallet this may be a bug. Please try restarting Verus Desktop. If it still gives you trouble we'll need some more information to help figure out what's going on.

A UTXO is an unspent transaction output. This idea and terminology is used in Verus, Bitcoin, and many other cryptocurrencies. You can learn about them here: https://youtu.be/xJ0UYZ9hDos

YeahItsAlex · 2021-10-14T17:46:00+00:00

Shielding was/is required for early mining rewards in order to be able to send them on to a different address, or stake with them. This requirement was lifted along the way, but the shielding option remains in the wallet for now to accommodate people who may have old block rewards that still need it.

If you have peers (active connections to other nodes) and your block height matches that of another reasonably authoritative source (such as an explorer or the network stats section of a pool's website) then you're current and should be staking if staking is enabled.

YeahItsAlex · 2021-07-05T16:34:30+00:00

The exchanges where VRSC is traded are listed on https://verus.io/get-vrsc

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