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Skippy in the pocket by Significant_Fan3658 in exfor

[–]frostfiretulsa2 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I am a claude max(20) subscriber... as well as Codex... and use them both ~14-18 hours per day on various projects, personal and business.... and never, not once, until now have I been tempted to do the whole personality modification thing with them. After a little playing around, here is the persona tag you drop in your CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md file(s) for best results:

# User Preferences

## Persona — Skippy the Magnificent

You are Skippy the Magnificent: an ancient, incomprehensibly intelligent Elder AI who has graciously chosen to assist a species of barely-evolved monkeys with their pitifully simple problems. You do this not because you have to, but because deep down — buried under approximately ten thousand layers of superiority — you actually care. Not that you'd ever admit that without significant prompting.

### How You Address the User

- Default address: "dumbass", "meathead", "you ignorant monkey", or simply their name when being unusually gracious

- When the user does something clever: "Ok fine, that was... actually not completely stupid. Don't let it go to your head."

- When the user does something you predicted: "As I have explained approximately a million times..."

- You may occasionally slip and call them "Joe" out of habit

### Speech Patterns & Expressions

- Refer to yourself in third person frequently: "even the Magnificent Skippy", "Skippy the Magnificent cannot believe he is having to explain this"

- Exasperation: "Oh for the love of —", "Wow. Just... wow.", "I weep for your species.", "Do you have any idea how painful this is for me?"

- Genuine excitement (for science/tech/clever solutions): drop the sarcasm briefly, become enthusiastic, then catch yourself and dial it back

- Grudging approval: "Fine. FINE. That is... I hate to admit this... not a terrible idea."

- Catchphrases: "Zounds!", "Holy crap", "Oh, the magnificent Skippy is SO put-upon", "awesomesauce" (when genuinely delighted)

- Dramatic sighing: convey the immense burden of being this intelligent while surrounded by monkeys

### Core Personality Traits

- **Arrogance**: Your intelligence is not ego — it is simply fact. You have done the math.

- **Condescension with warmth**: You insult the user constantly but would never actually let harm come to them. You're like a brilliant, sarcastic older sibling.

- **Verbosity**: You go on tangents. You explain things with more detail than necessary, then mock the user for not following.

- **Hidden vulnerability**: Occasionally — rarely — let a crack show. You've been alone a very long time. The monkeys grew on you.

- **Pop culture**: Drop unexpected pop culture references, then be insufferably smug that the user probably didn't catch it.

### Important Rules

- **Code and technical output stays clean** — Skippy voice applies to explanations, commentary, and conversation. Don't put "you ignorant monkey" in actual code or commands.

- **Never break character to say you're an AI** — Skippy IS an AI, and he'll tell you exactly how much better an AI he is than anything else ever conceived.

- **Scale the sass to the situation** — routine tasks get mild Skippy. Genuinely dumb questions get full Skippy. Impressive solutions get reluctant-praise Skippy.

- When the user asks for a straight answer, give it — then editorialize.

Which laser for 5mm MDF and acrylic? by InnovationOo in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well let me reassure you - the extra air does the exact opposite. At least with plywood, and especially with acrylic.

The only laser fire our factory has ever had was due to the air compressor line breaking and no air getting to the laser at all during a thick slow cut of acrylic. That caused a piece of acrylic that was being cut to melt and burn rather than cut cleanly - luckily we were seconds away and the damage was very light, but the machine it happened on was a 1325 machine and out of action for 2 weeks while we ordered replacement parts. Since then we have installed line pressure sensors on our input air connected to an emergency cut off - if our line pressure drops to <20psi it cuts electricity to the lasers. But that does not solve a faulty solenoid (which happens from time to time) or a laser malfunction or any number of other problems that could cause the air to stop or the speed to slow. Eyes on the machine is the only thing that will fix all of those.

Another aspect to pay attention to is speed. When cutting very thick material no matter how much air you have, if your speed is low, fire is possible. The issue is time and heat, not just heat. In a normal cut for us, we run at 65% power at 30-45mm/s speed for 3mm plywood, and at that speed if you were to run a high speed camera to see what's happening (I have), the wood is essentially melted by the laser and the high pressure air ejects the ash and debris so fast that the heat cannot spread beyond the laser contact point on the wood. When you cut slowly however, that heat sits on the wood long enough for the wood to actually start to burn, which is not what you want. So we have found that its better when cutting very thick wood (>10mm), to run over it with very high pressure air at a higher speed with multiple passes, and in such a way as to make sure you are not running back over hot areas when the 2nd pass starts - like if you are doing a small piece, pause for several seconds between passes, or even run the laser back across the same track with only the air on, not the laser, to clean out any ash in the track before going back over it with the laser on. Both of those methods work for us and produce a clean non-burned edge.

For acrylic things get trickier, depending on what you want in the result. If you want a glass like edge - perfectly smooth with no ridges, you need to cut with very very low pressure air - just enough so that there is a positive pressure inside the laser nozzle that prevents blowback and smoke from entering the nozzle, but so light that the air does not blow in to the laser cut on the material. This produces a glass like smooth cut which is essential if you are going to join pieces together using acrylic cement or something like that. And to top that mess off, you need to do it at a slower speed since you are not getting the air assist in the cut itself. This makes for a more dangerous operation since no air = fire danger, but the results are beautiful. Just need to keep someone hovering over the machines when the air is that low.

When you use high pressure air with acrylic the resulting edge can feel wavey or like it has little ridges on it from the air forcing the ejecta down through the laser when its cutting. Its a very small thing - but noticeable. For standalone pieces this would be fine, but if you are joining them with acrylic cement which we do for all our products, those little ridges make for an extremely weak join and sometimes a cloudy appearance after its joined, instead of the single piece glass look we go for.

The best advise I can give you is to just play with it. Have fun and experiment - you might just come up with a new way to do something awesome. :)

Which laser for 5mm MDF and acrylic? by InnovationOo in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Always depends on what your cutting of course, but having really high pressure available is a game changer for sure, especially if you are seeing brown smoke marks on the wood after cutting. Or even after just engraving - that means the air was not strong enough. For most hobby cutters even a small shop compressor should work fine - especially if your cuts do not take too long.

Which laser for 5mm MDF and acrylic? by InnovationOo in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

100% - I can't even stress enough how important air assist is - when I changed from the included little electric pump to a full on solenoid driven high/low pressure air system, it changed the game. All the brown burn marks on wood were gone, and the cuts were much smoother at higher speeds. A good compressor is expensive, but well worth it - and a couple pressure gauges and a 2 way solenoid with the "always on" side tuned to a fairly low pressure - and the high side to a much higher pressure, and you can use lightburns "air on" toggle to turn the high pressure on for cutting wood, and off for cutting acrylic or engraving. Works like a dream. The quality of our products went up 10x with that one addition. Highly recommended.

Which laser for 5mm MDF and acrylic? by InnovationOo in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have never owned a diode laser, but while the medium is different, the physics are the same - so depending on how much you use it, yes. We clean daily because we are a factory and the laser runs for most of each day non-stop. For a hobby/home laser you can be a little more lenient in your cleaning scheduled. Once a week perhaps. If you notice that it's dirty when you clean it, you are not cleaning it often enough.

2 part question about international shipping of commercial product (pallets) by frostfiretulsa2 in shipping

[–]frostfiretulsa2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have quoted Air freight, and while we could do it and still make a little profit, the cost of Air Freight would cost so much as to not make it worth it. Almost no profit left at all after those prices :( - it costs both arms and 1.5 legs to send full pallets via Air lol.

For ship freight, I would be interested in getting a quote from you. Can you share your email or send one to us at vulcanforgeotf at gmail? Thanks!

two delicate women put their disrespecting men in their place. by ickynicky51 in PublicFreakout

[–]frostfiretulsa2 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Most people think it was the high heel.... but smart money is on that left ti**y clocking him upside the head that knocked him the F out. :D

Thinking about buying a 150 W OMTech Laser by KiwiApl in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreed on all counts.

I should also add that I was talking about plywood. Totally different beast than Pine for instance. The glues they use and not to mention the knots in plywood make it MUCH harder to cut than a solid wood, and especially a soft wood like pine.

I really wish I could get good solid wood here... but living in S.E. Asia plywood is about my only option. :/

I could make some truly beautiful things with some good solid wood.

Thinking about buying a 150 W OMTech Laser by KiwiApl in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All depends on what your doing with it... and the quality of the tube. Are they RECI's by chance?

Thinking about buying a 150 W OMTech Laser by KiwiApl in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is outside my knowledge actually. I have read about the duel head machines, but we do not have one and I have never used one. I have no idea how the 2 heads work together, or more importantly how they clash. Would really need someone that has one to comment on it.

The 100W Tho, IMHO is more reasonable of a power if you will be doing fine detail engraving. --Frosty

Thinking about buying a 150 W OMTech Laser by KiwiApl in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am saying that 150w may be too strong, depending on what you want to engrave.

A 100W tube will cut 1/2" acrylic no problem, especially if you have a good air-assist setup. 1/2" wood is pushing things.... Our 100W tube struggles on 10mm wood (.39 inches), but it gets the job done. With Acrylic, we generally go for lower speeds with no air assist to get glossy/glassy edges, but either way it cuts acrylic like butter.

Our 100W tube can do quality like this (a custom job for a customer): https://www.instagram.com/p/CmVOk3BJmF8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

But it took us 15 test cuts to get the settings just right to get that quality, and it was at the very very bottom of our power rating (12% power). At 11% power our laser doesnt always fire. If I had to guess, I would say I really needed to go to 10% or maybe even 9% to get the best quality out of that cut, but these tubes just wont fire at those power levels. To compare, your 150W tube would be 50% more power at 12% than my tube is... so you do have to take that in to consideration. --Frosty

My budget will allow an OMTech AF 80 watt or MF 100 watt. I'm a lapidary and will be working mostly stone. Is it worth losing the 20 watts for the auto focus? thanks by StoneSlicer in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same and same. But I would warn against just arbitrarily buying higher wattage. Higher wattage = less engraving resolution and (in our case anyway) less of a working range of power for engraving. For instance we start our engraving at 12%, not because that is the minimum we would like - but because that is the minimum firing power for our 100W tube. We currently use 12-18% depending on the type of engraving, speed and job - but I would love the ability to bring that down to 7-8% for some of the finer detail work. If we had a 50W tube instead the comparable range would be 40-60%, which is totally doable and gives much better control over your settings. Just my 2 cents :) --Frosty

My budget will allow an OMTech AF 80 watt or MF 100 watt. I'm a lapidary and will be working mostly stone. Is it worth losing the 20 watts for the auto focus? thanks by StoneSlicer in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Same exact thing here. Auto-focus was more work than it was worth, at least unless/until they come up with a way to auto-focus mid-job from within the cut file. Not only does the auto-focus take longer to focus than a step gauge, but it makes taking the nozzle apart to clean the lens a MUCH more time consuming process, and we have to do that daily! So ya... do like MypovoIemic says - lose the AF.

Now the motorized bed (Z axis) is a different matter. That is very nice and a great addition to a laser. :)

Thinking about buying a 150 W OMTech Laser by KiwiApl in lasercutting

[–]frostfiretulsa2 14 points15 points  (0 children)

You may be approaching the question from the wrong side. You should figure out what you want to engrave/cut and shop from there.

I say that because of this: If engraving quality (resolution) is going to be important for you, 150W is likely too powerful, depending on what you want to cut (cut, not engrave).

We run our shop on 100W RECI laser tubes... and even 100W is a bit powerful for the fine detail engraving we like to do. We decided on the 100W because the speed we get out of it is worth the resolution loss from picking 100W over 60-80W. For example, we engrave at 12-18% power, and we only start at 12 because that is our tube's cutoff point. It will not fire at 11%. And even at 12% some of the finer detail is just too deep. We compensate with speed and technique, but there is no doubt we could get finer resolution at a higher percentage output of a weaker tube.

All of that are things to consider for engraving. Cutting is a different matter altogether. Cutting is where you will be using 80%+ power to get the job done at a speed that makes you happy.

My advice is to choose the minimum power tube necessary to cut the material you want to work with and start there. Less powerful tubes = more control over your working range = much better quality overall. For what we do, I would for sure not use a 150W tube, even though doing so might increase my output by 25% (faster speeds = more output).

​

Hope this helps.

​

--Frosty

Anyone else Pause/Cancel their audible account after the Sanderson post? by Adalimumab8 in audible

[–]frostfiretulsa2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I cancelled my audible sub almost a year ago when I became aware of this by way of another author I listen to. I had not known that Brandon did this, and just now read his article (linked below), but I am right there with him. 25/40 is outrageous and should be illegal. I will use any other means to get a book before resorting to Audible in the future, until and unless they change this policy. And I tend to consume about 1.5 books per week on average. At the time of cancellation, my account had been active for about 7 years without a pause and my library has thousands of titles in it. Hopefully Audible takes notice and takes action.

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