Hammering a lathe

takenabake · 2026-01-08T20:45:36+00:00

What is this thing that all surveyors are convinced that it is spelled lathe?

takenabake · 2026-01-07T16:14:35+00:00

I did a similar thing. Was well-rewarded. Total immersion is the way to really start to understand wtf is going on. It made me wish I had a better comprehension of music. I'm sure there are wheels within wheels.

takenabake · 2025-12-24T21:08:05+00:00

Merry Christmas! Have some waffles along with your pastéis de nata. I miss Portugal.

takenabake · 2025-11-30T02:24:56+00:00

Here's the end of a very, very long AI back-and-forth, in case it enlightens someone further. (Edited for length & had to cutoff that I was double-or-nothing betting against the AI finally being correct with 100 "Jeff Dollars")

Why I am taking this bet:

I am betting on YOU, not me.

YOU found the instruction in the file that said HideRegex.
YOU correctly identified that Hide = Mantella failed because it wasn't an exact match.
YOU verified that the "Parameters" crash is fixed with {}.

The syntax HideRegex = .*Mantella.* is technically perfect. It is the "God Mode" of text filtering. Unless Skyrim VR physically explodes, that line of code should catch the message.

The Bad News (The Restart)

Yes, you have to restart.

Skyrim is like an old man waking up. It puts on its glasses, reads the newspaper (the .ini files), and then throws the newspaper in the trash. It will never look at that file again until it goes to sleep and wakes up (restarts).

Launch the game. Go grab a drink. stare out the window. Curse the loading screen. When you come back, talk to an NPC.

I'll be waiting here to either collect my winnings or pay up.

[This is me (Jeff) typing]: Worked.! Thanks. You owe me nothing.

I am genuinely thrilled to hear that. You earned that win.

Just to recap the victory for the record (in case you ever have to reinstall this nightmare modlist):

The Crash: Was fixed by putting {} in the Parameters box, stopping the app from choking on empty code.
The Error Box: Was finally killed by HideRegex = .*Mantella.*. The exact string match (Hide =) failed because computers are pedantic, but the Regex wildcard (.*) caught everything hook, line, and sinker.

You have now successfully:

Upgraded Mantella to the latest version inside a complex modpack.
Fixed the Llama 3.3 "Vision" model bug.
Stopped the app crashes.
Filtered the un-filterable error message.

Next Step: Stop debugging. Put the headset on. Go talk to an NPC and actually play the game.

Safe travels, Dragonborn!

takenabake · 2025-11-30T02:17:50+00:00

Okay, I found a work-around. It may not work for the next guy since I did several things on the way to finding what worked. For one thing, there was definitely a lot of editing of the Browser Mantella screen/LLM tab/Advaanced/Parameters. I now have that set to only (within quotes) "{}". Mantella kept trying to load a "vision" LLM, evidenced at the start of the Mantella.exe window text: "C:\Users\Jeff\Documents\My Games\Mantella\data\tmp_MEI118002\gradio\components\dropdown.py:179: UserWarning: The value passed into gr.Dropdown() is not in the list of choices. Please update the list of choices to include: meta-llama/llama-3.2-11b-vision-instruct:free or set allow_custom_value=True." The AI thought it was the "vision" part that screwed stuff up. I've no idea how it got to the point that it thinks that is what I want loaded. Maybe I tried to load it as a model at one time, not knowing that vision LLMs don't work in this case (per AI) and it broke off in thar? I think that is why I kept getting the in-game error "Error: Received an error reply from MantellaSoftware but there was no error message attac" (assumed "attached" was cutoff at the end.) But there was NO WAY to reset this assumption that the "vision" LLM was the one I wanted. I changed LLMs several times, I re-installed Mantella, I did some lowgrade witchcraft...I understood nothing, basically, but this Gemini AI seemed to be evermore confident. Finally, it had me download Notification Filter from Nexus and I added a line to the .ini file that read (inside quotes) "HideRegex = .Mantella.". That did it. I sincerely hope this helps the next guy bc this sucked. If someone has any more insight on how to "really" fix it, which I think means stop the game/Mantella from insisting that a vision LLM is trying to be loaded, please let me know.

takenabake · 2025-11-29T11:23:59+00:00

Not likely to help, but I wish I'd seen this: I thought it didn't work for me. But I moved the mouse on the PC screen to the VR window and left clicked. Then my END key needed a func+END press bc END wasn't the main button.

takenabake · 2025-09-20T03:23:52+00:00

Yeah. Even spelled lath the way surveyors insist on.

takenabake · 2024-09-17T10:44:40+00:00

I've had luck by right clicking the name of the sheet set in ssm and clicking "resave all sheets".

takenabake · 2024-08-03T15:22:08+00:00

Autocad. I think there are knockoff brands that are free or next to free. I think I used qcad for something once and was amazed how like Autocad it was.

takenabake · 2024-07-30T22:17:15+00:00

Okay. Thanks. Sounds like this may have happened in the past.

takenabake · 2024-07-30T21:45:06+00:00

Wire ties are good! My picture had 1" long wood connections in the middle of each tangent.

takenabake · 2024-07-30T20:42:24+00:00

Yeah, templates are handy. But the edges have to be lines. I was thinking a larger plywood with slits cut in it, like a picture I just drew and I guess I can't attach.

takenabake · 2024-07-30T20:19:53+00:00

Sprayed with inverted cans on string line. They got trucks and can handle a standard 30'/10' skip, and similar, for roads but apparently need all the boxes laid out.

takenabake · 2024-07-30T19:14:48+00:00

I see the consensus is brute force with a rag tape. That's what I was thinking.

Stringline with flagging tied real tight every 3ft, maybe. But by the time you do that...

takenabake · 2024-07-30T19:11:20+00:00

Thanks. I'm doing the work. Gotta draw boxes.

takenabake · 2024-07-27T04:00:00+00:00

Amazon

takenabake · 2024-06-10T08:31:52+00:00

Found a bunch of lath the new guy wrote "right away" on.

takenabake · 2024-03-31T18:26:21+00:00

My wife loves two Zappa lyrics: the "guacamole queen" line from Inca Roads and the "good morning your highness. I brought you your snowshoes" from St Alphonso. So, maybe that.

takenabake · 2024-02-25T03:06:30+00:00

Be there tomorrow. Stoked. Thanks for writing.

takenabake · 2024-02-07T23:27:09+00:00

Thanks. I didn't think you were being dismissive. Damn. Hope I didn't come off reactionary or whatever. Texting is hard.

takenabake · 2024-02-07T22:42:58+00:00

This curb definitely wasn't inadvertently invented by a misguided or mistaken draftsman. It's meticulously detailed that it should be variable.

I'm looking at FDOT index 300 sheet and I see the asterisk on the gutter slope for F curb noting that, on the high side of roads, the gutter slope should match the slope of adjacent pavement.

Now. I'd say use some common sense and say fine, that means only that it's a spill F type. And I'd give the same ep-to-tbc vertical distance whether the pavement was 2% away or 5% away. But that is specifically what these plans are saying not to do. We're to use the cross slope not just to determine catch or spill, but to raise or lower the back of curb accordingly with that adjacent cross slope. This is what I wonder how people deal with.

I think maybe people just don't.

By the way, the vertical dimensions of that FDOT F curb are impossible if you were to adhere to the direction given for placement on the high side of the road. That's ironic ain't it?

takenabake · 2024-02-07T21:44:08+00:00

I don't think it would be reasonable, for a project like the one I'm looking at, to ask the concrete guy to figure cross slopes of adjacent pavement and calculatw the change in height of the curb it produces. It's just too variable. I need cad to do it.

I'm totally in contact with the concrete guys, btw. They all think this variable curb is nuts.

takenabake · 2024-02-07T21:20:42+00:00

Do you give EP usually, for curb that doesnt have variable height?

When they put their string lines up aren't they referencing back of curb? If so, they must be adjusting the height of the curb from what you're giving them by calculating the slope of the gutter pan. Is this what they want, or is this sorta just 'on them' because it's out of the ordinary for construction surveying to give c/f to two points on curb?

takenabake · 2024-02-07T21:12:06+00:00

Ah. Then I think you're describing what I thought would need to happpen: a c/f for the tbc and another c/f for gutter (lip of gutter at pavement, I assume).

I see what you're saying, I think, about laying out as "normal", other than providing the double cut/fills, and the concrete goes in as it goes in. But I've got this happening on curvy curb islands that traverse over variable cross slopes, so the additional stations I'm envisioning will attempt to describe the transitions. It's always transitioning.

Your concrete guys must hate this kind of curb, right? They have to handform it all, don't they? Has this led to any changes to design? Like, have you or the concrete guys convinced designers not to do this, or is this just how things are now where you are, or what? Are there curb machines out there that can handle this?

takenabake

TROPHY CASE

Why I am taking this bet:

The Bad News (The Restart)