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  Time for a quick game of "Why the f**k did I come into this room?"

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  The lads and me at our NZFS "Chop Shop" brushing up our skillz 16 years ago. It'll buff out.

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  Heh, #RNZ predicting a 5.7 earthquake on 8th August 2026 😜 #eqnz

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  My #HomeAssistant Pi 5 dropped off the network. Can't see why because a) it's not on the network, and b) I don't have a microscopic HDMI cable. Boots and connects if I shove a headless Raspbian SD into it, so presumably the HA SD is shagged somehow?

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  @Em0nM4stodon@infosec.exchange Er, no. Inland Revenue make it compulsory.

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  Doctor: "Can we use AI for this appointment?" Me: "Certainly, as long as you give me a copy of the transcript so that I can verify it." Doctor: "OK, let's not use AI."

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  The #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter just produced this "Hello World" with a dot spacing of 8μm. That's the size of a human red blood cell, and the accuracy of the Intel 4004 CPU feature size. Positioning is good down to sub-4μm but the point and the Sharpie ink film start smudging up badly. The advance is due to a new mechanical touch-sensing probe tip assembly.

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  Can you guess what this is? Right or wrong answers, I know you lot, you'll do it anyway :)

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  Today Young Grasshopper set about repairing earlier soldering efforts on their prototyping board, using the soldering iron they recovered using citric acid and a scrubber. They learned how to control 2 LEDs off one pin, and reviewed resistor codes. They learned to friction cut plastic with paracord, and then made a bolas/poi to demonstrate centripetal force and conservation of momentum. Nobody got whacked, but we wrecked a bush.

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  Interesting $10 spectrometer chip that'd make a real nice tricorder addition to give chemical analysis. Probably be a while before its on #Hackaday but. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-spectrometer-chip-real-chemical-wearables.html

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  I have baked two successive small, windowless buildings in lieu of rye loaves. I am beginning to suspect my yeast is dead.

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  Two days ago a spaceship full of drugs landed in Australia. News coverage wasn't exactly widespread. Varda are working with an indigenous community (not against them) to manufacture drugs in zero g on orbit that cannot be made on Earth. These are typically small volume for rare conditions, or experimental pathfinders. They've been doing one every 3 or 4 months. Just thought somebody should know.

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  Folks in the #UK, my old colleague Dr. Adrian Bowyer is running a petition: "New rules for manufacturers of medical device implants We believe it should be made illegal for manufacturers of medical devices implanted into patients to regularly charge the patient for upgrades or maintenance." It also calls for "IP" to be released if a manufacturer fails. I feel this subject is important enough to ask you to disseminate the link. Thank you. https://petition.p...

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  Well, The Empress of My Immediate Vicinity wanted to know if her tiny (0.6mm dia.) watercress seeds were sprouting. I have a rather nice trinocular microscope, so I used that. Sadly, no sprouts, but they look damn cool. (Looks even nicer in 3D)

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  I have enough wild clay processed to make a something. It's a bit gritty and I think I'll end up processing it a bit more, but I'll make a small, crude bowl and see if I have a snowball's chance of doing anything with it. It does wrap around my finger without cracking, so there's hope.

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  The bowl is too damp to smooth, let alone burnish, but here's the wild clay test pot. It's about 100mm across.

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  Just a Reminder. Microsoft say in their Terms of Service that Copilot is "for entertainment purposes only". Their own T&Cs prohibit business use. https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/05/copilot-is-for-entertainment-purposes-only-according-to-microsofts-terms-of-service/

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  Experiment with pot continues. Wee wild clay pot now leathery and smoothed out. Dried a bit in the shed, but I've brought it inside to dry properly upside down. Probably take a couple of days for the next step.

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  Um, geek history.

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  An excellent FreeCAD 1.1 For Noobs video has dropped from deltahedra https://youtu.be/KmtqNaGPiiQ

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  Took me a while to figure out I could use the #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter to etch its own probes. This is a test of my wee electrolysis cell. You can just see the turbulence caused by electrolysis when the probe dips in.

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  The guide to automated etching of RepRapMicron Probe Tips and their integration/assembly is now on the Github wiki: https://github.com/VikOlliver/RepRapMicron/wiki/Probe-Tip-Fabrication-And-Assembly Yes, the RepRapMicron etches its own tips. Comments and suggestions welcome.

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  Recent storms exposed a seam of decent clay in the bank by our driveway. I've fired a pellet of it and it doesn't dissolve in water or crack up. Might do a wee pot or two and see if it's any good.

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  I managed to get a repeatable, automated probe etch done for the #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter, using the Z axis to control the etch. These are 0.3mm diameter 316 stainless wires, etched on different occasions. Yes the probe walls are meant to be rough to hold the resin "ink":

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  Harvested a couple of kilos of wild clay from the slip exposed by the bottom of the driveway (the drain is now, erm, cleared). Currently soaking it so I can float the roots, dead bugs, fossilized dinosaur droppings etc. out of it, and let the big sharp rocks fall to the bottom. I haven't done clay for decades, simply because I haven't seen any around here.

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  I have an #Astronomy theory: "Dark Matter" is composed of the intelligent races of the universe's missing laundered limb-end coverings.

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  Okay, I feel I can put the PIKA #RepRapMicron files up on Printables and let the world loose on it https://www.printables.com/model/1692745-reprapmicron-pika-micron-resolution-3d-printer

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  @sundogplanets You just wait until Elon figures he wants a hand in space-based beamed power...

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  Hmm, weather not looking good. May do a fast charge on the Aft Power Cells...

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  Okay, so the weather is "State of Emergency" bad in the #Wellington region. I hope everyone is OK.