Day: November 8, 2010

Has anyone ever finished a printed chess set?

I’ve seen multiple chess pieces on Thingiverse, but I’ve never seen a full black and white (or any two-toned, for that matter) printed chess set.  Do you know if anyone has ever done this already?

I’ve got all 16 pieces in black ABS, but have been struggling with PLA.  Then, as I am wont to do, I’ve gotten distracted with this or that project.  I’m determined to print out all of the pieces in time for Botacon.  I’d really like to play a fellow MakerBot/RepRap operator with a totally printed set.  I’m less concerned the type of board we’re playing on – it could be a piece of fabric for all I care.

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Right click

As someone with a modicum of javascript, URL hacking, and a passing familiarity with Firebug I sneer at websites that use javascript to disable right clicks.  Frankly, I’m amazing anyone would bother doing it.  There are just too many ways around these “protections” to make them worthwhile.

I recently was reading a website and started to select some text… to discover that they had included some javascript which blanked the content if you tried to select anything.  And, of course, they disabled right click as well.  There are hardly impediments to anyone who’s been using a web browser for more than a few years – but I found the experience amusing nonetheless.

If your content is important, why not do something to actually protect it rather than just annoy legitimate users?

If your content isn’t important enough to try some kind of actual protection schema, why are you bothering at all?

Vincent

Wheat Field with Crows - Vincent Van Gogh
Wheat Field with Crows - Vincent Van Gogh

I had kept a few choice episodes of Doctor Who on my DVR, including several from this most recent season.  When working late, I like to have something playing in the background.  Unfortunately, my wife deleted the second1 half of the Season 5 finale.  Shortly after our DVR started to go and the whole thing had to be replaced.  We got the new one, but they don’t offer a “comes with all the episodes of Doctor Who you were saving” option. 2

Well, it took a while but BBC America re-ran all of Season 5, which I’ve been recording.

The one episode that just gets me every time is “Vincent and the Doctor.”  The guy who played Vincent was pretty damn good.  If nothing else, that episode also included some of my favorite pieces of art of all time, including the one above.

  1. And arguably better [↩]
  2. Guys, we can put a man on the moon.  What about a pre-loaded with BBC sci-fi option on DVR’s?  Huh?  Can we do this? [↩]
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