Tag Archives: today

New print: Beco Block!

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I printed up my first Beco Block today – and I can’t wait to print up more.  Nate True was kind enough to download the STL files, center, align, save, and zip all of the various pieces. 1

I’d like to see a new STL file out there that has several different types of these Beco Blocks all on one sheet (similar to Spacexula‘s Mendel production STL files).  I could really see myself cranking out these by the dozens.  In fact…  once I had a sheet designed with a good mix of the various parts I could put it through the MakeNBreak script to churn them out.

  1. Nate, if you’re listening – thank you! [↩]

I trust my life to open source

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I use open source software for nearly everything.  Now I get to use an open source robot too!

I stopped using MicroSoft Office, Eudora, CuteFTP, TextPad, Internet Explorer, and ASP and other proprietary products about four years ago in favor of Open Office, Thunderbird, FileZilla, Notepad++, Mozilla, PHP/MySQL,  etc.  I’m still on a Windows box… for now.

But, damn, some days you get your ass handed to you too.  Today’s been one of those days.  In the last twenty four hours I’ve spent a LOT of time unscrambling two of my WordPress installs.  They were SO messed up that they were offering anyone who cared to look the option to enter a new blog name and administrative address.  Yeah, that’s not good.

Admittedly, this can happen with any software.  But, today man.  Today I feel like I’ve been run over by an open source Humvee.

Christmas robot shopping

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I went to the hardware store after work today to pick up the items on my shopping list.  Walking to their register I fell victim to their bargain basement aisle.  In the process I dropped the $3 superglue I had found and picked up four times as much for $2.  Sure, its a no-name house brand…  but as long as its reasonably sticky there shouldn’t be any problems.

I also picked up some 3-in-1 oil for the various rods.  I installed the Z-axis rods without cleaning them properly (too enthusiastic to get building).  I also bought a large flexible magnet in sheet form (the kind used for fridge magnets – only in an 8.5″ x 11″ size), work gloves, and another utility knife.