Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

@f1337 @Quinnypig These days you can't go wrong with the Ender product line. They are inexpensive, have wide community support, and work well out of the box, especially when you use the model-specific profiles popular slicers will have for the various Ender printers.

I personally have an Ender 5 Pro and I have been very pleased with it.

@videograndpa Yes, because it can detect when a cat has used it. It then waits 7 minutes for it to clump (and the cat to leave) and then it cleans itself. So the cats end up having a clean box each time.

I end up replacing the trash bag where the litter is dumped about twice a week, but the litter box alerts me with a blue flashing light when it detects that it is full.

A few months ago our family got a new kitten, which put our cat count at three. Beyond two cats, it's a challenge keeping your house from smelling, so my requirement for the kitten was investing in a high quality automatic litter box.

We had tried cheaper units in the past for vacations, and they never worked well. While it was expensive, we got a Litter Robot and I have to say, it is worth every penny. No smell, automatic, reliable, easy to dump litter, no proprietary consumables.

#caturday

@briankrebs Don't let the pressure get to you.

According to Plutarch, in exchange for being forced into marriage with strangers, these Sabine girls were not required to perform any household labor apart from spinning. Apparently this was considered a fair deal, and says a lot both about the sensibilities of the time and how important spinning was!

#spinning #fiberarts #history

I started reading Plutarch's Lives, beginning with Theseus and Romulus. So far I learned that (according to Plutarch) a husband carrying his new wife over a threshold derives from a Roman tradition. It is intended to commemorate a time when Romulus was first settling Rome and needed more wives for his citizens. He lured Sabine citizens to a sporting event, then at a signal Roman men captured all the Sabine girls that were present and carried them away to be their wives.

@sofiebird Welcome! Always great to see other weavers on Mastodon.

@apples_and_pears @hackaday Thank you!

I'm using fingering yarn for this which is about as fine as I think this machine is intended to take and with the waste yarn cast on to get everything started, I haven't noticed any dropped stitches yet, thankfully.

Still some fine-tuning to make sure the hour hand is reasonably accurate, but it's getting there.

I've published a full write-up of the inspiration, design, assembly, and installation of my @hackaday inspired knitting clock: Tempus Nectit!

I had to learn quite a few new skills to complete this project from controlling stepper motors with electronics to 3D modeling. I tried to document everything I could so that someone else could follow step-by-step and make one of their own.

https://kylerank.in/tempus_nectit/

#knitting #3dprinting #electronics

@josh We pivoted to family "no electricity night" where we play board games and read by lamp light.

@apples_and_pears I appreciate the vote of confidence!

I don't intend on giving anything away, I'll be selling anything I publish for what I hope is a fair price. I just think most of what I'm interested in publishing right now would not necessarily interest the No Starches and Addison Wesleys of the world.

Since I've already published plenty of books with traditional publishers I don't feel like I have anything to prove in that respect. I'd rather have the freedom to pursue my interests.

My knitting machine clock, Tempus Nectit, is complete! I advanced it to the current time and mounted it on the wall. The white section is waste yarn to cast on, and the red stripe marks Valentine's Day. The shiny metal "tooth" marks the hour hand. Currently it is set to noon. The clock will advance every hour, completing a full circle (and row) every 12 hours, or two rows a day.

Now I have the massive task of the technical write-up for my site.

#knitting #3dprinting #electronics

@julian Yes I appreciate the work No Starch is doing and know quite a few people there, but some of things I want to write fall outside of projects traditional tech publishers can afford to take a risk on.

@yaelwrites True. That could be a factor too.

@yaelwrites I think that's a good thought experiment to weed it out. For instance I work from home and rarely am on video conferences, yet I still shave somewhat regularly for my own satisfaction in my appearance.

Of course when I know I *will* be on a video conference I ensure I'm relatively cleanshaven beforehand.

@yaelwrites I guess I would fall more on the side of the level of effort you are willing to put in for your own satisfaction, and less strictly for the benefit/approval of others, but that's just me talking from the privileged male standpoint without the same cultural pressures.

I also tend to think there is a certain point after which exercise is no longer for someone's health and instead is for vanity, and I'm old school (and privileged?) enough I guess, to think that vanity is not a virtue.

@a@linuxrocks.online I'm basically ignorant of any options I may have here outside of Amazon and 100% self-hosted, so suggestions like this are very helpful! It's the main reason I posted, because I was hoping for feedback like this.