The English Offical Table of Drops for hanging. Helps prevent the head from popping off or doing the air run.

This is actually wisdom. I use a 4x fudge factor.

I’ve always heard:

Respect is given, not earned.

Trust is earned and easy to lose.

Don’t confuse politeness with respect.

Small squares as pixels would be time consuming, but would allow high detail even without a CNC.

Drag knife on a cricut wouldn’t be strong enough for thick tile.Mill with a O-flute single flute plastic routing bit would be the way to go. 1/8" diameter, carbide, as fast the spindle will turn. Flute length as short as the tile thickness will allow. You’d want a few spares, you’ll probably break a couple getting it tweaked. Start at .030 chip load, full width and depth, probably don’t need a finish pass as the edge roughness will increase adhesion and won’t be visible. Don’t use coolant, don’t breathe the dust, wear a P99 or P100 respirator, shop vac with HEPA for cleanup. Some tile may have abrasive fiber in it and will shorten tool life.

For fixturing, I think I’d use strap clamps and bars around edges. Use tabs between pieces almost like a stencil, lot of CAM software has a setting for auto tabs on profile cuts, cut from center to edges. Vacuum tables can be real temperamental, slow way down and still tab if trying to hold with vacuum. Double sided carpet tape can do it but has to be removed with acetone and IDK if that would effect the tile.

Just spitballing, I’d be afraid metal mesh might cause de-adherence over time, especially if it corordes. I really like the mesh idea. Loose cotton fabric like cheese cloth or maybe a little tougher would absorb the tar and might make it even stronger, just have to pour at a high enough temp. Fiberglass sheet might also work.

Defacing postal boxes is destruction of federal property. Up to 3 years and $200k. Also, postal inspectors will absolutely dick you down and make local Florida cops look even way more dumberer.

Postal inspectors are kind of like game wardens. They are cops, but, they mostly get a pass and they do a lot of good.

I’ve never seen one, but have read about them.

Really interesting from a guerilla art perspective. Also, the durability is innovative.

fsck

Jeebus. That’s fucking wild.

This summer has been like summers when I was a kid. I’m a few hundred miles north of where I was.

(Neighbors look at us like we’re crazy when working outside in the mid 90s, humidity is only like 60-70%.) Heat tolerance is a superpower, apparently.

This is a very sharp article. Think I first saw it on Hackaday. I should be using the checklist more often. If there is to be a 3D print bible like Machinery’s Handbook, this article is foundational.

In particular, chamfers and fillets and their relationship to strength by reducing stress risers is often missed on amateur designs.

I need to look at crush ribs and ribs for screws/bolts more.

The idea of a sphere being the most efficent shape is counterintuitive when most mechanical design is inherited from subtractive manufacturing. Also, speed holes reducing strength and increasing material usage is wild. These are powerful ideas that are going to cause almost a philosophical change in manufacturing. It’s going to take decades. Absolutely mind-blowing stuff when you really think about it.

DFM, in general, is a woefully underappreciated aspect of engineering. One of the great things about 3D printing is that the designer is generally forced to eat their own dog food.

MEs should recieve more education about DFM. 3D printing would be an easy way to force them to understand the difficulty poor design causes. Of course, DFM for subtractive is a larger and more complex subject, but printing would at least teach the lesson with a little sting.

From the totally opposite side of this. I think that people should be required to kill and butcher an animal at least once if they’re going to eat meat.

That would quickly end factory farming, which needs to be abolished anyhow. We’d have a lot more vegans.

That’s really fucking funny, if true. (black humor, dead baby funny)

You got a sauce on this?

That’s a great Fitzgerald quote. I had to look it up. Written after The Great Gatsby but published shortly before, The Rich Boy is a novelette. From 1926.

1926. I fucking hate knowing history. I fucking hate feeling like Cassandra.

Sometimes a DIY icepick lobotomy doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

I’ll go with you.

I’m still going to want to have a hard talk with God about why She allows cancer babies and such…

Rock and roll. I’ve seen bad things happen when someone decides it’s a good idea to modernize a PC based CNC control. (I hate PC based controls). They get their own little fence to live inside where it’s always 1999.

At least the lathe isn’t running punch tape.

Don’t upgrade or mess with the control. Disconnect from the network if it’s on it. It should have RS-232. Throw a Pi or other SBC that does serial and a 12V level shifter; use that to feed it programs.

Also, make an image of the hard drive if it has one and start looking for a spare drive on ebay.

Wow! That’s amazing, I’ve never heard of a blue bee. That’s just really cool. I bet it was confusing when you first saw it. I’ve heard of/seen solitary bees but didn’t think about it. Did a little beekeeping work as a kid.

We’ve got a couple weird ones on the other side of the pond that I’ve been around. (wasps, actually)

Cow killer/Red velvet ant it’s sting is in the top 10 for most painful. They’re beautiful.

Cicada Killers are huge, 5cm/2in long. I had one fall out of a tree with a cicada right next to me. I thought it was birds fighting.

Didn’t even think it about it not being a honey a bee. You’re right.

Drones don’t have stingers. Queens and workers have stingers. Queens are from worker larva that are fed royal jelly that transforms them into a queen that is capable of reproduction. Workers are technically female but they’re closer to asexual.

So, that badass enby ace bee gave that motherfucker what for.

The whole Tankie thing. Just like MAGAts but on the other side. They’re authoritarian left with lots of Chinese and possibly Russian influence. Far left most of us support are on the opposite end of the authoritarian/individualistic axis from both Tankies and MAGAts.

Was looking up tracks in a field guide the other day and ran across this super cute rodent, The Mountain Beaver.