Chris

a cartoon character named marvin the martian is standing on a red carpet Alt: Animated gif of Looney Tunes character Marvin the Martian walking along a red carpet while holding a stick of unlit dynamite.

As long as they don't overcorrect to a different Marvin.

That's better than mine that said "stop using your local family-owned pharmacy and use our mail-order service, or we'll stop paying for the insulin that keeps you alive."

This found me about $250 last year, and I know a few people who had several thousand dollars in unclaimed funds. It's worth keeping an eye on this throughout the year in case more money turns up.

No argument there. The changes over the last 30+ years are striking for those of us who remember.

Yup. Hence my never wanting to leave the PNW (although the Seattle area really isn't particularly wet … just dark/dreary in the winter).

I remember some fun (for me as a kid in the '80s) flash floods in Ridgecrest. But dry doesn't compare to the "the fog moved in a downward direction twice" (aka "precipitation") in the 2.5 or so years I lived in Peru.

The "Mutuals" and "Quiet Posters" feeds are also really good to check in on if your "Following" feed is full of prolific posters.

Yup. And the Mojave (about 30 mins from Death Valley).

Growing up elsewhere (in both the hottest and driest deserts in the world) made me never want to leave once my family settled here … and I don't intend to.

I thought it was a cute joke when I first opened it and it showed me a merlin … turns out there were a pair of them flying around off in the distance (they're loud/squeaky). They've since had a couple successful nesting years because there were quite a few more this spring.

Years ago, a trans neighbor mentioned that she and other trans women got more hate (occasionally getting physical) around some of the gay bars/areas in Seattle than from the straight community. I'd hope Buttigieg isn't that bad, but he's clearly no friend to them, either.

Yeah, I guess I should have phrased that as "people who consider themselves to be on the left (aka liberals/progressives).

But if you look at the upset from the trans community about this, a lot of them held out hope he would be better, particularly on this subject.

I've never understood the fascination that people on the left have with Buttigieg. I get that he's an excellent communicator … he's useful to have out there on Fox News, etc but the guy is basically the poster child for the neoliberalism that's been ruining the Democratic party for decades.

The biggest issue to watch out for with Bambu 3mf is the custom stuff they add. All 3 slicers are bad about that, though.

Be careful with any sort of modifier parts, multi-material painting, etc. It's really annoying that so much isn't cross-compatible.

I mostly only use PrusaSlicer (and on a Mac) so maybe Orca/Bambu do something different.

I was really hoping to save time by exporting my parametric variants (often hundreds of files) as .step and using PS locally with --export-3mf or --export-stl but the size/quality difference was not worth it.

Have you actually compared, though? I played with importing .step hoping it'd be better with curves but every time I've tried with PrusaSlicer, I end up with a lower res model (and oddly, much larger file size). If you unzip the .3mf, it's just converting to .stl during the import process.

Only once slicers get actual native support for things like .step (PrusaSlicer, et. al. just convert to stl, and at a much lower resolution than when I export .stl directly from Onshape/Fusion), and the different slicers stop putting proprietary stuff into their .3mf zip files.

Until they can detect and avoid pet 💩 on the floor … not really.

We've had an Ecovacs one for a few years that works well but kept getting confused/lost and erasing its maps as we moved around things like laundry baskets. Now it mostly collects dust (in the wrong way for a vacuum).

I'm occasionally terrified that a couple of our cats might try this. They're more than capable of reaching the height, but one of them once did the same to a wall during "zoomies" … and had no trouble holding onto the drywall with his claws.

A lot of our bags used to have them. I wonder if they stopped in my state around the same time that plastic grocery (but not regular retail) bags were banned and the companies wanted to save that extra $0.0000001 per bag (which some charge customers $0.10 for, anyway).

Welcome to Blue Sky. Alt text is a really big deal for the disabled community here and you will find that you get added to block/mute lists pretty quickly if you post a lot of engagement bait without it. Easy reminder:

Settings -> Accessibility -> Require alt text before posting

A bit shameful (not to mention a slap in the face) to post in about disability rights while intentionally not including alt text in the image like every disability activist here asks.

A sleep mode would definitely be required. I think you'd still want it to occasionally wake up for a heartbeat.

Personally, I'm wary of wifi as an option … I don't like security devices being exposed to the internet, even just for status. Would be cool to see a thread or (long range) z-wave option.

igloohome Padlock 2: Secure and smart access control padlock Secure anything, anywhere with the igloohome Padlock 2. This military-grade, waterproof smart padlock offers remote PIN codes, Bluetooth unlock & robust security

WiFi is probably a bit too power-hungry but Z-wave/Zigbee/Thread would be fine. The hardest part to work out would probably be weatherproofing.

That said, it looks like at least one brand has a wifi lock: www.igloohome.co/products/pad...

This is definitely a "why not both?" situation … lots of crops, not to mention animals, actually benefit from the shade provided by strategically-placed panels.

Farming and Solar Power Together Creates a Win-Win for Farmers Advancing Solar Energy in Washington State

As the meme says: why not both?

(also, please add alt text to your images).

Photo of my left arm and shoulder in a mirror with a brand new (albeit incomplete) tattoo of a carbon skeleton representation of an insulin molecule.

Diabetes tattoo #3 under way. Thanks to @pokinghope.bsky.social for the art and handpoke needlework, and @shessquee.bsky.social for the actually-correct insulin molecule. Headed back in a couple weeks to complete the honeycomb look with honey bees and wild roses.

When the headline writers know their audience.

… and the social media people can't spell. Come on, now, he's at least as famous as Mark Mercer, the least you could do is spell his name right!

Thermal camera image of a Prusa XL 3d printer mid-pint with an object taking up the left 3/4 of the print bed. Notably the print bed area to the right of the object is not as warm as the in-use section.

Prusa XL seems smarter than just "heat up next to occupied tiles." By that rule, I'd expect this print extending slightly into the 3rd column of heated tiles to also heat up the 4th column. Kudus to @prusa3d.com for the smart logic, though I'd still LOVE so see a preview of power use in PrusaSlicer.

There are still some good moderation lists to subscribe to, though some of the better ones from skysentry have (hopefully only temporarily) been hidden by bsky mods.