Recent Posts

676

General Software Discussion / Re: OpenSCAD is a game changer for 3d printing

« Last post by mouser on June 16, 2020, 12:03 PM »

My 3d printed replacement gear failed yesterday, after a few weeks.

I thought maybe the teeth had broken, but opening it up it was clear what happened -- the D bore in the center had deformed into a circle and so the gear was slipping.

This gear undergoes some pretty strong forces against it and PLA is not made for such stuff.

I've reprinted it, making it as thick as I dare, and then "baked" it in oven for an hour, which people have documented can strengthen prints.

I'll see how long it holds up..

677

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: hotkeys for....

« Last post by mouser on June 15, 2020, 07:59 PM »

Seems reasonable enough.

It would even be fine if "Mark as favorite" could be a choice in the "quick actions" section of the quick paste pop-up.

If you right click (or shift+click) on an item in quick paste menu, its the first option in the next menu that shows.

678

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« Last post by mouser on June 15, 2020, 10:09 AM »

Here's one that has a real e-ink display.. Uses Android. Refresh rates are slow but it has a big 10.3 inch screen and a nice pen:

Onyx Boox Note2

679

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Where is Baby Cody

« Last post by mouser on June 12, 2020, 05:50 PM »

I can't remember where Baby escaped to last.. Anyone know?

680

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« Last post by mouser on June 11, 2020, 09:03 PM »

New e-reader Paper display with fast refresh?

https://liliputing.c...an-e-ink-screen.html

681

LaunchBar Commander / Re: How to Restore a lost dock

« Last post by mouser on June 08, 2020, 10:52 AM »

LBC is supposed to have code to fix up docking bars that get lost off screen due to monitor disconnect, etc. 
You might try opening the options and using the menu "View -> Rebuild" and look for any flashing areas on the screen indicating that your launch bar is hiding somewhere.
Maybe I should add an option to right-click on a dock and reset it to appear on screen in window form, for these odd situations..

682

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by mouser on June 08, 2020, 08:42 AM »

Ditto 

Especially in time of pandemic when some of are not driving our cars frequently, can be a life saver.

683

LaunchBar Commander / Re: How to Restore a lost dock

« Last post by mouser on June 07, 2020, 12:06 PM »

You know, LBC will let you MINIMIZE each dock to a single icon menu in the system tray (notification) area, where it will act as a menu.. I wonder if your dock wasn't minimized down there?

684

LaunchBar Commander / Re: How to Restore a lost dock

« Last post by mouser on June 06, 2020, 10:47 PM »

It's pretty hard to lose a file permanently in LBC because it keeps backups and multiple files.. But it's easy to misplace stuff since LBC can be confusing.

The first task is to open the options of lbc and go look at what dock files are loaded -- see if you see your dock in the OPTIONS.. If so then you know it's just a matter of configuring where it is on screen.

If its not even listed in the list of tree node files, it may just need to be OPENED by you in the options.  One of the confusing things about LBC is that you can have multiple dock files loaded at the same time, so it may be that you closed one of the files (rather than just toggled off one of the docks).

See what you can figure out and let me know.

685

Living Room / Re: How to identify email address at the end of lines with RegEx?

« Last post by mouser on June 05, 2020, 12:57 PM »

You might also check out my program, Regex Captor:
https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=45497

686

Screenshot Captor / Re: Backup and restore Screenshot Captor configuration

« Last post by mouser on June 05, 2020, 11:53 AM »

Yep, just look for ScreenshotCaptor.ini in your MyDocuments\DonationCoder\ScreenshotCaptor directory (or if you are using portable version its right in same directory as the program).

687

Find And Run Robot / Re: Can I create a list of my aliases?

« Last post by mouser on June 04, 2020, 10:48 PM »

Or type: agroups

You can also edit and print the .alias files in the alias directory; all aliases are stored in standard human readable xml files.

688

Screenshot Captor / Re: Configuring external tools help

« Last post by mouser on June 04, 2020, 06:29 AM »

Hi Jax.

There are a couple of different ways to do what you want.

Note first that Screenshot Captor includes a built-in tool to upload to ImageShack online image sharing service.

For other tools, the most common way would be to choose the Tools menu and then the last option "Configure external tools"

You can then look at any existing tools or add new ones.  In the add dialog it will tell you how to format the file name for your tool.

But I guess the first step is to find the tool you want to trigger and see how it expects to be told about the screenshot filename.


The other way external tools can be configured is to have someone make a .sctool configuration file for it so you don't have to manually add it as explained above.  SC comes with a bunch of these for some common programs.
If you find a good tool that you want to use with SC you could post about it and maybe someone can make an .sctool file for you.

689

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by mouser on May 29, 2020, 05:26 AM »

I recently upgraded my laptop from a 2011 Lenovo Thinkpad x120 to a 2016 Lenovo Thinkpad x260, purchased on ebay for about $220.
I love the small form factor (12 inch screen) and the no-nonsense style of these little lightweight guys, and they can be found in abundance on ebay.  The older models are plenty good for me.

690

Screenshot Captor / Re: "Grab selected Region" in Context Menu

« Last post by mouser on May 28, 2020, 04:43 PM »

 

691

Screenshot Captor / Re: "Grab selected Region" in Context Menu

« Last post by mouser on May 28, 2020, 05:41 AM »

Just go to the "Hotkeys and Shortcuts" tab in the options and tell it that PrtScr should trigger a selected region capture.

692

Living Room / Re: 3D Printing - General Discussion

« Last post by mouser on May 27, 2020, 06:56 PM »

Thingiverse is the only place I've ever used to get models.
Yep, the Anycubic has an sdcard, so i copy files to the sdcard using my pc card reader and then manually move them.

Being able to go directly from pc to start printing without using an sd card to manually transfer it would be wonderful.

As would a webcam pointing at the printer so I could check on progress from another room or away -- its not infrequent that the print fails and needs to be aborted.. I can't wait for the next generation of printers that can detect when a print has become dislodged, or the print head clogged.  That would save a lot of hassle.

693

Living Room / Re: 3D Printing - General Discussion

« Last post by mouser on May 27, 2020, 05:39 PM »

It's pretty quiet.. Noise level is something I would definitely look at in review of any printer I was considering.  Still, it makes enough noise that I wouldn't want to work in the same room as it while printing if I had a choice.
Ventilation, I guess I don't worry about it for normal PLA printer (maybe I should?).  It's one of the reasons I would probably avoid a resin printer.

694

Living Room / Re: 3D Printing - General Discussion

« Last post by mouser on May 27, 2020, 05:00 PM »

I like my printer quite a lot, BUT I have no experience with any other printer, so I'm in a poor position to advise.

What I can say is that it is:

• It's quite compact -- that was important to me since I am in a small apartment.  But there are some large models that I can't print because they are too big.  If I had more room I might get a bigger one, or with a built in fillament holder.
• I like not having to glue things to the bed.
• These printers seem to be improving so quickly, that it's hard to imagine that there wouldn't be a better one to buy at the same price point.
• There's still a lot of fussiness that you need to expect.. especially I find at the start of prints.  It will require some hands on messing with.

695

Living Room / Re: 3D Printing - General Discussion

« Last post by mouser on May 27, 2020, 03:37 PM »

Some other 3d printing threads on DC forum:

• https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=45256
• https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=45297
• https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=45331
• https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=45427

696

General Software Discussion / Re: OpenSCAD is a game changer for 3d printing

« Last post by mouser on May 27, 2020, 10:41 AM »

Today I used my 3d printer for something useful.

I have an (old and expensive to repair) automatic trash can opener, and in a fit of anger I slammed down the lid and heard something break..  Opening it up revealed a plastic gear has snapped in half in the gearbox mechanism that opens and closes the lid.
I tried epxoying it and supergluing it, and both fixes lasted less than a day.  I then tried to figure out how I might order a replacement part.  No luck.

I finally decided to try to use my 3d printer and print a replacement.  I used OpenSCAD, which is magic, and an awesome library for it called involute_gears.

After a few experiments to get the fit exactly right, it seems to be working great.  This is definitely the future of repairs.

697

Android Apps / Re: Updating my Android Apps

« Last post by mouser on May 26, 2020, 12:34 AM »

New usage chart May 26, 2020:

698

DcUpdater / Re: DcUpdater fails to check for updates

« Last post by mouser on May 20, 2020, 08:04 PM »

Thank you for posting this! I will try to update the official version of DcUpdater asap.

699

Living Room / Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage - Unloading capital cannons on customer acquisition

« Last post by mouser on May 19, 2020, 05:08 PM »

And the sad thing is, any company who tries to build a sustainable business model can't get a foot in the door

YES YES YES.
This is the most important sad part.

700

Living Room / Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage - Unloading capital cannons on customer acquisition

« Last post by mouser on May 19, 2020, 03:10 PM »

What's interesting here is seeing how these giant corporations think:

He thought this was a stupid idea. "A business as successful a Doordash and worth billions of dollars would clearly not just give away money like this." But I pushed back that, given their recent obscene fundraise, they would weirdly enough be happy to lose that money. Some regional director would be able to show top-line revenue growth while some accounting line-item, somewhere, would not match up, but the company was already losing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Which brings us to the question - what is the point of all this? These platforms are all losing money. Just think of all the meetings and lines of code and phone calls to make all of these nefarious things happen which just continue to bleed money. Why go through all this trouble?

Grubhub just lost $33 million on $360 million of revenue in Q1.

Doordash reportedly lost an insane $450 million off $900 million in revenue in 2019 (which does make me wonder if my dream of a decentralized network of pizza arbitrageurs does exist).

Uber Eats is Uber's "most profitable division” 😂😂. Uber Eats lost $461 million in Q4 2019 off of revenue of $734 million. Sometimes I need to write this out to remind myself. Uber Eats spent $1.2 billion to make $734 million. In one quarter.

Again the idea is that we are living in an age where companies are not actually trying to make a profit or come up with a sustainable business plan -- they just raise and burn through enormous piles of money in an attempt to capture market share and jump off the train before it crashes..