Cognitive Disinfectant

Remember when everyone was up in arms about the antibiotic-resistant bacteria crisis, and we all needed to stop using antibacterial products right now? Corona-chan really kicked the pins out from under that campaign. Now it seems like everywhere you go, assuming you’re allowed out, there’s a hand-sanitizer station every 20 feet, and every public surface is being wiped down dozens of times each day with strong disinfectants.

True Lies Matter

On the off chance Trump beats the margin of fraud, I’d like to remind everyone in the “punch a nazi” crowd that A) you’re not very good at nazi-identification, B) the ‘nazi’ gets to punch back in self-defense, or shoot if your attack is serious enough, C) you’ll be the one facing felony charges, D) if you go out in force to protest the election results, 10USC331 could make those charges federal, which means no catch-and-release by the local po-po, and E) that felony conviction may stop you from voting or owning guns.

Software update not found

Turns out Dremel’s software is based on Cura 2.7, and the current version is 4.7. Settings extracted from the various resource directories don’t quite work as-is, due to substantial changes over the past three years. Cura silently ignores non-compliant materials and settings files, so a bit of trial-and-error will be necessary. I was able to import the basic printer definition by changing two lines, but not the materials or quality settings.

I’m honestly surprised this hasn’t been done by someone yet. It’s not hard, just tedious, and there will likely be times that the features in the newer software will be useful. I haven’t found anything wrong with the current version, but 3 years is a long time in this sort of software.

On the plus side, getting direct network access to the Dremel’s status and video without using their app is refreshingly easy:

# retrieve status as JSON
curl -d GETPRINTERSTATUS $IPADDR/command | jq .

# watch the video in any browser or VLC
http://$IPADDR:10123/?action=stream

Looks like you can also upload files and start print jobs through this API, too. Downside: so can anyone else on your network. Not a problem for me, fortunately.

On a whim, I installed Slic3r to try it out, but when I launched it, the embedded Perl interpreter started grinding on my CPU. I couldn’t decide if it was mining cryptocurrency, encrypting my hard drive, or just bad code. The latest 1.3.1-dev release started up instantly, which is suggestive. As a true open-source project, it comes with a completely empty printer and materials library, making it more of a lifestyle than a tool.

I searched Pixiv for a nice 3D-created illustration to insert here, but the ones that weren’t loli porn were bondage porn, so here’s a perfectly innocent picture from Genshin Impact.

Not much of a cheese shop, then, is it?

The Internet Archive has implemented “fact checks” and “context” for The Wayback Machine. They now confirm that the chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams/week.

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