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  Seeing as I'm on special vote-issuing duty tomorrow from sparrowfart, and chances are I'll be doing the count as well, tomorrow could be a very long day... #nzpol

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  Time for a quick game of "Why the f**k did I come into this room?"

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  The lads and me at our NZFS "Chop Shop" brushing up our skillz 16 years ago. It'll buff out.

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  Heh, #RNZ predicting a 5.7 earthquake on 8th August 2026 😜 #eqnz

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  My #HomeAssistant Pi 5 dropped off the network. Can't see why because a) it's not on the network, and b) I don't have a microscopic HDMI cable. Boots and connects if I shove a headless Raspbian SD into it, so presumably the HA SD is shagged somehow?

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  @Em0nM4stodon@infosec.exchange Er, no. Inland Revenue make it compulsory.

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  Doctor: "Can we use AI for this appointment?" Me: "Certainly, as long as you give me a copy of the transcript so that I can verify it." Doctor: "OK, let's not use AI."

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  The #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter just produced this "Hello World" with a dot spacing of 8μm. That's the size of a human red blood cell, and the accuracy of the Intel 4004 CPU feature size. Positioning is good down to sub-4μm but the point and the Sharpie ink film start smudging up badly. The advance is due to a new mechanical touch-sensing probe tip assembly.

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  Can you guess what this is? Right or wrong answers, I know you lot, you'll do it anyway :)

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  Today Young Grasshopper set about repairing earlier soldering efforts on their prototyping board, using the soldering iron they recovered using citric acid and a scrubber. They learned how to control 2 LEDs off one pin, and reviewed resistor codes. They learned to friction cut plastic with paracord, and then made a bolas/poi to demonstrate centripetal force and conservation of momentum. Nobody got whacked, but we wrecked a bush.

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  Interesting $10 spectrometer chip that'd make a real nice tricorder addition to give chemical analysis. Probably be a while before its on #Hackaday but. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-spectrometer-chip-real-chemical-wearables.html

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  I have baked two successive small, windowless buildings in lieu of rye loaves. I am beginning to suspect my yeast is dead.

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  Two days ago a spaceship full of drugs landed in Australia. News coverage wasn't exactly widespread. Varda are working with an indigenous community (not against them) to manufacture drugs in zero g on orbit that cannot be made on Earth. These are typically small volume for rare conditions, or experimental pathfinders. They've been doing one every 3 or 4 months. Just thought somebody should know.

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  Well, The Empress of My Immediate Vicinity wanted to know if her tiny (0.6mm dia.) watercress seeds were sprouting. I have a rather nice trinocular microscope, so I used that. Sadly, no sprouts, but they look damn cool. (Looks even nicer in 3D)

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  I have enough wild clay processed to make a something. It's a bit gritty and I think I'll end up processing it a bit more, but I'll make a small, crude bowl and see if I have a snowball's chance of doing anything with it. It does wrap around my finger without cracking, so there's hope.

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  The bowl is too damp to smooth, let alone burnish, but here's the wild clay test pot. It's about 100mm across.

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  Just a Reminder. Microsoft say in their Terms of Service that Copilot is "for entertainment purposes only". Their own T&Cs prohibit business use. https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/05/copilot-is-for-entertainment-purposes-only-according-to-microsofts-terms-of-service/

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  Experiment with pot continues. Wee wild clay pot now leathery and smoothed out. Dried a bit in the shed, but I've brought it inside to dry properly upside down. Probably take a couple of days for the next step.

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  Um, geek history.

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  An excellent FreeCAD 1.1 For Noobs video has dropped from deltahedra https://youtu.be/KmtqNaGPiiQ

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  Took me a while to figure out I could use the #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter to etch its own probes. This is a test of my wee electrolysis cell. You can just see the turbulence caused by electrolysis when the probe dips in.

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  The guide to automated etching of RepRapMicron Probe Tips and their integration/assembly is now on the Github wiki: https://github.com/VikOlliver/RepRapMicron/wiki/Probe-Tip-Fabrication-And-Assembly Yes, the RepRapMicron etches its own tips. Comments and suggestions welcome.

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  Recent storms exposed a seam of decent clay in the bank by our driveway. I've fired a pellet of it and it doesn't dissolve in water or crack up. Might do a wee pot or two and see if it's any good.

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  I managed to get a repeatable, automated probe etch done for the #RepRapMicron #3Dprinter, using the Z axis to control the etch. These are 0.3mm diameter 316 stainless wires, etched on different occasions. Yes the probe walls are meant to be rough to hold the resin "ink":

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  Harvested a couple of kilos of wild clay from the slip exposed by the bottom of the driveway (the drain is now, erm, cleared). Currently soaking it so I can float the roots, dead bugs, fossilized dinosaur droppings etc. out of it, and let the big sharp rocks fall to the bottom. I haven't done clay for decades, simply because I haven't seen any around here.

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  I have an #Astronomy theory: "Dark Matter" is composed of the intelligent races of the universe's missing laundered limb-end coverings.

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  @sundogplanets You just wait until Elon figures he wants a hand in space-based beamed power...

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  Hmm, weather not looking good. May do a fast charge on the Aft Power Cells...

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  #Maserton #NZ Lots of lightning incoming from the East, level with Castlepoint.

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  #Masterton #NZ That lightning is now a red warning, anticipating large hail.