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tech

3D printing software? [tech]

I want a widget that doesn't exist so I might be stuck designing it for 3D printing. I have never done this before. For design software, I gather both Onshape and TinkerCAD are available for free. Anybody with experience have opinions which I should start with? I have never used any CAD program before, but am not new to drafting. OTOH my drafting experience was all about 40 years ago. Open to other suggestions available for the Mac for free.

Also, I don't have my own 3D printer, so I'll be availing myself of various public-access options. But this means the iterative design feedback loop will be irritatingly protracted. Also I might have to pay money for each go round, so I'd like to minimize that. Also I am still disabled and not able to spend a lot of time in a makerspace. But I am a complete n00b to 3D printing and have zero idea what I'm doing. Does anybody have any recommendations for good educational references online about how to design for 3D printing so your widget is more likely to come out right the first or at least third time? By which I mean both print right and also function like you wanted – I know basically nothing about working with the material(s) and how they behave and what the various options are, while the widget I want to make will be functional not ornamental and have like tolerances and affordances and stuff. So finding a way to get those clues without hands-on experience, or at least minimizing the hands-on experience would be superb.

Entry tags:

vital functions

vital functions

Reading. ... I think, like, a page or two of Descartes (Treatise on Man), and that's it?

OH. NO. I also finished my first pass through indexing The National Trust Cookbook for EYB. That's right. That's a thing I did.

Watching. Three Whole Entire Episodes of Beddybyes, halfway through the third of which the toddler (who felt it was Very Important that we saw it) pretty much fell asleep where it was sat.

Playing. RIDICULOUS Inkulinati run for Preposterous Amounts Of Prestige.

Cooking. Medlar jelly (plain, spiced). Quince sorbet. Several bread. A batch of buttermilk pancakes. Some terrible First, Burn Your Lettuce, thereby ticking another item off the current Cook The Book project. Buttermilk pancakes.

Eating. One of the CHILLIS from the CHILLI PLANTS we brought HOME from the GREENHOUSE just after first frost (but they were fine); also A turned the small pile of peppers that broke off the sweet pepper I brought home on a bike, still green, into akuri this morning.

Exploring. Important sploshy stomp through the puddles of Barking Park. I... think that's it?

Growing. I have NOT sown any physalis or lemongrass in the electric propagator, to get them hopefully Established by the time I need it for Other Things in the new year. This is a deliberate decision. They can go in next week.

... and now it's very definitely time for bed, goodnight world. <3

Entry tags:

geog,
surrealism

This is a real place [geog, surrealism]

Saw this, blew my mind, thought I'd share. Behold, Lençóis Maranhenses:

Watch on YouTube

2025 Oct 28: PBS Terra [pbsterra on YT]: It Looks Like a Desert. But It Has Thousands of Lakes

When I heard in the video how big it was, I turned on satellite view in Google Maps and popped "Lençóis Maranhenses" into the search bar:

( Image below cut. Content advisory: trypophobes avoid )

I have processed the fruit

There was less of it usable than if it hadn't been sitting in my living room for a fortnight, but there is one dehydrator load of apples drying, and one saucepan of Apfelmus cooling, and... I think the latter is probably going to get frozen (at least in the first instance) because I am not at all convinced I have water-bathing a couple of jars in me right now. That might be a December problem.

But. The pulp leftover from the medlar jelly is frozen in Future Sticky Toffee Pudding-sized portions. The quince sorbet is in the freezer in its tub. And the apples are As Above. I am very very glad to have got that all dealt with, but alas have no other thoughts to contribute. <3

some good things!

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Entry tags:

gastronomy

Getting a head of things [gastronomy]

The Bostoniensis household's last grocery order included some cucumbers but the delivery service mystifyingly substituted for them a head of cabbage. They were very apologetic when Mr B called to complain, and refunded us the price of the cabbage, so now it's a free cabbage. But it's still here taking up a remarkably large volume of space in our fridge, what with the spherical thing, and it's a week before Thanksgiving.

Cooking a cabbage was not on our plans for this week. But throwing out a perfectly good cabbage seems sad. And I have been complaining about not getting enough veggies to eat. So.

Anybody have a very delicious recipe for cabbage that conforms to the following parameters?:

• Cooked. No raw cabbage.

• Really, really low effort. I am resigned to having to chop the cabbage itself, but maybe minimal other chopping of other veggies or meats. Something where the actual cooking isn't too fussy.

• Not haluski. We love haluski. We have most of the ingredients for haluski. We do not have the time or energy for taking on a project like haluski.

• Not stuffed cabbage. The kind with ground beef and tomato sauce. Neither of us likes it. Possibly because we don't like the taste of cabbage in tomato sauce.

• Not corned beef and cabbage. We love corned beef and cabbage but omg have you seen the price of brisket.

• Relately, maybe no stewing or slow cooking? The smell of slow cooking the corned beef and cabbage is dire, and we don't want to have to flush air we paid to heat. Maybe it would be okay if more heavily seasoned.

• Gotta mostly be cabbage. We have a lot of cabbage to get through.

We like spicy, though it's not required; no cilantro, and probably no coconut. Main dish or side, with meat or without.

Edit: Okay, maybe we'll just buy more cabbages. I am very excited by this harvest of recipes.

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on pain of pain

this post is not Descartes apologia

but I did spend this morning sat down with my printouts and my page markers and my highlighters, and I did this evening take some photos of the relevant pages of a book I've loaned to someone else, and the essay (I say, grandiosely) tentatively entitled The Obligatory Page And A Half On Descartes: against a new dualism is definitely In The Works.

I haven't quite worked out the It is a truth universally acknowledged... opening sentence, and it's probably mostly going to be a series of quotations accompanied by EMPHATIC GESTICULATION in the form of CAPSLOCK, but it's not actually (in its entirety) germane to The Book, so here the indignant yelling can go.

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Not In Our Name letter from cis women in support of the trans+ community

https://notinourname.org.uk/petition/not-in-our-name-women-in-support-of-the-trans-community/

LGBTQ Nation: Over 60,000 women sign a letter in support of trans women & calling out “false feminism”

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[food] breadferences

At the weekend we made a mildly unusual detour to a fancy local bakery; one of the things they had on the shelves about which I went "oooh" was fig, hazelnut & anise bread. So that flavour combination (plus some spelt) was went into the oven this morning!

The way bread normally works around here is that I make it, via the Ritual Question of Do You Have Any Breadferences (Bread Preferences). To facilitate this call and response, A List of our Usual Options, doubtless to be added to. Suggestions welcome. :)

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(no subject)

I didn't make a post about it here because I'd already been whining about it everywhere else, but last week on Monday, I got a package I'd ordered -- torn and empty. Just a torn, empty envelope that the delivery guy was like, shrug about and ran off without even telling me what I could do about it. So I went to the physical store and they said they couldn't do anything about online orders, and then called the delivery company and they opened a case, then they closed that case on Tuesday. I had to call the online store then and in fairness, everyone was nice about it, but as the days passed I got more and more frustrated, and I basically lost the entire week to paralyzing anxiety (compounded by my mom suddenly pointing out that she was for real running out of money, despite having asked her a million times to keep me updated precisely so it wouldn't shock me into paralyzing anxiety). Even emailing to ask for updates only got me an automated message.

Since it still wasn't resolved this Monday, I called again, and at least I got actual information out of the person who responded -- they'd been waiting (allegedly, but I believe it) for the delivery company to get back to them about their search for the items I ordered, and the delivery company was taking its sweet goddamn time. Apparently they HAD received my emails and tried to fast-track it for my sake, and I finally got a bit of a timeline -- that if the delivery company didn't find the stuff in 48 hours, they'd process a refund. I did not think the delivery company would find the stuff, to be honest, because it looked far more like "someone ripped this open and stole the contents" than "the paper caught on something and ripped and everything fell out." But okay.

So finally today I got a resolution and I should be getting the money back in the account I paid from (my Wise.com account, which I mostly got just so a specific friend of mine can send me money, because for some bullshit US/Canada sync reason they couldn't keep doing it through Paypal) soon, I hope. The upside is they still seem to have the one item I was afraid I wouldn't be able to order again, and also it's on sale now. So I may end up saving money.

I'm still boggled about a delivery driver just giving somebody an empty package, like what kind of policy has to be in place for that to happen? That's fucking weird. But at least I no longer need to be worrying about it.

Entry tags:

Choosing Health Insurance: Preventive Care [US, healthcare, Patreon]

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1886696.html

Hey, Americans and other people stuck in the American healthcare system. It's open enrollment on the state exchanges, and possibly through your employer, so I wanted to give you a little heads up about preventive care and shopping for a health insurance plan.

I've noticed from time to time various health insurance companies advertising themselves to consumers by boasting that their health plans focus on covering preventive care. Maybe they lay a spiel on you about how they believe in keeping you healthy rather than trying to fix problems after they happen. Maybe they point out in big letters "PREVENTIVE CARE 100% FREE" or "NO CO-PAYS FOR PREVENTIVE CARE".

When you come across a health insurance product advertised this way, promoted for its coverage of preventive health, I propose you should think of that as a bad thing.

Why? Do I think preventive medicine is a bad thing? Yes, actually, but that's a topic for another post. For purposes of this post, no, preventive medicine is great.

It's just that it's illegal for them not to cover preventive care 100% with no copays or other cost-sharing.

Yeah, thanks to the Obamacare law, the ACA, it's literally illegal for a health plan to be sold on the exchanges if it doesn't cover preventive care 100% with no cost-sharing, and while there are rare exceptions, it's also basically illegal for an employer to offer a health plan that doesn't cover preventive care.

They can't not, and neither can any of their competitors.

( So any health plan that's bragging on covering preventive care?.... Read more [2,270 words] )

This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

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[embodiment] ... ha

"Ugh," I thought, "why am I feeling weirdly migrainey? My Next Phase Of The Menstrual Cycle is very much not due for like another week? I've been weirdly super regular basically since it reasserted itself post-surgery?"

... TURNS OUT that I had lost track of time a bit and I'm not a solid week early at all, it's a whole two days. This Means Some Things:

... still super regular by my pre-surgical standards,
I will not be at the worst stage of my cycle during Significant Travel next week, and LAST BUT VERY MUCH NOT LEAST
the migraine is still in fact very clearly associated with hormonal changes even when I'm not expecting them, take THAT Headache Is The Second Most Common Form Of Psychosomatic Pain ~statistics~ (and ongoing anxiety).

Entry tags:

vital functions

vital functions

~~... has done so many things and is Going To Bed and will fill in this placeholder Tomorrow.~~

Reading. ( Descartes, Gouldercourt et al., Clifford )

Forgotten Fruits (Christopher Stocks) got auto-returned to the library for a second time while I was still, like, a third of the way into it. I am going to try to take the DNF with grace this time, but the Completionist Itch is still there...

Writing. Grumpy e-mails to HMPO. Grumpy e-mails to uk.bookshop.org (on the plus side, the book I bought from them now has a shiny wee DRM-free tag! on the downside, I can download it in neither of the browsers I've tried so far.) Mental drafting of context-setting on movement and sleep, which really need to get out of my head and onto the page.

Playing. Inkulinati! We have Completed All Three Journeys. In the second stage we achieved an absolutely bullshit strategy that made things astonishingly easy; the third stage (with SEAL) was much harder work.

Little bit more I Love Hue.

Cooking. Two things of particular note, of which the first was ridiculous parsnip risotto with thyme pesto from The Modern Vegetarian, extremely good, would very happily eat again but I'm more dubious about the prospect of cooking it again, though I will concede it would probably go faster now I know what I'm doing.

Item the second was THE MEDLAR STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING. I am not entirely convinced I can actually detect the, you know, medlar, but it is very tasty.

Elsewise I have two batches of medlar jelly on the go (first batch did not set properly, BAH, I have not made enough jam recently, so I'm going to need to redecant and reboil that before I move on to the spiced) and some ridiculous quince sorbet that needs forcing through the sieve before churning.

And I have still not touched the apples.

Eating. Saturday lunch at Holtwhites Bakery :)

Exploring. Stupid little walk on Sunday revealed unto us, among other things: a pair of cyclamen in a bit of the verge outside our house we don't normally walk past; a discarded fork; a local bush of Purple Metallic Berries; a secret holly hedge.

Growing. SEEDS arrived. Jalapeños (at least at home) turning red.

Entry tags:

food:medlar jelly

[food] medlar jelly recipe

Irritatingly, the medlar jelly recipe I used last time I made the stuff, over at the RHS, is no longer extant (web.archive.org link!). Herewith my own readily findable copy of the thing, plus my notes on what I'm actually doing this time around.

(For amusement: I apparently first found the medlar sticky toffee pudding recipe in 2023...)

( Recipe as written )

( Notes )

Alas, dryer

The washer saga ended a little while ago, with a brand repair tech who corrected something simple. Thursday night (the start of Friday wash day) the dryer gave up.

Since the dryer had been leaving unsightly rust streaks on all the lights, I have not been subtle in my campaign for a new one.

Delivery is scheduled for today, of a dryer with a steam cycle but without wifi.

Entry tags:

on pain of pain

[pain] today in Descartes: green is the best colour because it is most like an octave

... Nor shall I say what objects of vision must be agreeable or disagreeable to it; for from what I have already said about the other senses, it is easy to grasp that light that is too strong will injure the eyes and moderate light must refresh them; and that, amongst the colours, green, which consistss in the most moderate action (which by analogy one can speak of as the ratio 1:2), is like the octave among musical consonances, or like bread among the foods that one eats, that is, it is the most universally agreeable.⁴⁰

⁴⁰ What the basis of this remark is is unclear, and although various writers have made suggestions about the relations between colours and sounds, the attempt to quantify green on a par with an octave certainly cannot be sustained. It is worth noting that Descartes will later advice Elizabeth to rid her mind of sad thoughts by reflecting on the greenness of a wood (Descartes to Elizabeth, May/June 1645, AT iv. 220).

(trans. and footnote courtesy of Stephen Gaukroger.)

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[embodiment] still a terrible hobby

[cn time-restricted eating.]

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Greater Manchester Asylum Hotels Group: Our response to the protests outside hotels

I thought this might be useful for anyone else who's resisting racism and xenophobia that's taking the form of "legitimate concerns" about asylum seekers. Most people have very little understanding of what seeking asylum in the UK is like, and the protests get a lot more media than the reality of these people's lives.

A few weeks ago, a group of asylum seekers living in hotels in Greater Manchester put out this statement, which is long but really eloquent on the miserable reality they face. It's available as a PDF here but I'll put the text ( behind a cut )

some good things make a post

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