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Joined 20 days ago
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Cake day: November 2nd, 2024

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  • Can’t argue with that. I still use FDM as well for a lot of models - currently running an old Ultimaker 2 and a BCN3D Sigma D25 for the bigger batch jobs.

    The latter is mostly stock but the UM2 is pretty much unrecognisable from when it was new now; a real Ship of Theseus. Bigger gantry, uprated board/head/feeder and tweaked Tinker firmware to suit. Shoved a Pi with Octoprint in there too.

    While you can get flex & specialty resins, you are right that you’re certainly not printing them alongside the regular stuff in one run like you intend to, unless the model is redesigned in multiple parts. They are also priced to suit :|

    Will be good to see what you come up with. Almost all of my prints are the work of others these days. I’m not much of a designer and the furthest I go with CAD is putting terribleness together in a 12 year old version of Sketchup 😂


  • You’re welcome - glad to see you have it really sussed out. Finding something that works for you and knowing it won’t just up and disappear off the market (as many fashion frames do) is excellent.

    Can see the optician side as well - they have an established process and deviating from that is unwanted faff. However, they are perfectly capable of ordering a lens to a customer given spec. A short ‘if this doesn’t work then lol you suck’ disclaimer is all it would take to make the sale.

    Resin is well within reach of the casual hobbyist now - we’re talking a couple hundred dollars to get an entry level machine, and a little extra coin for the materials/consumables. I have a (now old) Mars 3 that is ticking along beautifully.

    Safety/PPE/ventilation is the main downside compared to FDM. It’s a stinky job but you can’t fault the results for presentable and functional parts. These things can print stuff like screw threads and other teensy features perfectly.

    Offer always stands if you ever want something to demo and can’t get anyone more local to help :)



  • Teams can go fuck itself with a rock. We’ve taken licensing now that doesn’t include it.

    Still holding on to classic outlook as long as possible. The new version/skin/glow-up can go share the aforementioned rock with teams. Where’s my VBA, where’s my ribbon customisations, and why must it be dumbed down to Fisher-Price levels of ‘user friendliness’?

    A lot of my answers to user questions these days are ‘Because Microsoft ™️’.




  • It made some difference, but the racists really self-owned on that one by making the country outwardly hostile to generally white EU migrants.

    This was quickly followed by an uptick in not white, non EU migrants that the casual racist abhors.

    Particularly evident in NHS recruitment with EU recruits stagnating and African/Asian recruits increasing.

    Aside from that, the vote has pretty much fucked us all for a couple of generations minimum. Put to vote, I would gladly rejoin, even at the expense of the Pound. We’ll never see the almost 2:1 buying power against the Dollar ever again anyway.




  • Main topic aside, what are you doing putting bread and butter together with a fork?

    All the small appliance suggestions so far are great - they remove a lot of the danger and give you an easy place to start. Same for the safety items. Even with no fear, it is sensible to have an extinguisher and fire blanket in the kitchen.

    When you feel that you are ready to start picking up knives and working with flame, do it with a friend or family member that is suitably understanding & willing to teach. Simply watching it done is still familiarising yourself with the process and hopefully reducing your fears.

    My sister is the same way - I am teaching her slowly. We started with baking, as all the prep work is done cold with only one heating process. Not exactly healthy, but it it gets the ball rolling on working with heat.




  • It’s a nickel & dimed hot potato that neither side wants to take the hit on now. Our ‘left’ (Labour) has moved right enough now that it is unrecognisable from the party that Blair led in the 90s. It took unprecedented levels of corruption, cronyism and flat out fraud from the previous Tory run government to change the winds - and honestly it’s the same wind with a slightly more palatable odour.

    Brexit did the service no favours. We used to be able to tap an increasing array of medical talent from the EU, which promptly plateaued then stagnated after the vote. Now we have more and more locums and agency staff that cost a bomb to keep up. Ironically, we are now seeing an marked increase of African and Asian staffers, which the racist idiots that voted Leave abhor.

    https://ukandeu.ac.uk/what-has-brexit-meant-for-the-nhs/

    Another major question is how Brexit affects the NHS workforce. New nurses arriving from the EU and EFTA states slowed to near zero immediately and dental recruitment entered a prolonged slowdown, exacerbated in both cases by a new language testing regime.

    As with funding, both the politics and the actual impact of this were based on a longstanding problem caused by domestic short-termism: many key staff groups were in serious shortage seven years ago, and many still are. The reaction of successive governments has been to repeatedly reform visa rules to enable a very high rate of recruitment from Africa and Asia.

    While I have no issues with the nationalities of the people there to make me well, it has led to shortcomings such as the Nigerian nurse scandal.

    Along with the many, many strikes that have occurred - the argument for privatisation sadly becomes stronger. I’m actually on our work’s healthcare plan as an employee benefit, something I have never experienced before. It’s very nice for me, but it shows that my company does not trust the public system to ensure my continued fitness for work.

    Big ramble there, sorry.





  • Tongue in cheek, of course.

    The free healthcare has nosedived over the last 2 decades. It’s still free, but wait times for everything are insane unless you are actively dying. People can wait years for routine procedures & treatments. A regular GP appointment is weeks, unless you snag an ‘emergency’ appointment by phoning in at 8am sharp and beating everyone else doing the same.

    If you need an ambulance and aren’t having a cardiac episode or similar - good luck and hope someone can drive your ass to hospital. Wait times are hours at minimum. A long time to be writhing around in (non life threatening!) pain.

    Yes it is free. Unfortunately it is underfunded and overworked.


  • For that vote, we actually had a whole-ass government produced booklet through the door.

    It supported Remain and explained all the shit that would happen if Leave went through.

    The plebs saw some lies about the NHS slapped on the side of a bus, suspended all intelligence, and voted Leave. In my eyes the majority was not strong enough to consider changing foundation policy, but here we are.

    All the turmoil promised came to fruition.