vanadium

Fun fact that makes this all the more sad: The ease-of-use of their control panel was expressly called out as a competitive advantage in their S-1 ahead of their IPO. That really says something about their priorities these days.

This is impressive.

After they killed Apollo, my usage after 15 years went from hours a day and tanked to a few minutes a month at present. They showed their hand, and I showed myself the door for the most part.

When the email dropped that I was one of the early users offered entrance into the IPO, I pretty much ignored it.

Not to mention that to a large extent, you can spend the difference between stock unit prices making an Ender-3 v2 nearly as capable as a $799-$1,000 printer. Does it make sense? Overkill? Depends what you want to get out of the hobby. Can’t scoff at those who want to learn the fundamentals of 3D printing through the experience of modding and tuning ad nauseum because it’s _just not quite there yet_. I’m one of those Ender-3 V2 folks who can’t stop tweaking and modding and it’s been a frustratingly awesome and educational ride for the last year and some change. No regrets. I’ve gotten great prints along the way. But now, if I add a printer in the future that promises to “just work” and it doesn’t, I can diagnose/fix pretty quickly. Which I might just do.

Need more old-school absurdity like this on the web these days.

Let’s de-escalate it to relative car value to income then, in which case I’d say Warren Buffett is a good candidate. While you might not consider it ratty, it’s still pretty grounded and emblematic of frugality, all things considered.

Similarly, I have my desk lamp outfitted with Hue lights controlled via HomeKit, which always turn on 15 minutes before work and turn off at the usual time I clock out plus 15 minutes, and for the days I close up in time, I make it an absolute habit to turn them off before heading back upstairs to be with family.

It takes commitment to consistency, but it’s extremely effective for me to associate the light switch to my work day.

I 3D printed a QR code puck for my house wi-fi. It's an easy demonstration of at-home fabrication that elicits some conversation, without having to hand over a password.

This is a brilliant way of framing it; I couldn’t agree more.

Some days, you have to wonder where we’d be if Pownce actually won out against Twitter back in the day. That Twitter won out ended up being more consequential than anyone could have expected.

AS&S is, in a relatively literal sense, next door to me. Fun bunch of folks whenever I stop by.

But as a late 70s Gen Xer, I would never trade living through that transition period from pre-Internet to Internet. You can't pay to have had that experience or perspective, and what transpired through those years from BBSes to pre-Web to Web adoption, from technological and sociological standpoints, was _insane_.

Not only that: "Activision was the first independent, third-party, console video game developer."

Growing up, that was the lens I always saw them through (and I had minor addictions to Laser Blast and River Raid, among others), so to see what they've become, well, you know. Not the same in any way from the David Crane days, just as it is with Atari from the Bushnell days through Warner, then Tramiel, then JTS, Hasbro, etc through present day.

Days long, long gone. The memories are nice.