Category Archives: probably boring

Sometimes the old ways are best

Posted on October 22, 2015 by paulwallich

So after HP finally replaced the lemon laptop that I’d gotten this spring with a brand spanking new touchscreen laptop, I waited until I had a few completely open days to do a dual-boot install of ubuntu on it, just … Continue reading →

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You get what you pay for, yet again

Posted on September 17, 2015 by paulwallich

Dunning and Krueger strike again. I thought I knew the retail PC industry well enough, just because I’ve chatted with so many of the people who invented it. But times have changed. This spring I bought a refurb windows laptop … Continue reading →

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I don’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed

Posted on May 22, 2015 by paulwallich

I got a refurbished  HP laptop off a discount site a couple months ago, so that I could have a machine for doing hacker/maker stuff away from home (we have a macbook, but it’s flakey with arduinos and only runs … Continue reading →

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Nasty things, adventures

Posted on March 18, 2015 by paulwallich

When my freshman-year college roommate was in medical school, he told me that surgeons were trained to say “There!” instead of “Oops” when they made a mistake like cutting the wrong organ, so as not to panic everyone around them. … Continue reading →

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What does that button do

Posted on February 26, 2015 by paulwallich

You know the adage that documentation is to let other people understand how and why you did something, including the other person that is you three months from now? If I had either documented the steps I took to get … Continue reading →

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First rule of holes

Posted on February 20, 2015 by paulwallich

I wanted to get something printed before this afternoon’s maker meeting, So when Repetier crashed (it does that on and off) I figured it would be no problem to just restart, reconnect and get the print going. Nerp. Apparently it … Continue reading →

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Less is more

Posted on February 14, 2015 by paulwallich

Yesterday I took off my cobbled-together insulation and installed the simple fix that Printrbot sent out — thank you! Since part of the installation process involved running the bed up to 100c to get the thermal expansion right for tightening … Continue reading →

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An organized workplace is a sane workplace

Posted on February 5, 2015 by paulwallich

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to build a bunch of the kits that have accumulated in the basement over the years. Among them a cheap 4-wheel-drive robot chassis (well, actually the previous version, which will become significant in … Continue reading →

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Too clever is dumb

Posted on January 30, 2015 by paulwallich

My nice new printrbot Metal Plus (of which more some other time) has a bunch of holes in the kapton film on the build plate, and it’s my fault. I was trying to be smart, but I ended up stupid. … Continue reading →

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Soldering under a microscope is weird

Posted on January 20, 2015 by paulwallich

But I think I could get used to it if I had to. I was at Generator this afternoon, and I forgot to bring my 4X magnifier clip-ons, so I had to use the binocular scopes at their soldering stations … Continue reading →

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