GNOME 2 was fun and easy. It felt like they were trying to learn from the mistakes of Windows and Mac UIs.

“Aint webassy we doms?”

Perhaps the software OP is using has a second layer of generation (with a different network) that focuses on details like eyes. It might not even know the input prompt (and if it does then it might not have the training background to reward keeping things pixelated).

Can’t be much sunlight normally, the curtain rail is decorative.

Glad you liked it :)

I’d meant to add a concrete spill pool thing at least between the locomotive and building but forgot. (Pretty sure that excuse has shown up on at least one environmental disaster report, lol).

You’re hired!

Swappable boilers […] visually distinct

I was thinking something that looks a bit like a steel-framed ISO tank, but smaller and with more connectors. At a minimum you would need:

• Lots of caution stripes on the frames (80’s/90’s retro futuristic)
• Removable insulation panels from the sides. You would want them installed when on the train (to save heat) but removed when the whole unit is hoisted up onto the solar concentrator. The tank itself will be painted black for this purpose, at least on the curved sides.
• Inlet and outlet for steam. Perhaps stainless high pressure pipe flanges complete with their cute tapered nozzly bit. Maybe 10-20cm or more in internal diameter? I’m not familiar with the impedance tradeoffs and pipe sizes normally used for this. I’m also not sure how you’d connect these to the engine (external pipes taken on and off all the time?).
• Electrical connector for measuring the in-built thermistors & thermocouples. Probably an ISO metric series waterproof with lots of pins like an M24 connector just dangling somewhere.
• A drain tap on the bottom of the steam loop side with a very long handle on it (so the operator doesn’t die if they open it at the wrong time). Looks like a standard ball valve like you’d use on a home water or gas line, but with a very long handle that reaches to the edge of the frame.
• A water inlet for the caustic side. Something small like a household water pipe and ball valve.
• An (optional) place to install your own temp probe. Household pipe sticking out of the top.
• A drain tap on the bottom of the caustic side with a padlock installed (to stop people dissolving themselves with high-temp high-pressure sodium hydoxide).
• Redundant pressure gauges near the draining taps, as a last ditch warning to operators.

Installing and removing the steam pipe flanges would not be elegant, requiring a rattle gun (like tire shops use to change your wheels). Maybe there are some more elegant solutions? Especially since it’s so easy to accidentally pressurise a system after only tightening some of the bolts (woops).

I’ve used some of those fungicides but wouldn’t have put that together.

They wouldn’t look like the nice, uniform, dry powdered stuff you’re used to, instead they’d be unevenly coloured slime :)

I might be wrong specifically about the copper carbonate product, but the others are probably right. No brass, no bronze and no copper allowed (sadly).

Thanks Jacob for the illustration, it’s interesting to see your take on this. I approve of the double-decker carriages (hail from Sydney!) and I think the little tunnel under the tracks is a neat detail.

Your infrastructure seems to be a mix of industrial and residential in a very remote location. The workers living here would need to rely on food brought in on the trains, their field would not be enough, let alone materials for repairs and other mechanical supplies. Perhaps this is a “company outpost”? I hope they pay well, it could get quite lonely if the only outsiders you talk to are train drivers. The only way I could think of fixing that would be to turn this into a platform with a cafe (and that creates a myriad of other problems). I hope someone else has a better idea than me.

I have some random practical thoughts that could affect how things look. They’re written off-hand, so don’t assume they’re completely true :)

Spills management:

• NaOH and KOH are not particularly bad pollutants because they eventually break down into mostly harmless things.
• They will still however kill all the grass and plants wherever they spill (and discolour the dirt), both temporarily (hydroxide attacking the organics) and long term (K & Na salts salting the earth).
• When moving 5 tonnes from one container to another it’s likely that small spills will occur all of the time.
• It would be worth putting the solar concentrator on a concrete pad with small (30-50cm, depending on climate peak rainfall) lips/walls all around, to act as a containing bathtub. Otherwise leaked NaOH/KOH will wash off every time it rains. This is known as bunding and looks like this.
• Leaks on the tracks won’t be as obvious (due to the ballast rocks under the traintracks) but it still might be worth expanding this ballast to be wider where you expect the engine to stop.

.

Handling hydroxides is messy, potentially dangerous (“I’m melting! My eyes!”) and annoying:

• It might be better to design a boiler that can be craned off the train and onto the solar concentrator (and visa versa). No chemical handling, if it leaks then you tag it for repair and place it on a bunded pad until it gets picked up.
• You could keep a line of pre-dried boilers handy so that trains don’t need to wait 45 minutes to continue and so that they can keep running on stormy days.
• Standardise boiler units across all trains. Perhaps small modular ones (2x2x2m?) that the engines take multiples of (depending on their size).
• Not sure what the cranes would look like. If you’re clever then you might find a way of laying things out so simple human-powered (long-armed wooden) cranes could do all of the work.

.

Metal corrosion and pollution

• Pure NaOH will be very nasty to metals like copper. No copper and bronze steam locos, even in the boiler, unless you want a pile of verdigris within a trip or two :(
• Some stainless steels fare better
• You don’t want any products of a hydroxide-metal reaction (gooey mushy rusty gungy stuff) leaking, these will be a reasonably persistent pollution. Copper oxides, hydroxides, carbonates and the like are insecticides and fungicides often used on citrus trees so perhaps it’s not too bad, plus it would be economically infeasible to let your boilers dissolve away to nothing all of the time, so maybe this won’t be an issue in practice.

+1 to runit. So much simpler than systemd unit files.

He’s lost a finger in his zipper!

Ah thanks, sorry, I was thinking of my MK3.

Are you turning off the magnetic ABL, or using it through the garolite?

So this problem is intermittent? Eep. If you’re lucky enough to be able to capture a video of the full home and print start when the problem occurs then that might help; but that might be difficult.

Those security features are misleading.

A second app can already read all of your files, modify the first app, modify $PATH to replace your display server and do anything it wants as your user. Running wayland instead of Xorg provides no tangible benefits in security.

https://halestrom.net/darksleep/blog/054_nvme/

Summary: two Silicon Power P34A80’s died within a few months of use, the second one was the warranty replacement of the first. In both cases sectors suddenly became permanently unreadable.

Eat bad food, wake up with your wallet stolen.

Yay. It’s so much nicer to go through these routes, especially when the have extra info. Youtube just wants you to watch more junk.

Gamersnexus used to do this, then they just abandoned their site. I think they’re using it again now but as a companion, it doesn’t link to their videos?

“Thou has missed daily prayers for two whole weeks”

Sorry for the late reply, tied up. Thankyou for the photos.

The Z-axis leadscrews look OK in the photos (nothing obviously wrong). That’s a very clean and new printer.

Q1. Is there any grease on those Z-axis leadscrews (tall metal spiral rods) or are they completely dry?

Q2. If you force your printer to move up and down does it make unusual noises at some parts of its travel height? You can try typing thing g-code into your printer monitor software to make it move up and down:

G0 Z100 F1000   (move to Z position 100mm.  You won't actually travel at 1000mm/minute, instead the printer will do whatever it's max is)
G0 Z0 F1000    (move to Z position 0mm, ie nozzle touching the bed)

You may need to home the axes first (G28)

Q3. Are these screws on both sides properly tight? I think I might possibly see a gap under one, but it could also be an optical illusion from reflections.

The fact the lines are at the same height between different jobs suggests something is wrong with your Z axis. Can you post photos of your printer, including the Z rails and/or screws?

https://github.com/maltejur/discord-screenaudio

A custom discord client that supports streaming with audio on Linux

Jaysus, I wish this were a world where stuff like that wasn’t necessary.

Uneducated question: what’s the benefit of a dedicated client over running it in a normal browser?

Can you describe the issue? I don’t use Discord (and I presume the problem might depend on what browser you use).