I wasn't aware what a rich world of apps are available with Terminal User Interfaces. I could get use to TUIs more. #software #tui

There's currently a problem with the paragraphic.design website being unreachable due to some DNS issues. We've contacted the hosting company and hope this will be resolved soon.

A full disc image of Earth, as seen from the Orion Crew Module. The planet is a pale blue, swirling with white clouds and glowing slightly lighter blue in place from reflected light. At lower left, a large brown landmass is Africa, with Spain and Portugal with twinkling lights where the planet curves. At top right, auroras glow in a thin green glow, just barely separated from the planet's surface. Earth is set against the black of space (pic: NASA/R.Wiseman)

More context on this #Artemis II image:

* This is the night side, lit by moonlight. You can see city lights in Spain & Portugal, & a sliver of day at lower right

* The Sun is entirely behind Earth, which makes it a kind of solar eclipse, but w/ Earth doing the eclipsing instead of the Moon:
☀️🌍🚀🌕

Apparently I missed it in my research. Anyway pivoting to the ESP32-S3 but in the meanwhile

If you’re at @norwescon@social.seattle.wa.us Seattle - come say hi. I may have a bookmark or an ArtChip to give away.

#penplotter #scificonvention #norwescon

Kind of weird to wish people a happy Passover. I mean, isn’t it commemorating a lot of boys killed to finally end slavery? Kind of a harsh price.

Basic project - emulate a Bluetooth keyboard. The monitor a website over WiFi and send some text over to the paired device. That’s it. Turns out, this isn’t implemented well due to conflicts in the radio?

Excellent. Thanks for the pointer.

So I got a Pi Pico 2W because I had an idea - but turns out there's a bug in MicroPython that won't let me do it. Good thing this is only $6. So, what else have you done with a Pi Pico?

A 3D-printed Truchet tiling with pairs of quarter circles.

The inserts in the tray have no chosen orientations.

The tray sitting next to the inserts

I had the idea of making a Truchet tiling holder that lets me rotate each piece by 90°. There's a little pin in the tray and a slot under each piece that allows each insert to rotate and line up in one of two orientations.

Urn. A Single Line Plot. B5-sized, using Arabian Rose Ink. #penplotter #algorist #singlelineplot #moire

#paragraphic 1.4.3 update now available with another batch of smaller ui/ux improvements and some bug fixes.

Full details at paragraphic.design/blog/version...

I am learning now about how this is it's own insidious epidemic among NAS machines (not just QNAP) - and is as bad as the old Pentium Excel bug.Turns out, the problem is with the Intel chip itself that powers these units; a design flaw just leads them to die.

I've fallen into the rabbit hole of learning about open source NAS software, and there's some interesting stuff out there. But I remembered that I had an old QNAP NAS that died mysteriously, and had just shoved it away during the epic issues of the COVID pandemic.

Crafsman said it: AI legitimizes this idea that one is entitled to unearned talent.

We need plotter/CNC optimized fonts. Not just single stroke or thin stick fonts - actual fonts designed for minimizing pen ups, and allowing for path optimization. This would include new interpretations of cursive, and dealing with the dot of the lower case i. #penplotter #fonts

An issue with the Lamy Safari - if I recall, part of the body is flat, so depending on where it is oriented can affect how the AxiDraw pen holder grabs it.

I posted it later but I prefer the JinHao 991 hooded nib and I use it in the directly vertical orientation.

For the plotter, I’m not a fan of needing to use it angled, which led me to hooded nibs. But I can probably make the Preppy work. Not a fan of having to buy the converter separately.

Bridging worlds. PLOTTERZINE is an all plotted zine - for 10.1, it's venturing into the worlds of ATCs, bookbinding and papercraft. Find on instagram at www.instagram.com/plotterzine #zinemaking #zine #penplotter #atc #aceo #algorist

New smaller 1.4.2 #paragraphic update now available. Makes the Element position input node more useful, adds WebP image format support and fixes a couple of bugs.

Full details at paragraphic.design/blog/version...

Also, the Jinhao 991 is rather inexpensive. The hooded nib versions can be a little tricky to find. Includes converters. And usually around $2 USD each

#fountainpens

I found myself gravitating to hooded nibs in F and EF - flows well even in vertical orientation. My current favorite is the Jinhao 991 - not great in hand, but excellent on a pen plotter.

#fountainpen #penplotter #shoptalk

For a pen plotter, I prefer a fountain pen that works well in the vertical orientation. Like the Pilot Parallel, but that’s a special case. It’s easier on the calculations. #fountainpen #penplotter

I use fountain pens in a pen plotter. So video reviews of fountain pens online don't address the things I am interested in. I don't care about how the pen looks, or how it feels in the hand, or that there's a smile engraved on the nib. #algorist #penplotter

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Shamblog Summary: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into acceptin…

If there comes about an arms race on AI agents attacking and counterattacking - the poportion of usable traffic on the internet gets increasingly small. theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-...

Inkscape tip: closed paths in SVG are designated with a Z code. So, to find all the closed paths in a file, simply do a search for Z in the object properties

And not even paths between dots as in nodes and paths in graph theory, but literally paths that can fill the space between the dots. Which flips the idea of halftones on its head a bit. #algorist #1penup

Pen plotting is more akin to digital manufacture, which does not pixelize but rather follow tool paths. In my way of thinking, vector-based representation of (photographic) images isn't about breaking it down to dots, but finding the paths *between* dots. #algorist

A frequent pen plotter technique is doing pointilist representation of images - which can be murder on the servos used as the pen up and down movements are the main wear. I do find that algorithmically, it's recreating the different raster representation methods used in conventional print.