Build a Simple 3D Printed CNC Plotter Machine by MertArduino

Try these Filament Combinations for Multi-Material and Supports

Little Red State Fundy sez…

Science Is a Word Game by Jamie Zvirzdin

Piping tip size charts (cake, decorating), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Free/open-source sites for the preparation of scientific illustrations: bioicons.com, scidraw.io, bioart.niaid.nih.gov, inkscape.org, biogdp.com, reactome.org/icon-lib

History for GRANITE. Exploring the pyramids of Ancient Egypt

Jan 6 Capital attack video, link.

Process your own JWST images at home

In Five Years, Chicago Has Barely Made Progress on Its Court-Ordered Police Reforms. Here’s Why. by Heather Cherone, WTTW News, and Vernal Coleman, ProPublica.

Fake Jobs and Fake Facts. By Misrepresenting Constitutional Law, Muskawamy Prove Brandolini’s Law. by Don Moynihan

Federal Pell Grants

How an Interracial Marriage Sparked One of the Most Scandalous Trials of the Roaring Twenties

Malcolm Gladwell. “Malcolm Gladwell began as a college right-wing Reagan supporter, was trained by the tobacco-funded far-right National Journalism Center, and throughout his career has inserted pro-tobacco, pro-banking industry and pro-PHARMA messages into his books and articles.”

Kveik. A family of strains of brewing yeast that has been used in Norwegian farmhouse brewing for generations.

STORM. Wikipedia-like report on your topic with AI

Project 2025 Annotation: A Summary

Bezos, Trump, and the Failure of Democracy. We are witnessing a watershed moment. Democracy is failing because the rule of law has been broken. And everyone is about to realize it. All at once.

Here’s a Mochi flashcard deck with cancer drugs, link.

FDA Publishes Final Rule on Laboratory-Developed Test (LDT) Regulation
“Laboratories must then submit a premarket approval application or a 510(k) submission to the FDA, including evidence of the test’s clinical validity and utility.”

CJ Cherryh, Alliance-Union book timeline, link2

A Q&A with David Neiwert, America’s foremost writer and thinker on far-right extremism, on what might happen if Trump wins—or loses. by Rick Perlstein

Red Book of Westmarch

Free and OpenSource Photo Libraries comparison
Many developers + multiuser support: Immich, Librephotos. Immich had multiuser tagging support.

Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars by Albert Burneko

Millennials, Gen Xers lead jump in “religiously unaffiliated”, survey

The Charlottesville Hoax Hoax by David Corn

The Best Linux Apps for Chess

Behind the Catholic Right’s Celebrity-Conversion Industrial Complex. From Russell Brand to JD Vance to Candace Owens, what happens when the Catholic Church chases influencers—and their legions of followers—down the rabbit hole of the right? by Kathryn Joyce

AP Anatomy and Physiology course plan (source unclear)

Making Meaningful Difference: A Q&A with Philanthropist Laura Gutierrez

How the Republican War on Women Extends to Voting Rights. Most women vote Democratic. And most still change their name when they marry. And that’s where the GOP sees an Achilles’ heel.

How many helium balloons to lift a person? 39 weather balloons, link

Tiny tools, link2

The psychology of conspiracy theory believers, linked article.

HPV vaccine study finds zero cases of cervical cancer among women vaccinated before age 14

Surface anatomy

Fresnel Lens Manufacturing – 2018 Michigan Lighthouse Alliance Conference

Butterflies fly using efficient propulsive clap mechanism owing to flexible wings

Fast Fresnel Hack Embiggens The Smallest Of Heads

Backyard Worlds: Planet 9

Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500 by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (2023)

Louis Wain “A Kittens’ Christmas Party”
Cats, Cats, Cats! The Incredible Life & Art of Louis Wain
Original Catfluencer: How a Victorian Artist’s Feline Fixation Gave Us the Internet Cat

How Colorful Ribbon Diagrams Became the Face of Proteins (Jane Richardson)

Dark Oxygen Is Changing the Calculus of Extraterrestrial Life

The discovery of oxygen production in the deep oceans has profound implications for the origins of life, both here and elsewhere in the universe.

Say It to My Face. How Democrats learned to tell the plain truth and like it by Rick Perlstein

SF writer M. John Harrison. Nova Swing (2006)

leaf sheep

Rubio Monocoat Oil Plus 2C is a hardwax oil wood finish, $180 / 1.3l, 300 – 500 ft²/l

READING: Isaac Asimov on Dominationist Ethnonationalism. It is for everyone, and everyone catches it… by Brad DeLong. From his autobiography.

Biden and Harris Broke the Suffocating “Washington Consensus” on Economics They put a stake through neoliberalism. Now, the vice president has to convince voters that her antitrust, trade, and public investment policies, unlike Trump’s, will improve their lives. by Phillip Longman

What the Russian Invasion Teaches Us About the Right. Contrarians aren’t critical thinkers. They’re gullible reactionaries, vulnerable to conspiracy theories. by David French

Mechanical Movements of the Cold War: How the Soviets Revolutionized Wristwatches. Shortly after the stock market crash of 1929, the Soviet Union purchased a bankrupt watch manufacturer in Ohio. They transformed it into one of the world’s top watchmaking centers.

Oval: 15.25″ x 6.875″, half point width 5.9375″
81.7 in2 total area

12 Voronoi regions:
7.6 in2 (73.5g, 8.6 layers 2x + 0.6)
9.4 (91.0, 10.6 layers, 3x – 1.4)
10.4 (100.6, 11.8 layers, 3x)
10.4 (100.6, 11.8 layers, 3x)
5.3 (51.2, 6.0 layers, 1.5x)
7.2 (69.6, 8.1 layers, 2x + 0.1)
6.4 (62.0, 7.2 layers, 2x – 0.8)
3.7 (35.8, 4.2 layers, 1x +0.2) 1.5″ doesn’t quite fit
6.7 (64.8, 7.6 layers, 2x – 0.5)
3.9 (37.8, 4.4 layers, 1x + 0.4) 1.5″ doesn’t quite fit
4.9 (47.4, 5.5 layers, 1.5x – 0.5)
5.9 (57.0, 6.7 layers, 1.5x + 0.7) 1.5″ doesn’t quite fit

Place 1.5″ circles (1.77 in2, 8.5g) at each Voronoi seed point.

3 colors + clear: bottom clear – A – B – C (one of each 4 layers, 2x each 7-8 layers, 3x each 12 layers)

Updated jim_voronoi.zip extension to work with Inkscape 1.3! (Original version of the extension.). To install, go to Inscape -> Extensions -> Manage extension -> Install packages tab -> click on file icon and select the zip file.

Takes as input a shape to fill with a Voronoi diagram. The number of levels of recursive Voronoi diagrams can be set.

Options

Random seed points: Number of starting points. The distribution of the starting points is set for each level of the diagram.

Options:
Levels of recursion: Within each Voronoi region, a new Voronoi diagram is created.

Level(rand_type):relax,…: Sets of parameters for each Voronoi diagram level.
<level>(<normalization method>[param1=n;parms2 = n.n; params3=foo…]):<Llyod’s relaxation interations>
The randomization type can be ‘normdist’, ‘normdist_edge’, ‘random’. ‘Random’ distributes the seed points randomly. ‘Normdist’ distributes the seed points around one or more ‘centers’ (default is 1 center), distributed around the centroid. ‘Normdist_edge’ moves the seeds away from the centers toward the edge.
Llyod’s relaxation moves each of the points halfway between its current position and the centroid of the Voronoi polygon it is located in with each iteration.

Parameters:
centers = 2 – Number of centers to cluster ‘normdist’ random points around. Centers are spaced at center_dist from the centroid of the input path.
keep_centers = 0,1,3… – Which of the centers to use. Numbering starts at 0.
center_dist = 1.23 – Distance from the path centroid to place the random seed centers. dist = size / center_dist. Default = 2.0. Large numbers push the centers towards the edge.
min_dist = 1.23 – Minimum distance of random points from the edge of the path. In Inkscape units. Default = 5.
sd = 1.23 – Standard deviation of the random points. sd = standard deviation of the random points. sd = size / sd. Larger numbers give a tighter distribution. Default = 2.5.
xy = x1,y1, x2,y2… – Explicitly enter random seed point locations. In Inkscape units. Overrides random dist center parameters.

Return lines or polygons: The Voronoi regions are added to the document as polygons or lines.

Keying off Kevin Drum’s The lessons of COVID, which is a good start but too limited in imagination.

What the US did right: the CDC has great world-wide infectious disease monitoring.

What the US did poorly: the US had spotty local infectious disease monitoring. And lack of data–ignorance–was used as an excuse for inaction. With post-COVID wastewater monitoring, the US is doing better, let’s keep the funding high for it.

Biggest mistake: the federal government responded slowly and ineffectively in the first two months. Faster response that seems like an over-reaction at the time is the best response. If the response is effective, and a disease is slowed or stopped, it should always feel like an over-reaction. Hoof-and-mouth disease is the model.