Colour

I have a 3D printing friend in Australia.   When I type to him online I use the Australian (or British) spelling of words.  I do this with other people as well, but I chat with him quite a lot as I'm his beta tester for all the models he designs.   

We talk about filaments a lot, which necessitates discussion of colors for models or filaments we might want to order.  What I didn't realize for a good while was that we must use the word 'color' quite a lot because I find myself almost spelling it 'colour' when I type the word in other situations.  I'm having to actively remember to spell it 'color' sometimes. 

I rather like the British/Australian spelling for a lot of things.  I've never mentioned to my friend that I use one spelling over another for words.  I wonder if he's ever noticed?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loves to play Othello.   She originally could see the colors on the board but now we play with a board that has inset spaces for each of the pieces and we have a felt spot added to each of the black pieces.   She is good at the game.  Very good for age nine and specifically for someone who can't glance at the board but has to remember what's where with only reviewing things with her fingers.   She and I are evenly matched and we have a lot of fun playing together. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son and husband are playing a new game together.  It's my type of game and I'd love to play it with them, only it's not available on Mac.   It's okay though because I'm busy playing Othello with my daughter. 

Will This Palette Work?

I bought, along with a 3D printing friend of mine, an accompaniment piece of hardware to go along with a 3D printer that would help create prints in multiple colors of filament.   It was more on the edge of the technology for 3D printing because of the heavy-duty work it had to do to pull different colors of filament in, splice them together, send the resulting single strand of filament to the printer and do so all in a completely orchestrated way so that the right colors got to the printer at the right time. 

In short, it was a highly complex job that was fraught with points of failure.   I had a lot of frustrations with the Mosaic Palette.   It was, however, such an exciting thing when it worked.   It was almost worth all the failures and hardware issues when you had something that worked.  

My machine had to be sent back to the manufacturer for extensive maintenance because it just couldn't seem to work much of the time.   My friend had somewhat better results, but not by much.   

As of last week the latest version of the Palette is out and it has been long-awaited and shipped with much anticipation by the 3D Printing community.   I ordered early when they first announced and I received mine last week.   I've done two live streams on it and have so far had very good results.  

Have there been failures?  Yes, but not on the Palette's side, on the printer side.   Although I've since discovered some of that was due to settings I should have caught on the Palette side.   Today I completed a seven-hour print of something quite small.   The amount of filament wasn't the thing that took so long, it was the swapping of filament and printing in a precise order.  Tonight, I'm printing another eleven-hour print.  

I'm excited and hopeful that this Palette will be the answer to a lot of issues the last Palette had.   I've discovered some, "features" that need to be addressed, but they're easily circumvented.   I'm already planning a tips and tricks video for the near future if I can get a few additional things worked out.  

Above all else, it's fun to see things that have always printed in one color, one filament, suddenly show up with all sorts of colors on the build surface. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter did her fun run today and was so happy she and he classmates raised money for their school.   Thank you to everyone who helped.   If we missed you, my apologies.  My daughter was calling people and forgot to tell us who she spoke to so we could send the link.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is playing a MMORPG (adventure game online with loads of other real people) with his father.   They've been playing for several hours and both seem to be having a great time. 

Drag Clicking

So, drag clicking is where you have a mouse and put your finger on it and angle and move it forward lightly pushing on the mouse button.  It's different for every mouse, but if you get it correct you will be able to obtain high CPS, a.k.a Clicks Per Second.

It's basically like your finger is hitting the mouse button, bouncing off, and hitting the mouse button again.  You can also put tapes on the mouse buttons to create more friction and more CPS.  Also, a thing with mice is called de-bounce time.   That's how many milliseconds it takes which is how long it takes for the mouse button to go down and come back up. 

The lowest I've seen (a.k.a. Greyson) is .2ms for the de-bounce time (lower is better).  My best mouse's lowest de-bounce time is 4ms and drag clicking isn't the only kind of clicking.  Also, the base de-bounce time is 10ms on most mice, including non-gaming and gaming mice.

Now the other kinds of clicking that I know of are 1) Normal clicking, 2) Butterfly Clicking, 3) Double Clicking, 4) Scroll Wheel Clicking, 5) Space Bar Clicking, 6) Bolt Clicking, and 7) Jitter Clicking.  

These clicking methods are important because in some games, the faster you click, the better.  For example, in Minecraft version 1.8.9 (or lower) the best way to do melee damage is to left-click on the enemy as fast as possible.   In shooter games, if you have a semi-auto gun, you can use it to shoot faster.  But these methods are usually used in Minecraft where you can use them for placing blocks faster to bridge.   

Now I'm going to tell you what Butterfly Clicking is.  Butterfly Clicking is where you put two fingers on one mouse button and clicking the mouse with one finger, letting go just before clicking with the other. 

Normal Clicking is just your basic clicking, which is not too good but really easy to do.  

Double Clicking can only work on a Bloody A60 or a Glorious Model O mouse.  You hit the edge of the mouse next to the scroll wheel, stay there for a quarter of a second, and then let go.  If done right, it should register a click when you hit it and when you release.

Scroll Wheel Clicking is kind of cheating.  When you use the scroll wheel it counts as a click.  

Space Bar Clicking is pretty new.  It's the same as Drag Clicking but on your space bar and only works for specific kinds of keyboards.  

Bolt Clicking is where you also do the same thing as Drag Clicking, but on any surface and put the mouse on the knuckle of the finger you drag click with and make sure to have your knuckle on the mouse button and then drag click and move the mouse so they're in the same place. 

Jitter Clicking is where you make your arm shake by tensing it and if you get the right angle when you're shaking it could be hitting the mouse button pretty fast.

I think this is cool because, well I play the game and it's useful to me, but I find it really cool and crazy how cool the methods sound, feel, work and how people could have come up with them. 

Here's a video demonstrating all the different clicking methods I listed:  Mouse Clicking Demonstration

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter jumps off the stairs onto the sofa.  All the time.   How the sofa is still alive is beyond me.

It's Getting Easier

The first post I put up with my voice was scary, but it was recorded and gone over multiple times so it wasn't that scary.   The first time I posted something with my face in it I was terribly scared, but I knew I had to do it or I wouldn't be able to create the content I needed to.   And recently, the first time I did a live stream I thought I would have chattering teeth and freeze up, but it wasn't that bad. 

The second live stream was today, rather spur of the moment when I discovered I had everything working again after hardware errors.   I am intentionally not publicizing the live streams in advance in the hope that not many people will attend, which would make things easier for me.   And that did work out, although I had one person from Brazil and one from Ireland today, which was nice, even though the attendance was quiet low. 

The thing is, it's not as scary as I had feared it would be.   Now, granted, things haven't all gone to hell with nothing working at all. making me look like I haven't a clue about what I'm doing.   That helped.   But still, it's been low key, knowing people might watch later, but for now, I could just stand there, look at a lens and talk about whatever I wanted to on topic while things were happening, and then during bits of time while we waited, it was easy to ramble on just like I normally do.   

I am certain things will be terrible at some point if I continue to do this live stream portion of 3D Printing Content Creation, but for now, I've survived two new product demonstrations.  The product is complex and potentially temperamental but things worked out, which is all I could have hoped for.   

Actually, if a few things hadn't worked out, it would have been even better because I was ready to show how to handle certain situations.   But that's okay, there will be time for errors and issues later. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son came in in the middle of the live stream asking on a piece of hand-written paper if he could do some programming on his computer.   I said no.   He made the sad face.   A few minutes later he came back with a second piece of paper asking for just fifteen minutes to which I also said no.   He took it in stride and even helped me clean up after the stream. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter desperately needs new shoes.   Her feet have grown, but more than anything she left her shoes out at the trampoline in the rain and they turned all kinds of sour, even after a cleaning wash.   She and I went to get new shoes tonight with the understanding that if she leaves her new shoes outside to get rained on for multiple days again, she's buying the next set of shoes.

Asleep In My Clothes

I've had an annoying allergic reaction to something that has gone on for two days now.   Last night I fell asleep in my clothes on top of the sheets.  I woke up after midnight and got the rest of the way into bed.  It wasn't until this morning when I was talking to my mother that I realized I hadn't written a blog post last night and hadn't even thought about writing one I was so confused when I woke up last night.   

The Children Out Of School In The Middle Of The Week:  Both children were out of school yesterday.   It was voting day, but for my son, it was a continuation of the parent/teacher/student-led conferences.   For my daughter, it was an opportunity to give more people the ability to vote. 

Always Tidy & Clean

I ate something that I had an allergic reaction to last night and have been dealing with it for almost a full day now.   I don't know what it was, but wow, has my mouth been itchy.  Fortunately, it's abating now. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Always Tidy & Clean Update:  My children went to sleep unhappy.   They had a big run-in with us tonight over cleaning up after themselves.   Would you believe it if I told you they thought they never made any messes and that we didn't do anything to help ever, at all with them?

Tired Feet

Halloween is over.  My husband single-handedly coordinated the entire neighborhood's events for the evening.   There were competitions, free things for the children, beverages for the adults and children, pizza for everyone, tables, chairs, plates, and napkins, plus games.  There were tents, some rented and some bought.  Tables and online voting for the pumpkin and house decorating competitions.   He's worked for weeks on it and heavily this past week.   People knew it was all him and he was very much appreciated for it.  

I was tired from helping in the small part that I did.   I don't know how he's still standing. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son went around the neighborhood with some friends.  For the past three years he's been off and away with friends and comes home with candy.  My daughter has gone with friends, but has needed assistance.  My son told us when he got home he waited and his friends and he "double dipped' and went to some houses more than once.  I think the houses knew, they mostly wanted to give out their candy so they didn't mind.  My son was in a pure black outfit with a lit outline in blue stick figure like.   He looked so good in the outfit.  It suited him. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter went around the neighborhood with her friend Ashley and a bit behind with Ashley's father and me trailing.   He and I had a nice time talking.   He's very nice and I like Monica, his wife, very much.   Monica was at home handing out candy.  My daughter was overly tired in the end, saying her feet hurt so much.  When she got home (she was a white witch in a beautiful white gown and hat) she put her feet in a cold bath for a few minutes before going to eat some candy.