Month: September 2024

3D Prints September 2024

September 30, 2024 5:44 pm

Just a few things this month.

First a cover for an RSA OTP token. Due to security changes at work I now have to have 2 of these and needed a way to differentiate which one was for which system. So I designed and printed this little cover and also printed a few for coworkers.

I did the design in SolveSpace and then put the text on in Bambu Studio. My first attempt was not strong enough and the “legs” snapped off almost immediately, but this version seems to be holding up really well.

STL Files (no text on cover):

RSA OTP BackDownload
RSA OTP FrontDownload

For Jess’ birthday adventure I needed a key with an embedded magnet and a “lock” with a contact sensor inside. So I designed and printed those.

I wanted some autumn-themed sugar cookies, but our big bin of cookie cutters has no leaves in it (it has Halloween stuff). So I found some leaf-shaped cookie cutters and printed them. I took the cookies to work and, whoops, they all got eaten and I didn’t take a picture of them.

I believe I used this model for the Maple leaf: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1149605/files

And this model for the Oak and what-they’re-calling-Elm leaves: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4675537

Games September 2024

5:34 pm

Didn’t get a ton of gaming in this month. Board game group moved to a new location because the restaurant we were at was grumpy with our existence. I think the group is quite well mannered and we’ve never taken up so much space that they couldn’t seat other guests, but they felt we weren’t spending enough money so asked us to find somewhere else to go. Which, fine, that’s their prerogative, but groups like this meet on Tuesdays because restaurants tend to be dead so our presence is just extra money with little work for them. The last night we met there they had a total of 4 other tables the whole evening.

Anyway. We’re trying a new location, however the new location is a brewery and limited to 21 and over so we’ll likely keep looking for locations since there were often people in attendance that now can’t attend.

Played the first scenario of Peacemakers: Horrors of War again with 2 players at the meetup. We were successful in ending the conflict.

At the next meetup we played Heat with a full group of six. I’m still really enjoying the game. I did not win this time. I believe I came in 4th due to poorly handling the final 2 turns.

Celebrating Jess’ birthday we played Everdell with a friend (without any expansions to keep it a little more simple). Jess won handily.

And the following weekend, to further celebrate Jess’ birthday with other friends, we played Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. We played Year 4, without any expansions, and were victorious.

Books September 2024

5:33 pm

The End is Nigh anthology edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

This has been sitting on my ereader for a very long time. It’s part of a 3-part series of short stories that take place just before, during, or after some apocalyptic event. This anthology covers the “just before” stories.

Some decent stories in it.

Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean

This had been on my “to read” list for a while, but then Mike mentioned it in the presentation he gave to the Lab back in July so I pushed it forward to read sooner rather than later.

It recounts a team of 15 Smokejumpers (elite fire-fighters that parachute to a fire to get it under control quickly–a big deal during the era that forest-fire management practice was to put them out as quickly as possible) who jumped on the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949. Within 2 hours 10 were dead and 2 fatally burned.

It tries to answer the question, “What happened?”

Interesting read. A little bit of an odd style. Maclean kind of tells the story at least 3 times with slightly different bents and I think his writing is easiest follow if you read it in the voice of a guy telling a tale in order to get the right cadence.

The End is Now anthology edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

The second installment in the aforementioned series. I think I enjoyed this one more than the first, but I’m getting a little burnt out on apocalypse stories at this point.

Humankind by Rutger Bregman

Bregman looks critically at human history and the current best data across sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc. to argue the position that people are generally good.

People have done horrible things–of course, without question–but those are aberrations from the norm.

I thought it was a fair interpretation of the available data and any time Bregman introduced a counterpoint to the narrative of everyone-is-terrible he would straightforwardly acknowledge the flaws in his examples.

Easy read and a nice reprieve from the apocalypse stories.