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Why Wikis Work for Me

I love my personal wiki. I use a WikiMedia wiki set to private and document all my procedures and equipment there. So far it’s really saved me a lot of personal headache. One such incident happened just now and inspired me to write about it.

Today I had to replace the filament in a 3D printer. If I had not checked the wiki for the how-to I would have forgotten a critical step (tightening the idler screws). It would have wasted material and cost me 30 minutes. So the 5 minutes I spent writing down the steps have already paid for themselves 6 times over.

I also started to link pages back and forth today for the first time. “3d printers” links to “how to change the filament” and now back. So much easier to navigate! I look forward to the first time an employee uses the documents instead of asking me for help. Heck, I look forward to creating jobs and having employees.

Also, because you love pictures as much as I do, here’s what I think will be the last version of the Rotary Stewart Platform. The code is already on Github. I spent the morning assembling it and making videos for the product launch. I still need to dot a few ‘I’s and cross a few ‘T’s before I’m ready to rock. Measure twice, cut once!

Also, here’s a gallery of sights from the Science World 3D Printer Village that happened this weekend hosted on Imgur.

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Happy Birthday Dr Seuss?

One of our early adopters, EdmondsLibrarian, has just posted a great picture in our forums of a recent drawing he did with the Makelangelo. I like it so much I want to share it with all of you. If you like it, please let him know.

EdmondsLibrarian is also keen to talk to those of you with GIMP and Inkscape experience. Can you give him some tips to make more pictures?

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A cube that balances itself on one corner

Now paint a heart on one side and send it to Valve. Portal 3, anyone?

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Early Adopters Should be Rewarded, not Punished

I’ve never understood why early adopters have to pay more. They get hit with all the bugs that were missed in testing. Time and again I read about someone who paid early, waited months, and got a shitty experience. Customers who come later get a smooth ride, they should pay more for the increase in quality. Am I just backwards on this? Crack open that juicy brain of yours and spill your thought-yolks in the comments below.

For that very reason I’ve raised the price on the 3- and 4-armed delta robots. I’m falling behind on production so to slow new orders I’ve made it a little less tempting. If you bought before today, consider it an award for being an early adopter.

Also, here is a picture of the mod I made to the Rotary Stewart Platform last night at the VHS. I’ve put the code in Github and now I’m going to call some suppliers and get an emergency delivery of 100 servos so I can get all these kits out the door. Less dollars for me, more happy for everybody. You can’t take it with you, right?