The Ink Spot - 2017-03-29 (page 1 of 2)

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3:50 AM

@DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ thanks for getting back to me. I'm asking because I see spam being posted at roughly the same time at your site and Apple's and the Apple spam is removed faster. My thinking is that you probably simply have fewer users, but I'm not sure. Reducing the amount of time that obvious spam is visible to users who don't know what they can do about it seems to me like an objective and good goal, no?

you are right that Charcoal is completely a volunteer effort with no official role within Stack Exchange

and I'm just a random volunteer looking for a way to improve the overall experience

spam on GD, like on the majority of the other SE sites which have spam in the first place, is completely dominated by a single operator apparently from India whose spam is rather formulaic and easy to identify so it's not particularly "subjective", it's just that SE's own spam prevention mechanisms are primarily IP-based and this operation has apparently found a loophole, though that's pure speculation; we don't see their IP addresses

going from minutes to seconds probably doesn't matter, I'm more worried about the occasional hours or days if something is missed because nobody was around

4:26 AM

@Ryan thanks. I don't have numbers yet but I received a database dump and intend to look into it to see if my subjective impression is based on significant real differences

@Ryan that's quite possible of course, someone in Charcoal is looking into that too (though I don't think we got GD in the dump ... do you have access to deleted spam conveniently?)

if there is a significant amount of spam which Smoke Detector is currently missing, that would be interesting and possibly important to know about, but I'm guessing there really isn't

if it's not too much trouble, reporting spam to Metasmoke when you clean it up would help ensure that we know about it, if only because it's likely that the same spammer is also targeting other sites in the Stack Exchange network. We have some handy user scripts which make this by and large transparent if you're interested in looking into that

4 hours later…

8:31 AM

@tripleee I don't know what ya'll know but to give some idea as I suspect our regulars don't know how much us mods do. Here's how many users we've destroyed in the last two months:

I can't see why they destroyed. I know 100% of the users I've destroyed are due to spam with the occasional being for signing up just to post rude / random nonsense.

Darth destroyed accounts on:
Mar 25, 18, 17, 10, 8, 8, 5, 1 --- Feb 27, 26, 12, 9, 9, 8, 7, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4. That's just for March and February

Vincent destroyed accounts on:
Mar 21, 7, 1 --- Feb 27, 24, 20, 16, 13, 6, 3, 2, 1, 1. There's March and February

I've destroyed accounts on:
Mar 24, 23, 22, 22, 22, 6 --- Feb 27, 26, 26, 26, 26, 8, 1. There's my March and February

if you cross reference and see any of those dates missing than it means you don't have all of the information

as for your scripts and whatnot. You'd have to ask Darth, Vincent, and JohnB. I'm not a scripting guy and wouldn't touch it

8:52 AM

the "how many users" shows as "(removed)", what happened there?

hmm?

metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com/… <- I'll try to correlate with this

@Ryan looks like the chat message was deleted

oh I just removed JohnB's numbers because he hasn't really deleted any but he also hasn't really had much free time lately

user image

@Ryan ah okay

His most recent delete was in August of last year. After writing out me, Darths and JohnBs that didn't seem relevant

I can give you the post ID's but it looks like your system doesn't capture that

8:57 AM

but your volumes look kind of low already, there were 8 in a day 9 days ago and at least 11 two days before

@Ryan that would be useful, I have the IDs in the JSON, the search just shows a part of the data

well like I said last time someone from smoke came in here --- we don't know how much spam we really get because you all do this which is cool but don't tell us about it.

Until someone came in here to complain to us about I don't know--- a year ago maybe? None of us had ever heard of your project

@Ryan would you like for there to be more information here about what we do?

in chat? no

if you want to go post a meta on our meta than that's up to you

But from what I see the ones on your erway thing all still exist just flagged as spam which tells me a moderator didn't see it

so you guys are downvoting and flagging it to be destroyed while us moderators are trained to destroy users that are created to only post nonsense/spam

I can still see all of yours while the ones us moderators catch are actually destroyed and removed

@Ryan uh, I was under the impression that spam flags would raise something in the moderator tools?

nope

9:02 AM

would it help if we created a separate chat room for Smoke Detector notices for GD? that way they are available if you want them but we don't disrupt this room

user image

there's some id numbers from ones I've destroyed

do you have the IDs in textual format? or should I just try to scrape that image?

you know one of those sites that I can paste it into?

oh but those are users, not posts

user image

see that, that's from your system. I can still see that. That user still exists

The post still exists

the ones moderators see we destroy the user which also sends the info directly to stackexchange where they monitor and record the IP

9:07 AM

so we should do something more to flag those users for your attention then?

you all might be doing more damage than good by removing spam before a moderator can flag and remove the actual user

but I have no idea, you need to talk to SE for that

the typical behavior we see is that the spam users never return, but I'll bring this up in Charcoal

we obviously want to do this correctly

but i woke up to use the restroom. im going back to sleep for a bit. Ill catch up again when I'm awake for real

thanks for your help so far! and sleep well

@Ryan @tripleee Afaik, a spam flag does pop up in the Mod flag queue. At least I know I have seen lots, and have re-flagged posts to have them removed because of those flags.

@Ryan insomnia? :O

9:15 AM

@Vincent uh, right

so still, is there something we should be doing differently?

@tripleee functional letters here are 'afaik' :)

there's a steady stream, probably more than half a dozen in the last few hours

the metasmoke link I posted before should show those near the top

("top" is a relative term, the search form is always displayed above the results so you have to scroll down)

scratches back of head I can't really say. My personal experience is that very few of these posts actually pop up to be visible on the main site

I'm trying to get the marshal badge, and flagging spam posts is the only way I can gain new useful flags--and it's been a nightmare accruing them :P

nine from today: 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9

all of them show as deleted for me but I guess you can see them and whether the users are still live and whether they got flagged for mod attention

if you want to be alerted when we see spam, that can easily be arranged, too

if you join Charcoal and issue a !!/notice command for GD, the bot will ping you whenever there is a report

To be very honest? If destroying all users for all spam posts--deleted or not--would become a part of the mod job description, I'd be hard pressed to quit.

9:25 AM

@Vincent seems that Ryan thinks it should be, but I agree that it might not be useful and productive

With all due respect, but I hardly find the time to do my regular mod duties properly these days. As far as I can see from the front, spam is handled nicely by processes that do not require mod intervention, or only rarely.

though if that's what it takes to get the SE maintainers to register the problem, that is something we should try to do

@tripleee all of those users still exist FIY

I used to go through the 'recently deleted' list to kill spam users when I was bored. I hardly have time to be bored these days ;)

@Vincent anyway, if you want to go for Marshal, the bot is there for you

9:29 AM

I think a meta post on this might be in order, even if it was just to gauge how regular users experience the spam problem

on your meta you mean? I think I'll want to post on meta.SE about the overall process too

FWIW... and I know I've been critical of SD in the past.. but I think having SD ping in here isn't a bad idea

or like I wrote above a separate room can be created for that if it's too loud

or if people are against it here then setting up another room

I'd be in strong favour of a separate room.

9:31 AM

it's literally a one-line configuration change, we just need the room ID

The Spam Blot

Graphic Design spam notices from Smoke Detector

just say the word and I'll add it to the bot configuration

I'd like to put up a meta post asking about this, first.

as in a meta.gd

...in a moment I have time to do so. I really need to prepare teaching course now.

I'll set up the bot notices in the meantime, it's easy to revert if nobody wants it and it might actually be useful to have some test data there just to see how it appears

@Vincent definitely a meta post.. I don't see any reason not to have the room though? I mean, people can just ignore it if they're not interested... right?

that's my thinking too

@Cai wouldn't want to decide that on my own on the drop of a hat. Sorry, I really need to go now

9:36 AM

@Vincent Sure, no worries. later

10:09 AM

Hi, Charcoal admin here. @Cai and @Vincent - just to confirm, you don't have any issues with us posting reports to the new room that tripleee created? I'd just like to make sure you're happy with that before I merge and deploy the pull request.

@angussidney I personally think it's a good idea... I think Vincent would rather see how the community feels first so maybe hold off for now.

I know Vincent is busy atm so maybe I'll make a meta post later if he can't

10:41 AM

Okay, I'll hold off merging until the results are in.

10:53 AM

@tripleee how come I don't see these on your link?

Hi all

@tripleee and I never said this or implied this.

@Ryan I was under the impression recently destroyed posts with spam and R/A flags are visible to mods? o.o

@M.A.R. Hi. I have no idea what you're referring to now

@Ryan Which part?

10:57 AM

@M.A.R. i mean you just made a statement replying to me. But the reply link has no relationship to what you said.

I wrote "I never said or implied this" to triplee and you replied, "I was under the impression..."

@Vincent It would never become part of the job description I reckon, but it always will be a good thing to do. Shrug The biggest portion of what mods and normal users do on the sites is not what they should/must be doing, but what's good to do

@Ryan Oh, no no . . . It wasn't a reply, but a ping

Which means it wasn't directed at any special message

You said, if I understand correctly, that autoflagging might be harmful because you don't get to destroy the user

I said I don't know and y'all need to take this up with SE

And I'm saying I thought mods do see recent spam and rude/abusive flags, which should allow you to destroy them freely

nope we dont see them

OK that's weird. Maybe it's only on SO.

11:01 AM

we can, if we go hunting for them but we don't see them once community hits them

if we happen to be on during the flag process we see a notice but then its gone

339

Q: Can a machine be taught to flag spam automatically?

TL;DR: We did it, so... yes. What is this? Charcoal is the organization behind the SmokeDetector bot and other nice things. This bot scans new posts across the entire network for spam posts and reports them to various chatrooms where people can act on them. If a post has been created or edite...

discussion flags spam robots

And it was featured at some point . . .

Thing is, most of Charcoal admins are already mods on one or more SE sites, so they're responsible for what they're doing

And I trust them

IOW, they're SE veterans and know what they're doing, except when coding

what does this have to do with the discussion. Now you just seem to be implying we're not trustworthy or know what we're talking about

@Ryan o.o I'm not. I'm just saying they do know what they're doing, so your warnings are welcome, but usually taken care of already

@M.A.R. what warning?

@Ryan Aren't you saying that what we might be doing is illegal, as in SE illegal?

11:06 AM

@M.A.R. what? when in the world did I say this?

11:20 AM

@Ryan Sorry, was out for lunch. When you say ''talk to SE'', you're implying that we might be doing something we shouldn't do

@Ryan um sorry, these what?

and M.A.R. maybe take a step or two back, we don't want to disrupt this room

2 hours ago, by tripleee

nine from today: 1 2 3 4

I see some but not others on that erwaysoftware thing you linked to earlier

@Ryan hmmm, lemme check

wait, think I can see them all now. My mistake

All the ones I've clicked on show they were deleted in minutes, the longest being around 20 minutes while many are even quicker

not sure where these hour ones are

@Ryan not seen any recently but one of the problems is visibility, they tend to scroll off everybody's screen and forgotten

my question here is mainly, did you miss these because we deleted them, and what would be a better process in that case

but if we can set up pings in the other room I created, that would allow us to just check it out for a while and see if it improves the situation for anyone

11:31 AM

I mean if y'all are already deleting them then I'm not really sure why anything more needs to be done

the posts are being deleted but the users aren't

and apparently only the latter will communicate back to SE headquarters, if I'm reading between the lines correctly here

@tripleee Sure

>What should I do with spam and purely disruptive users?

Stack Exchange sites have very high signal-to-noise ratios because, in part, spam has a half life measured in minutes. On large sites, crowdsourced spam flags remove problem posts before a moderator even needs to be involved. When you do see a spam flag, remember that your actions take immediate effect and produce dire consequences for the target user. Be sure your are looking at actual spam and not just a user confused about the purposes of the site.

>For every spam handled by a human, you can expect 10 times as much was handled by the system automatically. The cost is an occasional false positive. (If you see one, please let us know. We are always adjusting parameters to improve the system.)

Problem users

The other use case for our spam protection system is to block people who jump from one account to another to post nonsense. Usually such trolls have an account that has already been suspended and need to find other ways to make trouble. Typically moderators delete these accounts as "no longer welcome to participate". In the past, ne…

so, removing accounts is nice but optional, or is there some other part of that which you particularly wanted to highlight?

I want to make sure you've seen that because from what I'm seeing I don't think you have

And from the link @M.A.R. put it certainly says your project and the actual SE spam detection don't communicate with each other

11:37 AM

we are trying to improve that but the community managers and developers don't really seem to have an allocation for that

though again that's a bit of reading between the lines on my side

so then I go back to saying, shouldn't you be discussing these things with them not us?

I think Andy was talking to Pops occasionally

@Ryan at this point I think you are correct but I'd still like to make sure I understand the situation correctly

@Ryan Well, we occasionally erroneously catch stuff that aren't spam, and thus feedback them with "FP-", telling Smokey they're not spam. SE can't set the bar as high as us, because that would mean the person wouldn't be able to post their question, and there would be considerable headache on metas . . .

other mods I've talked to say that spam flags are somehow visible but you apparently have to dig for a bit

@M.A.R. this isn't a selling point :\

11:39 AM

as in, our spam flags, which is basically the community's, although we are a significant factor within that community as far as flagging spam is concerned

@Ryan Well TBH, they did communicate with SE and gave Smokey an exception, providing it with 20000 API requests instead of 10000, but implementing it SE-wide hasn't happened yet because "meh"

Smokey already helps destroy most spam within 30 seconds, and there's hardly any room left to improve.

So I guess that time can be spent making documentation on SO better/worse

IOW, leaving well enough alone as long as it doesn't wreck havoc

@tripleee don't know what to tell you there. If we happen to be on, we see a flag. I wasn't aware that our site was any different from the others

even if I look at things autoflagged I don't see your spam

user image

my guess is the other mods don't actually see all of it either and aren't properly communicating this with you

@Ryan Well, GD.SE is special because spammers can post images

I guess that might even have to do with why it became popular with spammers as of late

And we've already discussed that and have no desire to restrict it

@M.A.R. that's not really fair, several of the sites in the network allow images from low-rep users

and I don't see images in any of the spams from today

11:45 AM

@tripleee Well, those several sites are probably not discovered yet, or don't have such a fancy design

@tripleee I gotta get going. I'll catch up when I have a chance if there's anything more to say

Maybe spammers like round shapes? Or the bots mistook here for Drupal? :P Anyway, back to the topic at hand

@Ryan thanks, I'll probably proceed to meta at this point

@Ryan I'm pinging an SO mod to confirm whether spam-nuked autoflagged posts are still accessible from somewhere

11:59 AM

in SOBotics on Stack Overflow Chat, 1 min ago, by Bhargav Rao

@M.A.R. there's no auto flag. If we see those, we'll destroy.

OK, this isn't good.

12:26 PM

re; spam nuked posts not being visible... there's previous discussion on MSE...

see meta.stackexchange.com/q/267167/307988

and meta.stackexchange.com/q/192882/307988

and meta.stackexchange.com/q/193659/307988

etc

@Cai hey, thanks for those

I don't see that as a reason not to flag spam though... it comes down to leaving all spam to be handled by mods or mods having to manually check through deleted posts and destroying users... neither of which is ideal but leaving spam around for longer doesn't sound like the best option

in Charcoal HQ, 2 hours ago, by Glorfindel

Also, this should be implemented.

@Cai Well, most spam is from bots created for one-time spam

I don't think it's an obligation to destroy every spammer account

Because,

1. The user has already been blacklisted by Smokey.

2. If it was such a big problem, it would've raised its ugly head on SO, which gets the most posts and most spam.

Sure. I'd be interested in seeing how many of those users actually go on to post more spam... if its negligible then it's basically a non issue

But we know for a fact that spam accounts left alone aren't that likely to post again.

12:49 PM

alright back. In my office though so will be between screens and work and such now

Now to get this settled once and for all hopefully I'm going to speak pretty bluntly here. @M.A.R. your people skills need improvement. I was having a nice conversation with @tripleee but you came in here making all sorts of weird assumptions. Even Tripleee could tell and suggested you back off.

More to the point though, this time -- AND -- last time we told you all we don't know about this and you didn't listen to us

Oct 28 '16 at 10:22, by Vincent

...why don't we know this?

Now I've supplied you with a screenshot and you still weren't satisfied until talking to another, less experienced, user in a different community.

So again, you all are doing good work but you need to do a better job communicating with people outside of your chat and primarily communicating with SE staff. As long as you don't have diamonds and don't ask the right questions you're not getting an accurate picture.

57 mins ago, by M.A.R.

OK, this isn't good.

We have no problems with you or your project, we do have a problem with you making assumptions about things even when we try to tell you what really goes on and you still don't believe us

talking about us in your chatroom isn't going to win any of us over either

I'm afraid I gotta run, I hope we are back to normal here? My plan now is to articulate something for meta, maybe tomorrow

user image

appreciate any feedback on whether we can go ahead with the Spam Blot room, it should be harmless even if you don't particularly like it, and of course we can remove it again once we have tried it out if you don't like it

@tripleee take care tripleee. If you're making the meta on SE drop us a link if you don't mind. We don't really go over there very often

absolutely

1:08 PM

now to get back to what our chat is supposed to be about

user image

user image

1:22 PM

happy Friday @DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ ! at least its mine :P

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan ha, nice.

I dont understand what the guys from smoke detector do not understand so I'll be blunt since it's been said several times. Any action should be posted on meta.graphicdesign for the COMMUNITY to know, understand and discuss. Already I've read smoke detector taking action after we've stated what the course of action be. Again, please post on meta.

I dont even know, did the replacement stand up desk come yet? is it awesome?

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan ya its nice

cool! Hope it helps your back

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@angussidney before this action occurs take this discussion to our meta so the community will know what is going on and be able to converse on any action.

1:26 PM

@DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ I think he's going to wait though I'm not sure who's making the meta them or Vincent

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Cai if you've made one please let me know and I'll edit it for a feature

@Ryan well just reading the above it seems to halt. Personally if this is their initiative they should create the meta so it kills two birds with one stone 1) an education on what it does 2) how it would help the community

I agree but to me it sounds like they need to be talking to actual SE staff and going with a more top down approach. They seem to think two things:

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan thanks man, it is what it is but trying to do the medical stuff and it just hurts like hell

1. that moderators check the SE Meta for gospel regularly. I think I've looked at it maybe 20 times ever

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan I agree with that too and thought about creating a meta post discussing it

1:29 PM

2. that moderators can see their flags. They definitely see now that isn't the case, but it sure was hard getting that through to them

of course they're initial reason for coming in here was to say we're slow and take too long to remove spam when I see no evidence of that in their system

and their own comment among themselves said "which is hard considering the 20-second delection of most GD.SE spam"

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan ya I agree..

so I don't know what the deal is. 20 seconds sounds pretty darn fast to me

but I know I feel like they think we're the incompetent ones when based on what I'm seeing we've been moderators longer than many of them have even been members :\

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

also I check this frequently when I work and thats on the weekends, too

wouldnt let it get to you, its just a power move more likely.

anyways too much spam talk

needs more animal gifs

These Three Bears Playing With a Pink Balloon Will Make Your Friday

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

1:44 PM

also moderators dont get the marshal badge

@DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ ALL THE BADGES BELONG TO US!

well looks like someone's a gimp user! lol

@BillyKerr greetings

I am new to this forum, just thought I's say hi. LOL, yeah, GIMP and Photoshop and anything really!!

I'd - oops

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@BillyKerr greetings

2:07 PM

@DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ greetings to you too!!

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan is it bad that I want to get one of those network coffee makers just so I can script against it.. Coding, all of a sudden I want a cup of coffee double click my app to tell the coffee maker go make me coffee.. lol

just make sure you also have a delivery drone in place to bring it to you after

so @BillyKerr I'm curious are you a newish user or a more experienced one?

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan O_O brillant!

0

Q: Macromedia FreeHand-- Bevel & Emboss

I've just begun using Macromedia FreeHand (version before it became Adobe Freehand) that we had laying around. And I want to do this same thing--namely, invert a shadow. In FreeHand there are two effects called "Bevel" and "Emboss". They both are pretty similar to each other. But, I can't seem t...

vector adobe-freehand

I am so impressed they found a computer that can run MM on it!

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

^^ top secret, lol

2:23 PM

Hey could you guys design a few stencil shapes id like to test making a stencil out of say 1.5-3 mm acrylic and possibly ship to a select few of you if i can get this working.

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@joojaa in EPS?

Sure. i can make the lines uniformly thick for the stencil itself.

Not too big things though as im using scrap area on my other works to get them done.

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@joojaa do you have a size preference in mind?

Well usually when you cut accryllic you generate some scrap, that varies, typically something like 60 cm by a 200 can be easily accommodated in most sheets.

But i would like this to be a collaboration.

As such the cost for me is mostly either nothing + shopping or something very tiny for the acrylic.

The laser itself is free, as its supplied by my workplace

@DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ you like the idea

@Ryan I'm new to this forum, but very long in the tooth when it comes to being a user of graphics software. My career began in the print industry, when there were no computers.

2:38 PM

nice! we get a good number of Gimp questions and don't have many regulars that use it so you might be able to help a lot of people if you stick around

my mom actually started as a graphic designer in the print industry before computers too. she didn't stay in the field though at all and it was long before I was born

@Ryan Well, I'll try. But I also use PS and AI too. Some of the GIMP questions here are, how can I say this kindly . . . a bit dumb

lol so are a lot of the PS questions!

I just try to remember Ive been doing this for 20 years and some of these people may be in the first year or even first week using it and dont know how to even ask

@Ryan That's very true, however they do say there is no such thing as a dumb question . . . clearly, whoever said that was delusional.

were you on any of the old school websites? Were-Here? Flashkit?

@BillyKerr this is how I often feel. Luckily I've gotten good at playing nice... and rant to friends in Slack instead of actually telling off my "assistant" (its complicated)

@Ryan I used a few tutorials on flashkit, like years ago. Can't remember when, the Alzheimer's must be kicking in already.

2:47 PM

nice! at least you know of it. nobody else here was around the industry that long ago

@Ryan I also used to be a Freehand user, long before Adobe took it over and sabotaged it.

i had it but never really got into Freehand or Illustrator

Ive been using Photoshop since v4 and used a lot of Macromedia Flash back when it was Macromedia

Yeah used Flash too, can't say I miss it though.

3:12 PM

@DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ man I'm really tempted to get thjis apple.com/shop/product/G0PE0LL/A/…

didnt really get excited enough by the new macbooks and getting sick of waiting for something new. but man so old

@Ryan what did you think about my stenchil idea?

one sec joojaa, gotta reboot. crashed my system it seems tyrying to move files to a USB

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan the new ones are crap, everything is soildered now so you cannot update anymore

@joojaa sounds cool I guess. When you say not big are you talkin like 15cm x 15cm or like 50cm x 50cm?

or what?

3:26 PM

@Ryan I think its a bit up to what kind of sizes of scrap i have. But basically usually you have slivers that are rather long in one direction but not very thick

so maybe 10-15 cm high but width can be much more than that

hmm I think Im crashing my system again

doesn't seem to want to transfer these files to the USB

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@joojaa ya I used to build several items with acrylic and plexiglass as I worked for a lighted sign company

or its going really slow

@DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ yeah but what option is there? I don't think Windows 10 is better. Do you?

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@Ryan haven't played much with windows but I'm a big supporter of mac sales as their prices tend to be better under refurb.

By July I want to get something since Ill be done with all the traveling and can more focused on making tutorials

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

3:29 PM

@Ryan you've been saying you wanted to get something for the last two years I think =P

im a conservative shopper :P

I was holding out for the new stuff. It finally came out in November and was uninspiring

I don't think I can wait again though to see what the new iMac will be like as there's not even a release date

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

ya I doubt anything will be good anymore for Apple. If you want new you can no longer upgrade yourself you're fixed in buying a new unit

Custom Windows is probably the best option if you can tolerate the Windows platform but that takes work

as good a value as it is I don't want to put in the time to make a custom build

@DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ ah cool

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

@joojaa built a coffee table once out of plexiglass, the legs were 3x3 and the sides for it were 1/2" thick and the top was like 3/4" thick. Molded and everything since I had access to an oven

3:33 PM

yeah i cut everything since i have access to a lasercutter :)

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

user image

But soon i will also have acces to a waterjet cutter

DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ

sweet

I have lasers too but you dont see me bragging

:P

@Ryan

3:42 PM

@joojaa

Yes but is it free?

;)

Yes. I've got hundreds of them around the office

its what we manufacture :)

yes i know you told me

Ive been working on the lathe the whol day actually hadnt have time to play with the lasercutter

@Ryan do you guys have some software to optimize cutpaths?

user image

our lasers aren't for cutting :'(

yes

I used to build 3d scanners out of line lasers with students

For some reason nobody ever wanted to build a 3d saccer out fo a overhead projector

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Mar '1729

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