Anyone here into astronomy? I'm looking at getting a telescope and doing some livesteaming with that in the next few months. There's a ton out there but I'm looking for something "middle of the road" for someone relatively new. I don't want anything super basic; a good starter option that'll get the job done for most things. We live way out in the country now so the skies are spectacular. I'd like to attach something like this: https://www.telescope.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=102083 (Maybe not that exact thing, but some way to get the view into Twitch for you guys to see).

Right now I'm playing Asphalt 9. For some reason, it's available for both PC and Android, but the save system isn't cross-platform. On PC you can only log in using Xbox. On Android, you can only log in using Google. But... why? So since my account is on Google, I figured I'd use BlueStacks to play it on my computer.

I've tried this before and it works great! If your computer can run a game, it can run BlueStacks. What sort of games do you play that caused you to want to try this?

Hey guys, I want to share that I sometimes use BlueStacks to play Android games on Windows. It works pretty well, just like a regular Android phone. From what I can see it's not as fast as a phone for a few things, but overall it's good. I don't play tons of games, but it's cool to play some mobile games on your TV or main computer. I also keep it as a virtual backup device for some of my mobile games, in case my phone disconnects from the game and I have trouble logging back in. Something I didn't think about before trying it, was that those mobile games look HUGE on my 55-inch TV, compared to my 6-inch phone screen, it's pretty impressive. You can also use just any app available on the Play Store. I only mentioned games, but you can use any app you want. They're now at version 5, it's way better than before: https://www.bluestacks.com/bluestacks-5.html Anyone else knows or uses BlueStacks?

What the actual fu-

The issue here with the take-over bid by Musk is Twitter has filed certain required documents with the SEC, including quarterly SEC Forms 10-Q that, among other things, state their market value via user accounts. Those documents were signed by the Board of Directors under penalty of perjury. When Musk first made the bid everyone at Twitter was aghast! "OMG this can't be happening! Musk must be stopped at all costs." Then Musk calls their bluff and demands that they back up their proffer that BOT accounts represent <5% of all accounts or the deal is off. "OMG, he can't back out! Musk must be stopped at all costs." Now the SEC knows that maybe there's a problem. It's one thing to be less than truthful in the private sale of a business. But knowingly and with fraudulent intent being less than truthful in stating the value of a publicly traded company during a take-over bid means someone is going to prison. Musk has played this like a master.

I've been thinking about ways to tell stories with TTI, and build out what I've had in the back of my mind since at least the Paranormalis days. I've always wanted to find a way to manifest an expanded universe centered around a place like Time Travel Institute, and so that's what I'm going to do. A while back, I talked about the release of Unreal 5 and how great it looked. The big bottlenecks that prevented this sort of thing before are now pretty trivial... The bottleneck now is articulating the idea. Translating from brain to pixel. Or something like that. I completed the initial build of the new 3D printer this weekend, but got a bad Y-axis motor. Big pain in the butt, so onto something else while I get that worked out in the background. We will return to that project later. What I have in mind is a walking simulator, where one gradually learns the backstory to the TTI universe. Time Travel Institute exists as an organization in The Void, a pocket subidmension created long ago by The Watchers. The last known Watchers created the Time Travel Institute, but disappeared long ago for reasons yet to be discovered. You, the player, have stumbled into this dimension and the only way home is learning to wield the power within the Institute. The Void looks a bit like this: I've been experimenting over the weekend getting to know Unreal 5 - There is a lot we can do with this, and it's ultimately a LONG TERM project. Something we'll be chipping away at for a while to come. The end goal is an experience like Gone Home or The Stanley Parable, but before that the focus will be on building TTI and filling it with references to things we find fascinating. This is a good opportunity to take our 20+ year history and hide easter eggs to threads that have happened here, or callouts to long-time members. It's taken me a couple days longer to get to posting this than I intended - Lots of experiments and just getting used to the program so I can maneuver around and understand lighting, getting a level together, basic interactions, stuff like that. I'll continue posting updates on this as things progress, and provide some download links once there's something worth someone else exploring If you have ideas for things you'd like to see, let me know and I'll consider including it!

My 3d printer is now operational https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZJqSzVZccU6xs3cgvmRtSl1xG7WNh6uySBV I had some issues at first, the bed leveling has 4 screws and all of them had to be turned, if only one of them were turned too long it just came off, but if they were all turned it raised the bed well enough. The other thing was with feeding the filament, turns out the filament had to enter a bit lower so I had to press on top of it with a screw driver to get it into the hole (from where the filament tube goes).

Definitely share any Thingiverse links for radionics, I would love to build something like that and experiment.

I'll mostly print things relating to my ongoing projects, but also useful or nifty things I find on thingiverse or elsewhere online. The 3d printer will be useful for making more sophisticated psychotronics (like radionics/radiesthesia devices). Robotics support structures, enclosures for electronics (like Raspberry Pi stuff), models of my dream vehicle and house..

I was incredibly close to buying an Ender. What dissauded me was that they have a few too many models, and I wasn't sure what I'd be getting. Decision paralysis, but I've heard really good things about them. IStick with the devil you know, even though that devil takes days longer to assemble, LOL. This looks awesome - What sort of things do you plan on printing? If I was going to get any other printer it would probably be one of these.

There are many variants of the Ender printer so I thought it might be better to have a generic thread for Creality Ender 3d printers. Today I got my first 3d printer and assembled it, it is a Creality Ender 3 Pro 3d printer. I have yet to configure it and set up software and such for it. That said I have used 3d printers before so I know how to 3d print, but now I have my own. It took me about 3 hours to assemble it. I have a bunch of STL files downloaded and will also be making my own later on. I have made my own before, but it was like 6 years ago. It may take me some time to get into this stuff again. This is a relatively popular, cheap and upgradable printer, which sort of fit all the requirements I had for getting one.

I mean, sure, why not? "Elon Musk has expressed support for receiving a discount on his Twitter bid equal to the percentage of users who are spambots." https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-wants-a-25-discount-on-his-twitter-bid-if-25-of-twitters-users-are-spam-bots-are-they-12619502

Curiouser and curiouser:

"What bots? There are no bots!"

Preparations. Aiming for Friday or the weekend.

Meanwhile at Twitter:

Think of the damage a machine like this can do to society. Suspend disbelief and pretend it hasn't already happened - 5% of a 330 million active daily users is about 16 million accounts. Even if it's 10% (I could see it being much higher), 33 million-ish... What could you do with that many "AI" accounts pushing whatever pet agenda you had at the time. Makes me wonder where the "NPC" meme came from. Normal people were talking to AI chatbots who hadn't received the new update. And then you see things like this: Boggles the mind how anyone could think sites of that size are NOT being used to lie to and mislead you.

I don't use Twitter much, but man, there's so much crap on there, it's unbelievable. Promoted content is everywhere in your face. It's really a beast of its own that probably doesn't even need people to function properly. It's almost scary.

Trump said he wouldn't be back. I don't think he COULD go back without harming his Truth Social. I got in once they switched to Rumble Cloud a couple weeks ago. So now this is happening: This is in reference to the current Twitter CEO going on a thirteen post thread of song-and-dance bullshit: If you've ever worked for a bigger company, especially in IT, you've seen this kind of manager before. Someone who takes a three sentence response and stretches it out with filler hoping to dazzle you with their wordsmithing and vocabulary. My thoughts exactly Twitter is now in a hard spot. Either they admit their bot users comprise more than 5% (I think it's much higher) and get sued into oblivion by advertisers, or they let the deal fall apart because they can't take the sunlight and they get sued into oblivion by shareholders. Or something like that. It's fun to watch.

This is gonna be fun.

Checking it’s in there. And dipping into the complimentary Haribos they send. I will get this set up to be built this weekend I think. Came earlier than I thought! (Insert joke here)

Gentle smile.

A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge have powered a microprocessor for a year using blue-green algae. The power-producing cyanobacteria were enclosed in an AA battery-sized plastic and metal container with an aluminum anode, and connected to an Arm Cortex-M0 microprocessor. Scientists think the electrical output was the result of a bio-electrochemical process in which the algae generated electrons which moved across bacterial membranes to the aluminum anode. The bio-battery worked in both light and dark conditions, powering the microprocessor from February to August 2021 (and an additional six months afterward), and it continues to produce current. "It's still running and I hope it will run for very long time. Given the right conditions of light, temperature and water, I cannot predict when it will stop," said biochemist Paolo Bombelli. Source: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/algae-powered-computer/