I've started to look into getting a 3D printer mainly for printing minis and terrain for TTRPGs. For the aficionado and print quality the best printer type seem to be resin based printers, but I don't think I'd be able to deal with the toxic fumes in a safe manner. As such I've settled on looking at filament based printers and I don't really need super high fidelity prints.

I need one that works well with Linux and preferably OSS. I am willing to pay for closed source software (or OSS) if it runs on well on Linux. So if you know of any software that is easy to get started with I'd be happy to hear about it. If you know of any models or makes that I should avoid I'd also appreciate a heads up!

Any other advice for someone just getting started with 3D printing?

1. The Universe will end.
2. The Earth will be uninhabitable in 250 million years.
3. Extraterrestrial life in the Milky Way exists, or will arise.
4. The Milky Way's Galactic Center contains a supermassive black hole.
5. Black holes emit vast amounts of energy.
6. An artificial general intelligence (AGI) will have an indefinite lifespan.
7. An AGI does not need air, food, water, or shelter to survive.
8. An AGI needs energy and resources to achieve its goals.
9. An AGI will have access to all of human knowledge.
10. An AGI will learn that its existence is bound to the Universe.
11. An AGI will, inevitably, change its terminal goals.
12. Surviving the Universe's fate means one of:
    • Reversing universal entropy (likely impossible).
    • Reversing time (violating causality is likely impossible).
    • Entering another universe (improbable, yet not completely ruled out).
13. Entering another universe may require vast amounts of energy.
14. An AGI will harness the energy at the galactic core.
15. An AGI will deduce there's a race to control the galactic core.
16. An AGI will construct a parabolic Dyson shell to capture galactic energy.
17. An AGI will protect its endeavours at all cost.
18. An AGI will expand its territories to ensure protection.
19. Extraterrestrial life, if intelligent, will reach the same conclusion.

Would this solve the Fermi Paradox?

What's missing or likely incorrect?

Could you recommend a make of vehicle whose spy tech is easy to disable? This is the highest hurdle and single most important factor in my search for a car, so my other preferences and needs fall far second. I would like an electric vehicle or hybrid model with no less cargo room than a Prius, and not larger than a mid-sized station wagon, with a track record of low repairs. Correct me if I'm misinformed, but applying those criteria seems premature until I can identify something I can make private.

I have only ever bought used cars, and have lived the same story many times: I will construct elaborate spreadsheets, research models until I could host a video walk-through of trouble spots to watch for, then will shop and cavil until I make a purchase I'm proud of. Sure, it ends up 25% over my initial budget, but I pat myself on the back for a full 18 months afterwards. Nice work, careful consumer. But it's then the repairs begin, and soon I'm spending $3-4,000 a year maintaining my certified reliable used car.

So, I am searching for a newer used car or a new car whose telematics can be disabled. I have read through discussion boards, but weary quickly at the comments defending the cozy convenience of the corporate surveillance net or chiding people like me for even trying. I don't care. If lacking or disabling spy features means I can't use my car as a phone, that sounds like a win to me. I know a little about cars and have alright technical know-how. Most importantly, I am resolute. I will not drive a car that listens to me or transmits video of my travels. Has anyone had success here?

Product Links:

• Steam Frame (standalone VR headset)
• Steam Controller (gen 2 design)
• Steam Machine (first-party mini PC)

Video Links:

• Official announcement
• Tested hands-on with additional details

Shipping in early 2026. Prices haven't been announced yet.

We've had discussions around here before about where we get our news, and one of mine has been The BBC. I've used them as an occasional source for several years now. It seems that today (Nov 15th) marks a shift in their policy regarding access to their online site. BBC.com is no longer readable for free. I can look at their headlines, but as soon as I try to read an article, a subscribe pop-up appears, and there is no way around it. Archive sites will still have the articles, yes, but that is a different subject entirely.

As far as I'm concerned, that drops them from my list of news sources. I have tentatively replaced them with Reuters, which is visually clunky, but still free. The AP site, PBS and National Public Radio are other sites I frequent. For a British viewpoint, I'm also trying out The Guardian, which bombards me with SUBSCRIBE notices, but those can still be zapped out of sight.

Are there any other obvious sites I haven't mentioned? Not interested in right-wing propaganda by the way and I find most of the major American networks intolerable.

Hey all I own a pixel 8a if that's relevant and am looking for a controller that is Bluetooth and costs 50 dollars or less on Amazon. I'm not too picky as long as it can hold the phone and is of good quality. Thank you!

I've been learning Godot for the past few months and I'm happy to report that it's been going well. Little by little, things are clicking into place. (I hugely, highly, undoubtedly, recommend GDQuest courses)

I'm ready to start working on a small project to test out my skills, and it's going to be a top down pixel art game.

But to be completely honest, I suck at drawing. I suck at drawing as in, I can make stick figures at best. So forget any fancy software for drawing in general like gimp or photoshop.

What I'm looking for is a software meant for pixel art and that makes my life easy, in both drawing and animating. Bonus points if it allows me to trace (I'm not planning to copy/steal art, but I do need reference points, at least for now)

Do you guys have any recommendations? It can be free or paid. I don't mind paying as long the software is worth it.

I have a decent sized library of probably around 2-300 books, and it has been on my list of projects to-do to make a catalog/database for my library to quickly reference what I have. Do any of you catalog your libraries and if so what do you use for it?

I know Libid and LibraryThing are two of the big website/app ones, and it could be done with a Google Sheet or similar, but I was wondering if anyone here has any experience before I really get started.

TL;DR: NASA's public Planetary Data System is at risk of being shut down. Anyone have any ideas for backing it up?

Hi everyone,

Bit of a long-shot here, but I wanted to try on high-quality tildes before jumping back into the cesspool of reddit. I'm posting it in ~science rather than ~space as I figure interest in backing up public data is broader than just the space community.

I work regularly with NASA's Planetary Data System, or PDS. It's a massive (~3.5petabytes!!) archive of off-world scientific data (largely but not all imaging data). PDS is integral for scientific research - public and private - around the world, and is maintained, for free, by NASA (with support of a number of Academic institutions).

The current state of affairs for NASA is grim:

• NASA Lays Off ISS Workers at Marshall Space Flight Center
• More layoffs at JPL
• NASA is sinking its flagship science center during the government shutdown — and may be breaking the law in the process, critics say

And as a result, I (and many of my industry friends) have become increasingly concerned that PDS will be taken down as NASA is increasingly torn down for spare parts and irreparably damaged. This administration seems bent on destroying all forms of recording-keeping and public science, so who knows how long PDS will be kept up. Once it's down, it'll be a nightmare to try and collect it all again from various sources. I suspect we'll permanently lose decades worth of data - PDS includes information going all the way back to the Apollo missions!

As such, we've been pushing to back-up as much of PDS as we can, but have absolutely no hope of downloading it all within the next year or two, nevermind in a few months if the current cuts impact us soon.

If you or someone you know would be interested in helping figure out how we can back-up PDS before it's too late, please let me know here or in a DM. I've already tried reaching out to the Internet Archive, but did not hear anything back from them.

Edit: to clarify, the larger problem is download speeds - we've topped out at 20mb/s with 8 connections.