True, you can have a quality closed source product (look at Bamboo or Stratasys), it’s more lamenting than at one point Prusa was THE open source die hard (and that’s earned them a fair bit of goodwill in a community that generally respects that (on account of only existing because of open source culture)).

Needing to make money is completely valid and understandable, which is what makes this less of an outright outrage and more of an “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed” kind of situation.

Agreed, it’s nice to see Prusa put up a modern consumer printer, but for the price I didn’t see anything in the announcement that would make it easier to recommend over the bamboo for the “I need it to just work” folks or the SV08/ voron for the folks that like to tinker (and value not living in a walled garden, Sovol’s hot end/ nozzles not withstanding).

Having just built an LDO 2.4 kit a few months ago, I have no regrets. The 350 kit + printed forward parts weren’t that much more expensive than what this is slated to retail at, but I get a comparatively massive build volume, nerd cred, and the open source nature means that I can tweak, mod, or otherwise upgrade to my hearts content, from being able to run whatever hot end/ extruder I damn well please, to custom parts (hell, I’ve already swapped the tool head mount for Vitalii’s metal one- not quite the COTS ethos of the voron design, but about a thousand times easier line up and tension, worth every penny), or more complicated projects like ERCF or Box Turtle.

Just to key in on the overlap between FOSS and privacy, because the source code for the software is open, it means that anyone can take a peek at how everything is running under the hood (among other things). It becomes possible to verify that software is storing data locally and properly encrypting when applicable (as opposed to blindly trusting the software’s author and or lawyers).

It may also be a fun fact that best practice in encryption is to open source your algorithms. The helps safeguard against backdoors and mistakes/ errors that could compromise the security of the algorithm. Much for similar reasons as above, as it allows the security community to check your math (in a field where it is incredibly easy to get your math wrong).

Very nice!

I was wondering if that’d be possible but was never brave enough to attempt it. I do have another fun intersectional application though: custom stamps. Not nearly as long lived as brass/ metal, but way cheaper especially for low volume, plus you can embed magnets so they stick to an arbor press. (Just remember to hit the top with a quick sanding to knock off any extension artifacts)

It’s primarily written for klipper, but I’ve been been getting pretty good results dialing in my was-an-ender with Ellis’ tuning guide (all but eliminated my problems with elephants foot). It goes over exactly what a good first layer should look and feel like, plus extra related settings.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve picked up from the Internet is to never cheap out on things that connect you to the ground (tires, shoes, mattresses, chairs, etc). Theses chairs are primarily sold to business/ offices where they’re meant to be used and abused daily for years without needing to be replaced while still remaining ergonomically comfortable. That said, 1200 is the new sticker price, you can absolutely find them second hand/ refurbished/ resold for a quarter of the price. Admittedly still expensive, but very much worth it when compared to an IKEA/ office max special.

(I may be a little biased since I daily drive a Leap V2)

Enh, I’m not so sure about that, one of the most unique parts of RimWorld is that the primary goal is to tell a story. Even the best stories need a bit breathing room for the action-y bits to have weigh. RimWorld is filled with stories about colonies that ran out of food in the dead of winter, lone survivor types that either bleed out or later died of infection after a freak hunting mishap, or trying to hide from the flames and wait out the raiders/ murder machines. It may be waiting, but I find that more often than not (especially in the early game), it’s either a welcome break after a hectic day or an edge-of-your-seat fight-for-survival kind of waiting.

Everyone plays a bit different, personally I’d recommend playing the vanilla game for a bit and using mods to flesh things out or iron out any rough edges in how you experience the game. The modding scene for the game is absolutely phenomenal, if at any point you’re going “gee, there’s got to be a better way to do X, deal with Y, or add more Z”, there’s probably a mod that does it, for example I like designing my colony fairly early on (so I have something to build towards), but since the existing mono-color plan gets confusing pretty fast (what was wall and what was workbench, tool cabinet, light, etc), I find More Planning to be a bit of a must have. As a blanket statement, the Vanilla Expanded mods are very well done and integrate neatly into the game (that said, they aren’t necessary meant to all be run at once, so you can pick and choose what you want and go from there).

I have a pretty decent list going, but if we’re just talking a short list of personal favorites, I really love Megafauna, Frozen Snow Fox’s Bionics, and Cyber Fauna. (Oh and a shameless self-plug for my own mods)

I’m 1800hrs in (with probably another couple hundred making mods), Rimworld is pure crack in all the best ways possible. Hands down the best $30 I’ve ever spent on a game.

The Voron team would like to know your location…