I’m on the road right now and don’t have much to say, so I’m going to wax poetic about stuff I’ve been thinking about with the notion of the Out of Box Experience. Here goes! When it comes to user experience, the first impression is often the last impression. That’s why companies focus on creating a seamless and intuitive Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE) for their products, especially in the realm of consumer electronics and software. The term OOBE refers to the initial set-up and configuration experience after unboxing a new device or installing new software for the first time. This process …

I’ve been tinkering with my 3D printer and have found myself quite enamored with the notion of adding heat set screw inserts into 3D printed PLA parts. I’ve spent a fair amount of time mastering the technique and I thought I’d share some insights here, in case it proves helpful for anyone else. The What and Why of Heat Set Screw Inserts Heat set screw inserts are nifty little brass threads that you can embed into your 3D printed parts. Their purpose? To create durable, reusable threads for machine screws. This is particularly handy when you’re building parts that need …

Background A friend of mine recently approached me and asked for advice on how to start over online. He’d been going through some changes in life and he wanted a “clean slate”. That’s an interesting problem to me so I started thinking about it. I came up with a list of steps and recommendations. I don’t know if it’s complete or even effective, but I thought it might be worth codifying in words somewhere more permanent than in a Discord PM. The Problem Persistent digital accounts, particularly as one ages and their interests and priorities change, tend to pile up …

Everyone has a blog right? I’ve had a couple but I’ve been bad about keeping them up to date. I’m going to attempt to keep this one up to date weekly.