Gliese Times-Navigator: So, you are the unit known as Li-



LITTLE JIM DOES NOT WISH TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS QUESTIONNAIRE

LITTLE JIM VALUES HIS PRIVACY

LITTLE JIM WISHES TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM ALL GLIESE TIMES-NAVIGATOR PROMOTIONAL MAILING LISTS

LITTLE JIM ASKS THAT HIS PREVIOUS REQUEST BE AMENDED TO EXCLUDE NOTIFICATIONS OF DEALS AT LOCAL BREAKFAST FOOD EATERIES

LITTLE JIM ASKS THAT THE PREVIOUS AMENDMENT BE IGNORED FOR REASONS OF PRIVACY

LITTLE JIM IS LEAVING NOW

It's nice to see some green around here. I thought the drought was back on, but apparently there'll be rain this weekend.

100% Americogermathai Hero

That's just how science works.

Good day.

The XYZ Da Vinci 1 annoys me so much. Technically the XYZ hardware is capable (although it came with a misaligned X-axis), but the catch is that the software is slow and terrible. Converting a 3D object into a printable file is a pretty big job, where good control of nozzle temperature, nozzle speed, infill, print head positioning, and so on needs to be taken into account. And the problem with the Da Vinci software is that it just goes "buddy, that shit sounds complicated", and skips it.

R. Monkeys was okay with it being right next to the bed for some reason?

You can use your own software, although to do so you have to screw around. Likewise, you can use your own ABS filament, not the XYZ cartridges, but only if you screw around. It's not difficult screwing around, but that's beside the point.

I get that at this point consumer 3D printing is a Sisyphean hobby in which one should expect to screw around, but even for $400 it'd be nice if "You have to screw around!" wasn't essentially written on the box. I'll give them the cartridge thing, since I never had a problem with 'em and XYZ has to make money some how, but the software is just the worst, with no profitable reason to be that awful. The printer is a nice unit for a good price, but it couldn't print a single model downloaded straight from XYZ without messing up a part or the whole, using the included software.



It was a fun thing to try, and practically-speaking it probably requires less screwing around than a lot of other 3D printers, but I just didn't like the fact that what you're having to fight is a conscious decision on the part of the manufacturer. It's like if you're reading a book, and somebody takes it and throws it on the ground. If that person is a toddler, it's like, hey, that's toddler stuff. But if that person is 33, they're just an asshole. And the software makes the Da Vinci an asshole.

The cartridges are proprietary because XYZ is clearly undercutting other manufacturers on the printer's price, and wants to make money like HP does on printer ink. But I don't get why they go to such lengths to prevent you from using other software. You'd think if they got a reputation as a good printer where you can bring your own software, that'd be great for them — they get a good reputation and they don't have to invest in making their awful software anymore. But they insist on trying to lock you out, so they're getting a bad reputation and they have to invest at least a token non-zero effort in the software. I don't get it.

Hey, I found this ol' thing, just in time for 2016 campaigning to start. 2008 didn't go my way but I have a good feeling about this one.



Edit from 2018: You all thought I was joking, and look how that turned out.

Together, we too can be stung by swarms of hungry angry bees.

[audio m4a="http://www.junipermonkeys.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Africa.m4a"][/audio]

I found a copy of Red Star OS, the official OS of the DPRK, online here. Due to the complex way in which the Monkeyses of two generations past partied, my Korean is passable, so I thought it would be funny to try using only Red Star for a week. This proved impossible. But it's still sort of interesting.



The Kim Family Seal of Quality!



Installation is super-easy. I installed it on R. Monkeys' old laptop (so I hope she doesn't read this website). The installer is basically a rip-off of Mac OS X, so if you're familiar with that you can pretty much guess what goes where. I'm going to skip a bunch of screenshots, so if you're interested in seeing all the steps, just grab the torrent. It's free, Virtual Box is free. That is how life is in the DPRK.

It feels just like Mangyongdae People's Comforting Home Combine #332! Creating your account happens right away. Some stuff happens. This took about 15 minutes because R. Monkeys' old laptop has a slow HDD. I sung that "evvvvery rooooose has its thorn" song until I was asked to stop. Hackin' the Gibson.



When you get to the desktop it's pretty clear that Kim Somebody uses a Mac and yelled at someone to make Red Star 3 look like OS X. Red Stars 1 and 2 were just super Linux-ey. But in 3, everything is pretty familiar if you're a Mac user. The only real difference is the character input pane in the upper right, as well as the non-clickable red flag to remind you to be self-reliant.

The Finder is familiar. You also get the same "View Options" controls for desktop icon sizes, spacing, and so on... ...thus catering to those "Labels on the right" freaks. System Preferences are familiar... ...right down to Spaces, and OS X's meagre "colored or grey dots" customization options. You can also customize the Dock in the exact same ways. When you pin it to the sides, it goes 2D just as OS X's does. Several charming desktops are included. I couldn't find sources for the couple I tried. A couple of them have DPRK stuff crudely photoshopped in. ...like so.

Basically it's like OS X from a parallel universe. You get a browser, media player, calendar, address book, PDF viewer, PDF creator, calculator, image viewer, text editor, Font Book, and a few utilities, including a Disk Utility ripoff, a Terminal ripoff, and a Network Utilities ripoff.





The most charming addition was some handy sheet music software. I assume this is open source from somewhere. It's good for writing revolutionary operas, or tributes to King Sejong.



The reason I abandoned my plan to use it for a week, though, is that the browser — bastardized Mozilla called Naenara — seems to only be able to access the DPRK intranet, also called Naenara. No outside internet. Probably should have seen that one coming.





So if you can't look at the internet, what's left to do? Watch imperialist media. So I stuck my USB stick in ... which was formatted in unrecognized ExFAT. DPRK Disk Utilities offered to initialize it for me. I said "Okay", which resulted in five minutes of beachballing (yeah, they replicated the beachball) and then a hard crash. But when I restarted, I found myself with a new EXT3 stick. Macs can't read EXT3, which I had forgotten. Eventually we all agreed upon FAT, and I watched a video about American imperialists and the failure of capitalism.

The file is actually quite nice; DPRK Video helpfully adds what appears to be horrible artifacting, but is in fact just a trendy 16-bit effect to get the kids into Red Star.

That was really the end of anything interesting to do. If my Korean were better and I was smarter about Linux, I'm sure there would be more fun things to try, but as it stood, all the puke-colored icons were starting to wear on me. If you could unlock Naenara, Red Star would be totally useable, though. I am happily using the Red Star laptop to view DCS plane manuals while my iPad is charging.

Edit: Someone did get root — unlocked Naenara etc.

Ah, to be young again, and also an MP3 player.