Chris Lynas
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fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Chris Lynas
@fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
11 followers 2 following 73 posts
Aerospace engineer, maker and terrible amateur programmer. I will probably toot when I've made something, mainly 3d printing and plotting; if you want to make […]

[bridged from https://mastodon.social/@fastness on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Chris Lynas
attoparsec.clacks.link.ap.brid.gy
Well over a year after I started learning stained glass to make a light fixture, it's done!

https://youtu.be/EarBm4tfMXs
February 2, 2026 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
lonm.social.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy
The UK government may be looking to ban VPNs for children, effectively undermining the privacy they offer for everyone else - including adults. I've signed a petition to get them to reconsider this position. If you are a UK citizen, you can sign too […]
Original post on social.vivaldi.net
social.vivaldi.net
January 24, 2026 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
peaoperdido.datasci.social.ap.brid.gy
#Arduíno #cnc pen plotter working*

Made of PVC water pipes, a servo and two stepper motors.

Still a lot of jiggle since the pipes have some gaps. But it was a fun project!

*For certain definitions of work
A homemade CNC pen plotter made with a PVC water pipe structure
January 18, 2026 at 10:10 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
toxi.mastodon.thi.ng.ap.brid.gy
Finished print(s) of the above darkroom session yesterday... Also nicely demonstrates the importance of the sensitivity to environmental factors and avoiding contamination of all solutions in the kallitype process. For the bottom one I tried using just tap […]

[Original post on mastodon.thi.ng]
Photo of two kallitype prints (of the same negative). The top one has neutral gray tones, the bottom more warm/brown tones and some irregular staining (rusty tones), likely caused by minerals in the tap water...
January 13, 2026 at 1:19 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Starting a torture test plot for the new #penplotter brushless pen lift servo; or, as it's known in the household: "What the heck is that thumping noise? Oh. How long is it going to be doing that for?"
January 4, 2026 at 2:26 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
[Lots of line art eyes]

Our youngest just showed me this sketch. I like it but also I don't like it, which was apparently what was intended and I thought I'd share it here
(shared with permission)
A photo of an artwork, a page from a sketchbook made with ink and fine liner pen. The paper is white, covered in blue ink tracery making blobs joined by strands. The outline of the blue shapes is black with marks moving in to the blob and in the centre of each is an eye with a range of different expressions over the collection (The blue is PH Martin's concentrated watercolour with Sakura and Winsor & Newton black fibre tip pens)
January 3, 2026 at 7:55 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Our 19 year old just got a phonecall, we were genuinely concerned that things were ok
(everything was ok)
January 3, 2026 at 7:42 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I've been planning on doing #penplotter brushless pen lift servo investigations for a while and it's nearly ready for a trial

This is a cheap(ish) full size brushless servo which would replace the coreless micro servo I already swapped over to a while back […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
An image that shows the pen lift and pen carriage of a home made pen plotter. The carriage sits on a silver aluminium extrusion and is mostly made of white 3d printed plastic (PET-G) apart from a section that is orange. Right at the top a mostly black servo sits on its side ready to lift a pen that would be clamped into the orange part off the paper A terrible hand soldered circuit board (the true horrors are hidden underneath) with two DC-DC converters on top. There are three wires coming off, one barrel jack socket, one barrel jack plug and a servo plug
December 30, 2025 at 6:57 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I've wanted to get the Fast Marching Method working in Processing for a while so I can avoid using Python (which I don't really understand) to make some nice line drawings from photos for #penplotter art

I found this paper […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
A screenshot of a Linux desktop showing lots of Firefox tabs in the background, the active tab is showing to the right of the screen and some Fortran 90 code is visible. On top of this is the Processing IDE to the left of the screen showing some Processing (Java ish) code but on top of this is a square window with a grey background covered in a regular array of black circles of varying size The circles are small near to the centre of the array and smoothly increase in size radially until the outer one or two rows/columns which are all the same size and a little bigger than the others. This is the result I was looking for, the size of the circles represents travel time from the centre (ish) so it's smallest where I set the start point and largest as things spread out from there
December 26, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
gretchenmcculloch.com
Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer –
That beast didn’t have unshiny nostrils!

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in Anglo Saxon meter:
allthingslinguistic.com/post/1359368...
Incipit gestis Rudolphi rangifer tarandus Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor – Næfde þæt nieten unsciende næsðyrlas! Glitenode and gladode godlice nosgrisele. Ða hofberendas mid huscwordum hine gehefigodon; Nolden þa geneatas Hrodulf næftig To gomene hraniscum geador ætsomne. Þa in Cristesmæsseæfne stormigum clommum, Halga Claus þæt gemunde to him maðelode: “Neahfreond nihteage nosubeorhtende! Min hroden hrædwæn gelæd ðu, Hrodulf!” Ða gelufodon hira laddeor þa lyftflogan – Wæs glædnes and gliwdream; hornede sum gegieddode “Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor, Brad springð þin blæd: breme eart þu!” Rendered literally into modern English: Here begins the deeds of Rudolph, Tundra-Wanderer Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer – That beast didn’t have unshiny nostrils! The goodly nose-cartilage glittered and glowed. The hoof-bearers taunted him with proud words; The comrades wouldn’t allow wretched Hrodulf To join the reindeer games. Then, on Christmas Eve bound in storms Santa Claus remembered that, spoke formally to him: “Dear night-sighted friend, nose-bright one! You, Hrodulf, shall lead my adorned rapid-wagon!” Then the sky-flyers praised their lead-deer – There was gladness and music; one of the horned ones sang “Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer, Your fame spreads broadly, you are renowned!”
December 24, 2025 at 11:24 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Making the Christmas food and listening to the Radio Orkney Scottish dance Christmas programme

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002nvv8?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
Orkney Scottish Dance Music - Christmas Special - BBC Sounds
Scottish Dance music with the Dashing White Farmer, Liam Muir.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 25, 2025 at 1:21 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Second batch of mince pies of the year, some standard and some with crumble tops - which I can recommend
Mince pies sitting on a wire rack to cool, about half have egg washed star shaped tops and about half are topped with crumble (flour, butter, dark brown sugar, and oats)
December 24, 2025 at 6:37 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Had an idea for a concealed lithophane model that I thought I'd test. After I'd adapted some #openscad code from a more complex past project I realised I'd just rewritten something that can be done in one line with a standard function

The code makes a […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
A hand holding up a white rectangular shape with rounded corners in front of an orange Prusa Mini+ sitting on a wooden shelf. The white shape is featureless A hand holding up a white rectangular shape with rounded corners in front of an orange Prusa Mini+ sitting on a wooden shelf. The white shape is featureless A hand holding up a white rectangular shape between thumb and forefinger in front of an orange Prusa Mini+ sitting on a wooden shelf. The white shape is held up to a light that's in the top left of the frame and a cat can just about be faintly seen, looking like it's embedded in the rectangle
December 22, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
attoparsec.clacks.link.ap.brid.gy
Want to know how fast something is spinning? Turns out there are a surprising number of ways to do that:

https://youtu.be/FsaPIOYaPrg
December 17, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
zelda.zone
"Hello, We're Firefox, The Only Browser That Hasn't Hit Itself In The Dick With A Hammer. For years now, folks use us because of our un-hammered dick. Now, you may be wondering why today we've brought this hammer and pulled out our dick. Well I'm glad you asked--"
February 28, 2025 at 3:22 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I'm attempting to use the 50p unicorn biscuit cutter I bought today in the hope of making it (and some biscuits*) part of an office secret Santa gift

Can you tell which end of the series I started at?

* These are not the biscuits, these are experiments. I'm […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
9 "unicorn" shaped biscuits arranged in a 3 x 3 grid. At the top left there is a bright pink unicorn cutter. The biscuits are sitting on a shiny steel wire rack which is on a grey kitchen work surface. The series of biscuit shapes starts, I think we can say, not well. The first one is a thing of nightmares, distended and missing the most basic of unicorn features. By the bottom right the outline is not that bad, the unicorn has a horn that doesn't look too much like a penis and the tail, legs and head are recognisable
November 30, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
dougmerritt.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy
A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages
James Iry; Thursday, May 7, 2009

1801 - Joseph Marie Jacquard uses punch cards to instruct a loom to weave "hello, world" into a tapestry. Redditers of the time are not impressed due to the lack of tail call recursion […]
Original post on mathstodon.xyz
mathstodon.xyz
November 23, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
colin-mcmillen.piaille.fr.ap.brid.gy
Look at these pants my partner made me 🤩 These are #retrocomputing selvedge jeans!! With floppies on the pockets!
The jeans seen from behind, on me. The back pockets have 5.25" floppy designs on them! A closeup of my butt, but it's for the floppies Viewed from the front. The small pocket is a 3.5" floppy!
November 15, 2025 at 3:17 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Just had a very interesting idea at work for an area entirely unrelated to mine

Now I just need to find someone from that area so they can tell me that it was already invented in 1930 or something, ideally without making me feel like more of an eejit than strictly necessary

Unfortunately most […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
October 22, 2025 at 3:19 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
New Hyperspace Pirate video!
This one has added homebrew CT scanning: https://youtu.be/Ht9JzOryaKc
October 20, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
attoparsec.clacks.link.ap.brid.gy
Making the video about it turned out to be almost as hard as the original hike, but the video covering my San Francisco Bay circumnavigation is finally up!

https://youtu.be/1MUSqkcd7n8
October 19, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Chris Lynas
hannah.posts.rat.pictures.ap.brid.gy
Someone just donated the most unhinged 80s pattern book i’ve ever seen to my store
Cat knits, by melinda coss, showcasing a giant sweater with an intarsia cat on the back Bananas sweater featuring rumpleteazer from cats Another intarsia sweater including a physical watch attached Slinky siamese cat dress
October 10, 2025 at 5:46 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
A sparrowhawk is eating a pigeon right outside our back door

I didn't know we had that kind of wildlife around here
October 4, 2025 at 3:44 PM
fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I saw this while waiting for the bus in #bristol today and was very puzzled as to what it was until I looked up the website on the side of the truck pulling the trailer (not shown)

So here's your Sunday challenge: what is this thing?
A photo of an odd thing on a trailer. It's like a box with internal folded up steel mesh walkways in an open side. It's about 3m high, 4m wide and 1m thick. The open side is a 4x3m side but the opposite side to this appears to be full of industrial fans that can blow air out of the box. On the sides there are centrifugal blower fans that seem to be positioned to blow air in from the outside, which is odd given that there are loads of fans aimed too blow air out. Around the open side there is a floppy grey fabric curtain about 0.5m long. The inside of the box looks dirty and very dusty
September 28, 2025 at 10:59 AM