Cases

This week has been mostly working on the 3d models. Also some technical updates to the classroom app. Details follow.

Cases

I am continuing a review of all the source code that generates the 3d models and their cases. The immediate goal is to separate the model generation from the bom.paleo.in website, so we can work on the 2 independently. bom.paleo.in is going to become a phone friendly app once this work is complete.

In the review I'm finding problems with the cases as they exist so far. I now know the proper colors for all the models, and to work with that I'm changing case colors so everything works together.

This is not fundamentally a design issue, but the printed models do need to be changed. There are, though, some design issues too.

The biggest design problem is on the Ezekiel Case. This was the first case I ever designed and I remember at the time thinking how large it was. Hilarious. As currently found on the website there are 12 cells to that now small case.

We dug out our copy of the Ezekiel Case here recently to show it off. I realized as soon as it was setup that there were problems. After a few days I was working through the Ezekiel Case design files and I suddenly understood more problems. That case is missing a total of 8 additional cells. Instead of 12 cells it should be 20 cells.

Including other changes in the set I can now explain all sides of all models, starting with a singular infinite series model and ending with 25 infinite series models. In other words the set is now closed. I need to have printed 160 3d models to have the complete set rendered, with some duplication based on specific scripture stories.

For reference, there are 88,500 lines of openscad code to generate all the models in the set. For those curious, commercial programmers average 325 to 750 lines of code per month, so this represents about 10 years of development time if commercial programmers were hired to do the work. (I'm rouge, and don't have a life, so I'm faster.) It has, though, been more than 10 years since this started, now I can see why it took so long.

To speed this reprint along I just assembled a 3rd printer, this a shiny new Prusa. (And maybe I should dream of a 4th?) I hope to start reprinting the set here soon.

Once happy with the redesign, I will be updating bom.paleo.in too. I will post here when that is complete. I would not print anything off that site just yet if I were you.

Code Updates

I checked the logs recently for the cr.paleo.in website. One of the things that surprised me was how far away some people were visiting from. We've had regular visitors from Africa, for example.

The other thing I noticed was evidence in the logs that suggests many problems with relatively slow internet. Especially with everyone at home using Zoom instead of gabbing in person at the office. Every ISP seems to be running slower than at the start of the year, especially wireless ISPs and slow data on cell phone networks. Radio based networks don't appear to have the headroom as cable and fiber.

I suspect we've had problems with live stream viewers because of slow internet. I've updated the code to be more forgiving of slow connections. Neither the server nor the cr app itself will give up for a slow connection anywhere near as fast as it was. (Pretty much all timeout values are doubled from a week ago.)

I will watch logs to see if this stops timeout related errors. So if you want to watch from a hut on the African Savanna, you can at least try again. Hopefully we don't break our regular viewers in some strange way.

Live Stream

Ryan is doing Sabbath Reads this week. The time for the stream is 10:00 AM, Pacific. Check out the front of the app, cr.paleo.in, for the exact time in your area. See us then.

More Later,

Phil