One problem which I've had working in this space is the difficulty of naming specific shapes --- worked up a list in my current project:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview/blob/main/gcodepre...

(should be section 3.8.1.1 on pg. 97, not sure, since I need to push up an update)

and I'd be glad of any comment or correction or point of improvement.

Note that Matt Keeter has been at this for quite a while now, very generously sharing his efforts and research:

https://www.mattkeeter.com/research/

In particular, his thesis is well-worth reading: https://www.mattkeeter.com/research/thesis.pdf

"What does this independent research look like?"[1] - timestamp link into Implicit Surfaces & Independent Research (2025) on that research page.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxGxsGnbyJ4&t=2150s (I started the clip a few seconds early as teaser for rest of talk)

Thanks for referencing that. I'm similarly doing independent research and feel like I "do", but not much more. As I've previously researched in either academic and corporate settings, where there is so much other scaffolding, that helped outline some ways to contextualize and activate.

Yeah, the onboarding process for independent research needs work. Especially with various disruptions coming for existing settings. The Gap by Ira Glass pops to mind.[1] We need a bunch of those. Analogous to the conversation around becoming a writer or other artist. Or to starting a business. With lots of insights into what needs doing, how, and how to sustain. With its fun parts, tedious parts, grueling parts. The universal challenge of crafting a life which sustains, but encompassing the research. Imagining and pulling into existence the rhythms, constraints, network/village, the exoskeleton to usefully produce. As a DIY project, rather than "here's your ID, desk, mentor, advisor, lounge, whiteboard supplies, schedule, the person to see if you need anything done, and the weekly lab social is today at 5". There's also the "I imagined myself a freelancer, but find myself a sole proprietor" twist. Maybe some of this is starting to exist? Perhaps there are blogs out there? I've not looked. A survey of that might make for an interesting blog post or HN discussion.

[1] https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/the-gap-by-ira-glass-9651...

It was nice/workable for its time, and one wishes that there was some modern alternative, but "RAD" seems to have dropped off the radar.

Some things I've tried/looked into (beyond TCL/TK):

- Gambas --- Linux only, not sure if there's a nice visual UI builder

- LiveCode --- still salty about the license rug pull, wish the openxtalk folks could get some traction

- MoonBasic --- looks promising, but currently trying....

- flet.dev --- the AI-integration in this makes it quite compelling, though I wish that there was an integrated UI drawing tool, https://github.com/raffieeey/Flet-Visual-Builder is self-described as buggy and hasn't seen an update in 7 months

- Lazarus --- still bummed I never got anywhere with Delphi --- if flet.dev doesn't work out, may try it

Re-reading C.J. Cherryh's Chanur books and various other Alliance-Union novels from her Humble Bundle.

I'd be re-reading Tolkien's _Old English Exodus_, but proofreading the typos got to be too much.

Humble Bundle frequently has nice bundles of genre fiction or comics by specific authors. I've picked up large sets of Ebooks from them over the last few years by numerous authors: Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Jordan, comics by Moebius, and recently Timothy Zahn and various scifi/fantasy authors with careers spanning decades.

It's a great resource!

Now if we could just bring back Navi/AOLPress....

Yeah, I am quite sad that I am packing up and shipping off my nifty little Intel MacBook Pro and for the first time ever, I'm wondering if I can do without a Mac, not even really wanting one.... the one form factor which sort of appeals is a Wacom Movink 13 w/ a Mac Mini (but I hate that the screen is so low resolution and none of the Cintiq Pros use the same stylus as my other stylus devices (Kindle Coloursoft, Samsung Galaxy Note and Book)

There are specialty chainsaws used for cutting mortises and so forth when timber framing, and some folks will rough up beams using just a chainsaw, to say nothing of the expedient lumber/board cutting jigs/fixtures.

There are myriad ways to do woodworking joinery, and entire books on it:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4942341-woodwork-joints

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17572619-the-complete-gu...

Note that modern adhesives (esp. if coupled with the judicious use of a bit of hardware) are quite strong/lasting so long as they are appropriate to the purpose.

Just making a couple as a test/prototype will go a long way towards building skill and confidence.

For my part, I've found Literate Programming to be the best lever on this for my own work, and there has been some discussion of other folks being successful applying it to LLM work:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47300747

The really interesting thing to me is when Modula 2/3 and Oberon come up --- I'd _really_ love to see a bare-metal implementation of Oberon for the Raspberry Pi which was:

- actually ported (_not_ emulated) w/ native drivers

- easy to install

- performant

- had an attractive GUI

- had a web browser which could handle the basics of the modern web

I mean, the documentation is sixteen pages --- seems like a perfect fit --- still waiting on a tablet shell for an rPi 5 (and still need to get an rPi 5 Compute Module for it), so will be looking into it then....