iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 28/09/2026

Lumping games from one series together (e.g. all the Myst games, Dark Souls 1 and 3, both Age of Empires and Age of Mythology), I can only really think of 6 games that influenced me.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 27/09/2026

I've nearly finished Factorio Space Age. Aquilo was fun. First image: top of factory, where heat + power are produced Second image: bottom of factory, where science packs (and soon, quantum processors etc) are produced.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 26/09/2026

- Keep a To-Do list in your Slack self-DM - Put stuff on that list - When you finish something, remove it from the list that's it. that's all you need.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 25/09/2026

Fillets are _much_ better in KCL 3.0 (try it now by setting your version to "3.0-preview"). We added a new feature where fillets will continue around your model, following tangent edges (defaults to true, but can be toggled off). This makes it _much_ easier to apply fillets to your whole model!

The same part, but with a single `fillet` call that fillets all the top edges.

The same part, but all edges have been filletted.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 22/09/2026

I found the Yom Kippur traditional Poster's Confession really meaningful this year.

We have subtweeted. We have argued in bad faith. We have dogpiled. We have uploaded images with no alt text. We have read the replies of our mutuals without leaving a courtesy like, and we have become irrationally angry when our posts did not get a courtesy like. We have thirsted and we have judged others for their thirst. We have posted bait, and we have taken the bait of others. We have posted cringe, we have been horny on main, we have assumed that someone’s retweet was an endorsement. We have posted things which are true but unkind. We have posted things which are kind but we knew to be false. We have scrolled when we should be sleeping or paying attention to our loved ones. We have replied seriously to a joke. We have strayed from Your good terms & services and it has not made our lives better.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 20/09/2026

MacOS 27 shows a different icon for Wired vs. Wi-Fi internet :') such a good QoL improvment.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 18/09/2026

it's a bad day to be a slow KCL program

Chart showing the log-scale speedups to a KCL benchmark I've been optimizing today.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 15/09/2026

The nalgebra crate is very abstract. Beginners may dislike how generic it is, bc it makes the type signatures hard to read, and lots of methods are "hidden" behind traits/aliases, which hinders autocomplete. But it works seamlessly with other crates, like 'uom', for doing math on different units!

A Rust program showing that types from 'uom' (e.g. a generic Length that can be made from mm, inches, feet, kilometers etc) can be stored in nalgebra points or vectors, then have operations like addition, subtraction, cross product etc done on it. Then you can get each component as mm or inches or whatever afterwards.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 14/09/2026

how tf did they make this without parametric CAD

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 14/09/2026

I've updated this to support filtering branches (with a search term that branch names must contain). You hit / to bring up the search box, then type a search term. Hit Enter or Esc to go back to normal mode. Enter accepts search term, Esc clears it. Current search is shown at the bottom.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 08/09/2026

Tofu and rice for lunch. Marinaded the tofu for an hour or so. Green onions for some more flavor.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 07/09/2026

Gleba's done. I made a main bus for the Gleba materials, with a special lane for Burn This. All the overflow, unused items, spoilage, etc goes there. Grabbers pick anything from the Burn This that they might need (e.g. more spoilage).

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 04/09/2026

Next version of Zoo improves visuals: edges are finally black, even in dark mode. Our previous white edges looked pretty weird. After (flange with black edges), before (cube with white edges)

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 03/09/2026

We recently changed the Angle constraint in Zoo's sketch mode (2D geometry). You now choose two lines and a quadrant, then enforce an angle constraint on it. Much easier to use!

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 01/09/2026

Lunch. Leftover chicken + broccoli from my daughter's lunchbox, with rice noodles and peanut sauce.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 29/08/2026

The clouds look so beautiful right now. We're so lucky to have so much beauty hanging over us.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 27/08/2026

Prototyped at Zoo HQ on our 3D printers

The channukiah, 3D printed at miniature scale

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 27/08/2026

You can already drag your KCL files into Synera, where you can override the parameters in your KCL files and see the effects in stuff like finite element analysis or other simulations. Here's a demo from a few months ago (it's gotten faster since then)

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 27/08/2026

"make a carabiner" in text-to-CAD, one year ago vs. today

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 27/08/2026

Improvements: - I added a square base with a nice little chamfer - I changed the candle holes to be circular, square would be a real pain in the ass to clean melted wax from

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 26/08/2026

github GIVE ME MY FUCKING IMAGE DIFFS BACK

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 25/08/2026

Check out the insane root structure on this thing.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 21/08/2026

There we go. That was pretty easy. Extended each branch upwards and cut a candlestick holder into each one.

A channukiah, with little square holes for a candle cut into each branch.

KCL code for defining the candle holes.

// Define a cube shape, which we'll cut out from each branch,
// for holding a candle.
region002 = region(segments = [candleHole.line4, candleHole.line1])
holeToCut = extrude(region002, length = holeDepth)
|> translate(x = 5.7, y = 0, z = totalHeight + wellHeight / 2)

// Replicate the cube, for each branch.
holesToCut = patternLinear3d(
holeToCut,
instances = 9,
distance = -(branchGap * 1.46),
axis = X,
)

// Cut it out of each branch.
subtract(channukiah, tools = holesToCut)

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 21/08/2026

WIP. Still have to build cavities into each branch to hold the candles, and I'd like to make a nicer base, but I think the hard part is done.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 20/08/2026

insanely rare bookshelf pull at the chabad house today

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 20/08/2026

Someone at Austin Systems confused Areg and I for each other. "Dude, we look nothing like each other." Hmm.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 18/08/2026

24h later, GitHub still cannot show images in PRs.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 17/08/2026

Microsoft has given up on serving static images, it's just too hard.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 15/08/2026

2yo picked this off my bookshelf saying "daddy!!! It's a heavy book!!! Daddy!!! Read it Daddy!!!"

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 12/08/2026

it's good to have achievable goals

Slack screenshot

msg 1: "cc @adamchalmers I don't know if you had sth in mind already since you created the issue"
msg 2: "my mind is wrapped around it like a squid suffocating a shark"

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 10/08/2026

Bought an espresso machine over the weekend. I put zero effort at all into my first shot: used the crappy grinder my wife has had for a decade, the same beans I've been using for her french press, eyeballed the shot size, did not weigh or dial anything, eyeballed the steamed milk. 3.8/5 damn good.

A Breville espresso machine and a latte in a mug

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 03/08/2026

Hard launching my new office backdrop: this antique leather folding frame hand painted with birds and botanicals

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 29/07/2026

they're calling it "the least useful captcha of all time"

Website form that says "Are you Human? How much is: 8+8" with a text input box and a "process payment" button.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 27/07/2026

Really beautiful painting "Sipping Tea under a Paulownia Tree" (commissioned by the Yongzheng Emperor). I'm no art expert but I really like its use of perspective.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 25/07/2026

My mum took this funny picture of me swaddling her (absolutely tiny) dog Poppy with my scarf, because she was shivering in the cold wind.

Me, with a tiny 3lb poodle on my lap, who's being swaddled in a red silk scarf

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 20/07/2026

GOOD MORNING SYDNEY AUSTRALIA

My daughter running around Bondi beach just after sunrise

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 15/07/2026

Yeah, it's a built-in, and it's really helpful. If you add your own custom shortcuts, they get populated in there too.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 14/07/2026

guess i'm taking a long lunch

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 14/07/2026

Tonight's dinner. Steak was dry brined in the morning, then cooked low and slow in oven (250F) then seared quickly. I tried a new mushroom recipe today and loved it, it's 10x better than my usual approach to mushrooms. Broccoli was baked in oven.

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Adam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 13/07/2026

Nobody even uses a note-taking app anymore... everybody just DMs themselves in Slack, man...

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