I currently run a Voxelab Aquila I got for $120 three years ago. It largely replaced a Monoprice Mini, and the Aquila's done some surprisingly good work for me, but I may look for something new to put on the ol' birthday list. I would like a flat bed and some modern QoL improvements built in (he said, side-eyeing the BLTouch clone he never installed), but I'm still looking to play in the shallow-end, price-wise, and anyway Bambu just has "future enshittification" written all over it. I don't do anything time-sensitive, and I'm not afraid to put the whole thing together, so who are the current leaders in the value space? Recent machines from Creality?

As a child, we had a book of scary stories that included some absolutely ghastly but entrancing pen-and-ink art. I'm 99% sure they're not "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark". I don't remember much, but a few things stuck with me:

• a picture of a diver in an old-timey deep sea diving suit and maybe a sea-witch type character draped in seaweed.
• at least one really creepy drawing of a willow tree
• one or more of the pictures also involved a classically gothic cliffside along the sea.
• I want to say the binding was green or teal
• no dust jacket that I recall, but it could have been missing
• as a child, it struck me as old but not ancient, so I'm guessing it was from the late 60s or early 70s maybe
• my parents let me read it, and they were Mormons and frankly not really readers, so I'm guessing it was sort of vaguely considered age appropriate in those days if parents didn't look too close.

Style-wise, as I recall it kind of split the difference between Edward Gorey (thanks, @flyingsquid@lemmy.world for unearthing my nightmare fuel) and the semi-famous Darth Maul concept art from Iain McCaig. I have downloaded the first two volumes of SStTitD, as they are technically old enough to be the ones, but while they're definitely in the same milieu they're not what I'm thinking of. The art in this had heavier linework and IIRC used pen-and-ink crosshatching instead of shading; I also can't find any images in those two that hit me as "THAT'S IT!".

This could absolutely be a wild goose chase down memory lane, but any suggestions?

and I will brook no argument.

Worms in the Beans!Worms in the Beans!Worms in the Beans!Worms in the Beans!Worms in the Beans!

Originally known as TheVan44, MiniVan is the original 12.75u 40% keyboard. It is the first keyboard designed by TheVanKeyboards.

I figure it will be a good thing to throw onto a wish list for whatever holiday is coming next. In a perfect world, it would run a Linux-based OS, be moddable, have decent ergonomics for an adult, and kinda just generally not suck. Is a hundred bucks a reasonable price point? One hundred fifty? I grew up in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras but never completely stopped gaming, so I'd be interested in emulating somewhat newer stuff too. I normally just plug in a controller and find a desktop emulator, but portable could be fun, especially if it had potential for general SBC computing.

Edit: I think I have a better idea what I'm looking for now. The Anbernic devices seem to more or less match up with what I am looking for, so I'll start there with a more informed search. Thanks! Happy to get more suggestions and tips, though.

So, I figured y'all would be the best people to ask. I make fairly traditional row-staggered hand-wires, but I like them to be stabilizer-free, due to my home tooling limitations and a realization that they work fine. They also avoid one of the biggest pet peeves across the various niches of keyboard people. What is the easiest and cheapest way to come by a handful of convex keycaps at 1.75u and under, to use as spacebars? I can make a lot of different combinations work, so "mix kits" in Cherry or MDA or XDA seem the most likely to be useful, but I'm not sure.

With the sole exception of the Enter key (which at 1.75u will need to be labeled CapsLock or Control for most keycap sets), most keys can be sourced by being a little careful with which sets you get, even in sculpted profiles. Numpads require a bit of care too, as many don't have the two to occupy a "split plus", but they'll usually have something usable for that, as well as a shrunken Enter.

I can find blank keycaps easy enough, and they work pretty well for XDA, but other profiles can get a little uncomfortable on the thumb, and only some benefit from being turned around.

"We've almost got some of their telecommunications cracked; the front end even runs on a laptop!" The Mac that sunk a thousand ships could have been merely clunky product placement, not a bafflingly stupid tech-on-film moment.

"Senator Amidala is in a coma. Even if she recovers, she will never be the same and may not live long." But no.... George had to have his god-damned funeral scene, even if it demanded Simone Biles levels of mental gymnastics to save Carrie Fisher's most emotionally resonant moment from ROTJ, as well as one of the more intriguing OT lore dumps.

Bonus points if a scene was scripted or filmed and got cut.