Oh, yeah, I understood sketches being the starting point, I just lived on the struggle bus any time I tried to sketch anything. The interface is close enough to vector drawing, that it constantly felt like I knew what I was doing, except everything I did threw an error 😅 or the things that in vector drawing would be a simple ‘click on an anchor and drag’, are multi-step processes involving a spreadsheet here.

I know a lot of it is a matter of practice, and I’m sure there are also growing pains for the software. I’m genuinely excited by the changes they’ve made to modifying sketches, and the little explanations at the bottom of the screen, I hope they are able to keep the momentum going.

TinkerCAD has a low enough learning curve that it is successfully used to teach elementary school students how to model. I disagree with your “but it’s a complex program, so it can’t be easy to pick up.”

Something being inaccessible to the masses shouldn’t be a badge of pride. Make the basics relatively easy to learn, and design the complex elements in a way that builds on the knowledge used for whatever was needed to get to that point. If we want to increase usership of FOSS products, we need the barrier to entry to be at least on par with the commercial products, if not lower. In fact, dedicating a few dev cycles towards new user onboarding to walk people through sketches, extruding, etc. to make it as accessible as possible would make such a difference.

I’ve been learning CAD for printing. I really want to use FreeCAD, but every time I try to do anything, I sink 2 hours into reading wiki’s and watching videos. When I apply what I’ve learned, I end up with a cube (sometimes a cylinder!) and a wall of errors. Then I hop into tinkerCAD/fusion360 and create what I need in 15 minutes.

I’m looking forward to the day that FreeCAD is intuitive enough for me to hop in and do what I need in 15 mins without feeling like I’m manually programming a lunar landing. It’s not there yet, but I’m happy to see the update.

Why not both? Mits for everyone!

100%. And if we’re actually trying to keep these folks from relapsing we need additional supports past the acute detox stage. Additional essential care (low cost/free food, clothing, health insurance, etc.) mental health supports, OT supports because adulting is fucking hard, and social supports.

In my area, we’ve lost a huge number of our free/low cost third spaces, which isolates the folks who need that social safety net the most. It also means the spaces available that don’t involve alcohol, which can be a gateway back to other substances, are dwindling.

Anyway, we can’t just release people into the world and go “you’re cured!” There’s a reason they turned to substance use in the first place.

Oh, but there are speculums for all. If you have an orifice, western medicine has figured out how to pry it open.

Thanks! Guess the stuff I read 20+ years ago got a little jumbled in long-term storage.

Yep! The PS5 was the first console to standardise X as confirm in all regions. Can’t say whether the game devs followed suit, though I’d imagine Sony has some licensing clause to force compliance on that.

Random factoid: Way back in the early PlayStation days, the O button was the default “accept/enter” buton, and the X was the “cancel/back” button, because that aligned with the national consensus of O = correct/confirm, and X = incorrect/cancel in Japan. But when the console was introduced in North America and Europe, they started remapping the X and O to align with other western consoles using X, like the Xbox. That said, I distinctly remember early PS1 games being a sort of wild west of which button would be confirm, so I suspect it was also done in response to western gamers struggling to adapt.