No One Is Getting a Good Deal Tonight

**Casey Liss** (0:00)
So, I don't want to spoil the main chunk of this episode, but John, you're welcome.

**John Siracusa** (0:04)
Four seconds is up.

**Casey Liss** (0:07)
I said I had a four second pre-show before we started recording.
I knew better than to say that to John Syracuse, but here we are. You're welcome, not only for taking longer than four seconds, but also, yesterday, I wore my MacProBelieve shirt, which I have had since it was new, but have only worn a handful of times.

**John Siracusa** (0:26)
You didn't wear it enough.

**Casey Liss** (0:27)
Apparently not enough.

**John Siracusa** (0:29)
It's your fault.

**Casey Liss** (0:30)
See, here's the thing, here it is, I think I'm giving you the gift of new computers, and in reality, I'm getting flack because I didn't give you the gift of a new MacPro. I see how it is.

**John Siracusa** (0:38)
Well, t-shirts can last a long time if they're lightly worn, so it could rise again in a decade or something.

**Casey Liss** (0:44)
Marco, what do you have going on?

**Marco Arment** (0:46)
I have a much more victorious situation, and nobody will care about this unless on the off chance, you out there, somebody out there might care about this.

**Casey Liss** (0:57)
Wait, wasn't that the John Ciercius biography, nobody cares about this but me, but I care about it a lot or something like that?

**John Siracusa** (1:03)
Kind of, sort of, but anyway. I mean, what can top installing a ceiling fan, though? So let's see.

**Marco Arment** (1:09)
Same room, same category of general home improvements and life improvements. Okay, I have, in my office here, I have casement windows.
Generally, I cannot say I enjoy casement windows.

**Casey Liss** (1:22)
Now remind me, I've heard this term, but what does that mean?

**Marco Arment** (1:24)
It's the kind that rather than being able to open and close up and down, they have a little crank and they swing out.

**John Siracusa** (1:29)
Ah, yes, they open like a book.

**Marco Arment** (1:31)
Yeah, exactly.

**Casey Liss** (1:31)
Thank you.

**Marco Arment** (1:33)
And there's, I know people like these. I don't like these. But some of the many reasons that casement windows are, you know, a weird trade off is like, how do you attach a screen to a casement window? And they all have these weird little like clips and levers and crap. And I've never found one that was attached in a good way. The ones here have these little metal clips that hold them on. We have to, as part of the warranty for the windows, we have to get them cleaned every so often. And we have to get them serviced every so often. And these screens are taken off multiple times per year for one of those two tasks. The problem is, these little tiny stupid metal clips, first of all, good luck ever putting one, ever putting a screen back yourself. And even the window service people don't really do a very good job of it. Secondly, these little clips get lost all the time because they fall out whenever you try to pop the screen back in. Like if you jostle the clip a little bit, it'll fall off the window and fall to its doom somewhere and get buried in sand. And so you never find them. And every single time I had the window service, I'm like, please, can you bring like 50 of these? I'll buy them. Just please. There's never enough clips to hold the screens on. And as a result, the screens in my office are usually like crooked or there's like a small gap somewhere in like between like the screen ridge and the window such that mosquitoes can come in. So I'm just like, OK, this please for the love of God, I just need these to be good and to be effective and to be able to hold my screens against my windows.
I decided to stop waiting. Stop waiting for the window guys to bring more. They never do. Or they'll bring one even though I'll say like, please bring 50 I'll pay for them like they're just little metal clips. These are the most scarce items in my house.
I can now 3D print them.
I took it upon myself a few days ago to replicate the shape of one of these clips using some some semi rigid TPU, the bamboo TPU for AMS. So it is very easy to print. It is a little bit rigid, but it's a little bit flexible and very strong. And so that means I can now have as many of these as I want. I printed 30 of them earlier tonight and my screens being held up perfectly. And I have tons of them and they're a little bit flexible so that when I'm attaching the screens, I don't cut my fingers and they're actually it's actually like a reasonably pleasant experience. And instead of having three of them on one window, I have to conserve them. I have eight of them on this one. It's amazing. Again, people wonder like, how do I what do I use my 3D printer for? It's little crap like this. Like we have a we have a gate and sometimes the wind will blow the sliding piece so that it kind of blows it half open and then deer can get can get in and eat all of our plants. And so I made a little clip, again, a 3D little custom 3D printed thing. And I just made a little clip that holds the two pieces of the gate together so the wind does not blow them open.