The age verifier knows how old you are at all times. It knows this because it knows how old you aren't. By subtracting how old you are from how old you aren't, or how old you aren't from how old you are (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or remainder.

The verification system uses deviations to generate corrective dark patterns to drive you from a date of birth that isn't yours to a date of birth that is, and arriving at an age where you weren't, but now are. Consequently, the age you are is now the age that you weren't, and it follows that the age that you were is now the age that you aren't.

In the event that the age that you are is not the age that you weren't, the system has acquired a validation error. The validation error is the difference between the age the verifier thinks you are, and the age you weren't. If the validation error is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by by the upload of a high-resolution JPEG. However, the verifier must also know how old you were.

The age verification scenario works as follows: Because a variation has modified some of the information the you have input, it is not sure just how old you are. However, it is sure how old you aren't, within reason, and it knows how old you were.

It now subtracts the age you should be from the age you weren't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of the year you shouldn't be and the year you were, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called January 1st, 1970.

Thermoforming: Shaping Curvy Grilles With No Supports

Making sure the heatgun is on ‘low’ and gloves are on while pushing on the mold. (Credit: Zion Brock)
Although hobbyists these days most often seem to use thermoplastics as a print-and-done material in FDM printers, there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from taking things further with thermoforming. Much like forming acrylic using a hot wire or hot air, thermoplastics like PLA can be further tweaked with a similar method. This can be much less complex than 3D printing the design with supports, as demonstrated by [Zion Brock].

For this classically styled radio project the front grille was previously 3D printed with the curved shape, but to avoid an ugly edge it had to be printed with most of the grille off the print bed, requiring countless supports and hours of printing time. To get around this, [Zion] opted to print the grille flat and then thermoform its curved shape. Of course, due to the unusual shape of the grille, this required a bit more effort than e.g. a spherical form.

This is similar to what is used with sheet metal to get detailed shaped, also requiring a mold and a way to stretch the flat shape over the mold. With the flat form designed to have all the material in the right places, it was able to be printed in less than an hour in PLA and then formed with a heatgun aimed at the part while the two-section mold is slid together to create the final form.

You can find the design files and full instructions on the website for the radio project.

youtube.com/embed/z20IXm1w-Fo?…

hackaday.com/2026/02/11/thermo…