#a manta is such a dynamic creature... makes for a great suit

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Wow wow it's @number-one-toku-robot-lover's Manta Ray hero! watch yourself and stay safe when spending time near the ocean everyone!

[legobiwan]

TCW Rewatch: Shadow of Malevolence (Season 1, Episode 3)

I had forgotten how involved Plo Koon was with Anakin and Ahsoka at the start. Almost as if he was there supporting both Anakin and Ahsoka at the start of her apprenticeship while Obi-wan was dealing with his war duties.

And it’s interesting how Plo basically lets Anakin make his decisions, asks about Anakin’s plan but doesn’t argue or interfere, unlike Obi-wan who would have gotten into it with Anakin before eventually capitulating.

Okay, so the 10-year-old in me always finds it funny when Grievous has a temper tantrum like that, but this scene is deceptive. Dooku actually states, “The Jedi are never that harsh with their clones.” This is fascinating foreshadowing to the end of the episode when Anakin is basically burning soldiers behind him in his attempt to get to Grievous (and not caring until Ahsoka pipes up) and also an interesting insight in Dooku’s character at the time. Dooku falls more and more dark side as TCW goes on (he really should have killed Obi-wan and Anakin in the Hondo episode, but he didn’t. Compare that with Season 6 when he gleefully skewers the head Pyke.) Sure, Dooku goes on to say that they're going to kill 60,000 clones at the medical station, muahahaha, but he never gets his hands dirty, just makes the orders. This goes back to the idea that Dooku turned because of his political idealism and just fell prey to the dark side (and who knows how that might have worked out if he had either been able to get Obi-wan as an apprentice or keep Ventress as his apprentice).

Dooku says he feels, “very confident leaving the ship” in Grievous’s command. I doubt that.  But this is a test, of Anakin, of the Republic’s forces, a way of extending the war, so Grievous is not necessarily meant to win all the time, just to be a bloody (literally) nuisance and take a lot fo the flak for killing off clones and Jedi. (While Dooku is the political muscle.) Well played, Palpy, well played.

Plo is so underrated. He is so chill, but like a rock, and he is a great sounding board for Ahsoka. 

I’m just going to leave this here:

Have I mentioned I love Obi-wan? I love Obi-wan.

Man, Dooku really despises Anakin, it’s such a great dynamic because while Palpatine is all over Anakin like a cheap suit, Dooku couldn’t be rid of him faster and we know Dooku wants Obi-wan to turn, which is such a subversion of expectations and I love it.

GIANT NEEBRAY MANTAS

They totally needed Obi-wan Kenobi, Friend to Large Animals on this part of the mission. Also, what is Filoni’s deal with space sea creatures living in nebulas? Like, I’m all for it, but there is definitely a theme. (Looking at you, purrgils who pull Ezra and Thrawn into hyperspace.)

Ahsoka: “That one looks hungry.” Anakin: “Nah, it’s just smiling at you.”

For a show that started as a kid’s show and was a little corny through the first two seasons, they go hardcore on killing clones. Jeeez....

Again, this episode goes back to Dooku’s question of how the Jedi treat the clones. Anakin was almost ready to sacrifice EVERYONE to get to Grievous. He doesn’t, in the end. Not only is this great in exploring Anakin’s dark tendencies, but also the Jedi Order as a whole, because as the war wages on, they tend to talk more and more of “acceptable losses” and I think Dooku sees the hypocrisy clear as kyber crystal.

OBI-WAAAAAAAAAAN YAS HE’S HERE!!!!!

[mariannewhughes]

Behind Blue and Black: Our identity, explained

My favorite tool is a pipe wrench from my grandfather. Yesterday, while I was repairing my well and installing some pipe, the patina of wear in the red paint really struck me. That chip could have happened while he was running an irrigation pipe on his ranch, or fixing a sink with my mother. Because that wrench is so well-made, that tool is now intertwined with my family’s story—and I’d sooner give up my car than that red wrench.

I like to think about tools as extensions of ourselves, enabling us to accomplish things that we couldn’t without them. Great tools become treasured—partly because quality is hard to find, and partly because the more we use a tool, the more its story becomes enmeshed with our own.

I’ve spent a lot of time tinkering with electronics, and my view of the work has been changed by the tools I use. Just like a quality lens can improve the way you see the world, a quality tool can change the relationship you have with your stuff. A good tool can transform you from a consumer into a participant, connecting you to the things you own in a more dynamic, and more enduring, way.  

We adhere to that same philosophy when we design our tools at iFixit. Each tool is carefully engineered in San Luis Obispo, California, located midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Our headquarters are just a short drive from the Pacific Ocean. And our oceanic roots helped inspire our tool design—you can see a subtle splash of our signature Blue in each tool that we create.

Reverse-engineered for quality

Value, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. But, we have three standard quality measures that we strive for in every flagship Blue and Black tool.

Well-engineered: Every member of our tool design team has a formal engineering background, and each of them started as a teardown engineer here at iFixit. They’ve seen the guts of more gadgets than anyone we know, making them best-suited for the task of designing how to get into them.

Precision-crafted: Our journey to create a new bit starts and ends with a microscope. Each bit is CNC-machined to extreme tolerances. Our pentalobe drivers are just 0.9 mm in diameter at the tip, and each lobe is 0.18 mm. Crafting the testing-tooling alone to verify quality is expensive and time-consuming, but it’s that obsession with quality that truly sets our tools apart.  

Designed by humans, for humans: When we first started teaching repair workshops, we’d watch people struggle to get enough force onto the screwhead, accidentally stripping screws. That’s a design problem—so we vowed to spend the extra time to test our designs with the people who would actually be wielding them. And we’ve forged our driver handles with them in mind.

But quality is only half the battle—our color palette is just as integral to our design process.

Behind the Blue and Black

Selecting Blue and Black to paint our tools was very intentional. Blue is a subtle nod to our oceanic roots, and Black symbolizes rebellion. Empowerment. We use our tools to open-source everyone’s hardware, whether they like it or not. When Apple started using the Pentalobe screw back in 2009, no one had a driver to get past it. So we made a driver of our own—and then we made it available to the masses. Because that’s what tinkerers do. We problem-solve. We fix. And we don’t take broken for an answer. That’s also why our logo is a Phillips screw—because it represents freedom. Together, Blue and Black are more than just two colors—they’re our identity.

Our color scheme pervades our product line, which includes Blue-capped Black driver handles nested in Blue-lined Black foam. Getting the exact shade of iFixit Blue out of anodized aluminum is a challenge (it’s Pantone 285 C, by the way). Doing it consistently is even harder. When we were looking for a manufacturer for our tools, we sent color-calibrated cards to all of our prospective factories to make sure they could match our brand. Because it’s imperative that when you see one of our tools, even at a distance, you recognize the iFixit Blue and Black.

Our latest toolkits, the Manta Driver Kit and the Mahi Driver Kit, along with the Mako 64-Bit Driver Kit and our Marlin Screwdriver Sets, draw on the imagery of the sea and the strength of its creatures. The Manta Ray adapted their winged anatomy for survival. The Mahi are now among the world’s fastest growing fish. Every iteration in gadget design has required us to change our approach to tool design. And that’s fine with us—because just like our friends in the sea, we love evolving.

You didn’t choose to be a fixer because it was easy—you’re a fixer because you believe that you should be able to fix, hack, mod, and do whatever you damn well please with your stuff. That’s why you should wield your Blue and Black tools with pride. Because they’re built with the same level of integrity we look for in the devices we take apart. So the next time you go to repair your favorite gadget, build out your PC mod, or tackle that tricky household project, look for Blue and Black—the colors of iFixit quality.

Image sources: Max Pixel and Wikipedia Commons.