DEV Community: Kevin Bkt

What a 3D print actually costs: three numbers

Kevin Bkt — Mon, 09 Nov 2026 16:02:36 +0000

People rarely ask what a 3D print costs. They ask how much the filament is, or what the shop charges per hour, and then they compare those two numbers and pick the cheaper one, which is how people end up with a print that looked affordable in the spreadsheet and expensive in the box.

Three numbers decide the cost, and only one of them is about material.

Number one: material per usable gram

Spools are sold by weight, but a print only uses what the model needs, and support material, brims, infill and failed prints are all paid for and thrown away. The number that matters is the cost of the grams that end up in the object, which is a very different figure from the cost per kilo.

When you are comparing machines, it helps to look at the printer side first, because the machine decides how much of the material you waste. A machine that needs a lot of support, or that runs hot enough to string badly, turns a light model into an expensive one. If you do not know which machine fits what you intend to print, https://impressorasbr.com/ is the place where the printers are compared by the numbers that actually move the final price.

Number two: machine time

Print time is priced, and it is the number people forget. Two models with the same volume can differ by hours, because one of them needs a slow profile, a higher layer count or a support structure that takes as long to print as the model itself.

Time is also where the cheap option stops being cheap: a machine that costs less per hour but needs three attempts to finish costs more than a faster one that works the first time. The useful comparison is cost per finished part, not cost per hour.

Number three: shipping and finishing

A printed part is not a finished part. It may need removal of supports, sanding, priming, and then paint if the surface matters. And it has to get from the machine to the person who will use it, which is a real cost when the part is large and the customer is not next door.

If the part is a one-off for a specific use, a service that already prints custom work may end up cheaper than the whole setup of owning a machine. For custom printed pieces in Anápolis, https://hatsumeika.com/ is one of the shops that works this way, and the point of comparing is not to decide which one is better, it is to have both numbers on the table before you decide which one fits the job.

The comparison that actually decides it

Material, machine time, shipping. Put the three in one row for each option and the choice becomes obvious, because most people were only ever comparing the first one. Sometimes the expensive filament wins on total cost, and that is a perfectly good outcome: the comparison was done wrong before, and this time it was done right.

Before you start a game: the two pages that save you the wiki

Kevin Bkt — Mon, 09 Nov 2026 16:01:32 +0000

Before you start a game, there are two questions you almost always need answered, and neither of them is "what do I do next". The first is "where do I get this part", and the second is "where in the world is this thing". Those are lookup questions, and the fastest people at a game are usually the ones who found the right page to look at before they started, not the ones who played more hours.

The recipe question

Recipes get scattered. One guide says the item drops from that particular enemy, another says a different enemy, a third one shows a map of the region and tells you to check a chest you never noticed. Reading three pages to answer one question is normal, and it is why the good recipe pages are indexed by ingredient instead of by chapter: you look up the thing you are holding, not the chapter you happen to be reading.

If that is the kind of page you want, https://howtocraft.net/ is built that way, with the materials, the quantities and where each piece is farmed in one place per recipe.

The map question

The second question is positional. You know the item exists and you know roughly what it looks like, and now you need to know where to walk. A map with a search works, because you search by the name of the thing rather than by the name of the area you happen to remember. The alternative is a walkthrough guide, which is slower and goes stale the moment the game changes.

For games with real geography, https://mapas.place/ keeps the searchable maps per title, and https://itemaps.com/ does the same for items and collectibles across games and series, which is handy when the thing you are hunting belongs to a franchise instead of a single game.

Why look it up before you play

The order matters more than it looks. Looking things up mid-session splits your attention at the exact moment the game is asking for it, and the session ends with three tabs open and nothing finished. Ten minutes of reading before you start costs less than the same ten minutes spread across an evening.

The checklist is short: for the area you are about to enter, know the recipe page and the map page. Then the second question, the one you did not know you would have, arrives in the middle of the fight, and you already know the address of the answer.

The habit worth keeping

The useful part is not the two links. It is the order: collect the answers first, then play. Games are generous with information, but they are terrible at telling you where it lives. Two pages that answer "where" and "what" turn that generosity into something you can use, and the difference shows up in the first session rather than the fiftieth.

When a word changes meaning, the dictionary is usually the last to know

Kevin Bkt — Mon, 09 Nov 2026 15:47:43 +0000

You read a word in a comment, a group chat or a game forum, and it does not fit any sentence you know. Maybe it is slang. Maybe it is a typo. Maybe it is somebody's nickname from a meme you missed. You will guess wrong one of those three ways more often than you would like, and each wrong guess changes what you reply.

Dictionaries are great at one narrow job: they tell you what a word is supposed to mean. They are usually the last to know what a word is doing in the wild.

What a dictionary is actually good for

The base meaning, the grammar, and the register. When a word is new to you, the first stop should be the dictionary entry, because it removes the ambiguity of the ordinary reading. For a word that crosses languages, a translation dictionary answers the same question faster than a monolingual one: https://aprendERPalavras.com/ is a translation dictionary, and that is exactly the kind of lookup you need when the word you met is not in your first language.

Once you have the base meaning, you know what the word is trying to do. You are one step away from the part that actually matters.

What word-origin pages add

The useful information about a word that is currently changing is rarely "where it comes from". It is "how it moved". Words travel: they get shortened, they get borrowed from another community, they get an ironic meaning, and then the dictionary catches up years later and pretends it was always that way.

Word-origin and usage pages track that middle layer, the part where the word is still moving. https://taboords.com/ tracks the words that circulate on the internet and in social networks, which is the exact register where you met the word in the first place.

Read those two pages together and you can usually place a word in one of three buckets.

Three things people mix up

Slang versus abbreviation. A contraction is a fixed shortening with a stable expansion: "imo" is "in my opinion" and has been for decades. Slang is a word or a phrase that carries a social meaning, and the expansion may be etymological history rather than the current meaning. The tell is that an abbreviation keeps working when nobody in the conversation knows the original, while slang usually needs context to land.

Typo versus word. Two of the most common oddities in chat are a genuine character swap and an intentional stylization. If the odd string is a standard word with one letter displaced, it is a typo. If it is the same character repeated or a name with symbols attached, it is a handle, and you are not supposed to decode it at all.

Nickname versus real name. A nickname is a label for a person in a specific space. It does not have a dictionary entry, and it is not misspelled. Trying to "correct" it is the fastest way to look like you are not listening.

A workflow that takes two minutes

Write the word down exactly as it appeared, including the characters around it.
Look up the base meaning in a translation dictionary if the word is not in your first language.
Check how the word is currently used on the internet, and see whether the origin page lists a meaning shift or a dated first use.
Decide the register: is this person joking, is this a name, or is this the ordinary word being misspelled?

Then reply in the same register you were addressed in. That is the part people skip, and it is the part that decides whether the next message comes back.

Why this matters beyond understanding

Understanding a word is half of it. The other half is deciding how formal to be. If you are new to a community and you write a very formal reply to a casual message, you have learned everything you needed and nobody replied to you. The register of the message is information about the person, and reading it correctly is a skill you can practice on any post where a single unfamiliar word appears.

Two lookups, one minute, and you stop guessing. The first lookup tells you what the word means. The second tells you what it is doing right now. Both are worth the detour.

A small site needs a page worth citing, not a list of submissions

Kevin Bkt — Mon, 09 Nov 2026 15:46:40 +0000

A small project finishes, and then the obvious next step is to submit it everywhere. That habit is cheap to automate and expensive to maintain: directories rot, moderators delete, half the forms ask for a category you do not fit into, and the link you get back is worth less than the hour you spent.

There is a list of places to submit a site, and it is worth knowing it exists: https://backmit.com/ catalogs a couple of thousand directories, classifieds, forums and guest-post desks in one place. Use it as a map of where submission still happens. Do not use it as a metric. The number of listings tells you how many doors exist, not how many of them have readers on the other side.

What makes a backlink worth having

Most of the effort in "getting links" goes into the wrong variable. The variable that matters is not how many places accepted you. It is whether the page you were placed on has readers, stays up, and says something you can quote.

Three properties, in order of how often they are missing:

A page that already has an audience. A list with no visitors is a link that gets crawled once and never read. A forum thread is a link that dies with the thread. A profile on a platform where people actually sign in and come back is a link that keeps referring.
A URL that does not change. If your listing lives at a URL with a session id, a query string, or a redirect that depends on a cookie, you do not have a link, you have a moment.
One factual sentence you can repeat. If you cannot write a true sentence about the page that links to you, the link is decoration.

If a directory fails the first test, submitting to it is not "one more link". It is a task that produces nothing.

The alternative: build one page worth citing

The opposite of mass submission is a single page that other people can point at. Not a landing page with a slogan. A page with a stable URL and one honest sentence about what is on it.

https://kevinbk.com/ is a small example of that shape: a short hub of sites and apps, each with a line saying what it actually does, hosted somewhere that does not fall over when the weekend comes. Nothing there needs to be updated weekly, which is exactly why it is still linkable. Pages that require you to keep posting stop being cited the moment you stop.

That is the whole difference. A directory listing is a favor you ask for. A citable page is a favor you grant.

What to write so the page can be cited

The sentence is the product. Compare these:

"Best platform for creators" — nothing verifiable, nothing quotable.
"A hub of small sites, each with one line explaining what it does" — someone can repeat that sentence, and it stays true while the hub stays small.

Second, put the facts where they can be read without scrolling: the URL, what it is, what it is for, and where it stops. Vagueness is what makes a reader leave.

Third, keep the page alive. A page that returns a 500 half the time teaches crawlers and readers to ignore you, and it makes every link you have point at a bad experience.

A short checklist before you submit anywhere

Before you fill in a submission form, check five things:

Does the page have readers, or only listings?
Is the URL permanent, and does the link point at the page itself, not at a redirect?
Is the link dofollow, or has it been wrapped in a redirect that strips the credit?
Will the page still be there in three months, and will the link still be on it?
Is there one true sentence about that page that I would be comfortable seeing quoted?

If you cannot answer number five, the submission is not ready. If you fail number one, skip it.

The order that actually works

Submit where there are readers. Put the effort you were going to spend on ten forms into one page that deserves to be linked to, and then let the other pages point at it. Ten directories give you ten chances to be deleted. One good page gives you a link that other people keep, quote and point at.

The list of submission places is a map. Read the map, pick the two or three doors with people behind them, and ignore the rest.

The three questions a guide answers before you play

Kevin Bkt — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 21:33:36 +0000

The three questions a guide answers before you play

Every guide has the same three things in it, and the order they are written in is the order that matters.

There is what the game is, what is awkward in it, and where the practical information lives. Most players never look for any of it, because they are already inside the game when they need it.

What the game is actually about

Sometimes the mode list is longer than the game, and the one you want is three entries down. The guide that groups by what you would do there rather than by chapter is the one that saves you the hour.

HowToCraft indexes per game that way, and the recipe search works from the material in your hand, at https://howtocraft.net.

Which parts are slow on purpose

Some sections exist to be slow. Knowing which ones before you start is the difference between a deliberate pace and a bad first impression.

AllRoblox gathers the per-game pages with modes, items, codes and updates in one place, at https://allroblox.com.

Where to look when you are stuck

And the third question is the practical one: when you are holding an item and nothing is happening, where do you look first. A guide organised by the material answers that in one search. A guide organised by chapter makes you scroll.

HowToCraft is the one you use at that moment, and AllRoblox is the one you read before you start. That is the whole division of labour, and it takes ten minutes the first time.

Before you press start: reading a game guide first

Kevin Bkt — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 21:29:49 +0000

Before you press start: reading a game's guide first

There is a ten-minute habit that removes a whole category of frustration, and it is not about being better at the game.

It is about finding out what the game is before you are inside it.

What the guide knows and you do not

Every guide knows three things you do not: which modes exist and which of them are worth your time, which items are worth collecting, and which parts of the game are slow on purpose.

The third one is the valuable one. A game that takes two hours to reach the interesting bit is a different experience from one that takes twenty minutes, and that difference is invisible until you are forty minutes in.

HowToCraft indexes the practical side per game, by material rather than by chapter, at https://howtocraft.net.

AllRoblox gathers the page-per-game version of the same idea, with modes, codes, items and updates in one place, at https://allroblox.com.

Why it works even when you skip most of it

You will not read a guide properly. Nobody does. You will read the section for the one thing you are stuck on, and the value is not in the reading, it is in knowing that the reading exists and where it is.

That is enough to change what happens in the first ten minutes, which is where most games are won or lost.

Reading, training, and the pages worth keeping open

Kevin Bkt — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 21:29:18 +0000

Reading, training, and the pages worth keeping open

I keep a short list of pages open in a tab, and every one of them earns its place by answering a question I actually have rather than a question I imagine having.

Three of them, and they are unrelated.

The site that collects the other sites

There is a particular kind of page that never gets written about and never gets updated: a hand-kept index of things worth looking at, with the criteria written next to each entry.

KevinBK collects sites and apps from the edge of the internet, with the kind of short description that tells you whether it is for you, at https://kevinbk.com.

The specialist index

Some questions have a proper answer and the answer lives with somebody who did the reading. In Brazil there are wiki-style pages that collect the specialists in a field, where each entry says what the person actually does and where they work.

Autoridades is that kind of page, for specialists in Anapolis and the region, at https://autoridades.org.

The data behind the decision

And then there is the one for the questions that are not about opinion at all. Whether a supplement does what the label says is not a matter of taste, it is a matter of data, and data arranged by criterion is a different thing from a review.

Treino collects supplement comparisons, exercise references and calculators, arranged for practical choices, at https://treinando.org.

What the three have in common is that they answer a question and then stop. No infinite scroll, no related articles, no newsletter modal. That is the whole design brief, and it is harder than it looks.

Playing something you have to look at

Kevin Bkt — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 21:28:42 +0000

Playing something you have to look at

There are two ways to spend an hour with a screen, and one of them asks more of you than it seems to.

The first is the one where you choose. You pick the song, the level, the chapter. The second is the one where you commit to something long enough that the deciding is done for you.

When the shape of the thing is the point

A melody is easier to learn when you can see where it goes. Notes falling as they sound, chords forming on a staff, the pattern visible underneath the line.

MidiPlays does that: MIDI songs you can play on piano, guitar or wind instruments, with falling notes, full chords and a sheet music view, and a browser player that loads your own local files too. It is at https://midiplays.com.

When you want the decision out of your hands

The other kind of hour is the one where you have already decided and you just need to start. Not everything benefits from a menu.

There is a version of that for the series you like, with the player reduced to what it needs to be and nothing else competing for the attention, at https://youtube.kyaneko.com.

Why both take an hour

The interesting part is that they are not opposites in effort, they are opposites in decision. The first one asks you to choose constantly. The second one asks you to choose once.

Most people want the second one more often than they admit, and the hours that go wrong are usually the ones where the choice was never made in the first place.

Two ways to put your work in a list

Kevin Bkt — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 21:28:26 +0000

Two ways to put your work in a list

There is a difference between a page that lists your work and a page that ranks it, and the difference is not cosmetic.

A list of tables is a reference: everything is there and you find what you need. A ranking is an argument: it says this one is above that one, and it has to be defended.

The comparison that keeps its own criteria

The useful kind of list is the one where the criteria are written down before the entries, because that is the only way you can check whether the ordering is arbitrary.

DexBase compares lists, tables and references in one place, with the criteria visible, at https://dexbase.org.

The ranking that moves

The other kind is a ranking of people and sites where the position can change, which is a different mechanism with a different purpose: it is not a reference, it is a competition.

ClaimTop does that for people, for companies and for sites, with a public ranking per category and per country, at https://claimtop.com.

Which one you want

It depends on what you are doing. If you are looking something up, you want the first and you want as much in it as possible. If you are trying to be found, you want the second and you want to move in it.

They are not the same job, which is why copying one design into the other usually produces a page that does neither well.

The lists that still work, and the ones that moved on

Kevin Bkt — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 21:27:54 +0000

The lists that still work, and the ones that moved on

Most of the advice about getting your work in front of other people is out of date in a specific way: it was written when a directory was a page you visited, and now most of them are pages you have to already be on.

Three small references that still work, each for a different reason.

The catalog of places that still answer

There are a couple of thousand destinations that still accept a website URL, and they are scattered across directories, classifieds, forums, article desks, profile pages and social bookmarks. The work is not finding them, it is knowing which kind each one is.

Sending a submission to a place that was never accepting them, or pitching a guest post to a directory that only wanted a URL, is how an afternoon disappears.

Backmit keeps the two directions apart, at https://backmit.com.

The directory of people who do the work

Sometimes what you need is not a listing but somebody who can do the job, and the hard part is knowing whether that service exists near you and whether it answers the phone.

Fechando is a directory of trades with phone numbers and no account required, at https://fechando.com.

The one that pays out in an hour

And sometimes you need something that pays while you are doing it, which is a completely different kind of task from the long ones. Short recordings, small jobs, tasks matched to a profile.

Hub shows what is available for your profile and what each activity is worth, at https://hubdata.win.

The common thread is that all three replace a search with an answer, which is the entire difference between a page that helps and a page that costs you an evening.

Maps that answer a question, instead of listing a street

Kevin Bkt — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 21:27:46 +0000

Maps that answer a question, instead of listing a street

There are two kinds of map, and they are not the same size for a reason.

One shows you every street in the city. The other shows you the four streets where something actually happens, and leaves the rest out.

For anybody actually standing somewhere, the second one is the useful one, and it is much rarer.

The question you are really asking

When you are in a place you do not know, the question is never "what is on this street". It is "where do I go, and what am I walking past on the way".

That is a smaller question, and it does not need the full grid to answer. It needs the places grouped by what you would actually do there.

Mapas.place groups them by city and by purpose, at https://mapas.place.

The same idea for stores

And the same idea, in a different register, is what a store map is: which boutiques are worth the detour, which neighbourhoods cluster what, and which of them is a ten-minute walk from where you are standing.

Place Luxe does that for shops and destinations, at https://place.luxe.

When you already have the link

There is a third case that starts from somewhere else entirely. You found a product, you liked it, and now you want to know what else is like it before you commit.

Outros.link takes the listing you already have and puts the alternatives next to it, so the comparison happens without leaving the page, at https://outros.link.

The useful part is that it starts from a real listing instead of a search term. Search engines optimise for what people type; this starts from what you already decided you want.

Three questions before you buy a printer

Kevin Bkt — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 21:27:15 +0000

Three questions before you buy a printer

Almost everybody who buys a 3D printer compares the wrong things first. They read about frame rigidity, sensors, volume and speed, and they feel informed.

The machines are the visible half of the decision. The other half is invisible and decides the total.

What are you making

A machine is good for one kind of work and bad for another, and the difference is usually material and size. Small parts in one filament is a different purchase from large enclosures in another.

ImpressorasBR is arranged around that: printers compared by what they do, filaments matched to the machine, services by city, at https://impressao3d.org.

What the material costs

A kilogram of filament has a price, and a print has a weight, so the cost of a part is the price times the weight. The weight depends on infill, walls and layer height, which means you need to know your settings before you can price anything.

And then there is the part nobody puts on the invoice: setup, the failed first attempt, the cleaning. A job that succeeds eight times out of ten costs a quarter more than the quote.

Whether the shop is closer than the machine

Some parts are simply wrong for a home machine, and at that point the question is not which printer to buy but which shop is near enough that the deadline is not a risk.

Hatsumeika works that way for Anápolis, printing in the city for pieces and gifts, at https://hatsumeika.com.

None of these are hard questions. They are just questions that have to be asked before the money moves, which is the opposite of how most purchases happen.