"Turn off the news, love your neighbors"

"Most" who are in those positions tend to make at least minimum wage, if not more, but that is not a guarantee, and it is harder to claim tips as "stable income" when trying to get credit/housing.

Median wage/rent is hard to apply. Totally different results if you look at what the typical renter makes (at least in my area). Minimum wage is one thing...but when it takes 3-4x minimum wage to stay at 0 every month things get difficult.

[1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

It is a shameful use of tech.

In my area which is over 1/3 retired people this is where the majority of their investments seem to lie. Those who are simply relying on 401k or other investments are also at risk due to the lack of diversification. Since their investments are tied to those 3 things.

If any of the legs of the stool go out...the whole thing goes down.

Best wishes. You are an inspiration.

There was quite a few steps...maybe you still have something coming.

Everyone who had coin in Mt.Gox lost it during a hack. A portion of that was returned to the users who had a loss about a year ago.

Failed FET for instance. They tend to fail "on". Unless you have a highside FET shutting off the power (and that may fail too).

On my printer I have software watchdogs but I also have an entire "dumb" (no MCU) circuit that will shut off a large relay that goes to my heaters if any of it's failsafes are triggered. I have a smoke detector, secondary thermistors, etc.

There are a bit more things in the way of thermal fuses and heaters that are less likely to runaway on the newer commercial printers but I still think people need to take the risk more serious.

I have been building printers and printing since 2011 and I still prefer to not have my printer in my house where the family sleeps, even with the failsafes. It lives out in the shop with plenty of room around/above it in case of a fire.

It is closer to a toaster or an oven than a water heater or HVAC.

Also...my last lease specifically said that I was not allowed to use the washer/dryer or oven when I was not home. So it is not a stretch to believe that the property owners will use those types of agreements to go against you when the insurance company denies your claim (this does and has happened with 3d printer fires).

All that being said...I have run 135hr prints unattended on my printers (not bambu). The risk may be low but it is not zero and it certainly higher than a water heater or HVAC.

It was always stated by our devs that it should never be connected to anything but a local network. Why? Because you are supposed to be there running the printer...it is a fire hazard otherwise. People do run unattended, myself included, but it should not be advised or hyped as a "good idea".

The possibility of a hack was always there too. What could a malicious actor do with access to your machine?

The advice was not only ignored...but used as an advertising point to show how innovative they are.

Amazing how fast everyone forgot the time Bambu forced a firmware update which caused a large number of printers to begin printing uncommanded which in some cases caused damage due to completed prints still sitting on the bed. [1]

V2 Smoothieware has the ability to auto update firmware via network...but it is a command that requires the user to send.

At any rate...this matters to me little anymore. My printer is a decade old and going strong still. I have no desire to "purchase" any printer. I would just build another if needed.

The biggest lie sold by the marketers is that working on your printer is "lost time". Personally...I am glad I had the 2011 RepRap struggles. I would never give up my opensource hardware for a "cheaper" machine.

[1] I searched for old webpages on this...can't seem to find them anymore using google. It was a very well known issue in the 3d printing community at the time though.

Now they can make websites full of info to back up their misinformation.

Which will feed future generations of AI.

Finally we are back to "You can't believe everything you read online".

In my experience the worst clients you can spot right away. They are the ones who are trying to get a discount. The work is always too much and it is never good enough. I filter clients by letting them know costs in advance. If they complain or suggest that it is cheaper down the road I politely suggest they find someone else. Otherwise...you end up doing 2x the work for half the price.

Also, if someone advises you should "Do the work at a discount and then it will be good advertising for your company". I suggest either walking away immediately or asking exactly what type of "advertising" they are actually going to be doing. From my experience these people give the worst reviews.

In one particular case where we had a BOM mixup on a batch of 500 boards @5 chips per board this would have saved me a ton of time. I did 2500 chip swaps by hand...

If you need any help with the project let me know. This is something I would love to help develop hardware for.

[1] https://youtu.be/rZCczA-PX5w?si=_BPojbLMsTLjsDCw

"Hey...why is this guy suddenly deviating from his normal routine? License plate readers show him 100 miles out of his normal area. Why did he leave his phone at home?"

Just like social media. Not participating is considered suspicious.

Anyone with Govt. level access (or billionaire level access) can very easily put all this data together.

Wasn't just printing other people's designs.

Great feeling to measure and design something then have it fit perfectly.

Every time the parent who doesn't live in the exact neighborhood drops the child off the car is flagged.

Then what happens when they look into this? Does the child automatically go to the school zoned for the parent with a "better" school or a "cheaper" school? Who makes the decision?

What about paid caregivers or family members?

This is a huge waste of time/money for everyone except for the company who sold the school on the "need" for it. There are way better ways of combating fraud which don't introduce mass surveillance.

"He has the best possible relations both with the theoretical people of whom he is one, and with the experimental people with whom he works in very close harmony."

His strength that is being highlighted is that he functions well as a middle man between the experimenters and the theoretical. There is something to be said for that. Just like being able to be the person who can go between the software and hardware people and properly communicate with both. Things get stalled quite often by lack of communication between the disciplines.

Sometimes you don't have to be the best in either field...but being able to understand enough of each side to be able to "put people in contact" with each other when they are working on similar things (and/or be the mediator when blames are being cast) can be overlooked and unappreciated.

Often, it is good to be the person who points to the paper and says "What is that?". It gets both sides thinking.

I spent a bit of time attempting to find a broker [1] to handle this for our project (since we had a large amount of eligible refunds due to importing then sending out of country after QA) but in the long run gave up...which is what they hope for.

Keeping an eye on all this to see how it plays out.

[1] Not only did I look for a broker but I debated becoming one myself due to this.