Hacker News: _mattb

New comment by _mattb in "Teaching LLMs how to solid model"

_mattb — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 18:32:09 +0000

Really cool, I'd love to try something like this for quick and simple enclosures. Right now I have some prototype electronics hot glued to a piece of plywood. It would be awesome to give a GenCAD workflow the existing part STLs (if they exist) and have it roughly arrange everything and then create the 3D model for a case.

Maybe there could be a mating/assembly eval in the future that would work towards that?

New comment by _mattb in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2017)"

_mattb — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:02:24 +0000

Culture Robotics | Generalist Engineer | South San Francisco | Onsite

Culture Robotics is developing automated fermentation systems to help biotech and pharmaceutical researchers increase their experimental throughput and reproducibility. Our team is made up of mechanical, software, and biomedical engineers who worked previously at Google and MIT. The system we're building executes high-throughput, automated experiments and provides new tools for data analysis and visualization. Currently, we are building our first robotic system for internal testing and validation. We will then begin operating with customers at the end of the year.

We are looking for curious and motivated people who want to build tools that enable high-throughput, reproducible life science research. Our projects offer many challenges and this role in particular will present unique opportunities for learning about automation platforms and biological systems.

Our ideal candidate is an engineering generalist with experience in both hardware and software development. This is a full-time position with competitive salary, medical coverage, paid vacation, access to a state-of-the art machine shop, free lunch and other benefits.

To learn more and apply, send me an email: matt@culturerobotics.com

New comment by _mattb in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2014)"

_mattb — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:34:53 +0000

Bay Area, CA. contract, >40hrs per week title: HW Test Engineer, Contract

We are a stealthy group designing and building some advanced robotics, and we need more help testing our system and its subsystems. This is a great entry level position -- a chance to work among many smart folks and learn about some interesting technical systems.

Apologies for the vagueness, but if this is vaguely interesting, send me some info about yourself and we can talk in more detail! You can reach me at matt.ball.2@gmail.com

New comment by _mattb in "Arduino-Powered Wire Bending Machine"

_mattb — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:33:36 +0000

Cool, thanks. I just noticed they allude to these machines in their blog post: http://blog.pensanyc.com/tagged/DIWire

New comment by _mattb in "Arduino-Powered Wire Bending Machine"

_mattb — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:01:02 +0000

So cool -- out of curiosity, is this emulating the actions of a pre-existing, "professional" machine or is the concept brand new?

New comment by _mattb in "Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (November 2011)"

_mattb — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:02:05 +0000

Fremont, CA - Full Time - http://redwoodsystems.com

Redwood Systems builds an extremely energy-efficient lighting system and a high-density sensor network for commercial spaces, data centers and schools. We're looking to hire a generalist web engineer that will work closely with some big customers to build out new and interesting ways to interact with our system and its data. Some things you might be working on:

- spatially-connected visualizations of our internal sensor data (temp, occupancy, ambient light, and more) - learning algorithms that adjust lighting policies to save the most energy without disturbing occupants (very Nest-like) - building an application to create lighting patterns that direct occupants to a safe exit within a building

As always, we're looking for people who get things done, are interested in new technologies and care about our customers. Get in touch with me, Matt, via mball .at. redwoodsys.com And see more of our openings here http://redwoodsystems.com/about-us/careers#job-7 (the one mentioned above is "Application Engineer").

New comment by _mattb in "Python For The Web"

_mattb — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:38:31 +0000

Flask is also awesome for python-based web development. I found it very easy to jump in as the docs are great: http://flask.pocoo.org/

Here's the post's Django example written using Flask: https://gist.github.com/1296926

New comment by _mattb in "$80 Android Phone Sells Like Hotcakes in Kenya, the World Next?"

_mattb — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:47:56 +0000

Are you seeing any adoption by consumers in Rwanda? A few months ago you wrote an interesting post about the lack of SIM Toolkit support -- http://blog.nyaruka.com/androids-achilles-heal-the-sim-toolk... Is that hindering uptake? Any updates?

New comment by _mattb in "Instructables is joining Autodesk "

_mattb — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:39:43 +0000

I agree completely -- are there any other platforms out there similar in function to instructables?

New comment by _mattb in "Show HN: Realtime time tracking with Sinatra/Node.js/Redis"

_mattb — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:06:22 +0000

Can't wait to use this! Looks like it will be immensely helpful to see how time efficient my projects are. I guess I can tag projects by name with a special character and then search for the tags later.. I noticed in the video that only the elapsed time of a task is shown -- is there also a way to see when tasks were started and finished?

New comment by _mattb in "Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (July 2011)"

_mattb — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:46:05 +0000

Fremont, CA - Engineers of all sorts, Interns and Full-Time

Redwood Systems is building a web-enabled platform for powering and controlling LED lights in commercial spaces and datacenters. Our system collects a large amount of very granular sensor data and we use this information to save energy and increase our clients' productivity. Our engineers work with big-name customers to deliver solutions and shape the direction of our product. It's an awesome time to be working here!

We're about 50 people now and are hiring engineers for backend development, sales support, application development, manufacturing, and power systems development. See our full list of openings here: http://redwoodsystems.com/about-us/careers Interns are being hired in many of the same fields. Feel free to get in touch with me directly -- mball -at- redwoodsys.com

New comment by _mattb in "Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (June 2011)"

_mattb — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:09:28 +0000

Fremont, CA - Engineers of all sorts, Interns and Full-Time

Redwood Systems is building a web-enabled platform for powering and controlling LED lights in commercial spaces and datacenters. Our system collects a large amount of very granular sensor data and we use this information to save energy and increase our clients' productivity. Our engineers work closely with big-name clients to deliver solutions and shape the direction of our product. It's an awesome time to be working here.

New comment by _mattb in ""I trust Redis-on-disk every day less." --Salvatore"

_mattb — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 06:29:41 +0000

Redis can save to disk after X number of keys have changed or after Z number of seconds. http://redis.io/topics/persistence

New comment by _mattb in "Google I/O 2011 Countdown clock"

_mattb — Sun, 08 May 2011 07:35:50 +0000

made by Matt King, http://mking.me

New comment by _mattb in "Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (May 2011)"

_mattb — Sun, 01 May 2011 17:41:31 +0000

Fremont, CA - Engineers of all sorts, Interns and Full-Time

Redwood Systems is developing a web-enabled platform for powering and controlling LED lights in commercial spaces and datacenters. Our system collects a large amount of very granular sensor data and we use this information to save energy and increase our clients' productivity. Our engineers work closely with big-name clients to deliver solutions and shape the direction of our product. It's an awesome time to be working here.

New comment by _mattb in "Why the Web Is Useless in Developing Countries - And How to Fix It"

_mattb — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:30:36 +0000

Are Google/Groupon/Facebook acting in this space? Wouldn't it be to their advantage to improve access to the web and bring in more users? Or is there still no ad money to be made in developing countries?

New comment by _mattb in "Ask HN: Who's Hiring? (February 2011 Edition)"

_mattb — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:18:25 +0000

Redwood Systems -- Fremont, CA (sorry, no remote) http://redwoodsystems.com

We're a 50 person startup that makes an LED lighting controller and sensor system for commercial buildings. Our system saves a lot of energy and we get a ton of sensor information that's lately been leading to some interesting analyses and visualizations.. We're putting physical systems on the web and it's pretty exciting! There are Engineering openings in our UI, Embedded C++, Test, and Sales Applications groups http://redwoodsystems.com/about-us/careers. We're also looking for summer interns if you're still in school (contact me directly).

I'm relatively new and it's an awesome time to work here. We have big name clients in the valley and we're constantly working with them to make a better product.

New comment by _mattb in "[dead]"

_mattb — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 19:02:32 +0000

Bit of a stretch to suggest any $10k of work is a step towards 'the continued betterment of our race.' Certain efforts will help certain entities. Many people's work worsens our 'human condition,' see the opportunity cost of weapons dev or plasma-gigajoule-laser tv research (: But I suppose that's subjective.

New comment by _mattb in "Ask HN: Who is hiring interns? (December 2010 Edition)"

_mattb — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:07:07 +0000

Redwood Systems in Fremont, CA: http://redwoodsystems.com

We make a unified power, control, and environmental sensing platform for LED lights in commercial buildings. We're looking for some interns to start in early 2011 or this summer. Great place to work for those interested in sensor systems, power system design, and user experience.

Feel free to get in touch, mball@redwoodsys.com

New comment by _mattb in "My list of ideas, if you're looking for inspiration"

_mattb — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:25:07 +0000

I really like the idea of showing the impacts of boycotts and protests and helping the organization of these actions (GrassrootsBoycott) -- have you put in any additional work/thought into this idea?