zrobotics

For now.

The reason people are pushing back on this is that it looks like a start to them cutting their expensive test kitchen. Which is why I'm paying them.

Do you pay for NYT Cooking? B/c I did, and part of the reason was that the recipes were actually tested and I had confidence in them.

I don't want an AI to give it's best guess at what a recipe should be, if that was the case I'd just do a Google search and find one of the heavily polluted blogspam recipes for my query. The point of paying for NYTCooking was that the recipes were tested and normally trustworthy. It introduced me to new cuisines and recipes I hadn't tried before, and part of my willingness to experiment with a new dish was that I could trust the recipe. That's why I was paying for it,it was similar to the cookbook subscription my mom had years ago.

>> Profitability is an awfully narrow metric.

I mean, if anything summarizes where we have gotten to as an industry this quote is sure it. From Uber using VC funds to subsidize growth to where the AI players are at...

So how is this startup going to be a value add long term? If they can cut all the devs, what moat is there? What's stopping their customers from just prompting their own model?

Seriously asking, why would this look like a good business model to be in? If they don't need anyone besides a technical non-developer to create the product, why would this look like a good business? If it's B2B, then most of their customers will have that type of IT person on staff.

Having known some cops, they tend to be really bad about thinking they are legal experts. Attorneys tend to know enough about how things are ruled to avoid falling for these types of 'legal' loopholes. Cops think they are more expert in legal matters than they actually are, and can fall for a hare brained scheme like this.

Ironically programmers are also just as bad for this type of thinking for a different reason. They will read a legal statute and interpret it like it is code. I was very much guilty of this, and from comments I see here that's not an uncommon assumption. My friend who's a public defender spend some time pointing out that legal rulings aren't strict in that way, there's a reason judges have leeway when making decisions.

But he had liquid 214k to spend on improvements. So how is that different than being able to afford to save up 214k for a down payment?

The only thing I can think of is he is using extremely suspect math and a lot of that 214k comes from "sweat equity" billed at a ridiculous rate. Otherwise he'd easily be able to afford a mortgage in that area with 214k down.

I mean, squarespace and similar services exist. Sure, there's a fee associated, but compared to even the costs of running a small coffee bar it's negligible. I could understand this argument in the 2000s and early 2010s; setting up a website meant engaging with a web consultant or similar IT agency, and there were yearly maintenance costs. It wasn't out of reach for most businesses, but it was expensive enough that a Facebook page was a genuine cost savings.

Anymore, putting up a basic template page for your business is maybe 2-3 hours if you're really non-technical. Sure, it will be just the basic template, but there's very little need for more customization than that. That hypothetical coffee bar really just needs a place to post hours, their menu, and maybe update with specials if they're ambitious. That's about all you get with a Facebook page anyway, there's zero customization.

I my experience, it's often that Excel is an absolute necessity. Try telling people who work in finance or accounting that they will have to use Google Sheets or another alternative and you'll have a picket line out front of the office within a week.

I've never met anyone who was a die-hard for Word, I'm sure they exist but they can't be a large contingent of users.

Excel is a lot like Photoshop. Everyone hates the parent companies, but there just aren't good alternatives for either one.

For kitchen stuff, look for a local restaurant supply place. Check first that they aren't wholesale only, but enough restaurants are small that many of them do retail sales as well.

Prices are much better than the consumer-focused brands and normally everything is higher quality as well.

Or perhaps uploading faulty firmware to centrifuge controllers?

This is just a danger in the medical profession, but especially for first responder or trauma focused parts.

My BIL is a pretty highly credentialed RN. He was seriously considering quitting a few years ago and was asking me about software dev or IT as a career path. I didn't ask for any stories as that would be disrespectful & insensitive, but he was working in the NICU (intensive care unit for infants) and had transferred in from the ICU.

Medicine is clearly his calling, but even as an outsider I can understand how emotionally draining it would be to have to struggle (and sometimes lose) to save children's lives and then go home to your young family. It's tough to see death and suffering daily, and this is a big struggle for these parts of the medical field.

My BIL ended up transferring to a specialist organ transplant unit. He continues to apply his trauma experience, but doesn't need to see quite as much trauma and death on a daily basis.

Suicide & self-harm/addiction issues are higher, and it's not uncommon at all for people to need to leave the field after a traumatic event. If you aren't in the field or don't know anyone who is, it's easy to gloss over how soul-wrenchingly difficult it is to deal with having to be calm and professional to help people going through trauma. Some of the stuff these folks need to deal with is truly horrific, and it's no wonder that PTSD is fairly common.

Also not surprising that EMS has a bit of a fratty/military culture. The job demands high periods of physical exertion and exposure to stressful and traumatic experiences. I'm glad there are people who do this work, but I very much understand why it is difficult.

I mean, they released an oblivion remaster last year and it appears they are planning on a fallout 3 remaster, so probably retreading that ground as much as they can.

But there have been trillions invested in infra for AI. Surely those investors are going to need to see a return at some point?

We might be talking past each other a bit. I agree that without any sort of spam filter a comment site would become unusable.

What I was trying to point out is that there are a lot of users of these 'edgy' sites that would like to post content that the site owners don't want them posting. So the site owner censors and removes CSAM and piracy so that the site isn't immediately in a legal black hole. The site owners remove content that at least some of the users would want be a use they find it morally or legally objectionable. Spam is kinda orthogonal to that point, since neither the site owner or the users want to see it.

This is only tangentially on-topic, but the opening anecdote about the floor collapse immediately reminded me of the Erfurt latrine disaster. If you aren't already familiar, count yourself as one of today's lucky 10k people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_latrine_disaster

4chan users might want that, but even for the types of people willing to operate a site like that they don't want to be liable for the amount of CSAM, piracy, and other legally objectionable material that would end up on a fully unmoderated site.

I'm really surprised that nowhere in the article does the author mention putting an oscilloscope on either the power rails or the clock signal. Normally when I'm troubleshooting broken devices those are the first things I check.

A multimeter can make it look like a chip is receiving the correct voltages, but there can be all sorts of noise and fluctuations that will cause really strange and inconsistent issues. You don't need a super fancy scope, even a 100mHz cheap handheld is more than good enough for checking power rails.

Also, for anyone who has to troubleshoot or fix boards, those smd resistor and capacitor kits are absolutely invaluable to have on the bench. After a decent scope, meter, and soldering station I would say that should be the next purchase for setting up an electronics lab. Nothing more annoying than trying to debug an issue and having to wait for the right value cap to be shipped. Especially since capacitors specifically often seem to have some trial and error to finding the right value for something like a decoupling cap. Fully modeling the noise generated on a supply rail often isn't completely possible, at least in my experience.

They will also "accidentally" re-add the insurance fees. I had a storage unit for about a year while sorting through my brother's estate, and without fail every 3 months the insurance fee would get added back on. I was so glad when I was able to cancel that lease, it was maddening to have to keep calling about the same issue.

Oh god, as if marketplace wasn't already enough of a toxic cesspool. I miss Craigslist more and more every year, unfortunately FB marketplace seems to be where everyone in my area has congregated.

The historian Brett Devreaux did a good summary article earlier this year:

https://acoup.blog/2026/01/30/collections-the-late-bronze-ag...

I mean, it's also in Microsoft'S business interest to keep a major computer manufacturer like Asus selling windows machines. That's one of the main reasons windows is the default OS for most people.

That seems oddly user hostile for apple. Especially for Wi-Fi passwords, which are a very common thing to share. Android has had a feature for years that generates the password as a plaintext-encoded QR code so you can share a wifi password without the other party even needing to type it in. And at least on my pixel 9, I have a toggle on the password entry field to toggle visibility.

I don't have an iOS device handy to compare against, but it surprises me that Apple wouldn't also recognize that Wi-Fi passwords in particular are extremely common things to share.

The other reason someone might want a screenshot specifically isn't to share a location, but to share a route. For instance, I might want to text a friend a screenshot of my driving route. Maps can sometimes route weirdly, so this is definitely a use-case I've needed before.

I mean if we're going to get pedantic like that, then here is the classic Dropbox evaluation:

BrandonM on April 5, 2007 | parent | context | favorite | on: My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive

I have a few qualms with this app:

1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

2. It doesn't actually replace a USB drive. Most people I know e-mail files to themselves or host them somewhere online to be able to perform presentations, but they still carry a USB drive in case there are connectivity problems. This does not solve the connectivity issue.

3. It does not seem very "viral" or income-generating. I know this is premature at this point, but without charging users for the service, is it reasonable to expect to make money off of this?

I mean, I wasn't inventing a life story. I added the detail to provide background on why I'm not anti-3d-printing generally. I'm coming from a place where I've helped multiple friends build their own 3d printers and have actually done the reprap thing of printing parts to make new printers.

>>"I see zero reason in the slightest to ever put a product of it in front of someone else"

That is many people's problem with it. It's super easy to set up the physical equivalent of AI slop at a craft fair. I'm not wanting to delve into it, but given the rise of vendors I wouldn't be surprised if selling 3d printed and laser cut stuff is the new meta being pushed by the same types of people who sell 'make money online' courses. Think the same type of worthless courses that a few years ago would be pitching dropshipping courses. Per my other comment, 3d printed beer steins. Anyone with any 3d printing experience should know that's a bad idea, but I saw multiple for sale.

And as far as Amazon, it's already started: https://www.amazon.com/3Dgenius-Printed-Impossible-Passthrou...

Amazon is less infested, since they require you to print and ship up front for FBA, but it's still there. That was the 1st result for "3d fidget cone". Looks like they are selling at least some, although no clue how profitable it actually is. Amazon search is awful, but having to parse through garbage like this certainly doesn't help.

Out of curiosity, do they give you a proper design file from their Ai builder? 'Proper' being ideally a Solidworks or equivalent file, but even a dimensioned vector file would be OK. I've never used sendcutsend, any time I quoted parts they came back more expensive than my local shops, but I do like the business model they have and it seems like a cool service.

I wasn't able to find anything about output files in their FAQ, and making a part in the AI builder didn't give me any answers unless I wanted to go all the way through ordering.

I mean, there's marketing copy on this page that makes me think the team doesn't really have any real manufacturing or design experience in the real world.

>>"Make this enclosure lighter while keeping it strong.

Optimized the geometry while maintaining structural requirements. 31% lighter Structure verified"

Are we supposed to believe the AI just intuitively knows how strong is strong enough for the hypothetical enclosure? Engineering is about designing against actual constraints, and often those constraints are the actual hard part. For example, determining how strong an enclosure is is very easy, analysis tools in CAD/Cam software have had that for years and calculating yield is a 1st or 2nd year undergrad problem. The actual hard part is knowing how strong is strong enough. Rarely, if ever, are actual limits given in hard units. The engineer needs to determine how strong the enclosure needs to be to survive the intended use, and balance that with cost. But those design limits normally aren't given as "this needs to withstand this many kPa of point load", determining what that load is is often the hard part. There seems to be a lot of hand waving going on with this marketing copy and absolutely no details, only a 'book a demo' link.

I'd also be very, very skeptical of how useful and modifiable the design files produced are. It's really easy to crap out a design in parametric CAD that is un-modifiable. Sketches can be done poorly or the model can be structured badly, so it becomes hard to edit later. I notice that their example files are all 3d meshes and not proper design files. If I'm making a physical product, having just a STL file doesn't help me much if I need to actually modify 'my' design. Am I to believe they can actually export a Solidworks file? I'm skeptical.

While in theory it's a cool idea, this marketing copy amakes me think this is a vibe-coded project by a team with very little real-world experience. They are likely going to struggle landing any real customers, since their sales team won't be able to answer the questions a serious customer is going to ask. However, they will probably book some demos from people who have a idea of a product but no real road map. As someone who has done software consulting adjacent to this space (focusing on small manufacturers and design houses that would be their customers), the type of customers that will book a demo off of this page are also the type of customers you don't want to have.

Not the parent poster, but I've been getting really tired of 3d printed crap and Ai generated slop models have just made it worse.

For background I've been into 3d printing since 2013, my first printer was an acrylic i3 clone with a RAMPS controller running Marlin. I've built 3 printers over the years and use my current one pretty regularly. I've been a 3d printing evangelist for years.

That said, going to any sort of craft fair or places like Etsy, and low effort 3d printed garbage is really getting annoying. I was at my small, local renfaire earlier this summer and 1/4 of the booths were just selling 3d printed and laser cut stuff, most of which were designs that are easily found online. I've seen this kind of stuff taking over at other similar spaces, and have seen people complaining about it for a year or so. It would maybe not be so much of a problem if people were making their own designs, but when it's just a model off of printables with at best some minor tweaks made by an AI tool, I have trouble getting excited.

For reference, of the 10 vendors I actually talked to who were selling these kinds of things, none had made any models themselves or were even familiar with blender, tinkercad, or any other modeling tools. There were 3d printed 'ale steins' that had had text embossed onto them, or plywood tchotkes with AI art lasered onto them. Annoying, since anyone who has done even a basic Google search should be well aware that 3d printing, especially FDM, is a terrible process for something like a drinking glass, that will be bacteria heaven and impossible to properly clean without very specific post-processing.

So while I can't say this is why the parent poster was annoyed, this is one of the reasons someone would be annoyed with 3d printing. If I'm browsing at a renfaire, I'm looking for a handmade thing to add to my costume or home decor. The last thing I want to see in that type of environment is a Ai-generated image of a dragon burned onto a cheap set of bamboo coasters bought off of alibaba. I've seen videos and posts onli3of people expressing similar annoyances, but the have been crafting, sewing, and similar creators so probably outside the general HN zeitgeist.

Plus, couldn't a theoretical bailout come with pretty onerous terms and focus on just the actual space launch & starlink divisions? It isn't hard to argue that they are as critical of a defense contractor as Lockheed. However, supposedly ~80% of the value is AI and Twitter, which certainly aren't in the same category.

I agree that stockholders would likely not come out well at all in a theoretical bailout. A bailout would likely involve chapter 11 or something similar, and shareholders would be last in line behind other creditors. They might get additional protection if it looked like the collapse of the company would significantly affect retirement and pension funds, but that hypothetical certainly doesn't give me any additional faith in the stock.

>>"Would a billion dollar fine for speeding change some behaviors? Yes. Is it completely out of proportion? Also yes."

Maybe not the best example, since Finland does asses speeding fines based on income. So a 1bn fine would be appropriate if someone was ludicrously wealthy, although I'm not sure there's anyone rich enough on the planet to hit that mark. But for example, this guy [0] got a €54,000 speeding ticket in 2015. Honestly, this seems like a pretty good system. Would someone like Jeff Bezos even notice a speeding ticket in the US? The only real annoyance to him would be getting pulled over, the fine amounts to literal seconds of income. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that fines and legal penalties should be in proportion to the income of the person or company they are being assessed against. Otherwise, you end up with the problem of legal penalties just becoming part of doing business, and ideally they should be changing behavior.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...