Caring about your employees as if they were humans.
RSS feeds
I started self hosting my own RSS feed a few years ago, and I couldn’t live without it. It’s the best way to get timely info.
And then you can be the first one to post it on lemmy.
Tape drives. Remember those big reels of tape on mainframes in the 80s? They don’t look exactly like that anymore, but tape is still used for backups/long term archival because they offer the lowest cost per gigabyte and decent longevity without needing to be powered, as long as you don’t need to access the data all that fast or often.
Those dank memes and cat videos you posted in 2010 are probably on tape in a data centre somewhere
cds
I love collecting CDs
Buttons, knobs, plastic bezels.
At least according to the industry those are all in the past. The future is screens that go to the very edge of the device and absolutely nothing tactile.
And it is bullshit. It is less reliable, less convenient, less cool – To say nothing of the safety disaster that nailing a tablet computer to the dashboard of every car has been.
Absolutely hate cars with those stupid big screens on the console. Give me buttons and knobs any day.
One of my problems with phones over the last few years is touchscreens that go all the way to the edge combined with UX elements that require swiping from the very edge. It basically becomes impossible to use if you have a case.
Pretty much anything in a machine shop made in the last 80 years or so. So many people turn up their noses at anything that isn’t computer controlled anymore. Yknow what a big old mill can do that a CNC can’t? It can make every single part needed to make a new mill. It’s a self replicating machine with the right know how. People don’t respect that kind of quality anymore.
I don’t think a mill can make the copper windings in the motor and isolate them. Same with the power cable.
You don’t need an electric motor. You just need enough spin. I’ve seen old mills and lathes that run on steam. An electric motor just happens to be very convenient with our current technology.
Can a CNC not do that for just the mechanical parts?
(I know way too much about bootstrapping semiconductor production at small scale, which seems to be viable but highly impractical)
Sure, but it’s not as impressive (imo) when you also need a computer control system, a bunch of circuitry and electronics, and a whole mess of software to make it work in the end. A mill just needs enough spin and it runs exactly as intended.
Oh yeah, I have a copy of the Gingery books and I love it.
I haven’t seen Gingery into how much power you need exactly, or what blend of RPM vs. torque is ideal. What would be your guess, since it sounds like you might know?
Torque is the real limiting factor. You can always gear up or down for whatever you’re working on, but at the end of the day you need enough torque to get the work done. And a proper milling machine needs A LOT of torque.
Can you give me some typical values, maybe? That would be a big help.
There are no “typical values” when you’re running a mill or lathe. You could look up “speeds and feeds”, but that’s really just a table that you plug into an equation to figure out how to set the machine. It all depends on what you’re doing and what you’re doing it with. Drilling a hole with a high speed steel drill bit is going to be a bit different than drilling it with a carbide spade, and all that is going to depend heavily on whether you’re trying to run through titanium or tin. You need to fine tune running “x” bit through “y” material for a “z” sized cut.
Essentially, this is the knowledge that separates skilled labor from manual labor, and machining is (was, RIP cnc button pushers) skilled labor.
At the end of the day for most metal machining you’ll need between 50hp and 100hp to be up to modern standards. If you want to get that through steam or electric motors or whatever that’s up to you
Thanks, that’s really helpful. I suppose it makes sense that not just material but cut size and bit would matter. They usually focus just on the geometry on YouTube.
Out of curiosity, what’s the lowest you’ve ever gone? It’s hard to picture machining happening at something like 60RPM.
If you want to get that through steam or electric motors or whatever that’s up to you
Since I’m interested in technological bootstrapping more generally, I think most about water wheels, actually! Steam engines need to be machined, which is a chicken-and-egg problem (or I guess crafted freehand to a machining-like precision, like Vaucanson’s lathe). Electric motors don’t necessarily, but they need a source of electricity, and that’s either a lot of batteries or another rotating power source, which again doesn’t solve the problem.
Waterwheels can be made with hand tools - maybe even primitive tools - and can achieve surprisingly modern efficiency and power density. They do require the right topography, but then again they spin indefinitely without needing to be fueled. 50hp is still a sizable wheel, near the top of what existed in pre-modern times, but I’m guessing you can do basic things with an underpowered machine.
Guillotines
Your caveman brain. People think they’re educated an enlightened and everything they do now is so well thought out. Nope, the caveman is in the driving seat for all of us. Even your most high level meetings and interviews are influenced by how hungry, horny, or hurt you are by a teasing comment yesterday. Everyone is looking to establish dominance at any cost, when you don’t really need to.
Everyone is looking to establish dominance at any cost, when you don’t really need to.
You know, I see the rest, but I don’t see this. A lot of people are straight-up doormats.
Wrist watches. Extremely convenient, even when your phone is buried or you don’t want to be distracted.
Yep. And it doesn’t need to be charged every night like apple watch or similar.
Am looking for a new one if you have any recommendations.
Don’t get the one I got, lol. I’m probably going back to a non-smartwatch after problems with my tic watch.
Oh yeah for sure it’ll be an old fashioned normal watch. Ditched my smartwatch last year.
Wired headphones
IRC: simplest way of communicating online, and a bouncer can be availed for free
Forums: great store of knowledge and friendly, helpful people. If you ask a question in discord, nobody will ever see the answer again.
Why use IRC when you could use matrix
Because even IRC is better than matrix
Apparently trains for some people
…how are trains obsolete to anybody?
Hundred of billions of tonnes of freight are moved by rail each year globally, and people travel hundreds of billions of kilometers by rail.
This is what annoys me too. Freight is so crucial and it still moves plenty of people in many countries both in the north and global south. I guess they will think of steam era trains.
Fax machines. Government and medical offices would grind to a halt without them. That’s just reality.
Because it can do something that the alternatives can’t do or because they refuse to use something more modern?
“It can’t be hacked”
Of course, it can, and a lot more easily than a TLS stream, but try convincing them of that. So, more like they refuse to use something more modern.
I always thought email was more secure if it was encrypted. I also don’t understand the difference between a virtual fax (sent as a scan, from the computer, via a phone number but literally just some kinda email like thing) or from a low tech low res scan over the phone line that likely is a voip line anyway. I don’t even know the finer details of how those work, but the differences seem pretty minute to someone just staring at the parts.
Yes, email isn’t actually less transparent. If you’re using webmail over HTTPS it’s harder for a small adversary to intercept, but that’s it. Fax is way less efficient, though, while having no advantages I can think of.
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Fax machines. Phone lines are pretty private, and sending a fax is usually more secure than emailing something, especially if someone else manages your email.
Also all of german bureaucracy still works only with fax
Japan as well
It somehow suprises me but also not really thinking how traditionalist they are
Paper; Notebooks. Key only physical door locks. Manual transmission cars. Not having any IoT appliances, and not connecting everything you own to WiFi. Hard drive full of MP3s. Cash. Not being available for a call if you’re not at home.
Source: work tangential enough to cybersecurity.
Hard drive full of MP3s is love, hard drive full of MP3s is life.
Although ATM my folder is just 1.1GB including the music videos, so I could probably store it on a thumb drive or carefully-chosen dishwasher; it doesn’t have to be a hard drive.
Cash
I heard of some drug dealers not accepting cash where I live
What are they taking? Monero? Gift cards?
Cashapp I’d assume.
Lol, might as well hang a sign out front that says “I share data with cops.”
It’s almost like they didn’t get any training before they became drug dealers. /s
I’m sure they have a group chat, right?
“Guys, how much are you selling your yay for these days? I’ve had negative feedback from three people now about prices. I can handle these bad Yelp reviews.”
