Edit: And yes of course, in hindsight, you don't build a leg unless you're planning to build a thing with legs.

Update: Ah, weird, if I watch the non-embedded one on youtube it is the original in English with normal sound. It's the one embedded on his web site which has AI translation to German.

I feel this deeply, also this whole video is quality content.

Geordi LaForge reminds me of Aaed.

The video is the epitome of applying solid engineering principles. Where most stop at a minimal viable working example, it sails past that and gets real work done solving foundational problems, using a waterfall approach that expands leverage at each level of abstraction. Complete with outside-the-box thinking and insights which help save the viewer from repeating unnecessary steps, so that the end goal is reachable using modest tools and readily available materials.

I would gladly work with Aaed, and I must admit that I am jealous that he and his friends are living out the dreams that my friends and I had in the 1990s.

-

The Boomers didn't quite understand what we were trying to accomplish, as they had already done the important work of manifesting the equality that had previously been a dream in the US, so these sorts of innovations were gravy. But Gen X was raised on Star Wars, so will not be withholding mental energy from future generations. Unfortunately we are also victims of trickle-down economics, so have little to pass forward except for wisdom gleaned from the school of hard knocks.

We had everything we needed to build these exact types of projects except for the time and resources that were hoarded by our elders. So the vast majority of us worked our lives away, barely making rent by prospecting the internet as miners for people with money, without ever striking gold in the vast majority of cases. Then watched as the fruits of our labors were used to build McMansions, expand monopolistic enterprises like private equity firms, or be simply wasted on frivilous expenses instead of reinvested in automations to create residual incomes. This led to us developing mental health issues like addiction due to the misalignment between the lives we had to live vs what might have been.

Then we lost our heroes, like when Y Combinator went from an indie startup funder to a vetting VC like all the rest. And when Elon Musk pulled up the ladder behind him after accomplishing so much, then used his wealth to dismantle the social safety nets which make indie work possible. I don't believe that these statements are political, as they objectively describe the unwritten history of how some became so wealthy while most struggled, and the irony that I write this as I stand on the shoulders of those fallen is not lost on me.

Now we have everything we need to build R2D2 and C3P0 right now, today.

So I'm hopeful that the next step will be to create a meta economy within the status quo that distributes resources outside of the artificial scarcity created by the previous dominant systems of capitalism, socialism and communism. I believe that a gift economy loosely resembling solarpunk has the potential to liberate humanity from forced labor so that every individual has the opportunity to self-actualize in a reasonable time frame and still experience the joys of leisure time and youth.

In practice, this will expand wealth redistribution models like Patreon and the WiX Toolset maintenance fee under an umbrella similar to the Humble Bundle, to level out long-tail effects and socialize gains while privatizing losses. Note that this works exactly the opposite of how most major economies work in the world, with the exception of nations like Norway which uses its sovereign wealth fund from nationalizing its oil companies to pay its citizens a pension that may someday become UBI.

I realize that these points are mostly excuses and platitudes. But they are in no way meant to diminish the efforts of hackers - on the contrary, they are intended to bolster them by adding meaning to the work and convey why it's so important to those that came before.

So I write this out today to record in the annals of history that the nature of the problems we face is no longer technical, but spritual.

He actually discussed this in an earlier video for his initial tests on the capstan drive. He ended up testing the rope he used for around 358 hours (two weeks) on continuous use in the drive itself with very low backlash

https://www.aaedmusa.com/projects/capstandrive

https://youtube.com/watch?v=MwIBTbumd1Q&t=10m

You're talking about a whole bunch of targeted and intentional attacks in a literal warzone, the most lawless kind of place on the planet and you're complaining that they are hitting their intended military targets?

Meanwhile Gaza is boring to you, because Israel uses conventional bombs with humans in the loop, even though the collateral damage matches your prediction today.

However, if that doesn't end up with a radioactive wasteland, we'll probably find out shortly afterwards what happens when every two-bit drug cartel or extortion mafia can cheaply assassinate anyone, anywhere in the world, with an ambush drone.

I got a bit more time today, so maybe today evening (German time), elsewise I'll have to skip Friday, so likely Saturday afternoon.

I was a professor for a long time. My observation was that often a top researcher was also a top teacher and even a top administrator. There are exceptions of course. But if someone is smart and effective at using their attention, those skills transfer to many things.

It’s a pain in the ass when allocating university roles. I want that person to do EVERYTHING ‘cos they always deliver.

On top of studying engineering at uni, his "side-gig" is being creative, empathetic, and fantastic at communication - and your prime recommendation is to "hire" him to be a specialist hidden away in the back office? Which interwebz forum are you on?

EDIT: My last question is clearly an echo-chamber statement. But that doesn't subtract from the fact that, yeah, should he found a business, yes, he'll deal with certain "BS". That is the weight we'll all carry. But he's quite likely capable of moving civilization forwards, so... :shrug:

Steel cables would work just as well if weight isn't a consideration, but I think Dyneema is likely to be more resistant to abrasion. However, heat produced by any significant dynamic friction will ruin it immediately, as I found to my sorrow. Kevlar is much more heat-resistant, and of course steel is more heat-resistant than Kevlar.

But for a lot of tech/engineering channels, it'd be immensely difficult to make the same salary as you could working at a FAANG or the like. (I'm making about half what I made when I had a W-2, but it's enough).

>Mid-price CNC milling machine

A ball-screw is mostly decorative on small machines... =3

You’re right that it has a freedrive mode, and force control modes. But it’s a rigid, low-backlash robot with the compliance achieved in software afterwards.

Expensive, naturally, but none of the problems that come with things like series elastic actuators.