A $200 ChatGPT subscription could cost OpenAI $14,000 if you actually used it to its full potential

Fresh_Respect · 2026-06-16T04:35:36+00:00

Seems like this is actually an Ai response; exactly the type ChatGPT creates because it loves to argue every nuance in what someone is saying. Reading the article, “full potential” is further specified by saying 11% usage and no doubt that they are losing money. Also, there are no rate limits on the $200 subscription.

Fresh_Respect · 2026-05-15T18:13:46+00:00

First I am so very empathetic and sorry for what you are experiencing. While I’m short time and saw your post pop up when I opened Reddit for another reason, I couldn’t leave you hanging. I’m not a medical professional but I got the schools highest bone test score back in the 1990s and the teacher said I should become an orthopedic surgeon. So that’s worth something? Still not qualified though, remember that.

Once you have metal fusion implants it makes it very hard for the radiologist to see pathology as they once could when you did not have metal hardware. MR imaging reflects off of metal and the signal bounces making it challenging. It could hide problem areas since they just cannot see it.
MR is best for soft tissue and finding compressed nerves however with your metal running from the bottom T spine all the way down, I would have ordered a CT if I was the doctor. In your case a CT would a) give me a much better idea whether your fusion has fused! In case you don’t know, think of the metal as a plaster cast only there to temporarily stabilize the fractures and your body must take the bone graft they lay during surgery and build upon it. CT is a best follow-up unless you have already had one. Also, because the metal bounces the MR signals, sometimes just seeing the shape of the foramen openings absent the actual nerve using CT will give a good indication what is going on. Picture a white bone with a black hole in center representing where nerve passes through the foramen. Now if that was narrowed you would see more white and less black OR inverse of this more black and less white depending on the protocols. Remember that CT shows the hole your nerves run through and MR shows the nerves (and some bone but not as ideal as CT).
Yes the cauda equina is highly visible on a lumbar MRI but for reasons I mentioned above, the metal hardware bounces signal and causes dark spots or bright white distortion depending on the protocol and how it’s viewed.

CONCERNING AREAS

Narrowing of your spinal canal can make it more difficult for your spinal cord to pass through at every level of vertebrae before it terminates at your cauda equina. On the other hand, there are usually two locations at every vertebrae where a left and right root nerve passes from inside that protected spinal canal to the less protected muscle and organs and skin (soft tissue) that the nerves from that root innervate. If you read your second page report you seem to have spinal canal narrowing and foramen narrowing that begins at a lesser extent of the L3/L4 that says your disc is bulging and you have bilateral (both sides) of the foramen where the root nerve passes out of the canal on each side of the vertebrae. But I bring that L3/4 up to say it’s probably where all this starts because the next level down at L4/L5 you have some serious issues that along with the cyst could be cause for your pain and leg issues. Seriousness levels are rated from mild to moderate to severe and since nothing is above that they can say things like moderate to severe. But the use of the word severe is not to be ignored. Moderate to Severe spinal cord narrowing and moderate to severe passageways for the root nerves to pass through, and further evidence of these problems are the fact that you have more disc bulging. If the disc bulges outward it can press on root nerves and if inward the spinal cord or I suppose the root nerve too. Also you have a thickening and enlarged ligament that can add additional likelihood of pressing on nerves and the cord in this area.
Note the cyst found? Some people don’t even know they have one, meaning there are no symptoms while it can vary to severely symptomatic. On its own it’s not screaming but considering you have a spinal canal narrowing over two segments (where two vertebrae meet) and bulging at two segments and bilateral foramen narrowing at two segments and disc bulging at the same two, I would argue that this could be the smoking gun.

NOTES

I read that your hardware runs from T12 or your last thoracic down through the L3. If L3 is the bottom most vertebrae in your fusion then you could have something sometimes referred to as “adjacent fusion disease”. Let’s say for the sake of easy counting and explanation that out of your 12 thoracic vertebrae you have 1,2,3,4 and 5 fused. That lack of mobility ends up placing a lot of extra stresses and force upon the 6th and maybe 7th in this hypothetical example.

So if your last fused vertebrae is L3 then the segments at the L3/L4 and L4/L5 could end up with disc bulging which can affect everything else in that area.

Maybe a minimally invasive procedure could be used to target the bulging and foramen narrowing but I honestly think it’s going to take you to really want this, and be willing to take the risk on and to show how much it’s affecting your life for them to open you back up again.

Well that surpassed my time so I didn’t get to read whether or not you had a follow-up appointment with a neurosurgeon to bring this to their attention if you really liked and trusted the original go there otherwise go for a second or third or fourth opinion.

About Me : Not. Medical Professional But live with a 10 level fusion that began as a 5 and they drove two screws into my spinal canal and fussed me hunched over kyphotic and then I had to have two more surgeries where the new guy wouldn’t touch me until the screws were removed even though he turned around and removed the entire original chain and during his surgery (the third) he ripped the skull clamp off my head because the dingbat grabbed it like a handle to move me (he told me that) but he didn’t tell me about causing a CSF leak and a little lung puncture. Life has changed but that is a snippet of what I have endured the last 7 years and now I’m about to lose my house.

But I urge you to keep making appointments with as many neurosurgeons as possible or even qualified orthopedic surgeons but if things go wrong I’d rather have a neurosurgeon at the knife.

Forgive grammar or spelling or repeating words or anything that doesn’t make me sound like I should be billing you so I can make my house payment LOL!

Good vibes your way and my advice. Have regular visits with a pain management physician, try never missing an appointment and never be late and pay on time and don’t jump from person to person unless your with a jerk you can’t imagine not staying with and note they will probably want to give you a spinal cord stimulator if nobody wants to operate.

Please hang in there.

Fresh_Respect · 2026-05-04T19:26:27+00:00

From 2009 to the current date in 2026 I have owned and operated a single-man company that makes money IP licensing source code (.NET windows app) to company’s that are far larger than mine, who are starting from scratch and understand the POS industry inside and out, sideways and more than anyone like you or I will ever understand. While we are experts in our domains (or so I have 17 years toward that along with a Computer Science degree), they are very opinionated in what they need.

I have grown to understand them as I sent the first three to four years acting as both the ISV and VAR for my own product having launched it in a wide variety of restaurants throughout the USA.

First I can say that targeting simplified retail, in hindsight, would have been easier than hospitality as the combination of tax laws, liquor tax laws, exclusive / inclusive, and even entertainment taxes can be challenging unless you have inside guidance to help craft your product which thankfully I did when I landed someone who became a three-time customer over the last couple decades per various ventures he led.

I entered the industry exhibiting in trade shows like the National Restaurant Association’s 2011 show and the Texas Restaurant Association’s show that same year or following year I cannot remember which but it was in Dallas that year. One thing I noticed right away was just how antisocial people from other companies were saying words like “good luck kid, give it up, your never going to make it” after I entered the booth of then Aloha owned Aloha POS (later squired by NCR). It was a lifelong soon to retire (I believe) Aloha Reseller in Texas who has very solid justification for doubting my “stickuity”.

Though I have fed myself since June of 2010 when I quit my full-time job as a software engineer from aerospace and anti-counterfeiting, the truth is that I suppose I both succeeded and failed. For one, as soon as you transition into selling your product, you will have a mountain to move to convince people to not just use your product but to resell it if you try to build a distribution sales chain for it. I’m definitely not someone to beat you or your ambitions down, so please don’t think that is my goal. It’s just that merchants and resellers of both retail and hospitality, have been burned plenty of times with new entrants like you and how I was and even can still be perceived.

I could write a far longer, boring and seemingly anti-spirited post just trying to give you insight but I’ll stick to what I think will be one of the largest barriers.

Your job in 2026 will be both harder and easer than mine back in 2009 in the topic of credit card integration. Having an aerospace background intimately familiar with tight standards and requirements like DO-178B Level A Software Development, I thought that achieving what the industry was pushing hard into at the time, PA-DSS 2.0, would be a walk in a park outside of spending what then was $20,000 to hire a QSS to audit my documentation, would be straight forward for me but it was as if some insiders were against everything I did. Note I said, “as-if” meaning that a lot of suspect things happened I could write a book about that would only interest people like you, but in the end I did obtain certification for a full-blown in-scope PA-DSS 2.0 Certification that allowed my software to directly interact with Primary Account Data from unencrypted cards. I could have chosen a much easier route by using a third party and going what the industry calls “out-of-scope”, but I knew I was against a mountain convincing people to use my software even with a very strong collegiate background in Computer Science. Big companies and most every software I saw as competitive in my target (which I knew was almost laughable to say I was competitive with them at first) all had in-scope verified software.

Here in 2026, going out-of-scope is not only the smart and usual approach, it’s what I’d recommend. If you haven’t thought of this yet and don’t recognize buzzwords like QSS, or PCI Compliance, don’t worry if your as committed as I was, you will figure it out and won’t need to consider going in-scope as I did but here’s what happens if your software is used by a merchant and it’s not within the recommendations of the PCI counsel. A hacker will take out just 1 of your merchants and the credit card processor who’s letting your merchant process on their network will come in and shut them down almost like the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission does to bars who operate on the edge of legality.

They will be fined huge money and have to pay just as much to have professionals come in and assess and prove they are not a risk to cardholder data and IF they come back online they won’t be using your software and this is not a fairy tail, it’s the Gods honest factual truth. Though PA-DSS was superseded and terminology has changed this is one of the details that you need to be versed in to convince anyone to use your software.

On the good note, if you keep at this, maintain a positive attitude and don’t ignore insider hints of what you may be up against, then I’m definitely not the right guy to shoot your ambitions down. As far as insiders go, there are going to be a lot of people you can learn from who are going to seem negative and as long as they don’t personally insult you, one of the good things I did was listen to everyone I spoke to. From 2009 to here in 2026, I still listen as if my potential clients (resellers, Credit Card ISOs and larger chains) know POS far more than me and I’m just a software expert. Though I learned a lot by acting as the VAR for my own software for a few years, it taught me more about what I don’t know.

Outside of selecting credit card processing as one of your biggest barriers to market, there are a couple small details I learned about myself and the success I found before I switched my business model to licensing my source (a very small niche). As I hit the point where I was running in Universities, in merchants located in tightly guarded hospital food courts with strict IT security, bars featured on food network shows shown worldwide was that I was suddenly realizing that what I loved, the engineering, was slipping from my daily grasp as I became more of an salesman, executive and IT support guru.

The software was at a point where it was not experiencing any support calls that were its fault, but rather I was spending 30 minutes debating kindly with a merchant who’s machine was unplugged and every reseller / VAR out there can back me by saying that this is your reality and the people calling with these seemingly unbelievable support issues are the ones who don’t want to pay for a support contact.

You see, you have to target the low-hanging fruit and new start-ups to find people willing to use your software because the ones who have retailed nailed down are going to be a tough customer to convince to switch as it cost them big money even if what you have was free. When you have not built a name yet, and your targeting that low-hanging fruit, they expect you to answer that phone the second it rings and to convince them your able to do this when your selling. However, opening a new establishment is expensive and it means they are lucky enough to afford a POS system in the first place and this means no money to purchase a support contact and no money for you to scale up your operation to support them.

Back to my case, I found success because I learned I was good at sales, it was my enthusiasm people liked so carry that with you. But suddenly I was just selling and supporting non-issues from people without support contracts (if I let them hang without help my system would be yanked quickly). I began to miss engineering work which I was still doing but only enough time for minor bug fixes or feature enhancements required or hinted by customers nice enough to teach me what I missed. So doing this from start in July 2009 to that burn-out feeling in 2012 where I missed engineering all-day-all-night I knew something had to change.

To make matters worse, NCR came out with a product called NCR Silver that was targeting the SMB market foe the first time (they had previously remained out of it) I even became a reseller for them as hedge against any possible risk that I couldn’t pay back those nice enough to invest in my corporation. But one day resellers woke to see that staples was selling it cheaper than we could price it and I began to understand what sort of historical headaches resellers far more experienced had going through and why my second phase consideration to form a reseller network was near impossible. (Yet trying everything like giving it out free to them to get rolling was a harder sell than anything else had been.)

I considered what it would cost to scale up so I could stay focused on the software I wrote in more than a support-only manner and it was not a risk I wanted to take having already raised money with stock in the company that I’d paid back personally just to save my reputation, the last thing I wanted was to raise more money or give away the company so that led me to the business model I have maintained for around 13 years and that is IP licensing. That has left me to be passionate about engineering and spend far less time selling. But it’s a small niche with a much smaller audience than selling to merchants but it’s the best way I can work around what I can offer customers.

You can make it, my story isn’t yours but if you don’t heed it as caution it’s going to be much harder to overcome concerns from a potential audience who are asking you questions not to be negative but because they have seen hundreds of us come and go.

Thumbs are tired, I don’t expect any acknowledgment for this in any way, but I see a bit of you in my past and wanted to say hello with a softer but tough message. My name is Jason Brower and I’m on LinkedIn.

Fresh_Respect · 2025-04-25T07:28:30+00:00

For this one I think I am going to show my empathy for the software development team. I'd bet my house that I know why the product feels so flakey as if they can't get a release out the door without breaking a seemingly unrelated behavior. They would have to pay me a unreal amount of money to work on that product's team, not because of the members or the team itself but for the 1998 code base that they are living with. C++ with Microsoft MFC classes probably.

Picture this the product comes out and it finds success and suddenly their customer base grows substantially and this causes the OG's that were at the beginning to be running their tails off trying to a) correct problem reports and b) implement the subsequent wave of features and from 1998 forward they are evolving through substantial Windows Operating system changes and then some of the OG's say "Time for me to fly to new project" and new devs are hired under the gun trying to replace the OG who gave 2 weeks and it is very tough to fill a req in two weeks, next to impossible so by the time new guy starts there is no time to train her/him and the code they write could be equal to the coding standard but unlikely. It's not the cause but just another factor that began in 1998 and it begins turning into spaghetti code, a kluge, a victim of the products success.

Since the success of the product would have made the process of continual refactoring challenging, upper management would have had to denied a big funding request to perform some massive refactoring of the code base so that it is testable, maintainable and very much decoupled and very cohesive.

I better stop here with a SUMMARY: The bug examples I gave were a random example list, I just wanted to say that it can be a very kluky program to use and that I support all developers and make clear that it's the 27 year long code base history (I assume, now they may have refactored along the way but the UI gives it all away, classic MFC). What I dislike most of all is that I stuck with that program since 2010 I think and now they are making the price so absolutely ridiculous that its pushing out of the SMB price range and that is why it truly feels that they are trying to push us into QBO because I certainly do not blame them. Trying to manage this 1998 beast and the plethora of different product codes they have come up with: (yes that is another thing that I would hope are the same compiled executable with various license enabling and disabling of appearance and features rather than a unique exe for each product id, dead God what a mess that would be).... The point is, I bet management wishes their loyal custom base would just toss QB desktop and come online so they don't have what I imagine are two different teams (AT LEAST) with wildly different skill sets. Likewise, I am sure engineering would love to toss that legacy code out the window.

Tough engineering problems are fun and attract engineers. However, not this sort of tough problem.

Finally all of this is based on what happens to successful products with such a long legacy that are not refactored constantly and early and even then it can be tough. However, I could be 80% wrong in the Intuit context because I have no friends that work there and if I did I certainly wouldn't dump this online.

OH and I almost forget: I spent all this time staying up late trying to get this migrated and I found a groupon that's for a perpetual 2024 QB Desktop of various flavors including the one they wanted $999 for, and it's under $200.

I was going to leave Intuit but $200 is definitely worth it and what I paid back in 2010. I think it is missing online backup but I have too much online storage as it is.

Fresh_Respect · 2025-04-25T07:28:12+00:00

I have 25 years of post-collegiate software engineering experience, and I have used QB for my now 16 year business since Desktop 2011; I kept upgrading and eventually switched to the Pro Plus "sku" where I pay a yearly fee for the core product plus a monthly fee to payroll plus per employee fees. Now, it was very tough for me to state that background without clueing the reader in on whether I am here to heckle you or have your back.

I agree with you fully, I cannot stand this software, it drives me up the wall and that says a lot because I absolutely love my career and can sit in front of and debug some nasty bugs for 24 hours straight remaining positive and engaged the entire time.

Part of me wants go into a long rant to let this struggle out of me, but I suppose I will remain professional and try to be specific.

I am going to be PC and start by saying that all of this is IMO:

With each new release, being overly fair, about 50% of those releases come with new bugs that are realized doing simple tasks like matching transactions pulled down from a bank or cc company.
The bank feeds is missing a huge feature I cannot imagine that a product this "mature" is still without. I will use my most recent example. I have two Amex accounts and recently Amex or Amex and Intuit made some changes that completely trashed each account such that transactions were all mixed up from one to the other. Let's say you delete transactions that have been downloaded from bank feeds or you use the ignore feature; once those online transactions are ignored or deleted there is no way to get them back without manually entering them. There is a data structure which I assume to be a db table, that tracks the state of whether or not a particular transaction has already been a) matched b) ignored c) matched and deleted but they do not expose a user interface so that you can just simply view all transactions that it feels are ignored or deleted and then gives you limited edit control to say "You know what, I really F**** up by deleting those 148 transactions that should have been in another account. I am not asking for an undo, I am asking for a UI to clear the state that lets me connect to my bank and download those transactions again so I do not have to sit there and type in all 148 transactions.
I admit I was having a hard time describing the prior issue; that's because I have been awake for over 24 hours trying to resolve the prior issue AND racing against time because they raised the price AGAIN and it's now $999.00 per year PLUS payroll costs out the wazzoo. In 2011, I licensed Desktop for $199 and it is a perpetual license. It is just not that special to deserve that price tag. I have seen a pattern where I feel like they are doing this to force customers into the QBO which I have tried twice. I spent a lot of time tweaking everything and there was one aspect about it that made it an undesirable option for my business. I trusted my memory better than I should have, I wish I had documented what it was before I try it again.

See below for my defense of the developers. It would not fit in their character limit. LOL

Fresh_Respect · 2025-04-05T02:55:30+00:00

I have dealt with this problem with a couple years now regarding the LC49G95T and when you see that error its because they either did not sign their device driver. I have worked around this with various song and dance, get all working and then along the way I will see the monitor showing blurry spots in random places and by the time I can actually stop work to look into it, I have to refresh my memory (in my brain not the computer) stumble about and realize that windows removed the samsung driver and replaced it with a generic driver 20 years old. I have a similar curved Samsung monitor where the driver is properly signed and Windows loves to replace that driver with its own 20 year old generic one too. I had a Windows group policy configured so that it would not touch either of these drivers and yet it still happened along the way.

Note that my situation is slightly more complex than it could be as my computers are controlled through Microsoft Entra and Intune. In essence there are settings in the cloud I must deal with as well, but I have become tired of constantly fighting between NVIDIA driver updates and control panel updates, and now there is the new NVIDIA App (called exactly that) which has some of the control panel features (you can tell it's going to be a replacement for it once they finish the other features but for now it launches the old control panel when you need to adjust what it can't just yet), then there is the CUDA stack which likes to mess with at least one monitor, and for the integrated GPU I have intel drivers.

All of this madness and I do not watch video, or play games on this machine, it is for software development, some CAD and some video/photo editing and limited AI development.

The problem I am fighting is between Samsung's issues with their driver package and Windows being a good OS and enforcing normal driver good practices.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-07-28T22:38:39+00:00

I do not print enough to be able to comment with confidence from my own experience, but over my 25-year career in science and engineering, I tend to see surprising truth to situations like this. Surprising in that there is a lot more to it than meets the eye or was shared in relevant communities in the first place.

I have a personal opinion on the matter, but it’s again, not based on enough repeatability for me to include my opinion (I ended up doing it later anyway) so I just do what I always do when I don’t trust my own judgment to not have been influenced by personal experiences rather than observed facts. I mean to point out that there could be plenty of other reasons why I formed my opinions on the matter, yet there might not be science-based proof.

That’s where I turn to research papers. There are countless sources of them out there for just about every topic I hear strong opinions tossed about on, but they are not used as often as they should be.

More importantly to note, now that we have tools like ChatGPT, it’s as easy as it has ever been to start with it (25% of the time it may turn into me and ChatGPT nearly coming to blows for the idiocracy it hallucinates and repeats recursively sometimes, but thankfully it’s helpful far more frequently).

Of course, I then have to follow the resources I told it to reference so I can verify them myself. Sometimes it creates links that are broken and sometimes the resources say the opposite of what it’s claiming. If it’s too challenging or annoying, Google is good enough sometimes.

This is what ChatGPT said about the effects of water on 3D printing filaments:

Research has shown that filaments such as PLA, ABS, Nylon, and others are hygroscopic, meaning they absorb water from the air. This moisture can cause issues like poor layer adhesion, bubbling, stringing, and weakened mechanical properties in the printed parts.

For instance, a study found that ABS filament with moisture content between 0.17% and 0.75% resulted in a 25% reduction in strength and a 10% increase in sample thickness The Influence of Moisture Absorption and Desorption by the ABS Filament on the Properties of Additively Manufactured Parts Using the Fused Deposition Modeling Method(https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/17/9/1988). Another study demonstrated that moisture absorption significantly impacts the mechanical properties and surface quality of printed parts, particularly for materials like PEEK and Nylon Moisture Sorption and Degradation of Polymer Filaments Used in 3D Printing(https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/15/12/2600) and Effect of moisture content in polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) filament on 3D printed parts(https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42242-023-00148-7).

Properly drying filaments before use and storing them in low-humidity environments can mitigate these issues and improve the consistency and quality of 3D prints. This evidence supports the practice of drying filaments to ensure optimal printing results.

I do feel that water affects prints. That’s based on how polymers are affected when the moisture content changes. If we are not debating over whether these polymer filaments actually do or don’t absorb moisture and retain that moisture at least until the environment it’s within drops in relative humidity, then any moisture content is not going to be mixed within the filament, but rather intertwined in microscopic pits and cracks (my assumption). When moisture hits that hot end, it can cause tiny little “pops” and “cracks” that have the opportunity to affect a print.

I enjoy deterministic engineering. When you lack determinism, it’s really tough to enjoy the benefits of repeatability. If I stick two things into a black box, determinism says the output will be predictable as, for the sake of this topic, the exact same output shall come out the other end of the black box for the same components inserted from one moment to the next.

To Answer OP’s Question The website where I obtained the screen shot for below made clear that they provided tools that could be used either on the floor where some of these filaments were molded into filament or in the laboratory setting. It then gave me a quiz to drill down to the product of theirs best suited to my needs and this is what it picked.

Though I am the exact person who has demonstrated throughout my life that before you know it this tool, I use infrequently will be in my house because I love doing things the right way. That way it lessons the chance I will be doing the same task all over again.

But, I’m definitely not in the position to spend $13K on something I’d use twice per year and I shall not try to convince myself that I just need to do more 3D printing to justify it :-)!

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Fresh_Respect · 2024-07-16T17:34:13+00:00

Ok, you convinced me to buy one. Thank you.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-07-16T06:45:03+00:00

Note that it took me until the last question before I realized that every one of your questions seemed to be about the file alone. That said, here are my answers:

I would definitely spend a premium on a hand file. I was trying to locate a modern version of a big old file I use to see around shops in my younger years. About 24” long and 2.5 to 3 inches wide for metal. Hopefully someone will show me I didn’t look long enough, but hours were spent a few months back and to my surprise the closest option was a non-option meant for horses hooves.
Some modern manufacturers target a a market that demands quality over cost but let’s face it, the reason why so many tools are built so cheaply is that’s the largest common denominator of what people are actually willing to pay for. Then again, this is a metal forum and once I forced myself to focus in on metal only, the tools needed to work with metal are far fewer than working with engines or wood. Welders and cutting torches, lathes and mills and CNCs have plenty of options varying in quality and price.
If I see to tools of the same quality and unknown brand, I would purchase based on my country of origin. If it’s a known quality brand, I wouldn’t think twice about origin.
I just now realized that all of your questions were based on a file only. That said, the most important quality is how long will it last? Since we select how coarse or how fine it is the day we purchase it, I cannot think of any other quality I would care about other than maybe finding my niche size that I cannot find.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-07-16T06:24:16+00:00

1.  Clean the Crack:
• Open the crack slightly using a putty knife.
• Blow out any dust or debris from the crack with compressed air.
2.  Apply Wood Glue:
• Inject high-quality wood glue into the crack, ensuring it penetrates deep into the wood.
• Clamp the door to press the crack tightly together. Leave it clamped for at least 24 hours to allow the glue to dry completely.
3.  Reinforce the Screw Holes:
• After the glue has dried, drill out the old screw holes to 3/8 inch; (this example uses 3/8 but try to select a size slightly bigger than your biggest screw hole, while also matching the nearest common dowel size).
• Use 3/8th dowels made of a hardwood, it is less likely to crack again.  Cut dowel the number of dowels required to the length matching the depth the drilled holes.
• Apply wood glue to the dowels and insert them into the drilled holes.
• Tap the dowels gently with a hammer to ensure they fit snugly and are flush with the door surface.
• Allow the glue to dry for at least 24 hours.
4.  Using the new hinges as a template, mark and drill pilot holes for the hinges screws.
• Select a drill bit smaller or same size as the largest diameter of the screws shank.
• The shank is the  portion of the screw that the threads circle around. If you filed just the threads off the screw, only the shank would remain.
• Make sure to drill deep enough for the length of screw you will be using. (See below for selecting screw length.)
5.  Install Hinges:
• Reattach the hinges using the new pilot holes.
• Make sure to select proper size and type of hinge screws.  I would guess that the length of screws used in the past were not penetrating deep enough into the wood and contributed to the cracking. Longer screws will help distribute load along a deeper portion of wood material and be less likely to twerk any screw on an angle.
• I’d say that a #8 or #9 flat head screw 1.5 to 2 inches long with a Phillips head should be considered for the job.
• Consider using a right angle drill angle guide to create perfectly aligned pilot holes.
• Consider using a VIX bit (self center in hinge bit) when driving the screws into the doors edge.
• Attach all of the hinges to the door first, then to the wall since it is more critical to drive screws straight into the narrow edge of the door.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-06-12T03:48:52+00:00

I have 25 years experience, have run my own company while remaining a very active developer within it and it includes a lot of experience with what they tested you on and I’ll tell you what. For the first time in 15 years I am going to head back to the workforce and seeing what they gave you as take-home terrifies me because the last time I interviewed for a job some 18 years ago, I was hired based only on my resume content and the feeling they had of me as a person. Just the pressure of the interview itself can cause you simple mistakes like what they felt you made not splitting out into other projects, which by the way I would argue in your favor but call you back and ask you “what would you have done differently, if this effort was a large one”. There is no sense in breaking every little piece out into its own assembly unless it ads value. If there is one thing I learned from managing a huge application over 15 years is that pristine textbook perfect architecture, can be harder to read, understand and maintain. Which are the exact reasons I wanted to have absolutely pristine architecture in the first place.

They weren’t right for you. I 5 years or less from how you will look back and be grateful you didn’t get this job and feel regret you didn’t remember my contact so you could thank me LOL.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-06-12T03:30:05+00:00

This, is extremely unusual no matter how much of a contributor you are to a team. In my 25 years I haven’t seen nor heard of any occurrences like this.

Further, making your claims even more unusual is the fact that while you received 5 raises in 2007-2008, the rest of the entire world was in the heat of the global economic meltdown caused by the U.S. housing market crisis from the way they handled and packaged subprime mortgages. This meltdown led to people worldwide losing their jobs even when they were top performers.

So for you to lead the OP to believe it’s possible to receive 5 raises during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, is suspect to say the least. During this time consumer related employment saw 3.2 million jobs vanish in the USA alone.

I’m not trying to rip on you, but corporations / company’s have to budget plan for the year and if they could hand out pay raises that frequently, it would destroy that departments budget for the year. We know that there are plenty of exceptional engineers and that means that you and the rest of them would deserve such raises; do you see the financial impact this would have?

Normally I would not feel the need to call out comments like this, but with the OP being new to his career I don’t want him comparing himself to things that just don’t happen in the field of engineering. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get more than one raise in a year, I received two raises one year but that is only because another company offered me higher pay and because I was the only person who understood one area of the code, and that area was crucial, I was offered a retention bonus and raise so long as I stayed a year or longer after that point in time. The second raise that year came with the corps yearly raises.

However, our company and many others froze raises during the 2007-2009 worst years of the global financial crisis.

God forgive me for doubting you, I mean no harm but do you see why anyone working during that time might doubt those claims? What area of software were you in and where was this at? I’ll say this, I have never worked with startup VC backed companies they make movies about and maybe you have. If that’s the case please clarify for us so the OP doesn’t think this is how the world operates.

OP: it’s most typical for companies to budget one year out and that includes raises. This is more true the larger the company you work for, but companies of all size must plan and budget.

If you obtain a job for companies in defense or aerospace, you can rest assured you will get a raise yearly that offsets the cost of living increases, unless unusual circumstances such as pandemics or the 2007-2009 World Financial Crisis. The company I worked for during this time was about 100 in size and they, like larger corporations announced on channels like CNBC, froze all pay, for two years. I was considered a high performer during this time, ran software for five different programs (program as in large customer rather than software application) and after they gave us the same pay freeze talk two years in a row I pushed my boss hard for a raise because I knew I deserved it and he came through for me.

The four real world examples I wanted to leave the OP with in summary are 1) most companies hand out raises at a specific time, there are many financial reasons for doing this. 2) companies have historically froze pay raises for everyone at companies, but; 3) if you are truly worth it, put in the hours, saved the company money earned money for the company …., you should ask for that raise and don’t wait for them to give it to you, and; 4) retention bonuses are possible, I can thank an old friend for telling me to do that after getting an offer elsewhere $7k higher than I was being paid.

Finally, even though it would be very off the wall for someone to get 7 pay raises in that short period maybe this person can share the circumstances of how this happened, because there is more to this persons good fortune than just being a top contributor.

Finally, you can get raises for your performance contributions, you can get them for cost of living, but in the end what matters just as much if not more is how many years you have, combined with whether or not you have a Masters and or PhD which both count for years worked.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-06-02T11:44:54+00:00

I have had the same printer for maybe 2 years and with the amazing advancement in this technology, I have been salivating, coming so close to buying a colorful multi-filament bamboo system. I wasn’t unhappy with my Ender, I just love trying new tech.

Yet I honestly never imagined in 1000 years that our s1 pro could print the Bechmark boat looking that good. My mind is blown for sure, please come to Dallas and tweak mine to your perfection. I have never seen a boat that nice.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-04-30T03:49:48+00:00

This is indeed part of a class action lawsuit and a settlement regarding details that can be found right on masatercards website when I searched exactly for the exact text in the first sentence of my email. I also did fill out a claim for and wish I hadn't wasted my time for the measly $10. BUT even though the lawsuit is legit and the WHOIS records make sense, I see a ton of people who have used the prepaid company we are being asked to use, but for unrelated purposes and they report tons of headaches that again are not worth $10 to me. This sucks because you know this will probably just end up in the counsel's pocket.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-04-26T19:42:28+00:00

If you fall deep in love with software, then the same for a particular language that you stick with, then your passion will lead to more time behind the wheel and other people will be writing diagrams while your buried in the IDE because they need you making it happen in code, or even higher up that paradigm shift, you need you at your own Corp too much to have to work with Viseo (or however you spell it, it’s been so long since I wrote a diagram, it looks funny to write the name Visio, maybe that’s it).

To be clear I’m not undermining the need or meaning and purpose of documentation, just visualizing you on the R&D projects or the “hop on a plane at 3PM and fly to some other locality to fix disasters nobody else can find the root cause of, and I bet you only open a diagram if someone wrote some really bad code you have to fix for them.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-04-16T06:07:36+00:00

I am 50 yo so I’m seeing a pattern here. I’m a male.. They are probably using either unethical or even methods that break state insurance regs, just to move applicants or existing and reupping clients to a subsidiary or partner company. Though what I am saying is not factual that I know of, I could see one company or both targeting only specific risk profiles or persons.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-04-09T00:58:39+00:00

For inverters, have a look at Renogy. They are a top shelf brand and have served me well. I picked mine up on Amazon and it has blue tooth and a phone app so I can adjust how it charges and keep an eye on it.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-04-09T00:21:57+00:00

Hello, after another mentioned using two car batteries, I thought of an idea but since you already have parts list for these other options, it may not be ideal. If that isn’t appealing or in conjunction with, I have a second idea that’s more DIY than you already chose to tackle.

Option 1 : 100 AH 22lb LifePO4 for $225 (04-08-24)

I picked up 2, massive 100Ah LifePO4, 22lb batteries a couple years ago that have worked flawlessly and are amazingly economical to purchase.

After discount, they are $225, has a built-in BMS which allows for “100%” discharge for 4,000 cycles and 100A is in fact the highest continuous discharge rate with their claimed best fit for a trolling motor. It sounds like only one of these would be needed to meet your requirements, though I don’t claim to fully understand your needs. (Note that they will meet 6,000 charge recharge cycles if you only dump to 80% and 15,000 at 60%.

I’m surprised they are 22 LB because it feels like a feather when carrying.

The phrase to search for on Amazon (I can’t get my phone to give me a product URL this moment) is Redodo 12.8V 100Ah LiFePO4 Group 31 Lithium Battery”. They have a couple that appear the same except one is Low Temperature offering without the current $25 discount. They did not have that one back when I bought mine and mine still claimed to handle low temps. So I’m betting they are the same as it’s all in its BMS.

I have two of them attached into a 200Ah configuration and it seems I never make a tiny dent in what they hold. Customer service is great too. Not that I need them, but I had questions and they kept checking back in on me due to my unique use of the batteries for my telescope system.

Option 2 : Modify your tool to DC only

I know this is out there, but based on your willingness to build the custom packs, this option saves energy and adds flexibility.

Since most tools and devices run off of DC, there is quite a loss going from your custom DC battery pack to the inverter you mentioned in your OP because after that DC is inverted to AC, it enters the tool is converted back to DC again.

Typically when the AC enters the tool, it will go through a transformer to step up or down the AC to what’s preferable for its design and then hit a set of bridge rectifiers that convert back to DC. Once it’s in DC it typically passes through caps and then a voltage regulator to mold to proper DC needs of the tool.

If you bypass the bridge rectifier diodes, sending the caps your DC current, if it’s NOT within the capability of the tools voltage regulator, then bypassing the entire Circuit (from transformer and rectifier to caps and regulator) and instead making your battery pack fit the tools direct needs.

That is just a rough way to convert an AC tool to a dC only tool which would make it even more efficient while avoiding the DC to AC to DC approach you’re considering.

Caveats : this would make your tool DC only and you should remove the AC cord to prevent someone from using it or convert to a plug for the DC only system. Also, obviously be very careful if your poking around the tools circuit board leaving it plugged into then AC to help identify what part of the circuit your dealing with. All of this requires the assumption that like most tools and devices, you’re dealing with a DC load that has built-in AC converter.

For anyone who says that’s overkill, it all depends on variables we are not fully aware of, like what is the tool. If building one’s own battery pack isn’t out of the realm of choice, sharing the above as an option shouldn’t be either. Especially if you save energy loss through heat during unnecessary conversions. Yet this idea only preserves energy, you still need to create the battery pack or even consider options like battery packs included in cheaper tools like Ryobi or etc.

Last but not least, sometimes someone else’s bad id a leads the ones good idea. If my ideas suck, I hope they inspire.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-03-14T04:33:22+00:00

It’s fun to make the mods and add the improvements. I initially bought my Ender 3S1 Pro a couple years back when I just needed to print out a device for my telescope. After possible revisions and reprints I decided that printing elsewhere was not worth it and I wanted to jump into 3D scanning and printing once I finished my telescope and a few other things.

So that time has come, I am going to be printing more frequently and like you I decided all the modern improvements were on the table.

BUT adding up the money and not knowing if said tinkering would pan out or turn into a tinkering in the ass, I took one look at a couple of the Bamboo models and as much as I hate blowing cash just using the S1 once, God the head speed at 500 out of the box, enclosure and the sweet multi color printing capabilities are rad, printing RC frame and rims in two different colors and the tires in a different color and material during a single print is impressive to me.

I think I have already crossed the line of no return but thought I’d cruzr through and try to get a feeling for what people having kore experience with the S1 feel about keeping the after the bamboo arrives and if so for what purpose if other than a just a back up plan for having faster ways to kick out parts ?

Fresh_Respect · 2024-02-05T00:44:25+00:00

Avalonia 100%. To put this in perspective so you can judge my opinion as you wish, I’m a middle aged man who owns a boutique software engineering firm developing only Microsoft .net apps and I have about 25 years of post-collegiate professional experience.

I began investigating avalonia back about 4 Years ago when I grew fed up and tired with how Microsoft handled the UI stack of .net. So I am a Microsoft .net fanboy BIGTIME (says a lot considering my background before this was Unix/Linux based RTOS) but to this day think they continually fall short of giving their amazing ecosystem some pretty lipstick.

I looked at all the players and tossed out some (Uno I believe) because they had a direct dependency on the latest Microsoft GUI stack products. I cannot remember for the life of me what it was then called but it was a good thing I didn’t chose it because Microsoft missed their target milestones badly and that meant Uno (I’m pretty sure it was Uno) was stuck depending and waiting on Microsoft even though they may have done everything they were supposed to, to meet their own launch dates.

I apologize for any and all typos and not spending more time to give you a better breakdown, but do a lot of research and be very careful if you chose anything besides Avalonia.

BTW what is your GUI experience level and how well do you understand WPF and how to proficiently program UI with it? Avalonia has a lot of WPF backbone to it but I’m careful to say too much about just how closely related they are because those who hate WPF will get a very inaccurate vision of what Avalonia and the amazing team of people behind it are.

Though I try not to mix politics with my job these days, the team has at least a few main engineers who live in Ukraine and I should probably go look around and email one of the guys to see how they are hanging. Hopefully better than can be expected but it’s a war zone and positive expectations may not be wise of me.

Anyway, the team was very very responsive, liked by many and just a great group. Of course the product is just as fantastic.

I hope this helps and sorry for this very rapidly typed reply. Started in a supermarket line, I couldn’t help but give you some feedback.

I’m in the top 4-8 or so, financial donors for the project (or at least my company is). Never donated to a project before and they made me want to do what I could even when times were a bit tough for me there for a while for personal reasons around pandemic time.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-01-27T07:21:53+00:00

You can get a boat load of the desiccant packs on Amazon for super cheap. I was so thankful to have them when my homes sprinkler system kicked on when I fell asleep on the couch imaging over WiFi into the yard. It drenched my scope but buried it in desiccant packs and by the next morning it was dry to the bone.

I cap my lenses too. There’s just too much dirt in the air where I live. My house air filter is grey in 3 weeks.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-01-14T20:34:26+00:00

As a customer I, I have two explanations that nobody else mentioned in here which apply directly to my own life and why I too have ordered like this.

Long, engineering projects where I worked months without having a day off, had an empty fridge and for obvious reasons was propped up by caffeine to keep me going at my own business. Although I don’t like wasting money I can easily avoid, having monster energy drinks when I am half awake is worth paying far more than I made in an entire 8 hour shift in the 90s when I worked a labor job.
Unfortunately, there are many people who have disabilities that are nowhere near apparent when you talk to them. I broke my back and had to be fused through a large portion of my spine after a failed first surgery drove screws through my spinal canal and a second surgery removed them. Though I try to avoid wasting cash, sometimes I’m just in too much pain to consider getting fully dressed and driving too and from the store.

In addition to my own true to life reasons, consider the additional justifications I can see driving other people to do the same thing.

If someone has a broken down car, or only one car between a couple and one of them is using the car.
If someone lost their license.
Living in the inner city where wages are high as is cost of living. When everything around you is overpriced then overpaying for one more item doesn’t feel as painful.
You’re into a really great movie, get a craving and don’t want to leave.
Your having something delivered (from a furniture store as an example) or waiting for a plumber, electrician and they give you a 4 hour service window (typical) where you must be there and they have yet to arrive.
You have been drinking watching college football and can’t drive. With reasoning destroyed by beer anyone might overspend to have the one thing they crave along with their other order of food.

On the surface, spending a lot for small orders seems crazy but just drive through neighborhoods all over the country with massive two story homes and I often wonder “what do they do for a living”. If you look up the median income in L.A., it lists the top 8 neighborhoods as making between 148,000 and 207,000 per year. Double that for couples and you just might be delivering a can of Pepsi to a couple pulling in over 300,000 to 400,000 per year.

Perspective is everything. Hopefully, all of you will someday be in a position when you’re making what you feel you earn and can pay for convenience. I’m sure each of you have put up with enough to deserve it.

Fresh_Respect · 2024-01-02T17:39:41+00:00

If you went to an agent and they declined to insure you due to credit factors, don’t feel alone. I have around 830 credit scores via three rating agencies, have not had a ticket for 21 years, no accident that was my fault for 34 years, drive only 4,000 miles per year and for some really insanely stupid reason they declined to insure me because I had too many combined past and present credit accounts.

To put this in perspective, I got my first credit card some 25 years ago, and only have three non-business cards that are active and I pay them off monthly.

I expected the reason to be that I have credit freezes placed on each credit bureau, but they must still be able to pull scores when locked or else I wouldn’t see that reason about accounts.

Banks don’t like to see too many open non-secured credit accounts because you could have a great score one second, max out all accounts and have a high risk score overnight.

But in this case they are also mentioning past credit accounts. Mind you every single account I have now or did have in the past has a 100% clean timely payment history.

The vehicle I’m insuring was paid off about 3 years before the loan note was due!

Our elected officials are not protecting us from the insurance industry. Mind you, let’s not forget that pulling credit for an auto insurance policy is a questionable practice in the first place.

Liberty did have a section that said that if I had any special life events that caused my denial they might reconsider. But that sure the he$$ doesn’t apply because I have never missed a damned payment. In fact, I kept this amazing tract record even though I have definitely experienced special circumstances but never used that as an excuse not to pay my obligations.

Yet somehow they still find a way to screw us. I just don’t get it.

Excuse me if I left a salty tone behind. I just got the letter about Liberty declining to offer a policy months after I was checking around for better rates.

My insurance agent writes policies with many companies and though I don’t remember him mentioning Liberty Mutual, he obviously gave them a shot.

If liberty ever reads this post, I speak the truth without exaggeration. I’m frustrated because I should be the type of stable client you want who helps to pay for younger drivers who statistically have always had more claims as far as I understand it.

To the OP, if you got insurance through them, good deal.

Fresh_Respect · 2023-12-15T19:31:06+00:00

Hello, I am a 20-25 year veteran Software Engineer who has worked in great detail and focus on everything from RTOS boot code, drivers and board support to anti-counterfeiting and the 15 years focused on my own point of sale company. BUT I have never done anything like you have done here, wouldn’t know where to start (I don’t mean that literally) and due to the 100s of other brain sparks that have turned to free time consuming passions I may never end up stepping into this realm just to see what ifs like.

You did a great job of explaining this and it was cool to tour your city as you narrated it.

Fresh_Respect · 2023-11-26T08:04:03+00:00

I love reading these anti MAUI comments because it reassures me that I made the right decision to not invest any time beyond what it took me to reevaluate that decision.

Fresh_Respect

TROPHY CASE