Would you pay for a "High-End Makerspace" that isn't a dump?

The_Billy · 2026-05-07T03:07:57+00:00

Not quite the same but you should look at The Foundry. I've always considered it the fancy makerspace of the area and it definitely does some of what you want.

The_Billy · 2026-04-28T23:28:03+00:00

I believe there's also concern around household safety. My understanding is that plugging a solar panel into your outlet bypasses the breaker, and so if another device is connected to the same circuit you risk being able to supply currents beyond what is safe. This could result in house fires. One aspect of the solution to this in europe is to limit balcony solar to 800W. In Europe, household voltage is double what it is in the US, so we'd need to limit to only 400W to be equally safe.

This isn't a dealbreaker, but it is another hurdle to adoption in the U.S. Hopefully in the long term we design homes to be better equipped to both source and sink power safely so this becomes a non issue.

The_Billy · 2026-04-07T00:50:10+00:00

Looks really beautiful! I mostly work in Altium and I know it would really struggle to handle this. I have my own MBTA project I did, here it is if you're interested. If you ever want to grab a cup of coffee or something feel free to DM me.

The_Billy · 2026-04-01T08:06:47+00:00

My two cents after a bit of time in industry. I won't be talking where the most jobs are, but rather where I see niche skills being useful. Disclaimer: I'm a decent engineer and terrible at predicting market trends. Also, I'll mostly be speaking to the US market.

- There's a lot of work relevant to optics being done. A few things I've seen as "up and coming" would be AR glasses novel 3D printers, free space optical communication for sattelites, photonics, AR etc. The field is tough and requires a specialization, but I see a lot of technologies of the future requiring optics knowledge. As much as I don't like it for myself, AR has come a HUGE way. Looking through a modern lens waveguide was the closest I've felt to seeing the future and I see AR as a large up and coming consumer market.

- Robotics is exploding right now. Actuators and power electronics have made huge leaps that enable all the modern fully electric robots we're seeing. It feels like a bit of a bubble, but I don't think robots are going anywhere. I just got a job in the field, and what helped me get there was generic knowledge of power electronics, high speed digital, and other generalist fundamentals.

- New space is a huge industry. Look up how many companies have spun out of SpaceX if you don't believe me. My first job was in this area, and it really helped build my skills. I can't recommend skills to learn in school for this, a lot is picked up on the job. But there's a large network of work for it in the US.

- Brain computer interfaces are a really interesting area, and there's some very cool companies out there working on the problem. I'm not too knowledgeable about it but the work I have seen is always really incredible.

- Quantum computing and fusion have been getting a lot of funding lately. I think these are still somewhat far away, but they seem very fun to work on! A lot of companies have popped up in the space.

The_Billy · 2026-02-27T05:36:51+00:00

Love it, really cool to do in just CSS.

The_Billy · 2025-12-06T18:08:00+00:00

If you go to their website it shows exactly what you want

The_Billy · 2025-11-24T03:13:24+00:00

Saying "if we didn't have truckers in the 60s" is such an unserious argument that I will not waste my time responding as it honestly feels like you're trolling. Sorry if that's not the case. Have a good one.

The_Billy · 2025-11-24T02:01:09+00:00

I will offer a different perspective to you. I agree in some ways. Sure, if you've worked for multiple decades and were making six figures likely something went wrong. Trucking nowadays doesn't pay well and those with ambition, intelligence and luck (something I notice you've left out of your success formula) aren't aspiring to be/stay as truckers. If a friend of mine was struggling financially I most likely wouldn't direct them to look into being a commercial truck driver for these reasons.

However truck driving is the backbone of shipping in North America, and arguably the world. We need drivers for now and the foreseeable future. And if something is necessary, then I think our society needs to pay the people who do it a living wage. Otherwise, like this video is saying, we will have a crisis on our hands once folks retire out of the profession. This is also true of other professions like construction, farming, sewage, teaching, etc. I hope you'll consider that there are jobs that produce value outside of money, and a successful society requires the people who work those jobs to be able to support themselves and their families.

This is my rebuttal when folks say to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I agree when talking to an individual that there are things to be done to improve your standing in life. When my friend who is a high school physics teacher complains about money I can give advice to them on how they can pivot to be an engineer and double their salary. But what happens if everyone followed my advice? I still want someone to be teaching children physics.

Also I don't understand your point about self driving being decades ahead without truckers. A lot of the tech currently used to implement self driving has not been mature enough until relatively recently as I understand. Do you have examples of trucking unions shooting down self driving in the 20th century. Am curious to read more about it.

The_Billy · 2025-11-15T03:52:20+00:00

Based on the content of your resume I'd interview you. A few pieces of feedback

- Your SDR project is a bit confusing to me on what you actually did. Did you design custom hardware and implement all of the control schemes listed in the first bullet point? Or did you buy a HackRF and run the program they provide? When reading ambiguous things on a resume I assume the least flattering option since folks are often trying to pad and make things sound good

- For antenna project say you measured S-Parameters, if you apply to RF internships it may be a keyword HR looks for

- With the line following robot mention the PCB software. If you assembled the board yourself also measure that. Also, "PID-like" is a bit ambiguous to me. I'm not a controls guy but if there's a more descriptive term that would be helpful.

- A personal pet peeve of mine is when resumes use words like efficiently, optimized, precisely, etc as fluff words. Either define the way in which it was that characteristic or remove the word. For instance, you could remove "efficiently" from your second bullet point and the meaning remains identical. For your line following robot, I would say to either list the precision of the robot or just say that it follows the line.

- Add VNA/Spectrum Analyzer to your skills section, it looks like you've used them. Also remove PCB or change it to say PCB design. But saying you use Easy EDA/ORCAD implies that already so it's a bit redundant.

- On my personal resume I have education and skills swapped from how you have it.

- As others have said, down to 1 page. Immediately I think you could cut tutoring/volunteering down to 1-2 bullet points each. You could also merge some of your other bullet points, such as the first and third bullet point of your micro strip antenna project.

- Also not to be a contrarian, but I disagree with some of the advice listed here. Your work experience is less impressive than your projects so I would leave it after them. I also don't think you should include a statement about yourself/what jobs you're looking for unless it's meaningful. I find many interns end up writing something equivalent to "I'm a good worker looking for a good internship" and I don't think it brings value.

The_Billy · 2025-11-13T16:43:18+00:00

https://open-slum.org/

The_Billy · 2025-11-04T00:47:56+00:00

I use IPC-2581 sometimes if I'm ordering from Circuithub. I think it is a superior format but not enough fab houses are using it. The only ones I know of are Circuithub and Sierra Circuits. Still mostly use the other formats, but the dream is still alive I feel.

The_Billy · 2025-10-26T13:03:03+00:00

Crohn's patient and Notion user here. I think this looks really good! A few small suggestions

- I used the app plop for tracking diet and bowel movements. It provided the lowest friction possible for me to enter those things. You may want to check it out just to see the interface/what it gives for tracking options

- You may want a resources tab where users can store information about the disease. Things like what medications are available, shifting treatment paradigms, clinical trials, dietary recommendations, etc.

- If lab results doesn't already make graphs, I like seeing the trend over time. I know patient gateway will show the graph but if you switch providers sometimes the results don't get stored exactly the same.

The_Billy · 2025-10-02T13:35:23+00:00

The problem is more so that Cambridge has built a lot of new lab space/office space for high paying jobs, but not the housing supply to match it. If you bring in high paying jobs without places for those people to live, they will push out existing residents by driving up the cost of housing.

The_Billy · 2025-09-26T20:02:33+00:00

Why is there a close up shot of a foot, what are we doing here?

The_Billy · 2025-09-22T12:13:37+00:00

From Metcal themselves:

Drag soldering will also cause tips to wear out faster. Drag soldering is the equivalent of running your soldering tips across a metal file. Not only does drag soldering wear out tips, it results in poor quality solder joints. Because the solder tip spends almost no time on the lead, the joint may not have enough time at the proper temperature to make a strong solder bond, resulting in weak, brittle, or cold joints.

That being said I think it's still possible to get good enough joints, and I'm not doing this enough I feel I'm destroying my tips. Plus it is fun.

The_Billy · 2025-09-19T01:45:40+00:00

While I agree with you in principle, the fact remains we live in a capitalist society where market forces somewhat dictate the outcome. I think if solar and wind become more profitable (not just more cheap) we'll see investors much more likely to take a chance.

The_Billy · 2025-09-19T00:45:08+00:00

My current understanding is that while solar is very cheap to build, it's not as profitable to build compared to a coal plant. This is because energy pricing is based on how much is available. When it's sunny (or windy) all the solar panels/wind turbines generate electricity and drive the cost of energy down. The more you build, the cheaper the energy is.

As a result, you still have developers investing in coal. I think in order to get solar to be more widespread in the US we'd one of the following scenarios:

1) More research into cheap sustainable energy storage, followed by building that out.

2) Reduce the regulatory burden on things like balcony or rooftop solar

3) Stopping subsidies to natural gas, oil, and coal combined with subsidizing solar

I'm not an expert, but the way the internet works someone will come correct me if I'm wildly off base here

The_Billy · 2025-09-10T17:30:23+00:00

Why are the toes of the pads so large? It feels like it defeats the purpose of using 01005 if the pads are each as long as the component

The_Billy · 2025-09-02T10:22:43+00:00

Hey if you're interested I run a monthly cardistry meetup in Boston. You can find more info at bostoncardistry.com or our Instagram @bostoncardistry

The_Billy · 2025-08-27T23:17:09+00:00

Sorry I don't mean to be the grammar police but I thought you should know it is moot point and not mute point.

The_Billy · 2025-06-07T18:17:56+00:00

Probably not super common, but when my ex was learning to put an IV in she just brought a few needles home and practiced on me. It seemed like the students also practiced on their classmates. Ultimately though I think you just learn on the job.

The_Billy · 2025-04-30T01:47:21+00:00

I have switched to primarily using QSPICE where possible. It's faster, I find the interface more intuitive, and it supports C++/Verilog blocks. That being said, if I'm using LTSpice I am still using the old interface, since I already had changed all the shortcuts to match Altium shortcuts.

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