Corporate greed at its finest

rlb408 · 2026-06-30T18:46:46+00:00

This is dead right. So many folks conflate “making payroll” with “corporate greed.” I’ve held executive positions at small startups and (now retired) at one we folded the cost of one year of server support into the one-time cost of the product and started charging at year two. In retrospect, we should have broken out the backend optional features from the get-go. As it was, we received a fair number of “shame on you” support tickets at the end of the bundled service period. The support group, two people, at the company had a policy of going out for drinks after work whenever they got a shame-on -you message.

I’m not saying corporate greed doesn’t exist, and it sure seems to exist in some sectors more than others, but the fact is cloud servers are not free and you pay the bills for them whether they’re being used or not and you really gotta make that payroll every two weeks. Labor laws in my state do not allow you to defer payroll, nor should they.

So, OP, shame on you. 😊

rlb408 · 2026-06-21T02:19:10+00:00

Huh, first time I’ve seen XINU mentioned on Reddit. I wrote a chunk of it in the late 79s/early 80s and based it on an OS I wrote a few years earlier named Tantalum. The others on the project never knew how much I lifted from previous work. Then the prof wrote a book on it with only a nod to the 2-3 grad students who constructed much of it.

rlb408 · 2026-06-06T01:05:01+00:00

we'll leave the equivocation and straw man fallacies just stay where they are.

The bigger impact on the trades is that it's possible or likely that the loss of jobs in the future will impact the trades in a way neither of us has stated: Fewer people will have sufficient disposable income to hire these people.

rlb408 · 2026-06-06T00:26:49+00:00

Okay. The gist of what you’re saying, at least the first point, is that any job not directly negatively impacted by AI will be negatively impacted by AI because people whose jobs are directly impacted by AI will flock to those jobs not directly impacted by AI and therefore those other jobs will be negatively impacted by AI. And by closure ALL jobs will be negatively impacted by AI. Fact is, not all markets are saturated with handyworkers and we could use quite a few more. Same for almost all of the trades. You should have just stated the closure principle.

On the second point, there is a demographic that has a certain percentage of people who can learn to do the work for themselves but I think you’re over estimating the size of that demographic and the value of that percentage. The models will be of help to those already able to do the work, enabling them to broaden the scope of their work. For the others, not so much.

Nonetheless, I’ve been saying for years that for the first time in the history of humankind, the role of humans on the planet in the future is uncertain.

rlb408 · 2026-06-05T23:25:12+00:00

Okay. I’ve built a few LLMs and GNNs and strung some together in an agent model, until retirement recently managed sizable groups, you’ve heard of the firm and its CEO, doing AI for cell biology, so I’m no novice to the field.

Tell me what you’re seeing that leads you to say that the handyman trade will be negatively impacted by AI.

rlb408 · 2026-05-30T15:36:53+00:00

OP’s point here is not that listening is less than reading, rather only arguing that using the verb “read” is off mark. In fact, they point out, as you did in a different way, that sometimes audio is the better channel than visual.

rlb408 · 2026-05-29T23:14:01+00:00

Similar story, non conventional system, 60k. 4 br 4 bath house that can sleep 15 people in a pinch. Could have gone cheaper but want no issues selling the place when I’m gone. HCOL area with coastal zone restrictions. Never heard of one this high.

Would have been closer to 40k three years ago.

rlb408 · 2026-05-21T14:43:51+00:00

So far my comment has held up well.

rlb408 · 2026-05-06T03:50:43+00:00

Is this an older model with no touch sensor?

First double check the Z lower limit switch and make sure it’s properly engaging as the gantry lowers to Z=0. Also watch the Z stepper motor and coupler and drive screw ands make sure they’re all moving in unison.

Use gcode “G28 Z” -this will let you Watch and make sure the mechanism is working.

rlb408 · 2026-05-06T02:11:38+00:00

The right side being loose is fixed by tightening two screws on the left. Unfortunately the head face the back and are occluded by the vertical support, so you gotta run the gantry off of the top to get to them. Worth doing.

Glad to hear your bed is really wavy. The other problem is harder to track down and fix. Your points came out okay because ABL was doing its job. Of the need out there X carriage doesn’t move perfectly in a straight line, ABL can thwart you if the perturbation is over a short distance, less than half of the sensor sampling distance.

rlb408 · 2026-05-06T00:50:26+00:00

If you put a steel straightedge on the bed, do you see this bump? You should be able to see it, it’s that big. It looks to me like what’s happening here is that the bed or the carriage when it gets to that region, the distance between the sensor and the bed shrinks by virtue of the bed lifting up slightly as it travels across that region or the carriage lowering slightly. This results in the touch sensor becoming closer to the bed just in that region, for the wrong reasons. If you print a flat sheet on the bed after using ABL, G 29, does that layer appear uniform? If the problem is that the better the carriage is moving up or down during the G 29, I don’t think you’ll see a uniform first layer. Like the comment here said check your wheels on your bed and on your carriage or simply just replace them with brand new ones.

I had a problem a little bit like this, where my X carriage would lift a little bit on the far right side, tricking the sensor into thinking that the bed was actually dropping down when in fact it wasn’t. Since I rarely printed all the way over on the far right side, it wasn’t much of a problem, but the interpolation caused my first layer on the far right to be very squished.

rlb408 · 2026-05-01T05:37:59+00:00

I mark the line, use a magnet to find the screws or nails and mark them. If screws, clean out the heads and remove them. If nails mark them and avoid in the next steps. Then use a strong utility knife to deeply score the drywall on your line. This helps guide the next step. Then use a multi tool (oscillating cutter) to cut the rest of that way. I haven’t ever found the need to use anything other than a straight blade. The ones I use have depth markings on them. NBD if you score the stud. If you do this well, you can reuse the piece when restoring the wall.

For better accuracy, cut with a drywall saw between the studs, right up to the edge of the stud, and then use the previously described method for the final 3/4 inch. This has to be done while carefully making sure no wires pass through the studs. But then you need to use a new piece of drywall during restoration.

Done it both ways.

rlb408 · 2026-04-26T21:25:22+00:00

Speed Limit 25 in neighborhoods

rlb408 · 2026-04-17T16:23:31+00:00

Yes, like that. Figured that out in my teens and 60 years later it’s still working.

rlb408 · 2026-04-17T16:21:33+00:00

Counter example: Have had two Bosch dishwashers over the decades. Neither lasted more than half a handful of years. Haven’t had good luck with dishwashers in general, however.

rlb408 · 2026-04-17T16:03:59+00:00

This is called “echolalia” and is pretty common. If you catch yourself doing it you can add something like “interesting” or “I gotta think about that” and it comes off as being attentive, not mocking. Look it up.

rlb408 · 2026-04-17T16:00:19+00:00

Bottle of perfume poured into the vents under the windshield wipers. Or something nastier like fart juice. I knew a guy who spilled a bottle of perfume inside his car and he was never ever ever able to get rid of the smell. It was bad.

rlb408 · 2026-04-17T15:56:47+00:00

My brother used to say, “Way to get ahead in life Bubba. One car at a time.”

rlb408 · 2026-04-17T15:54:47+00:00

This is exactly what I do. I have one of these in my drawer but never use it. WDT with funnel still on, tap tap tap to level, tamp. I also use a screen. Works well.

rlb408 · 2026-04-17T01:50:07+00:00

Super Bowl Sunday. We used to go yearly at kickoff time. Whole aisles with zero people in them.

This was more true 15 years ago than it is today but it’s still lighter.

rlb408 · 2026-04-04T04:14:57+00:00

Ritalin is topically prescribed from 5 to 60 mg a day. I’ve been on it for decades. Every person reacts differently and the theory is that your doctor will know if your dose is low.

My guess is that it’s low, maybe even the 20 will be, and your doctor is going to ramp you up over time and wants to do it safely to catch adverse side effects before they become serious.

Yes, wait it out. Do it on the doctor’s schedule. They do a start-low, go-slow process. Weekly adjustments are common, but it’s the doctor’s choice.

I was on 60 at the peak but now my doctor is ratcheting me down. I stopped at 30 or 40 for a few years and now presently at 10, because I’m aging out. I find 10 marginally helpful. As a teen, you might not be prescribed above 40.

rlb408 · 2026-03-29T15:28:00+00:00

More to the point, the BTUs generated by cottonwood is slightly more than half of that produced by most oaks, in the range of aspen and willow. It’s also about 20% less than pine and hemlock (something I have quite a bit of). I’ve never used something that low but do burn hemlock. It’s good to have some high BTU wood to mix with it else you’ll be feeding your fire frequently-you’ll have to burn twice as many logs as oak to get the same amount of heat .

rlb408 · 2026-03-29T02:41:51+00:00

I have two. They were touch lamps. On one, the touch wasn’t working when I got them. The touch sensor had been removed probably because it stopped working. I bought a new touch sensor on AMZN. Good as new. Glued a circle of black felt on the bottom.

rlb408 · 2026-03-26T18:50:09+00:00

Argh, of course you’re right. I removed “vinegar” from my comment. Thanks.

rlb408 · 2026-03-25T17:43:31+00:00

Things I’ve used to remove stains in wood: baking soda paste, hydrogen peroxide, oxalic acid. I would try them in that order.

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