Scratch

You’re probably right, right now. But I am put in mind of ya boi Ben Franklin when asked “What use is [a prototype hot air balloon]” He replied “What is the use of a newborn child?”

Early plastic 3d printers were clunky and of poor quality, but now entire industries have spawned around them and they have revolutionised at-home prototyping.

Right now, this is a gimmick. But the potential, if nurtured is pretty serious, imo.

It’s easier to ship material than finished chunks. You can print all the shapes you need from one batch of material instead of having to fabricate and ship the correct modules.

Owning a ghost gun is a crime, right?

Nearly 500 were recovered last year. https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/public-safety/2023/09/20/nypd-unit-combatting-the-growing-problem-of-ghost-guns

And you don’t think you can effectively grow in that position.

However, I will share my worst interview experience.

It was for a company that was working on an app to move stock from one car dealership to another. Dealers would sell cars to each other, essentially.

I show up 15 mins early, as is tradition. I check in and wait until the scheduled time. Then 5 mins past, then 10 mins past. At this point I’ve written off this company and call my partner asking if I should just bail out or not. She says even bad interviews are good practice and I should stay the course even if I think this one is a lost cause.

Her wisdom is sound, so I stick around. About 15 mins after the agreed time I am finally asked to meet with the manager. He guides me through what is to this day, the drabbest, driest office I have ever been in. The only colour in the place is a bunting of world flags around the tops of the walls. I get to meet 2 lovely people who both seemed very capable and competent. We have a great time going through some team-fit and technical questions. Then I get to the code challenge. I am provided with a laptop and it is fucking GROSS. Like imagine a keyboard you haven’t cleaned in 5 years kind of gross. The ask was pretty straight forward, download images and display them in a list, the classic ‘keep-shit-off-the-main-thread’ challenge. I’m working away while the EM is paying me no mind whatsoever. He is working away on his computer while I’m doing this. About halfway through I tell him; “I don’t think I’ll have enough time to complete the project”. I’m trying to display a proactive mindset and I expected we’d then talk about paring the project down to an MVP. All classic interview gotchas. His response though was: “Deal with it.” I knew I wasn’t taking any offer they made me when they left me 15 mins late, but God fucking damn did I not expect that level of disrespect. Anyhow, I hauled ass out of there and called up the recruiter who organised it and told him straight up I would rather be unemployed than take a position there, with details as to why. Hoping to save any unfortunate candidate a similar experience.

I still feel bad for the 2 engineers I spoke to, they seemed really cool and undeserving of working under a stone-cold prick of a manager.

It’s got that LOLRANDOM vibe that I detest. Arc4Random was King.

I have access to a surface plate, to I use that as a flat reference to sand my build plate back to flat.

Captain Sonar goes up to 8. It does have some frantic communication among the teams.

Sushi Go Party goes up to 8

Camel Up