I host the Applied Science channel on youtube (electronics, mechanics, chemistry, etc):
https://www.youtube.com/user/bkraz333
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-krasnow-6796a94
That's a good question. A Windows laptop. It's super annoying, constantly updating itself, forced reboots, network disconnections, fragile, yet is required for many CAD and acquisition/control proprietary software.
-People spend more time thinking about what they might lose instead of what they might gain by doing something. Partially, this is because wealth and prosperity are generally higher.
-People were more likely to ignore things they didn't like, and so building consensus was faster when dissenting people simply weren't talking. It's more common now to encounter people who feel it's their civic duty to search for things they feel are undesirable.
Best of all worlds: A website that doesn't require account sign-up, shows current wait time and special menu items, allows payment in-person or online, and doesn't even require an email address if you don't want to provide. The regional pizza place, Round Table does exactly this, and I really like the chain and their pizza.
I haven't worked on EDM in a while. Check out BaxEDM and his other customers for a DIY wire EDM design. The BaxEDM channel recently showed one of those ultra right tolerance sliding parts where the joint disappears.
Thank you. I make a conscious effort to avoid the craft that I hate so much myself. Luckily, I have a day job that allows me to treat the channel as a hobby -- I know others are not in this position. Other downside is that the day job takes time away from making fun videos :) let me know if anyone has a topic suggestion.
Probably the convenience of paying multiple creators with one credit card transaction, and one login. I guess you could call this a network effect. YT had/has various direct payment options, but they are confusing and never made as much sense as Patreon's model, which allows per-month or per-creation pledges. Strange since YT's existing infra would seem a big advantage in doing exactly what Pareon has.
I've lived a long time in the SF Bay Area, and it would be my first choice given the ability to live anywhere. Very close second choice would be Seattle area.
Yes, I think that may be true. It's fairly opaque even to us creators -- I don't know which ads are served, or how many people click, etc. Patreon has been a huge help, and if it gets high enough, I'll probably turn off ads altogether.
Data point from Applied Science: view count is constant over last 90 days. Ad revenue is down maybe 10%. Patreon is up slightly. Patreon has always been a really good idea for YT creators, and it's even better now.
I believe current tech uses 4x reduction from masks down to actual chips. This works well with sizes needed for quartz lens systems, etc. Older processes used 1x reduction (either direct contact, or very tiny offset). This is cheaper and easier because you don't need any quartz lenses, which are needed instead of standard glass for their UV transmission ability.
Thanks! I'm very far from making a CPU. Check out Sam Zeloof's work to see some of the other parts of home IC fabrication. Creating the mask is just one part of the process, and dialing in diffusion, oxide growth, metal deposition would take a lot of additional effort.
Yes. My original attempt (years ago) was to use a standard photographic enlarger: replace the lens with quartz, place the paper or plastic master design on a UV light source on the table, then place the microscope slide with photoresist in the enlarger where the film would normally go. One problem is the lens is not setup to cover a whole microscope slide. Another problem is not enough UV light getting through the whole optical system -- exposure would have been hours if it worked at all.
Haven't tried electrostatic. Considered low-tack adhesive (3M post-it).
Thank you for sharing the details of your experience. Healthcare in the US is not a normal market, so normal product- based thinking doesn't work. The end user doesn't pay, so they cannot directly influence the market by choosing products. Your discovery with the doctor who said that improving care doesn't help her, is really insightful. The 80/20 insurance rule fixes insurance profits so they have an incentive to make care as expensive as possible. Despite all this, we all know there is a ton of value in making things better. Your graph of Aleve performing so much better then ibuprofen is really interesting, and seems to capture how other parts of the system could be improved if end users were given the choice. Maybe a trusted review site with data to help patients choose doctors.
I agree. Linus even made a video about his own clickbaity thumbnails. His basic message was "sorry, I know it's dumb, but clickbaity stuff makes more money. Simple as that". If anyone wanted to see what a race to the bottom looks like, it's called "YouTube face".
It's a good point: why is it so hard to scale back? Dale says in the article that he is trying maintain control of Maker assets, which makes me believe the other option is a sale. Clearly, Dale wants to continue trying to build (even a break-even) business, but it's possible that the investors want to sell the assets, preventing this, so there is tension between someone running the business and someone funding the business. Dale says "It started as a venture-backed company but we realized it wasn’t a venture-backed opportunity." Who knows if it could have survived without VC backing, but this statement seems pretty clear that the investors weren't interested in the original direction of the company, and tried to put it on a higher growth trajectory -- hence my reading that the options were growth or death. On the product side of the business, the first customers of the magazine and faire were already Makers, and the interest was very high. Then, there was a big shift to package up all of this maker stuff, and sell it to general public. It didn't work. Had the business focused on the smaller niche group, it may have been viable, but not interesting to VC since the opportunity is limited to people who are already makers. Once the VC is accepted though, it's no longer an option to stay niche, and business decisions (such as opening a physical storefront in SF) only make sense when viewed with "huge-or-bust" mentality. It's mostly speculation, but I've been exhibited at Maker Faire since 2007, have written a handful of articles for the magazine and have friends that worked there.
The early issues of Make Magazine were filled with articles about repairing devices, building needed things instead of buying them, cobbling stuff together from scrap. It had a very distinct anti-consumerist vibe, which made it appealing to a lot folks including myself. The Faires were filled with like-minded folks who were there only to enjoy the process of building stuff. What do you sell this group of customers? In my mind, inspiration and a venue to share their projects with each other. Over time, though the maker movement became more focused on commerce, including tools that people needed to buy to become makers, and also startups founded by makers with the goal of selling stuff to the public. I'm surprised that I'm being critical on this point, since I really like business, and was a small business owner myself for years. What I'm trying to say is that Make lost sight of their original target customer profile (maybe due to pressure from investors), which is not an uncommon mistake. Smaller venues will crop up to support folks who like building things, which is a relatively niche group, and there may not be enough of us to support a the size business that the investors desired.
It's a real loss. It likely could have survived as a bootstrapped business, but being venture backed meant either large growth or death. Dale hints at this in the article, and the choices Maker Media has made over time make more sense knowing the pressures of investment were top priority.
Before Netflix, there was a big difference between flipping on the TV, and going out to rent a movie. Netflix started as a replacement for rental stores, but has steadily been shifting towards a TV replacement. The title selection between their streaming and DVD services is almost completely non-overlapping at this point. I dumped the streaming service, and went back to DVD, which I find to be a better fit for me only because of selection.
I also recently canceled and was surprised they didn't ask why. My reason was that the selection of content has changed dramatically. When I first signed up, I could choose a movie that I had in mind. Now, the selection of movies on Netflix streaming is extremely bleak. It's almost entirely TV shows, and about half of it is Netflix-produced. The quality of it is fine, I just don't want TV shows. I want access to the majority of movies ever produced, and would pay much more for such a service.