swighton

7 ms·

1.
by swighton 3y ago
It's definitely my favorite
2.
by swighton 3y ago
I made a baseball bat that uses explosives to add a bunch of energy to your swing and hit a baseball really far. It uses the explosive blanks normally used to shoot nails into concrete (e.g. ramset). It worked way better than I expected, di
3.
by swighton 3y ago
I definitely have a sense of only having one shot so I want to make the best video that I can. Though it’s not so much related to the numbers as it is to: 1) I spend a ton of time on the engineering so I don’t want to make a crappy video th
4.
by swighton 3y ago
I used to be a full time dev / R&D engineer. Now I basically do the same thing on YouTube (youtube.com/stuffmadehere). The difference now is my R&D-ing is directed at early stage prototypes that I think are interesting &#x
5.
by swighton 3y ago
I've found the opposite of this sentiment to be true, at least in my case as youtube engineer / maker. If you can find a way to monetize your hobby it is: 1. A great motivator to actually finish projects 2. A good way to justify &
6.
by swighton 4y ago
What I find amazing is that one thousandth of an inch is not particularly precise when it comes to machining. You can easily make parts to that accuracy with common mills and lathes. Also surprisingly (to me) is if you have a pin that goes
7.
by swighton 4y ago
I have both MechE and CS degrees. The big difference I see is that MechE is one course that builds on top of another on and on. Quite a rigorous progression that is hardcore on math and physics. To self teach MechE you have to work yourself
8.
by swighton 4y ago
I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. This is because there’s a nonlinear relationship between views & quality. For example a video that is twice as good might be capable of getting 10 times as
9.
by swighton 4y ago
Building and maintaining commercial properties is absurdly expensive. A landlord takes on the cost, risk, and time of building and maintaining that property in exchange for businesses not having to deal with that. The idea that a landlord s
10.
by swighton 4y ago
I’m not all that interested in advancing my personal prominence. This is why I originally didn’t even show myself in the videos
11.
by swighton 4y ago
Interesting design. I made a lock a couple years ago that is quite similar in principle (though this design is different and has a couple nice improvements). https://youtu.be/_7vPNcnYWQ4 One of my main goals is to be an in
12.
by swighton 4y ago
You can inexpensively (~$10) check if your calipers have been whacked out of calibration as frequently as you want with a gauge block or other calibration standard. If they have, you can also calibrate using the same block.
13.
by swighton 4y ago
I feel like calling these photos "taken by a chicken" is fairly misleading. The photos are taken automatically when a chicken wanders in front of a motion detector. To test the claim with a similar example, let's say I run a
14.
by swighton 4y ago
I wonder if people who are willing to pay extra for consoles from a scalper are more likely to spend more on games / digital downloads / etc. If that is true it would be an incentive for sony / microsoft to NOT fix the proble
15.
by swighton 4y ago
Glad you enjoy my locks :) Making locks is very interesting, but it reminds me of why they say you shouldn't write your own encryption. Even if the theory is sound, it just takes one little mistake for someone to bypass all your grand
16.
by swighton 5y ago
I think that his performance on the TransAm bike race is more impressive. He rode 440km every day for 16 days straight across the USA. Aside from all the elevation change and weather, he did it fully self supported, meaning he had to carry
17.
by swighton 5y ago
I’ve coined a term that describes a new form of inflation that I call “crapflation.” If you buy things on Amazon you often now pay the same (or even more) for the cheapest import garbage. Essentially stuff that would be in a dollar store.
18.
Show HN: A basketball hoop to maximize shots that go in [video](youtube.com)
971 points by swighton 6y ago|162 comments
19.
3D printing parts from plywood sheets(shane.engineer)
1 points by swighton 7y ago|0 comments
20.
by swighton 9y ago
We do Software (embedded, desktop, web), mechanical, electrical, process, systems, optics, and manufacturing engineering. It's a pretty fun mix. Since you asked, I personally work directly with all of the above (as a product lead). My
21.
by swighton 9y ago
Reminds me of a an anecdote about the F-117 Nighthawk which was the first stealth airplane nearly invisible to radar. Apparently the engineers working on it would come into the airplane hangers to find many dead bats as it was also invisibl
22.
by swighton 9y ago
My current company - Formlabs. I get to build really good hardware (3D printers), working with ~seven different engineering disciplines. Smart people, high levels of autonomy, and very little politics. People are there to build great stuff.
23.
by swighton 9y ago
If there's a team of demonstrably awesome people, we already have a word for incorporating them wholesale into a company - acquisition. If a team is truly great they are indeed more valuable than the sum of their parts so they would be
24.
by swighton 11y ago
I spent a lot of time learning everything I could about the company, the people, their product, etc. I knew half the engineers by name from various videos they had posted and was fully convinced it was a company of amazingly talented people
25.
How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone(shane.engineer)
419 points by swighton 11y ago|159 comments
26.
by swighton 13y ago
Formlabs - Boston, MA - Full Time Algorithms Engineer The Job: - Develop world class desktop 3D printer software with a focus on geometric algorithms - Lead the development of cutting edge software features from inception to release - Serio
27.
by swighton 13y ago
Formlabs - Boston Devops Engineer Our talented and rapidly-growing team of engineers and designers needs backend cloud tools to work together, while our community and customer support personnel need world class web functionality to delight
28.
by swighton 13y ago
Boston - Formlabs Developing good 3D printing software is hard. Sometimes NP hard. This can mean attacking the legendary salesman problem, the trunk packing problem, orientation and structure optimization problems, as well as mesh topologic
29.
Formlabs is looking for lead web developer(formlabs.com)
1 points by swighton 13y ago|0 comments
30.
by swighton 14y ago
I similar attack to mess up XML parsers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_laughs

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