Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
1–10 of 34 posts
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#2Pure Love
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#3I really burst into tears when I first saw it. This is really fascinating how a dad worked hard to make his child every day life easier. I can understand his effort as father of disabled child and very proud of achievement he made.
It is hard to believe how hard to reach resources for a disabled child. Some European countries has very good regulations about supporting disabled children thus equipment is very expensive. It is impossible to effort for families with low income and social benefits which are provided especially from government agencies is a must.
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#4Epitome of Father-Child relationship. Moved to tears. Thanks for sharing.
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#5Amazing write up.
It does make me a bit grumpy to see things like SnapChat being offered $3bn, but nothing like this ever getting that kind of funding. That's a lot of engineering and manufacturing that isn't being done.
Even the boy with the formula one arm had to raise funds himself. (With help, but no funding, from Mercedes. But the engineering they gave is very cool.) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/87006...
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#6I really burst into tears when I first saw it. This is really fascinating how a dad worked hard to make his child every day life easier. I can understand his effort as father of disabled child and very proud of achievement he made. It is hard to believe how hard to reach resources for a disabled child. Some European countries has very good regulations about supporting disabled children thus equipment is very expensiv…
> Some European countries has very good regulations about supporting disabled children thus equipment is very expensive.
Regulations, at least the well intentioned ones, try to avoid accidents from ill-designed products. The downside is expensive or never made technology needed by a small number of patients.
After all, dead or injured children due to faulty machinery are very noticeable, whereas unassisted ones (because the technology doesn't exist) is just "a fact of life", and invisible to most (except their parents). "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen", again.
Same with medicines.
We need a two-tier system: 1) certified and expensive, and 2) best-effort and on your own, but cheap.
(And don't let me get started on patents)
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#7Amazing write up. It does make me a bit grumpy to see things like SnapChat being offered $3bn, but nothing like this ever getting that kind of funding. That's a lot of engineering and manufacturing that isn't being done. Even the boy with the formula one arm had to raise funds himself. (With help, but no funding, from Mercedes. But the engineering they gave is very cool.) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/f…
I completely agree; it's the same thing as with entertainment/sports industry.
Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have much real value.
Thanks for sharing the link.
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#8Amazing write up. It does make me a bit grumpy to see things like SnapChat being offered $3bn, but nothing like this ever getting that kind of funding. That's a lot of engineering and manufacturing that isn't being done. Even the boy with the formula one arm had to raise funds himself. (With help, but no funding, from Mercedes. But the engineering they gave is very cool.) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/f…
I completely agree; it's the same thing as with entertainment/sports industry. Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have much real value. Thanks for sharing the link.
"Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have any real value."
Serious question: Do you consider entertainment to have a real value for society?
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#9Amazing write up. It does make me a bit grumpy to see things like SnapChat being offered $3bn, but nothing like this ever getting that kind of funding. That's a lot of engineering and manufacturing that isn't being done. Even the boy with the formula one arm had to raise funds himself. (With help, but no funding, from Mercedes. But the engineering they gave is very cool.) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/f…
I completely agree; it's the same thing as with entertainment/sports industry. Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have much real value. Thanks for sharing the link.
as far as society is concerned, professional athletes do have value - that value is realized in the form of ticket prices, memorabilia, endorsements, etc. And you can measure that in dollars, obviously. Keep in mind, these are professionals. There's only like 700-800 of them per professional league, and their athletic careers span 0-20 years. You could similarly do that calculation for hollywood too. That's the supply side. The demand side: it provides joy; it's entertaining, it's emotional, and fun. People pay for that, for the most part. Of course some people don't feel it;s worth paying for. that's fine too. But there's enough of the payers to sustain industries.
Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree; it's the same thing as with entertainment/sports industry. Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have much real value. Thanks for sharing the link.
"Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have any real value." Serious question: Do you consider entertainment to have a real value for society?
People would make their own entertainment if sports and Hollywood were not available: games, stories, conversation, crafts, and so on. Our lives might even be a bit richer for it.
And in that sense, the entertainment industry captures value that we would be making anyhow. Yes their entertainment is better somehow, better in the sense that people will pay for it, so this is the bottom-line "better", inclusive of demand generators (eg, movie trailers, team rivalries, etc), and not necessarily a general-welfare "better".
You might even argue that this is welfare-capture: once you have seen the movie trailer (for free), or acquired team-loyalty (for free), your welfare becomes dependent on seeing what happens (not free). My son saw a trailer for WALL-E last night. Now he wants to see it. Having seen it, will his net welfare have increased? I don't know. He seems happy enough with his blocks and pencils and such.