141–150 of 215 posts
> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…
> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…
> A factory can ensure precision and consistency at a level that those hand crafting things never could. Idk, in the example "a built racecar engine" one could imagine that instead of running CNC machines all day long to make pistons, replacing tools for wear periodically, a machinist could take a brand new end mill, make some initial test cuts and validate the dimensions, then make the final part and look it all ove…
It also costs more to handmake parts with tight tolerances than to handmake them with loose tolerances. So from a certain point of view tolerances are all about your budget.
Here's the crucial part, though. You can get any given tolerance level more cheaply by handmaking things at low volumes, and more cheaply through mass production at high volumes.
But let's talk about consistency. In today's statistical process control regimes, it's common for mass-produced parts to hit "six sigma": the point where the tolerances they're manufactured to are six standard deviations out from the process mean, so the normal variation in the process will only produce out-of-tolerance parts in one of a billion cases (1 - pnorm(6) in R). In practice, uncharacterized sources of variation that don't follow the normal distribution tend to overwhelm that, but it's still common to have a better than 99% chance that the part the manufacturer sends you will meet its specifications.
By contrast, when you contract with someone to make the first instance of something, if it's a very reputable maker, you might get 95%. The other 5% includes things like misunderstandings of the specs, unforeseen accidents, and undetected sources of deviation. In complex fields like architecture and software your chances of getting what you ordered are more like 0%.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
High end automated processes can indeed hit extremely high tolerances, but that’s a trade-off on cost (give or take) and often not one the factory is making. I’m reminded of a story about GM, where the top execs would preview drive all the new models - except the ones that were given to the execs had been hand-tuned by engineers to fix the manufacturing slop, so the GM brass was convinced their cars were much better…
I am reminded of the following story: https://www.1factory.com/quality-academy/forgotten-lessons.h... Ford had transmissions produced in both the US and Japan, yet the Japanese made transmissions had 1/4 the repair frequency. Their engineers disassembled them to discover why. It turned out that they were both within spec, but the Japanese transmissions had been manufactured to tighter tolerances and had targeted rang…
I’ve procured substantial quantities of gray market (not illegal yet) medication ‘for research purposes’ and can probably safely say that it has indeed saved my life. While the medication was purchased the protocol was of my own design. Like many people with chronic conditions (LongCovid/Chronic Fatigue) I’ve long given up on doctors and only use them when I have to get a prescription. A lot of what I used are the hu…
> Bacteriophages are another interesting medical technique ignored by the west. Phage are interesting, but they're ignored because they're worse than antibiotics by nearly every measure. They're _very_ narrow spectrum. They're immunogenic. Phage have found ex vivo applications, such as treating meat to prevent listeria. Source: worked in an evolutionary bio lab for two years culturing and cloning phage.
> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. Right. We all know the best chips in the world are made by local artisan silicon-etchers. None of that TSMC pasteurized crap. You simply can't beat a 1nm brush and a steady hand. We all know this industrial revolution thing was a mistake.
Sounds like my artisinal Certificate Authority, all signatures are hand multiplied by human computers!
It's pretty trivial to generate a long list of technologies which are deemed "better" only because they are built by a large commercial enterprise.
While a noble cause, this seems like a prime example of “techies convince themselves they are smarter than everyone and they can solve every single problem with JavaScript”. Which is why, when you actually look at the project, it’s a website, instructions for a 3D printed version of the chemistry kit I bought my kid for Christmas for $40, several software suites all listed as “pre-alpha” (read: not working), and inst…
Then do it- that's the point of the art piece, in a very literal way. Everybody fixates on the aesthetics around this kind of thing, but if it moves you to action than it's working.
So let it work, learn what you need to learn to help folks in the ways that you feel this project fails.
And then you won't have the cynical feeling that you don't like.
A lot of people miss the fact that this is more art project than practical solution. It’s meant to make a statement, but they have cherry-picked some extremely simple drugs to synthesize to make their point. I have some online friends who met through a forum for their rare condition. The forum they’re in had a splinter group dedicated to getting companies in China to synthesize experimental drugs for them that they c…
That's neither cherry picking nor misleading.
A lot of people miss the fact that this is more art project than practical solution. It’s meant to make a statement, but they have cherry-picked some extremely simple drugs to synthesize to make their point. I have some online friends who met through a forum for their rare condition. The forum they’re in had a splinter group dedicated to getting companies in China to synthesize experimental drugs for them that they c…
> they have cherry-picked some extremely simple drugs to synthesize to make their point It can't do everything , but those cherry-picked examples are still pretty dramatic. Saving $80k to cure your Hep.C is pretty practical. Getting an abortion while living under increasingly emboldened christofascists is pretty practical. Managing your own transgender HRT is pretty practical. Lets not perfect be the enemy of good, i…
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/anarchist-drugs-ag... >"Our ultimate hope is to get to a point where we're no longer necessary because the notion of DIY medicine, no matter anybody's opinion of it is common enough that if it comes up in conversation, someone can say 'Oh I'm just going to 3D print a replacement'". >No, no, that is not going to be happening any time soon, or (frankly) at all. I could go one f…
Personally, I find this guy to be unbearably smug.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A factory can ensure precision and consistency at a level that those hand crafting things never could. Idk, in the example "a built racecar engine" one could imagine that instead of running CNC machines all day long to make pistons, replacing tools for wear periodically, a machinist could take a brand new end mill, make some initial test cuts and validate the dimensions, then make the final part and look it all ove…
I suspect the original author’s use of “a built racing engine” was a bad example since there is no factory line for such things as they are too low volume. However, if we loosen the definition of racing engine to include hot rods, then I believe proven factory built designs are highly valued. To give one example: > The 2JZ-GTE, which sits in the heart of the Supra, is one of the best inline-six out of Japan and easil…