Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son • Hacker News Board

Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son

#31

Post by evan_ » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 4:46 AM UTC

thecodeore wrote: post #17

elmuchoprez wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

"Do you consider entertainment to have a real value for society?" I thought we were talking about sports? Sports does not even have any entertainment value, it is a complete waste of time and resources

So the hundreds of millions of people who line up and pay to watch sporting events each year are paying to not be entertained?

Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son

#32

Post by Kliment » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 11:57 AM UTC

stbtrax wrote: post #28

Kliment wrote: post #11

Just a random offer, I don't mean to hijack the thread - I do electronics and robotics design for a living. I will happily help anyone who has a need like this for cost of materials or less, the result will be open source hardware. If you or someone you know could use help with a similar project, contact me at kliment at 0xfb.com or on IRC (I'm Kliment on the freenode network).

From the comments of the father's blog there seems to be an organization for pairing up people with skills to people with needs: http://www.tetrasociety.org/

Thanks, though it appears to be North America only, and I'm in Europe.

Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son

#33

Post by mctx » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 1:18 PM UTC

Kliment wrote: post #11

Just a random offer, I don't mean to hijack the thread - I do electronics and robotics design for a living. I will happily help anyone who has a need like this for cost of materials or less, the result will be open source hardware. If you or someone you know could use help with a similar project, contact me at kliment at 0xfb.com or on IRC (I'm Kliment on the freenode network).

I'd love to help out too (mechatronics eng) - email in profile. I'm in Perth, Australia

Re: Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son

#34

Post by elmuchoprez » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 6:57 PM UTC

yaddayadda wrote: post #29

thecodeore wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do you consider entertainment to have a real value for society?" I thought we were talking about sports? Sports does not even have any entertainment value, it is a complete waste of time and resources

I'm far from a fan of any sport. I absolutely abhor the disparity between professional athletes earnings and the "working" class' earnings. And abhor even more the money spent on college football (e.g., the budget for our university library was being slashed so much that frequently used journals were having their subscriptions cut, while at the same time the football team got a new stadium and dorm). So I say this as…

"And abhor even more the money spent on college football (e.g., the budget for our university library was being slashed so much that frequently used journals were having their subscriptions cut, while at the same time the football team got a new stadium and dorm)."

The irony is that at almost every university, the football team is a profit center, not a cost center. It' entirely likely that your library would have had deeper budget cuts without that football team.