Suppose that a genie gives every human on earth access to infinite power, with no externalities like CO2 or radioactive waste. Would it make the world a better place or would it turn into a dystopian nightmare?
I think it would be like pouring sugar over a bacteria colony. The earth's crust could be economically strip mined. Ore could be smelted into metal at negligible cost, which could in turn be used to make more machines to strip mine the crust at a faster rate. Oceans could be boiled to access rare metals, or maybe just for fun by a bored teenager.
This isn't to detract from OPs practical comment, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
It's confusing because the drawing omits a pulley attached to shaft "a". Shaft "b" is hollow, shaft "a" turns inside shaft "b". As drawn, shaft "b" will rotate and turn bevel gear "B". If the belt were moved to the [undrawn] pulley on shaft "a", bevel gear "A" will rotate, causing "C" to turn in the opposite direction. The topmost pulley presumably slides left or right to engage the different bottom pulleys.
>> I've always found it a little surprising that companies haven't built/funded a open-source organization for parametric mechanical CAD, similar to Blender for games or KiCad for electronics/PCB design.
Unigraphics was owned by McDonnell Douglas and then sold to EDS, which was a subsidiary of General Motors. As far as I know, GM still uses Unigraphics as their primary CAD system.
I tried this. I didn't get into medical school but it is doable.
I enrolled in a premedical postbaccalaureate program, and over the course of two years of night classes finished all of the prerequisites required by most allopathic medical schools. I worked by butt off to finish with a 4.0 GPA and place in the 96th percentile on the MCAT (good enough to not be ruled out because of my MCAT score). I also volunteered at a memory care hospice on weekends during this period and ended up with 100 hours of clinical experience. I had some additional clinical exposure working on medical device projects as an engineering student.
I applied to 27 schools and was invited for two interviews. Of those two, I was waitlisted by one and rejected by the other. I didn't end up clearing the waitlist. So what went wrong? I can't say for certain, but I suspect these were contributing factors:
* My undergraduate engineering school GPA was 3.3 and my graduate school engineering GPA was 3.4. These are reasonable by engineering school standards but borderline for medical school.
* I only had 100 clinical hours. Many applicants have hundreds or even thousands of hours of clinical experience when they apply. I was 31 when I started the postbac program and decided to keep my full time job in order to save up money. The opportunity cost of each hour of clinical experience was higher at this age compared to a typical undergrad. In hindsight I should have at least devoted my weekends to gaining clinical experience the moment I decided to go this route.
* One of my recommendation letter writers was late. My application wasn't processed until all recommendation letters were in. I wasn't eligible for consideration until later admissions rounds.
* I didn't stand out. To be clear this isn't a requirement, but schools like to build a diverse and interesting class, so standing out in some way can be helpful. I struggle to decide if this was something beyond my control or if it represents a personal failure.
To return to my initial point, it is doable. In an alternate universe in which my recommendation letters made it in earlier, or I slept better before the MCAT and got an extra point, perhaps I would have been invited for one or two more interviews. If the interview -> admission invite conversion rate is 20%, that boosts the odds of admission from 36% to 59%. (I haven't ruled out applying again, but I would need to enroll in classes for at least another year in order to get new faculty recommendation letters. Unfortunately it isn't safe to volunteer at the hospice right now due to COVID-19).
The MacBook trackpads are definitely great. And the trackpoint looks like an anachronistic holdover from the early 90s next to a modern trackpad. However, it has survived because it's truly a useful productivity tool.
It's a nice middle ground between having to move your hand between the keyboard and trackpad, or embracing a keyboard-only Vim approach.
If you have a laptop with a trackpoint, become proficient with it. You can switch between mouse and keyboard without moving your fingers away from the home row.
How is does this different from publishing the instruction set, which was presumably already available (if it weren't, how would one write an application for it)?
I think it would be like pouring sugar over a bacteria colony. The earth's crust could be economically strip mined. Ore could be smelted into metal at negligible cost, which could in turn be used to make more machines to strip mine the crust at a faster rate. Oceans could be boiled to access rare metals, or maybe just for fun by a bored teenager.
This isn't to detract from OPs practical comment, but it's an interesting thought experiment.