Wood Shop Enters the Age of High-Tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/education/edlife/forward-tinkering-colleges-make-room-for-maker-spaces.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <comment><USER2> I know this article is more about "maker spaces" than "wood shops", but there is also somewhat of a renaissance in traditional hand-tool woodworking going on. A new community shop opened in Toronto which is based entirely on hand tools: [http://www.theunpluggedwoodshop.com/](http://www.theunpluggedwoodshop.com/). I'd like to see more people realize they don't need $1000s of high tech machines to build the same types of furniture we've done by hand for centuries.

<comment><USER3> Here in North Carolina we have the Folk School for this sort of thing. I'd love to see them open a satellite campus in the Triangle.

[https://www.folkschool.org/](https://www.folkschool.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I once saw a guy in the local maker space spend a couple hours programming a CNC milling machine & arranging a complicate series of clamps and shims to hold a work piece he intended to drill. 15 seconds into his run the drill bit bound up in the work piece. Since the mill was set to pulse drill on the up stroke it snatched the work piece out of the jig that was holding it. On the next downstroke it totally obliterated his jig and then hurled the work piece across the machine shop. 15 feet away there was a set of collets that would have worked way better than the printed ABS widget he was using to hold his workpiece. There was also a bog standard drill press standing next to the table the collets were on. If this dude had simply chucked his piece in a collet and walked over to the drill press his parts run would have taken 15 minutes, likely with no ballistic interludes. The really shocking part was that he was in the machine shop at all. Normally it, the welding stations, and the wood shop were deserted and there was always a line (sometimes hours long) to access the laser cutter, 3d printer, and CNC router table. The three tools in the shop that could be controlled with a laptop and that required no direct tool use on the part of the operator. That always bothered me for reasons I can't fully articulate.

<comment><USER4> When I was in high school metal shop, back in the stone (iron?) age, a fellow student forgot to take the key out of the chuck before turning on the lathe. That key shot across the room and punched a neat hole through the wall. It could have easily killed someone.

Making dangerous mistakes is hardly confined to CNC machines.

<comment> m-i-l At my school, one of the teachers had fixed a spring to each chuck key, to make it impossible to leave in by mistake - you had to press the key in to open/close the chuck, and as soon as you stopped pressing it in the spring would make the key pop out. I'd have thought such a simple way of improving safety would be pretty standard by now, but I've not seen it since, at least on any of the home tools I've used.

<comment><USER5> Really? I think every drill press I've operated has had that kind of chuck key. It's fantastic.

<comment> m-i-l I've only used a small number of low budget tools on a very infrequent basis since. A quick search on the internet suggests that safety mechanisms are common nowadays, with keyless chucks and chuck guards seemingly the most common. I guess I was just impressed with both the improvisational nature and retrofitting of the spring solution.

<comment><USER5> I'll agree with that, I haven't seen someone retrofit their own before.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sphericons (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.interocitors.com/polyhedra/n_icons/index.html <comment><USER2> Wow! This is one of those tiny corners of the internet that embodies a certain mystique, like the feeling of stumbling across hidden treasure. I have nothing to add other than to encourage others to check out the visualizations of these weird polyhedra, and that it looks like the author has a lot of other cool work on the page linked at the bottom:

[http://www.interocitors.com/polyhedra/](http://www.interocitors.com/polyhedra/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, you could immediately tell by the style of the page: all content, no fluff. Cool stuff!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wonderful, thanks!

Is anyone able to offer some advice on how I might be able to take a wrl/vrml file and actually meddle with it in 3D?

Perhaps I'm missing something supremely obvious, but I can't import them into 3D software I have and even simply trying to view them in Firefox results in them being opened in Internet Explorer (using the recommended Cortona3D plugin).

I didn't realise how fundamentally put to rest vrml has become - there's very little by way of new stuff out there on the internets...

Help? :\

\- ed

Also, why are the responses in here reported as being 2 hours old, when I distinctly read them yesterday?!

<comment><USER5> > Also, why are the responses in here reported as being 2 hours old, when I > distinctly read them yesterday?!

You're being gaslighted by the second-chance pool. When a submission doesn't gather many upvotes, but the mods think that it would have fared better if it had been posted at a different time, they arrange for it to be reposted. That's implemented by messing with the timestamps, which can be confusing when you've seen the submission before.

You can see the true timestamp for this submission here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=interocitors.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=interocitors.com) and for 3131s's comment here [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=3131s](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=3131s)

I wonder how well that second-chance pool works. The visit counter at the bottom of the page is currently at 05247.

<comment><USER2> It's been interesting watching the upvote count on this. I was the first upvote, then later on once it had fallen off the first page of /newest it still only had a few upvotes and I assumed it would die. Now after the mod intervention it's been hanging around the second and third page of /news for the last day and to my surprise has 37 points.

Since browsing /newest a lot more in the past few months, I've noticed how a single person can have an outsized impact on the visibility of submissions. The first upvote is really crucial, it seems people tend to notice anything with "2 points" or above and then with only a few more upvotes in quick succession a submission will start to get visiblity on /news. One morning a few weeks ago I cast the first upvotes on two separate submissions, and then later in the day both made it to the front page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The first and second hyperlinks are yet another victim of Virgin Media's abrubt cessation of WWW page hosting services without notice. I believe that the new target is [http://sphericon.pjroberts.com/](http://sphericon.pjroberts.com/) .

</comment><comment><USER7> This would be fun to see as a 3D print!

<comment><USER8> Set up a group buy from this guy?

[http://www.jordanmetalart.com](http://www.jordanmetalart.com)

He calls them "oloids".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Floating point D&D dice!</comment>


Senate Report on 5G: Recipe for Disaster - <AUTHOR> http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200722-senate-report-on-5g-recipe-for-disaster/ <comment><USER2> Like most 5G articles that attempt to rebut 5G hysteria (5G causes autism, ...) it fails to realize that people are just right to be suspicious about a technology that has no credible benefits and no constituency other than equipment vendors.

Telecom carriers have had no interest in 5G. From the invention of the internet to the 3G age telecom vendors felt out of control of their financial destiny (MCI Worldcomm's fraud forced them invest in intercity optic fiber capacity they never would have built otherwise. Most of that capacity lies fallow too because they've had an "investment strike" against building optic fiber out to the last mile)

With 4G they got back on top and had no interest in capital spending to build out a new generation but carriers had to pretend they were caught up in the hype. So you can get 5G at one corner of Washington Square Park and it is so fast it doesn't matter at all that 99.99% of Manhattan doesn't have it, never mind the rest of the country.)

Vint Cerf had made a career out of being clueless about the digital divide. The real problem in America is poor coverage of telecommunication services. Upstate New York has cell phone dead spots in it larger than some European countries, and because of that

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPNK0VspQ0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPNK0VspQ0M)</comment>


Boracay Island in Philippines Shut Down for Environmental Rehabilitation (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.latestly.com/lifestyle/travel/boracay-island-in-philippines-shut-down-for-environmental-rehabilitation-130670.html <comment><USER2> Boracay is open since October 2018. The rehabilitation is still ongoing though and visits are regulated[0]. Cases have been filed against officials. Businesses found in violation of environmental laws have been closed down. Infrastructure has also been rehabilitated. Land titles were given to indigenous people through land reform.

It was deemed impossible at the beginning. Imagine cleaning up an island and disrupting the status quo. Some opposed it because of economic impact. Rumors of a casino to be built were unfounded. But seeing the result after, it proved that it can be done through holistic approach. It's one step to responsible tourism. More needs to be done. There's hope for the environment.

The next challenge is the rehabilitation of Manila Bay [1].

[0] [https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/09/02/1847925/25-bor...](https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/09/02/1847925/25-boracay- hotels-resorts-get-dot-nod)

[1] [https://www.philstar.com/nation/2019/03/03/1898154/5-million...](https://www.philstar.com/nation/2019/03/03/1898154/5-million- kilos-trash-removed-manila-bay-dilg)

<comment><USER3> Do you have a source on that land _actually_ being given to the locals? I know they mentioned it, but they were also offering to buy a lot of land as people were failing to make ends meet during the shutdown.[0][1]

0 - [https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1000242/rodrigo-duterte- boraca...](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1000242/rodrigo-duterte-boracay-land- reform)

1 - [https://www.rappler.com/nation/204796-duterte-boracay- native...](https://www.rappler.com/nation/204796-duterte-boracay-natives-sell- land-big-businesses)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > A popular hub for tourism, some business owners and resort owners had > opposed the shut down of the island but care has been taken to deal with the > opposition.

Duterte is a scary leader. The above line about dealing with opposition is not at all reassuring when extrajudicial killings are a standard part of his governance.

<comment><USER5> Especially in light of the details that follow:

> Armed security personnel have been sent to provide "maximum" security to the > island.

<comment><USER6> How did this shutdown came about? It sounds to me it is a top down decision to shutdown basically the entire island and all its economic activities for six months. I wonder how many people gone bankrupt due to this.

What exactly is the environmental rehabilitation being done? Why does it necessitate a shutdown? Would the return of tourists eventually undo all the "rehabilitation"?

<comment><USER6> "MANILA - A shutdown of Boracay Island could lead to job losses for 36,000 people and P56 billion in lost revenue, stakeholders said Thursday, as they appealed for a partial, instead of a full closure.

Around P56 billion in tourism revenue will be lost if the island is closed for 9 months, based on the island's revenue during the first 9 months of 2017, data showed. This is equivalent to roughly 20 percent of the country's total tourism receipts."

[https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/03/22/18/boracay- shutdown-...](https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/03/22/18/boracay- shutdown-36000-jobs-p56-billion-revenues-may-be-lost)

Consider also the armed security comment, this really shows the way of a totalitarian government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Been in Boracay.

It's over-rated, there are much more beautiful places in the Philippines.

It's considered largely a failure, the shutdown from most people as most of the cleaning work was not sufficient and was a farce for Chinese Casinos to open up in the are for the influx of Chinese and Korean tourists. This was later given more steam by filipino workers posting photos of themselves on instagram being card dealers, wearing uniforms, etc.

It's been open for the past 6 months now.

</comment><comment><USER8> Was my favorite vacation spot for years until I moved from the Philippines in '99. The water and beaches were beautiful. Even at that point, however, the coral was mostly dead and the marine life mostly gone. It was sad and it's too bad that the place has largely been thrashed. :-(

</comment><comment><USER9> So good to hear... this used to be one of Jacques Cousteau's favorite dive areas. Went there in 2008 and it was beautiful, but the reefs didn't look healthy at all. Pretty sad to see.

</comment><comment><USER10> Old news. Re-opened.

<comment><USER11> The irony is the url has the word "latest" in it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I visited Boracay around 2012, expecting a beautiful island we were shocked by the state we found it in - barely left the hotel all week.

</comment><comment><USER13> April 2018

<comment><USER14> Indeed. And it's already open again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Overtourism is a problem in many places, but not everywhere.

The real issue is that people keep going to the _same_ places as everyone else, instead of checking out the less-traveled places.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I personally fail to understand this. I have definitely been guilty of it myself as well.

Every once in a while, I will come across a video on Youtube where some vlogger is at some beach in Thailand or popular touristy night market, or other backpacker haunt and I think, "why do we do this to ourselves?...might as well go to your local nightlife district/beach rather then flying to the other side of the world and going to their nightlife district/beach...". Seems boring.

<comment><USER17> This is one reason I prefer the philippines over thailand. Thailand has amazing food and beautiful beaches, but even second and third tier destinations are so overcrowded with 20something drunk eropean backpackers it's hard to appreciate. Philippines has like a billion islands and beaches, so you can go anywhere except boracay(and maybe a half dozen other popular destinations) and you've practically got the place to yourself.</comment></comment></comment>