The truth is, the biggest pharmaceutical companies aren’t really drug development companies at all: they’re marketing, lobbying, and litigation firms with patent portfolios. While Big Pharma holds vast portfolios of existing patents for prescription drugs, the innovation pipeline for new drugs actually has very little to do with Big Pharma. In reality, public sources — especially the NIH — fund the basic research that makes scientific breakthroughs. Then small, boutique biotech and pharmaceutical firms take that publicly generated knowledge and do the final stages of research, like running clinical trials, that get the drugs to market. The share of small companies in the supply of new drugs is huge, and it’s still growing. Fully two-thirds of new drugs now come from these small companies, up from one-third twenty years ago. It is not the research labs of Pfizer that are developing new drugs.

This is completely true. The majority of research, at least for life saving drugs and not baldness cures, takes place at universities and small research firms, much of it funded by the NIH. If the investigators are successful, they spin off a company or license the IP.

Big drug companies then step in, long after the initial “drug discovery” is done. They have captured the regulatory system and, yes, can fund and run Phase 3 trials with their deep pockets and armies of bureaucrats, but at that point they are acting more like record labels, extracting rent (loosely defined) from a convoluted regulatory and distribution system that they themselves had a hand in creating.

Fuck ‘em.

This is really cool.

I don’t know why this is such an appealing project, but it is. Adding an LED and a switch so it can be used as an emergency flashlight would be cool too.

Yep. I also think the ham-fisted way they are rolling this out is a projection of how they think the ‘libruls’ are brainwashing the kids.

Rather than educated people coming to educated conclusions on their own across vast segments of society, it is almost as if they think there is this secret committee of hooded Illuminati that generates Disney princess woke coloring books to turn little Billy-Bob away from Jesus, and the rest of the country just marches unthinkingly in lockstep with those orders. So of course, that is the playbook they want to follow.

I somehow feel this will backfire spectacularly. Younger kids can be dumb like the rest of us, but there is one thing they are exceptionally smart about: spotting and mocking lame-ass adults.

There is already little tolerance among (a lot of) younger folk for climate denialism and general right wing jackassery. Adding a cut-rate Donald Duck screeching about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or how windmills are dangerous is just gonna’ cement the lameness for them. Now, if we could just do something about the grown-up idiots on Facebook, we’d be cooking.

Awesome game so far and remarkably well-polished due to the early access. My only real gripe is that the camera control is a little fiddly. It may be that I’m just not used to it, but a click and drag to rotate the camera would be chef’s kiss

Nice

I believe congratulations are in order. Getting a good surface finish on a lathe can be really hard, but you did it!

I’m grabbing popcorn for this one …

(Not to be one of those people who comments but doesn’t offer help, if it were me I’d replace the entire base. One possible suggestion - find a different base second hand and adapt it to fit the chair. There is no karmic rule that says the base has to be the same brand as the chair, or even match it. It all depends on how the existing chair attaches. You might even take the modifications to an extreme).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqs9Awx5zgQ

High tech scroll. Love it.

The internet is full of places where low grade antagonistic sarcasm is considered a desirable way to communicate. Those places tend to be toxic shitholes, but whatever. Point is, if you feel like that communication style fits you better, go forth and prosper.

If you are planning 3D designs, Fusion360 takes a bit of getting used to but is extremely powerful.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/

You can register for a free hobby license for the scaled down version, or a free educational license of the full version. It has good CAD capabilities and on the CAM side can generate g-code for 3D printing and CNC, or else allow you to export STL models direct to a slicer.

That doesnt sound fun at all. Would a drain snake work?

Edit: responding to @[email protected]. Sorry, still getting used to the Connect app.

Very cool.

Cool project. What is it like on the inside?

It depends on what you want to do and whether you think you’ll stick with DIY or not, but I note you say you like to work with wood. In that case you may want to consider saving a bit and investing in a drill/driver combo and a compact circular saw.

With those tools, a solid work surface, a framing square, some clamps, and maybe a jig or two once you get ambitious (don’t worry, you’ll figure it out), you’d be surprised how much you can build. Lots of us have made the mistake of climbing every rung of the tool ladder and regretting spending a lot of money that we could have avoided just by getting the right tools to start with.

I know you said you are outside of the US, but here is one example from a good brand (at least here, my team Red colleagues will have their own opinions). As you go down in quality the prices get progressively cheaper.

Again, I know it is hard advice when you are not sure how active you’ll be at the end of the day, but when it comes to high-use power tools, it is normally a good idea not to go cheap. But before anybody jumps on me – if you are only going to end up with the odd job here or there and you need to save money, this may be bad advice!

EDIT: someone else mentions a jigsaw. That isn’t a bad idea at all depending on what you’ll be doing.

In a strange parallel to the current Russian political situation, can one at least hope that Meta drives a stake through the heart of the bird site before this effort implodes?

Probably not, I guess. If the Lizard King actually gets to the point that he poses a real threat, it is probably because he has eaten us first.